Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Answers are far too long, folks—we are going to have to move on.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

How much of the funding the UK in response to the covid-19 pandemic has (a) been allocated to and (b) reached the global south.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Wendy Morton)]

The UK has pledged up to £769 million of UK aid to support the global health response and vulnerable countries. As the host of the record-breaking GAVI summit and the world’s top donor to CEPI, the UK is leading the way in finding a vaccine that helps the most vulnerable countries. We have also made sure that new funding goes directly to the immediate response in these countries, and reflects programmes already in place to help people straight away.

[Ian Lavery [V]]

As of last week, the Government had given less than half of the money that is committed to support the world’s poorest in the face of this devastating global pandemic. It really is not good enough. Have the Government simply outsourced the responsibility to the various multilaterals? Does the Minister have any idea whatsoever of where UK taxpayers’ money has actually gone?

[Wendy Morton]

As I explained, the UK is playing a leading role in the international response to the pandemic, with pledges of up to £769 million of UK aid to help to address the urgent needs in vulnerable countries through research and development, through money to the International Monetary Fund’s Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust and in supporting the global health response. We are working with the UN to ensure that our contributions are channelled to NGOs and other recipients as quickly as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I recognise that this has been a difficult time for a number of people, who are concerned about their jobs, public services and their pensions. I want, first, to provide reassurance to all employees working on public services for Carillion that they should continue to turn up to work, confident in the knowledge that they will be paid for the work they are providing. But of course the Government are not running Carillion; the Government are actually a customer of Carillion, and our focus has been on ensuring that we are providing the public services—that they are continuing to be provided uninterrupted; on reassuring workers in those public services that they will get paid; on reassuring the pensioners and making sure the support is there for them—

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

What about the apprentices?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, I am coming on to the apprentices, but it is important that government is undertaking its role to ensure that the services it provides are continuing to be provided. I assure the hon. Lady that we are aware of the issues around apprentices, which is why the Minister with responsibility for that will be looking very carefully at what action can be taken.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer]

Although list X is the responsibility of the MOD and the Secretary of State will have heard that question, I have a responsibility for small and medium-sized enterprises in public procurement. I shall certainly take forward my hon. Friend’s concerns and ensure that they are represented.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Since 2010, more than 100,000 civil service jobs have gone. With 300 new recruits and funding of £42.7 million for the Brexit Department, is the Minister really serious about the fact that the UK is properly prepared to enter the most complex negotiations for generations? The reality is that it is an absolute shambles.

[Ben Gummer]

I have full confidence not only in that, but in the civil service and the remarkable people who inhabit the Departments across our state.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer]

We are. It would not be for me to add to the words of the director general of the Secret Intelligence Service, but it is important that we protect the integrity of our democracy. My hon. Friend can be assured that all agencies in this country are apprised of the necessity of doing precisely that.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

In the light of the Russian intervention in the US election and the credible threats to the German election recognised by Chancellor Merkel, will the Minister give the House a guarantee that no cyber-attacks have been carried out on the UK that could have impacted on our democracy? Will he also inform the House what measures, in addition to the cyber-security strategy, his Government will be implementing to defend the UK from such attacks in the future?

[Ben Gummer]

I am gratified by the fact that the Electoral Commission says that our register is one of the most accurate and secure in the world, but we clearly need to protect the entire integrity of the democratic process. That is why all security agencies will be making sure that our systems are as secure as possible. I am grateful to the people working in the National Cyber Security Centre for the work they do—a lot of it is very difficult and technical—which is why we are better protected than most countries around the world. I intend to make sure that that capability and capacity improve and increase.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore]

In terms of local government suffrage, EU citizens can already vote. For parliamentary suffrage, we are extending the franchise, as my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) rightly says, to an extra 3.7 million Brits abroad. When it comes to the question of those living in this country, obviously that is subject to future negotiations.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

At a time when the Government are failing in any serious way to address the democratic deficit in the UK, they are, as has been mentioned, pursuing plans to remove the 15-year time limit for overseas voters and to hand a vote for life to an estimated 1 million expats. Will the Minister explain how that might affect Electoral Commission guidelines on “permissible donors”, and will he assure the House that under no circumstances will the proposed changes allow unlimited political financial donations from non-UK taxpayers abroad to be funnelled into the coffers of any UK political party?

[Chris Skidmore]

First, may I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his place? It is great to see him across the Dispatch Box.

