Procurement Bill [Lords]

John McDonnell Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 13th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

The Cabinet Office must now decide the pace of this change. I hear that it is talking about six months and will come forward with a clear and explicit decision. In line with what my right hon. Friend has just said, it ought to explain the timescales for how Departments are going to take them away and how quickly, and an endpoint. That is critical, because otherwise, as I saw with the FOIs, Government Departments will do whatever they can not to do this because they are frightened and they say it will cost them extra. What really costs us is if they fail to do it.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

On telecoms, not TikTok in this instance. According to reports last week, the UK telecoms arm of CK Hutchison, 3 mobile, is merging with Vodafone. Vodafone is extensively involved in Government contracts and evidence by Unite the union published this week is basically saying that CK directors supported the suppression of democracy in Hong Kong. In fact, the chair of the company, Victor Li Tzar-kuoi, is adviser to the Hong Kong Chief Executive. The right hon. Gentleman knows that John Lee, the Chief Executive, has been involved in the suppression of protests and in the arrest of trade union colleagues of mine, members of Unite. Does he share my concern that people linked to this company now are going to have access to Government contracts in the UK?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

That is not the subject of the amendment but I will touch on it briefly. I have already spoken to the unions on this and I am very much in line with their position. The Government need to look very carefully at what has taken place, particularly because it reduces competition in the market. The links to the authoritarianism of the Chinese is one of the big worries, so I suggest that the Government have a serious look at that.

Returning to the point made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), these cameras are also being used in internal suppression in China. We know about the suppression of the Uyghurs; that is a genocide that is taking place. Even though the Government will not say it is genocide, everybody else believes it is: Parliament here has said it; the Americans have now said it; and so, too, have many other countries. I do not know why we cannot say this is genocide, but that is a question for another debate. The fact is that many of these instruments are being used as part of that suppression in the camps as well as to watch carefully so that suppression can take place. Right now, forced labour, forced sterilisation and re-education in camps are all taking place in China.

The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) referred from the Dispatch Box to the Opposition’s amendments. It is worth reminding her that China poses a risk in just about every single area with its human rights abuses and abuses of workers’ rights, yet so many of our companies want to ignore that.

While I welcome much of what the Government have done, I do not plan to move new clause 1 today, but only because I want more from the Government. I think they understand that.

I come back to the “sensitive” point. The truth is that, by definition, all Government Departments must be sensitive. As I said, I spent six years in charge of the DWP, and what I know is that there is arguably no more sensitive Department, because stopping payments for one or two days from the DWP would wreak havoc across the United Kingdom. People would not be able to get money to pay their rent, to buy their food or to live—all those things of vital importance. So a foreign power might be able to use information to target a Department such as the DWP that is not on the list because it may not appear as sensitive as the Ministry of Defence, GCHQ or—God bless us—the Foreign Office, when in reality, it is much more sensitive.

When we try to use a word like “sensitive” to give ourselves a little bit of a break, the problem becomes: who defines sensitive, and how often we will redefine it? I recommend that the Government describe all Departments as sensitive or else get rid of the word. That would put the onus on the Departments to come to the Cabinet Office to say, “We need an exemption for a period” or, “We can’t do this as fast.” The current wording means that they will not have to do that if they are outwith the term “sensitive.”

The reality is that we have had a number of Dispatch Box commitments from a load of Government Ministers about interpreting these things, but they never come to fruition. We were promised guidance in the other place on slavery during the passage of the Nationality and Borders Bill, but that was never put in. We really want the Government to commit at the Dispatch Box to changing what they are doing with “sensitive” when the Bill goes to the other place. “Sensitive” is too weak a position. It lets Departments off the hook and will put all the onus on the Cabinet Office. That must be reversed to ensure that this removal gets done.

International Trade and Geopolitics

John McDonnell Excerpts

Thursday 20th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me, but let me answer his question in this way. The 2017 Labour party manifesto was not a hugely sensible document, but a second document was put together by the then shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), in which he enumerated all the tax breaks that were given to different sectors of the economy, which amounted to an enormous sum. As one who can, I think, claim to be a low-tax Conservative, I suggest that those running a more efficient economy would get rid of almost all of them. They would say to those in, for instance, the carbon fuels sector, “You are on your own now. If you do not have enough money, go to the market and raise the money you need from your own shareholders or from other investors to grow your business.” We have had conversations about the level of debt—the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington is now present, so he can correct me if I am wrong. I read his document in 2017, and I thought it was an excellent analysis. One point that the Labour party made at the time of that election, about the need to look at tax breaks for large corporations and sections of the economy as a method of public spending, was spot on. We are not vigilant enough in that regard. My own free-market view is that the fairer the market, the lower the subsidy.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was not going to engage in the debate, but I was passing and heard a reference to me—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I would normally chastise the right hon. Gentleman for attempting to speak in a debate when he has not been present, but I happened to notice that he was in the Chamber although not in his normal place. Given that we are not under enormous time constraints this afternoon, I will be much more lax than I normally am.

