Department for Work and Pensions

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain). I find myself resonating with her comments on carers and the lack of support that exists in so many different ways, but particularly through the social security system, and the billions—multiple billions—that are provided in equivalent support to this country that we sadly do not adequately recognise.

I also pay tribute to the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), for all that he does in the plethora of different inquiries that the Committee has held over the past few years. I am particularly pleased about the work that we are doing on the adequacy, or inadequacy, of the social security system, and the important things that will reveal when it is published early next year.

This debate is about DWP spending. Associated with that is what it means for the priorities of the Department and, in particular, the Government’s priorities for social security as a whole. I will focus my remarks on the fall in support for working-age adults. We need to recognise that particular group and the impact that fall is having on so many different families across the country.

We have had two major welfare reform Acts, in 2012 and 2016. I will refer to the latter in a moment, but the cumulative impact of those up to the pandemic was the equivalent of a 17% reduction in working-age support, which in cash terms is about £33 billion. That was only slightly offset by the temporary increase in universal credit during the pandemic. Although I welcome the uprating last year, and I support what my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham said about that, it does not at all make up for the last 10 or 11 years of significant cuts. That has had an impact on relative poverty across the UK.

Just under one in three children in the UK are growing up in poverty, and in my constituency the figure is nearly one in two. We also know that just under two thirds of children growing up in poverty live in families where at least one adult is working. The implications of these cuts for those children are not insignificant. We now have the highest ever level of in-work poverty. What on earth does that say about this country? It is shocking.

Many people who know me will know how strongly I feel about the impact of these cuts on disabled people. One in three disabled people are living in poverty, which is twice the rate for non-disabled people. It is totally unacceptable. These are the most vulnerable people in our society, and we are failing to recognise their needs and support them.

I know that the Minister will come back and say, “Actually, poverty has reduced.” The Joseph Rowntree Foundation reflected that in its annual report, which came out at the beginning of the year. Yes, poverty levels have gone down, but that reflected the fact that during the pandemic we saw reductions in overall incomes, and with relative poverty that is the position. Importantly, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said that it was also about different choices that the Government made at the time. As much as we are talking about now, we must recognise that that £20 a week of additional support made a difference to those poverty levels. Poverty is not inevitable; it is about political choices. Again, I hope we can reflect on that.

When I speak to my constituents in Oldham East and Saddleworth, and indeed people across the country, they tell me that they feel our current system no longer provides the safety net that it was set up to provide in the post-war settlement with the British people, and they are right; it is inadequate. Following on from their first-hand experience during the pandemic, polling shows that two thirds of Britons think that universal credit is too low.

Not only has the adequacy of the UK’s social security system diminished over time—in terms of average weekly incomes, it is approximately half of what was provided after world war two—but it is also lower than most of our European neighbours, with data from 2018 showing that our social security spending as a percentage of GDP was below EU27 and OECD averages.

We must never forget that the post-war Labour Government created the NHS and the welfare state. As we mark the remarkable achievement of our NHS with its 75th anniversary tomorrow, we must reflect on the principles of universality and access for all, which I would like to see reflected in our social security system, too. Like our NHS, our social security system should be there for all of us in our time of need, whether that is a result of illness or disability, of being unable to work anymore because we have reached retirement age, or for any other reason. It should provide basic financial support and should be valued for the safety net it provides. That is not the case now, and that is why I am advocating for a new social contract that defines the future of our social security system. A good starting point would be the essentials guarantee that my right hon. Friend talked about. That has been proposed by the Trussell Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, but a wide coalition of charities have advocated for it. They found that 90% of low-income households on universal credit are going without essentials such as food, electricity and clothes.

That inadequacy is the main driver of food bank need, with almost 1.3 million food parcels distributed between April and September 2022. That is just unacceptable in the fifth richest country in the world. An essentials guarantee would ensure that the universal credit standard allowance met a level that provided basic security for a family’s need. The charities calculated that at £120 a week for a single person and £200 a week for a couple. The guarantee would bring us in line with our European neighbours and provide a safety net in the same vein as our NHS. It would also reduce the poverty that too many are experiencing and which has a lifelong impact on children.

