Oral Answers to Questions

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

We are taking active steps to ensure that every foreign national who should be deported from our prisons is deported. Since 2010, 33,000 foreign nationals have been deported from our prisons. In 2016-17, a record 5,810 were deported, and I am sure that that progress will continue.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Would we not be more reliably informed about justice if we were not hearing from a Tory Minister whose friend the Prime Minister has called a snap election on 8 June, about a fortnight before the Director of Public Prosecutions was due to adjudicate on 30 Tory MPs who are being investigated for election fraud at the last election?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The Prime Minister is absolutely right to call a general election. We need strong and stable leadership of this country, and we need to ensure that the Prime Minister has a mandate to deliver for Brexit and beyond.

State Pension Age (Women)

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

That points to what has happened here. In previous debates on this matter the Minister has talked about the cap on the increase being reduced from 24 to 18 months, but that was as far as it got, and we see the Government today have no positive proposals. They keep asking the Opposition about their proposals, but it is the Government whose mind has gone completely blank on this issue.

Let us not forget the fundamentals of this debate. Many women born in the 1950s will have started their working lives without even the protection of the Equal Pay Act 1970. Many of those women will have been paid at a lower rate than men for no reason other than that they were women. The gender pay gap is at its widest for many of the women under discussion today. Also, let us not forget the time that many of them took to work part-time or bring up children when they have not even had the chance to contribute to occupational pensions.

The Pensions Act 1995 increased the state pension age from 60 to 65 for women between April 2010 and 2020, to bring it into line with the state pension age for men, but the coalition Government moved the goalposts. They decided to accelerate the increase in the women’s state pension age from April 2016 so that it reached 65 by November 2018. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) has pointed out, in the Second Reading debate in this House on 20 June 2011 the Secretary of State made it absolutely clear that the Government would “consider transitional arrangements.”

The much vaunted reduction in the cap—capping the maximum increase at 18 months—that the Minister has pointed to in recent debates simply is not enough. Do the Government understand the anger at the fact that more transitional provisions have not been considered—over 100,000 signatures for a debate in this House, the online campaign and the great response to it in the media? Recently I was told by the Sunday Post that a feature on this subject brings an unprecedented response from the hundreds of thousands of women who are affected.

Let us ask ourselves what the Pensions Minister in the coalition Government at the time thinks. This is what he told the Institute for Government:

“There was one very early decision that we took about state pension ages, which we would have done differently if we’d been properly briefed, and we weren’t.”

He added:

“We made a choice, and the implications of what we were doing suddenly, about two or three months later, it became clear that they were very different from what we thought.”

He then said:

“So basically we made a bad decision. We realised too late. It had just gone too far by then.”

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

The only thing my hon. Friend has forgotten to mention is that the whole idea was masterminded and put forward at the Dispatch Box by that tin-pot Liberal who called himself Professor Steve Webb.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I am honoured to be put right by that intervention, and perhaps the Professor, as we shall forever refer to him, would have been better off listening to my colleagues on the Labour Benches than the civil servants.

It would be even more interesting to ask ourselves what the current Pensions Minister thinks of the 2011 Act. I thoroughly recommend to the House rosaltmann.com, which has a lot of wonderful critiques of the coalition pensions policy in it. She cannot deny it is her site; her photograph is on every contribution. She said this about the 2011 Act:

“The Government has decided to renege on its Coalition Agreement, by increasing the State Pension Age for women from 2016, even though it assured these women that it would not start raising the pension age again before 2020.”

That is what the current Minister for Pensions said. Even after the concession of the cap being reduced, this is what she said to the Yorkshire Post on 6 June 2013:

“The coalition seems oblivious to the problems faced by those already in their late fifties, particularly women, who feel they simply do not matter to policymakers.”

What an appropriate critique that is!

