BBC

Debate between Gloria De Piero and Helen Jones

Monday 15th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones]

I will come in a moment to that very good point. Let us consider how else the Government have dealt with these issues. All people of pension age are entitled to a free bus pass, which was brought in by the Labour Government in 2001 and extended to cover the whole of England in 2008. The scheme is currently underfunded to the tune of about £652 million, because the Government keep reimbursing people based on 2005-06 fares. How long before it disappears?

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

A manifesto promise broken by this Government reads:

“We will maintain all other pensioner benefits, including free bus passes, eye tests, prescriptions and TV licences, for the duration of this parliament.”

Does my hon. Friend agree that this broken promise is letting down not just older people, but trust in politics?

[Helen Jones]

I absolutely agree. We can see a pattern in the agreement with the BBC. The BBC was to take on the funding of free TV licences as the Government gradually withdrew their contribution, and then it would take on all such funding from 2020-21. In 2017-18, the cost of those licences was about £655 million. Last year the Government paid £468 million from the Department for Work and Pensions, and this year they will pay £247 million. That is an unsustainable funding model, and the Government knew that, or at least they ought to have known that—if they did not, then they are even more incompetent than I thought— when they entered into the agreement with the BBC.

To fund the licences, the BBC would need to close down channels or radio stations. A number of columnists have written about the money paid to the BBC’s top earners. Some are grossly overpaid, and in my view—this is entirely subjective—some of the so-called talent are not very talented. However, restricting the top rate of pay to £100,000 would not meet the cost of the licences. Again, the Government must have known that, but they want to deflect the blame. They knew there would have been an outcry had they tried to amend or abolish the scheme, so they sent it off to the BBC. When the changes were made, they said, “Nothing to do with us, mate.” They are the “not me, guv” Government—the Arthur Daleys of public administration.

It is the Government who made the decision on TV licences, and it will be really damaging to older people in this country. If someone cannot get out and about, and no one visits them, the TV is their companion. If someone cannot afford to go out and socialise, the TV is their entertainment, their window on the world and a way of keeping their mind active. Unfortunately, that is the lot of many older people in this country. We do not respect or value our older people as we should. I declare an interest, because I am heading that way myself.

Public Sector Pay

Debate between Gloria De Piero and Helen Jones

Monday 4th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones]

I could not have put it better myself. The result was that one of the Conservative Government’s first actions was to announce a two-year freeze on public sector pay from 2011-12. They followed that up with an announcement that public sector pay would be capped at 1% for the following four years and, in his 2015 summer Budget, the Chancellor announced a further four years of the cap, saying that he would fund public sector workforces for a pay award of 1%. That did not mean, of course, that everyone would get even 1%: a letter from the right hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands), then a Treasury Minister, made it clear that the money was first to be used—as if—to address recruitment and retention pressures in the system: “there should not be an expectation that every worker will receive a 1% award”. What that meant, of course, was that those people in areas where there were retention pressures received less, and those in areas where there were many people on the minimum wage—46,000 in local government alone—who had rightly to receive a pay rise, received less. Even if a public sector worker got the 1% pay rise, their wages were still declining in real terms. A public sector worker on the median income who had their pay determined by the pay cap would, by 2016, have lost £3,875 in real terms. Real-terms losses of between £2,000 and £3,000 are common throughout the public sector.

A midwife on band 6 will have seen a real-terms decline in her wages of 12.1%. Midwives are leaving the profession at a previously unseen rate. They are leaving the register in serious numbers. A teacher outside London will have lost 10.4% and a band 5 nurse will have lost 11.9%. If the pay cap continues until 2020, there will be a further real-terms decline in wages. A social worker will lose £3,533. A border guard—I thought the Government wanted to secure our borders—will lose £2,520. A firefighter will lose £2,766. The reason for those falls is not hard to find: while wages have been stagnant or hardly rising at all, prices have been rising at a much faster rate.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an incredible speech, and I thank her for giving way. On the point about rising prices and falling wages, I want to tell her about a police officer who contacted me. He said that after 20 years of service, he never thought he would be in a position where he was struggling to look after his family. He ended with a question:

“Do we really want a police force that is stressed out and humiliated by not being able to look after their family?”

The clear and simple answer to that is no, we do not.

[Helen Jones]

Indeed. The situation my hon. Friend mentioned is true of many people in the public sector. Between 2010 and 2016, food prices went up by 8.5%, electricity went up by 27.7% and gas went up by 24%. These are not things that people can do without; they are essential for a decent life. Note that I am not talking about an extravagant life; I am simply talking about a decent life.