Budget Resolutions

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott]

Unlike the Labour party’s massive £28 billion unfunded tax commitment until 2030, our long-term ambition to cut national insurance and erase the double tax on work does not have a date on it. We have shown that, through careful stewardship of the economy over time, we can reduce people’s taxes without cutting spending.

Simply spending more is not sustainable. If no action is taken, public spending is forecast to grow faster than GDP from 2030; that accounts for pressures that we cannot avoid, such as demographic changes. That must be managed, using all the tools at our disposal—and not by borrowing more, or increasing taxes on the British public. Instead, we have to assess how we deliver public services, and improve them to make the UK more productive and ensure the long-term sustainability of public finances. Yes, this is about money, but it is also about delivering the best services for the public, because productivity is not a theoretical concept; it affects us all, in each area of our everyday lives.

I want better outcomes for children, and teachers being able to spend more time with pupils, rather than filling out paperwork. I want the police to spend more time on the beat, not on forms. As a Member of Parliament representing constituents in Sevenoaks and Swanley, I want nurses and doctors spending time with patients, not having to look at computer screens. Better public productivity means better value for money, better support for frontline workers to do their jobs effectively, and better results.

In last week’s Budget, the Chancellor announced that we are allocating £4.2 billion to investment in productivity. The package is broad and comprehensive, and includes £3.4 billion for the NHS—double its current budget for tech and digital transformation. The NHS says that that will unlock over £35 billion in the coming years—10 times the amount we will put in. At the next spending review, that will be the model for all our public services. The package also includes £105 million for 15 new special free schools across England, which I know will be welcomed across the House. That will create over 2,000 high-quality places for children with special educational needs and disabilities, and prevent local authorities’ use of costly independent provision.

The Budget provides £165 million to tackle the shortage of children’s home placements and to rebuild the children’s home estate. That will reduce the need for expensive and unsuitable emergency provision that does not produce the right outcomes for the children who need our help the most. There is £334 million to cut crime by improving policing technology, and £17 million for modernisation of Department for Work and Pensions services, and replacing the paper-based system for benefits. As a former Pensions Minister, I know the impact that such modernisation has had on the state pension. However, this is just the start. I am also committed to driving forward work to embed productivity at every level across the whole public sector.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Laura Trott]

No, I will not. I have been very generous with my time.

When I began thinking about this agenda in 2009, no one could have foreseen the technological changes of the last decade. Those changes are revolutionising the private sector, and we must embrace them in the public sector, too.

Our job is not yet done on the economy, but we are making progress with our plan to reward work and create growth—a plan that would be put in jeopardy under the Labour party. This Budget does what it says on the tin: it sticks to the plan—a plan that Britain needs, a plan that is putting money back in the pockets of British people, and a plan that is working. I commend this Budget to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I know that the residents of Putney, Southfields, Roehampton and Wandsworth town will be watching this debate, because they tell me all the time as I go out and about in the constituency that they watch the Parliament channel. I also know that they will be very, very disappointed by the Budget. They will have seen nothing for our declining high streets, nothing for youth centres, and nothing to tackle the cost of living crisis that means that there are higher bills but less money for my constituents week after week after week.

The theme of this debate is productivity, which is fundamental for our competitiveness, wage growth, ability to attract investment and overall future economic wellbeing —in fact, our wellbeing as a whole. Without growth, we cannot have the hope for the future, the hope for our young people and the boost for our economy that we need. I will focus on one area of under-investment which has meant a chronic lack of productivity across the UK, an area of investment that is essential to tackle the climate crisis, boost our economy and give young people hope: green skills.

