Taxation of Low-income Families

John Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I am grateful for your indulgence, Sir David, and apologise for not having been here at the beginning of the debate. I am proud to be associated with this study, and I have only two points to make. First, change is inevitable and constant, as Disraeli said, but not all change is for the better. In my lifetime, many things have changed for the better, but many have deteriorated, and perhaps the sharpest and most obvious deterioration has been the change in family life and the consequent alteration in communities. When I was brought up in a working-class community by working-class parents, that community was stable, law abiding and socially cohesive. It embedded in me strong values: to do the right thing, work hard, abide by the law, and care for other people.

If someone were to go to that council estate now, they would see a very different picture. They would see more lawlessness and more vandalism. They would see the parade of shops that was once there, which my mother used, long gone. Fundamentally and most starkly, they would see widespread family breakdown, and the wider effect of family breakdown is something that the Government need to recognise and use every lever at their disposal to do something about. It is no use politicians claiming that things will always and only get better, because they do not: society has changed for both good and ill simultaneously, and no Government of any party have dealt with this issue to the degree that they should have done.

We can use the tax system in exactly the way this report suggests, so my second point—mindful of your advice, Sir David, I will make only two—is that family, and particularly marriage, need to be supported in the tax system. The benefits system does so to some degree: as we have heard from various speakers, it recognises family responsibility. However, that is not matched by the tax system to the degree that it should be. I say to the Minister, who is my close friend and my right hon. Friend—which is quite a different matter—that he would stand proud among Treasury Ministers of this age and of all ages if he used the tax system to recognise family responsibility more effectively. With that brief contribution—some will say all too brief, Sir David, but I know you will not—I conclude my remarks.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and there are stats to prove this. In March, King’s College London published statistics estimating that foreign investment into the UK housing market had driven up prices in London by 20% over the last five years. That is a huge impact.

[Mr John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

rose—

[James Cartlidge]

I am happy to take another intervention from a Lincolnshire MP—two on the trot.

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. Friend is making an important point. The measures in this clause are part of a suite of policies that allow us to deal with the abuse of international multinational monopoly capitalists, who are skewing our economy against the interests of our people and altering the character of both our economy and our society.

[James Cartlidge]

It is always interesting to hear attacks on capitalists from this side of the House. I simply say in terms of the way the property market has gone that we have often focused in the debate on housing on increasing the supply of homes—the statistics just published on new housing supply are incredibly positive—but I have been a mortgage broker and involved in the property sector, and I remember what happened in the wake of the crunch. The impact of fiscal and monetary policy and the stimulus we have had, and measures that have encouraged inward investment, have also been detrimental. We must not forget, as many people might, that in 2011-12 when the euro was facing an existential crisis—who knows, at some point in the future that might well return—huge inflows of capital came into UK residential property, particularly in London, pushing up prices and impacting on first-time buyers.

Having covered that specific point, I welcome anti-avoidance measures in this area. We need a level playing field, and not just in the same way that other anti-avoidance measures give a level playing field for small businesses; we need them for first-time buyers and those in Britain seeking to get on to the housing ladder. I support these measures and the others in the Bill.

2019 Loan Charge

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Baker]

I obviously cannot comment on individual circumstances. However, this is a good opportunity to draw a distinction between taking people on as contractors and insisting that they join schemes that could end up with their using disguised remuneration arrangements. On the one hand, contracting is a legitimate way of going about business; on the other, engaging in disguised remuneration schemes—an aggressive form of tax avoidance—is not desirable.

[Mr John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is doing a sterling job of raising this matter in this place. On that basis, will he challenge the Minister on how many firms have been investigated, how many promoters have been pursued and prosecuted, and how many of those had some connection to Government contracts or payments?

[Mr Baker]

I join my right hon. Friend’s call for the Minister to set that out, which my hon. Friend the Minister will have heard. I will now make some progress.

The Loan Charge Action Group says that the human impact of receiving a bill for up to 10 years’ worth of tax will have a catastrophic effect on individuals and their families. On whom among us would it not have a catastrophic effect? It goes on to say that we are looking at thousands of bankruptcies, family break-ups and suicide attempts, as well as mental illness, unemployment, loss of abode and more. That is a catalogue of human suffering and misery.

HMRC’s impact assessment of the measure says:

“This package is not expected to have a material impact on family formation, stability or breakdown.”

However, that looks at aggregates, not the impact on individuals, which it seems to me is a common mistake of Government. As a Conservative, I wish to focus first and foremost on the individual, not the collective.

