Coventry City Football Club

Debate between Geoffrey Robinson and Bob Ainsworth

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ainsworth]

I broadly agree with the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones); I have never disagreed with him. In the past, under previous leadership, perhaps members of Coventry city council have not agreed with that line. However, if the club needs to own its stadium, it needs to pay for it, does it not? Does it expect the stadium to be given to it for nothing? That is what I am asking, because I believe that what we are looking at is an attempted land grab. Figures such as £7 million are being floated by Sisu’s fans for a stadium that cost more than £100 million to provide. Property markets have gone the way that they have, and the economy is not in the same condition as it was, so people will make a loss, but to float derisory figures such as that is an indication that there is an attempt at making a killing at the taxpayer’s expense.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

I am glad to hear my right hon. Friend speaking with such passion on an area that we have not seen him taking an interest in at all for many, many years. Where he and I would utterly agree is that we want to get the club back to Coventry. That means that we have to create a new sense of good will between the various parties that, at the moment, are locked in the most antagonistic struggle that I have seen in many years, and that I have certainly never seen in Coventry before. It cannot be just one-sided—there are always two sides. I ask him this: does he really think it helps to get the atmosphere that we want, and to get the club back, when he launches these bitter personal attacks on Joy Seppala on one side, as opposed to seeing—

084 Telephone Numbers (NHS)

Debate between Geoffrey Robinson and Bob Ainsworth

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Mr Streeter, for presiding over my debate.

In 2008, in response to a consultation, the Department of Health concluded that for some individuals on low incomes and unable to access a fixed line, the use of NHS 084 telephone numbers constituted a significant proportion of their weekly income. In April 2010, as a result of that conclusion, the Department amended the general medical service contract and the personal medical service agreements for GP practices to ensure that

“persons will not pay more to make relevant calls to the practice than they would to make equivalent calls to a geographical number.”

GP practices were given until April 2011 to comply with the amended terms, but unfortunately, now, nine months after the deadline, Which? and other organisations estimate that 13% of surgeries in England continue to use 084 or 085 numbers that cost more than the equivalent geographical call.

One might think that as the amendment was made at the end of the previous Labour Government and we now have a new Conservative-led coalition, there would have been a change of policy, but that is denied. The Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) said, on 12 July:

“It is absolutely clear that there is no distinction between landlines, mobiles or payphones. The directions are very clear that patients should not expect to be charged any more.”—[Official Report, 12 July 2011; Vol. 531, c. 150.]

So we can only conclude that 13% or thereabouts of GPs, including at the Crossley practice, which serves a deprived part of my constituency, and at least one other service in Coventry, are in breach of their own contracts, which were agreed by the previous Government and are supported by the current one. We have to ask why they are being allowed to continue to do that.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Ainsworth]

If my hon. Friend can wait, I will try to give way later. A number of Members want to intervene.

The GPs argue that they have entered into contracts that give them enhanced telephony solutions, and that they cannot get out of them. That is the kind of thing that they say to justify their non-compliance, but none of it is true. All the arguments are flawed, and there is the simple solution of migrating to an 034 number, which provides the same supposedly enhanced telephony services. As an aside, I will say that what we mean by such services is call queuing and call diversion options. When in the middle ages people fell foul of the inquisition, they were shown the instruments of torture but not made to pay for them, but people are now being made to pay for these supposedly enhanced telephony solutions.

Public Spending (Coventry)

Debate between Geoffrey Robinson and Bob Ainsworth

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

I am grateful to you, Mrs Riordan, for chairing the debate and to Mr Speaker and his office for agreeing to it. It is a very important debate, in the course of which I may be joined by two other MPs. I think that both were meant to have approached the Chair to say that if time permits—I hope it does—they would like to say a few words. We will of course leave adequate time for the Minister to reply.

The occasion of the debate arises from some work done two or three months ago, shortly after the Budget came out, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). She sought to show that the Budget measures, far from being progressive, as the Government had tried to imply, and far from being gender-neutral, were in fact very regressive and would impact much more severely on women than on men. The work she did initially in pursuing those points to great effect against the Government was then taken up and taken further in some excellent research work undertaken at Warwick university by two senior researchers there, Mary-Ann Stephenson and James Harrison. I am sure their work will increasingly be seen as a landmark in taking forward the points that were made by my right hon. Friend shortly after the Budget came out.

