European Affairs

Justin Madders Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

There is an old saying that nature abhors a vacuum. Similarly, business abhors uncertainty, and in no industry is that more true than in the automotive sector. As the Government’s sector report makes clear, investment decisions and sourcing choices in the industry are often made by European or global headquarters, and the continued uncertainty about training arrangements are making it ask serious questions about whether it will invest in this country in the future.

Uncertainty across a sector can have a real impact, particularly in communities such as mine where the sector represents a big chunk of the jobs market. The Vauxhall Motors factory in my constituency is currently facing huge uncertainty. Until recently, it employed 1,800 people directly, with many more jobs in the supply chain, so there is no doubt that it is of pivotal importance to the area I represent. How such companies fare in the post-Brexit world will decide how I and my constituents judge the Government’s handling of the negotiations, because when it comes to the crunch, what happens on people’s doorsteps is what really matters to them.

The key choices about Vauxhall’s future rest in the hands of its owners, PSA, which is based in France. We know from decisions already made that it shows no sentiment. We have already lost about 700 jobs since it took over, and these job losses are extremely serious. We are told that they are a reaction to market conditions, with a decline in sales of the Astra. Market conditions are not of course within the gift of the Government, but what is within their gift are the conditions within which business can trade, and this is where the Government really need to start listening to the industry—and acting. Traditionally, the automotive sector makes investment decisions about three to five years in advance, so decisions about investment in a post-Brexit world will be made shortly. The current model in production in Ellesmere Port is due to be discontinued at about the same time in 2021. The chief executive of PSA recently told the BBC:

“We cannot invest in a world of uncertainty”,

so now is the time for the Government to provide them with that certainty.

The automotive sector, as we know, is one of the most productive and successful we have, directly or indirectly employing over 800,000 people and generating almost 10% of the country’s manufacturing output. We know that about half of all UK car production is exported to the EU, and that figure rises to 70% to 80% for vehicles produced at the Vauxhall plant in my constituency. The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee recently found that

“leaving the EU without a deal would undoubtedly be hugely damaging to the UK automotive sector, more so than to other European countries.”

It concluded:

“Overall, no-one has argued there are advantages to be gained from Brexit for the automotive industry for the foreseeable future.”

Now that we are leaving the EU, it is important to recognise that this is one of our most vulnerable sectors, and there is no upside for it. We therefore need to do everything possible to safeguard jobs and investment. History shows us that once manufacturing jobs are lost, they very rarely come back. So far the response from the Government has been inadequate and complacent, and the sense of denial is palpable.

Of course, it was never meant to be this way. Both during and after the referendum, too many people have exaggerated the simplicity of all this. The Brexit Secretary assured us that we would soon be able to access

“a very, very large trade area, much bigger than the European Union, probably ten times the size”,

despite the fact that if it was that big, it would cover an area twice the size of the planet. The Foreign Secretary promised us that without

“the job-destroying coils of EU bureaucracy we can survive and thrive as never before.”

The International Trade Secretary said that securing a UK-EU trade deal would be

“one of the easiest in human history”.

Yet even with such esteemed and self-confident people negotiating on our behalf, we still do not know— 629 days after the referendum—what the deal will be.

When Cabinet Ministers are pressed on these issues, I have seen them bluffing complacently with dangerous fantasies about the promised green and pleasant land that will apparently emerge before our eyes without any effort being invested. The Prime Minister in her Mansion House speech said that new trading arrangements would need good will to succeed, but that sounds more like crossing one’s fingers and hoping for the best. My constituents’ jobs need more than that and the people who employ them need more than that to invest, so the Government need to understand that the once proud automotive heritage will be lost to the past unless we can secure its future. This is an industry that will survive and flourish only if we are prepared to fight for it. Even if it turns out to be the simple negotiation that the International Trade Secretary promised us, he needs to realise that for there to be an automotive sector in this country that will continue to trade with the rest of the world, it needs to be protected now, so the Government must act.

For me, a commitment to a customs union is the only sensible way to restore certainty and confidence, not some vague and ill-defined customs partnership that may or may not be the same as it is now. We know the argument about how a customs union will have an impact on future trade deals elsewhere, but I do not think that getting a couple of quid off trainers from China is actually a price worth paying for the destruction of the UK car industry. In response to a written question from me about which non-EU countries had been identified as the best ones for future trade deals in the automotive sector, the Minister for Trade Policy said:

“We are working with a number of other countries to explore the best ways to develop our current trade and investment relationships”.

That did not tell me anything, including about whether there are any such opportunities outside the EU.

If it is a choice between preserving trade with up to 80% of our existing customers, as against perhaps getting some new business with some unspecified countries at some unspecified time in the future, I know what every person with an ounce of common sense will choose. The choice for the Government is clear, and if they make the wrong one, we will never forgive them and we will never forget.

