Food Banks

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

Like many Members, I will start by thanking those in my constituency and across east Durham without whose donations, care, compassion and commitment, local food banks would not function. I thank volunteers who work with the East Durham Trust’s FEED project, and the County Durham food bank for its hard work and dedication throughout the year, and the support that it has offered my constituents in times of great crisis. However, although I am delighted and honoured to pay tribute to those volunteers and everyone who supports food banks, we must address the political question of why there has been such an exponential growth in their use. Government Ministers suggesting that it is some kind of act of God simply does not wash.

In my opinion, the acceptable level of food bank usage is zero. Access to adequate nutrition is a basic human right, and there is no excuse, even in a time of austerity, for a modern and rich country—I think we are the seventh richest country—to be unable to meet the food needs of its people. The Prime Minister said that food bank usage increased from 2005-06, but numbers went from 40,000 to almost 900,000 this year—those are huge numbers.

Information that I receive from food banks in my constituency shows that there is little evidence, if any, of people abusing the system. The average number of visits from an individual user is 1.7, with the food bank often being instrumental in resolving a particular crisis and the underlying cause that led to initial contact with the food bank. In fact, food banks are more concerned about those in Easington and east Durham who are too proud to access the service, and it is often only the intervention of a referral agent—a health visitor, social worker, or sometimes an MP—that brings many cases to the attention of the food bank.

I do not have time to go into the figures, but the numbers are staggering and we have not seen anything like it since the miners’ strike in terms of the numbers of families and children who are being fed not just by the Peterlee and Seaham based centres, but by centres in smaller villages. Something like 1,300 people use such centres every month, a third of whom are children, and one food bank produces 12,000 meals a month. Clearly, benefit delays or referrals are the commonest reason why people are using those food banks.

EU Council, Security and Middle East

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is fundamentally right that, at the end of the day, responsibility for a unified Iraq without the presence of ISIL, and without this extremism and terrorism, is with the Iraqi Government. To do that, an Iraqi Government is needed that includes Sunni, Shi’a and Kurd. We should not see support for the Kurds and support for the Iraqi Government as alternatives. To get rid of the cancer in their midst, we need an Iraqi Government who work with the Kurds.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has set out his arguments for the withdrawal of UK passports. Given the strong evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza—we have heard about 500 children being killed under a terrible bombardment—will British citizens fighting in the Israel defence forces be treated in the same way as those returning from Syria and Iraq?

[The Prime Minister]

I really do not think that is a fair or reasonable way of describing the situation. As I said, the loss of civilian life was unacceptable, and it is right that these matters are properly investigated. We must remember, however, that the conflict was started by Hamas rockets raining down on Israel, and Israel has a right to defend itself. I think that the hon. Gentleman, when he looks at his words, will come to regret drawing a comparison between a soldier fighting in the Israel defence forces and a terrorist returning from Syria.

Ukraine (Flight MH17) and Gaza

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that in densely populated areas it is incredibly important that Israeli forces accept the norms of international law. In terms of assurances given, for a negotiation to succeed everyone has to stick to the undertakings they have given. For instance, we need the Israelis to have a Palestinian partner with whom they can negotiate. That means that, over time, Hamas has to accept Israel’s right to exist and give up the use of violence.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

There is a saying that if the truth is stretched thin enough, people start to see through it. In relation to Israel’s response being proportionate, I ask the Prime Minister whether he can seriously tell the House that, had he been in power at the time of republican bombings in the United Kingdom, he would have sanctioned the use of carpet bombing, close range artillery and naval bombardment in parts of Belfast and Kilburn?

[The Prime Minister]

I do not think the comparison is a fair and honest one. Weapons are being launched from a neighbouring country into Israel. The Israeli Government have a duty to protect their people and stop those missiles being launched. Internal terrorism is an entirely different situation.

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett]

Let me welcome you to the Chair, Ms Primarolo, for the start of this very important Committee stage. We all look forward to your wise advice as we proceed with detailed scrutiny of the first part of this absolutely dreadful Bill—a Bill which no single stakeholder of any importance has endorsed. Part 1 is in need of major change, and it is only as a result of the unfortunate abbreviation of the time available that we shall not be pressing every single one of our amendments to a vote. We will see how far we get. I do not intend to speak for too long, because there are so many important matters to be dealt with this afternoon. I apologise to the Committee for needing to slip out for a few minutes at some stage; I have a long-standing engagement.

