Government PPE Contracts

Debate between Dawn Butler and Sarah Owen

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dawn Butler]

I suppose the facts will reveal themselves when the Minister shows us all the paperwork, leaves it in the Library and then we can go through the facts, the stats and the figures together. I look forward to that. We heard earlier today—[Interruption.] The Ministers are going through some figures now. I really think that, to resolve all of this, and to not even have this debate and conversation, they should put all the paperwork in the Library, we can all go through it together and that is what is needed.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech and she has spoken with incredible experience and heart on this subject throughout the last few years. Does she agree it is particularly galling that we are seeing the former Health Secretary write a book, the “Pandemic Diaries”, yet we are not able to scrutinise the facts and evidence of the decisions that were taken not just about the public’s money but about public safety?

[Dawn Butler]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely valid point. I spoke in Committee this morning. I am not going to read the book but I think we have to scrutinise it and cross-check the information that the Minister gave in Committee against what is in the book. The new Ministers who have come into post should be a little more humble, because what has happened is shocking. The cronyism and the corruption that has happened in the Government in plain sight is truly shocking. The Government are now spending £10 million burning PPE. It is like they are burning the evidence—we wonder why. [Interruption.] Sorry, the Minister said that I have just criticised the Minister for storing PPE. He is right. I would not want the Minister to spend nearly £1 million every day storing PPE. I also do not want him to burn PPE. He should be using the PPE—give it to people who are travelling on the tube. We are having a flu epidemic and it will help to resolve that, so don’t heckle me when this is your responsibility—[Interruption.] I mean the Minister. Sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Government are incompetent as well as corrupt and it is not just cronyism. The situation is so ridiculous—[Interruption.] Am I not allowed to call it what it is, Madam Deputy Speaker? It smells like corruption to me.

Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill

Debate between Dawn Butler and Sarah Owen

Friday 22nd October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller), a fellow Bedfordshire elected representative, but it will not come as any surprise that we do not agree on all the points he has raised.

People have had their lives changed since 2020, with people going months without hugging loved ones, jobs lost and food bank use rocketing. So many people in Luton North have been worried about where their next pay slip is coming from—people who never thought of their job as insecure are now experiencing that their job and their wage is only as secure and reliable as their employer allows them to be. That is not inevitable, even during a pandemic.

We have seen big businesses—British Airways and British Gas, to name just two—trading under this country’s name but not in our country’s interest. They have used the pandemic as an excuse to get rid of thousands of workers and replace their old contracts with worse pay, worse terms and conditions and fewer rights at work for very similar roles. We have heard today that few of us disagree that the practice of fire and rehire is wrong, so why not vote to stop it?

I am so proud to stand with working people and our trade union movement, including GMB and Unite—I declare an interest as members of both, as well as of the Communication Workers Union—the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, Unison, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association and many others. They are backing the private Member’s Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), whose campaigning fervour has got it to this point in just a few short weeks. We know from the TUC that one in 10 workers has been told to reapply for their job since the start of the pandemic. We know that black and minority ethnic workers, women workers, young workers and working-class people have been hit even harder by the pandemic. And we know that when restrictions were lifted in July this year, millions of people in constituencies across the country were less secure in their workplace than they were in March 2020.

I am going to say something that I am probably only ever going to say once. I do not disagree with the Prime Minister—just once. I agree that we must build back better, but after 11 years of austerity and weakening of workers’ rights, better is anything but more of the same.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for the powerful points that she is making. Is it not fair to say that if Members believe that fire and rehire is an unfair practice, they could vote for the Bill and then, in Committee, make any amendments that are needed to make it stronger?

[Sarah Owen]

I absolutely agree. We have heard today a collective understanding that the practice of fire and rehire, and its misuse, is an abomination for workers and is against our country’s values, so why not vote the Bill through today instead of talking it out?

After 11 long years of austerity and weakening of trade union and workers’ rights, we need to build back people’s working lives with better rights at work, stronger foundations and more security in jobs. No one can disagree with that.