I will foreshorten my remarks, given the interventions I have taken. One specific complaint is the lack of warning. A freedom of information request revealed that HMRC has issued about 23,000 loan charge awareness letters, which were only issued from the second quarter of 2018. HMRC says that 50,000 individuals may be affected, so many will be unaware of the impending charge. The Loan Charge Action Group points out that the opportunities to settle new tax affairs with HMRC ahead of the charge were similarly not widely publicised, nor was the deadline of 31 May 2018, leaving people in a terrible fix, although I understand that the deadline has been quietly dropped.

The Loan Charge Action Group suggests that historical users of schemes who left many years ago are probably completely ignorant of this new legislation and will only hear of it after receiving a large bill some time in 2020. This is a dreadful risk, which the Government should forestall.

I am keen to conclude, so I will come to some solutions that I ask the Minister to consider. As I outlined in a letter to the Chancellor in September, there should be clarity about what DOTAS—disclosure of tax avoidance schemes—registration means. There should be a legally mandated text accompanying every advertisement of a DOTAS-registered scheme that explains that the purpose of registration is to enable HMRC to identify tax liabilities and to recover them when such schemes are proven not to work. It does not imply any kind of legitimacy, and registration with HMRC is not for the purpose of endorsing the schemes. When HMRC becomes aware that a taxpayer has subscribed to a DOTAS-registered scheme, it should contact the taxpayer and make them aware that registration has the purpose of enforcement and does not convey legitimacy. HMRC must take into account people’s circumstances, and the threat of insolvency should never be used as a kind of extrajudicial punishment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) made it clear that the genesis of the matter was the change to IR35 in 2000, which led to many freelance, contracted and itinerant workers ordering their financial affairs, notably for the purpose of paying tax, in a way that they believed and were told was completely proper and in line with the new regulatory environment. Subsequently, umbrella schemes developed as some of those people’s tax and financial affairs led them to the point where they became liable for employer’s national insurance contributions. Those umbrella schemes have become mainstream in the subsequent 18 years.

The people concerned were largely acting in good faith, whether or not the people who were advising and promoting the schemes were. The architects and advocates of the schemes are the people who the Treasury should be pursuing with vigour and determination.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Tommy Sheppard]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Hayes]

I happily give way to my hon. Friend first.

[Fiona Bruce]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of the organisations and advisers that encouraged our constituents, who are now suffering so much grief, to go into the schemes are the self-same ones putting themselves forward to give our constituents advice to address the challenges from HMRC? Does that not add insult to injury?

[Mr Hayes]

That should be a further part of the invitation that I made via my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), whom I congratulate on securing the debate, to the Minister. We look forward to the Minister confirming that when he responds.

[Tommy Sheppard]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Hayes]

I will briefly, but I want to move on, because I appreciate the lack of time.

[Tommy Sheppard]

I am grateful, because I concur entirely with the point that the real villains are the companies that mis-sold the schemes in the first place—at times, for fees that can only be considered usurious. My constituent paid £138,000 in fees over three years to a company called AM Limited, which has changed its name but is still trading and registered in Panama. If HMRC were to assist my constituent in trying to recover that money, he would be much better able to pay his retrospective tax liability.

[Mr Hayes]

I have answered many debates in this Chamber as a Minister of various Departments, and I tell the Minister, who is a good and honourable man, that when this many hon. Members from both sides of the House come together in a single cause, he had better take action. The writing is on the wall and he has to respond. I know he will take that piece of sound advice in the spirit that it is offered to him.

I will briefly make three recommendations and then draw my remarks to a rapid conclusion. First, I would like the Minister to tell us what further impact assessment has been made by scale and detail on the families affected by the measures. Secondly, I would like him to give us an estimate of how many people who cannot or will not pay will be driven to bankruptcy, and what effect that will have on the Treasury’s revenue calculations on the matter. Thirdly, as I have already said twice—I make no apology for amplifying it—I would like him to tell us what steps he is taking in respect of the architects and advocates of the schemes, who have done so much damage.

I have no doubt that being a Treasury Minister is about churning figures, but it is also about changing lives. This matter affects the wellbeing of large numbers of our constituents. Families will be blighted and faith in fairness will be ruined. The Minister—an honourable gentleman, a good Treasury Minister, a valued colleague and friend—needs to see the writing on the wall and take action. Woe betide those who do not. They will rue the day that they failed to listen to the voices that have been aired today.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I thank Mr Hayes for his generous and succinct contribution. Last but not least, I call Justin Madders.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Glen]

HMRC’s objective will be to secure the money owed, as per the rules of the tax system. HMRC has enormous power to levy charges of up to £1 million on those individuals who are not complying.

The schemes may have involved provision of a loan with no intention to repay it. The recipients of such payments enjoyed them no differently from the way any of us use our normal income. As such, in the eyes of HMRC, the payments have always been taxable.