Business of the House

Justin Madders Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

I certainly heard the hon. Member’s point of order yesterday and I share and understand the concern that many Unilever employees feel about the current and growing uncertainty. The Government are certainly disappointed that Unilever has decided to close the Norwich plant. We welcome its commitment to maintaining most of the mint production in Norwich, and stand by ready to help the workforce wherever we can. This is a worrying time, and we need to work with Unilever to get further clarity over what is intended.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

The automotive sector in this country is facing challenging times, and no more so than the Vauxhall car plant in my constituency where another 250 redundancies were announced this week on top of 400 last October. May we have a debate please, as a matter of urgency, about what practical steps the Government can take to protect manufacturing jobs in this country and secure the future of the car plant?

[Paul Maynard]

As I said earlier, the hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to know that, as someone from Cheshire, I understand the importance of Vauxhall Motors to the Ellesmere Port community. I was as disappointed as I am sure he was to hear about the further job losses. The rapid response service of Jobcentre Plus has already been put into action, and the Government are trying to engage with Vauxhall further throughout the process to do all we can both to protect UK jobs and to help those who are affected. There will be much more help available to those who are affected, but I recognise his concerns and will make sure that the Leader of the House passes them on to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Paradise Papers

Justin Madders Excerpts

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Gentleman characterises those involved in overseas trusts as eye-wateringly rich, but I do not think all of them are; there are many pension funds, and there will be many who rely on those pension funds to live, and many of them might, indeed, live in his constituency. I think this general characterisation of it all being about super-wealthy people and all being about tax dodgers and so forth is rather crude, and, frankly, not worthy of the Opposition.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Some 130,000 UK companies have not completed their persons with significant control registers, and not one of them has been fined. If we cannot get our own house in order, how can we credibly ask others to act on transparency?

[Mel Stride]

I am happy to look into the specific point the hon. Gentleman has raised and will come back to him on it.

Summer Adjournment

Justin Madders Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) has taken her rightful place on the Front Bench. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) on his maiden speech. He spoke with great sincerity and knowledge about his constituency and the challenges facing it, particularly pressure on housing and public services.

I wish to raise just one subject—leasehold—which affects not only a number of my constituents, but many other people throughout England and Wales. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) has already touched on it. I spoke about it in the Chamber last December, when I described the emerging leasehold scandal as the PPI of the house building industry. However, having seen more of the serial failures, deceptions and obfuscations, I believe I may have understated culpability right across the board. The developers, of course, are public enemy No. 1, but the lenders, the solicitors and even the Government all have to take some share of the blame for a scandal that has the potential to fundamentally destabilise the housing market if it is not tackled soon.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse said, I am now vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform, which he brilliantly chairs alongside the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley). They have been superbly assisted by the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership in bringing the matter to the attention of parliamentarians. There now seems to be some consensus across the House that these abuses need to be tackled. I understand that the Government will be coming forward shortly with plans to tackle some of the abuses in the leasehold sector, but it is vital that they create not only a clear and fair framework for new builds, but a strategy to deal with the rotten mess that developers have created.

There at last appears to be some self-awareness by developers that leasehold homes are becoming toxic, with many now pledging voluntarily not to sell any new homes on a leasehold basis. But that will not assist my constituents who have already bought their homes and have been quoted extortionate sums to buy their properties, obtain permission to alter the property, or even ask a question of their landlord, nor will it assist the many who are already trapped because they have onerous leases that purchasers are no longer interested in signing up to, and that some building societies will no longer lend on. It will also not assist us in holding to account the guilty men and women who must have known that creating this second lucrative income stream for developers would ultimately be at the cost of their customers.

Developers are beginning to acknowledge their responsibility. Taylor Wimpey voluntarily announced in April that it was going to set up a process whereby those with the most onerous leases had the opportunity to convert them into new leases where the ground rent would increase by only RPI, instead of doubling every 10 years. Sadly, however, that announcement is where the credit stops, because three months on, progress has been painfully slow. In the intervening period, I have been contacted by at least one constituent whose ground rent has doubled since the announcement was made, which means that if it ever does get converted to an RPI lease, those RPI increases will be applied to a ground rent that is twice what it could have been. This has ongoing consequences should my constituent ever be in a position to purchase the freehold outright, and if she does try to purchase it, she will still have to negotiate with the owner of the freehold, whoever that is, and navigate the fiendishly complicated and lengthy process currently in place.

The lease may still contain other punitive clauses aside from the ground rent, which, as we have seen from some examples, can include charges of up to £3,000 just to get permission for an extension. This is all before we consider those who are not covered, such as second-generation purchasers where Taylor Wimpey are not the freehold owners. Where do they stand? There is going to need to be an active Government strategy to deal with everyone affected by this scandal.

The Government have a financial interest in sorting this out. At the end of March 2017 the number of Help to Buy purchases on leasehold properties stood at just over 28,000, of which 11,641 are houses. Some 23% of all Help to Buy purchases are on leasehold properties, and given concerns about the drop in value of some of the properties with the most onerous leases, there is a real question whether the Government will get all their money back eventually. To my astonishment, there has not yet been any suggestion of an outright ban on Help to Buy funds being used to purchase leasehold houses.

Let us be clear: sorting out the immediate consequences of onerous leases must be the start of the process, not the end of it. We need to learn the lessons, and if necessary legislate, so that the worst excesses of capitalism that we have seen here are not allowed to infect our society again. There needs to be a much easier, quicker and cost-effective way, so that people can purchase their freehold outright, and then we need to bring in an outright ban on houses being sold on a leasehold basis.

