Oral Answers to Questions
Deirdre Costigan Excerpts(2 days, 12 hours ago)
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Alison McGovern
I have just given the OBR’s assessment. It is worth noting that there are still a significant number of vacancies in the economy. We are determined that the Department for Work and Pensions will be reformed to serve employers better, so that they can fill those vacancies.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
Many disabled people in Ealing Southall are unnecessarily unemployed purely and simply because their employer refuses to respond to their request for the reasonable adjustments that they need to do their job. Will the Minister consider strengthening the right to reasonable adjustments, so that workers receive a response within a specified number of weeks, in line with the recommendations in the groundbreaking disability employment charter?
Alison McGovern
I thank my hon. Friend for her important question. I know she met my colleague the Minister for Social Security and Disability recently, and I am sure that their conversations were productive on this important point.
Income Tax (Charge)
Deirdre Costigan Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
I congratulate the new Leader of the Opposition on her election. She says that she will be honest about what her party got wrong over the last 14 years, but I listened to her on TV yesterday and all that she would admit was that under her party standards had started to slip. Standards had started to slip? That is the understatement of the decade. Seven million people on NHS waiting lists, taxes at a 70-year high and mortgages shooting up by hundreds of pounds overnight. That is not standards slipping; that is taking a wrecking ball to our public services and our economy. That is why people voted for change.
This Labour Budget starts to deliver that change. Instead of austerity, we are choosing investment in public services. Instead of economic chaos, we are choosing growth, and to pay for it—because clearing up the Conservatives’ mess has to be paid for—we are choosing to protect working people’s pay packets, with no increase in national insurance or income tax in working people’s pay packets. In fact, all of the 7,200 people in Ealing Southall who are on the national minimum wage will receive more money in their pay packet because of this Labour Budget. Raising the youth rate to £10 an hour is a great first step towards achieving equality for young workers in Ealing Southall, and hundreds of carers in Ealing Southall will be able to earn more money and still get their allowance.
Last month, I visited west Ealing jobcentre, which is the biggest in west London. More than 170 staff work there, but when I asked what help a disabled person could get to go back to work they did not have an answer. As a trade unionist, I represented disabled workers for many years. So many of them wanted to work but were pushed out of their job because there was no support. There are 3 million people off work on a long-term sickness absence. Many would love to work, but the health service is not set up to support them and jobcentres do not have the right tools to help. That is why I welcome this Labour Budget’s investment of £240 million to get Britian working. Many of my constituents in Ealing Southall want a job, but they need help with English and with their CV, and they need mental health support, so the Secretary of State’s plan to bring jobcentres, careers services, skills providers and health services together will make a huge difference.
Today’s debate is about working people, but litter and fly-tipping are so important to my residents, and well run councils such as Ealing are facing severe budget pressures. The spring comprehensive spending review is an opportunity to ensure that Ealing has the resources to deliver for residents, from cleaning the streets to social care. Austerity and economic chaos were the choices of the previous Conservative Government. If the Opposition would like to make different choices, this is their chance to put those choices forward. We have heard nothing today. This Labour Government are proudly and purposely choosing growth, choosing investment in public services, and choosing to protect working people’s pay packets.
Oral Answers to Questions
Deirdre Costigan Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Emma Reynolds)
I thank the hon. Member for his question. I have looked into this issue, which has a long and complex history, and I would be very willing to meet him to discuss it in more detail.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
Sir Stephen Timms
My hon. Friend asks an extremely good question. The policy of the previous Government was to publish all such commissioned research reports within 12 weeks of receiving them. That policy was complied with until 2018, when Ministers stopped complying with it, so we have had to publish all these reports today. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s announcement is a vital first step in rebuilding the trust in the Department that was so shattered by the culture of secrecy, obfuscation and cover-up by Conservative Ministers.
Social Security
Deirdre Costigan Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Mel Stride
I thank my right hon. Friend for his appropriate intervention. He is right, of course. The only surprising thing is how remarkably quickly this has all fallen apart.
The Government will take responsibility for what has happened. They will blame us, with this fictitious black hole. The Leader of the House has suggested—I invite Labour Members to support her in this assertion—that the measure is necessary in order to avoid a “run on the pound.” It is just as well that Labour is not in charge of the economy, or we might end up in a real mess.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
Does the shadow Secretary of State agree that if a local council had run its finances into the ground, in the way that his party did to the country’s finances with a £22 billion black hole, he would have called in the commissioners in the morning and instigated swingeing cuts? Can I ask him—[Interruption.] Given that that is the case, and that he now seems to have decided that his party no longer cares about balancing the books, will he apologise—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. I call the shadow Secretary of State.