I have acknowledged the comments of colleagues who said that the charge on disguised remuneration loans will apply to loans that were made as far back as 1999. It is fair to say that the schemes were never permitted. They were defective, going back to then.

[Mr John Hayes]

We now learn from the Minister that HMRC knew that the schemes were inappropriate from the outset. So is he saying that HMRC is not malevolent but indiligent, inefficient and ineffective? If HMRC knew that, and the schemes were mainstream for 20 years, why is it acting only now?

[John Glen]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his point. Every scheme will be taken individually. They were not one single scheme that was developed. It is for HMRC to open cases on the disguised schemes, which it has done—going back many years on some of them—and it will take action as appropriate. A concern has been raised in the debate about not determining an outcome, and my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe raised the concern about the implication that, when a tax avoidance scheme has been disclosed, that is somehow a verification or an endorsement of it. That is a misleading perception that has been left, and something for which HMRC should be accountable.

[Mr Hayes]

Forgive me. I will not intervene more than twice on the Minister, because I know he wants to make progress. I have always regarded HMRC as an efficient organisation that goes about its business properly. Is this not about the Government? The Government took a view about all this and I suspect that, although it may be true that HMRC is implementing Government policy, this is really about the Government changing their mind. That is what we are asking for.

[John Glen]

The Government that my right hon. Friend was part of and, I believe, a Minister in at the time the legislation was passed. [Interruption.] Let me make some progress.

Although the measure subjects the loans to a tax charge, that 2019 charge applies only to current loan balances and does not arise until April 2019. Recipients of loans can still repay outstanding balances in full or settle with HMRC. The legislation is not retrospective because it sets out Parliament’s intention: payments subject to the loan charge should always have been, and will be, subject to tax. The announcement in the 2016 spring Budget by the former Member for Tatton provided scheme users with a three-year period in which to repay disguised remuneration loans or agree a settlement with HMRC to avoid the charge.

Windrush: 70th Anniversary

John Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

I knew there was something special about the right hon. Gentleman that I just could not put my finger on; all is now revealed. He might well find that he has more Scots blood in him than I have, because the more I look back at my ancestry the more I discover that a lot of it is actually from Ireland—Northern Ireland, rather than the Republic.

I am of immigrant descent. We all are. My ancestors may have come to mainland UK a few years before the ancestors of some hon. Members, but we are all immigrants. There is nobody left in the UK who can claim to be 100% indigenous English, Welsh, Scots or Irish. We would do well to remember that, because the question is not about who is an immigrant, it is just about how long we have been an immigrant for.

[Mr John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

The last point that the hon. Gentleman made is, in a sense, the most profound. It is about not where we come from, but the shared identity that we enjoy when we are here. The Windrush generation in particular were deeply patriotic, and remain so. These were people who were actually proud of Britain’s history. Of course, they understood that it was a mixed history, but they were proud of it. As the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) knows very well, I chair the British Caribbean Association and I have formed close friendships with those people—people who called their children Milton, Nelson and so on. How many white British people have ever done that? That was a measure of their patriotism.

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful for that intervention. My name is actually French—Norman—so my ancestors came over at some time along with the Norman conquerors and I have been trying to keep up with the tradition of upsetting the English ever since. That is not completely true, of course.

The right hon. Member for Tottenham makes an interesting point. It is possible to tell a lot about somebody’s background from their name, but sometimes that background has been broken. Sometimes the link has been deliberately broken to try to turn somebody into something that they are really not.

The important point about identifying with and celebrating a culture—being proud of who we are and where we are from—is that it does not all need to be one place and one time. It is perfectly possible to be proudly Jamaican and proudly English at the same time; it is perfectly possible to be proudly Scots and proudly Canadian at the same; and it is perfectly possible to be proudly Scots and proudly English at the same time.

Although it is vital that the contribution of black culture—however we define it—to the life of these islands is remembered, celebrated and taught in all our schools, we also need to understand that how we define black culture is no more static or set in stone than how we define any other kind of culture. When people are celebrating black culture in 50 years’ time, they will be doing it in a way that none of us would recognise. When they look back at celebrations of black culture today, they will not recognise it any more than they would recognise Italian culture, German culture or any other kind of culture.



The identity that people hold is up to each person to define for themselves. If we try to put people into boxes by making them exclusively black, white, brown, yellow, European or American, we are not doing them any favours. In fact, we are not doing anybody any favours, because the great benefit of the diversity that exists in humanity is the fact that each and every one of us is unique. None of us is 100% pure-bred anything. That is just as well because, as any dog breeder or horse breeder will say, pure breeds do not live very long. Pedigree dogs tend to be very unhealthy. Give me a good mongrel that is a mix of so many breeds that they can never be disentangled; that dog will probably outlive its master by quite a few years.