[John McDonnell]

As generous and wise as ever, Madam Deputy Speaker.

To reinforce what the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) said, we did that piece of work because we wanted to review every tax relief. In opposition, that is impossible to do, but we would have done it in government. The reason was that we were discovering tax reliefs that had been introduced decades earlier that the Treasury had never reviewed to see whether the original purpose had been achieved or whether they should be amended. Example after example was found, and it was clear that the tax relief system was not working effectively or as it was originally planned.

[Richard Fuller]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for taking part in the debate. I do not think I agreed with anything else in the Labour party’s 2017 manifesto, but the point that he has just made is a point for the ages for whoever is in the Treasury.

In addition to my concern about taxpayers’ money, behind the big funding race between the EU and the US to put amounts of money at risk in a casino of green discovery is an open question about the trajectory of unit costs for the materials that will be required by those sectors that will assist us to achieve net zero. When others are rushing to do something, it is a natural human urge to rush to do it too. We can all remember the shortages of toilet paper at the start of covid, which was a shortage for no apparent reason. Because everyone else was buying loo paper, we all thought we should buy it. As we know, that created a surge in unit cost, which abated and—although I have not checked recently—the cost is now back down to a normal market price. As goes toilet paper—perhaps I should not use that phrase—so goes the unit cost for other items. A significant cost will be experienced by early adopters. My question is whether we would be better off participating in that surge in unit costs in an era of technological discovery, or keeping our money in our pocket until the unit costs come down once the successful discoveries have been made.

We should remember that there will always be opportunities for economic gain and financial success, even if the initial discoveries and the bulk of investment are elsewhere. There will always be international flows of trade. For example, in the 1940s and 1950s, most of the motor industry was in the United States, but in the 1970s the UK benefited because it needed to reshore to the UK. That will be the same in other sectors. Look at value-added: iPhones are made in developing countries, historically mostly in China, but most of the value added is in Apple’s design, and the UK has advantages in that area. We can be thoughtful about such areas, but I wanted to put on the record some questions for the Chair of the Select Committee who introduced this welcome debate.

I know that I have tested everyone’s patience with my opening remarks, so I will address another couple of points before allowing time for others. This issue tilts to the Indo-Pacific region, both through the trade arrangements and the infrastructure. The global review that the Government have done is welcome. Much like the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton, who talked about the issues in Latin America, before getting involved in politics I spent a lot of time in the Philippines, Korea and Australia. It was clear that in those areas of the world, there is not only great opportunity for the United Kingdom, but a great recognition of the talents that we have and a great need for the various skills that we can provide in economics, defence and other areas.

When I hear politicians pooh-pooh the impact of CPTPP as a small percentage of GDP, I worry that they are missing the deeper point that it is a bigger connection. It is part of a globalisation of what the United Kingdom does. It is a recognition not that the UK is a big global superpower, but that it is seen by people around the world as having its place and having things to offer. We should look at this trade agreement as just the start of us pushing further into that part of the world in all the ways that we can.

I yearn for the day when we can do a similar deal across Africa. Trading with countries in Africa and opening up our markets to goods and services from Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya and other growing economies is surely not only in our economic interests but in the interests of humanity. The greatest benefit to humanity in economic terms over my lifetime was made by Nixon’s visit to China and its redirection from Russia towards the west, and the consequent movement of hundreds of millions of people in China and surrounding areas into the global trading system. It has been a great sadness to me that the countries in the continent of Africa have not been part of that. For this generation of politicians over the next 10 or 20 years, I hope that we can look to play our small part in achieving that.

Afghan Resettlement Update

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I am the secretary of the National Union of Journalists parliamentary group, and we are aware from working with international bodies that at least 200 Afghan journalists have fled to Pakistan and Iran. Their visas are expiring, and some of them have been harassed by Taliban supporters. The NUJ wrote to the Home Secretary earlier this month, and we would welcome a meeting with the Minister to ensure that the scheme is now adapted to cover those vulnerable journalists more effectively.

