Oral Answers to Questions
Grahame Morris Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
We want to ensure that any partner we work with is exhibiting all behaviours needed to get good things to happen, so, absolutely, that is our policy and it is the policy of the organisations we work with.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Harriett Baldwin
Many Presidents across many African countries support a range of different teams, and this is a huge part of the work we do because it touches on so many young people as well. In the light of Soccer Aid last year, I pay tribute to the President of Gambia. Of course DFID has a range of programmes in Gambia, but through Soccer Aid we were able to raise lots of money from football fans, and I think everyone should welcome that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Grahame Morris Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My right hon. and learned Friend started by saying that there are a considerable number of views across this House. It is precisely because of that that we will be undertaking the discussions with parliamentarians that I said last night would happen. He talks about the possible extension of article 50. Of course, article 50 cannot be extended by the UK; it has to be extended in consultation and agreement with the European Union. The Government’s policy is that we are leaving the European Union on 29 March. The EU would extend article 50 only if it was clear that there was a plan that was moving toward an agreed deal. The crucial element of ensuring that we deliver on Brexit is being able to get the agreement of this House to the deal that will deliver on the referendum result, lead to the UK leaving the European Union, and recognise what lay behind people voting to leave.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Oral Answers to Questions
Grahame Morris Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I recognise the concern that my hon. Friend has expressed about this issue. The question of land reform was one I raised with President Ramaphosa when I visited South Africa in August. We recognise the concern there is and the need there is for land reform, but President Ramaphosa has consistently stated that violent and illegal land seizures will not be tolerated and that the process should be orderly within South African laws and take into consideration both the social and economic impact. We want to see a process that is fair and, while it recognises the need to deliver on land reform, does that in a way that is fair to all South African citizens.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Public Sector Pay Policy
Grahame Morris Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Thank you for your courtesy, Mr Owen. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I thank my good friend the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) for securing this timely and important debate and for setting out with such clarity the arguments on public sector pay and properly funding the Departments. He did a fantastic job.
During the Whit recess I visited my local HMRC tax office in Peterlee. I thank Linda Hughes, the full-time officer, and the Public and Commercial Services Union local branch reps and local management for facilitating my instructive visit. Valuable work is done at the office in Peterlee, but it is threatened with closure. Almost 500 workers will be relocated, some temporarily to the Washington office, and some will face a considerable additional commute to Newcastle, where jobs are to be centralised, if they want to maintain their employment.
The purpose of my visit was to listen to the concerns of PCS members—the employees—but I saw in the office on the PCS noticeboard a sample of the figures for workers who had lost income because of Government pay restraint. On average, they had lost about £3,000 a year directly as a result of the imposition of the civil service pay cap. Perhaps if the Minister were to visit my constituency and meet some of the workers, he might understand the value of public sector workers and consider paying them properly.
Since the economic crash in 2008, public sector workers have been subject to unjustifiable pay constraint policies designed to make them pay for a financial crisis not of their making. A Government Back Bencher said earlier that that had made a substantial contribution to deficit reduction, but surely if we properly funded Departments—HMRC in particular—we could have achieved that deficit reduction through many other avenues, not least closing tax loopholes and making individuals and corporations who are avoiding their taxes pay their fair share.
Chris Stephens
Does the hon. Gentleman share my frustration that there are 4,000-plus employees chasing DWP social security fraud, estimated at £1.2 billion, and in HMRC’s wealth unit there are fewer than 500 employees chasing tax avoidance of £70 billion?
Grahame Morris
The hon. Gentleman is correct. I hope the Minister reflects on that and applies resources appropriately so that we can recover for the Treasury the maximum revenue from those who are avoiding paying their fair share of tax.
Grahame Morris
I will. I cannot refuse the hon. Gentleman as he gave way so many times.
Luke Graham
I thank the hon. Gentleman. I acknowledge that there is still work to be done on our tax code, but does he recognise that since 2010 a number of measures have been brought in to close tax loopholes, which have yielded some £5 billion in extra tax returns and tax revenue?