Although not many in the Windrush generation eventually found their way to Scotland, parts of the country do have some significant groups of people who are of West Indian and Afro-Caribbean descent. Scotland has had large waves of immigrants throughout its history. It is interesting to look at the ways in which the experiences of other immigrant movements into Scotland have been similar to the experiences of the Windrush generation, and the ways in which they have been different. Sadly, one way in which these experiences have been all too often similar is in the racism and discrimination that immigrants have faced.

As I mentioned, a lot of my ancestors came over from Ireland, as did a lot of the population in the west of Scotland. It is one of the things that Glasgow very much has in common with Liverpool. The racism that they experienced was turned into sectarianism because they identified as being Irish and therefore Catholic, even though they were not necessarily Catholic. That kind of racism in the guise of sectarianism still poisons too much of our society in central Scotland today. We could do with being rid of that, just as we could do with being rid of other forms of racism.

We have also experienced immigration from the other side. By far the biggest export that Scotland has had in the last 200 years has been our people. I remember going to the railway station on a number of occasions when I was a wee boy to see off another of my mum’s wee sisters with her family, as they took the £10 journey to Australia and became Australian citizens. I am delighted to say that the traffic was not all one-way and that my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) made the journey in the opposite direction.

That is the way things are, and it is the way they should always be. When we celebrate the huge benefits that were brought to these lands by one single big—in fact, not particularly big—migration of people, we should perhaps stop to think about the fact that migration benefits the places that people move to. I cannot think of any instance where migration has not benefited the place that people moved to. That is why I have some concerns about not only the view that the Government are taking towards migration but the direction of travel in which they are taking us in relation to the free movement of people.

[Mr John Hayes]

I think the hon. Gentleman needs to be clear that the people I described earlier—those patriots who called their children Milton, Winston, Gladstone and so on—take a very similar view of illegal migration, because they took the trouble to come here on an entirely proper basis. Outrage is felt by people in this House and others on behalf of the Windrush generation because they were legal migrants who should never have been treated in that way. They are Britons in the same way that all the rest of us are. We should not assume for a moment—I know you would not, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will not either—that those people do not take a robust view on illegal migration and understand the need for controls on migration as a whole.

[Peter Grant]

The great shame of the experience of the Windrush generation is that for far too many of them, assumptions were made about their legality or illegality based on nothing better than the colour of their skin or the accent with which they spoke, just as that ticket collector on the train made assumptions about the likelihood that the black guys were more likely to be dodging tickets than the white guys.

I cannot imagine my country without waves of immigration. I am delighted that in any school in my constituency that I go to, there are welcome signs up in 10, 15 or 20 languages, each one of which is the home language of one of its pupils or staff. I am delighted to live in a country whose national colour only exists if we take lots of different colours and mix them together. A tartan scarf made of a single colour is not tartan, and for me, a Scotland, an England and a United Kingdom where everybody was the same simply would not be the great countries that they are.

To those from the Windrush generation who are still alive, I say thank you, and I also say sorry, because the Parliament that I am part of and the Government that I am supposed to hold to account have done you an injustice that would be shameful in any circumstances, but when set against the contribution that you have made to so many cities and regions of these islands, to have treated you and your descendants in that way is a stain on the reputation of these nations that will take a long, long time to clear.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant). I congratulate the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this debate and giving us the chance to reflect on the enormous contribution of the Windrush generation. I also want to pay tribute to my colleague in the other place, Baroness Benjamin. She is a member of the Windrush generation who has been a leading voice in both Parliament and the community.

The treatment of the Windrush generation is a stain on our society, as the hon. Member for Glenrothes said. Our hearts reach out to those who have been subjected to terrible injustice and who have been separated from family, refused the right to return home, denied healthcare or lost a job as a result of serious failings of the Home Office. There is no question but that these people deserve to be called British citizens and to be British citizens, and to question their identity and legitimacy was callous.

I believe that there is a much deeper malaise at the heart of the Windrush scandal, which is due to this country’s current uneasy relationship with immigration and a Tory Government who have gone all out on the “hostile environment”. Interestingly, however, the Government got it completely wrong in what they believed would be the popular response of our non-immigrant communities to such concerns. When the public heard about the plight of the Windrush generation, their immediate response was one of compassion and outrage. This is the tolerant and open Britain we live in, that we need to foster and that we need to protect.

Today, people across the country are sincerely and deeply mourning the 72 people who lost their lives in the Grenfell tragedy, many of whom were not born in this country. People respond to individuals as soon as they make a connection with them. It is the dehumanisation of immigration that has made this subject so toxic.

