May Adjournment

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Thursday 3rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered matters to be raised before the May adjournment.

Earlier, I listened to Ministers saying that EU citizens’ rights would be defended robustly after Brexit, but I have also heard this week from Members of the European Parliament representing the north-east of England that EU negotiators are sceptical about such assertions because of what has happened with the Windrush situation.

I am currently dealing with a case of an EU citizen who is being denied benefits, despite the fact that she has been resident in Gateshead for 27 years. Kim Voogel came to the United Kingdom from the Netherlands in 1991. She has never been back to the Netherlands since then, and the Dutch Government have confirmed that they have no record of her ever going back to the Netherlands over the entirety of that period. She has worked on and off over that time, because her ex-husband was the main breadwinner in the family, and she has given birth to and raised three children, all of whom are still resident in Gateshead. Following a head injury after falling from a ladder, which has given her some mild brain damage, she had to reapply for universal credit, having transferred from employment and support allowance. In the transition between benefits, she has been refused universal credit because the Department for Work and Pensions said that she could not prove that she had been resident continuously in the United Kingdom for 27 years.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful case. Does he agree that these sorts of cases affect not only the individual involved, but the whole family, particularly the children?

[Ian Mearns]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend.

Despite the fact that this lady has three children, only one of whom is now in his 20s; despite the fact that she has been receiving child benefit for those children throughout the entire period; and despite the fact that she also has a work record, having worked in between having her children, she has been refused universal credit. Part of the reason for the refusal is that the online application form asked when her children came to the United Kingdom with her. Of course, they did not come to the United Kingdom; they were born here. Therefore, she has failed the permanent residency test and been refused universal credit, despite living here for 27 years.

With such cases occurring now, the assurances that have been given by Ministers about the rights of EU citizens following Brexit sound really quite hollow. There is a big job of work to be done. It is not just the Home Office that needs to recognise the rights of EU citizens; other Government Departments, such as the Department for Work and Pensions must do so too. This lady’s case needs to be resolved, and resolved quickly and positively. She deserves nothing less than that.

Last Saturday, 28 April, we celebrated Workers Memorial Day. It is an important day for us all to celebrate; I and dozens and dozens of people attended a very moving service in Saltwell park in my constituency. There is a permanent memorial for Workers’ Memorial Day in Saltwell park, and I congratulate not only Gateshead Trades Council, but Gateshead Council, on erecting it.

The whole point of Workers Memorial Day is to help people realise that many workers die, receive injuries, or develop life-threatening illnesses owing to circumstances at work. I am glad to say that the number of people who die owing to injuries at work has dropped dramatically over the years since we have introduced a plethora of health and safety legislation. However, when I hear Members on the Government Benches talking about freeing up the labour market and getting rid of red tape, I do honestly wonder whether that actually means getting rid of vital health and safety regulations that keep our workers safe.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. Does he share my concern that the numbers of staff based at the Health and Safety Executive have been reducing year on year since 2010?

[Ian Mearns]

That is a concern. As well as my duties as Chair of the Backbench Business Committee and as a member of the Select Committee on Education, I am a member of several parliamentary trade union groups, including the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, which, with the Health and Safety Executive, has been struggling to get recognition for a condition known as baker’s asthma. I understand entirely the hon. Gentleman’s point. The HSE is working under great pressure to conduct the work that it must do.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating all those responsible for arranging Workers Memorial Day, including Councillor Tony Gosling in my area, who worked with the Scunthorpe Baptist church and Berkeley Junior School to hold a fantastic celebration of the work of trade unions in improving health and safety with their employers. The young people from Berkeley Junior School will take that message with them through their lives, and that will really transform health and safety in the future.

[Ian Mearns]

I entirely concur with my hon. Friend’s comments.

Workers Memorial Day is important, but it comes with a vital message. As we prepare to leave the European Union, when so much power will be handed back to Ministers, the protection of health and safety regulations and law is so much more important now than it has probably been for an awful long time.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

I am a former night worker at Brace’s bakery in Oakdale in south Wales, so I congratulate my hon. Friend on the important work he is doing with the bakers’ union.

[Ian Mearns]

I thank my hon. Friend for those kind comments.

In commemorating Workers Memorial Day, we have to do two things. We remember the dead and we fight for the living, and it is so important that that fight continues.

In the last pre-recess debate, I raised the issue of a vexed question that is threatening the provision of a safe environment for adults with learning disabilities. A big problem has occurred because there is a lack of recognition that sleep-in workers who look after people with learning difficulties should be paid the minimum wage. A court case concluded that individuals who look after people with learning difficulties and carry out sleep-in duties should be paid the minimum wage, and that that minimum wage payment should be backdated by about six years. This is making providers—many of which are in the voluntary, not-for-profit and charitable sectors—very worried because the overall bill, which has not been provided for by central Government or through central Government grant by local government, could amount to £400 million.

