Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Graham P Jones and Clive Lewis

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Graham P. Jones]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. If the gambling industry was so concerned about employees, perhaps it ought to have given consideration to the number of single-staffed bookmakers that have arisen because of FOBTs. We are talking about young and vulnerable female staff working late at night in the bookmaking industry. It is too late for the industry to complain about the staff now when it did not care about them in the first place. Does he share that view?

[Clive Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes his excellent point well, and I agree with it entirely.

Page 11 of that report describes what “at risk of closure” actually means. It means that once the £2 cap is implemented, just under half of those shops would make a net annual profit of £20,000 or less. Are we seriously to believe that a net profit of £20,000 a year is terminal? KPMG did not think so. The report concludes that these shops would not close, but would simply be “less profitable”. The threat was not to our constituents’ jobs, but to corporate profits. Can the Minister assure Members that the Treasury will never again seek to justify resisting evidence-based policy on the basis of secret reports and clandestine meetings?

By choosing to take such an approach, the Treasury ignored the recommendation in the May 2018 gambling review that the £2 limit should be adopted within nine to 12 months. Let us remember that that policy was designed to reduce the harm caused by gambling addiction. The evidence of harm associated with FOBTs is overwhelming, with that harm disproportionately felt by the poorest in our society. Put simply, there are twice as many betting shops in the poorest 55 boroughs of the UK as there are in the most affluent 115.

Even in narrow economic terms, viewing the delay as merely a reduction in tax income to the Exchequer makes little sense. As we have heard today, the social cost of addiction, crime and debt that accompanies the ever-increasing losses on FOBTs is estimated by the Centre for Economics and Business Research to cost the UK £1.5 billion a year. It has an impact on many aspects of social welfare, including employment, mental health and financial stability, so the awful human cost, about which we have heard so powerfully, is matched by an economic cost that we all bear as a society and as an economy as well. Perhaps the Minister would address whether the Government have factored into any of their fiscal calculations the prospect of alleviating the cost to public services, given a decline in gambling-related harm and crime?

Of course, the most important reason for an immediate stake reduction is a moral one—an issue of social justice that must be resolved. Lives are being destroyed, and this policy change is a milestone on our journey to tackle this harm. Labour Members are proud be part of taking that step forward, and we will keep striving to carry on making these changes until eventually we get to the bottom of what the gambling industry actually is: something that preys on people’s vulnerabilities. Labour Members recognise that quite clearly.

Yemen

Debate between Graham P Jones and Clive Lewis

Thursday 30th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for obtaining the debate. It is important that we debate this issue, and do so frequently, such is the scale of the catastrophe. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), the Chair of the International Development Committee, for his speech, which was very illuminating, very focused, and spoke to the heart of the problem.

There are two issues—today’s crisis and tomorrow’s crisis. I believe there is a consensus in the House that today’s crisis—the blockade—must end. We must help the people of Yemen right now, irrespective of all the other issues. This is about life and death and nothing else, and that is what we should be focused on. In today’s crisis, it is imperative that the UK Government, other Governments, and all our agencies, bring pressure to bear so that the blockade is lifted, allowing aid into Yemen, so that those people in Yemen can be relieved of their suffering.

Some issues transcend today’s crisis and tomorrow’s crisis, and the blame for them cannot be laid at anyone’s door—local warlords; fights over economic assets, including oil, within the country; roadblocks; illegal taxes; theft of aid. It is a complex situation, which we must understand in order to prevent tomorrow’s crisis, because we do not want a crisis tomorrow. We must try to resolve the situation in Yemen so that the country has a future and is not in eternal crisis. That requires the conditions that people have spoken about—primarily, it requires peace. In requiring peace, and if we are to find a long-term solution, we must look at the circumstances that led to what is happening now.

I will mention some important issues that have not been raised. The Gulf Co-operation Council and the Gulf countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, were the largest donors to Yemen. They remain so today, and will continue to be so in the future. What dwarfs that fact is that what Yemen really needs is a better relationship with Saudi Arabia. The border is currently closed because of the Houthis; one of the biggest elements of Yemen’s economy is the remittances from the 1.5 million Yemeni workers who work in Saudi Arabia. They no longer work in Saudi Arabia because of this conflict; they are victims of it. Open trade has ended. The economy in Yemen is suffering. We need a relationship between Saudi Arabia—the principal partner of Yemen—and Yemen, and that is part of the future. That is part of the peace-building process.