[Mr John Hayes]

Inasmuch as we can gauge what different groups of the population feel about EU migration and the open borders we have endured with the European Union, the evidence suggests that minority communities—black and Asian Britons—feel just as strongly about this as white Britons. They do not take a more, as she put it, “liberal” view—I always use that term pejoratively—than any other Britons. They are proud to be here, and they understand that we have to have borders.

[Wera Hobhouse]

The point I am making is that people always talk in the abstract about curbing immigration, but as soon as they talk about individuals, they very quickly change their attitude. During the many discussions I have had and still have about the benefits or otherwise of leaving the EU—I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising that subject—people only ever talk about the need to curb immigration in the abstract. However, as soon as they mention a neighbour or a friend who is an immigrant, the tone immediately and totally changes.

I am an immigrant—a first-generation immigrant—and I fully recognise that my skin colour makes a big difference; I cannot compare the discrimination I have faced with the suffering of Caribbean immigrants. [Interruption.] I wish the right hon. Gentleman would listen. However, the recent Brexit debate has turned attention to European immigration, and suddenly—[Interruption.] I wish he would listen. Suddenly, I understand what it means to be the target of anti-immigrant feeling, and it is not nice. People talk about curbing immigration only in the abstract, and I must say that I have never faced open hostility—except twice in a political debate—during the 30 years I have lived in this country.

I believe that it is the responsibility of politicians like us to encourage the inclusive and tolerant attitudes of our citizens. It is the irresponsible politicians who stir up and undermine the cohesion of our communities, including those of newcomers from the EU as well as black and minority communities. We must foster cohesion, not do the opposite, and we should not blame immigration for rising inequalities, job insecurity, the poor availability of housing or poor public services.

The Windrush generation fell foul of quite a lot of this malaise and of anti-immigrant feeling, but they are not the first to have suffered in that way. Only if the Government now completely change their attitude to immigration and stress the huge benefits of our immigrant populations—their hard work, their contribution and their loyalty to our country—can we make amends and the Windrush generation can feel fully vindicated.

On the 70th anniversary of Windrush, the Government must guarantee that every member of the Windrush generation will receive the support they need to claim their rightful citizenship and to live in their rightful home. The same must apply to all those who have fallen victim to discrimination, including Commonwealth citizens—the Kenyans, Australians, Indians and Pakistanis whom we have heard about today. Such people, and I include European immigrants, have established their lives here and put their trust in the UK Government to protect them. We should celebrate not bemoan the fact that many want to live in this country and call it their home. We should be proud of the open and tolerant society we have and that has welcomed so many in the past.

[Mr Hayes]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Wera Hobhouse]

I have nearly finished my speech.

I call for the “hostile environment” created by the Government, which led to the Windrush scandal, to come to an end. By officially recognising 22 June as a national Windrush day, we can give people from all backgrounds a reason to celebrate their unique identities, histories and rightful home in UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Abbott]

At one and the same time, the Windrush generation were both anti-colonialist but deeply respectful of a range of British institutions, including royalty. It may surprise some Government Members, but if someone meets a West Indian who was educated in the West Indies between the war and asks them to recite some poetry, they will promptly and with enthusiasm recite a piece of Keats or Shelley. That was the nature of the education.

[Mr John Hayes]

I am in an embarrassing position because I am having, for the second time in a week, to wholeheartedly and enthusiastically agree with everything that the right hon. Lady says—it is doing me no favours on these Benches, I can tell you. She is absolutely perfectly right about that combination. What she just described is one of the most profound things I have heard in this debate, leaving aside what my great friend, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), said. The right hon. Lady and I will perhaps disagree about this, but that is why it is so important to discuss the Windrush issue for its own sake. One of the risks of conflating it with the wider debate about EU migrants and so on is to miss the subtlety of the points that she is making.

[Ms Abbott]

The Windrush generation were both anti-colonialist and devoted to the royal family. As the years turned into decades of their settlement in the UK, their relatives all over the Caribbean had treasured photographs, in pride of place on their mantelpiece, of that generation together with their children in their Sunday best, posed against a country house background in an inner-city photographic studio. These photographs, treasured wherever people find them, were testimony to the growing prosperity of the Windrush generation.

As the House has heard, over 1,000 passengers arrived that day. They included a group of 66 Poles whose last country of residence was Mexico. The Poles had been granted permission to settle in this country under the terms of the Polish Resettlement Act 1947, which reflected the Polish contribution to the allied war effort. I will return to that point later, but the Polish settlement shows that there was a time when we were very clear, as a political class, who our true friends are, a time when we recognised our obligations of friendship, and a time when we recognised the valuable contribution that people from other countries make to our society and economy.