Some Members will know that I chair the all-party parliamentary group on health in all policies and have done so for a number of years. In 2020, just before the pandemic, we commissioned a review of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 to analyse the impacts it was having on children and disabled people. Anybody watching or listening is welcome to have a look at that on my website. One of the biggest and most worrying figures that we found was that:

“Each 1% increase in child poverty was significantly associated with an extra 5.8 infant deaths per 100 000 live births…about a third of the increases in infant mortality between 2014 and 2017 can be attributed to rising child poverty”.

That was published in one of the peer-reviewed medical journals. Understanding the impact that that has had on so many families is devastating. It is yet further evidence that far more needs to be done to provide an essentials guarantee.

The flipside of that is that we have one of the highest tax burdens in 40 years, but I was heartened to see members of Patriotic Millionaires—they are all multi-millionaires—come out and say, “We recognise the impact that not having a wealth tax on us is having on the fabric of our society. We do not want our children growing up in a society where there is not the fairness that we grew up with in our country.” It has come up with the proposal of a wealth tax that would fund the essentials guarantee. For me, that group espouses what we as a nation can be.

In contrast—this takes me back to what other hon. Members have said—there has been a rather nasty element in the media. When we look at DWP spending, we must remember that half of it, rightly, goes on the state pension; that is the biggest slice of the spending. The next biggest is on housing benefit. We need to recognise that. Nobody would criticise DWP spending on our pensioners. I urge responsible journalists to recognise that we should not criticise social security spending on people who are disabled or not able to work because of illness. We must be better than that.

As I conclude, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I did promise that I would be very brief, I repeat that poverty—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. For clarification, I am not putting the hon. Lady under any pressure. As far as I am concerned, she has all the time in the world.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Well, that is an offer that I definitely will refuse this time. As I said, poverty and inequality are not inevitable—they are political choices—and I believe that, like our NHS, our social security system should be there for all of us in our time of need.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesman.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

2nd reading
Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I hesitate to interrupt the Home Secretary, but does the hon. Lady have an actual point of order?

[Debbie Abrahams]

As the Home Secretary is very eloquently saying, this is an incredibly important piece of legislation, and the lack of opportunity to hold the Government to account on it is a source of real concern. Can she invite—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. That is not a point of order. We are starting a debate, the purpose of which is to allow this House to hold the Government to account. We will be doing so until 10 o’clock tonight, and then again tomorrow. That is not a point of order, and the hon. Lady knows that.

NHS Funding Bill

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 27th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

As well as the question of what the money will be spent on—and I welcome the extra investment—there is the question of—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. There is a separate Scottish debate going on, and, however interesting it might be, it is not good if I can hear that and cannot hear the hon. Lady.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I could not hear myself, Madam Deputy Speaker.

It is also a question of who and where. We know that life expectancy is flatlining, that healthy life expectancy is flatlining, and that in some parts of the country, including the north-west, it is actually going backwards. How are we to ensure that we target the money where it is most needed?

Points of Order

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Wednesday 3rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his elucidation, and I do not make light of this very serious matter. We are talking about the loss of a great many lives, and I am sure it will be appreciated that this is an extremely serious matter that has now been fully aired on the Floor of the House.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his advice on that excellent book, “Eats, Shoots & Leaves.” I do not know how it will come out in Hansard, but there is a significant difference, as he says, between “eats shoots and leaves” and “eats, shoots and leaves.” He makes a very good point, which I am sure the whole House will take on board.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. On 10 May, I wrote to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to raise my grave concerns about her Department’s investigation and recording of claimant deaths and how those deaths might be associated with the DWP.

I raised concerns that, under the Secretary of State’s predecessors, coroners’ letters and peer reviews were not sent to Dr Paul Litchfield, the independent expert who reviewed the work capability assessment in 2013. I also asked for information on deaths after claimants were found fit for work following a work capability assessment, and on deaths since 2015 after a personal independence payment award was reduced or refused.

I received a reply from the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work today, nearly two months later. He said

“the Department does not hold any information”

on the 2010 to 2014 peer review due to

“the length of time since the reviews were carried out, factors such as document retention policies, organisational changes and staff turnover”.

We are talking about the circumstances of people’s deaths some five years ago. To tell me that these documents cannot be found smacks, at least, of incompetence and, at worst, of a cover-up.