There is a real danger that some providers will hand back contracts—in fact, this is already happening—and local authorities could end up having to deal with people who are no longer being provided for by the charitable or not-for-profit sectors. This case is really quite worrying. Providers are being told that they will have to pay back the £400 million bill by March next year, but they quite clearly do not have the means to do so. Organisations such as Mencap have expressed severe concern about what will happen to people with learning difficulties should the provision cease.

I also chair the all-party parliamentary group for footballer supporters, which we established because we felt that, although there is a very good all-party parliamentary football group, it mainly looks at the interests of clubs, leagues and football associations across the United Kingdom. The APPG for football supporters has great support from fans around the country and Members of the House. The secretariat is provided by the Football Supporters Federation, which has been campaigning on a number of things with the all-party group. For instance, a couple of years ago we ran a campaign called Twenty’s Plenty, which was about the cost of tickets at away games in the premier league. The premier league came to a deal on that, and the maximum cost is now £30, so the campaign was clearly a success. Having travelled to away games in London against sides like Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur and paid in excess of £50 at some of those grounds, I am glad to say that now, because of the campaign, the maximum that clubs can charge is £30. That is a very welcome change.

A campaign that is coming to prominence at the moment, which has seen 110,000 signatures added to a parliamentary petition, is for safe standing in top-tier football grounds. We all know that after the Hillsborough disaster, the Taylor report brought in all-seater stadiums, and I think we have all welcomed the new safer environment in football grounds because of that. Unfortunately, however—or fortunately for those who like the atmosphere at football grounds—fans regularly stand in all-seater stadiums, particularly in the away end, where there will invariably be people standing in their droves at any championship or premier league ground. We see that week in, week out at over 40 grounds.

Safe standing may well be the solution. Rail seating, for instance, is an engineering-based solution that has been tried and tested north of the border by Celtic in Glasgow. The other night, we had a presentation at the all-party group by the safety officer of Celtic football club, Mr Ronnie Hawthorn. I thank him for coming down from Glasgow to give that presentation, which was really illuminating. The debate in Westminster Hall as a result of the petition is due to happen on 25 June. I hope that the Government take very seriously the suggestions being put forward by football fans up and down the country. You might have seen, Mr Speaker, that the other night I made a brief appearance on “Sky Sports News” talking about this issue. I understand that “Sky Sports News” probably attracts one or two more viewers than Parliament Live TV, so I was happy to get the message out there.

I also chair the all-party parliamentary group on rail in the north. There has been some correspondence between north-east MPs and the Department for Transport following a report produced by the Institute for Public Policy Research about differentials in levels of transport infrastructure investment between London and the regions of England. The report, which looked at forecast expenditure, including the Transport for London budget, shows that up to five times as much is spent on transport for people in London per head of population than it is in places like the north-east of England. That is clearly unfair and unsustainable.

That is also fettering the growth of the economy in places like the north-east of England. I am sad to report that, together with uncertainty around Brexit and some problems in the motor industry, that means unemployment is continuing to rise in my constituency of Gateshead, even though we are constantly told that employment is at an all-time high. Unemployment in my constituency is currently about 6%, and youth unemployment stays stubbornly high. We therefore need those differentials in transport infrastructure investment to be eroded, so that people in the north-east can be held in the same esteem as their counterparts in London in the way in which Government expenditure is handed out for investment purposes.

Lastly, it would be remiss of me not to mention, as we are now in May, the launch of the Great Exhibition of the North on 22 June, which is being hosted in Newcastle and Gateshead. It has an 80-day programme, which will culminate in September with the Great North Run and will show off all that is great and good about the north of England. I am sure the Minister has already said that he is looking forward to coming to Gateshead and Newcastle for that festival. It will be a great festival, celebrating the architecture, culture, industry, innovation and creativity of people all across the three northern regions. So please, from 22 June, get north and come to Newcastle and Gateshead for the Great Exhibition of the North.

I thank you, Mr Speaker, and I wish all staff in the House a very pleasant May day celebration and weekend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Stewart]

Indeed. I think this is one of those debates.

Let me get back to the main point, which is that it is a bad omen if young men and young women trying to be criminal law barristers are finding it very difficult. I am making this speech because earlier this week, I met a young barrister from my constituency who has had to leave the criminal Bar because she simply could not afford to live while working within the system. She was originally from the midlands, from a family of farmers, and she and her siblings were the first generation of the family to go to university. Her parents were totally supportive of her wish to be a barrister, a dream she told me she had had since she was 12 years old. She loved lawyer dramas on television, and her mother told her that her urge to be a lawyer had probably come from watching too much of the American law drama “Ally McNeal”, because she had a superb mobile phone.