[Johnny Mercer]

That would be a pathway through the ACRS, which is precisely what it is designed to do. That is exactly why we are taking this course of action: there are people who we want to get through these pathways who are not now coming through these pathways because we have gummed up the system in the UK with too many people in hotels. I hope that, with all colleagues, we can make a real effort to get these people out of hotels and into communities, where they deserve to be for supporting western values and UK forces in Afghanistan. I look forward to working with the right hon. Member to get that done.

Civil Service Pay

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) and the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) have comprehensively covered most of the issues. There is little to say, apart from maybe the Minister saying, “I give up and we’ll go and sort this out.” I also declare an interest as a member of the PCS parliamentary group. There is no financial relationship as such; it is not even affiliated with the Labour party, although I keep trying.

I want to get across to the Minister what the Government need to face up to. In recent years, the Government have come for civil servants’ pensions. They lost in court over that, but they have not even addressed the legal judgment. In addition, they cut their redundancy payments, and now they are insulting them with a 2% pay offer. As the hon. Member for Glasgow South West said, these are the people who worked throughout the pandemic, and were applauded by Government Ministers for what they did. I remember the then Chancellor applauding HMRC and Department for Work and Pensions staff for the role that they played, many of them working from home. And then they get the insult of a 2% pay increase. It is no wonder that, for the first time in civil service history, there will be 100,000 civil servants on strike in a week’s time.

The Government rely on the myth that it is nothing to do with them, and all to do with the Departments that are negotiating. That myth has been exposed time and time again. The pay remit is set by central Government. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley said, the Government hide behind ludicrous pay structures. Having 200 individual units is not just inefficient but completely counterproductive. The result is that the civil service is demoralised, and it is failing to retain and recruit in many sectors. At the same time, I never expected public servants to be paid such low real pay. We have seen the issues with food banks, and some workers not even being able to afford the transport costs to get to work. Collectively, as a Parliament, we are the employers. Parliament holds Government to account; we all have to shoulder a responsibility. The Government have to recognise just how serious the situation is. They cannot underestimate the depth of anger that is out there among civil servants, their families and their communities.

The Government have hidden behind the high cost of settling at inflation-proofing; they themselves have used the mythical figure of £28 billion. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has already said that there is 4% to 5% within the Government’s existing budget structures for 2022-23, so the cost to get to inflation-proofing may be more like £15 billion to £17 billion. I will not go into detail, but others have pointed out how much the Government will get back in tax, national insurance contributions and so on. As a result of that, we are talking about single figures in terms of the cost to ensure that civil servants are inflation-proofed. The Bank of England destroyed the argument that this causes inflation in some way. Some 80% of the inflationary factors are external, and not to do with pay. The Government cannot argue that wages are causing inflation when they have been held down for 13 years. As others have said, they are now between 12% and 23% lower.

Finally, we need an inflation-proofing offer immediately so we can avoid the industrial action that is taking place. We want a reform of collective pay bargaining structures so we can get away from the current ludicrous system and back to collective bargaining itself. I think that in the future, all pay settlements across the whole economy should minimally be based on inflation-proofing, so that people are not impoverished as a result of pay settlements imposed upon them by the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Gentleman will be glad to hear that I will come to that point very soon.

As everyone will, I hope, appreciate, the Government put fiscal responsibility at the very centre of our policy, and we are taking appropriate steps to manage inflation. Obviously, at the moment, it is not public sector wages that are driving inflation. Many factors are driving inflation. Inflation is besetting our closest friends and competitors around the world; it is an international problem. However, if we were to take the advice of the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) and others, we would find ourselves in trouble.

The Governor of the Bank of England and its chief economist have both said that inflation-matching pay rises in the public sector can spill over into higher pay across the economy, and that would make the fight against inflation even more challenging. That is why halving inflation is the top of the Prime Minister’s five immediate priorities, alongside growing the economy, reducing national debt, getting the NHS backlog down and stopping small boats crossing the channel. Our focus is on pay for 2023-24.

[John McDonnell]

It is difficult to see how a reasonable settlement below the rate of inflation—for example, the fire brigade settlement of 7%, with backdating and 5% for next year—could in any way offend against the Bank of England Governor’s comments. Have the Government even considered an offer of that sort to the civil service?