I want to make three points. First, there is a need for a universal register of all lobbyists, to which amendment 2 and further consequential amendments refer. Secondly, we strongly object to the Government’s tabling of amendment 76, for reasons that I shall explain shortly. Thirdly, amendment 9 and amendment 48—tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee—widen the definition of “lobbyist” to ensure that all activities are properly registered.

The Government frequently claim to be the most transparent Government in history. That is a large claim. However, when it comes to making a choice between their commitment to transparency and the protection of vested interests, they always come down on the side of vested interests at the cost of transparency. That much is clear from the very first clause of the Bill, which needs to be amended.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

Earlier this year, a private health care company, Hospital Corporation of America, was awarded a contract to treat NHS brain tumour patients. That happened after the same company had donated £17,000 to the Conservative party. Does my hon. Friend agree that such transactions are the ones that the public want to get to the bottom of, and that the Bill does nothing to achieve that?

[Jon Trickett]

My hon. Friend has made a powerful point about the way in which the Bill that became the Health and Social Care Act 2012 was prepared. As we know, the private health industry operated substantially behind the scenes in preparing the ground for that Bill. We also know that the legislation has led to a variety of actions that seem to have introduced an increasing amount of engagement in the NHS by the private sector, but that is not the point that I am addressing this afternoon.

The Government’s decision to limit the register to consultant lobbyists will lead to a narrowing of the register, because it excludes nearly all the lobbyists who are working professionally in our country today. Indeed, it would deepen the shadows that many people believe fall wherever the industry practises. Our amendments will seek to make the register universal and transparent and make what the lobbyists are doing transparent, by bringing the whole of the professional industry into daylight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jon Trickett]

I will briefly make several points. First, there is a Government amendment before the Committee this afternoon that excludes companies from having to register, yet the hon. Gentleman points out that in law companies are individuals—they are legal persons. On corruption, I have not made the case that the lobbying industry is wholly corrupt. Not at all, but there is a huge gap between the population and the political and commercial elite in our country.

Too many people believe that decisions are made in secret, in the quiet rooms around here—smoke-filled rooms, perhaps. Nobody knows how those decisions are made or on whose behalf. It would be better if the general public understood how decisions were made, who was pressing for those decisions and in whose interests they were made. The Prime Minister himself said that sunlight is the best disinfectant. We should introduce legislation that would make sure that all lobbying activity was registered and properly accounted for. People would then know how decisions were made.

[Grahame M. Morris]

On the scope of the clause and the limitations on who is covered by it, Members of Parliament are lobbied, but will the public think it morally right that at least 58 Members of Parliament on the Government Benches have current or recent directorships or consultancy activities with private health care firms from which they benefit personally? That is not covered at all by the terms and scope of the Bill.

[Jon Trickett]

I thank my hon. Friend. My views on MPs’ second jobs are well known. They were debated in the House not too long ago.

The Leader of the House accepted that consultant lobbyists are a tiny minority. The Government have constructed a straw man argument in order to give the appearance that they are taking action on lobbying transparency, whereas in reality they are doing no such thing. Why is a register of consultant lobbyists proposed in the Bill? In my view it is because the Government merely want to be seen to be doing something while in fact doing very little.

We, the lobbying industry and the lobbying transparency campaigners, as well as the Select Committee, all want to act to achieve greater lobbying transparency for the good and the health of our democracy. We want to suggest something different to the Government. We want lobbying transparency because in a 21st century democracy it is only right that people can see how their Government are being influenced and by whom—which commercial forces lie behind particular decisions. That requires a register of all professional lobbyists. All lobbyists would then have to meet the same high standards, not only to create a level playing field within the industry, but to make sure that big money can no longer buy more influence than the rest of the population by using underhand techniques.

Instead of ensuring high standards in the lobbying industry, however, the Government would make the situation much worse. That is not simply my view. Mr George Kidd, acting chair of the UK Public Affairs Council, the body that runs the largest voluntary register of lobbyists, said that

“there is a risk that in doing something we do harm rather than good. We may end up with a less transparent system than we currently have if the definition is unchanged and”—

listen to this—

“we have a statutory register with very few names, if any, on it. People will be able to construct their business never to be on it.”

He suggests that we may have a register with no names on it—no lobbyists at all—and a register that is so full of loopholes that it is possible for anybody, with the smallest amount of ingenuity, to find a way to avoid getting on to the register. It would appear that the word “transparency” in the Bill’s title is a total misnomer.