We should also look carefully at the intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) who talked about being lobbied by the Pensions Minister about applying the pensions protection fund retrospectively. Her lobbying of my right hon. Friend was effective on that occasion. She told him that the impossible was possible. Now, however, she says that what we are trying to achieve is impossible. I have an interest in history, and I have been trying—unsuccessfully—all morning to think of an example of another Minister who had more influence on Government policy when they were outside the Government than when they were in it.

We have heard much about the key question of notice. It is key because the Government have in their gift the pensions legal framework in this country, and when they make changes to it, they have a duty to provide notice of them. The House should not just take my word for that; let us take the word of the Pensions Minister. What did she say about women who were already in their late 50s and about the notice they were given under the 2011 Act? She said:

“They are not being given enough notice of such a huge change.”

Why will she not listen to her own words now?

This debate is taking place against the backdrop of a decision in the district court in the northern Netherlands, which has already been mentioned today. It found that a lady who suffered from a number of chronic, progressive diseases faced a disproportionate burden in bridging the gap to her extended retirement age. How awful it would be if this battle were to end up in the courts, given that the Government have the chance to do something about it today. The Government keep saying that they are not sure what to do. They find it impossible to do anything about this, and they have no proposals to bring forward. Yet if we look at the passage of the Pensions Act 2011, we can see that they had a number of options at that time, one of which has been set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) today. Another, which was put forward by one of my predecessors as shadow Pensions Minister, related to maintaining the qualifying age for pension credit on the 1995 timetable rather than the 2011 one, which would at least have provided a buffer for those who were least able to cope financially with the changes. That proposal was completely dismissed at the time.

I ask the Minister at least to open his mind to having a discussion about what might be done, instead of consistently hiding behind the fact that he is going to do absolutely nothing. We have today heard the passion around this issue, and it is not an issue that is going to go away. I urge the Government to be constructive. They could still do something to ease the transitions. Whatever the Minister does today, he should not slam the door in the face of the 1950s women.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

There is nothing short-sighted about having a consultation, the purpose of which is to allow people such as the hon. Gentleman and his constituents to have their say and try to persuade us that, all things considered, the court should be retained. As I said, no decisions have been taken and we are carefully considering all the submissions.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

I listen to Tory MPs and Ministers talking constantly about localism. How can this be a form of localism, when people are having to travel 50 or 60 miles to get justice, instead of going to the local court? It is nothing but hypocrisy.

[Mr Vara]

I have the utmost respect for the hon. Gentleman, but may I gently bring him into the 21st century, which he may not be familiar with? We will ensure that with modern technology such as video-conferencing and telephone facilities, people will have access to justice without having to go to court. Access to justice does not mean simply attending a court and the physical building that it represents.

Police Funding Formula

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I have apologised to the 43 authorities and I apologise in particular to Devon and Cornwall, which highlighted the information that was wrong in the letters I sent out to those 43 authorities. Getting the decisions right about rural and other issues within the formula was exactly what we were trying to do in the first place, as it was mostly the rural constituencies that were most upset with the existing formula, but I can assure Members that we will now get it right.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Late last week, the Derbyshire police commissioner and chief of police informed me that the settlement was very good. Forty-eight hours later, they were told by none other than Devon and Cornwall police—not the Minister—that the whole thing was wrong. Now Derbyshire has lost £13.1 million. Is there any occasion on which Ministers in this Tory Government would consider resigning because of an almighty mess that they have taken part in?

[Mike Penning]

I congratulate Derbyshire on reducing crime by 21% since 2010. Derbyshire has not lost anything, because the proposals were indicative and no money was allocated. As usual, the hon. Gentleman gets it wrong.

Arrests of Chinese Protesters

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I must admit that I am not aware of the actions that the right hon. Lady refers to, but I will look into the matter and perhaps drop her a line.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Does the Minister not appreciate the propaganda value of what has happened over the past few weeks? First it was all about China, human rights and Tiananmen Square—indeed, you, Mr Speaker, almost referred to that in your remarks in the Royal Gallery. Today, however, the Chinese can say, “Well, things are no different in Britain.”