[Alex Burghart]

The right hon. Gentleman is a former shadow Chancellor. He will appreciate that the higher the pay settlement, the slower the rate of decline in inflation is likely to be. [Laughter.] He laughs; I hope he has realised how the numbers work.

[John McDonnell]

This is unique in economic history in this country. We are arguing that a pay award below the rate of inflation is still inflationary. I have never heard that one before, and I think we should record it for posterity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Indeed, there are a lot of passionate feelings on both sides of this debate.

[John McDonnell]

There was a flippant remark from the Minister with regard to meeting PCS members. I just remind him that PCS members in my constituency—two Border Control staff—died during the pandemic because of covid. They sacrificed their lives keeping this country safe.

[Alex Burghart]

On a point of order, Mr Pritchard. The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that there was no flippant remark about PCS whatsoever. [Interruption.] There was no flippant remark whatsoever. The record will state that all I said was that you had been invited to join the picket line, Mr Pritchard. That is not a flippant remark about PCS.

[John McDonnell]

This is a serious debate about people living in poverty.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Beth Winter]

May I ask, through the Chair, whether the Minister will agree to attend the picket line to listen to the real-life experiences of so many thousands of civil service staff? As I began to say, if the Government are not going to address these issues for the people who are suffering, surely they will do so, because it is in their own interests. The overwhelming evidence shows that the current system is not efficient. It is not cost-effective and it will not address the cost of living crisis—

[John McDonnell]

Could my hon. Friend give way to the Minister so that he can respond and confirm whether he is coming to meet the PCS members next week?

[Beth Winter]

I certainly would like to give way.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

The Minister can choose to respond or not, because he has concluded his remarks. If he wants to intervene, he can, but it is entirely down to him. The hon. Member who moved the motion can continue for the last minute and then allow me to put the Question, or can talk out her own time, which will mean the Question is not put. She can make that decision. [Interruption.] Order. The right hon. Gentleman should know, as he has been here for a very, very long time. I have been very patient with him.

[John McDonnell]

Too long.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Whether or not the right hon. Gentleman thinks he has been here too long is entirely a matter for him. He will come to order, thank you.

MPs and Second Jobs

John McDonnell Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Hillingdon Council, within which the Uxbridge constituency is contained, is going through one of the most massive cutbacks of its voluntary sector at the moment, including the local autistic group, Samaritans and others. Would it not be really helpful if the £5 million that the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) earned was donated to those charities?

[Richard Burgon]

My right hon. Friend makes a fantastic suggestion. Why does the former Prime Minister not donate that £5 million to these important causes in his constituency? Let us invite him to do so and see what he does.

To conclude, banning second jobs for MPs is an important step to restoring the integrity of our democracy. No one can serve two masters, and MPs’ priority must be their constituents. I am afraid that the time for half measures and empty promises on this issue has long passed. The Labour party has proposed a ban on second jobs for MPs, with exemptions for public services similar to those in my Bill. I will be proud to join my colleagues in voting through that ban if, as gladly appears likely, we are voted into power at the next general election. An election could be up to 18 months away, however, and there is no justification for allowing this scandal to carry on a moment longer. There is nothing stopping the Government from taking action to stop the rot now.

The people out there believe that MPs’ second jobs have to go, and no amount of clever wording, sophistry and non-representative examples can change that reality. The people—the public—rightly believe that MPs should be committed to public service, not personal gain. Each delay in action further damages trust and exposes the integrity of our democracy to yet more scandals in future. It is time to end the gravy train of MPs’ second jobs.

Enabling the Public to call a General Election

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)]

I must say that it is a pleasure—a genuine pleasure—to take part in an Adjournment debate such as this, to respond to a speech that has been very well researched, and to think about the big and important questions we should we always consider when looking at the future of our constitution and our democracy. To an extent, we spend too little time in this place thinking about how the operation of our Parliament, our Government and our relationship with the voters works, so I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) for taking the time to do this work.

As I understand it, the hon. Gentleman is proposing that we amend the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 to the effect that the sovereign would dissolve Parliament if that Parliament was more than halfway complete—halfway through its five-year maximum term—and if at least half the number of voters who had voted at the previous general election signed a petition calling for Parliament to be dissolved, although as he said, that threshold is perhaps up for debate and is a starter for ten.

