Budget Resolutions

Debate between Chris Evans and Ian C. Lucas

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Evans]

My hon. Friend speaks from experience as the chairman of the Co-operative party, and he is absolutely right that we need a thriving co-operative sector in this country. Again, if we want to talk about the past and the reason why we do not have a strong mutual sector in this country, it is because of the raid that the Tory Government of the 1980s allowed on many of these institutions, with the most famous example being Bradford & Bingley. We allowed people to become members, and then turned these institutions into plcs—and look where that got us. We need fundamental reform from this Government.

[Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the worst decisions of the Conservatives in the 1980s was destroying the great regional institutions that were building societies? Great organisations such as the Leeds Permanent and the Halifax building society, which created wealth and retained it in the regions, were destroyed.

[Chris Evans]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. If ever anything tore into the very fabric of British society, it was that. It is terrible when we walk down the street now and see that so many of the famous building societies we grew up with are no longer there. That needs to be changed. We need to start talking about alternative co-operative models. As business finds it more difficult to borrow from traditional areas, we need to talk about the mutual sector, and about having more mutuality in our society and in our businesses, including employee share ownership schemes.

As I am running short of time, I must talk about the NHS. Our nurses do a fantastic job at the frontline. When someone is in need, our nurses are there, but very often this Government have not been there for them. Instead of nurses being given a pay rise, which I think we all agree they deserve, again today we got a very vague statement of “maybe, if and but”. That is not good enough for the most vital service workers in this country. I think, too, about all the people on universal credit. Again, this is all a sop to those who are in need. There should have been an announcement today about pausing universal credit so that it could be looked at and eventually changed. There is no good in plunging our most vulnerable people into abject poverty, but that is what this Government are about. They are very good at warm words.

Of course, every Chancellor’s speech has to end with a flourish, and we saw that today, with Conservative Members waving papers and cheering as the Chancellor announced, in his uninspiring tone, that he was going to abolish stamp duty on houses worth less than £300,000 in order, he said, to help millennials on to the housing ladder. Then minutes afterwards, as has happened in all his speeches—last time it was about national insurance contributions—we get the real story. Hidden away on page 154 of the OBR report is the clear statement that the temporary holiday on stamp duty will increase house prices by 0.3%. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) is shouting at me. Judging by the OBR’s ability to predict the future, does he honestly think that house prices are going to go up by only 0.3%? I do not think so.

Post Offices in Wales

Debate between Chris Evans and Ian C. Lucas

Tuesday 13th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered post offices in Wales.

It is a real pleasure to have you here speaking your excellent Welsh on this fine September day, Mr Hollobone, and to speak to you and to those assembled on the issue of post offices in Wales. As constituency MPs, we all know this is a matter of great importance to the people we represent.

It is important at the outset to recall that post offices are a great public institution and that they remain a public institution. There is a deal of confusion at the present time about the various statuses of Royal Mail, post offices and so on following the privatisation of Royal Mail, but the Post Office is, of course, still a public institution that is fundamentally owned and run by the Government. It is for that reason that I feel particularly animated by events occurring in Wrexham at the present time relating to our post office. Not just in Wrexham but across Wales, various proposals are being put forward that affect access to post offices for the people we represent.

As those of us who have been here for a number of years know, a number of bright ideas concerning post offices have led to reorganisations and various moves of post offices in recent years. As someone who bears the scars of the reorganisation that took place under the last Labour Government, I can point out that I opposed a number of closures locally. I regretted them then and regret them now, but they were taken forward by the Labour Government before 2010.

This particular case in Wrexham has animated me even more than those moves before 2010 because I think it is very important that all of our constituents should have access to a post office. That is not just my view; it is also the view of the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt). I wrote to her concerning this issue and she said in her reply:

“Facilities and services that need to be accessible to a wide spread of the general public, such as Post Offices, should ideally be located at ground floor level.”

Following a move of the post office in Wrexham town centre a number of years ago to a site in a pedestrianised area of the Post Office’s choosing, which the Post Office initiated, it has now decided it wishes to leave. It has moved a distance of only some 200 metres or so to another premises within Wrexham town centre. My main concern is that those premises are at first floor level and are situated within another shop—WHSmith—and are accessible to those who cannot go up the stairs only by a single lift at the rear of the premises. Quite simply, access arrangements for the post office are now much more difficult than previously, particularly for those who are disabled. I think, in the 21st century, that that is fundamentally wrong.