I stress that “the Windrush generation” refers not only to the 1,000 people who came off the Windrush but to all the people from the Commonwealth who entered this country between 1948 and 1973. However, the original Windrush generation are passing. Every week I hear of the death of a member of that generation who was a pillar of the community in my younger years. My hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood referred to Len Garrison, but there were many others who were so active and offered such leadership in the 1960s and 1970s.

Let us talk briefly about what the Windrush generation did and contributed. As the House has heard, they came to address a labour shortage. Very many came to work in the national health service, and they helped to build our national health service in its earliest years. My own mother was a pupil nurse, recruited in Jamaica. It was hard, back-breaking work. The nurses often found themselves working the night shift, or the early shift. Very occasionally, patients would refuse to be tended by a black person, but many more appreciated their care and nursing skills. Those women were so proud of their service in the NHS.

Many Windrush-era persons, whether from the Caribbean or elsewhere in the Commonwealth, came to work in transport. There was, for instance, Bill Morris, who rose to lead one of our largest trade unions—the Transport and General Workers Union, as it was then—but who had begun as a bus driver. It is no coincidence that Britain now has both a London Mayor and a Home Secretary whose fathers were bus drivers. Many other members of the Windrush generation worked in manufacturing and light engineering. Some of the most well-established Caribbean communities in London are in parts of London where, after the war, there were ample jobs in light engineering and in factories: areas such as Park Royal, Willesden and Brent, and Hackney Marshes, where the Metal Box factory was.

I must touch on the contribution of the Windrush generation to culture and music. Most people know about the Notting Hill carnival, but if there is a kind of music that I associate with my childhood, it is not just my mother’s beloved Harry Belafonte records, but ska, rocksteady, and the output of Trojan Records. I cannot end this section of my speech about the Windrush contribution without reminding the House of the earliest Members of the Houses of Parliament from the Caribbean: Sir Learie Constantine and Lord David Pitt.

The children and grandchildren of the Windrush generation are also part of this issue. In fact, anyone who came here from the former colonies—from the Commonwealth—before 1973 is here legally, and, in effect, part of the Windrush generation. That applies no matter what part of the Commonwealth they came from—the Caribbean, Africa, India, Bangladesh and many more besides—and it also applies to their children and grandchildren. Many of those people, however, are experiencing difficulties because the immigration department is saying that the immigration position of their parents and grandparents was not resolved.

Now, sadly, I turn to what happened to that Windrush generation after a lifetime of working hard, paying their taxes, bringing up their families, and contributing to a strong and stable society. They were treated shamefully. What was worst for many was not just facing material issues, but being flung into uncertainty and treated like liars. I have convened meetings with them, as has my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham, and they have told us that it is being treated like liars about which they feel most bitter. The Home Secretary says that 63 people have been deported, but the final total could be much higher. Our own citizens were deported.

We also still have no information on how many of the Windrush generation have been wrongly detained at immigration detention centres. I know that some have been, because I met them when I visited Yarl’s Wood earlier this year. The Government have provided no answers on how many people have been bullied or threatened into so-called voluntary removals. They admit that some people have been excluded—prevented from returning to their homes and families when they had just been on an overseas trip, perhaps for a wedding, a funeral or a family holiday. The Home Office still cannot tell us how many of those people there are and what it is doing to address their plight.

There are also those who were made unemployed. Perhaps their employer got taken over by a bigger employer and suddenly, after years of working happily, they were asked to produce paperwork that they simply did not have. Others have lost their homes because of the effect on housing benefit, have been refused bank accounts—although I welcome the fact that the Home Secretary has moved to end the closure of bank accounts in that way—or lost their driving licences, and some, most shamefully of all, have had to pay for medical treatment and were refused treatment for conditions such as cancer. The list of outrages goes on, but the actions the Government have taken to correct them have been a little short-term.

Here I want to address an important issue. All too often when we debate the Windrush generation, Conservative Members start talking about illegal migrants, and some of us think it is wrong to talk about the Windrush generation and illegal migrants in the same breath. Let me say this very slowly for Members who refuse to accept it: the Windrush generation was not illegal. The whole problem of the Windrush scandal is that those who were legally here were treated as if they were illegal. There is a reason why they were treated as if they were illegal. It was not an accident or an aberration, and it was not incompetent officials: it flowed directly from Government policy. It is the essence of the hostile environment.

Let me stop here to make a point. Conservative Members have said that Labour Ministers and Labour Governments talked about a hostile environment. I have news for Members opposite: the Labour party is under new management, and they will not hear from the current leadership some of the things they heard in the past about migration.