I seek your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, on how to ensure that the Government make sure that the Department for Work and Pensions, first, keeps proper records and reports back to the House on the outcome of an investigation into these missing documents and, secondly, heeds my call for an independent inquiry into all deaths linked to the Government’s social security reforms.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving me notice that she intended to raise such an important point of order. [Interruption.] I hope I can have some silence from the Government side of the House. The hon. Lady raises an extremely important matter and, again, one literally of life and death.

The hon. Lady knows this is not a matter on which I can give advice or any ruling from the Chair, but she has used the vehicle of a point of order to make sure that the Treasury Bench is aware of the issue, which I am sure will be drawn to the attention of the appropriate Minister. I would hope that any Minister with responsibility for these matters will wish to take steps to ensure that what she has asked for is properly fulfilled. If that does not occur, the proper advice I can give her is that she should seek the advice of the Table Office as to other ways in which she can bring this matter once again to the Floor of the House.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 19th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

On a point of order, Dame Eleanor. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) suggests that I have used statistics inappropriately. I can cite all my sources of evidence; can he?

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Lady knows that that is not a point of order for the Chair; it is a point of debate, and, as I have said many times in here—and so has Mr Speaker—fortunately it is not the duty of the Chair to decide between one set of statistics and another. It all depends on how one applies the statistics, and the hon. Lady is perfectly at liberty to intervene on the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), as is he to take an intervention from her, where they can continue the argument between them, but I will take no part in it.

Welfare Cap

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Monday 12th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

I will come on to the record number of jobs. The hon. Gentleman is trying to—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. We cannot have sedentary interventions from the Whips’ Bench. [Interruption.] We just cannot, even when there is nobody else here.

[Debbie Abrahams]

That is fine, Madam Deputy Speaker —I have no problem with answering the hon. Gentleman. He said, “More jobs”, but 80% of the increase in employment is in self-employment, and half—[Interruption.] These are the facts. Half of those in self-employment are earning less than the living wage.

As we saw in the autumn statement, growth is down, borrowing is up—again—inflation is on the rise, deficit targets are hopelessly missed, and productivity is flatlining. The Office for National Statistics has described this as “unprecedented”, with the worst levels of productivity since the second world war. Of course, productivity is the driver of wage growth, so we are seeing stagnant wage growth as well as precarious levels of employment.

The Government have failed on every single one of their fiscal targets, so much so that at the autumn statement they had to define a new set. They promised us an economy based on high wages and lower social security spending where work always pays, but in over six years they have done nothing to deliver the high-skill, high-wage, productive economy that this country desperately needs to compete in the global market. As a result of their failures, the Government have once again breached their own welfare cap—not just last year, not just this year, but every year for a full five-year term. For the remaining years of this Parliament, the Government will miss their cap by £5 billion, £6 billion, £7 billion and £8 billion respectively—a record of the complete and utter failure of their economic strategy.

Instead of reforming the social security system to reflect the reality of today’s flexible labour market, the Government have sought to cover up their economic incompetence and take it out on the working poor, the sick and the disabled, raining down austerity on the most vulnerable in our society. We have had six wasted years while the poorest have picked up the bill, with a full four years of failure yet to come. This is a far cry from the former Chancellor’s proclamation in 2014 that

“The welfare cap marks an important moment in the development of the British welfare state”

and

“ensures that never again can the costs spiral out of control”.—[Official Report, 26 March 2014; Vol. 578, c. 374-381.]

All the evidence is to the contrary. This debate is further testament to the Government’s complete failure to manage the economy or—and this is the most important point—to tackle any of the drivers of social security spending. It is incredible to watch the Government as they bound aimlessly from one broken promise to the next. Whatever their favourite slogan—“We’re all in it together”, “Fighting against burning injustices”, or “A Britain for everyone”—it is clear that gimmicks and grandstanding are all the Government are capable of.

