Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Q11. We now know that every ambulance service in the whole country is in a critical state, but last week, well before the current national heatwave emergency, my constituent Mrs Meacham died after waiting for hours for an ambulance—an excruciating and prolonged delay. Her daughter tells me that the family tragedy was not caused by the staff, but by cutbacks by this Government. In any event, without immediate and drastic action we cannot be sure that there will not be many more Mrs Meachams. Does the PM accept that we are now living through an emergency health crisis? Given the disastrous state he is leaving the NHS in, why is he still in Downing Street?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman talks about staffing levels: the NHS now has a record number of people working in it, with 10,900 more nurses this year than there were last year and 6,000 more doctors. On ambulances, and he is right that this is absolutely critical, the crucial thing is to help the hospital staff to move patients through the system. Too often, I am afraid, it is impossible because a proportion of the patients sadly are in delayed discharge and that is making life very difficult for the ambulances as they come up to hospital. That is why it is so crucial that this Government, in addition to everything else we have done, are fixing social care and helping patients out of hospital. That is why we put in the £39 billion, which unfortunately his party voted against.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

There are quite a lot of questions there in one. We have a very clear commitment, not only in our legal framework but in the net zero strategy, which sets out how we will decarbonise through different sectors of the economy. The hon. Member mentioned forests, and she will know that at COP26 over 140 countries representing more than 90% of forests made a commitment to reverse deforestation by 2030. I have just returned from Stockholm, where I and other UK Ministers held a meeting to discuss how we can push forward those commitments. They are not just written down; we are actually seeing progress.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

4. If he will make an assessment of the effect of fossil fuel interest groups on the outcomes of COP26.

[The COP26 President (Alok Sharma)]

I answered this question earlier, but I reiterate that, to participate on UK presidency platforms at COP26, all corporates were required to sign up to net zero commitments. Let me reconfirm that there were no fossil fuel companies participating on UK presidency platforms.

[Jon Trickett]

Look, the truth is that the whole process of transition is either stalled or in reverse. We know that there are powerful interest groups in Downing Street saying that climate change is of secondary importance. What is striking is that, when we look at ministerial diaries, we see that Ministers have met representatives of fossil fuel companies nine times more frequently than companies representing renewables. Is it not clear that this Government are in the pockets of the fossil fuel industries and have in effect been captured by those corporations, which explains the asymmetric way in which the Government are operating in relation to the transition?

[Alok Sharma]

This Government have not been captured by any interest. Once again, I point out to the hon. Member that, if he looks at the energy security strategy for the direction of travel, he will see that we are looking to quintuple the amount of both offshore wind and solar, and by 2050 we want a quarter of our electricity needs to come from nuclear. As far as I am concerned, if he looks at the detail of that, he will understand that we are focused on a clean energy future, and that is what we are delivering.

Debate on the Address

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

I have been listening carefully to this debate. Speaking from the point of view of one of the villages at the heart of England, in Yorkshire, it is occasionally very difficult to recognise the descriptions of England and Britain that have emerged this afternoon.

Before I develop my argument, I want to refer to the fact that, for medical reasons, it has been more than five months since I have been able to speak in the House. I had a bad accident in the new year, and two of my closest relations fell seriously and critically ill; one was on life support for nine days. I was able to see at first hand the miracles that are performed hourly, or even minute by minute, by nurses and doctors in the intensive care unit at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield. My sense of gratitude will never diminish—what I saw was quite incredible. The same goes for the paediatric unit at Leeds General Infirmary, which has been looking after a young member of our family. I hope that the House will not mind if I mention my own surgeon, Mr Venkatesh at Chapel Allerton Hospital in Leeds, who managed to get me up and walking faster than I imagined possible.

There were times in hospital when it felt as if I were running a casework surgery, because when people discovered that I was a Member of Parliament and I was laid up, they took advantage and formed a queue to lobby me about all kinds of things. What was most frequently raised with me was the state of the NHS; the staff, the clinicians, the orderlies, the cleaners and the patients all came up to me and spoke to me about the NHS.

The Prime Minister was saying earlier that he is putting record amounts of money into the national health service, so I just want to give him this message—not from me, but from the clinicians and all the people who spoke to me in the intense moments when I was trying to recover from the anaesthetic. They said, “The money isn’t getting to us. Our incomes are low and are being held back.” They said that the scourge of restructuring was going on all the time, preventing them from getting on with the level of care that they wanted to provide. They also said that they were fed up with outsourcing. They asked me to tell the House of Commons that those are their views; I capture them in all honesty. I happen to agree with them, but that is beside the point.