But what has led to this conflict, and why has Saudi Arabia taken the action that it has? Although I do not agree with the blockade, I believe that we need to understand the motivation for it. Many speakers have referred to the rocket fired on 4 November, but that is only one rocket. I thought there were 54, but I am now told—and I stand to be corrected—that there have been 80 rockets. The original rockets, with a range of 1,000 km, were Scuds provided by North Korea, but we now understand that in the latest development, the rockets that are being provided into the area or supplied to the Houthis are Iranian-made—they are coming from Tehran.

If we are to resolve this situation, there needs to be demilitarisation. UN resolution 2216, which is at the heart of this, says that the Houthis must withdraw from all occupied areas; that they must relinquish all arms and military assets; that they must refrain from provocation; and that they must enter peace talks, and there are sanctions on individuals because of the actions that they have taken in the name of the Houthi-Saleh alliance. Let us look at what happened when resolution 2216 went through the United Nations, which has 15 voting members. We say that there is no alliance, and we talk about chaos, but the world was clear. Fourteen members voted for the resolution, and only one member—the Russian Federation—abstained, presumably on the principle of the intervention in Syria. No members voted against. The world was united in condemning the Houthis.

Incursions are among the provocations that Saudi Arabia faces. As I mentioned in an intervention, on the internet there are a plethora of videos showing Houthis engaging in extreme violence—killing Saudi Arabian citizens, attacking schools and killing Saudi Arabian armed forces personnel—inside Saudi Arabia. A violence surrounds the Houthis.

I was fortunate enough to meet the Iranians at the Inter-Parliamentary Union conference in St Petersburg, where they were asked about the arms that are currently in Yemen. Although the Iranians admitted that there were Iranian arms in Yemen, they said that those arms were being supplied by Hezbollah, not Iran. [Interruption.] I thought for a moment that the Minister was going to ask me to give way.

There is real concern about the evolving situation in north Yemen and the fact that the Houthis still will not come to the table, even after 70 accords and agreements. An empty chair is waiting for them, and they will not sit in it. They have no excuse for failing to engage with a process that would afford them peace talks and a path to the future prosperity of their people.

Why should we be concerned? In the BBC documentary that was filmed undercover in Sana’a, we see oppression, and we see the posters going up. The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield mentioned children chanting “Death to America”, and said that that was some sort of reprisal. I think he omitted the remainder of the words on those posters and the chant that the schoolchildren were forced to sing. The chant is: “Death to America! Death to Israel! Curses upon the Jews!” I do not see that as a step along the pathway to peace, and I begin to understand why the Houthis’ chair at the table is empty. What has Israel to do with this conflict, and why should there be a curse on the Jews? How is that relevant to this conflict? It is not.

There are many other points I could make, but I want to wrap up and allow others to speak. The Houthis must be forced to come to the table, otherwise we will not get peace. Removing the blockade and sending in as much aid as we want may solve today’s crisis, but it will not solve tomorrow’s. Tomorrow’s crisis has to be solved by diplomacy, and that means everybody getting around the table and achieving demilitarisation. People in this House and across the world have to accept and face up to the difficulties in Yemen and start to meet the challenges.

It has been suggested today that the United States should not sell defence missile systems to Saudi Arabia. But the US Patriot missile system is a defence battery, and the 80 missiles fired by the Houthis were shot down by Patriot missile systems supplied by the United States. Is this House really saying that the United States should not have sold the missile defence systems that were used to shoot down the rockets that were fired on 4 November? I do not think so. People need to accept that the situation is very complicated. Finally, we need the Houthis to come to the table.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Although I accept that this debate on Yemen is worthy and important, the two debates that come afterwards—one of which, on RBS and the Global Restructuring Group, I am sponsoring—are also critical. A lot of people on both sides of the House want to speak in the debate that I am sponsoring, and the guillotine as it is today will leave insufficient time to give the subject the due and proper attention. With that in mind, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am prepared to pull my debate if you can speak to the Leader of the House to secure more substantial time for it.