Public Services

Debate between Jonathan Reynolds and Greg Knight

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

That is completely unacceptable and I would hope there was agreement across all sides of political opinion on that, but the question I have is: will this post-Brexit free trade world deliver the employment rights that will combat that? At the minute I am, frankly, unconvinced.

I would also like to have seen some action in this Queen’s Speech on absolute poverty. I have no problem with universal credit simplifying the benefits system and I want a system with a taper mechanism that makes it cost-effective for people to increase their working hours if they can do so, but the five-week wait is pushing too many people into a level of destitution that is unconscionable by any reasonable standard. The charities say so, the Churches say so and, frankly, most of us say so, too, and I do not know what more evidence or arguments the Government need to see or hear before they are willing to treat people with the minimum level of dignity they should reasonably be able to expect.

Due to time constraints, I want to make just one more point about something that is in the Queen’s Speech: the proposal to introduce photo ID to cast a vote in elections, which risks being an injustice of significant proportions. It has already been said in this debate that 3.5 million people do not have access to photo ID, and if it is restricted to a passport or driving licence the figure is 11 million.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

If in any such scheme local ID could be produced at no cost to the voter, would that not allay the hon. Gentleman’s concerns?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

It would, to be fair, go some way to doing that: if the Government were willing to say, “If there is a new standard of proof to be able to cast your vote, we will provide that free of charge to every citizen in this country before this measure comes into effect,” that would allay some of my concerns, but of course the cost of that would be significant and I have not heard anything mentioned that suggests that is possible.