I was disappointed to hear in the Budget that there were no new policies to help boost the roll-out of low-carbon technologies such as electric vehicles or heat pumps. There is a clear need for better alignment between net zero investments and the skills and employment system. That is the problem that leads to our poor productivity at the moment. Solar Energy UK called the Budget “virtually nude” of anything to bolster that sector. We cannot begin to move in the right direction on green productivity without having the processes in place to embed green skills within our economic infrastructure, but we need a whole industry and skills approach. There is a massive shortage of heat pump engineers. We currently have 3,000, but we will need 27,000 by 2028. Offshore wind industry engineer numbers need to triple to just over 104,000 to meet our current targets, let alone our future ones.

Political choices have led to that under-investment and under-skilling. The Institute for Public Policy Research found that the UK employs fewer people in renewable energy as a proportion of the working age population than most other European countries. It does not have to be that way. In my constituency, South Thames College offers courses in green skills and solar panel fitting. It is taking proactive steps, responding to the wide range of green jobs arising across the economy. By helping students to move into apprenticeships or jobs, South Thames College shows that it is ahead of the curve in adopting a joined-up approach. Also in my constituency is Treadlighter, a solar energy company in Southfields. It is booming, but it cannot keep up with demand because it needs more skilled trainees and staff to fit panels.

Matching skills with green businesses is essential, but Government inaction is currently holding back productivity. A whole new approach is needed throughout the economy to secure a seamless transition between training, education, manufacturing, supply and services, but we do not see any of that in the Budget. We see no new boost, and nothing about the new revolution in green skills that would be so exciting for our economy and would give us hope. The Government’s green jobs delivery group has been meeting for a year and plans to publish its green jobs plan soon, but the Budget has given nothing to the green energy industry, so I have no high hopes for that plan.

We in the Labour party know how important to our success investing for the future will be, which is why we have committed ourselves to spending £23.5 billion during our first Parliament in government in order to deliver green power by 2030. Green British Energy, a publicly owned energy company, will invest in green energy projects including offshore wind, hydrogen, carbon capture, tidal and nuclear. If we can match that with the green skills revolution, we really will have the productivity that we need to change the amount of money in the pockets of people across my constituency.

The No. 1 mission of the next Labour Government is to get our economy growing so that Britain will be better off, and we will do it through stability, investment and reform. That means bringing stability back so that we can protect family finances with tough fiscal rules and a long-term plan for our economy, it means investing in British business so we can unlock tens of millions of pounds of private sector investment for our towns and cities, and it means reforming planning so we can boost growth and get Britain building again. The Conservatives are missing in action. They have run out of ideas, they have run out of ambition and hope, and they have run out of all the ways in which growth can be boosted. It is time for a new approach: it is time for a Labour Government.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

To make the last Back-Bench speech of this Budget debate, I call the ever patient Ruth Jones.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Those on the Conservative Benches do not want to hear it, but if they have so much confidence in their record, why do they not do as she asks, call a general election and put a test to the public?

Unable to defend his own Government’s records and unable to offer any plan to get the country out of the economic mess that his party created, this Chancellor has resorted to undeliverable promises. When we thought things could not get any worse, the Chancellor bizarrely ended his Budget last week with a £46 billion unfunded tax plan to abolish national insurance. This would leave a gaping hole in the public finances, put family finances at risk and create huge uncertainty for our pensioners. This is even bigger than the unfunded tax cuts announced in the Conservatives’ mini-Budget that added hundreds of pounds to people’s mortgages, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) powerfully pointed out. I will be listening intently to the Minister’s response today, and I hope that he will set out how his Government would fill that gaping hole in the public finances to avoid rerunning the disastrous experiment that crashed the economy just 18 months ago.

[Fleur Anderson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is absurd that throughout today’s event the Government have been unable to confirm how they will pay for their unfunded £46 billion plan to abolish national insurance contributions? Where is the money coming from?

[Tulip Siddiq]

rose—

Oral Answers to Questions

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Davies]

Onshore wind has an important part to play, and we are already deploying 14 GW of energy from onshore wind. The cost of onshore wind has come down significantly. It is one of our cheapest energy sources. The hon. Lady does not have long to wait for the Energy Bill, which we are considering later today.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

3. What recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of the growth plan of 23 September 2022 on mortgage interest rates.