I move on to the question of levelling up. One might ask why, after 12 years of Tory Government, it is suddenly necessary for the Government to say that we need to level up. In referring to my constituency, I will illustrate a series of national problems. There are two aspects that I want to raise, the first of which is inequality of income. The average income in my constituency is £250 a week less than is earned in wages in the Prime Minister’s constituency. That is a staggering difference: £12,500 a year per person working in a full-time occupation. How can that level of inequality be justified? I am sure that many Labour Members and others have similar problems in their constituency. How has that come about after 12 years of a Tory Government? I will suggest later what might be done about that, but first I will mention a second point about my constituency that raises a wider question.

The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who is no longer in his place, mentioned social mobility. Well, look: the British are told, “If you work hard, play by the rules and have even a minimum of talent, you should be able to get on in life.” That is the promise of social mobility, but the truth is that the Government established a Social Mobility Commission—and what happened? The board members all resigned because they said that social mobility had come to an end in Britain.

There are 533 seats in England, and mine is the 529th least socially mobile constituency in the whole of England. I speak not only for my constituency, but for all the seats across the north of England, the south-west and elsewhere where social mobility has come to an end. It breaks my heart to think of a child born today in one of those hospitals in my constituency that I experienced—born into a family in deprivation or poverty and facing not only a shorter life than people in more prosperous areas, but a life in which they will die in poverty. It breaks my heart to think that that is where we are.

“Levelling up” is a spurious rhetorical device that the Government have developed to try to cover up the failures of the past 12 years in office. We have a society that is now profoundly unequal, in which the billionaires are floating on a sea of riches while millions of people are living in poverty, including children and families in work. When inequality and the lack of social mobility are put together, what do we have? We have a class structure, the old British disease: ossified, unchanging and built on a system that enriches a few and leaves so many millions behind.

What does the Government’s programme offer? I say that it offers more of the poison that created the situation that we are now in, but pretends that it is a solution. What created the situation was Tory economic policies, austerity, neoliberal economics and market triumphalism. All those things are at the root of the problems that face communities such as mine and those across the north of England and elsewhere. What the Queen’s Speech pretends is that the state can take an active role in levelling up, offering social mobility and a route out of poverty for people in constituencies such as mine—but that is not what is being offered, is it? What we are being offered is more marketisation, more cuts and more austerity, with planning laws swept away to deliver more marketisation and then deregulation—all the defects that have created the problems that have left so many communities behind. That is what is on offer in this Queen’s Speech.

I am sure that in the quiet of their own homes, Ministers’ consciences may tell them that we have a problem. The key workers in the NHS and elsewhere who kept this country going through the pandemic have been abandoned on low pay, with pay rises that are wholly unacceptable, while price rises are accelerating.

If we calculate how much money we need to level up my constituency with the Prime Minister’s, the amount is astonishing. Paying people in my area the same as people in the Prime Minister’s would require a fifth of £1 billion a year; getting halfway there would cost us a staggering £100 million a year. What do the Government offer? They offer a Chancellor who never hesitates to boast about how he is a “small state” kind of guy, when what is required is active intervention in the market to begin to change the levels of deprivation and poverty and the difficulties that are the source of so many problems such as the breakdown of cohesion and the anger that we see in politics today. It would cost £200 million a year to pay people in my constituency what people earn down in the Prime Minister’s.

There is only one answer to this, and that is a Marshall aid plan on the scale of what was provided after the end of the second world war. That is what is needed if we are to begin to tackle the underlying problem; anything else is merely rhetoric designed to persuade people to give the Tories one more chance. Before anyone jumps up to say that we cannot pay for it—although I see that no one is doing so—let me point out that this is one of the richest countries in the world. But where is that wealth? It is not in areas across the north, or indeed elsewhere. It is in the hands of a very small group of people and a tiny group of corporations. It is time to introduce a wealth tax.

Why is it, by the way, that money earned from wealth or property is taxed less than money earned from work? Why do we privilege wealth and capital over labour? Why is our fiscal system designed like that? We could raise more money to begin to create that Marshall aid plan. All these things are possible, but first the House must face the truth: this is a profoundly divided society, a restless and angry society which wants change.

