Windrush Generation and the Home Office
Debate between Jim Cunningham and Meg Hillier
Meg Hillier
Absolutely. As my right hon. Friend and I know, there are probably more citizens affected by the issue in our own borough—perhaps this goes beyond my remit as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee—who are from the wider Commonwealth than from the Caribbean. I am glad to see that the Immigration Minister is in her place to hear this statement. As I said in response to the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), it is important that the Government really get a grip on this issue and take a proactive approach to publicising the support that is available. If people are legally entitled to support and protection, it is absolutely right that the Home Office ensures that they have access to it, and that they know their rights.
The Government have set up a scheme for Windrush—there is some architecture in place now—so it is really important that this message goes out to the wider Commonwealth. This issue has been raised with me since before this report and our inquiry; many across the wider Commonwealth are concerned. It is important that the Government deal with this situation more effectively, as we have recommended.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Has the Committee looked at compensation for the Windrush people? A number of them in Coventry have been a bit concerned, to say the least.
Meg Hillier
As I said earlier, it is not our job to recommend how the Government do things. They have promised to deliver a compensation scheme, and my hon. Friend can rest assured that my Committee will be keen to look at that when it is unveiled—as, no doubt, will the National Audit Office. Our concern was that, a year on, there is no further information about the compensation scheme while people are waiting.
Although it is beyond the remit of what we were looking at, a compensation scheme could involve a formula or there could be bespoke compensation. It is obviously for the Government to decide exactly how that goes ahead. Once a compensation scheme is established, no doubt many of us will be scrutinising it—including, quite possibly, the Public Accounts Committee.
Bill Presented
Postnatal Check-ups (Mental Health) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Wera Hobhouse, supported by Christine Jardine, Layla Moran, Rosie Duffield, Rosie Cooper, Catherine West, Tom Brake, Dr David Drew, Tim Loughton, Jo Swinson and Steve McCabe, presented a Bill to require routine six week National Health Service check-ups for new mothers to include mental health assessments and advice; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 22 March, and to be printed (Bill 352).
Department for Education
Debate between Jim Cunningham and Meg Hillier(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I did a survey just before and after the 2017 general election. Out of 103 schools in Coventry, 102 were finding increases in class sizes. The cuts measured pupil by pupil amounted to £295. We had a debate yesterday about sex education in schools. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is another burden being loaded on to our schools? We have a situation in Coventry where schools badly need additional funding regardless of what the Government were going to allow because they are starting from a very low basis. In other words, the Government owe education £3.5 billion, despite the fact that they put in £1.5 billion.
Meg Hillier
My hon. Friend tees me up for my next point. He also raises an important point. It is a political disease to ask schools to do more all the time and very often assume that it can just be done without the additional funding. It is important that the Secretary of State and his ministerial team watch closely that, while other bits of Government suggest that schools do things, there is the funding in place for that and for the core of what they should be delivering. It was after the general election and as a result of that campaign and that pressure on the Government, who were then elected without a majority, that the Secretary of State announced £1.3 billion of additional funding, which was weighted towards next year. This year, schools are in the throes of receiving the £416 million that was announced for this year and will receive £884 million in aggregate across England for next year. But that—the £3 billion figure—does not even backfill those efficiency demands that were asked for before. It is important that we recognise—in fact, the Government have recognised this—that we need 599,000 school places, which is as a result of the increase between 2010 and 2015. We are very concerned about the pressure on school budgets.
Customs and Borders
Debate between Jim Cunningham and Meg Hillier(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I fully associate myself with the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) when she opened the debate and the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), so I will not repeat their arguments now. I will, however, pick up on what my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) and the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) said: we should be having a reasonable and evidence-based debate. Four of us who have spoken so far have the privilege of chairing Select Committees and seeing and hearing from witnesses directly about what is happening out there on the ground, and it is right that we have this opportunity to pass this information on to the Government and make sure that we have a serious discussion.