But there also needs to be a long, hard look at how we got into this position in the first place. I would like there to be a full Select Committee inquiry into how this practice developed. At the moment, we do not even know the extent of it. Developers must be required to give evidence about why this systematic duping of their customers was allowed to start in the first place. Who were the authors of those leases that now nobody will sign up to? How many properties were made leasehold needlessly? How much profit have they made out of this scam? And who exactly are the beneficiaries of the leases now?

These properties are being passed around from one company to another. Some are based outside this country, and there is secrecy about who the ultimate recipients are of the substantial incomes coming from the leases. There is an old saying that an Englishman’s home is his castle, but it now seems that an Englishman’s home is in fact a revenue stream for an offshore company operating from a tax haven.

What is very clear to me is that when people bought their houses they thought they were doing just that—buying a home. What they never contemplated for a moment was that actually the true owner of their home would be someone they might never know the identity of, who can sell on their interest in the property to somebody else without their knowledge or consent. It sounds like something out of feudal society, not 21st-century Britain.

That brings me to what I would like a Select Committee inquiry to look at: the legal profession. Speaking as a former solicitor, I know that mistakes are made, but it seems incredible to me that so many people make the same complaint about the advice they received at the time of their purchase. I surveyed my constituents in leasehold properties and a staggering 80% of them did not know the true nature of what they were buying. I think those figures demonstrate that there is a compelling need for further examination of the advice that was provided. I have heard of developers offering incentives to use particular solicitors. Why would they do that, and what led to such a collective failure in the legal profession?

What advice was given to the lenders, whom solicitors also have a duty to? We now know, for example, that Nationwide will no longer lend on properties with doubling ground rents. That rather raises the question of what their and other lenders’ exposure is and, crucially, why they granted mortgages on these properties in the first place. None of the developers will tell us how many properties they have built with these onerous clauses attached. We need to know the scale of the problem; the stability of the housing market rests on the back of that.

I hope I have demonstrated the range of issues that need to be dealt with in respect of this scandal. A full Select Committee inquiry is the way ahead. This has not happened by accident and we need to know why it started.

Finally, Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish you, all other Members and, in particular, all the staff who work so hard to keep this place running smoothly, a restful and peaceful summer.

Equitable Life Policyholders: Compensation

Justin Madders Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

I will aim not to disappoint, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for securing this extremely important debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) on their extremely hard work over a number of years to try to secure adequate compensation for everyone who lost out as a result of this scandal. The issue of Equitable Life and the fate of those who lost out after investing has been debated by Members on both sides of the House for more than 15 years. As has been said, there is a great deal of cross-party work on this matter. Throughout that time, the Equitable Life Members Group and the all-party group have campaigned tirelessly to ensure that the issue is not simply kicked into the long grass. I am pleased to have another opportunity to press the case for those who lost out.

After a long battle, I appreciate the action that the Government have taken to date for those affected by this scandal. However, as we have heard from Members and our constituents, many policyholders remain short-changed, receiving a payment of less than one quarter of the compensation to which the ombudsman found they would have been entitled. The second ombudsman’s report was clear that the aim of the compensation scheme should have been to put people back into the position they would have been in if maladministration had not occurred. Despite that—we have heard this from many Members today—1 million people have received only about 22% of the compensation they are due.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman, like all speakers in the debate, is making a very powerful point. I, too, have received a great number of letters from constituents who have corresponded with me about the money that they or their relatives lost. He is right to say that they received only 22% of the compensation they expected. Is it not the case that we are dealing with pensioners and that we are losing about 15 a day? If the Government were to look again at whether, with a growing economy, more could be done for the people who have lost out, that would need to happen sooner rather than later.

[Justin Madders]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are dealing with people who are getting on in years. As he points out, sadly about 15 policyholders a day are dying before the situation has been resolved. I am strongly of the belief—we see this for a whole range of issues—that the longer people wait for justice, the harder it is to appreciate that justice has been served.

The core of this issue is that many people feel that, even after all these years, justice has not been done. That message has come across loud and clear from my constituents and those of other hon. Members who have spoken. These people worked all their lives only to find that their pension pot has failed to materialise in the manner they were promised and they genuinely believed would occur.

In practice, this means that people who spent decades working for a comfortable retirement have had it denied them. It means that they are downsizing or even re-mortgaging their homes in their old age just to make ends meet. That is clearly not what we want for people who have contributed throughout their lives.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is speaking extremely powerfully. He is absolutely right to focus on those who will not have the opportunity to recover the money they have lost unless the Government change their mind. Does he agree that a real message can be sent to young people and those of us who, like myself, are less young? We must show that saving and responsible action during a working life is rewarded. There is a danger that if we continue to get this wrong, the lesson we are providing is that people should not bother to save, because it is not worth it.

[Justin Madders]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. I am sure that he has many years to go before he reaches retirement age, but that is something that is absolutely central to the debate, so I will expand on it a little more. We are entering an era in which retirement ages will increase and there will be more and more onus on people to take responsibility for their own retirement. If we have a system that people lack confidence in, it simply will not work. That is why compensation in these situations should be delivered in full.

