Budget Resolutions

Debate between Chris Stephens and Wes Streeting

Monday 11th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend asks an excellent question, and it is one that the Government will have to answer, because we are not having this double standards in politics. If the Labour party had announced unfunded commitments of this kind, the Conservatives would be the first to howl and complain, and it would be the question confronting every Labour spokesperson on every broadcast platform and every national newspaper. This is the question that should be levelled at the Government, because this is not just hypothetical recklessness; we have seen where the Conservatives’ ideological recklessness led our country, through a disastrous mini-Budget, for which they have never apologised, never taken responsibility and apparently never learned the lessons. It is a disgrace.

If the money is not coming from the sources that my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) suggested, in terms of pensions and support, let us bear in mind the scale of £46 billion. It is a quarter of the NHS budget. Is that where the money for abolishing national insurance will come from? The Government would have to close 130 hospitals and sack 96,000 nurses, 37,000 doctors and 7,000 GPs. Will these cuts be evenly spread across the country, or will they just shut down the NHS in the west midlands and Yorkshire, leaving the rest of the country untouched? They are very welcome to tell us when this policy will be introduced, how they will fund it and where the cuts or the alternative tax rises will come from, because we will hound them with these questions every day of the general election campaign.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

Some of that £46 billion could have been allocated to compensation payments for those affected by infected blood. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that the Budget did not mention infected blood and that those who are impacted feel very frustrated and very angry at the Government’s delays in dealing with the issue?

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who brings me to the next section of my speech. Infected blood is another crucial detail missing from the Budget. Where is the compensation for the victims of the contaminated blood scandal? The Prime Minister acknowledged that this is an appalling tragedy, and he promised that he will speed up the award of compensation. Sir Brian Langstaff gave final recommendations on compensation in April 2023, almost an entire year ago. Why can the Prime Minister act quickly to help the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology with her legal fees but drags his feet when it comes to helping the poor victims of this scandal?

We should be in no doubt that the Chancellor allocated no money and has not left enough headroom in his Budget to meet the levels of compensation likely to be required, so what is his plan? Is he going to break his fiscal rules or break his promise to the victims? Which is it? It is not a hypothetical question, and I think people would like an answer from the Government on the contaminated blood scandal. We have heard the warm words and we have heard the commitment. In fact, the Prime Minister said he is acting speedily. I would love to see him in snail mode, but this is serious. People are dying without compensation.

The Government are now floating the idea of an autumn general election, bottling it on a 2 May general election. Are they seriously saying that this will drag on into the autumn for a new Government to pick up the pieces? That is what it looks like to me, and I think it is shameful. Given everything the Chancellor has said about this scandal, and given his role as this country’s longest-serving Secretary of State for Health under this Conservative Government, I think it is a real shame on him.

Finally, I turn to the NHS. In announcing the productivity review, the Chancellor admitted something that Labour has been arguing for some time, that the Conservatives have failed to reform our public services and that they have hiked taxes on working people, wasted taxpayers’ money and delivered poor services. In short, under the Conservatives we are paying more and getting less. Now the Chancellor wants us to trust the arsonists to put out the fire they started.

The Chancellor promised a crackdown on agency spend:

“For too long staffing agencies have been able to rip off the NHS by charging extortionate hourly rates which cost billions of pounds a year and undermine staff working hard to deliver high-quality care. The tough new controls on spending that we’re putting in place will help the NHS improve continuity of care for patients and invest in the frontline—while putting an end to the days of unscrupulous companies charging up to £3,500 a shift for a doctor.”

I agree with every word he said, but it was not from the Budget speech. It was from a speech in 2015, nine years ago, when he was Health Secretary. What has changed? Last year the NHS spent £3.5 billion on agency staff—£5,200 for a single doctor’s shift. The taxpayer is getting ripped off worse than ever before, because the Chancellor refused to train the doctors and nurses our NHS needs. Just last year, the Conservatives poured an extra £400 million into agency staff. Why? Because they have forced NHS doctors and nurses out on the worst strikes the NHS has ever seen, and the Budget confirmed that they have no plan to end this chaos. The truth is that the Prime Minister would much rather blame poor performance on NHS staff than the abysmal failure of 14 years of Conservative government.