If all that were not bad enough, Government amendment 76, in the name of the Leader of the House, rather remarkably succeeds in achieving what many think is impossible: making a bad Bill even worse. Despite comprehensive and uniquely united criticism and a consensus against the Bill, the Government have decided in their wisdom further to amend it, not in order to strengthen it, as lobbyists and experts have recommended, but rather further to weaken it. Rather than including companies and organisations that employ lobbyists on the register, as happens currently with the voluntary register, the Government have chosen to seek to limit the scope of the Bill further with this amendment by removing the need for a lobbyist’s employer to register. This is an important point, so I hope that the Committee is following the argument. For a register to bring meaningful transparency to the lobbying industry and to allow public scrutiny of lobbying, it must surely include, at the very least, all those who are doing lobbying. That surely must include the individual lobbyist’s employer. Yet that is precisely what the amendment seeks to avoid. Without the information on who is employing a particular lobbyist, it will be impossible to know which organisations or companies are lobbying at all, let alone what they are lobbying about or how often they are lobbying. The amendment is a retrograde step.

I have highlighted before how the Bill is weaker than the existing voluntary code, and the Government amendment is a case in point. The public or an organisation seeking the services of a lobbyist can currently search the voluntary registers in a way that discloses an organisation or employer’s client list, but the Government’s new proposals will remove that ability. The amendment removes the necessity for the lobbyists’ employers to be registered. We would know who the lobbyists were if they were consultant lobbyists, not if they were professional lobbyists, but we would not know who they were working for. We would not know who their colleagues were. Nor would we know which clients were being served by their colleagues. Nor would we know which other clients were employing the same company. We would not know the identity of the directors of the company. I would argue that knowing the names and identities of the directors of the company is quite important. Arguably, a company director may not themselves be a lobbyist, but it would be of interest to know who the directors of the company were which employed the lobbyists who were then on the register, and the amendment would exclude such a possibility.

Finally, we would not know who the shareholders of the company were, which leaves a massive opportunity for opacity. We would not know who the directors are or who owns the company, the name of the company or its registered address; we will be able to know simply that a lobbyist, Mr M. Smith, or whatever his name may be, is working out of Wimbledon. We will have no idea who his colleagues are, what company he works for, what its registered address is or who its shareholders and directors are. It really is a very bad and dangerous amendment. Rather than opening up the lobbying industry, the Government’s proposal would allow companies and organisations to hide behind the legislation.

[Grahame M. Morris]

The point about identifying who works for whom must be complicated by the fact that some consultancies are employed by a number of different companies. Could they disguise the fact, using zero-hours contracts, that they are not working exclusively for one employer?

[Jon Trickett]

Again, my hon. Friend makes an important point. The truth is that we will have no idea whom they are working for. We will know who their clients are, because that is required on the register, but we will have no idea who employs them. That seems to me to be a rather critical question to ask. For those people now on the voluntary register and operating to an ethical code, we know who their clients are and whom they work for, and the companies they work for also register. If the amendment is made, we will have no idea whom they are working for or who their other clients are. It seems to me that those on the Government Front Bench—I look to the Minister—should reflect on the amendment carefully before deciding whether to press it. It is very dangerous.

Oral Answers to Questions

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

I certainly acknowledge that the hon. Lady is right, and the consequence of the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station case was that a review was carried out by Sir Christopher Rose, and the CPS took the issues in that very seriously, but any question of a wider inquiry or review does not lie within the remit of my Department.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

7. What recent discussions he has had with the Director of Public Prosecutions and the director of the Serious Fraud Office on the feasibility of introducing an offence of reckless management of a financial institution.

[The Solicitor-General (Oliver Heald)]

None.

[Grahame M. Morris]

In view of the recent announcement on this, I wonder whether the Minister can give us any indication of which prosecuting agency would be responsible for enforcing the new offence of reckless mismanagement of a financial institution, and what steps are being taken to ensure that the agency has sufficient resources to tackle what are likely to be complex cases?

[The Solicitor-General]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, this Government set up the commission on banking which has come up with the recommendation that there should be such an offence. The Government have accepted that recommendation and the drafting process is in hand. I cannot go further than that, but he will see the draft when it is ready.

Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (Inquiry)

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I hope that we can have not just scrutiny but a proper debate. I am sure that the Leader of the House—who played a key role in ensuring that the inquiry happened, for which I pay tribute to him—will be able to make time for a debate at some stage to consider the report in detail. It is absolutely enormous, and I have the three volumes of it here, but helpfully volume 2 goes through the key areas—the strategic health authorities, the primary care trust and what the regulator did—so that we can see an outline of the concerns about the lack of focus on patient care that flow through it so clearly.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I compliment the Prime Minister on his statement and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition on his response. I have not had a chance to go through the recommendations, but the Prime Minister mentioned the failings at trust board level. Will he agree to consider a recommendation from the health service section of my union, Unite, that a national intelligence unit linked to a national telephone hotline, which could be answerable to the chief inspector of hospitals under the CQC, could analyse the information coming in and identify where the problems were so that the chief inspector could take corrective action?

[The Prime Minister]

I will consider carefully what the hon. Gentleman says and I am sure that colleagues in the Department of Health will, too. My sense is that there is quite a lot of transparent information about mortality and morbidity rates, through Dr Foster and the rest of it. In too many cases, there has been an unwillingness to act and to act with enough clarity. We should focus on that, too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will look very carefully at what my hon. Friend says. This Government have taken some steps forward on the rights of park home owners, of whom I have some in my own constituency and therefore know how important it is that we get the balance of law right. I will look at her point about the green deal, a very important measure to try to help people with their energy efficiency and to keep their bills down. We want it to be available to as many people as possible.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

Q9. Yesterday Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of the NHS, told the Public Accounts Committee that GPs were imposing unjustified restrictions on cataract operations. It seems that the Prime Minister and his reorganisation are taking the NHS back to the 1980s, when the NHS was the sick man of Europe. Will he take this opportunity to apologise to elderly people who are waiting unnecessarily for their cataract operations?

[The Prime Minister]

Compared with 2010-11, last year there were 400,000 extra operations in our NHS. Across our NHS, there are 5,000 more doctors and 5,000 fewer administrators. We have got the level of mixed-sex wards right down. The level of hospital-acquired infections—[Interruption.] The point that I am making, which I know the Opposition do not want to hear, is that the NHS is improving under this Government because we are putting the money in and they would take the money out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

1. What steps he is taking to recover payments made to former senior staff at the Serious Fraud Office that were not properly authorised.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

3. What steps he is taking to recover payments made to former senior staff at the Serious Fraud Office which were not authorised by the Cabinet Office or Her Majesty’s Treasury.

[The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)]

As set out in my statement to the House on 4 December 2012, on learning of these agreements and payments, the new director of the Serious Fraud Office sought legal advice on whether the arrangements might be reopened and on whether money might be recovered. The advice he received is that the agreements, although entered into without the necessary approvals, are binding on the Serious Fraud Office.

[The Attorney-General]

I share the right hon. Gentleman’s disquiet about what has happened. Nevertheless, it is the duty of the director of the Serious Fraud Office, who is the accounting officer in this context, to take legal advice and to observe it when he receives it, and the legal advice he has received is quite clear. It is perhaps worth making one further point. The vast majority of the sums paid out would have been in line with the civil service compensation scheme. In my judgment, some payments may well not have been in line with the scheme, but the majority were—I would stress the totality of the sums involved. Should there be any further developments, I will inform the House of them. Like the right hon. Gentleman, I do not consider the matter to be satisfactory—it causes me disquiet, and the Public Accounts Committee may well wish to look into it.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I thank the Attorney-General for his reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr Spellar). In that spirit of openness, will he publish the findings of the independent investigation into the payouts commissioned by the current director of the Serious Fraud Office? Will he also indicate whether any legal or disciplinary action will be taken against the individuals responsible?

Regional Pay

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I was rather perplexed by the Minister’s response. My impression is that if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. The Minister, however, says he is in favour of national pay negotiations, but wants to change how they are delivered regionally. As I say, I am confused about whether this is a U-turn, or is it two U-turns so that the Minister is facing in the same direction? It seems as if that is exactly what has happened.

Any decision to allow regional pay differences for low-paid workers in the public sector would only exacerbate the economic and social north/south divide. In fact, we recently had a Westminster Hall debate in which some of the relevant statistics and factors were put on the record. The announcement in the autumn statement that this was on the Government’s agenda came without any prior evidence base for such a move. When Ministers talk about how public sector pay might better reflect local markets, they mean only one thing—pay less to people in poorer areas such as ours.