Undercover Policing

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

On the latter point, that option remains open, but it is for others to decide. We have changed the law so that officers who have left or resigned during an investigation can be brought back. As far as I am concerned as a Privy Counsellor, Privy Council undertakings are intact and should stay so.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

All I would like to say to the Minister is that he must have been a busy man to follow me to 5,000 industrial meetings in the last 30-odd years. I went to Grunwick, I did three pit strikes, I went to Wapping—I was all over the place. When I saw the man with that posh flat cap, which looked as if he had bought it from Harrods, I always thought he might be the agent provocateur present at the meeting. The thing that has always worried me—the Minister might be able to answer this, as well as whoever looks into this matter—is why do they only seem to pursue left wingers, socialists? Is that one of the reasons why all those paedophiles managed to disappear into thin air, and why Jimmy Savile never had his collar felt?

[Mike Penning]

I am tempted to treat the question—I think there was one there—with the contempt it deserves. Having been a member of the Fire Brigades Union and been on picket lines over the years, perhaps they were even watching me in the funny hat that the hon. Gentleman refers to.

Shrewsbury 24 (Release of Papers)

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bob Russell]

rose—

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

I call Dennis Skinner. [Interruption.] I am sorry. I will call the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) next.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Well, that has put the Lib Dems in their place, hasn’t it? I have always wanted to do it. I know Clegg’s got a sour face—[Interruption.]

Anyway, we live in the age of transparency, don’t we? We have transparency coming out of every pore. Every day I turn up in the House of Commons, from all sides I am assailed by people saying, “We need transparency.” At the beginning, I was unsure what it meant; I am sure now. It is a class thing. It applies only to the things that affect us, but it does not give us an inch when we are asking for something from the other side. We can have transparency about hospitals, care homes, schools, and everything else, but not about this. Isn’t it strange that we are being told again today, by this tin-pot coalition, that we cannot have it? [Laughter.] It really is tin-pot, although I know the last Labour Government did not pull their weight either. It has to be put on the record.

But this is a debate about class, and we do not get many of those in here. Every so often, it erupts, and we talk about class. That is what this is. It was the same with Hillsborough, when my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) got that debate, and it was the same with Thatcher and the funeral and all the rest of it. I do not want to go into that, but the truth is that it is very rare. Here are a few people who were on the picket line, they ordered a bus from a bus company, and they talk about conspiracies—all the records are there! I know it was not the age of social media, Twitter and God knows what else—if it had been, they would have won, because they would all have had a mobile phone, with a camera, and they could have took some pictures. Yes, it’s about class, and that is why we are here today, thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) and other colleagues.

I was here in the 1970s, and I could not believe it the moment I got to London: we were on picket lines, and winning—winning! It does not happen very often, so we have to treasure every moment. My father worked for 50 years in the pits, and when we won the 1972 strike, he said, “It’s the first time in my life.” Yet there is all this talk, somehow or other, about workers having power. It is not true, and this is another example where they do not have it, or otherwise the papers would have been released and, what’s more, this whole episode would not have begun. It began because of the climate of 1970 onwards. The establishment, the Heath Government, were defeated by the miners in 1972, after a seven-week strike. It is true there was a bit of pushing and shoving, but by and large it was a relatively peaceful affair. The police were wearing long stockings underneath their trousers. I told Tom Swain, and he said, “I’m getting a pair.” That’s what it was like, by and large.

What happened then? The Upper Clyde shipbuilders had a sit-in and won. Then there was Vic Turner and Bernie Steer saying, “We’re going to put some pickets on down at the docks”—at what is now Covent Garden—and they got put in Pentonville jail. The Industrial Relations Act had just got Royal Assent, but what happened? After Vic Turner was put in jail with his mates, the Official Solicitor had to turn up, representing all the echelons of the establishment, saying, “They won’t purge their own contempt. We’ve got to do it for them.” We said, “Yes, but at a price”, and so they had to kick the Act into the long grass.