In a society where divisions are running so deep, it is not surprising that the levels of consent and consensus which a democratic country requires in order to be governed are breaking down. Dissent is emerging because of the lack of social justice, which I have tried to explain from the viewpoint of my constituents. What is the Government’s response? Is it to try to create a more socially just society? No, it is not; it is to try to crack down on that dissent. In the last parliamentary Session we passed some horrendously authoritarian legislation, and now, in today’s Queen’s Speech, more is being proposed.

Let me end by saying this. Authoritarianism will never resolve the problems of a breakdown in consent in a society about which people feel profoundly uneasy because of the way in which it treats them.

Health and Social Care

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely agree with what my hon. Friend has said. The tragedy of decades of failure to tackle this matter is that people are now facing these costs. What we are doing is investing—as we have done throughout the pandemic—about £6 billion, I think, in dealing with the immediate costs of social care to try to help people through this very difficult time. What this package offers is a way of developing a long-term solution, enabling, we hope, the private sector to come in and give people a long-term plan to fix the costs of their own social care, knowing that the Government will remove the risk of those catastrophic costs. That is the advantage of what we are doing today.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Putting aside the unfairness of the national insurance tax rise that the Prime Minister is proposing, is it not the case that the expenditure cap will be his poll tax? In his Uxbridge constituency, the average price of a house is £500,000; in parts of mine it is £130,000. That would leave people in his constituency with an inheritance of more than £410,000 per family, and in mine £44,000 per family. That is unjust and unfair. It is not about levelling up, is it, Prime Minister? It is about doubling down on everything that is wrong, and yet again the poorest will pay the most.

[The Prime Minister]

This is a massively progressive measure that increases the floor on people’s liabilities four times. It protects people up and down the country from catastrophic costs, which anybody can face. Everybody across the country will benefit not only in the investment in social care and in care workers, but in making sure that we deal now and deal properly with the NHS backlogs and their effect on our NHS, which is what this country wants to see.

Covid-19: NAO Report on Government Procurement

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

To listen to the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), one would think everything was rosy in the garden—of course, it is not. The Government have adopted processes that abandon the decades-old traditions of checking value for money when spending in the private sector. How else can we explain that, for example, £95 billion of outsourcing resulted in a 20% increase in contracts, and the £14.3 billion of additional expenditure on contracts that had been let? How else can we explain that many contracts were let without tendering processes of any kind? Some £10 billion of taxpayers’ money was spent without any form of tendering at all. To rely on the process that the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire has just described simply does not convince. One billion pounds have gone to Tory chums—these are staggering amounts of money.

I know it is not the subject of the audit report, but given the facts that emerged when Carillion went bust—that the Government had abandoned any attempt whatever to monitor the delivery of the contract—it is extraordinary that no further steps have been taken to protect the public purse. This is taxpayer money being wasted on a colossal scale, and in an unjustifiable way. When we consider that outsourcing is costing each household in this country £3,500, the scale is extraordinary.

There is an old expression, is there not, about never wasting a crisis? The Tories have not wasted this one. They have handed over billions of pounds to their Tory chums in the private sector in a wasteful manner, with no real effort to monitor contracts or secure value for money. When people discover that it is costing each household £3,500, I think the general response will be that this is a massive rip-off—some would go further and suggest that our British standards of probity, which lasted for more than a century, have been abandoned and have become so corrupted as to no longer be acceptable. Whatever one’s view on that, it is hard to disagree that the Government are spending taxpayers’ money like confetti at a wedding—in a most wasteful and reckless manner.

[Ms Angela Eagle (in the Chair)]

I am reducing the speaking limit to two and a half minutes in order to get everybody in.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is quite uncanny; it is as though Miss Twitchett and her class were standing over my shoulder as I wrote the 10-point plan, and I thank them for their telepathic inspiration. I passionately agree that that is the right way forward for our country. It will mobilise about £12 billion of Government investment and possibly three times more from the private sector, and create 250,000 to 300,000 jobs. It is a fantastic way forward for our country.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

I am sure that the Prime Minister will share the pleasure that we all have in the great engineering skills that are displayed in our country, especially in the north, and agree that one of the great jewels in the crown are the engineers at Rolls-Royce. Is he aware that Rolls-Royce is about to offshore 350 jobs from the north of England? That will be a devastating blow to that part of the country and remove part of our national industrial infrastructure. Does he agree with the workforce, who are campaigning, that it is in the national interest to retain those jobs in our country? Finally, will he use everything in his power to ensure that that offshoring does not take place?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is so right to support Rolls-Royce, one of the great companies in our country. Obviously, at the moment Rolls-Royce is suffering from the problems in the aerospace sector—the fact that no one is flying. When a company makes a lot of its money from servicing aero engines, as Rolls-Royce does, it is a very difficult time at the moment. We are keen to work with Rolls-Royce to ensure that that company has a long-term future as a great, great British company. He makes an excellent point, and I can assure him that the Government are on it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