In the motion, the Government claim that they could not meet their own rules due to spending on social security support for disabled people and higher than expected inflation. As ever, they are pointing the finger of blame at the most vulnerable rather than apologising for their own economic mismanagement. Let us examine the facts in a bit more detail. At the autumn statement, the Office for Budget Responsibility predicted that the Government will spend £120.5 billion in 2019-20 and £123.2 billion in 2020-21 on social security considered within the cap. Of this, the OBR estimates that changes in forecasts for CPI—consumer prices index—inflation will increase spending to 2021 by £0.8 billion in total. At less than a percentage point of total spending inside the cap, this can hardly be said to be the major driver of the Government’s failure to keep their promises. The Government have lost control of the economy, if they ever had control of it in the first place, and failed to tackle the key drivers of social security spending other than pensions—low-paid work and high housing costs.

Furthermore, the Government’s claim that increased disability spending will cause a breach of the cap at the end of the Parliament is just another attempt to point the finger at sick and disabled people. I admit—I am pleased about this—that there has been no language from Ministers around the “shirkers and scroungers” narrative that we have seen in recent years. That is a very welcome move. However, I am not clear whether this extends to press releases from Conservative Campaign Headquarters or to some of the coverage in less responsible sections of the media. We must be careful of our language in this respect. Even if derogatory terms such as “shirker” and “scrounger” are not used, what is implied by “incentivising” people who have been found not fit for work? Is the implication that they are at home avoiding work—that it is their choice to stay at home instead of being in productive work? That is offensive to very many people.

Instead of blaming everyone else for their mess, the Government should start taking responsibility. It is not just Labour Members who are making these points. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has described the approach of the past six years as a “grave and systematic violation” of disabled people’s rights. We have heard similar comments from our own Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Government’s Social Security Advisory Committee, and, indeed, Government Back Benchers. All have raised concerns about the lack of evidence in many of the Government’s social security policies, particularly regarding their punitive effects. I am pleased that the Minister said that the Government had taken the view that because of the implications that changes to tax credits would have for the working poor, they had decided not to proceed with them, but what about work allowances around universal credit? We are talking about the same people. The taper rate will make a difference of a couple of hundred pounds a year instead of the net effect of over £2,000 a year.

I want to explore some of the real reasons the Government have totally failed to meet their promises. They have failed because they have not tackled the drivers of social security spending. Rather than creating a strong economy with high wages, progression in the labour market, affordable housing and accessible childcare, they have starved the economy of much-needed investment, leaving us all worse off after six wasted years of austerity. This is not just our analysis; in every regard, the evidence speaks for itself. On housing, under this Government we are projected to spend more than £20 billion a year, every year, on housing benefit, which, after pensions, is the second largest spending area of social security spending. This amounts to more than £100 billion spent over the course of this Parliament, with nearly half going straight into the pockets of private landlords.

All the while, the Government’s own figures show that the number of affordable homes being built has slumped to a 24-year low. Indeed, research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation suggests that we need to be building 80,000 affordable homes a year to meet demand and keep the current spend on housing benefit stable. This year, we have managed to build just 30,000. Instead of focusing on reducing the housing benefit bill by building affordable homes, the Government have chosen to force the sale of the remainder of our socially rented stock, worsening the housing crisis and driving up housing benefit spend. This is one of the key reasons they have breached their own cap.

On top of this, there is the squeeze on in-work support for people in low-paid jobs. We will spend over £50 billion on tax credits in the two years covered in this motion. Why? Because the Government have failed to ensure that wages keep up with the cost of living, leaving many working people relying on top-ups to get by. Real wages are now set to remain lower in 2021 than they were in 2008, yet the Tories still turn their backs on working people by trying to cut the amount of tax credit support available under their failed austerity plans.

Likewise, under universal credit the Government have weakened incentives to work by cutting billions—about £10 billion over the life of this Parliament—from the programme’s work allowance under their austerity plans. Their meagre reduction in the taper rate does not touch the average cut of £2,000 a year, as I have just mentioned, which will affect 2.5 million working people. If the Chancellor was serious about reducing the social security spend, he would follow Labour’s lead and implement a real living wage calculated on the basis of what people need. That would ensure that people get a fair and proper wage for a working day, while reducing the expenditure of the state.

Our Chancellor is apparently not capable of making such an obvious decision, despite the fact that the Living Wage Commission has shown that the Government’s national living wage falls well short of providing a decent standard of living. The Chancellor used his autumn statement to chop 1w0p an hour off the previously promised wage increase, at a cost of about £200 a year to the average worker. That is all in the context of flatlining pay, which leads to the average wage being £1,000 lower in 2020 than was predicted at the last Budget. How can we ever expect to reduce social security expenditure when the Government will not act on wages?