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Andrew Griffith)]

Over the course of 2022, high inflation from Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine saw interest rates increase across most western economies. The path to lower rates is through low inflation, which is why the Prime Minister made halving inflation one of our five priorities for this year. I am pleased that the latest Bank of England forecast shows that we are on track.

[Fleur Anderson]

Mortgage and associated rental costs are soaring in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields, and the Government like to claim it is all due to global shocks or the war in Ukraine, but the latest Bank of England data from July shows that the cost of lending to buy a home remains higher in the UK than in Germany, Italy or France. Will the Minister finally concede that this difference is because those countries did not have the devastating growth plan or mini-Budget last year, and that it is because of this Government’s wider economic failure that my constituents face these costs?

[Andrew Griffith]

I am glad that the hon. Lady’s constituents, among many others, will benefit both from our mortgage interest support and from there being almost double the number of mortgage products on the market now than in October 2022. I repeat the comment of my colleague, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury: if the hon. Lady is so worried about her constituents, what better way of helping them with the cost of living than to do away with the Mayor’s ULEZ tax?

Mortgage Market

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 13th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

There are no plans to change that. Those are matters for fiscal events and for the Chancellor.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

The Tory mortgage crisis is affecting my constituents in Putney, including a group of young sharers I met this week whose landlord has had his mortgage increased and has passed the costs down to them. They have to leave their home and the area because they can no longer afford to live in south-west London. The Minister has blamed global factors again and again, but the cost of borrowing is higher here in the UK than in other developed economies. Does he agree that this is a Tory mortgage penalty—a Truss tax—and that the Government are to blame for the 13 disastrous years of housing policy that have brought us here?

[Andrew Griffith]

I do not agree with the hon. Lady, however fine her rhetoric may be. The reality is that, if we want the nation’s householders to pay less for their mortgages, we need responsible Conservative management of the economy. When it comes to her Putney constituency, the best thing that she can do, if she is on the side of those who wish to own their own home, is urge the Labour Mayor to build more homes.

Non-domestic Energy Support

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. There are substantive differences between the way the energy market works in Northern Ireland and how it works on the Great British mainland, as it were. We want to see, as far as possible, the same support in Northern Ireland as in England, Scotland and Wales. He will know that the £600 payment, which combines the £400 support that all households should have had and the £200 alternative fuel payment, is being paid out this month. That shows the degree of support for Northern Ireland. On what would happen were an Executive to be in place, although we would very much like to see that, I will not speculate on Northern Ireland politics at this stage.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

The delay in this statement has already left several businesses in Putney to go under. I am now concerned about the post office in Southfields, where the sub-postmistress thinks they will be unable to continue operating. There will be a community cost if post offices across the country go under as a result of the increase in bills. Has the Minister assessed the impact of the energy crisis on post offices? Can he confirm whether they will be included in the cut-back scheme after March? Could he consider a community impact criteria in the scheme so that there will not be a high cost for our communities in Southfields and beyond?

[James Cartlidge]

On the point of going under as a result of the delayed announcement of the results of the review, we were due to announce on the last sitting day before recess, and we have announced on the first sitting day—it is a delay, but not a huge one. In that time, those businesses, whatever they are, will have been benefiting from the current support running until the end of March. We have now given them certainty for the next 12 months with a scheme that remains generous and universal. It is not as generous as before but I can confirm that it will include the sub-post office.

Economic Situation

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I have to say that the speculation in which the hon. Lady is engaging is slightly reckless, if that is perhaps not too strong a word. We have extremely capable regulators: the Bank of England, the Prudential Regulation Authority, the Pensions Regulator and others. Their responsibility is to make sure that our financial system, including pensions, is safe and secure for our constituents. The Government have complete confidence in our regulators, and I think the House should as well.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

There has been growth since the mini-Budget: a growth in people stopping me on the street in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields to say how worried they are about their bills and rising mortgage costs. I met estate agents in Putney this week; they say that the stamp duty change will make absolutely no difference to the housing crisis in Putney. What does the Chief Secretary say to families who are looking at a £500 increase in the cost of their mortgage as a result of this failed strategy, or at having that cost passed on to them if they are renting?