One of my constituents told me:

“what I personally find sickening is that Her Majesty’s Government, no matter which party is in power, has utterly refused to act on the Ombudsman’s findings, which point to its own shortcomings.”

That point, which has been made by many Members, really does sum up where we are. I hope that the Minister will update us on what the Government are doing and focus on what good news those individuals who feel that the system has short-changed them can expect. That is important not just for them, but for the trust we should have in the system to secure our own futures. There is a need to restore confidence and build trust not just for the individuals affected by the scandal, but for everyone. As the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) said, there are uncomfortable parallels with the WASPI campaign. People’s confidence has been shattered by what they consider to be broken promises by the Government and the institutions in which we place our trust.

I agree that we all need to encourage people to plan for their retirement and to contribute to their pensions, but what kind of message does it send if the Government fail to properly regulate a provider and then fail to compensate people fully for their losses? It is not just trust in the finance sector that is at stake here; it is trust in politics itself. As has been said in previous debates as well as today, the 2010 Conservative manifesto included this comment, which links these issues in a neat way:

“We must not let the mis-selling of financial products put people off saving. We will implement the Ombudsman’s recommendation to make fair and transparent payments to Equitable Life policy holders, through an independent payment scheme, for their relative loss as a consequence of regulatory failure.”

I think that all Members agree that that is a worthy aim, but the question of whether the pledge has been met in full is a matter of some debate.

I am conscious of the time, because we do want to hear from the Minister. What has already been said today has really summed up the situation, but let me end by making what I think is a key point. A failure to correct the wrongs of the past will lead to a failure to secure confidence in the future. I do not believe it is an exaggeration to say that the erosion of confidence that this episode has engendered could, in fact, be of greater impact in the long run than the cost of full compensation. I hope that, even at this late stage, the Government will do the right thing, not only for the policyholders of Equitable Life, but to restore confidence in the entire system of savings and pensions.

The hon. Member for Harrow East spoke of a debt of honour, and I think that that is an excellent way of referring to our obligations. We need to act honourably, and to correct this injustice in full. Given the age of many of the policyholders involved, it is clear that the adage “Justice delayed is justice denied” was never more true than it is in this case.

Good Parliament Report

Justin Madders Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) on her superb introduction to this debate. She set out the huge range of issues that we have to consider and will, I hope, act upon. I very much welcome the recommendations in the report. I hope that they are given the opportunity to be implemented faster than we have seen female representation grow in this place.

Having been elected only last year, I still look at some of the goings-on here with a mixture of wonder, bemusement and sadness. My job before I was elected enabled me to peer into many other workplaces and their cultures. I am sorry to say that, if the culture we have here were replicated in an ordinary workplace, the company could expect to be involved in many employment tribunals every year. It would also find it difficult to recruit good people and would have an even harder job retaining good staff.

Although it is a huge privilege to work here, we should not be afraid to challenge archaic practices and cultures where we find them. At how many workplaces does someone’s finish time vary and change at incredibly short notice? How is that in any way family friendly? In which workplaces is it acceptable for colleagues to stop speaking to you because they disapprove of something you have or have not done? Would we expect to start a new job without any feedback or appraisal of progress, but still be promoted or demoted on a set of opaque criteria we are not privy to? In which jobs would it be considered normal to engage in arguments on Twitter with work colleagues? And I am talking about people from the same party; they sometimes come with insults and abuse that would breach any dignity at work policy.

I am chair of the all-party group on social mobility. We are currently conducting an inquiry into access to the professions, which includes law, finance, the arts, media, medicine, the civil service and politics. In terms of Parliament, as we have heard, the stark fact remains that there have been fewer female MPs elected than there are male MPs currently sitting in the House of Commons, and less than 30% of MPs at the moment are female. Although the report looks mainly at gender issues, we cannot isolate that from other factors that influence representation here. According to the Sutton Trust, 32% of MPs were privately educated compared with 7% of the general population. Of those, the research shows, almost one in 10 went to Eton. Nearly 10% of all MPs attended the same school: a school that of course only boys can attend.

The recommendations on sitting days are welcome. Why, for heaven’s sake, do we have a half-term recess next week that starts on a Wednesday? No schools are off then and I am not aware of any school breaks that start on a Wednesday. I certainly welcome the recommendations on producing a statement on maternity, paternity, adoption and caring leave. We would not expect our constituents to forgo those hard-won rights, so I do not think we should, either.

Recommendation 43 places the onus on political parties to increase the diversity of parliamentary candidates. My party has been at the forefront of this, and with the creation of the Jo Cox Women in Leadership Programme, I am confident we will continue to be so. The reality is that it is up to the political parties to seriously look at the way they select candidates if we really want to change things.