Coventry was a very suitable place to use as a test case for examination of the impact of the Budget measures on women, because in Coventry the pay gap between men and women—between the genders—is already 10 points higher than the national average. Also, as we all know, the bulk of the cuts in the immediate future must come in the public sector, and in Coventry no fewer than 78% of the city council staff are women. We can therefore measure in a very significant way, across a major part of the economy in the west midlands—the local and the regional economy—what the effect of the cuts will be. I would like to deal with each point in turn, quantifying things in so far as that is possible. We can then look forward to hearing exactly what the Minister has to say in response. But if we take the cuts as a whole, it is obvious, given that 78% of the city council staff are women, that the impact will be worst on them; they will feel it most. That is a simple fact. The cuts will disproportionately fall on women.

The child care tax credit is being cut from 80% to 70% of child care costs. Obviously, women will also suffer disproportionately as a result of that. Together with increased child care costs, that might lead to lower rates of employment for women and further increase the pay gap. That has not been quantified yet, but work is continuing. Such is the interest in the issue at the national level that when a colleague and I co-hosted a meeting to discuss it, the Members who joined us in the Committee Room came not only from the west midlands, but from all parties right across the spectrum. The room was full to capacity, and there was standing room only; it is not often that that happens in a public meeting in a Committee Room.

The second issue is housing. Single women are the main recipients of housing benefits; again, that is pretty obvious. In Coventry, about 4,360 single women and 2,085 women in couples claim local housing allowance for private rented accommodation. LHA coverage has been cut and now applies only to the bottom 30%, rather than the bottom 50% of households. It will also be linked to the consumer prices index, rather than to local rents, which will almost certainly mean—this is why the Government have also chosen CPI for their pensions calculations—that its value will go down over time. Again, women make up by far the greatest proportion of those who take up this benefit, so they will, yet again, suffer disproportionately.

This time, we can put a figure on the cost, and perhaps the Minister can confirm or contradict my figures in her reply. In the short term, the changes will cost those who are affected in Coventry between £8 and £15 a week. If that is not right, perhaps the Minister will correct me. Again, however, those are hidden effects, and they are not spelled out in any of the Government’s background notes to the Budget or anywhere else in their calculations. Those hidden effects, which the Government have tried to cover up, are impacting directly on women in Coventry and, therefore, on their families.

On incomes and poverty, it is pretty obvious that women are poorer than men—that is a statement of fact. As I have discussed, they also get a higher percentage of their income from benefits. For example, 33,595 households in Coventry receive tax credits, and 35,000 receive out-of-work benefits. The proposed changes will, once again, impact on women. The changes include cuts to benefits to pregnant women and families with new babies, the freezing of child benefit, cuts to child care tax credits and cuts to the numbers who are eligible for tax credits. Lone parents will be required to seek work once their eldest child is just five. Those changes will have big impacts, and I will quantify them in a moment.

Disability living allowance is being cut by 20%. Someone claiming for a person who loses DLA will also lose carer’s allowance. It is a pretty heartless Government who attack the most vulnerable in our society in that way. It almost seems that the Government have zeroed in on women to prove the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford.

The benefit and tax changes in the 2010 Budget will cost women in Coventry £29 million, which is an awful lot of money. On a broad calculation, that is more than £180 per woman per year, so the Budget will have a significant impact. However, the impact on the budget of the average family and the average woman was set out nowhere in the Government’s figures. The cost to men will be half the cost to women. Again, I would be happy for the Minister to try to challenge my figures—if she can.

On education, many women have to balance a job with looking after the kids and getting them to school. Like most authorities—I do not think Coventry has been unduly affected in this respect—Coventry has had its schools grant cut. The 24% cut to the schools budget has resulted in a cut to special needs and mental health support in schools—that is where the impact will be most heavily felt. In no sense is that to be taken as a criticism of the council. Indeed, I am pleased to say that in certain parts of the report, the authors go out of their way to say just how responsibly the council is trying to carry through the cuts. The council appreciates that the cuts have to be made and is trying to make them in the least regressive way it can to protect children, women and other vulnerable sectors of society. It is not picking out those with special needs, and nor is it in any sense exaggerating the cuts that have to be made; it is simply making the cuts that are necessary to stay within the law.