There is a mechanism that a Government could use if they wished to pursue this. We have had a very successful online petitions website for a number of years now, which allows people to register their interest in particular issues and to ask the Government to respond. At the moment, however, it does not quite have the verification capabilities necessary to allow Governments to be assured that those signing up are genuine voters, but perhaps those problems can be overcome. With reference to that successful site, I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the fact that, for the past four months, it has had a live petition calling for a general election as soon as possible; in those four months it has acquired about 900,000 votes, which is a good sum but a very long way off the 50% that would be necessary under his system to trigger a general election. Even if these are, by his definition, extraordinary times, the clamour for a general election might not, therefore, be as strong as his remarks suggested.

That said, his well-considered remarks deserve proper consideration here, although I say at the outset—this will be no surprise to the hon. Gentleman—that we are not inclined to support his proposals. The 2022 Act, which fairly recently acquired Royal Assent, covered many of the issues on how Parliament is to be dissolved and general elections are to be held. I seem to remember that there was no opposition on that from the Labour Benches; I believe all Labour Members abstained. The hon. Gentleman perhaps missed an opportunity to table amendments at that time, but the joy of our system is that we can bring forward good ideas—or less good ideas—at any point.

For a number of practical reasons, the hon. Gentleman’s proposal should be resisted and treated with great caution. It would introduce an unnecessary element of instability into our system; if we were to create a petition mechanism that kicked in at two and a half years, we would very likely find that we quickly entered a time of perpetual campaigning—two and a half years of preparation for starting an official petition campaign, followed by two and a half years of trying to get the petition through. I know the hon. Gentleman is an avid campaigner and will probably relish that prospect, but for those of us who cherish the opportunity for stable Government it would prove a great distraction.

I thought the hon. Gentleman might well mention the Chartists; indeed I feel I see before me a descendant of the Chartists of old. He will take some comfort from the fact that the Chartists were proved right on all their demands apart from one—their request for annual Parliaments. At the time, even some of their most ardent followers disputed the idea on grounds that it would create unnecessary cost, distraction and the inability of Governments to operate over the medium term.

That brings us to the crux of why the proposal would could be damaging to our finely balanced constitution. It is important to have Governments who can be assured that if they have a majority in the House—if they can command the confidence of the House—they will have space to operate and to take difficult decisions. Stability is often most needed at times when Governments are most unpopular, and we would run the risk of introducing a mechanism that would create further instability in periods of instability, and that could be to the detriment of all of us. There is, however, a very interesting idea in the hon. Gentleman’s proposals, and I am sure he will continue to develop them and bring them back to the House.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

The Minister mis-portrays my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), who is more a Digger and Leveller than a Chartist. He seems to be arguing about stability and how we would be in a continuous campaigning mode. Some people would call that campaigning; others might call it a continuous accountability mode in which Governments have to demonstrate daily that they are abiding by the will of the people who elected them. That is no bad thing, is it?

[Alex Burghart]

I stand corrected on the heritage of the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon). Accountability comes in many forms. We are all accountable to our electorate through media and debates such as this. However, that is different from having a system that gives Governments a period of up to five years in power to make decisions that they can prove the benefits of. Indeed, it was not so long ago that we had Parliaments of seven years in this country and that the French presidency lasted seven years for the reason that Governments had time to fix problems and prove that their method of government was effective.

[John McDonnell]

That leaves the decision on when to call a general election to the whim of a Prime Minister and the judgment of the ruling party on when it can manipulate its popularity. Surely that is equally unstable. All we want to do is enable the people to make that decision.

[Alex Burghart]

I have a distinct recollection of a Prime Minister trying to do that in the not-too-distant past and finding that the electorate took a different view on whether she had made the right decision to call that election. Governments and Prime Ministers use that power at their peril, and they are aware of that.

To my mind, and the mind of the Government, it is much better to be able to guarantee a period in which a Prime Minister and Executive who hold the confidence of the House can legislate and operate in order to solve the problems that the country faces. To all parliamentarians comes judgment day, as Karl Popper referred to it. We must all face an election. The question is when. When our electorate go to the polls, they know that they are likely voting for us to be here for five years and on the understanding that, whoever gets into power will get five years to do the best job they can for the country and solve the problems that the country faces. That system has served us well, and that is why we continue to defend it. It has been a pleasure to debate with the hon. Member for Leeds East this evening, and I look forward to talking to him on constitutional matters long into the future.

Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges

John McDonnell Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I will take one more intervention and then I will make some progress.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I understand completely the point made by the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) about toning down the rhetoric—[Interruption.] I understand that position, but let me make this point, because I have known him over the years: we cannot tone down the seriousness of this matter. I was in the Prime Minister’s constituency earlier this week; it is the neighbouring constituency to mine and we are campaigning for the London Borough of Hillingdon in the election. There is some shift in the vote from Tory to Labour because of this issue, but that is not the significant point. What is significant is the number of people we found who were totally disillusioned, who had had enough of the system and who were blaming the system itself. That is what we are fighting and campaigning for. We are campaigning to restore the credibility of our country’s democratic processes.

[Keir Starmer]

That is a really important and powerful point, because if we do not pass this motion and take this opportunity to restate the principles, we are all complicit in allowing the standards to slip. We are all complicit in allowing the public to think that we are all the same, that nobody tells the truth and that there are alternative sets of facts.

Gurkha Pensions

John McDonnell Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2021 Westminster Hall

[David Linden]

I will not hold that against you, Dr Huq.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I am sorry to rudely interrupt the hon. Gentleman again. I apologise to you as well, Dr Huq. This is a fleeting visit; I am trying to be here and in the main Chamber at the same time, but I have not quite mastered that yet.

Before I left, the hon. Gentleman raised the key issue for me and my constituents: the poverty Gurkhas have been thrust into as a result of, to be frank, an act of gross discrimination over years. Does he agree that, because of the length of service and the commitment Gurkhas have shown, including through the human sacrifices made, we should never allow this group of people to live in the level of poverty that he described earlier, and that we need redress as rapidly as possible?

Oral Answers to Questions

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

15. What recent assessment he has made of the effect on (a) recruitment, (b) morale and (c) retention of Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service staff of the Government’s pay policy for public sector workers.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Victoria Atkins)]

I start by thanking all prison and probation officers and staff across the country. They do an absolutely vital job protecting the public and rehabilitating offenders, and they deserve our thanks and our acknowledgment. Pay awards for this financial year across HMPPS are subject to the public sector pay pause, which was imposed due to the covid-19 emergency, but I welcome the Chancellor’s recent Budget announcement on public sector pay and the fact that from 2022, it will return to a normal pay setting process.

[John McDonnell]

I am an honorary life member of the Prison Officers’ Association, with which I have worked for the last 25 years. Morale is at rock bottom among prison staff, and that relates to pay. In response to the chair of the justice unions committee, the Secretary of State said that the Government were accepting the pay review board’s recommendations. The pay review board has made it clear in its report that the remit that the Government have given it precludes it from making a full recommendation on pay awards. It finds that to be incompatible with its independence and in conflict with its role as a compensatory mechanism for the fact that prison staff are not allowed to strike. May I request that the Minister meet a delegation from the justice unions group to talk about morale and the development of a pay strategy?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am delighted to inform the right hon. Gentleman that I have met not just the POA but the Prison Governors Association and many of the smaller unions that represent the interests of vital members of staff such as chaplains and educationalists, who play a really important role in the prison system. I very much look forward to working with the POA and others not just on matters of pay but on ensuring that we value their role in the prison system. I want prison officers to feel safe in their workplace, for example. That is not up for question. We should be making sure that they feel safe, and that is one of my priorities as Minister with responsibility for prisons.

Afghanistan

John McDonnell Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is completely right. The issue is that, very sadly, our friends across the channel in France are faced with a very difficult problem: large numbers of people who want to come to this country. We are doing everything we can to encourage the French to do the necessary and impede their passage. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is working round the clock to ensure that we not only encourage the French to stiffen their sinews and stop people making the journey but use every possible tactic available to us.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

May I raise a constituency matter with the Prime Minister? More than 800 local Afghani families have contacted me about their concerns over their relatives in Afghanistan. The thousands who are coming to this country are largely coming in through Heathrow and being quarantined in about seven hotels in my constituency. There is real anxiety, given the performance in the past on asylum seekers in hotels in my constituency, that those people could be trapped in those hotels for quite a long time to come. I would like the Prime Minister to arrange a meeting with myself and the relevant Minister or officials to discuss the plan to support those families—like everybody else, I welcome them, as do those in my community—but also the long-term relocation plan to make sure that they have all that they need to settle here for the future.

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the issue. Some councils have responded magnificently, notably in the east midlands and elsewhere. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government is putting substantial funding in place, but if the right hon. Gentleman wants a further meeting, I have no doubt that the relevant Minister will be only too happy to oblige.