In the middle of all this, some people, such as those I should not speak about in the Gallery, decided also to battle for better wages. They had never had great wages, but UCATT and the building workers had had a lot of injuries, so they decided in that climate to take a chance and fight for better wages and conditions. That is all it was. The evidence was there, as we have heard, but the establishment decided that somebody needed a lesson: “We’ll take these on. We lost to the miners. We lost to Upper Clyde. We lost the Industrial Relations Act. We’ve got to have a victory.” That was what this was all about, and let no one kid themselves: when the echelons of the state decide to take action, the judiciary join them, and I do not care what their names are. It has been apparent for so many years, and it is still apparent today.

My time is running out. I compliment all those who have taken part, but I want to pay my final compliment to that face I saw in Lincoln prison, Des Warren, fighting the establishment, and when I call for transparency, it is the face of Des Warren—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order.

Points of Order

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. It might be helpful to say that my Department is mindful of the financial pressures faced by the Hillsborough families. We all recognise the very difficult circumstances they have been through, and they are certainly in our consideration.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Is that sub judice?

[Mr Speaker]

That is not sub judice; it is a relatively unusual way for the Secretary of State to voice the Government’s thinking on this matter. I thank him in the spirit in which his comment was made. There is no doubt that if the Government have got further and better particulars on the matter, at some point that will become clear. We will leave it there and I thank him.

Mesothelioma (Legal Aid Reform)

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Bill Esterson]

I am happy to congratulate my hon. Friend’s colleague. She is right that it is the companies that cause this terrible pain and suffering, as well as their insurers, that should bear the financial costs, although there is no way of truly compensating the victims and their families for their suffering. It should be the private industry that caused the condition, and its insurers, that pays, not the public purse.

People were exposed to this terrible disease at work in situations which employers knew would ultimately kill the workers. However, as things stand under the legislation, those same people and their families will lose a quarter of the compensation that they absolutely should receive from the insurers of those companies.

The Government rejected a Lords amendment that would have exempted mesothelioma from the provision, but they have yet to say how sufferers and their families will be protected. In all the non-answers from Ministers, they have yet to justify to thousands of families why they did not exempt mesothelioma.

Mesothelioma is an exceptional case, because the problem was known about for more than a century. Asbestos was identified as a poisonous substance in 1892 and has been banned from use in this country for almost half a century, yet employers knowingly exposed their workers to it day in, day out. They knew the dangers and ignored them for decades. They were eventually held accountable, but ever since the first successful case against employers and insurers on asbestos-related diseases, they have kept coming back to the courts and the issue has kept coming back to this place.

Mesothelioma causes intractable pain and severe breathlessness, which means that more than half of all the very modest damages claimed are for pain and suffering. The Government’s proposals would have a disproportionate effect on mesothelioma sufferers, because victims receive a higher proportion of their damages for pain and suffering than those who claim for personal injury.

The legislation requires terminally ill asbestos victims who succeed in a claim for compensation against negligent, guilty employers to pay up to 25% of their damages for pain and suffering in legal costs. They are not part of the compensation culture, nor are they legally aided, so to include them in that provision is wholly wrong. Many sufferers are so defeated by their illness that they never make a claim under current circumstances. Victim support groups have been told by victims that the change proposed would be a significant further deterrent to them making a claim at all. That would represent a big saving for the insurance industry, which therefore has the financial interest hinted at by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram).

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this issue for the umpteenth time. It is always possible to tell when an issue ought to be dealt with. We fought constantly for bronchitis and emphysema to be treated as industrial diseases, and did the same with vibration white finger. In 1999-2000, we managed to get the show on the road. Mesothelioma has been debated in this place ad nauseam, which is why we can tell that it ought to be dealt with at long last. I thank my hon. Friend for raising the matter once again.

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend speaks with greater experience than anyone in this House on the subject and on the issue of protecting the rights of workers who have suffered, over many years, grave injustice through industrial diseases and industrial accidents. He brings that wealth of experience from his time as a miner, and he continues to campaign tirelessly, and I applaud him for that. He is absolutely right that we have a duty to the victims to ensure that the matter is dealt with properly and that this Government are held to account. We need to hear answers today as to what will happen in that review, and it needs to be done quickly.