In passing, I have heard it said—I hope the Minister can discount this at once, and she probably can—that the Government could be in breach of Equality Act 2006 and, on an individual basis, the European convention on human rights, given the effects of so much of the 2010 Budget. I am not clear whether test cases are being brought, although I did try to find out. However, it would be interesting to learn from the Minister whether any are being brought and if so, how far they have got, because some of the Government’s measures are clearly so discriminatory—as well as being at least questionable under the terms of the 2006 Act—that they could be subject to judicial review, as I hope they will be.

On violence against women, the report produced a figure that shocked everybody—from my researchers to the report’s researchers. Let me give the numbers, shocking though they are. Some 30,397 women in Coventry are likely to have been raped or sexually abused at some point in their lifetime. If we remember that there are 310,000 people in the whole of Coventry, and we divide that by half or slightly more to reflect the percentage of women in the total population, it is clear that that statistic for the likely number of women who will face some form of sexual abuse at some point in their lifetime is frightening and really rather offensive. Some 38,537 women are likely to experience some level domestic violence in their lifetime. Again, I do not think the researchers wanted to attach any undue importance to the exactitude of their estimates, but the broad measure is shocking.

The provision that was made to deal with that situation was already inadequate, although heaven knows we pushed for a higher level of support from the council and the Labour Government—I am not pretending that the Labour party did a marvellous job. There are eight specialist domestic abuse officers to deal with the situation I have described.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

I have been waiting for my hon. Friend to get on to the section of the report that deals with violence against women, because it really is most disturbing. Organisations such as the Coventry rape and sexual abuse centre are worried about funding, although the council has agreed to give it part-time funding, which is not secure. However, it is not just a matter of the sharp end of abuse against women. If women become more dependent on men as a result of the cuts, some will be inclined to stay in homes where they are potentially vulnerable and where they may be abused. That is clearly brought out in the relevant section of this first-class piece of work.

[Mr Robinson]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who is spot on. The cuts to housing benefit will make it harder for women to move from the area to get away from their attacker. That is precisely the point made in the report, and my right hon. Friend rightly emphasised it recently in the press in Coventry.

Education Capital Programmes (Coventry)

Debate between Geoffrey Robinson and Bob Ainsworth

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) on securing this debate, and I thank Mr Speaker for granting it and the officers who preside here today. It is a timely debate for Coventry. It follows an earlier debate, in which we tried to explain the particular difficulties faced by Coventry. I am pleased to see the Minister here today; I know that he is well aware of the situation in Coventry. It was dreadfully compounded by the fact that, for whatever reason—it was not entirely the council’s fault, although it was partly responsible—the city failed to get a single school under Building Schools for the Future. BSF said that much needed to be done, even in the secondary sector. As a result, the overall programme, including that for primary schools, has to be increased if we are to overcome the terrible disadvantage that we incurred.

That was all the sadder because we were on the verge of signing those contracts. If they had been signed, we would be going ahead with three schools, two in my constituency and one in my hon. Friend’s constituency, behind which we could bring on the other schools. As it is, rebuilding in Coventry has come to a virtual halt, leaving schools such as Woodlands in my constituency suffering as a consequence. The central block of the school, which is rather inappropriately known as the Gibraltar block—it is anything but firm or solid—is propped up by scaffolding. Last week, we had to close the block because even the scaffolding had begun to collapse under the wear and tear of the past five years. That really is not good enough. That primary school has produced no fewer than three members of last two Lions rugby football teams. It has a great sporting tradition. That scaffolding around the main block is a great deterrent to a very fine school in a very good part of Coventry.

That problem may be resolved as the school has now chosen to become an academy, and I hope that that will loosen up funds and speed up the repair work. I recognise that that will take money from where it needed elsewhere in the city. It is a pre-emptive strike, but what was it supposed to do? On reflection, it is rather sad that the only way in which it can overcome the sudden chopping by this Government of a rebuilding programme and get something in advance of everyone else is to become an academy. That sole reason has been the driving force behind its decision to become an academy.

Ahead of or along with the James report, may we please have a clear programme for Coventry’s schools, especially its primary schools? That would be very welcome. At the moment, we are in no-man’s land; we cannot go forward and we cannot go back and the situation is deteriorating. I have mentioned two schools in the primary sector in this marvellous debate, but we could talk about all of the schools in the city. We do not have to be parochial about it.