My party has made great strides towards gender equality. I have a great amount of respect and admiration for my Labour colleagues, but it is still very much the case that someone has to have connections with the centre, the kind of informal networks that we see in all professions, if they want to succeed in politics. We have to recognise that, to be selected as a candidate for a major political party in a winnable seat, someone must first of all win an election that in all likelihood will be just as challenging as the real one, but without the party’s resources, or the finance. They may not have the time to get the nomination, particularly if they are in a full-time job outside politics, or have caring responsibilities, or both. The reality is that, if they are working at the local Tesco, and have three kids under 11, they will struggle to find the time to run a successful election campaign. Some unions are getting better at recognising those challenges, and we need to go further and support them.

There is a huge London focus in most professions, but arguably it is most acute in politics. The Speaker’s parliamentary scheme is helping to open up opportunity, but a number of people do not apply to it at all because the cost of living in London is so high. Those who are on the scheme can struggle because the cost of living is so high, even on the London living wage. That is why people with supportive and well-resourced families have an advantage. We must therefore stress the importance of open and funded internships and placements, which do not rely on self-finance. We hope to present the result of the all-party group’s inquiry next month. It is pretty clear that it will show patterns that restrict opportunity, repeated throughout the various professions— with politics no exception. There are pockets of good practice in all professions, but they are just that—pockets. In Parliament we have a unique role and an opportunity to lead by example, to show that in this country, whatever a person’s background, they will have the same opportunities as everyone else.

Summer Adjournment

Justin Madders Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling). As the proud owner of a collie-Staffie cross, now sadly deceased, I wish Watchman V well.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak about something that happened today, and to which I alerted the House earlier in a point of order: the Government’s announcement, via a written statement—alongside 29 other written statements—of major increases in tuition fees for the year 2017-18. I want to speak in particular about the impact that it will have on students who either study in my constituency or come from my constituency and study elsewhere.

I think that the way the Government have dealt with this matter is thoroughly reprehensible. Only two days ago, we spent five or six hours in the Chamber debating the Higher Education and Research Bill. We engaged in a vigorous discussion of whether it was right to link fees to the Teaching Excellence Framework, but at no time during that process did Ministers take the opportunity to say anything about the issue. Today, however, it has been announced that from 2017-18, students at universities and colleges that pass a test, which I shall say more about in a moment, will pay £9,250 a year.

That underlines the fact that, as I said in the debate on Tuesday, the Teaching Excellence Framework is being used as a cash-in coupon. It demands no evidence of excellence in year 1; instead, it demands that providers achieve a “rating of Meets Expectations”. I think it would be mangling the English language to say that “Meets Expectations” is the same as achieving excellence, which is what the Teaching Excellence Framework is supposed to be about.

The Minister himself—the Minister for Universities and Science—spoke about the potential for increases in the debates on the Queen’s Speech:

“I can confirm that the rate of inflation applying to maximum fees for institutions demonstrating high-quality teaching is 2.8%.”—[Official Report, 25 May 2016; Vol. 611, c. 559.]

I am not suggesting that the Minister has been economical with the facts, or that the statement has been economical with the facts, but I think that making the link in that way could be regarded as being economical with the truth.

I said that I wanted to talk about the impact that the increase would have. It is not just a question of increasing the fees; it is also a question of increasing the loans by 2.8% to match that increase in the fees. That will, in due course, hit all the students from disadvantaged backgrounds. There are about half a million of them in the country, of whom nearly 34,000 are at further education colleges that provide higher education courses. Those colleges include my own excellent local college, Blackpool and the Fylde, whose higher education institute was built in 2008 with funds from the Labour Government. More than 2,800 students are now studying at the institute. Those students are now going to be hit by a double-whammy: not only will they have their grants taken away—and future students will as well—from 2017-18, and have to pay, as they knew, a fee of £9,000, but they are now going to have to pay 2.8% on top of that. If we are interested in getting young people from disadvantaged backgrounds into higher education, and in getting their contribution to local regional economies like the north-west’s, this is not the way to go about it.

Let me quote some other figures about students doing HE at FE colleges: there are 1,800 students in that position at Blackburn college, and 1,000 at the Manchester group of colleges. With regard to universities catering to large numbers of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, there are 14,000 students in this position at Manchester Met and 8,000-plus at Manchester University.

I have chosen those examples because they are all within the catchment area that young people in Blackpool who might not be able to go to a university or FE college further away are likely to choose. It really is not satisfactory to proceed in the way the Government have done. Apart from anything else, it will tarnish the reputation of the Teaching Excellence Framework, and it is not good for this House’s processes. This should have been discussed and voted on—it will be eventually—later in the year. Instead, the Minister had a golden opportunity to discuss it on Tuesday but failed to do so. Clearly, the Government did not feel that they had a very strong case.

I ask Members to reflect on not only the damage this is going to cause to the sorts of young people I am talking about, but the dangerous slope that we go down, and which we went down earlier this year, when major issues that are going to affect people are dealt with by statutory instrument. That is what is being indicated in the small print of the Government’s statement today.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that another announcement sneaked out by the Government today was the decision to abolish the student nurse bursaries, which again is going to have serious implications for social mobility in higher education and the health service?

[Mr Marsden]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent and very germane point, because the abolition of NHS bursaries in the round and their replacement by loans will have a similar dampening effect on social mobility, particularly in the north-west where there are large numbers of students and institutions—Edge Hill University and others in Chester and elsewhere—where students have been turned out very successfully for the benefit of our national health services, including in Blackpool. I can think of one member of my constituency Labour party who has gone down that route.