Grahame Morris
I recognise that efforts have been made to close the tax gap, but the publication of the Panama papers and various revelations indicate that it is much larger than had been previously estimated. In my humble opinion, it is counterproductive to get rid of skilled and experienced tax collectors employed at offices such as Peterlee in my constituency who have expertise in this field. We would be better off retaining that expertise and allowing those collectors to get on with the job we have trained them to do.
The imposition of pay restraint has compounded issues raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow South West and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) such as the generational pay gap and equal pay. The system includes discriminatory practices nearly 50 years after the Equal Pay Act 1970 and any Government should be ashamed that such problems are still evident.
It is clear from independent research undertaken by the Centre for Labour and Social Studies on behalf of the PCS that any increases in public sector pay would have to come from the resource departmental expenditure limits—the departmental budgets for current spending. It is disingenuous of Government to suggest that pay claims—even those recommended by independent pay review bodies—will be funded when the departmental expenditure limits do not reflect those awards. Departments as a whole will therefore suffer real-terms cuts to their resource departmental expenditure limits up to 2020. That falls way short of what is needed for a 5% nominal pay rise in the current year, and it fails to accommodate annual pay rises of 1%.
Given current projections of departmental expenditure, the research concludes clearly that any pay rise for public sector workers across listed Departments would have to come from cuts to jobs or to public services. It is a great deception. We must be careful with our language in terms of deliberately misleading anybody, but we should be straight about this. It is a cause of instability to promise constantly that the public sector pay cap is temporary when it is applied year on year. Eight years down the line, we still have effectively a public sector pay cap. In that time, prices have risen by 22%, but public sector pay has risen by just 4.4%. Wage freezes and the Government’s pay cap have lasted throughout that time, bringing financial misery to public service workers and their families and causing huge damage to services.
Rachael Maskell
Does my hon. Friend recognise that many public servants have been down-banded and as a result given up more money and experienced even more detriment than that from the increases of only 1%?
Grahame Morris
I will be quick, Mr Owen. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell). There have been numerous surveys. A recent one by Unison showed that almost 73% of respondents have had to borrow money from family and friends to get by. We know anecdotally about civil servants using food banks, and workers in my constituency are struggling to support themselves and their families. I do not think we can run public services on the backs of poorly paid public sector workers. Something must be done to lift the cap and properly fund Government Departments.
Oral Answers to Questions
Grahame Morris Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Harriett Baldwin
I congratulate the hon. Lady on her appointment: we look forward greatly to working with her. We are proud of our track record on the 0.7% commitment, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will announce her strategic priorities shortly.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The Minister for the Middle East (Alistair Burt)
I will answer briefly, Mr Speaker.
The UK Government consistently call on the Israeli Government to ease movement and access restrictions in the OPTs. Since 2011, we have been funding the United Nations Access Coordination Unit to work with the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority.
Grahame Morris
Palestinians in the occupied territories face significant barriers to access to healthcare. Some have even died as a result of delays at checkpoints. Will the Minister urge the UK Government to recommend to the working group of the United Nations’ universal periodic review of Israel’s human rights record that Israel lift restrictions on the movement of Palestinian patients and healthcare workers and Palestinian-registered ambulances?
Alistair Burt
The hon. Gentleman has drawn attention to a serious aspect of the difficulties of restrictions. It is much in the UK’s mind, and we will continue to raise it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Grahame Morris Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right that we need to continue to look at the national health service and ensure that we continue to improve its performance in a variety of areas. The independent Commonwealth Fund has been clear that the national health service is the best healthcare system in the world, and that it is better than systems such as those in Germany, France and the other countries I listed earlier, but of course we need to look at what more we can do. That is why we are putting more funding into and looking at the better integration of health and social care on the ground. It is about making sure that we are making a change and doing that integration now, because that is when it is going to make a difference to people.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I have many fond memories of the time I spent in the north-east when I was a candidate up there. We do need to ensure that we have a good private rented sector in this country, but the one set of policies that would damage the private rented sector are the policies put forward by the Leader of the Opposition.
Oral Answers to Questions
Grahame Morris Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)
The Government are currently considering the 256 responses to our call for evidence on the accessibility of voter registration and voting. I will soon lay draft legislation to improve the accessibility of the anonymous registration scheme for survivors of domestic violence, and I recently implemented the findings of an accessibility review on the “Register to vote” website.