There is little to add to what the Prime Minister said on this matter yesterday, which is that those views of Mr Sabisky have no place in this Government. Mr Sabisky has left the employment of the Government, and I do not think there is more to be said on the matter other than that they are not my views either.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Talking of Mr Sabisky, the Minister no doubt agrees with the Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth, the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), that his views are offensive and racist. How come such a man was employed to work in Downing Street?

[Chloe Smith]

I do not think there is anything to be gained by going into individual instances of employment. I assure the House once again that those views are not shared by anybody on the Treasury Bench, and I am sure we would all agree on that.

[Jon Trickett]

That is all waffle, isn’t it? The truth is that a right-wing extremist sat in official meetings with the Prime Minister and with defence staff—that is a fact. When the political operation in No. 10 is out of control, it is a problem for politicians and the Government Front Bench. But when the vetting system breaks down or is sidestepped, is it not a problem for national security?

[Chloe Smith]

Does the Labour party honestly expect me to say from this Dispatch Box that the vetting system does not work? That would be a breach of national security, and I am not going to do any such thing. The hon. Gentleman ought to ask better questions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

As ever, my hon. Friend raises an important point. People who have served in our armed forces can also make an enormous contribution to wider life, including in the civil service. That is why I am determined that we deliver on that manifesto commitment, and I have already instructed officials to make that happen.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is the first time I have asked a question with you in the Chair, so congratulations.

The Government are right to press forward with looking carefully at how we can modernise the civil service, whose independence and professionalism, as I am sure we all agree, are essential to good governance. On current trends, it looks as though the Government are going to spend £50 million in this Parliament on political appointees. Is that a wise decision? Three of them earn as much as the Prime Minister, more or less, and one of them thinks it is okay to advertise on his blog for “weirdos and misfits” to apply for the civil service. Meanwhile, 40% of professional civil servants in the Department for Exiting the European Union have left in the last year—it is a shambles.

As Minister for the civil service, will the right hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance now that he will protect civil service professional standards, even though that may mean that from time to time he comes into conflict with politically inspired chaos from No.10 Downing Street?

[Oliver Dowden]

The hon. Gentleman has raised a large number of points. First of all, I can of course reassure him that the independence and integrity of the civil service will be upheld. I notice that he has taken an interest in Dom Cummings’ blog; he is very welcome to register his interest in applying for such a role. However, the point that the hon. Gentleman was making is important: if we are to have a good civil service for the 21st century, it is essential that we harness all the talents of this nation. That includes, for example, people with data analytics skills and a diversity of talent.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

I do not answer questions from the Dispatch Box in my capacity as chairman of the Conservative party, but if you will indulge me, Mr Speaker, the clock was not paid for out of public funds. Had Members across this House not voted to delay Brexit, we would have left on time with a deal and in good order.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

The Minister continues to emphasise preparations for no deal, but did he not see in the paper yesterday a civil servant describing Operation Yellowhammer as the most expensive but failed bullying exercise in the whole of British history designed to frighten MPs into supporting a rotten Tory deal? Does he agree that there can be no justification for no deal once the EU, in the next few days, extends article 50? Under those circumstances, will the Minister for no deal then declare himself redundant and send the civil service back to do their proper jobs?

Preparations for Leaving the European Union

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his courtesy in providing me with a copy of his statement 30 minutes ago. I join him in thanking everyone who serves the House for the arrangements on Saturday, and I pay particular tribute to the civil servants who are working under huge stress to prepare for this remarkable event at midnight a week on Thursday. The House hardly needs reminding, but we are right on the edge of a potential precipice.

The Minister has told us that the Cabinet XO Committee will be meeting daily, and I hope he will be able to keep the House fully informed of its further decisions, as and when appropriate. When the Prime Minister appointed him as Minister for a no-deal Brexit, I think the idea was that he would try to avoid such a situation rather than try to make it possible. His statement fills me with foreboding for the country, because it appears as if the Government really do think that 31 October is a date this House will tolerate. I have to tell him that I do not believe that will be the case. In any event, the Prime Minister himself sent a letter to the European Union—he forgot to sign it, apparently—saying that he will pursue a delay, so 31 October seems to be an artificial date.