I want to end by juxtaposing all those issues and lives and careers I have talked about with the necessity to do proper process in this House. If we are going to make decisions like this, they should not be sneaked out in a written statement when Ministers do not have the opportunity to deal with any discussion or debate for at least six weeks.

I put this on the record to the duty Minister on the Front Bench: when this matter comes to the House for proper decision, I and, I am sure, many of my colleagues will expect it to be dealt with on the Floor of the House, not squirreled away in some statutory instrument along the Corridor.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

There have been several notable contributions today, many of which have touched on the issues that I want to raise, so I hope that mine will match the quality shown thus far. I intend to talk about what I consider to be the holy trinity—not Law, Best and Charlton, but three of the most important pillars of my politics: jobs, homes and health. I believe that if people are confident that they have security and fairness at work, that they will have a roof over their head and that they will be cared for if they fall ill, we have the essential preconditions, foundations, and building blocks for creating a fair and equal society. I should make it clear that those principles are only the start and that there is clearly so much more beyond them, but I want to address them today because we cannot hope to address anything else unless we get the basics right.

I have said previously that a jobs policy does not just mean aiming for full employment; we should value the quality of the jobs that are created. Jobs must be permanent, secure and properly paid. We saw during the EU referendum campaign that telling someone on a zero-hours contract or in agency work that there is a risk to their job from Brexit just did not cut it. There is a culture in this country that views employment as a flexible, disposable concept, with people not knowing from one week to the next how many hours they will work or whether they will work at all, and yet some still wonder why millions of people chose to reject the status quo.

Even for those who have secured permanent employment, this country’s workplace protections are pathetic. How can someone give nearly two years of their life to an employer, not putting a foot wrong, and still find themselves cast aside without reason and without recompense? How can we build a country in which people feel confident enough to plan their life and for the future, if we have such a casual attitude towards the means by which they can build that future? I want a country where people have the security of knowing that if they do a good job and if their employer runs the business well, they will be rewarded properly and are likely to stay in work. What we have instead is a hire-and-fire culture in which workers are seen as disposable commodities—figures on a spreadsheet—rather than real people with lives that matter.

The prospect of replacing people with machines has always been with us, but the future looks bleak for the millions of jobs that are set to become automated. Artificial intelligence will decimate skilled jobs, and we have the ever-present threat of jobs being exported to lower-wage economies. I am sorry to say that many politicians see that as progress and others are blissfully unaware of what the future will bring, but nobody has yet come up with a compelling strategy for how to respond to what amounts to a huge challenge for every country in the western world. If we do not start thinking seriously about how to tackle the problem, the wave of resentment that led to the Brexit vote will look like a small ripple in a pond.

Turning to homes, in every surgery I hold there will always be constituents who cannot get on the council waiting list, cannot afford private sector rents and, because of their circumstances, cannot countenance owning a home of their own. Even those in secure employment find themselves unable to match that with a secure home of their own. Successive Governments have failed to address this issue, but the current Administration seem determined to decimate social housing in this country. My constituency has plenty of sites where planning permissions have been granted for new homes, but almost every one of those has, at one stage or another, been amended to remove the obligation to build affordable housing. The situation is unsustainable, and insecurity at work being matched for many by insecurity at home is leading to the resentment I have referred to being magnified.

The final pillar of the three that I wish to talk about is health. It may be trite to say it, but we are incredibly fortunate to live in a country where no matter who you are and no matter what your means, you can be assured that if you fall ill you will receive, free of charge, some of the very best medical treatment in the world. But the Labour party’s proudest achievement, the NHS, is in mortal danger under this Government. In what has been the most unpredictable time in recent political history, with so many resignations, sackings and job changes, some would say one of the biggest surprises of this whole period is that the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Mr Hunt) is still in his job as Secretary of State for Health.

Put simply:

“The NHS is in a mess”

and there have been

“five years of decline on all of the things that people would worry about.”

Those are not my words, but the words of the chief executive of NHS Improvement, Jim Mackey. The NHS is arguably facing its biggest challenge since its creation. It is failing to meet key performance targets month after month. NHS trusts and foundation trusts had a combined deficit of £2.45 billion in 2015-16, and the situation continues to deteriorate, yet the Secretary of State is still in his job. I know I have talked about employment security today, but that is surely taking things a step too far.

Only this week the Health Committee confirmed what we knew all along: the Government's claim that they are putting an additional £10 billion into the NHS does not stand up to scrutiny. The Committee put the actual figure at less than half of that and went on to say that “accounting devices” are being used to “balance the books”, which

“give a false impression that the current financial situation is better than it is.”

These devices include moving hundreds of millions of pounds from an already stretched capital budget to plug holes on the revenue side, depriving the NHS of the infrastructure investment it urgently needs and storing up problems for the future. They also include moving funds over from the public health budget, a move the Health Committee describes as

“a false economy, creating avoidable additional costs in the future.”