[Ian Mearns]

“Ally McBeal”.

[Bob Stewart]

I stand corrected. It is hard to keep going.

My constituent studied law at Liverpool University and then applied for the Bar exams. Fully supported by her parents, she reluctantly came to London because there were more pupillages here. In 2008 she took the Bar exams, which cost her £15,000 of debt, not including accommodation. I gather that only about a third of people who pass the Bar exam now manage to get pupillages, and it took her three years to get hers.

During that time, my constituent worked for various agencies and did paralegal jobs to get relevant experience to help with her application. For some of that time she was on the minimum wage, but she eventually managed to get a criminal paralegal role in north London that paid about £14,000 a year. She did that to gain experience and advance her chances of getting a pupillage. However, the experience that really managed to get her a pupillage was doing voluntary legal work abroad. She was able to get a scholarship to cover her flights from the Inns of Court—well done them—and she managed to get someone to help her pay the rent on her flat in London while she was abroad. That allowed her to exist on that money while she was out of the country, because she was in free accommodation.

The young lawyer finally started her pupillage in October 2011. Although she had been warned that she would receive very little money, she was ignorant of just how little it would be. She told me that, during her first year, she received £16,285.38, but her travel expenses of well over £5,000 were not covered, so in effect she had to exist in London on about £10,000. In that year she could take only five days of holiday, she could not be sick, and she worked late nights and weekends constantly. For a young person, she had little social life. She travelled all over the country to various courts, and on most days she had to represent two clients, often in different courts, working through her lunch break and preparing for further clients late into the night.

My constituent told me that there were simply no breaks at all, but it was her vocation and the job she really wanted to do in life. However, she found that she could not live at that pace and, with so very little money, it was just not sustainable. She had to look at a different area of law, rather than criminal work. To start with she thought she could use that to subsidise what she really wanted to do, which was working at the criminal Bar. However, when she moved to a different area of law, her salary tripled almost instantly and she had more time for herself. As a result, she now practises in that area, and has largely left criminal law. She never thought she would make such a decision, but it was largely forced on her by circumstances. She wants to have a family life and bring up children, and she honestly felt that there was little chance of that happening for her at the criminal Bar. How sad is that?

My constituent came to me earlier this week because she feels that what has happened to her is wrong both for individuals and for the profession itself. People who try to be criminal law barristers normally have a massive calling. They know it may not pay half as much as other parts of their profession, but they feel that it is where they can do most good and what they should be doing. Being paid £10,000 for working all hours that God sends, and having to worry so much about money, is simply wrong for someone with responsibilities like hers. Despite the fact that my learned friend—my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh)—existed on peanuts when he was a young barrister, if this continues we will simply not have enough criminal law barristers, and we will certainly not have ones of the quality that defending in the public arena deserves. Is it an exaggeration to suggest that the criminal justice system could collapse? It is certainly in crisis if my young constituent is typical.

My constituent asked colleagues to provide her with their financial experiences as they strove to get into the profession, and she gave me the examples of five of her friends. None made more than £20,000 in their first year, and they all had to spend a huge amount of that on travel. They also had considerable debts to repay. Young criminal law barristers often do not even receive the minimum wage. That is wrong for them and most definitely wrong for a profession that we need to be as good as possible. Justice will be best served when those who argue for it are also the best, and we need well-motivated, driven people who care that we get things right in our criminal courts. Someone needs to look closely at what is happening, so that we do something about it before it is too late.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I absolutely agree that we need to be able to make free trade deals with other countries. The corollary to that is that we cannot be in the customs union, as my hon. Friend said. At the same time it is vital, as the Prime Minster has made clear, that we have frictionless trade and that our industries—not only manufacturing, but agriculture and many other industries—across the country can continue to operate without the hindrance and costs that might be caused by certain arrangements. I have every confidence that the Prime Minister and the Government will come up with the correct decision and conclusion, which may not be one that my hon. Friend and I are currently thinking of.

[Ian Mearns]

The manufacturing industry in the north-east of England relies heavily on frictionless trade, because so many components for Nissan vehicles, for example, come in or go out to other plants partly assembled. There are 7,000 or so people working at Nissan, but 35,000 people in the supply chain. Without frictionless trade, many of those jobs will be in real jeopardy.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

The hon. Gentleman makes my point exactly. My first job after university was working in the motor industry in Bridgend for Ford, which the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) mentioned earlier today in the House. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is vital that the interests of those workers and millions of other workers across the country in similar positions are taken into account.

My final point is about access to the high-quality staff that this country needs at all levels. It is quite right that we will be taking back control, but taking back control does not necessarily mean having a highly restrictive immigration policy. It means having an immigration policy that is suitable for the needs of our country, but one over which we have control. Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you very much for your forbearance.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (Paul Maynard)]

You have promoted me inopportunely, Madam Deputy Speaker. I can claim no such role, but I shall do my best.

