Council Tax

Debate between Justin Tomlinson and Angela Rayner

Monday 12th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I would like to say that it is a pleasure to speak in this debate, but frankly, I am sad that we have reached this point. It is a stain on Britain’s democratic history that, if the Government have their way with these regulations, we will take a historic step away from making our democracy more open and accessible and towards closing it down, shutting people out and making it harder to vote.

Opposition Members have been clear from the start that this legislation is a wasted opportunity. It is a step backwards at a time when so many improvements are needed to widen participation in our democracy and to make it fit for the 21st century. The regulations arise from a slapdash, short-sighted and politically motivated act that turns the clock back on democratic progress. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) for his work throughout the stages of the Elections Act 2022, highlighting the dangers of mandatory photo ID, which we are debating today. I thank him for helping to secure this debate on the Floor of the House when Ministers would no doubt have preferred to sneak it through upstairs.

The basic fact is that voter ID is not only a backwards step for democracy, but completely pointless. It is a solution in search of a problem. Ministers claim it will combat voter fraud, but voter personation—the voter fraud which voter ID apparently targets—is vanishingly rare. Over the last 10 years, there have been about 243 million votes cast in elections, and how many people have been convicted of voter fraud? Four. That is 0.00000005%. I am under no illusion that the Government are in the slightest bit interested in genuinely tackling fraud. The Tories’ Minister responsible for fraud summarised it when he resigned at the Dispatch Box, saying that the Government had

“no knowledge of, or little interest in, the consequences of fraud to our economy or society.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 January 2022; Vol. 818, c. 20.]

While the Government focus on measures like these regulations, serious fraud, where criminals target vulnerable people with scams to steal bank details, is running rife under this Government. Our economy loses around £190 billion every year to fraud—more than the UK spends on health and defence combined. People are being left terrorised by scammers pretending to be their banks, mobile networks or family members, but instead of actually tackling that, the Government are using parliamentary time to tackle the virtually non-existent crime of voter personation, costing millions of pounds in taxpayers’ money to boot.

[Justin Tomlinson]

Will the right hon. Member explain why, if the system is so bad, it is used in Labour selections?

[Angela Rayner]

I have just explained why this is such a tiny, not even significant, minuscule issue that the Government are trying to make hay over, when, in fact, we have fraud that results in people being terrorised by scammers pretending to be their banks. Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being wasted on this Bill instead of dealing with the fraud that the hon. Member’s constituents have to face every single day, which is not being tackled. He needs to tackle that.

Perhaps the Minister lives in a bizarre alternative reality where, across the country, people are attempting to impersonate their neighbours to steal their votes, but meanwhile, in this universe, you are more likely to be hit by lightning 54 times than fall victim to voter personation fraud. So let us get back to the reality that we face. The British public face a cost of living crisis, freezing temperatures, with people too scared to put their heating on, and cancelled Christmases, with working parents unable to afford festive treats. And this Conservative Government are planning to spend £180 million of taxpayers’ money to introduce a completely pointless and eye-wateringly expensive change.

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Justin Tomlinson and Angela Rayner

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to respond to the Secretary of State, and it is quite right that we have a day in this year’s Budget debate dedicated to education and skills. This Budget comes at a time when Britain has a deep social mobility problem that is getting worse, not better. That problem is the result of an unfair education system, a two-tier labour market, an unbalanced economy and an unaffordable housing market. That is not my accusation, but the conclusion of the Government’s own Social Mobility Commission.

The commission made a number of policy recommendations, most of which seem to have been ignored. It also made a recommendation against a policy: the Government’s proposals for new grammar schools. Sadly, that recommendation has also been ignored. Instead, the Chancellor used the Budget to announce plans to spend another £320 million on the next tranche of new free schools. The Prime Minister wrote in The Daily Telegraph that that money would provide 70,000 new places, as the Secretary of State reiterated today. That would be the equivalent of £4,571 per pupil, but the Secretary of State will know that her Department’s most recent figures showed that the cash cost of a primary free school place was £21,100 and the cash cost of creating a secondary free school place was £24,600.

That huge underfunding is coupled with a slightly curious detail hidden in the back of the Red Book: a further £715 million of capital funding for free schools in the next Parliament. Perhaps the Secretary of State can answer this maths question. If Philip gives Justine £320 million for new free school places, and each school place costs at least £21,000, how many school places will Theresa end up with? I look forward to marking the Government’s homework later.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady join me and local parents in Swindon in congratulating the Government on providing the funding for two free schools and helping us to tackle the lack of school places after the last Labour Government reduced the number of school places in the noughties?

[Angela Rayner]

I will come to the hon. Gentleman’s points about the cost-efficiency of free schools later in my speech.

Either the Prime Minister has made an announcement without the Chancellor actually funding it, or they are simply disguising yet another eye-watering overspend on their staggeringly inefficient free schools programme and pretending that it is new money for new places. That would not be much of a surprise. The National Audit Office has helpfully reminded the Chancellor and the Secretary of State:

“In 2010 the Department estimated that it would cost £900 million by March 2015 to open 315 schools.”

By March 2015, the Department had spent double that initial budget and not even managed to hit its target for new schools. The NAO found that the Department had already spent around £3.4 billion on the land alone for free schools and it was on course to be Britain’s largest land purchaser, even before this Budget sank yet more money in. The NAO also showed that new places in free schools were far more expensive than those in conventional schools. Will the Minister tell the House and the British people how much money her Department will actually spend on delivering these new free schools, and will she guarantee that they will open in places where there is a clear need for spaces?

The Chancellor pledged £216 million for every other school over a three-year period, as the Secretary of State mentioned in her speech, but the NAO has found that, as the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) said, £6.7 billion is necessary just to return all existing schools to a satisfactory condition. The NAO also found that 85% of schools that applied to the priority schools building programme were rejected in the last round, and that that investment was cheaper than the free schools programme.

Of course, we know why the Chancellor focused on free schools despite the cost—because it

“will enable the creation of new selective free schools.”

It was the former Education Secretary who said that he had “had enough of experts”, but not even he tried to bring back grammar schools, let alone pretend that it was a policy for social mobility.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justin Tomlinson and Angela Rayner

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend because I had the pleasure of meeting the students and staff at Petroc at his own reverse jobs fair, where he took a proactive approach to linking employers with the greater opportunities provided by organisations such as Petroc.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

This has been mentioned previously but it did not get an adequate response. Given that the prominent Brexit campaign called for a bonfire of EU protections for workers, what guarantee can the Minister give that all the current protections extended to disabled people by our membership of the EU will be safe?

[Justin Tomlinson]

This Government have a proud record on this issue. We spend over £50 billion a year supporting people with disabilities and long-term health conditions—up £2 billion since the previous Parliament—and will continue to work in this area.