The post office and WHSmith staff who have dealt with me on this issue have been courteous throughout, both with me and with those I represent, but they cannot change the fact that the decision is fundamentally wrong. We have gone through a process that has been called a “consultation”. I was notified at the beginning of the summer that the move was going to take place and asked if I wanted to make any representations, which I did in writing as well as by meeting with representatives of the Post Office to express my strong disquiet that the premises was being moved to a first floor. Notwithstanding the strong views I expressed, I received no indication whatever that there would be any change of view.

I was also contacted by a number of my constituents through our excellent local voluntary organisation—the Association of Voluntary Organisations in Wrexham. I met with the disability access group in Wrexham and we discussed our concerns about the move. AVOW runs a Shopmobility project within Wrexham and has a number of clients that regularly use Shopmobility scooters to facilitate access within Wrexham town centre. Those Shopmobility scooters can be quite bulky on occasion and are often used by some of the most disabled members of our society. There was particular concern about moving around the store using scooters and the accessibility of the lift to get to the post office.

We arranged a site visit to the post office with the disability access group and, again, the post office and WHSmith staff were very helpful in organising the visit and were helpful and courteous throughout. I attended the store before the new post office premises opened with one of my constituents who uses a wheelchair, two other constituents who were using Shopmobility scooters and a number of other disabled constituents. We negotiated our way through the ground floor of the store to gain access to the lift and, one by one, the constituents were able to go into the lift—only one could go in at a time—and go up to the first floor to inspect the post office premises.

It was difficult for a number of my constituents to negotiate their way through the store downstairs to get to the lift, which is not very large and can hold only one person. Frankly, I was ashamed when I went to the store and saw how difficult it was for the individuals concerned to gain access to the post office. This is a post office that has always been on the ground floor in Wrexham town centre and has been moved by the Post Office, presumably for commercial reasons, to its new premises.

Within Wrexham town centre, like many other town centres nowadays, there are a number of empty ground floor premises. The previous post office premises and the current one are only 150 to 200 metres apart, and a number of ground floor premises are available for use as a post office, but that has been rejected by the Post Office.

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

I apologise for coming late to the debate, Mr Hollobone; I was held up a little bit. My hon. Friend from Wrexham raises a pertinent point. In Pontllanfraith in my constituency we are losing our post office; a campaign has been set up by councillors Gez Kirby, Mike Adams and Colin Gordon and it has attracted over 300 names. The real issue we have is that there is a lack of commercial help from the Post Office. When the sub-postmaster finds that business is slow, the Post Office needs to come in and give ideas on how to improve the business. Another post office in the constituency has come to me to say it is having serious problems. Having seen the post office move to a first floor in Wrexham, does my hon. Friend recognise that the post offices perhaps need to take a more commercial approach to their business?

[Ian C. Lucas]

I would like the post office in Wrexham, as a public institution, to contribute to the local economy. It is a Crown post office in Wrexham, and it is the main post office. In fact, it is now the only post office in the town centre of Wrexham, which is the largest town in Wales. The post office is taking business rates away from the local economy, because it has gone upstairs into another store that is already occupied by a WHSmith and is not paying business rates on a separate premises. So less income is coming into the town as a result of this decision. Furthermore, it is treating disabled people with a lack of respect by insisting that they go to a first-floor premises to avail themselves of services that we all take for granted.

There are relevant pieces of legislation relating to disability. I have no doubt that this particular example is legal, but there is no doubt either—I have seen it for myself—that these arrangements are much more difficult for disabled people than those that existed previously. I felt so ashamed when I went on the site inspection that we have a post office in this day and age insisting, for its own commercial reasons, on moving the premises to the first floor when ground-floor premises are available in other parts of the town. That is disrespectful to disabled people and not something that any Government organisation should be doing in this day and age.

I have made that position very clear to the Post Office, and I am pleased that the Minister for Disabled People has made clear her view that post office premises should be on the ground floor. I find it extraordinary that I even have to say that. It comes to something when a commercial decision of that type is made in a society where we should be treating all our constituents and all the people we represent with equal respect. I know that the Post Office is considering shifting various post offices to first-floor premises in other parts of the country, for commercial reasons. It is very important that a strong message is sent to the Post Office that it is not acceptable so to do.

Access to Jobs: Disabled People

Debate between Chris Evans and Ian C. Lucas

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Ian C. Lucas]

I have no doubt that they can be, but I am afraid they are not happening.