The Chancellor promised new artificial intelligence technology for the NHS. We will add that to the long list of Labour’s plans that the Government are adopting. This is a man who promised in 2013 that the NHS would go paperless. Four years later—I am not joking—he said:

“I am quite relieved that most people seem to have forgotten that I made that promise.”

Well, the country has not forgotten that record. It is 2024 and the NHS still runs on pagers, fax machines and paper records. The Chancellor’s failure left the NHS with the longest waiting lists and the lowest patient satisfaction in history. Now the butcher of the NHS is back, and he wants five more years to finish the job. The hon. Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) was named and shamed by the Chancellor as playing a role in drafting the Budget. The question is: where was the plan to cut NHS waiting lists? There are 125,000 patients waiting in Leicestershire, so why did she not ask the Chancellor for something to help her constituents who need treatment today?

The last Labour Government delivered the shortest waiting times and highest patient satisfaction in NHS history. We did it through investment and reform. We did it before, and we will do it again. At the next general election, the question that people across Britain will ask is: after 14 years of Conservative government, are they and their families better off? Are our public services better off? In fact, is anything working better today than it did 14 years ago? Let me help them out: one institution is working better than at any point in the past 14 years, and that is the Labour party. It is the only party with a plan to deliver Britain out of the mess that the Government have made. It is the only party that has a strong leader, with a united party behind him.

If the magpies on the Conservative Benches are looking for more plans to adopt before their time runs out, they could adopt our planning reforms to get Britain building again; our industrial strategy, which sees Government and business working hand in hand to get our economy growing again; our national wealth fund to harness investment in the green jobs of the future; our plan to switch on GB Energy, in order to invest in our energy security; our plan to insulate 5 million homes, bringing down household energy bills for good; our plan to get Britain back to work, because we understand that we can build a healthy economy only with a healthy society; and our plan to get millions off NHS waiting lists, back in work and free to live their life to the full.

We will have 2 million more appointments a year, at evenings and weekends, to cut waiting lists; we will double the number of AI-enabled scanners in our NHS to diagnose people faster; we will have 700,000 more urgent dental appointments a year, and reform the NHS dentistry contract; we will have 8,500 more mental health professionals, with a community mental health hub in every community and mental health support in every primary and secondary school in the country. That is what a plan for growth looks like. It is a plan for the NHS, too. That is what the Budget would have looked like if Labour were in office and the shadow Chancellor was sat in the Treasury. That is the change our country needs. It is time for a general election, so that we can put the British people out of their misery and have a Labour Government who can give Britain its future back.

Trade Union Bill

Debate between Chris Stephens and Wes Streeting

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 27th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). I agree with many of the points he made.

SNP Members have always opposed the Government’s proposals on trade union political funds for the simple reason that it should be up to trade union members to decide where their money goes. It is up to them to decide whether they should support one political party or another, or whether they should sponsor individual candidates, as has happened in some cases, rather than work for a particular political party.

I emphasise the point that this is an attack not just on the Labour party but on the ability of a trade union to organise effectively across a community. Political funds have done great community work, health and safety campaigning, and anti-racism campaigning, sponsoring organisations such as Hope not Hate and Show Racism the Red Card. There is also charity work and international work—trade unions do fantastic work across the world.

It will come as no great surprise to any trade unionist that the change on check-off is not a major one. Unison has said that it has 11,000 different agreements where it contributes to the cost of check-off. We welcome the Government’s U-turn on that.

I have participated in proceedings at every stage of the Bill’s progress. I will say a few words about that. If the voices of those with experience of a trade unionised workplace and those with a trade union background had been listened to and heeded, we would not be where we are now. There perhaps would not even have been a Trade Union Bill. Many Opposition Members have pointed out on a regular basis how unnecessary and unwanted this legislation is.

