Palestine

Debate between Grahame Morris and Mark Lazarowicz

Monday 1st December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Grahame M. Morris]

I agree, and I hope the vote sends out a number of messages—and not only to our own Government and the British people, whom this House reflects. Some 40 right hon. and hon. Members from the Minister’s own party supported the motion and spoke with great passion and conviction about the need to move the process forward in a fair, just and equitable manner. The views of the British Parliament are important not only here in the UK, but internationally.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does today’s turnout, which is impressive for a debate of this type, emphasise how the Government have not responded positively to that resolution of the House of Commons? The Government’s response is totally unacceptable. It was an all-party resolution, and we expect a better, stronger response from the Government than we have seen so far.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Another purpose of this debate is to take the momentum from that previous debate and put various points to the Minister on what we can do to move things forward, level the playing field and encourage a return to negotiations. Part of that has to involve applying further pressure to the Israeli Government, perhaps through economic sanctions and by highlighting some of the iniquities of trading with illegal settlements on the west bank.

East Coast Main Line

Debate between Grahame Morris and Mark Lazarowicz

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Absolutely. As my hon. Friend has said, she and other colleagues have spent quite a bit of time with me outside the railway stations in Edinburgh and at other locations, and not one person has come up to us and said, “Yes, we want East Coast trains to be re-privatised.” They have all recognised the value of this service being in the public sector.

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

I compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing this very timely and important debate and on making some excellent points. On the point about the value of having the east coast main line within the public sector, are there not lessons to be learned from what is happening with gas and electricity companies? When the private sector has no benchmark of public sector provision, does the consumer not get ripped off? Is there not an overwhelming argument for retaining at least one main line in public ownership, by which we could benchmark the other lines?

[Mark Lazarowicz]

That is a very good point. Let us be clear—we are not calling today for a renationalisation of the entire railway operating network.

[Grahame M. Morris]

We are! [Laughter.]

[Mark Lazarowicz]

My hon. Friend might be, but that is not the issue today. What we are talking about today is giving an alternative to the private sector. He just referred to other industries, and one of the issues about those industries is this: to what extent is there real competition?

One of the problems is that within the railway sector in the UK, a very limited number of UK companies are able and willing to put in a bid for a line. On the east coast and west coast lines, we all know that the major UK bidders will always be drawn from Virgin, First Group, National Express and possibly Stagecoach.

Of course, Virgin also runs planes to Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and First Group and the other companies operate other rail services. Some of them also operate bus and express coach services. So the issue is ensuring that there is at least some competition in the system, which the existence of Directly Operated Railways on the east coast main line would certainly provide.

Finance Bill

Debate between Grahame Morris and Mark Lazarowicz

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Grahame M. Morris]

I would have more respect for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention if he had sat through the whole debate, because those points have been raised. It behoves the Government to do more, not less; we have to learn from the lessons of history. I urge hon. Members to support new clause 13.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I want to say a few words in support of a bank bonus tax. I emphasise that I am supporting that not to bash the bankers, but to end the unacceptable face of banking in the form of an excessive bonus culture that is still far too widespread.

As I said earlier, the vast majority of people who work in financial services certainly do not get vast bonuses; many thousands of people in my constituency work hard behind bank counters or in bank offices serving customers, and they are often on modest incomes. Many have paid with changes in working conditions, while others have paid with their jobs, when redundancies flowed from the financial crisis caused by the irresponsibility of senior executives. We are not targeting those people; we want to do something about the small minority who are still getting excessive rewards.

A study published at the end of June showed that average pay for chief executives at 15 leading banks in the US and Europe increased by 12% over the last financial year. That may be less than the 36% increase in the previous year, but whatever the increase—it is about 50% when we add both increases—it is wildly out of line with falls in profits and share prices that have frequently characterised the sector. That is not performance-related pay in any sense that most people would understand and it is certainly not a performance that would justify what is effectively a further tax cut on top of a tax cut for the highest paid.

A tax targeted on bank bonuses is necessary because the existing attempts to curb the bonus culture have so obviously failed. That is the key point. The issue is not about saying that people should not be very well paid at the top of banks and financial institutions, but we want to get away from a position in which sums wildly in excess of anything that could be said to be deserved are paid as a matter of course. None of the steps taken so far has changed that culture, even in an era of financial crisis among the banks and beyond.

The second reason why we want a bank bonus tax is that it would raise money for some valuable purposes. The issue of jobs for young people affects all our constituencies. My constituency normally comes in the middle range of unemployment across the UK, and we have seen a substantial increase in youth unemployment. I certainly want that issue to be tackled in my constituency.

We are also saying that the bank bonus tax would be used to provide affordable housing. That, of course, would bring two benefits. First, it would bring more housing into the sector. Constituencies such as mine have to some extent, although on a lesser scale, experienced the same phenomenon as happened in London, where high rates of pay in certain sectors such as financial services have pushed up house prices and made it harder for people on lower incomes to get affordable housing, so this proposal would be important for those people as well. Of course, building affordable housing and new homes also gives a boost to the economy through providing new jobs in the construction sector and helps people who have been out of work because of the collapse of that sector in many parts of the country.

Our proposal of a bank bonus tax would not only tackle the excessive bonus culture but provide jobs for our young people and affordable homes, giving a boost to the construction sector. I therefore hope that the House will support it.