On the issue of overseas electors and ensuring that those living abroad for more than 15 years have a vote for life, the principle is clear: we must ensure that those who were born in this country, who have often paid tax in this country and have moved abroad are given a right to participate in our democracy. These include people such as Harry Shindler, a Labour voter who fought in world war two. We want to ensure that these people who have given something to our country are allowed to participate in our democracy.

Citizens Convention on Democracy

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. It is also a pleasure to respond to this important debate on behalf of the Opposition. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) on securing it. As he said, it is difficult to enthuse and inspire people by trying to develop a better place for democracy. I pay tribute to him for pursuing this topic with tenacity and for recognising how important it is that we build a new consensus on the relationship between the people and the state and within the nations themselves.

The breadth of cross-party support for the initiative—from Labour’s leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), to the Lib Dems, the Greens and some Conservatives—reveals the depth of concern about the crisis that we currently face in our democracy. Fundamental questions remain on the health of that democracy. Between the people and the state, between the four nations and between people within the nations themselves, the vote to leave the European Union served to emphasise the depth of the divide within our country. The anger at the status quo, which first tore into mainstream political debate in the run-up to the Scottish referendum, was glaringly obvious to many of us long before. The signs were there in the ever-declining turnout at general elections, in the trust in previously respected institutions being destroyed by the recession and, perhaps most damningly of all, in the sense among many people that Governments do not care much about what ordinary people think. That is the crisis.

I am from a mining community on the great northern coalfield in the north-east. When I walk around and talk to people I have known for many years—people I have known all my life—they tell me that they feel that politicians do not have a clue about how they live their lives and about what is happening to their communities. Of course, as in the brutal decade of the 1980s, something more is happening. There is a sense that ordinary people in communities like mine in the north-east, like many across the UK, are simply being abandoned, with their views being a huge irrelevance to politicians.

[Caroline Lucas]

I apologise for being late to this debate. The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful point about why something that might sound dry—a citizens convention—actually goes to the heart of people’s identity and why it is an opportunity for them to get their voice heard in a debate that really matters to them. Does he agree that the convention has the potential to be a vibrant debate if we pitch it right?

[Ian Lavery]

I wholeheartedly agree that it is up to politicians, who have the job and the opportunity, to try to inspire people and give them the opportunity to have a say. People feel completely and utterly disfranchised. We have to rise to that huge challenge.

We are living in an age of insecurity and inequality. The further people seem to be from Westminster, the more likely they are to feel ignored. People in my constituency are trapped between Scotland and Tyneside —it certainly feels that way—which is why the radical redistribution of power that the citizens convention and other radical devolution agendas envisage is so vital to the health of our democracy. The evidence suggests that local communities want to feel more engaged in the decisions that affect their lives, and giving them that power will bring them into the democratic process. Again, it is up to us, as politicians, to ensure that that happens.

Under the new Prime Minister, following the exit of the previous Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), the already unambitious northern powerhouse looks likely to fall even further down the list of priorities in the north. Regions that have been chronically underfunded for decades were given a pitiful settlement by the Treasury and are expected to be grateful. The funding settlement does not even begin to offset the drastic spending cuts at local authority level. The Government are giving with one hand and taking away with the other. The North East Combined Authority, for instance, has £30 million a year to spend for each of the next 30 years. Considering that in the past five years alone there have been more than £1 billion of cuts to local authorities covering the area, with more to come in the next four years, I can see why the Government’s devolution agenda is being met with complete scepticism up north.

It might be asked what that has to do with the convention. The reality is that people cannot connect with the reasons for their lives being changed—with the cuts to services, for example—and they want to change things. The only way they can change things is by becoming part of the democratic process, so the convention is joined up with funding, austerity and the many things that are currently happening in the UK. With so much of the national agenda being driven not from town halls but from Whitehall and this place, it is little surprise that people seem disfranchised. Previously, more than 90% of civil servants in the Departments responsible for the northern powerhouse worked in London. That was raised many, many times on the doorstep. We talk about the northern powerhouse, but it is now normally called the northern poorhouse, which is probably more accurate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North has written many articles on the idea of the citizens convention, and everyone thinks that, to change things for the better, it is up to us to engage with communities on what they want. It is up to us to present alternatives such as a progressive devolution settlement to engage people in the democratic process. That is why, rather than relying on Westminster to put something in our begging bowl, it is vital that we see radical devolution of real power down to communities, which know best how to use it.