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I declare an interest as a member of Unison and of the Community trade union, and I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I should also say that although I am a member of those unions, I have very good employers in the people of Ilford North and do not anticipate going on strike any time soon.

The Government’s concessions are welcome, but it is something of an irony that it has fallen to the unelected House to defend some of the most democratic elements of trade unions and their commitment to democratic life in the country. For some reason, this Government, who were elected with a slender majority of just 12, seem to think that that majority gives them carte blanche to trample all over the democratic traditions, values and heritage of our country.

It is not just the brazen attack on party political funding, and the Labour party in particular, that the Government have embarked upon with this Bill. Look at their record in the short time that they have governed as a single party. They have sought to rig the House of Commons, pack the House of Lords, gag charities and civil society, and restrict trade unions. This Sunday, new restrictions kick in on any publicly funded body, restrictions that have the potential to gag all sorts of people, including academics. It is a complete dog’s breakfast of a proposal. We will see what the higher education Bill says later this year; the Government will undoubtedly try to have another go at student unions, like they did in the 1990s.

I have been listening to the Minister this afternoon, and in particular, to what he said about the previous group of Government measures, which unfortunately passed, underlining why the Bill should still be opposed. There can be no decent evidence-based argument against trialling electronic balloting for trade union industrial actions and proposals to strike. The Minister himself could not offer a single shred of evidence to argue against a simple trial.

The Bill has really been about delegitimising trade unions. Whenever people go on strike and take industrial action the Government want to be able to say that a hard rump of activists have prompted it. But even the measures in the Bill would not have stopped the junior doctors or London transport workers going on strike. The turnout in both cases exceeded the threshold in the Bill. If the Government are serious about trade unions having broader and greater democratic legitimacy, they should unshackle the hands of trade union leaders and activists, so that they can do what they want to do and have asked to do, namely enter the 21st century by having electronic balloting.

We also had the farce about facility time. That goes to the heart of the Government’s fundamental misunderstanding of the role of trade unions. Full-time reps and staff who are let off part time for facility time play a valuable role in good industrial relations. They take up cases on behalf of their members, and ensure that they are well represented and supported. They advise employers on how to improve the workplace environment. Where there are good industrial relations, with trade unions and employers working together, the likelihood of a strike is lessened, and the workplace environment is better for everyone.

[Chris Stephens]

Is another key role for trade unions that of welfare, and giving workers assistance and help that they might not know about?

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree. The hon. Gentleman speaks with great experience from his own background in the trade union movement, and good employers value that working relationship with trade unions. When I speak to trade union members—whether in my local authority where I am an elected member of the London Borough of Redbridge, or representatives in other workplaces—they tell me that they do not have excessive facility time; often they do not have enough. They struggle to cope with caseloads, particularly when there are major changes to employment involving terms and conditions or staff numbers. That generates a huge burden and workload, and I do not think that the Government appreciate or value that.

Student Maintenance Grants

Debate between Chris Stephens and Wes Streeting

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It says it all about the Government policy that we are debating that so few of their Back Benchers have turned up to read the poor script they have been given by the Whips, and it says everything about how they conduct themselves that instead of having a proper debate on the Floor of the House, with a full vote involving all Members, they sought to have a debate down the corridor and up the stairs, hoping that nobody would notice, in a Committee that nobody has ever heard of.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman made a similar point during his Adjournment debate a few weeks ago on student nurses and bursaries. Is he as concerned as me, first, that the Government are increasingly using this device to sneak through their most controversial legislative proposals without debate and, secondly, that it is contrary to the comments by the Leader of the House on 10 December 2015, on this very issue, when he indicated we would have a debate on the Floor of the House?

[Wes Streeting]

I agree wholeheartedly. In their cowardice the Government are treating with disdain the House and the students we are all sent here to represent. In spite of what the Minister says, there is absolutely no mention in the manifesto of cutting student grants. In fact, we would find Lord Lucan before we found any reference to cutting student grants, so they cannot hide behind a democratic mandate. As a student union president and president of the National Union of Students, I used to have arguments with previous Labour Governments—