The right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) spoke about what the public voted for. Had there been a very clear exposition of the either/or position, we could say that, but it was not clear at all, and now is the time for clarity. I want to focus on the practical issues facing this country if we leave the customs union. The Public Accounts Committee, which I have the privilege of chairing, is a cross-party Committee made up of Members from four parties in this House—Members who voted both Brexit and remain and whose constituents voted similarly differently. Yet as a Committee we have produced a series of reports, two of which I want to talk about today, that highlight the practical challenges facing this country.
The first report was on the customs declaration service. Testing of that system, which is to replace the outdated customs handling of import and export freight—CHIEF—system to ensure we have a customs declaration system fit for purpose, is only now just under way. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs estimates that the volume of customs declarations per year could rise by 200 million, from 55 million in 2015 to 255 million, and that the number of traders making declarations could increase from 141,000 to 273,000. We will need border checks for people and goods—we heard a lot from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on this; we will see increased costs for businesses and Governments, as others have touched on; and we will see enormous delays at the border.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Has my hon. Friend’s Committee looked at the cost and number of officials we will need at the border after Brexit?
Meg Hillier
My hon. Friend raises an important point. In another report, published last December, we looked at Brexit and the border—I say “looked at”, but the situation is not static; we are working closely with sister Committees, particularly the Treasury Committee, with which we are doing some joint work on the cost of Brexit. We need to look at the wider cost and what Departments are having to do to implement these new systems and employ new staff.
HMRC has told us very candidly that it does not expect, as the right hon. Member for Loughborough highlighted, to have any additional border infrastructure in place by next March, yet other countries are planning for this already. In the Netherlands and Ireland, they are buying up land and planning to build facilities to do those necessary checks. Pieter Omtzigt, the Dutch Parliament’s Brexit rapporteur, has said that his country is
“preparing for the stated policy of the UK government”
and that it needs
“hundreds of new customs and agricultural inspectors”.
He says: “if we need” that,
“the British are going to need thousands”.
Already this week, we have seen Border Force advertising to recruit 550 staff—in addition to staff it has already had to recruit and will have to recruit again in the future.
Extraordinarily, a response to our work from the border planning group, which comprises a number of Departments, told our Committee there was no evidence to suggest that the risk profile of goods would change on day one. It went on:
“The Government is reviewing the specific areas where the risk posed by these imports could change, both immediately following EU exit and over time, and the measures that should be put in place to address this”—
should be put in place! We are one year away from Brexit. Even with a transition period, it will be enormously challenging—in fact impossible—to deliver the infrastructure needed to make sure that our country is safe.
We need full clarity on the costs. The Treasury Committee and the Public Accounts Committee are pressing the Treasury and other bits of Government about what the total cost will be. Let us be clear: there will be additional costs to the financial settlement, which will be only a small portion of the overall costs. That is the cost we will have to pay for the political exit, but there are the on-costs—the lost opportunity costs. We need to see the full bill and to have it analysed by the National Audit Office. We need to have that before any meaningful vote in the autumn. We are still woefully short on such information, but the right hon. Member for Loughborough and I are on the march, so I warn the Government: they had better be prepared.
As with the emperor’s new clothes, we need to call it out. Wishful thinking is not enough. It is not about ideology or romance, though many of us hold ideological positions. We need clarity. We need a decision so that business, and indeed the Government, can prepare. We need a customs union—we need the customs union. The alternative is chaos, cost, confusion and huge damage to the UK economy.
Health and Social Care
Debate between Jim Cunningham and Meg Hillier(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Meg Hillier
My hon. Friend makes her point well. It is important to protect staff. I echo the comments of the Chair of the Health Committee that staff cost more than anything else in the NHS and provide the direct patient care that is so important to its long-term sustainability. I will touch on workforce planning in a moment.
Mr Jim Cunningham
There is another dimension, which is that some people with mental health problems turn up at A&E units because there is no other place for them to go and they cannot get any other accommodation. The views and voices of the carers who look after these people are very often not listened to. I get many complaints about that.
Meg Hillier
That is one reason that we need to be really clear that we are looking at a long-term integrated health and social care system. Social services support should be there for people—whether they are a frail older person, someone with a particular disability and need, or someone with a mental health challenge—when they need it to prevent them from going to A&E in the first place.