[Chris Philp]

When the hon. Lady was stopped in the street, I presume that she explained the points about global interest rates increasing. When her constituents asked about energy prices, I presume that she explained to them that this Government took decisive action on our third day in office to protect our constituents from bills that could have gone up to £5,000 or £6,000 a year. I presume that she also explained that the Labour party’s plan was good only for six months, but the plan that we have put in place lasts for two years.

The Growth Plan

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Friday 23rd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The choice is indeed clear: should we back growth driven by the private sector, or do we believe that the state can tax its way to prosperity? That is a very easy choice to make, because it is clear that taxing and spending towards prosperity is a failure.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

The people of Putney, Roehampton and Southfields will see through this Budget. They will see how little it will do for them. The only growth that this “Growth Plan” will deliver is a growth in inequality. Does the Chancellor agree with his Department, which, according to reports, has conducted analysis that forecasts that the UK oil and gas producers and electricity generators will receive as much as £170 billion in excess profits over the next two years? Should they not pay their fair share?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

That figure does not relate to taxable profits here in the UK, and it is not remotely accurate.

Funeral Plan Industry

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2022 Westminster Hall

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Cummins, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) on securing this important debate on an issue that I agree needs far more attention. I am surprised that there are not more Members present, but I am delighted that we are able to debate these issues. Although they are important for the Treasury, they also go well beyond its remit and are relevant to other Departments, including the Department for Work and Pensions. There needs to be a much more joined-up approach, but I thank the hon. Lady for bringing to the attention of the House the issues raised by the collapse of Safe Hands. The issues apply to funeral plans generally and wider still to the subject of funeral poverty. I will talk about all of those issues.

I want a society in which everyone can provide a dignified funeral for their family and friends without fearing how they will pay for it or going into debt afterwards. I pay tribute to Quaker Social Action and its Down to Earth campaign for all it has been doing on funeral poverty. I am a member of the all-party parliamentary group on funerals and bereavement, and pay tribute to all the funeral directors who have been working so hard throughout covid, in really difficult and constantly changing circumstances, to provide a crucial service at a time of great need, tragedy and bereavement for so many constituents across the country.

Funeral poverty is when the price of a funeral is beyond a person’s ability to pay. It is estimated that 9% of people in the UK are in funeral poverty, so this issue affects people in all of our constituencies, but I agree with the hon. Member for Telford that we do not hear from those constituents very much. At a time of bereavement, writing to their MP about the issues they are facing is not the first thing people think of. Many people are suffering in silence, but there is so much more we could be doing to support them in their time of need.

The UK Government are legally bound by international law to respect, protect and fulfil their citizens’ right to the highest attainable standard of mental health. They cannot claim to be upholding that obligation when so many bereaved people in this country experience a significant toll on their mental health because of worries about funeral costs—worries that drive them to buy funeral plans, worries that drove those who have suffered from the Safe Hands scandal. People want to do the right thing. They do not want to be a burden to their loved ones; they want to make sure they are providing. Funeral plans, but also the high cost of funerals in general, are not enabling them to do that.

According to SunLife, funeral prices have more than doubled since 2004. The average cost of a basic funeral is now £4,056, but it is higher in London, and in other places it is considerably higher. It is a huge amount of money. In 2022, SunLife found that 17% of families experienced notable financial concerns when paying for a funeral. Those who struggled had to pay an average of £1,800. Taking on debt in different forms featured highest in how that group made up the costs. For example, 27% of people borrowed from a friend or relative, 22% maxed out a credit card, 17% paid the funeral director in instalments, and 10% borrowed money from a loan provider, such as a bank or a loan shark. Some 16% have had to sell belongings to pay for the funeral of their loved ones. Rightly, those people want to do the right thing. They want to have the most dignified funeral and ensure that they are saying goodbye in the best way, so it is understandable that they want to pay for a funeral plan, but surely there should be another way.