A whole string of non-expert agents, landlords, employers, NHS staff and others have been asked to identify people they suspect of being illegal immigrants. The person under suspicion then has the burden of proof placed on them: they must prove otherwise, requiring a series of documents stretching back decades—four for every year. Many of us in this Chamber would struggle to provide four documents for every year we have lived in this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Adams]

That is a very fair point. It is incumbent on schools and on teachers to ensure that the Windrush generation is included in the curriculum, because children could learn an awful lot as a result.

As has been discussed today, another seminal and momentous occasion took place as the United Kingdom welcomed the HMT Empire Windrush at the port of Tilbury on 21 June 1948, and what followed the day after has been subsequently and regularly debated in this House. While it should be recognised that black British history does not start with the Windrush, the arrival of 492 West Indians, many of them ex-servicemen and women, has become synonymous with the first wave of mass migration and the beginning of modem British multicultural society. Those people include Alfred Gardner, who lives up the road from me in Leeds. I understand that he is still going strong at the great age of 92, and I am sure that the whole House sends Alfred its best wishes.

Many from the Windrush generation left their homes to answer the call to come to a strange, foreign and cold land in order to help rebuild the mother country. The welcome for many from that community, and many other communities that followed, was mixed at best. I would not do this debate justice if I did not mention and recognise the struggle to adjust and to put down roots, with many arrivals receiving a hostile reception. A well-documented phrase present outside many houses at the time was “no blacks, no Irish, no dogs”. As a white man brought up here, it is difficult for me to understand how terrible the Windrush generation would have felt as they walked the streets of London and other cities looking for accommodation. Many people have stories about that and other appalling discriminatory times in the UK. The unique challenges for acceptance, integration and recognition were most noticeable in the Notting Hill riots of 1958, the Race Relations Act 1965 and the Scarman and Macpherson reports, to name but a few, and this struggle has come to symbolise part of the story.

[Mr John Hayes]

Earlier I mentioned the British Caribbean Association, with which a number of Members will be familiar. The association was formed following those riots in Notting Hill in the year of my birth, and it was formed precisely to foster good relations between the indigenous people and those incoming people—people with very much the values the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) tellingly identified in her speech. The welcome those people deserved but did not get does not mean the Government should now take an approach of unrestricted immigration, and it certainly does not mean conflating the Windrush issue with illegal migration. The right hon. Lady is absolutely right that that conflation is very unhelpful, and very unhealthy, too.

[Nigel Adams]

My right hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point, and the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) made it, too. Conflating the two issues is deeply damaging to this debate, and we all have to be mindful of that.

Nevertheless, the enduring spirit of the Windrush generation to overcome this struggle, hardship and adversity must not be understated or dismissed. This is part of our history, and we should all be proud of the patriotic, courageous men and women who, in spite of adversity, helped to rebuild this country after the war and have therefore enriched us not just economically but culturally and socially.

Several hon. and right hon. Members have rightly mentioned the Grenfell tragedy, which is particularly important today. The Grenfell fire was a terrible tragedy that should never have happened, and today is a time for reflection. My focus, and I am sure the focus of everyone in this House, is firmly on the community who were affected. Today we all remember those who lost their lives and the families and friends who lost loved ones on that terrible day. It is incredibly important that we respect the privacy of the community at this time.

The hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood, in her brilliant speech, asked whether we would be announcing an annual Windrush Day, which the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington also mentioned. The United Kingdom has long been a country of inward and outward migration. Post-war immigration, including of people on the Empire Windrush who were at the forefront of that migration, means we are now a richly diverse society. Members of our minority communities have made an enormous contribution to our social, economic and cultural life, and this should be celebrated.

To make sure that we commemorate the Windrush anniversary in the appropriate way, my colleague Lord Bourne has met key figures from community groups over the past few months to decide how best to celebrate it. We thank all those stakeholders for the excellent meetings and for the work they have done together. We are keen to continue these engagements to ensure that our work on the Windrush celebrations extends beyond the 70th anniversary and to ensure a lasting legacy of this celebration of British history.

It is important that we celebrate the contributions of the Windrush generation and their descendants each year, as they are part of what makes us the wonderfully diverse country we are today. Further information will be announced very shortly.

The hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood went on to mention the Black Cultural Archives and the funding difficulties it has had. She asked whether we will work with colleagues in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on tackling this fantastic facility’s problems. The financial difficulties of the Black Cultural Archives are well known to us, and we agree that more should be done to protect these vital archives. I am pleased to confirm that my colleague Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth has been speaking to colleagues at DCMS on this very issue.

My neighbour the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), who is no longer in her place, asked about her Select Committee’s interim report on the hardship fund for the Windrush generation. We recognise the hardship that some of that generation have suffered, through no fault of their own. Sadly, that Select Committee does not scrutinise my Department, but I assure her that the relevant Department will respond in due course.

