Iran-Israel Update

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What the hon. Lady failed to mention was the shocking allegations of people involved in UNRWA also being involved in the massacre on 7 October. It is right that those allegations are properly investigated and new procedures are put in place to ensure that that could never happen again. The final reports, which have been commissioned, are due at the end of April. We are already in dialogue with our partners; once we review those reports, we will set out our future approach, but that is not to say that we are not already doing an enormous amount to bring more aid into the region. We have tripled our commitment, and right now are delivering aid by land, sea and air. We are taking a leading role, and everyone in this House should be incredibly proud of what the UK is bringing to the table.

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

The action of the Royal Air Force in shooting down Iranian drones and cruise missiles heading to, and over, Israel over the weekend raises a very serious question. Since the UK is clearly capable of acting to prevent air strikes in the region, and both the International Court of Justice and the UN special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories have implicated Israel in a genocide in Gaza, why are the Government not interested in fulfilling their obligations under international law by protecting Palestinian women and children from Israeli airstrikes? Why are the Government not acting to prevent the killing of Palestinians?

[The Prime Minister]

I disagree with the hon. Lady. While, of course, we respect the role and the independence of the ICJ, our view is that Israel’s actions in Gaza can simply not be described as a genocide, and that case is not helpful at all in achieving our goal of a sustainable and lasting ceasefire.

Lobbying of Government Committee

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind) [V]]

Systematic and structural corruption at the heart of Government. Despite being elected by the people, they govern for the billionaires and the corporate elite. In truth, I am not sure that any amount of transparency or personal integrity can change this culture of stench—I hope it can.

The Greensill scandal, with its implications for NHS privatisation, the former Prime Minister and current Ministers, is particularly shocking as it encapsulates the chumocracy of this Government, yet that scandal is just the tip of the iceberg of the cronyism that defines this Administration. This is a Government of the super-rich, by the super-rich and for the super-rich. Throughout the pandemic, the Government have given billions to private companies in shady deals that have led to accusations of corruption. A National Audit Office investigation of coronavirus procurement found that contracts worth many billions of pounds were given without scrutiny to private companies with little or no experience, and whose only qualification seemed to be a close personal relationship with a member of the Government.

My community of Leicester has been in lockdown or enhanced restrictions longer than any other area of the UK. For a full year, we have not been able to hug our loved ones or participate in anything resembling normal life. Given the immense suffering caused by the pandemic, it is absolutely appalling that some companies see the crisis as an opportunity to be exploited for financial gain. A select few with ties to the Government have profited immensely, while most people have suffered. Worse, the Government have facilitated an unscrutinised handover of public wealth to the pockets of wealthy shareholders. This is a Government who are frivolous when it comes to handing out public money to Tory donors or private companies, but penny-pinching when it comes to bailing out communities across the country.

The Greensill scandal cannot be swept under the rug. That is why it is so important that it is investigated by a full, transparent, Parliament-run inquiry. That is especially the case following recent revelations that the Government’s chief procurement officer started working for Greensill Capital while still employed at the Cabinet Office, with access to Government contracts worth billions. With the scandal likely much worse than it appears, the Government cannot be allowed to mark their own homework.

In recent weeks, we have seen the disastrous consequence of self-assessment with No. 10’s race and ethnic disparities report. Its conclusion that the UK is a world-leading bastion of racial progress was nothing short of state-sanctioned gaslighting. The Government’s investigation, in its current form, will kick the issue of corruption into the long grass. We cannot allow that to happen. The Government must be investigated and held accountable. If they do not want to support the Labour motion, I suggest we have a judge-led inquiry.

External Private Contractors: Government Use and Employment

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) on securing this important debate.

Many elements of the UK’s public services that have been central to the response to covid-19 have been outsourced in recent years. The NHS supply chain, which is responsible for delivering personal protective equipment, was privatised in 2006. Since the disastrous Health and Social Care Act 2012, NHS outsourcing and privatisation has been incentivised. In the last five years alone, private companies were handed £15 billion of NHS contracts.

According to research by We Own It, the Government are wasting as much as £10 billion a year on running an internal market in the NHS. Every penny spent on NHS privatisation and outsourcing is a penny less spent on patient care. The amount we spend on the internal market would be enough to pay for 72,000 nurses and 20,000 doctors. It is the same pattern of privatisation and deregulation that has decimated many of our essential services since the 1980s, across the transport, energy, water, mail and healthcare sectors. The British public tend to pay more for these services than similar European nations, simply to enrich shareholders.

During the coronavirus pandemic, outsourcing has increased at an alarming rate. After suspending commissioning rules, Government Ministers have awarded exclusive coronavirus-related state contracts worth more than £10 billion to private companies. We only have to look at examples such as Randox. The Government have also spent £12 billion on a failed test and trace programme, which prioritises the enrichment of private corporations over the protection of our communities.

Outsourcing does not just result in dangerously worse outcomes. As many trade unions, inducing Unite, PCS, Unison and others, have made clear, the incentivisation of outsourcing has a devastating impact on workers’ rights. Across the board, outsourcing has reduced wages, increased workloads, provided minimal sick pay, and delivered worse conditions and, in many cases, worker exploitation.