Chris Skidmore
I thank the hon. Lady for raising the report by Mencap, which has been working closely with the Cabinet Office and is a member of the “accessibility to elections” working group. I do not disagree with the premise of her question: we need to do more, in the 21st century, to make sure that our elections are accessible for everyone and that we remove barriers for those who are disabled. I am absolutely committed to doing that. It is right that we now consider all the responses and we will publish our report later next year.
Grahame Morris
Millions of people are missing from the electoral registers, but there are high levels of support for reforming our electoral registration system—in particular, for automatic voter registration when a person receives their national insurance number. When will the Government implement the necessary reforms to ensure that our democracy works for the many, not just the few?
Oral Answers to Questions
Grahame Morris Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
May I ask the Prime Minister why she is running scared of the televised leadership debates? May I suggest that she hold a televised debate in the Easington colliery miners welfare centre, where she can see the consequences of seven years of her policies on housing, of the cuts to policing and of 500 people at Walker’s losing their jobs? Perhaps she could then explain to the people there, if that is possible, why she has any mandate to seek their support for re-election.
The Prime Minister
I have been in televised debates with the Leader of the Opposition week in and week out since I took over as Prime Minister, and I will be taking the fine record of this Conservative Government across all parts of this country. The hon. Gentleman talks about housing. Twice the number of council houses were built under the Conservatives as were built under Labour. There has been record funding for our national health service and our schools, and pensioners on the basic state pension are £1,250 a year better off. That is the proud record of the Conservatives and a record that we will continue after 8 June.
Oral Answers to Questions
Grahame Morris Excerpts(9 years ago)
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John Penrose
Anecdotally, quite a lot of people are commenting on the fact that many of the French who choose to come to live in London do so because they prefer it here; they think that it is a more advantageous business environment and a better place to live and work. Therefore, perhaps they have imbibed and imbued themselves with some of the local colour and flexibility, rather than with the attitudes that my hon. Friend describes.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
8. What recent estimate he has made of the number of eligible voters not on the electoral register.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (John Penrose)
As we have heard, the Electoral Commission recently published an analysis, and I am pleased to tell the hon. Gentleman that it shows that parliamentary registers have over 400,000 more entries than a year ago. The last full assessment of the completeness and accuracy of electoral registers was published in July, and it showed that the decline in registration between 2000 and 2010 had stabilised since 2011. The next full assessment will be undertaken when the transition to individual electoral registration is complete.
Grahame M. Morris
I thank the Minister for that response, but the number of eligible voters who are missing from registers is a concern. I draw his attention to two specific groups: private rented tenants and the rising 18s. In my constituency, the rising 18s are down 50%. What action is he taking to try to address that issue?
John Penrose
As we heard earlier, almost £10 million has been spent on registration activities and drives since the start of this year, and we have made it a great deal more convenient and easier to register through individual electoral registration. We are looking at the report and recommendations produced by the Electoral Commission. In due course, when we respond to them, I am sure that we will have more to say.
Oral Answers to Questions
Grahame Morris Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to take this opportunity—in this, the 800th anniversary year of the signing of Magna Carta—to advertise the fact that there is an original copy in the great city of Lincoln, and that people can go and see that and all the other advantages that Lincoln has to offer. But this is not just a point about British history. There are so many countries and peoples around the world that do not have the rule of law and do not have protections against arbitrary arrest, and that document, which was signed 800 years ago, is not just important in Britain; it is important that we promote its values around the world.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Q10. Most working people aspire to decent, sustainable jobs—indeed, thousands of my constituents work at Nissan or in the automotive supply chain in east Durham—so when will the Prime Minister publish the Treasury’s assessment of the cost to the British economy of withdrawal from the EU?
The Prime Minister
First, let me praise the hon. Gentleman’s many hard-working constituents who work in the Nissan factory in the north-east. Nissan in the north-east is now producing more cars than the whole of the Italian car industry. It is a great example of the manufacturing renewal that is taking place in this country. I want the widest possible debate about Britain’s future in Europe and I would encourage all organisations to bring forward ideas, facts and figures so that this debate can be formed, but above all let us remember that this is not going to be a decision made by politicians; it is going to be a decision made by the British people.