In addition, there is a workforce crisis, with 15% of clinical posts vacant in some parts of London and a shocking £3.3 billion spent in the last year on agency staff, a situation that will only worsen with the announcement sneaked out today about the abolition of nurse bursaries. This toxic cocktail is only going to get worse. How long before we see a Minister say that the current situation is unsustainable and the principle of free treatment at the point of use has to be sacrificed? If that is taken away, one of the pillars critical to a stable and just society is taken away.

I consider the three pillars needed for a decent society that I have described to be crumbling at an alarming rate. My party will be spending much of the summer discussing the relative merits of our two leadership candidates, but I hope that there will be an opportunity during this debate to consider how we tackle the challenges ahead that I have referred to, so that at the end of the process we are able to present to the country a united front and a compelling answer on these issues. If we can do that—if we can look and sound like a Government ready and waiting to rebuild our fractured society—we will have half a chance of actually being able to do that.

The Economy and Work

Justin Madders Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

We cannot talk about the Queen’s Speech unless we know what the alternative might look like. This is what the Labour party says about itself: it says the Labour party is becoming increasingly

“irrelevant to the…working people in the country.”

If we think Labour has learned any lessons, this is what has happened today. The leader of the Labour party has today appointed someone called Andrew Fisher as the head of policy for the Labour party. This is a man who campaigned against Labour candidates at the general election in Croydon. This is a man who took part in the 2010 student riots and boasted about breaking through police lines, scaring the police and hurling abuse at them. This is what his economic policy consists of: public ownership of all land in the country; nationalising all banks; and returning to a three-day week. This is the man who has just become the Labour party’s head of policy.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is interesting that the Chancellor is talking about Labour’s future when his own is so shrouded in uncertainty. On his own record, has debt as a percentage of GDP gone up or down since he became Chancellor?

[Mr Osborne]

An 11% budget deficit means the debt is added to every year. Until the deficit comes right down, we cannot get the debt down. That is what we are doing and why we want to avoid an 11% budget deficit.

Another sign of how the Labour party is changing is the motion it is asking us to vote on tonight. It contains an intriguing clause that relates to Scotland. It states that they

“regret the refusal of the Scottish Government to use its new tax powers to put an end to austerity in Scotland”.

That is code for Labour wanting to put up taxes in Scotland. If it does not want the Scottish Government to use their tax powers to put up taxes to put an end to austerity in Scotland, how does it propose to do it? Labour fought the election in Scotland proposing a 1p increase in the basic rate of income tax. That was the Scottish Labour party’s policy, which was so successful in that election. Here, the UK Labour party is putting that into a parliamentary motion and asking the Labour party to vote on it tonight. We have a report from the Labour party saying that it is irrelevant to working people; the head of policy wants to nationalise land and return to a three-day week; and the parliamentary Labour party will be voting tonight to increase the basic rate of income tax. That is the state of the Labour party today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

There is a growing army of people in this country for whom the economy is no longer working. They will have looked hopefully at the Government’s plans for the next year and found that there is nothing there for them. It is simply not good enough that we have a Prime Minister who is happy to sacrifice an entire parliamentary Session tinkering at the edges because he is too afraid of causing even more divisions in his own party. How much of what is in this agenda will even see the light of day anyway? This Government have made 24 U-turns in the past year alone. It is unprecedented to see a Government offer so little so soon into a new Parliament. Just a year after a general election, we have a zombie Government and a Prime Minister who cannot wait for it to be 28 days later.

Yet there are serious problems that need to be tackled now. For the first time in a decade, child poverty is rising under this Government. There has been a worrying increase in the number of children relying on food banks—up by 13% in my constituency in the past year alone. What was the Government’s response? They rebranded the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission by removing “Child Poverty” from its name, and attempted to remove the statutory duty to measure child poverty at all. The chair of the commission notably said that young people now face an “existential crisis”—a crisis that this Government seem determined to exacerbate.

What will our economy look like for the workers of tomorrow? The sad reality is that manufacturing in this country is in long-term decline, and I see nothing from the Government to rebalance the economy either on a sectoral or a geographic basis. In my constituency, economic growth is hampered by the lack of investment in key infrastructure projects such as the electrification of the Wrexham to Bidston train line or improvements to the M56 motorway, yet grandiose schemes continue to take shape elsewhere in the country. Getting better connectivity in my constituency is undoubtedly the key to unlocking growth, but we are told that any improvements to the M56 will not even be considered until the end of the decade, and there is currently nothing on the horizon to improve the rail line. People in parts of my constituency have no reliable access to public transport at all, yet Crossrail alone is earmarked to receive nine times more funding than all the rail projects from the north’s three regions combined.

What of the growing ranks of the self-employed? Julie Deane’s independent review for Government on self-employment appears to be gathering dust on the shelf. The review found that the number of self-employed in the UK is at an all-time high of 4.6 million, and that the number is growing and the trend set to continue. That group now represents 15% of the UK workforce, making a considerable contribution to the country’s economy.

The report makes a number of important recommendations and I want action to be taken on one in particular:

“Government should consider extending support to the self-employed in areas where there is discrepancy between support for the self-employed and support for employees.”