Rebalancing our economy for the future and addressing the north/south divide should be a Government priority. However, these proposals for regional or local pay differentials—whatever the terminology—would simply entrench that divide. The north-east is facing a double-dip jobs crisis. Government policies of slash and burn in the public sector are hitting the north-east hardest, and the promised private sector-led recovery was always a Tory mirage. [Interruption.] Let me remind Conservative Members who are heckling from a sedentary position that the figures for the north-east show unemployment now standing at 145,000—up 8,000, providing a regional figure of 11.3%, which is an absolute disgrace. Regional pay in the public sector would only make things worse, turning the north-east, and indeed other peripheral regions, into low-pay ghettos.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, as I have been trying to intervene for a while. He makes a point about the north/south divide, about which many hon. Members on both sides are concerned. Will he concede that in the last year of the previous Government, the gross value added difference between London and the north-east reached the highest level for a decade and a half? I do not think that was due to the present Government, so what was it due to?

[Grahame M. Morris]

I shall come to that point. Under the last Government, the GVA differential was considerably reduced over 10 years. I do not have much time, but if the hon. Gentleman reads the Hansard report of the Westminster Hall debate, he will find all the information there.

In trying to justify his proposals, the Minister mentioned the evidence base, as did the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James). That worries me. Pay review bodies and police boards oversee a pay bill of about £95 billion, and any changes in the distribution of that money would have major consequences. The reverse multiplier and the taking of moneys from local economies are a huge issue, and the benefit changes have already had a terrible effect on the economy in the north-east.

I refer the Minister and the hon. Member for Stourbridge to the Government’s own evidence to the current review, which includes some key sets of figures that I found intriguing. According to that evidence, statistics from the Office for National Statistics on regional price levels relative to national price levels show that, if London is excluded, price levels throughout the United Kingdom vary by only 5.3%, from 97% in Yorkshire and the Humber to 102.3% in the south-east. In my region, the north-east, the price level is 98.2%. Those figures show the smallest variation in price increases throughout the United Kingdom. If the Government proceeded with their proposal to vary pay levels in the public sector, those in the poorest regions, such as the north-east, would be worse off while the wealthiest regions benefited to the tune of billions.

[Ian Mearns]

All of us in north-east England are calling for an economic stimulus to create demand and grow the economy. This measure would apply an economic sedative to regions such as ours.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s analysis.

The other likely negative impact of the Government’s policy is a brain drain from the regions with lower pay to those with higher pay. In my opinion, the Tory party has never understood the values and principles of our public services, which were founded on fairness and equity. What is truly outrageous is that Ministers waste their time targeting low-paid public servants when the real crisis is in the private sector. I believe that those are diversionary tactics, and that, if implemented, they would take more money out of the northern regions, which are already suffering from a lack of demand throughout our economies.

The United Kingdom is crying out for a serious new industrial policy that would reduce regional inequalities and close the north-south divide. A regional pay policy of the sort that the Government propose would only make the position worse, and it lacks an evidence base. Any comparison between public and private sector pay is a very crude measure. There are far more highly qualified workers in the public sector, there is a smaller gap between the top and bottom levels of pay, and there is a smaller gender pay gap. The majority of low-paid work in catering or cleaning, for example, is in the private sector. Similar roles in the public sector are often outsourced, which skews the figures still further.

The hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) asked about figures relating to growth rates and relative performance. Under the last Labour Government, the rate of growth in my region, the north-east, went from being the lowest in any region during the 1990s to being the second highest during the last decade. Between the mid-1990s and the global economic downturn of 2008, employment growth increased by 11.2% in the north-east and by 9.2% nationally. Between 2002 and 2008, private sector employment in the north-east rose by 9.2% while public sector employment grew by 4.1%, a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson). Between 1999 and 2007, the number of businesses in the north-east rose by 18.7%, which compares favourably with London’s business growth of 19.6% during the same period.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman’s time is up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

Q15. The Prime Minister will be aware of the latest British social attitudes survey showing a record fall in public satisfaction with the NHS. I would like to know—I would appreciate an answer because his Health Secretary would not give me one yesterday—whether the Prime Minister will intervene to stop the scandal of the NHS having to reply on charitable donations to fund the purchase of the latest advanced radiotherapy equipment in regions such as mine, the north-east, and throughout the country?

[The Prime Minister]

The Government are putting record sums into the health service—we are increasing the money going into the health service—but if the hon. Gentleman wants me to stand here and criticise the volunteers, the charities and the big society, which provide so many scanners and great machines for our health service, I certainly will not. It adds to our health service. He raised, in particular, the survey. There is a 2011 survey of people who have actually used the health service, rather than one that asks people about their perceptions, and it found that 92% of in-patients rated their overall experience as good, very good or excellent. That is what is happening in our health service, and we should be proud of it.