Two schools need to be demolished. The estimated cost to rebuild them is £20 million, so we are looking at £10 million a school under the new regime. I am the first to admit that the old regime was too cumbersome and took too long. I fought with my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), who was Secretary of State at the time, over the matter. I said to him, “Look, this is taking too long. We must get on with this.” None the less, I knew that the work would get done. I did not think that it would come to a grinding halt. It was just taking longer than it should. What the present Government have done is to bring the work to a grinding halt.

We also need two new primary schools. Fortunately, this is a happy period for us in that birth rates are up and migration is in favour of Coventry. Something in the region of 200 places will be needed by 2015. Again, where will we find that money? Time is also a factor. Even under the accelerated programme, of which I am all in favour, it takes engineers and architects three to four years to plan a project. If it is to be done to cost and on time, a good deal of planning is needed. When will we have the certainty that we can go ahead with such a project? When will we have adequate funds to meet the needs of the children who are coming into school? They do not want to go into over-crowded and unsatisfactory buildings.

As a minimum, we require £54 million for our building programme, which will take us through to 2015. Will the Minister tell us when we will be able to access such funds? I would also like the local council to be a lot more active. It has not been the most dynamic council in securing money for such purposes. Nevertheless, it is finding it extremely difficult to deal with the delays. I know that the present Secretary of State wanted to avoid them, but that is what we face.

Remarkably, Coventry council initially took the view that if it did not criticise the Government for cancelling BSF, and behaved responsibly and showed that it understood the difficulties of the Government, it would do better financially. Of course it has not; if anything it has done worse than expected. The leader of the council, John Mutton, now says:

“The antics of this government are appalling. Here we are in June and we still do not have a clue what we are going to have by way of a budget this year.”

Councillor Kelly, who is in charge of the education brief, makes similar remarks about the uncertainty over the Government’s intentions.

The position of Grange Farm school in Allesley is particularly concerning. It is in need of immediate improvement. Children can be scarred for life. Their impressions in primary school are vital. Will the Minister specifically respond to that concern?

In conclusion, the Coventry building programme has been cut to the bone and is full of uncertainty. The number of children is rising and we need new schools. Woodlands school in my constituency needs to be extensively refurbished. Perhaps funds could be released for it alone. It has had scaffolding around it for five years. One year into this present Government and little progress has been made in Coventry.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

rose—

High-Speed Rail

Debate between Geoffrey Robinson and Bob Ainsworth

Thursday 31st March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Robinson]

I do not think I can talk to that point. We come back to the fact that it can be done much more cheaply—I hope the Minister is listening. RP2 should be analysed and developed properly. It can also be done much earlier. In this period of difficult recovery, we need projects that generate growth and employment now. This is not going to come in—on the best of cases—until 2026 to Birmingham, and then it goes another 20 years beyond that. That is far too late. I was speaking to Geoff Inskip, managing director of Centro the other day, and he said we cannot wait so long, we need the increasing capacity now, as soon as possible. He is convinced that four-tracking between Coventry and Birmingham should be proceeded with forthwith. That is the first step towards RP2 and it should be taken now; we should not wait until 2026. That is an absurd proposition for meeting the country’s capacity needs for rail transport.

[Mr Ainsworth]

By raising the historical context, my hon. Friend is making a good case against every major infrastructure project that has ever been built. All the Victorian railway lines went broke; the channel tunnel never made any money; HS1 has just been exposed by my hon. Friend. Is he suggesting that we should never have built any railways, we should not have built the channel tunnel and we should not have built HS1? He appears to be saying that we can squeeze yet more—and there is a law of diminishing returns—out of the existing infrastructure. We have had years of disruption on the west coast main line for an upgrade. He is saying that huge benefit can be gained by yet more disruption to the existing lines.

[Mr Robinson]

That point was made earlier. My right hon. Friend asserts one thing that leads me to assert another. I believe it can be developed in that way. I believe it because the Atkins report, which also made a projection for the HS2 line, said it and worked it out in detail. It very clearly dealt with pinch points, length of trains, length of carriages, and calculated the number of problems it would create in disturbance on the line. We want it worked out and properly investigated by an independent body. That is what we need. Nobody is against it; we all want to extend the rail line. We all want to extend rail capacity and increase speeds.