I will be brief, as there is still much to do this evening. The Government’s own assessment shows that a no-deal Brexit would be a disaster for jobs, for industry and for living standards. Their own assessment says there will be a 10% loss of GDP over the next 15 years, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that a no-deal outcome would result in Government borrowing rising by up to £100 billion, debt escalating to 90% of national income and growth flatlining. None of those is just a number on a spreadsheet, as I am sure he understands. These are real people’s jobs, livelihoods, communities and even family businesses, often built up over generations—all of them are now at risk.

This is not “Project Fear.” It is already happening here and now. Is the Minister aware that the manufacturing trade body, Make UK, has warned that even the prospect of a no-deal Brexit has meant that exporters are already suffering losses? The most deprived regions of the country would be hit hardest by a no deal, and the Government’s own figures show that people on the lowest incomes will suffer the most. [Interruption.] Many people are shouting from a sedentary position, "Vote for the deal." The Prime Minister’s free trade Brexit deal will result in every person in our country being £2,250 worse off, which is why we will not support the deal.

Instead of taking a no deal off the table, the Government are continuing to spend billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on Operation Yellowhammer, and they are probably diverting thousands of civil servants. How much money does the Minister estimate will be spent on this futile project? Surely the money would be better spent on rebuilding our country. Can he confirm that Operation Yellowhammer would not even come close to managing the economic disaster the whole country will face if we crash out with a no deal? That is not to mention the problems facing Ireland.

Operation Yellowhammer shows the disastrous impact of no deal on medical, food and energy supplies, which is why Members on both sides—this is a very important point—have repeatedly shown there is no will in this House to turn for a no deal. It will not happen.

Some have argued that a no deal was really just a negotiating tactic, a ruse to force concessions from the EU, but the Government have now finished their negotiations with the EU. Why, then, have they continued to place this sword of Damocles over the whole country?

The Minister claimed this weekend that the risk of leaving without a deal has increased, but how can that be? The opposite is the case, because the House has voted repeatedly to stop the Government crashing us out with no deal. The truth is that the Prime Minister thinks the only way to get legislation for this sell-out deal through this House of Commons is to bully and blackmail MPs with the threat of a no deal, but he has lost the consent of the House. He double-crossed the DUP, and he has taken a bulldozer to most of our procedures. His behaviour has thrown away the good will of hon. and right hon. Members. More than anything else, he has disposed of the good will of the House in the manner of the Godfather casting confetti at a mafia family wedding.

Even at this late stage, I press the Government to change course. A no deal would damage our country, injure our economy and inflict lasting damage on the nation. Abandoning a no deal might have the inadvertent and, some might say, lamentable consequence of placing the Minister for no deal on the Back Benches. Regrettable as that might be, some of us might think it a price worth paying.

[Michael Gove]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions and, in particular, I am grateful for his kind words about the civil service. One of the many things we have in common, as well as representing constituencies that voted leave and being opposed to a second referendum, is that both of us are huge fans of the civil service and appreciate the great work done by civil servants every day for all of us in this country.

The hon. Gentleman asked me to keep the House informed even as the XO Committee sits every day, and I will do my best to do so. I am certain there will be an opportunity for at least one more statement, and I will be happy to respond to any urgent questions in his or any other Member’s name that relate to our Brexit preparations.

The hon. Gentleman asked about 31 October and suggested that the date is artificial. I fear it is not, as the date is fixed in legislation as a result of the article 50 process and has been agreed with the European Union. One of the important things that all of us in this House need to bear in mind is that EU leaders have made it crystal clear that they want the deal done, and they want it done by 31 October. The reason why the risk of no deal has increased materially is that EU leaders have said we cannot be certain that an extension will be granted. In those circumstances, there is one way to bring certainty, and I know that the hon. Gentleman knows this in his heart. The way in which we can bring certainty is by voting for the Prime Minister’s deal.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the cost of preparation. One thing the Prime Minister has stressed, and which is absolutely true, is that once we leave with a deal, we will be outside the customs union and the single market, and much of the preparation that will have been done in advance of 31 October will enable businesses to benefit from the free trade agreement that we hope to conclude with the EU and the new trade agreements we will conclude with other nations. There is a bright future ahead but it requires all of us to listen to the voice of this country and get Brexit done.