There are three key factors behind the rise in funeral poverty. The first is that the funeral industry is unregulated, meaning that prices can vary dramatically from one funeral director to the next. Until the recent legal order from the Competition and Markets Authority, funeral directors did not even have to display their prices to customers, and many are still failing to comply with the order, eight months on. I have done my own research and gone on the websites of funeral directors to try to compare prices, and it is really hard to do. If someone goes into a shop, they are not told, “Go and pick up whatever you want. Get the right thing and off you go, but we’re not going to tell you what the price is.” At a time of bereavement, when people do not want to be shopping around, they often rely on a word-of-mouth recommendation from someone who has used a funeral director in the past. People need more information, but it is just not there, or it is not easy to find. The CMA recommended that the Government establish an inspection and registration regime for funeral director services, but the Government have said that they will only take a co-regulatory approach with the industry, so people cannot be guaranteed what service they will get when they choose their funeral director.

Secondly, there is limited public awareness of the price differences. Many bereaved people in a state of grief will not shop around, as I have said; they will opt to get organised as quickly as possible. Thirdly, existing Government support is inadequate, and it has been for a long time. This is where the Treasury comes front and centre. In 2020-21, an average award from the funeral support payment in Scotland, and from the funeral expenses payment in the rest of the UK, was only 44% of the average cost of a basic funeral. The application process for the funeral expenses payment is complex and confusing. In the same period, only 68% of applications were successful.

The DWP established the FEP in 1989 to cover the cost of a basic funeral for those who cannot afford one, and the number of applications is rising. In 2020-21, the average award was £1,838, which falls way short of the average cost of a funeral, leaving a shortfall of thousands of pounds. Many people on low incomes, such as students and low-paid workers, are not eligible for the FEP if they are not on certain in-work benefits, and working out who is eligible and who is not is very confusing. The claimant, and often family members, need to be on certain benefits to apply, and the application process can be complex and confusing. At a time when bereaved people struggle to absorb information, they are least able to work out very complex financial procedures. The eligibility criteria need to be simplified to allow payments to reach more people.

I have in front of me a table showing the applications and awards for social fund funeral expenses payments. In 2010-11, there were 69,000 applications. By 2019-20, the figure had gone down to 37,000 applications, rising to 47,000 applications the next year. That is not an indication of less need, but of how the fund is failing people who are most in need. Despite improvements, processing times still mean that grants are often paid after a funeral has happened, resulting in people needing to commit to a funeral without knowing whether it will be funded, and without the means to raise the funeral deposit. They still have to sell their belongings, or go to a loan shark or relatives, to get the money up front, because they do not know whether they will get the funeral expenses payment afterwards, so it really defeats the point.

The FEP is made up of two parts: the cemetery or crematorium fees and doctor’s fees, and an amount towards other funeral expenses, including the funeral director’s fees. The “other funeral expenses” element of the funeral expenses payment was increased from £700 to £1,000 in April 2020—the first increase since 2003—but it still falls far short of the money needed. Accessing public health funerals, which is another option that has been mentioned already, is really difficult and has high levels of stigma. People do not feel that a public health funeral is an acceptable and dignified send-off for their relatives, but that could really change if we wanted.

What needs to happen? We need to increase the amount of the FEP and FSP to cover the actual cost of a basic funeral. We need to revise the eligibility criteria for the FEP to enable more people to access it, along the lines of the much more flexible and inclusive FSP brought in by the Scottish Government. We need to establish an independent inspection and registration regime for the funeral industry, as recommended by the CMA, leading to full-scale regulation and price controls for funerals. The prices cannot just keep on going up exponentially. We need to create statutory minimum standards for public health funeral provision. The current guidance is just that—only guidance—and it is not being followed by a significant number of local authorities.