The right hon. Member for Tottenham gave a typically passionate and eloquent speech, in which he touched on the shameful practice of slavery. The transatlantic slave trade caused extreme suffering to millions of people, who lost their liberty and were forced to work as slaves. We have expressed our deep sorrow for what happened and fully recognise the strong sense of injustice that remains. We firmly believe that we should always remember history, no matter how difficult that history can be. He also went on to mention the hardship fund for the Windrush generation. He is absolutely right to say that we should design a compensation scheme that effectively addresses the issues faced by the Windrush generation, and to do that we have to listen. The Home Office has completed the call for evidence, which has given individuals and community groups the opportunity to share their stories and experiences.

The hon. Member for Glenrothes had the tricky job of following the right hon. Member for Tottenham, but he made a terrific speech.

Budget Resolutions

John Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) and to speak in this Budget debate.

The outlook for the economy is bleak, with the worst five-year forecast of GDP since the Office for Budget Responsibility was set up, against the backdrop of the drop in sterling and the increase in inflation. As the Chancellor stood up to speak, the cost of Brexit was clear—in excess of £3 billion. Let’s put that on the side of a bus!

Hornsey and Wood Green has been starved of funding over the past seven years. The capacity of our community to educate, house and care for our citizens, as well as keep them safe, has deteriorated and is set to decline further. While London remains, seemingly, a vibrant economy, there is a yawning gap between the haves and have-nots. My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas) spoke of his concerns about his region, but there can be inequality within a region as well: in London, we often walk the same streets but inhabit different worlds. Wages are flat, household debt is up, and transport and infrastructure continue to stall, with negative effects on industry and workers alike.

People in three particular housing tenures—those who hope to buy, private sector renters and those who are languishing on social housing lists—are in desperate housing need. Disappointingly, the rough sleeping initiative in the Chancellor’s speech did not include tackling rough sleeping in the capital. I think we all noticed this morning, as we charged in for our meetings and the Budget debate, that there were two homeless men asleep outside the door of the House of Commons. That is what Labour Members want to tackle, but I fear that when we come to the Budget debate next year, there may even be more homeless people lying in sleeping bags outside the doors of the House of Commons.

While London remains one of the top destinations for business and international talent, transport and infrastructure continue to stall, and it is time we all woke up to that. The Borough of Haringey has seen a 40% real-terms reduction in funding since 2010, resulting in £160 million of savings, which have affected disabled people, basic municipal services and children with special educational needs, and have generally had a depressing effect on the local economy. That worrying trend is set to continue, with another £20 million of savings to be found in the finances of one London borough.

A dangerous cocktail of growing demand, cost and inflation combined with funding cuts is putting unsustainable pressure on local government finances. Core funding from central Government is set to have fallen 63% in real terms over the decade to 2019-20. I tell children when I go into schools, “It’s like your mum gives you £1 one day, but only 30p the next. That’s how it is to manage a council these days.” People in Hornsey and Wood Green know the situation well. We have a desperate shortage of housing, but we are also concerned about health.

[The Minister for Transport Legislation and Maritime (Mr John Hayes)]

I am sure the hon. Lady will want to introduce some balance into her speech, because she is very fair-minded. Which does she welcome more: the substantial extra money for the NHS, the substantial investment in transport infrastructure or the cut in stamp duty for millions? Which of those does she think is the most important?

[Catherine West]

Instead of wasting all these billions on the whole Brexit shambles, I would rather we had more than £1 billion for the NHS. I am afraid that £1 billion is less than what Simon Stevens says we need.

In my constituency, 37 out of 37 schools will have experienced a 6% fall in funding per pupil between 2015-16 and 2019-20. Headteachers, classroom teachers and teaching assistants are all calling for desperately needed change. Police funding cuts barely got a mention, but it looks as though the Home Office will have to swallow a £400 million cut to the police. I was out in the affluent suburb of Highgate on Monday morning, speaking to terrified mothers who had had things stolen from them by youngsters who had ridden up on mopeds and used hammers to smash the windows of the café in which they were sitting; that has happened four times since the café moved into the high street. We are facing a crime wave in London, and it needs to be addressed.

I want briefly to mention the cut of £797 million, or £510 per person, in health funding in the north central London area. Many Members will be aware that there are huge pressures, particularly in mental health, and cuts on that scale will have a huge effect on very vulnerable people with serious mental health problems.

Finally, I welcome elements of the change in approach to small business taxation, but we must go further. As our population continues to grow and people work in different ways, including in small business, we need to be ever mindful of supporting them.