I was struck with surprise when I learned that there was yet another pre-recess Adjournment debate so soon after the last one. We are only having one day off—how can we deserve this treat? I do not think we do. As the debate wore on, however, I noted that demand always grows to meet supply, and Members willing to speak kept creeping out of the oddest corners.

We have had a fascinating debate. It reminded me of my childhood trips to Woolworths, surveying the pick ‘n’ mix selection and not knowing quite where to begin. However, I have to start with the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, and I pay tribute to his 27 years in local government. I cannot believe that the Conservative party ever had the temerity to oppose him on the ballot paper. Surely we gave him a free ride—I hope we did.

The hon. Gentleman raised an important case that I hope he has shared with the Department for Work and Pensions. It concerns the important matter of how we treat EU citizens in the future. We have always said that we want to provide certainty for individuals and businesses. We have been clear in our statement about EU citizens who arrive in the UK during the implementation period, and there has to be reciprocity. UK nationals who move to the EU must be treated similarly, and we are clear about that and have reached a firm agreement with the EU.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the importance of clarity regarding any application for any form of benefits. As a former member of the Work and Pensions Committee, I know all too well that we need a constant process of review, and the DWP must never let up reviewing its application forms. Those forms must be clear, and I know that when they are 80 pages long, their very length can put some people off applying, particularly if they lack the functional skills required to fill them in adequately. That in itself is not acceptable, and I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern to ensure that those forms are clear.

I also agree with the hon. Gentleman about Workers Memorial Day. In my time as a Rail Minister, I was conscious that Network Rail and the wider rail industry had gone for many years without any casualties on the network. The importance of maintaining that was not just a matter for those working on the railways; it had to go to the top of Network Rail and be a priority for its chief executive and for me as Rail Minister. Indeed, we always discussed that issue, because the moment we do not pay attention to health and safety is the moment when problems can start to emerge several years down the line. I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s points on that issue.

I have also been briefed on sleep-in workers, and I know that the Government are working closely with social care providers to try to find a solution to the problem. They are also working with the EU Commission, which is currently placing limitations on what the solution might eventually look like. Work is ongoing, but I hear the hon. Gentleman’s point.



I was glad to hear about the all-party group for football supporters. The hon. Gentleman will know that the Blackpool Supporters Trust is perhaps one of the more active groups, given our own travails at Blackpool football club. I know he has had a good season as a Newcastle United fan. I hear the point about safe standing. If I may raise a point with him, I was perturbed to read earlier in the week that the obligation to produce match day programmes might be dropped by the Football League. That would be a great tragedy for the many of us who treasure those items.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned rail in the north. He tempts me into a full hour’s response. It might help the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) to not go canvassing if I were to embark upon that. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Institute for Public Policy Research figures, which come up every year. They are what they are, but they do not capture schemes that are centrally funded but delivered locally. Another aspect is how to capture spending in one region that benefits another region. I am reliant on the west coast main line. How should spending on Euston be reported? It benefits those from the north-west who seek to go to London on business, but it does not appear as investment in the north-west.

I hear the hon. Gentleman’s point about the north-east. I can assure him that it is not overlooked. I took great personal care to make sure it got the money for the new Metro trains.

[Ian Mearns]

I am very grateful for the funding for the Tyne and Wear Metro, but I just remind the Minister of a presentation that was given to the all-party group for rail in the north by Network Rail about two or three years ago, which showed its plans for the next five-year control period investment plan. It showed a scheme in Preston and the northern hub in Manchester. On the east side of the map there was an arrow next to York which said “To Scotland”, but there was nothing at all for the north-east of England.

[Paul Maynard]

I have always been very clear that northern powerhouse rail has to include Newcastle. The north does not stop at York any more than it stops at Manchester—Liverpool needs to be included, too. I look forward to visiting Gateshead for the Great Exhibition of the North.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) was his characteristic self. He made a number of important points on issues he has encountered in his surgery. I know the relevant Minister is working with the Bar Council on how to resolve some of those very difficult issues, and I listened with interest to the comments my hon. Friend had to make on that. He may be aware that the Adjournment debate—if we ever get to it; the Minister has been here patiently waiting for several hours now—is about the exclusion of the under-25s from the national minimum wage, so some of the comments in that debate may well appertain to that. He also made a point about the security briefings that are circulated and the issue of run, hide and tell. It is best if I personally refrain from commenting on those issues, but I think we would all want to pay tribute to those members of staff who do all they can to make us safe and keep us safe. They put their lives on the line at times, as we have seen in recent years.

The hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) and I renew our acquaintance, which I am most pleased about. I would never call him a whinger! I cannot believe his Whips Office could be so rude—he is anything but.