Just imagine, if you will, Mrs Cummins—I hope I can recruit a lot of people to my campaign with this—that if someone wanted to organise a funeral for their loved one, they could go to their local council website and easily find a well signposted package for a highly dignified but affordable funeral, available to all and negotiated with local funeral directors. That would give everyone the option of not feeling the pressure to get a funeral plan, but also not having to spend ever-increasing amounts on expensive funerals. In fact, that could be the norm. It would have to be negotiated with local councils, and it could be done with the Government, local councils and industry working together. That would be a paradigm shift and would be fantastic. I would definitely opt in for that kind of funeral—one that is affordable, but dignified.

I welcome the regulation of prepaid funeral plans, but we need the Financial Conduct Authority to be proportionate in its approach to that regulation. Does the Minister know how many consumers will be left without a funeral plan should their firm not qualify for the upcoming regulation? Will the Government put in place a financial support package to protect consumers should their plan provider fail to achieve FCA authorisation?

The Safe Hands collapse must be a wake-up call, not only for the industry but for Government. I hope to see a wholly different approach, with the Government and industry working together. Funeral cost options are not clear, fair or competitive, and they take advantage of people at their most vulnerable time. Many funeral plans are ripping off people who want to do the right thing and not be a burden to their loved ones. Grief is a human right, not a luxury.

Tackling Short-term and Long-term Cost of Living Increases

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

The Queen’s Speech had two challenges. One was to tackle the cost of living crisis and the other was to tackle the climate crisis, but I feel, on behalf of my constituents in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields, that it does neither. The number of people in energy poverty across the UK has gone up from 4 million last September to more than 6 million today, and it will continue to rise. Pensioners are at the sharp end of the Tory squeeze on finances. They are paying twice as much for energy and facing the biggest real-terms cuts to the state pension in 50 years. On the other hand, energy companies have recorded record profits of £12.4 billion in the first three months of this year alone and petrol retailers are profiting from the cut in petrol and diesel duty, keeping about 2p of the 5p that should be passed on. The Government have not got a grip of these issues. We need a windfall tax on oil and gas producers’ profits to bring down bills, and an emergency Budget.

Over the past few days, Conservative MPs and Ministers have been lining up to show how out of touch they are, and it really worries me that this kind of “on yer bike” thinking is still guiding decision making. Increasing poverty is not a failure of budgeting, it is not a failure of cooking skills and it is not a failure of magically being able to get a new job.

Dan lives in Putney and he wrote to me last weekend about his dilemma. He has two young children and his wife stays at home to look after them. They cannot afford childcare. He works 40 hours a week for £9.50 an hour, and he has been offered additional hours. He could take those hours, which would mean he was working 60 hours a week and would not see as children very much. After the resulting cut in universal credit, that would give him only an extra £177 per month, the equivalent of £2.95 an hour. That is not a fair decision for him. He says that

“the system is broken for people like me”.

It is for people like Dan that the Queen’s Speech should have had more policies.

A pensioner has contacted me. She has active Crohn’s disease and she cannot afford to turn on her heating. Steve also wrote to me. He is 77 and self-employed, and his energy bills have gone up from £246 to £890. He has no idea how he will afford that.

They are just three people, but they are examples of so many among all our constituents. Wandsworth food bank says that six out of 10 parents have skipped meals in the last month to put food on the table for their children. People on the lowest incomes are the best at budgeting and the best at knowing how to make meals stretch. They cannot just work extra hours. In fact, half of all referrals to Wandsworth food banks are people in work. Their income just does not cover the essential bills. So where was the employment Bill in the Gracious Speech?