It also makes a recommendation with regard to those who are self-employed through necessity. There is no doubt that there are people who should not be classed as self-employed, but because they are classified as such they are offered no basic protection, such as the minimum wage. Urgent action needs to be taken on the reclassification of self-employment.

In conclusion, this has been a missed opportunity to tackle the inequalities that exist by region, gender, age and employment status.

Oral Answers to Questions

Justin Madders Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

6. What assessment he has made of which groups within the UK population will benefit from planned changes to corporation tax.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

13. What assessment he has made of which groups within the UK population will benefit from planned changes to corporation tax.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

Corporation tax cuts have been a central part of the Government’s economic strategy, and that strategy is working; there are 2.3 million more people in employment since 2010. The further cuts in the main rate announced at the Budget, which will bring it down to 17% by 2020, will benefit over 1 million companies, large and small. Lower corporation tax rates will support UK companies to invest and grow, creating jobs as they do so.

[Mr Gauke]

The cuts in corporation tax will result in greater investment in this country, and greater investment drives productivity growth, and productivity growth is what will drive higher living standards. Let us remember that it is this Government who have brought in the national living wage, and we have seen very large numbers of people see increases in their wages and salaries.

[Justin Madders]

Owing to changes in personal independence payments, people with disabilities are set to lose £1 billion at the same time as corporation tax is being cut, so can the Minister honestly say that he is comfortable with prioritising big business over disabled people?

[Mr Gauke]

We are providing more support to help the disabled get into employment, but let me just make this point to the hon. Gentleman, and to the House: the way this country is going to be prosperous and able to afford good public services and support for the most vulnerable is by having a strong, growing economy, and competitive business taxes help us to have that strong, growing economy.

Local Government: Ethical Procurement

Justin Madders Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I start by declaring an interest: both I and my wife are members of the Cheshire local government pension fund.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) on securing this extremely important and timely debate, but of course it should not have been left to members of the Opposition to drag the Minister into a debate to explain the Government’s policy, so I hope that when he responds, he will, as my hon. Friend said, set out why he thought that it was appropriate to announce a change in policy in front of the media in another country rather than in this House, where proper scrutiny could have followed.

As well as the failure to follow any kind of proper process, I am extremely concerned by the tone that Ministers have adopted when addressing this issue. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has accused councils of adopting policies that

“undermine good community relations, and harm the economic security of families by pushing up council tax.”

Those are very serious allegations, but people will note that no specific examples have been given and no specific authority has been referred to. It is therefore a smear against local government as a whole. I challenge the Minister to name a single authority that has increased its council tax as a direct result of the issues that we are discussing today. If he cannot, he should urge the Secretary of State to retract that totally groundless comment and to start treating local politicians and public servants with the respect that they deserve.

Of course, when making such sweeping statements, the Minister ignores the fact that councils are having to increase council tax this year to address the damage that the Government have caused to local government and, in particular, the social care sector. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has so far failed to claim that an explicit demand from the Chancellor to raise council tax, in violation of Conservative manifesto commitments, is harming the economic security of families. That is in stark contrast to the subject matter of this debate. It is only the latest in a series of announcements that set out what this Government really think about devolution, and the contempt with which they continue to treat local government. Their policy on devolution can now be summed up in one sentence: “We will give you as much power as you want, as long as we get to choose what those powers are and exactly how they can be used.”

The Government have so far discussed the changes only in terms of so-called boycotts, but there is understandable unease in the sector about the wider implications for ethical procurement, which is vital if councils are to use their purchasing power to deliver wider benefits to their communities and to honour their election pledges.

Local government procures around £12 billion a year of goods and services, much of it from the UK, but some from the global supply chain. Ethical procurement can produce tangible benefits. For example, in my local Labour council, Cheshire West and Chester, the new adult social care contracts adhere to Unison’s ethical care charter, which stipulates that 80% of the workforce must be on contracted hours, not zero-hours contracts. In the domiciliary care contract, providers pay at least £7.68 per hour.

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech, in contrast to Government Members. The point about local government is that democracy is not all focused in this place. Decisions about spending, representation and taxation can also be made at a local level. If we strip that out, it undermines the pluralism and democracy of this country.

[Justin Madders]

Absolutely. That is the central point of what I am trying to say today. Our local authority had all-out elections last May. Ethical procurement was one of the key parts of the manifesto commitment, and it has been delivered. I do not believe that any Member of this House would say that that is not a legitimate practice of the local authority. The council is now looking to see how it can use future procurements to encourage more employers in the area to improve the terms and conditions of their staff.

As a result of the Labour group’s suggestions, the council has decided not to use companies involved in union blacklisting. That is a value judgment by the democratically elected councillors about who they want to do business with. I am struggling to see any rational basis for distinguishing between those sorts of decisions and choices and the sorts of decisions referred to in the draft regulations. That is the nub of the matter. If local government is to have genuine autonomy, there might be occasions when people say, “I do not agree with what you are doing, but I recognise your democratic right to exercise that choice.” So I say to Ministers: resist the temptation to micromanage local government. Show us that the Government are genuine about devolution and withdraw the regulations.