Coronation: Policing of Protests
Debate between John McDonnell and Chris Philp(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Chris Philp
I do not accept that analysis. The powers are designed to prevent disruption where it might occur or where it is occurring. That includes things such as locking on, which we have seen cause huge disruption on the streets of London. The law allows peaceful protest where it is not disruptive and where people do not plan to cause disruption, which is why hundreds and hundreds of people, albeit a tiny minority of the total there, were able to protest peacefully. Where someone is preparing to commit or is committing a criminal offence, such as disrupting a procession, it is reasonable for the police to act.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
As the secretary of the National Union of Journalists’ parliamentary group throughout the passage of the public order legislation, I asked for and was given assurances by Ministers that it would not impede upon journalistic freedoms. Yet, on Saturday at least one journalist was stopped and searched—nothing was found. He was handcuffed, he had his credentials torn off him and he was then detained for 16 hours. He is a member of Bectu and a professional film maker. Will the Minister investigate why the assurances this House was given on media freedom were not adhered to?
Chris Philp
The new legislation contains a specific clause, added during its passage, protecting journalistic freedoms. An incident took place in Hertfordshire a few months ago, in November, I believe, where a journalist was incorrectly arrested and the relevant police force, Hertfordshire, apologised subsequently. The Government then legislated in the recent Bill, with a specific clause protecting journalistic freedom. I do not want to comment on an individual operational matter, not least because neither the right hon. Gentleman nor I have the full facts. As I said, if an individual or others feel that they were not fairly or properly treated, there is a complaints process they can go through. Parliament, however, has made its view clear.
Budget Resolutions
Debate between John McDonnell and Chris Philp(6 years ago)
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John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Four weeks ago, the Prime Minister promised to end austerity. She raised people’s hopes—the hopes of teachers that they would no longer have to rely on begging letters to parents to fund the running of their schools; the hopes of police officers that the safer neighbourhood teams would return to tackle the rise in violent crime; and the hopes of local councillors of all political parties that they would have the resources to support local families in need at a time when a record number of children are being taken into care.
Those hopes were dashed yesterday. At best, those people got what the Chancellor described as “little extras”. No wonder so many teachers, police officers, local councillors and others feel bitterly disappointed at the Prime Minister’s broken promise, because yesterday’s Budget was not the end of austerity. Even with yesterday’s Budget, two thirds of the welfare benefit cuts planned by the Government will still roll out. Outside the NHS, departmental budgets are flat, and the Resolution Foundation this morning revealed that some Departments faced a further 3% cut in their budgets by 2023. Austerity is not ending.
For most people, ending austerity is about not just halting some of the cuts planned by the Government, but lifting the burden that austerity has imposed upon them and their communities over the last hard eight years.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
I thank the shadow Chancellor for giving way so early in his speech. May I refer him to page 39 of the Red Book, which shows clearly that, by fiscal year 2023-24, there will be a £30 billion fiscal loosening? He referred to the Resolution Foundation, but it says that under universal credit, more money will be paid out to recipients than under the current system.
John McDonnell
To be absolutely clear, the Chancellor gave the impression yesterday that there would be no departmental cuts, but the Resolution Foundation has said that, although some Departments will be protected, others will have a 3% cut as a result. I call that continuing austerity.
Ending austerity is about more than that; it is about ending and repairing some of the damage that has been inflicted on our society and, yes, has undermined some of the social fabric we rely upon. Yesterday, the Chancellor claimed that this was a “turning point”. It is, but not in the way he suggested. This is not the end of austerity, but it is the beginning of the end of the dominance of an economic theory and practice that has wreaked havoc on our communities. People no longer believe the myth that austerity was necessary. They are seeing this Government hand out £110 billion in tax cuts to the rich and corporations while their services are being cut and their children are forced into poverty.
John McDonnell
I will come on to the plight of disabled people, who seem to have been a particular target for this Government, given how they have withdrawn funding and services.
On older people, there were more than 31,000 excess winter deaths among the over-65s in 2017, and well over 150,000 elderly people are in arrears in their social care payments. The Local Government Association, which works on a cross-party basis, said that £1.5 billion was needed by 2020 just to fill the funding gap in adult social care. The £650 million that was announced yesterday is less than half of that.
What comes out of the analysis is this. The burden of austerity has fallen disproportionately on who? On the shoulders of women. Yesterday, that did not just continue; it got worse. The share of the Government’s tax and benefit changes impacting on women increased from 86% to 87%—another year with an increase. The 1950s women, who have been treated so unjustly, have been overlooked once again.
The victims of possibly the harshest cruelty inflicted by this Government are disabled people. A UN inquiry into the rights of persons with disabilities found this Government guilty of “grave and systematic violations” of their human rights. When have any UK Government been charged with that by a UN body? Never. To be frank, we know—
John McDonnell
I have given way to the hon. Gentleman once.