The real question is the question of power. To paraphrase my late friend Tony Benn, who has power and how are they using it? A power imbalance in the country has led to rising inequality over three decades or more. It has led to communities first being attacked, then being ignored and then being completely neglected by Westminster, which means that, despite the economy adding £4.3 trillion of wealth in recent years, GDP per capita has all but flatlined, household savings are at their lowest level since 1963 and household debt is at its highest since just before the crash. In other words, the proceeds of growth are not being shared, which is fundamentally because power is not being shared. Power can be reintroduced through citizens’ assemblies and constitutional conventions, which is why I say that power is the most important issue we are discussing today. Half the people of this country feel that the Government do not care much or at all about what people like them think—that is an unequal access to power and we see the consequences of it in the real economy. What communities who have lost faith in Westminster to deliver for them need above all else is real power to transform their lives. That real power, or at least part of it, comes from the citizens assemblies and the citizens constitutions.

If the northern revival is to take root, it must take us away from an economy dominated by the City of London and from a politics dominated by Westminster, in which London can simply click its fingers and get a £32 billion Crossrail 2 project delivered. That is fine, but in constituencies like mine at the other end of the spectrum, away from Westminster, we have rail tracks but not trains. We are even looking to fund passenger trains to run through Ashington or Bedlington, which we have not had for 50 years. Giving people the power—giving them democracy—allows different things to happen in the communities we are all proud to serve.

We need control over the areas where we have lagged behind, such as energy, internet services and transport. In constituencies up and down this country—in mine, for example, there are fewer business start-ups than in most other English regions and pay is some £200 per week behind London—we need the power to change our economy for the better. We need the power to respond to problems that are particularly profound in our own areas. That would be an advantage of citizens assemblies. We should have the funds to invest properly in skills and innovation and to link the fantastic work of the colleges and universities, but we should also be able to insist that, if we are all to have a stake in the future of this country and in the devolution agenda, we will do things differently: workers’ rights will be properly respected and everyone must share in the growth of our areas, and no one should be left behind.

I therefore absolutely commend the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North to address that inequality of power through the constitutional process and through an attempt to engage the millions of citizens who want a more direct stake in their own future and in the future of their communities, and who are never asked what they think except for every five years when a general election is looming.

That is partly about what the structures of the UK will look like, but it is about much more: the revival of our communities, the health of our democracy and the future of our nation. We are strongest when we work together. Discussions with people about their communities, as well as with experts, trade unions and other stakeholders, will bring people together and create a collective vision for the future that genuinely benefits the people, rather than just paying lip service to democracy.

In 2014, under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), the Labour party agreed totally with a citizens charter and committed itself in principle to having one. The Labour party position is reaffirmed here in the House today. I ask the Minister at least to confirm that the Government will give due consideration to a wider, more diverse and inclusive democratic process, initially by agreeing in principle to a citizens convention.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

One of the benefits of individual electoral registration is that it has a built-in check for validity, which dramatically improves the quality of registers as a result. As more and more of the roll is completed using individual electoral registration, we expect it to have a beneficial effect in weeding out people who are incorrectly registered in the way that my hon. Friend describes.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

10. Since March 2014, there has been a reduction in young people about to turn 18 registering to vote. Will the Minister not commit the Government to rolling out the Northern Ireland schools initiative, so that schools and colleges can work with local authorities to make sure that those people register to vote?

[John Penrose]

A number of interesting initiatives are under way to persuade and allow students to vote. Some interesting examples are going on in Sheffield. So there are a range of possibilities, many of which are very promising. We want to ensure that we have analysed them all properly, so that we can choose the best and most cost-effective.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

The right hon. Gentleman and I have discussed that in the Chamber before, and I completely understand his concern, particularly about the shared service staff in Alnwick. The machinery is not always as simple as it might be, but there is more that we can and should do to ensure that jobs are located in places where they can be undertaken efficiently and effectively with good results for the taxpayer and the citizen.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

2. What progress his Department has made on releasing outstanding documents relating to the miners dispute in 1984-85.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

The documents, other than sensitive or personal papers, were released in the usual way under the law that was passed by the previous Government.