The 2014 labour force survey recognised that,

“disabled people remain significantly less likely to be in employment than non-disabled people.”

There is a 30.1% gap between levels of employment for disabled people and non-disabled people. I welcome any efforts to find internships and support individuals into work, which is what we all want. Margaret was in work when the Government decided to close Remploy factories, and we were told at the time that they would support those disabled people into jobs in the mainstream. When Remploy in Wrexham was closed and Margaret was put out of work, we received all sorts of assurances about how disabled employees would be helped into the mainstream jobs market.

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

I lost a Remploy factory in Croespenmaen in my constituency, and the Welsh Government Minister at the time offered to take on the Remploy factories on the proviso that the Westminster Government devolve the Remploy budget to the Welsh Assembly. Does my hon. Friend think it is an absolute shame that, rather than looking at that proposal properly, the Westminster Government flatly said no to those Remploy workers?

[Ian C. Lucas]

It is a matter of profound regret that the Welsh Government’s helpful offer to take over responsibility for the Remploy factories in Wales was not taken up. Their constructive effort to address this issue was rejected out of hand. Consequently, the 35 or so people in Wrexham who would have been in work if the Welsh Government had taken on the responsibility for ensuring that the factories remained viable lost their jobs, and Margaret has remained out of work ever since.

Margaret is not alone. I am grateful to the large number of organisations that are interested in the fact that I secured this debate and forwarded me numerous briefings, all of which I have read. Time does not allow me to refer to them in detail, but Mencap said:

“Current back-to-work support for disabled people has proved ineffective. Job outcomes for disabled people on the Work Programme are low at only 8.7 percent”—

nine people out of 100—

“for new ESA claimants, and 4.3 percent for other ESA/Incapacity Benefit customers.”

Remploy Workers

Debate between Chris Evans and Ian C. Lucas

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lucas]

Indeed. That was very much the case. Such was the commitment to the factory that it seemed to me, certainly in Wrexham, that people were willing to consider any proposal at all. The workers and the unions looked at any way at all of keeping the factory open. The history of the Wrexham factory, which I will come to, is that exactly that happened. There was a very strong effort to keep the factory open.

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend will remember that one of the callous decisions that this Government made was when the Welsh Assembly asked whether the Remploy budget could be devolved to the Assembly. It was a very good plan; it could have saved jobs and kept the factories open, but the Government said no. Would my hon. Friend say that that was quite cruel?

[Ian Lucas]

It was cruel and unnecessary. The Government very often fall over themselves to pass on difficult problems to the Welsh Government. In this case, the Welsh Government came forward and suggested that the Remploy budget be devolved, but the UK Government refused. There was an absolute dedication on their part to close the factories. They were determined that they were going to close them, and despite what the Minister has indicated previously, I am convinced that that was part of a cost-cutting exercise on the part of the Government. They have a stated commitment not to reduce the budget, but I will come on to the figures that show that the money the Government are spending on disabled people is decreasing.

I have made the argument repeatedly to the Secretary of State and to the then Minister for the disabled, who is now the Minister for Employment, that there was a group of people who wanted to continue to work in Remploy factories, doing gainful, positive work, and working for the most part with other disabled people. That argument was consistently ignored and the factory closed, despite a further and intense campaign to keep it open. Efforts were made in Wrexham to secure private investment to keep the factory open, and additional support, as my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) mentioned, was suggested by the Welsh Government. However, the UK Government were not prepared to consider allowing the Remploy site in Wrexham to be used and, as a result, it was very shortly thereafter sold off for housing development, which two and a half years on is proceeding in Wrexham town.

There was a private sector effort to keep the factory open. A business called Enterprising Employment, which worked with the Welsh Government for a period, employed about a dozen former Remploy workers for a time, but it was unable to continue and those workers were ultimately made redundant and lost their jobs.

We therefore have a picture of the people who worked for Remploy, many of whom had worked for many years on the site, being made redundant. The site in central Wrexham was sold off for housing development. I make no criticism of the fact that the site is now being used—thankfully, in a positive way—but it would have been much better if those people who were working there continued to work there.

The Government’s rationale for closing the Remploy factories was that they wanted to spend the budget of the Department for Work and Pensions more efficiently, so two and a half years on from the publication of the Government’s response to the Sayce review, back in March 2012, is an appropriate time to look at the Government’s record on those vulnerable people. What is their record?