Many have taken their own lives as a result of the welfare reforms imposed upon them since 2010, and the Government—[Interruption.]
Charter for Budget Responsibility
Debate between John McDonnell and Chris Philp(8 years, 4 months ago)
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John McDonnell
Let me just finish another paragraph before I give way again.
A new set of rules for fiscal policy is needed. I know that some Members have questioned the need for fiscal rules at all. During the discussions on the Fiscal Responsibility Bill in early 2010, I recall the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), who was then shadow Chancellor, saying that the Bill was a “completely feeble stunt” and the
“biggest load of nonsense that this Government have had the audacity to bring to Parliament in this Session”.—[Official Report, 5 January 2010; Vol. 503, c. 72.]
That was the then shadow Chancellor condemning Gordon Brown for having a fiscal rule. A short while later, when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer, he produced his own fiscal rule: the fiscal responsibility charter. He missed every target in his first charter, so he brought in a second one. He was on course to miss the targets in his second one, so he brought in a third.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
The shadow Chancellor has just questioned the performance of the economy under the fiscal rule, but is it not the case that the deficit fell from 11% to 4% of GDP, that the economy created 2.6 million jobs—more than in the rest of Europe put together—and that the employment rate increased by 4% and now stands at the highest level in our country’s history? Is not that evidence that the approach of the last Government worked and should be continued?
John McDonnell
I remind the hon. Gentleman that under his own Government’s fiscal rule, the deficit should have been completely eliminated last year, and debt should have dropped but it has increased. I will send him a reading list.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Debate between John McDonnell and Chris Philp(8 years, 8 months ago)
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John McDonnell
I find a form of electoral politics, where you target a vulnerable group in society just because they do not vote for you, unacceptable. Not a word of apology! One nation Conservativism? It is a contradiction in terms.
Chris Philp
May I remind the shadow Chancellor that the richest 20% are now paying 52% of all income tax, which is up from 49%, and that the national living wage is putting money into the pockets of our country’s poorest citizens?
John McDonnell
The hon. Gentleman refers only to income tax. If he had looked at last weekend’s analysis of the overall cuts and what has happened with regard to tax and benefits, he would have seen that it is actually the poorest decile who are paying the most. The two groups hit hardest are young women with children and older women with caring responsibilities. Some 81% of the cuts are falling on women. This is a discriminatory Budget.
Tax Avoidance and Multinational Companies
Debate between John McDonnell and Chris Philp(8 years, 9 months ago)
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John McDonnell
I am going to press on.
We all supported the changes to public procurement rules that enabled the Government to prevent public contracts from being awarded to companies found to be engaged in tax avoidance schemes. Staggeringly, it is understood that no company has been denied a public contract on those grounds and that, even though its tax affairs were under such lengthy investigation by HMRC, Google was awarded public contracts to supply services—who to?—to HMRC.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
On the point about international agreements, the United Kingdom Government have been at the forefront of the base erosion and profit shifting initiative. Richard Murphy, who describes himself as the author of Corbynomics, told the Treasury Committee yesterday that he was “pleased and very surprised” by the progress the Government have made since 2010.
John McDonnell
I support the Government in that action, but this deal flies in the face of that action and undermines the agreements that we are trying to make.
Over the weekend we also heard from Mr Jones, the Google whistleblower. In his view, HMRC ignored his exposure of Google’s tax avoidance methods. That evidence was received by the Treasury Committee on a cross-party basis.
We all accept that the existence of tax havens and the complexity of national tax systems present an ongoing challenge to national Governments. As a result, we have all supported the negotiation of international agreements on tax collection. The UK is a signatory to some of these. As the hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) said, the Government have agreed in successive steps to abide by the base erosion and profit shifting programme under the auspices of the OECD. We supported that.
Charter for Budget Responsibility
Debate between John McDonnell and Chris Philp(9 years, 1 month ago)
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John McDonnell
No. This is a limited debate, so I need to press on.
Over the last five years, the focus of the economic debate on the deficit has reflected the capture of the economic narrative by the right since the crisis in 2008. Over six years, the Conservatives have managed to convince many people that the economic crisis and the deficit were caused by Labour Government spending. It has been one of the most successful exercises in mass public persuasion and the rewriting of history in recent times. Today I am going to correct the record.
The facts speak for themselves. The Conservatives backed every single penny of Labour’s spending until Northern Rock crashed. The average level of spending under Labour was less than it was under Mrs Thatcher. It was not the teachers, the nurses, the doctors and the police officers whom Labour recruited who caused the economic crisis; it was the recklessness of the bankers speculating in the City, and the failure of successive Governments to ensure effective regulation. In opposition, this Chancellor and his colleagues wanted even less regulation of the banking sector that crashed our economy. The deficit was not the cause of the economic crisis, but the result of the economic crisis.