High wages alone will not clear up the mess, however. We also need to act on progression in the labour market if we are to tackle the drivers affecting social security spending. The JRF has shown that four out of five low-paid workers are still low paid 10 years later. There is no automatic progression to higher pay. That is further proof of the deep structural problems we face in our labour market.

Finally, we should turn our attention to the disability employment gap, which the Government claimed they would halve by 2020. I am grateful for the intervention from the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) on that point. The gap narrowed from the end of last year, but it is now back up to the level it was just before the general election last year. Perhaps the Government’s plan to force people into work before they are ready by cutting the employment and support allowance can be added to the mounting examples of the Government’s flawed strategy.

Why have the Government not acted to improve the retention of disabled people in their current jobs? The Resolution Foundation has shown that doing so could reduce the number of people transitioning from employment to health-related inactivity, which was 350,000 in 2015. Keeping disabled people in their jobs would surely be a better strategy to bring down social security spending than slashing support for those who are further away from the labour market. But no; sadly, the Government have not been able to see that far, and their record on supporting retention is very poor.

Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Tuesday 18th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 3—Prompt Payment Code, duties of the Secretary of State—

‘(1) The Secretary of State shall—

(a) ensure that any business with payment terms of more than 60 days cannot sign up to the Prompt Payment Code, and that any existing signatory with payment terms of more than 60 days is removed from the list;

(b) at the end of each financial year, the Secretary of State shall write to all businesses in the FTSE 350 who are not signatories of the Prompt Payment Code asking them to become so;

(c) the Secretary of State shall publish a list of those businesses written to prominently on the Government’s website.”

New clause 4—Late payment review—

‘(1) The Secretary of State shall—

(a) conduct a review into how the Government can use the payment publishing regime to ensure that small businesses who are paid late by a larger supplier are automatically paid compensation, and into how the onus of reporting late payment can be shifted away from the smallest businesses who cannot afford to lose significant customers; and

(b) report back to both Houses of Parliament on the conclusions of the review.”

Amendment 6, in clause 3, page 4, line 33, at end insert—

“(g) about the circumstances and process for amending payment terms of the company.”

This is for companies to include details of the circumstances and processes (including who will be involved) by which payment terms would be amended, preventing unilateral and ad hoc changes.

Amendment 91, in clause 11, page 12, line 19, at end insert—

“(5) The Secretary of State may by order establish a Prohibited List of certain classes of exports that cannot receive UKEF/ECGD support.

(6) An order establishing , or thereafter amending a list for the purposes mentioned in subsection (5) shall be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.”

This amendment would grant the Secretary of State the power to prohibit specified types of exports from receiving government support, thereby enabling UK export finance provision to reflect government policies and priorities, such as preventing arms sales to certain regimes. The content of, or changes to, any such list would need to be approved by Parliament.

Government new clause 5—Independent Complaints Commissioner: reporting duty.

Amendment 92, page 20, line 5, leave out clauses 20 to 26.

This amendment removes the obligation on future governments to set a deregulation “business impact” target for each Parliament.

Government amendments 27 and 28.

Amendment 7, in clause 37, page 35, line 9, at end insert—

“() duties to establish the past payment performance of potential parties to a contract, before contracts are entered into;

() duties to ensure contracts entered into include the contractor’s requirements for prompt payment of their suppliers.”

These are to ensure that the payment performance of potential contractors are known before contracts are entered into and that contracts entered into require contractors to pay their suppliers promptly.

Amendment 1, page 35, line 16 , at end insert—

“() duties relating to the provision of apprenticeships and training opportunities as a result of procurement;

() duties to publish reports about the amount of expenditure undertaken by the relevant procurement function in relation to—

(i) amount and proportion of expenditure undertaken by small and medium-sized enterprises,

(ii) amount and proportion of expenditure undertaken in the local area.”

Amendment 2, page 35, line 22, at end add—

‘(5A) A person making regulations under this section may also specify the reasons why firms may be excluded from entering into contracts.”

Amendment 3, page 35, line 28, at end add—

‘(8A) Regulations under this section are subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000”

Amendment 4, page 35, line 30, leave out subsection (10).