KPMG estimates that the insurance industry was given a £1.6 billion windfall when the Government ended compensation for pleural plaques. Unless the Government change their mind on mesothelioma, a similar windfall may be made available to the insurers at the expense of victims of industrial disease.

In contrast to other diseases, mesothelioma has only one outcome—loss of life. It is not trivial, and victims need help not hindrance. Most doctors say that the average lifespan from diagnosis to death is around nine months to one year. As one victim explained:

“My life has been turned upside down, and I really didn’t want to think about anything except spending my last days with my family. I worked all my life and paid all my national insurance and taxes, so this seems unfair.”

Mesothelioma victims, who often have just months to live, should not be expected to devote their energies to finding the lawyer with the best deal, yet that is what the Government expect them to do. Asbestos-related disease is not an accident. It is the result of negligence and lack of duty of care.

The claims of dying asbestos victims are never frivolous or fraudulent, but they are lumped in with road traffic accident claims that make up more than 70% of personal injury claims, for which the Government and insurance industry suggest that conditional fee agreements have been exploited. Between 2007 and 2011, there was a 6.6% reduction in employer liability cases, of which most respiratory claims are a subset. During that same period, road traffic accidents increased by 43% to nearly 800,000 cases. It is expected that mesothelioma claims will peak in about 2015, as asbestos has been eliminated from the working environment. Unscrupulous claimants may be able to fake road traffic injuries, but not mesothelioma or asbestosis. Road traffic accident problems will not be solved by punishing asbestos victims.

Mesothelioma sufferers who make a claim mainly do so because they and their families will not be at risk in terms of legal costs, which, without no win, no fee agreements, would be prohibitive. A claim may be valued at between £5,000 and £10,000, which is of great importance to the individual concerned, but which could be eaten up in costs and premiums under the Government’s plans. Mesothelioma sufferers would lose the whole of their compensation simply by not taking any action, which, as we have heard, is increasingly likely if no changes are made. Their access to lawyers would be restricted by making success fees unrecoverable from defendants, putting them at risk of paying defendants’ costs if they lose. Victims are already reluctant to claim because they have so many problems dealing with their rapid deterioration in health and trying to survive. The risk that if they lose they will have to pay such costs would be a massive additional hurdle for some of our most vulnerable people, to whom a decent, civilised society should and would guarantee support.

We should not forget that compensation is already significantly reduced for many sufferers. They must not only provide evidence of heavy exposure dating decades back, but forgo that portion of compensation where insurers cannot be traced for employers that are no longer trading. As insurance companies fight mesothelioma cases to the end, often trying to elongate the case until the victim dies, the cost of after-the-event insurance can be huge. As that will also be unrecoverable under the Government’s plans, there is no prospect of claimants being able to afford the premiums. The Government’s one-size-fits-all approach in the legislation is wrong. It may work for some personal injury claims, but is not effective in the case of complex industrial disease cases such as those involving mesothelioma.

Prisons Competition

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

Yes, and there always used to be military contingency plans, because Governments must have contingency plans for all kinds of disasters. Unfortunately, if people are so unwise as to take industrial action in prisons, the situation can rapidly become far worse than in a normal strike because we start getting disorder among the prisoners. We have updated those contingency plans, and the military are indeed involved, but I should make it clear that no one is contemplating a military takeover of any prison. The Prison Service and prison governors would still be in charge. None the less, it is only prudent to make sure that we have the military preparedness that could, but almost certainly would not, be required. It has not been required in living memory, because one begins by using management staff and other teams that have been drafted in. Only in extremis would one start using the military for perimeter guarding and that kind of thing.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Following on from the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), when the Secretary of State meets prison officers will he give them a guarantee regarding TUPE? He seemed a little vague at the beginning. Will he give an assurance that TUPE arrangements will apply not only in the present circumstances but in the whole period of this Parliament if there are any further changes?