[Ian Lavery]

What have this Government got to hide with regard to the miners strike, because only 30 out of 500 digitised documents relating to the strike were released last week? There was no mention of Orgreave, but there was an admission that the Government tapped National Union of Mineworkers members’ phones. When will the documents that have not been released be released, and will they be released unredacted?

[Mr Maude]

I really have nothing to add to what I have already said and what has been said on previous occasions. The same considerations were applied to these papers as apply to the release of Government papers generally, which means that those that are personal or sensitive are not released in the normal time scales. I know that there are very strong feelings about this. I was a Member of Parliament for a coal mining constituency during the mining strike, and the mining community was deeply divided during that period. I am well aware of the sensitivities of that period.

Food Banks

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Luciana Berger]

I have been asked not to, because other Members wish to speak.

A family in my constituency have been waiting since August to get their tax credit application processed, and they are having to live on food bank vouchers because they have nothing to eat at home. I pay tribute to James Sloan and those at Central Liverpool food bank who do such an excellent job in providing people with support, and the volunteers who give their time to collect food, the people who donate very generously—in Liverpool, we have had one of the most generous supermarket collections anywhere across the country—and the people who give their time to listen and to provide a cup of tea.

However, I reiterate that we should not need those volunteers. We should not need the hundreds of food banks. We should not have 1 million people having to access emergency food aid. It is a disgrace that over 23,000 people—

Tributes to Tony Benn

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Last week was a really sad, bad week. It started with the sad loss of a great comrade and great friend of Tony Benn’s, Bob Crow. Tony sadly passed on, and just at the weekend so did another close friend of his, Stan Pearce, a man who worked hard in north-east England as a miner. It was a really bad, sad week for lots of people with regard to untimely departures.

Tony was fond of saying that Labour MPs normally started on the left and ended up in the Lords, while he took the opposite path in his political career. I first knew Tony when I was a young miner. I was 19 years of age in 1984 in the lead-up to and during the miners’ strike, and he was such an inspiration. I have heard lots of Members speak today, and most have said, “Tony was a great man although we did not agree with a lot of what he said.” I am probably the only one who will say that I agreed with most of what he said, and he was a tremendous inspiration to me. The support he gave to the miners has been mentioned in many contributions, but his support for the working class and people in dispute was absolutely fantastic and unswerving.

Tony Benn became very friendly with me, my wife and my kids as well. I knew Tony personally and he was a really good friend and comrade. He was somebody who I began to have a great liking for many years ago, and when anybody asks me, as an MP or a trade unionist, who my inspirations were in life, Tony would certainly be No. 1—perhaps No. 2, depending on what my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) had said in Parliament the previous week.

Tony Benn was a brilliant, fantastic orator and he could change people’s minds—at least for the time they were in the room anyway. It is a shame that people did not take Tony’s views away from the meetings he so eloquently addressed. He was a man of tremendous kindness, and that goes right through Tony’s family through his children. We used to be delighted if we could get Skinner or Benn or someone like that to the coalfield. We used to pack the halls to the rafters and enjoy every single moment. We admired them so much, and they oozed a natural presence. We wanted to be so much like them. Unfortunately, I have not in any way achieved anything like that at this point in time. They were dark days in the mining communities, but Benn was there and he made sure that people were revitalised and back up for the battle.

He had a tremendous affinity for the north-east. He was a major speaker at the biggest trade union gathering in Europe, the Durham Miners’ Gala, on more than 20 occasions—more than anyone else, perhaps other than my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover. He spoke at all the events. He understood the culture of the work force of the north-east, and he understood the traditions and the culture of the people of the north-east. He was a personal inspiration. Quite simply, Tony Benn was a legend and a giant among men.

I read with great affection an article written in the moderate Morning Star only this week by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) about when they put up a plaque for Emily Wilding Davison in a broom cupboard in the Crypt. The connection there, of course, is that Emily Wilding Davison was from my constituency all those years ago. It is amazing to think of Tony and Jeremy hiding with a drill in the broom cupboard in the Crypt screwing the plaque behind the door, but it was worthy of Tony’s belief in fighting with every fibre of his being for equality and against injustice. Miners, trade unionists and workers across the globe have had their lives enriched by just knowing Tony and understanding the support that he gave them. Together, we all pass on our condolences and sympathy to Tony’s family. We understand how much of a family man Tony was and how much he loved his family.

I conclude with the great song of days gone by: simply the best. He was, perhaps, better than all the rest.