Following the return of full school opening, Unison has begun a campaign to get all private companies that deliver services in schools to pay full sick pay. I support that important campaign, and I call on the Government to extend sick pay and full working conditions to all workers, no matter their terms and conditions.

I will end on this. The pandemic has demonstrated that an over-dependence on the private sector weakens our national ability to act in a time of crisis. For the sake of public health, the Government must reassess their ideological commitment to outsourcing and privatisation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julia Lopez]

It is important to understand that the private sector has provided the framework for the system, with local authorities able to plug into that framework. The private sector provides the national call centres and so on, but a lot of the local expertise is provided at local level from healthcare experts on the ground, particularly in some of those harder-to-reach instances where we need to go knocking on people’s doors. Ultimately, we share the hon. Gentleman’s aim to improve the service and build plenty of public confidence in it because it is such a key tool in dealing with the pandemic.

The hon. Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) is a PCS union member, and I met his leader yesterday. It is important to remember that successive Governments of all colours use outsourcers. In a previous life, I was a councillor in Tower Hamlets. There were a number of outsourced contracts there and not very impressive in-house management of them, I should say. Outsourcers can provide a lot of expertise and capacity and it is naive to suggest that the public sector alone has all that capacity and expertise in house. Let us not do down some of the people who work for those contractors and bring a lot of capacity and sense to the system.

Both the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) and the hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) seem to take an ideological view that effectively says private bad, public good. That is a great shame because it fails to acknowledge what the private sector can provide for public good.

[Claudia Webbe]

Leicester has been in extended measures and lockdown for the longest time, as the Minister will appreciate. On the test and trace system alone, the private contractors delivering that have a success rate of less than 50%. Our own local authority, which understands the issues, was able to deliver a success rate of more than 85%. That is the difference between the private and the public sector. That is the reality. It is not ideological; it is the reality on the ground. That is what is happening and it is serious.

[Julia Lopez]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. Does she believe that the local authority in Leicester would be capable of delivering a fully functioning test-and-trace system that would do all that such a system needs to do? I think that is not the case. The private sector has been able to achieve impressive things during the pandemic and provide a lot of public good at speed and in innovative ways. That has been critical in procurement of all manner of goods and services, from PPE to new diagnostics, which have been fundamental to how we have protected the public.

The hon. Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) raised a number about the justice system, but I am afraid that, as a Cabinet Office Minister, I do not have the expertise on some of the issues she raises. I am happy to look into them for her and reply in writing. The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) raised a number of issues on contractor pay. I am working on the very issue of value from contractors with my ministerial colleague, Lord Agnew. Some hon. Members may be aware that he has recently set out his concern about some of the reliance in Whitehall on management consultants and that we have infantilised civil servants and deprived some of our brightest public servants of

“opportunities to work on the most challenging, fulfilling and crunchy issues.”

Our reliance on consultants and other contractors can, at times, hinder the development of internal civil service capability. We have discussed that at length and are keen to improve what we do in terms of in-house learning capability and expertise.

I am always glad to see the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in this Chamber. He talked about civil service churn and skills, and I reassure him that we want to upskill our civil service. We are looking again at the quality of our training, as I mentioned, and he might be interested in the comprehensive Ditchley lecture given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), which talks about some of these issues.

There are many other issues to cover, but I am cognisant of the time. I reassure hon. Members that we need tighter controls around contractor expenditure, supported by better quality data and management information.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 14th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Lab)]

By rushing through this legislation, this Government are treating the people of Leicester and the entire British public with utter contempt. Perhaps more than any election in recent memory, the 2019 general election was decided by a single issue. The Prime Minister promised to get Brexit done, and his party boasted time and again about an oven-ready deal that would settle the divisive issue of Brexit for good. “Very good”, “great”, “wonderful”, “fantastic” —those were just some of the words that the Prime Minister used during the general election campaign to describe the Brexit deal, which he is now openly willing to break international law in order to rewrite.

This is an agreement that the Prime Minister negotiated and signed himself, yet he now says that it contains grave problems that could break up our country. I do not know of any instance in which a Government have openly admitted to flouting their central election promise less than a year into their Administration. This is an unprecedented failure that raises serious questions about the Government’s entire mandate. Sadly, it comes as no real surprise. This Government are the embodiment of elitist double standards, where it is one rule for them and another for everyone else.

The Prime Minister is apparently not satisfied with misleading the public once by claiming that his half-baked deal was oven-ready. In addition, his Government are now being dishonest about the reasons why the deal must be changed. The issues of state aid and customs declarations are not a revelation but were repeatedly and explicitly spelled out to the Government last year, not least by their confidence and supply partners, the DUP. In this House, we cannot risk the sanctity of the Good Friday agreement or threaten peace on the island of Ireland, yet that is what this legislation proposes to do.

Why? This self-inflicted crisis is either a counterproductive negotiating tactic or a pathetic attempt to distract from this Government’s calamitous record over the last few months. After all, this Government have overseen the worst coronavirus death rate of any European country. Boris Johnson and his Ministers are used to U-turning—[Interruption.] The Prime Minister and his Ministers are used to U-turning, but tearing up their own international—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I am sorry, but we have to move on, and please remember not to refer to other Members by their names.