[Debbie Abrahams]

This group of amendments is seeking to address the very significant issue of businesses paying their suppliers late. Recent data show that the late payment debt burden for UK businesses is more than £46 billion, with SMEs shouldering most of this. They are owed nearly £40 billion in late payments and 60% of small businesses are affected, with the average small business owed over £38,000 in late payments.

It is getting worse: £36 billion was owed in 2012, so the increase over recent weeks and months can be seen. In other debates we have heard about the implications of late payments for these small businesses, from productivity to access to finance and credit terms—all these are affected. For these businesses, there is not just the inconvenience of spending an extra 158 million hours chasing payment: vital cash flow that is stemmed often affects their very survival, their jobs and their livelihoods. In 2012 it was estimated that 124,000 small businesses were put out of business directly as a result of late payments.

For me, it has been about the personal stories. My interest in late payments started when a constituent came to me and said that their business was going under directly as a result of this issue. This opened a can of worms, not just in my constituency but across the country. The issue of late payments is endemic. When someone describes how their life’s work has been destroyed by what can only be described as corporate bullying—large companies paying their bills late just because they can, because they have the power—it is clear that it is one of the most raw forms of injustice.

From the late payment inquiry held last year, it was clear to us that it is not just a micro-economic issue. With approximately half the work force and half the UK’s income in the private sector coming from small businesses—a massive £1,558 billion—it is inconceivable that late payment is not affecting the wider economy and, of course, a sustainable recovery. I am glad that the Government are tackling the issue; it has been a long time coming. I started my Be Fair—Pay On Time campaign in 2011 and now the Government are finally getting to grips with the issue, but I am afraid that the measures in the Bill do not go far enough. It is regrettable that in Committee the Government failed to support measures that would have seen small businesses automatically compensated for late payment by their suppliers. I hope that the Minister will reconsider and have a look at new clause 1 and the amendments.

New clause 1 seeks to address the issue of retention of moneys in the construction industry. You may be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, that at any one time over £3 billion is outstanding in the construction industry by way of cash retentions. This is an aggregate sum of moneys provided for by small businesses in the event that they fail to remedy defects. I have several examples, including that of a company that wrote to me to say that £60,000 of retention moneys was withheld—5% of the overall contract—for eight months. There was nothing in the contract about that. They had to go through adjudication and it ended up with them losing £22,000. These are small businesses, and this is their livelihood.

Finance Bill

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Wednesday 2nd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.] Order. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. That is a point of order. He has put the record straight, and the House is grateful to him.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Could you advise me, please, with reference to the inaccurate information that was given by the Prime Minister about waiting lists for A and E, and the fact that in 48 out of the past 52 weeks, A and E targets have been missed by this Government—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I have already reminded the House that the content of Ministers’ speeches is not a matter for the Chair, and that is not a point of order.

New Clause 1

Oil contractor activities: ring-fence trade etc

‘Schedule (Oil contractors: ring-fence trade etc) contains provision about the corporation tax treatment of oil contractor activities.’—(Mr Gauke.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

Cost of Living

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Tuesday 14th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

It is a privilege to support the Gracious Speech. Although I appreciate that it is unfashionable to talk about conviction politics, I suggest to the House that there is nothing wrong with having principles, talking about principles and sticking to principles. The principles underlying the Queen’s Speech are those of freedom, choice and individual responsibility as well as rights. Through those principles, Conservative Governments throughout the ages have brought prosperity to Britain and improved the lives of British people.

The Labour party does not work on principle. It works—[Interruption.] Labour Members are shouting; if they have a principle to tell me about, let them get up and tell me the principle on which they oppose the Queen’s Speech. They work not on principle, but on short-term party political popularity.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mrs Laing]

Yes; let the hon. Lady have a go.

[Debbie Abrahams]

On principle, could the hon. Lady say how the Government’s statement on and commitment to fairness in the Queen’s Speech relates to child poverty, which my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) has just been talking about?

[Mrs Laing]

The hon. Lady makes my point for me. The Queen’s Speech is all about fairness, to which I am coming in a moment. Child poverty has arisen not because of the content of the Queen’s Speech but because of 13 years of economic mismanagement by the last Labour Government.