Water Companies: Executive Bonuses

Debate between Jim McMahon and Steve Reed

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the impact he is making on an important issue that affects almost every community in the country. I am glad that he has taken such a robust line on the regulator, because it is the elephant in the room. We have focused our fire on the Government because they have failed and on the water companies because they have taken money and failed, but the regulators have failed as well, because it was on their watch that this has been allowed to happen. In the midst of all that, it cannot be right for consumers to end up paying twice, first for the dividends that have already gone out of the door and then for putting the system right.

[Steve Reed]

I am grateful for the work that my hon. Friend has led in exposing some of the same problems as my predecessor in this post. He clearly knows an awful lot about these issues, and he makes his point very well.

Let me move on to the broader issue of nature. The destruction of nature that this Government have encouraged is unacceptable. As a party, they increasingly position themselves against nature. On their watch, we now have one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, yet they have rowed back on their net zero commitments. They have broken their promise to fund farmers fairly to maintain environmental schemes on their land; they have tried to weaken environmental standards relating to nutrient neutrality to allow building alongside estuaries where the increased pollution would tip habitats beyond the point of recovery while refusing to build where the environmental impact could more easily be mitigated; and now they are turning a blind eye while our rivers are turned into sewers.

Economic growth does not have to stand in opposition to protecting and restoring nature. The two must go hand in hand. Labour’s mission to make this country a clean energy superpower will create thousands of good, well-paid, secure jobs, and part of it is a national mission to restore nature, including our polluted waterways. It seems that the longer the Tories are in power, the more nature suffers. They have little concept of the pride that the British people take in our countryside, of its importance to our sense of who we are as a nation and to our sense of belonging.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Jim McMahon and Steve Reed

Thursday 17th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

I refer the House to my declaration of interest as a serving member of Oldham Council. I have found quite a lot of this debate rather patronising. The way in which the Secretary of State for Education addressed Opposition Members and gave us lessons in maths and other issues was quite condescending. I hope that we can raise the tone a little.

When we give people an education, we ought to do it in a way that is easy to digest and to remember when they leave. I tend to think that if I cannot explain something to my seven-year-old son, I am probably over-complicating it. That is the way I am going to pitch my speech to my friends across the House today. It is no more complicated than this: Georgie Porgie spun a lie. He kicked the poor and made them cry. When the rich came out to play, Georgie delivered a tax giveaway. It is really no more complicated than that: he is taking money from the poorest and giving it to the richest. And I can tell you that teachers in schools across the country will repeat that rhyme to the children when they realise the true implications of academisation for the future of their schools.

We accept that we have a complex and diverse education system. Councils must adapt, as must communities and schools. Indeed, many have done so, but if the question is “How do we address the disconnect between democracy, local accountability and leadership?”, how on earth can more fragmentation be the answer? Taking schools away from local control and dismissing the community in the mix makes no sense at all. Looking at my local area, I see Oldham getting a grip. Oldham recognised that it needed a different approach, which is why, with the support of Baroness Estelle Morris, the Oldham Education and Skills Commission was established. That was quickly followed by a political commitment to a self-improving education system owned by every school in the borough, parents, business and the wider community, all of whom had a part to play in ensuring that schools performed to the best of their abilities and that our young people were set up for the best possible future, to which they are of course entitled.

[Mr Steve Reed]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s decision to centralise the control of 24,000 schools in the Department for Education in Whitehall shows the hollowness of their rhetoric on devolution?

[Jim McMahon]

Most people accept that we have a diverse education system and most of us have reached the conclusion that we should allow for local determination and that councils should not be fighting schools that might want to consider a different model. Equally, councils should ensure that the right considerations have been taken into account and parents should be central to the decision-making process. For the Secretary of State to impose the change on local communities, whether they like it or not and whether they have a good track record or not, makes no sense whatsoever. It beggars belief that the Secretary of State has taken that approach. When the Oldham Education and Skills Commission report was finalised, the three borough MPs wrote to the Secretary of State to seek her support because we wanted the support of central Government and of the regional schools commissioner. Two months on, we have not even had the courtesy of a response. No Conservative MP can convince me that the Secretary of State has one jot of interest in education in Oldham.

Not all councils are the same in the same way that not all schools are the same. It therefore follows that not all academies are the same. We recognise that there is good practice across the board, that some excellent progress has been made, and that schools have been turned around, but what is true for state schools and community schools is true for academies. This polarised debate about having one or the other makes absolutely no sense and does nothing for the people we represent. If anything, it could send us backwards. The evidence suggests that where local partnerships work and where councils step up and take a wider leadership role, good results can be delivered for local communities.

The Chancellor made several references to the change being devolution in action. How can that be when the Government are saying, “You’re getting it whether you like it or not”? But that is a hallmark of this Chancellor. For example, people get a mayor whether they like it or not, and it is the same with schools. There will be no devolution at the grassroots level either. E-ACT, a sponsor with a school in Oldham and a range of academies across the country, decided to sack every single one of its community governors. I was so concerned by that, as were my constituents, that I again wrote to the Secretary of State to ask for her support in stopping it. Her response was that she was actually quite relaxed about it, because it was a decision for the academy, so we now have a school in Oldham with no community representation whatsoever.

Where are the safeguards to ensure that academy sponsors go out to tender for the support services provided to schools? Academies are required to seek such services at cost value if they do not go out to contract, but academies and trading companies will include an overhead, which will contain director and non-executive director salaries, gold-plated pensions, to which public sector workers are not entitled, and company cars. Where are the safeguards to ensure that that cannot happen?

Where are the safeguards to ensure that salaries are published in the same way as in local authorities? Everybody in Oldham knows exactly how much senior officers are paid, because the information is published every year. It is not the same for academies or their sponsors. The chief executive of one academy is paid £370,000 a year for looking after 37 schools. Were that to be replicated in Oldham, with its 100 community schools, the director of education would be paid £1 million a year, which is nonsense. How many people know that that is happening? It happens behind the scenes and is an exercise in smoke and mirrors.

Let us get a level playing field and ensure that academies and their sponsors publish every decision that they make in the same way as councils. Let us ensure that academies cannot give contracts to their parent companies through trading companies and that they are forced to go out to contract like councils. Let us ensure that they publish a pay policy statement and senior salaries just like councils do. Let us ensure that academies publish freedom of information requests in the way that councils do. It is ridiculous that the local education authority, which has been there since 1902, is being unpicked for short-term political gain without any safeguards being put in place. The Government cannot say that they are doing it for democracy, because that does not stack up. They cannot say that it is being done for the communities that we represent. We can no longer say that it is being done in the interests of the taxpayers, because the safeguards are just not in place.

Mark my words: this is heading towards disaster. The structures are not sound enough, the safeguards are not in place, and providers are not mature enough to step up and take on all schools. There are some real questions about who the Tories represent. Is it the pupils? Is it the teaching profession? Is it the wider community interest? Or is it the narrow sponsor interest? It would be an interesting piece of work to find out just how many Conservative party donors are involved in free schools and academies.