We also need to see the green homes grant return in the energy Bill. We need to see a retrofit revolution really tackling the climate emergency—one that covers all homes and that will be there for 10 years or more. The current boiler upgrade scheme is the absolute least we can do. We should do so much more. On behalf of my constituents, I demand more action on the climate emergency, more action on employment rights and more action to tackle the cost of living crisis. I hope that all MPs will vote for the windfall tax tonight.

Financial Statement

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

We have actually invested more than £200 million a year in the holiday activity and food programme to provide both food and enriching activities to hundreds of thousands of children across the country.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

In Putney, 31% of children live in poverty. The biggest measure that the Chancellor could bring in is scrapping the two-child benefit cap, which is cruel and leaves children in poverty. Has he assessed the two-child benefit cap, and when will he scrap it?

[Rishi Sunak]

I am pleased that there are now 300,000 fewer children in absolute poverty compared with 2010. The best way to make sure that children do not grow up in poverty is to ensure that they do not grow up in a workless household, and there are 700,000 fewer of those today as a result of the actions of this and previous Conservative Governments.

Tackling Fraud and Preventing Government Waste

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

Lord Agnew did not resign from the board of a bank; he resigned as a Government Minister because of

“schoolboy errors…indolence and ignorance.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 January 2022; Vol. 818, c. 20-21.]

How does the hon. Gentleman explain to constituents in Thirsk and Malton that they will be £1,175 worse off in April because of the energy price hike and the tax increases from this Government, who all the while are giving money away to criminals? That is why Labour has brought our motion to the House.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

The shadow Chancellor is giving an excellent speech exposing the systemic problems with the Government’s schemes. Does she share my concern that the emergency procurement procedures and the crony contracts given out for personal protective equipment meant that £280 million-worth of substandard masks were contracted for, with £100 million on unusable gowns and £200 million to Conservative party friends and donors, yet those shady and untransparent emergency procurement procedures are still being used?

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. What we are talking about would be appalling even if it were a one-off example of waste, but it has become the hallmark of this Government that they waste money and treat taxpayers’ cash with a lack of respect: £13 billion was wasted on failed defence procurements, including £4.8 billion of taxpayers’ money handed out for cancelled contracts. If that waste of public money had been avoided, more money would surely have been available for our armed forces, whose budget was cut by the Chancellor in October.

As my hon. Friend says, that just scratches the surface. Some £3.5 billion went on crony contracts, £300,000 went from the levelling-up fund to save a Tory peer’s driveway and £500,000 went on the Foreign Secretary’s flight to Australia, ignoring her own advice from 2009:

“Every public sector worker should feel personal responsibility for the money they spend and the money they save. They should spend taxpayers’ money with at least the care they would give to their own.”

I do not know what care the Foreign Secretary gives to her own money, but I would not spend £500,000 of taxpayers’ money like that. Some £900,000 was spent on working out whether a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland was remotely viable and cost-effective. I could have given that advice for nothing.

It all adds up to a total disrespect for taxpayers’ money—and it all matters, because if a Government Minister wastes money by letting it slip through the net into the hands of fraudsters and wastes huge sums of taxpayers’ money on vanity projects, they have to raise taxes to find the money. The fact that taxes are at a 70-year high is the other side of the coin from the waste that we are talking about. With one hand, the Government raise taxes; with the other, they throw away taxpayers’ money.

Labour would treat taxpayers’ money with respect. We care about value for money because we respect taxpayers and we respect our public services, which have been starved of funds by 12 years of Conservative Governments. We want to break our economy out of the cycle of low growth and high taxes. We will build a stronger economy, in which prosperity and security are enjoyed all across our country. That is why we will tax fairly, spend wisely and get our economy firing on all cylinders. People are facing a cost of living crisis. Labour’s answer is not to dip into their pockets even more or waste their money on vanity projects or fraud. As the Conservatives ask families and businesses to pay even more, the very least the Government can do is try to get their stolen money back. That is why I urge all Members to support the motion.