Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Elliott Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend, who is a long-standing and redoubtable campaigner for law and order and for the police. I also congratulate the PCC, Matthew Scott, on what he is doing to back the police and to recruit more police in Kent. That is why we are putting another 20,000 more officers on the streets of this country, and I think we have already recruited about 6,000.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab) [V]]

  Last week, the Government responded to concerns from our care workers by stating:“We are immensely proud of all our care workers do”.That is a sentiment we all share, yet in the very same statement the Government sought to pass the buck for the way our care workers have been treated by saying:“The vast majority of care workers are employed by private sector providers”and that“the Government does not set levels of pay for care workers”.Why will this Government not commit to ensuring that our care workers are paid a wage they can live on?

[The Prime Minister]

This Government are proud of not only setting up the national living wage, but making sure we had record-breaking increases both last year and this year. That is the most important thing we can do for care workers and workers across the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Elliott Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I certainly join my hon. Friend in welcoming the crew of HMS Duncan, and in celebrating all that they do on behalf of this country to keep us safe and to represent Britain around the world. In return, we owe them a duty of care, and the armed forces covenant enshrines that duty. No such covenant existed before we came into Downing Street, and now that we are in Downing Street we are honouring our promises to Britain’s armed services and to the Royal Navy.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

Q8. Not content with just trebling tuition fees, the Government want to raise them even higher. Why has the Chancellor changed his view since 2003, when he said that tuition fees were a tax on learning?

[Mr Osborne]

Back then, the Labour party was voting for tuition fees. The difference is this: we have learnt our lesson, and Labour Members have forgotten theirs. As a result, we have a credible higher education policy that is giving us the best universities in the world, a record number of students, and, crucially, a record number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds—which the Labour party said would never happen—and, in contrast, Labour Members have a completely incredible policy to abolish the tuition fees that they themselves introduced and create a £10 billion hole in the public finances. It is time that they were straight with students and made it clear that that is completely unaffordable, and that we go on funding our higher education system and asking graduates who are going to earn more, on average, than other taxpayers to contribute to their education.

Steel Industry

Julie Elliott Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

In this Parliament, we always have to remember the issue of tackling climate change, but we have to balance that with the cost that that puts on our energy-intensive industries. We have to ensure that we get the balance right.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Ms Eagle]

I will give way to my hon. Friend and then I really will want to get on with the rest of my speech.

[Julie Elliott]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the carbon price floor was a tax introduced by the previous Conservative-led Government, and that it is an entirely revenue raising tax that does absolutely nothing to contribute to combating climate change?

[Ms Eagle]

Yes, I do.

Rather than hiding behind the European Commission, why do the Government not take action first on energy-intensive industry payments and get retrospective approval later? That is what Germany did with its Renewable Energy Act 2012. It provided support to producers of renewable energy from January 2012. It did not submit the Act for prior state scrutiny. It let the Commission investigate and then state aid approval was received in November 2014, two years after it had first provided support. Why can our Government not look after the interests of UK steel in the same way? It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Government have been so slow to act because they have an ideological aversion to any Government intervention. We have a Secretary of State who will not let the phrase “industrial strategy” cross his lips.

We on the Labour Benches support international trade, but free trade must also be fair. China is currently responsible for a tsunami of cheap steel, which is being dumped on European markets. The UK should be at the forefront of demanding rapid and effective action to stop it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Elliott Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I praise my hon. Friend for the work he has done to support the beer industry, to support Britain’s pubs and to stand up for our local communities where the pub is so often the hub of the village and the community. This Government have been a good friend of Britain’s pubs and the beer industry. I am delighted with the figures my hon. Friend read out. It always goes to show that life’s better under the Conservatives.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

Q10. Does the Prime Minister agree with his Minister in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills who says that prosecuting people who do not pay the minimum wage is the politics of envy?