Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Andy Slaughter

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Britain is working with Greece, Turkey and others in Europe. The first UK team has arrived in Greece, and it includes experts in supporting vulnerable groups, such as unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, and those trained to tackle people trafficking. My hon. Friend raises an interesting point, and I will certainly take it up with my colleagues at the Home Office and the Department for Education.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

T3. Given what the Overseas Development Institute has called the misrepresentation of its recent report on the state-building grant to Palestine, will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to confirm that UK aid to the Palestinian Authority is for wholly legitimate purposes and is essential to peace-building in the region?

[Justine Greening]

I believe the hon. Gentleman is right in his assertion. Indeed, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of State has just set out, the work we are doing is helping to provide not only health facilities for people in that area but, critically, education for children who so badly need it. [Interruption.]

Humanitarian Crisis in the Mediterranean and Europe

Debate between Justine Greening and Andy Slaughter

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I will follow up that point. I pay tribute to the work that the Home Secretary did over the summer with her French counterpart to try to work collaboratively to find a resolution to the problem in Calais.

I have talked about some of the challenges closer to our doorstep here in Europe in recent weeks and months, but we should not lose sight of the fact that we have also needed to and been right to help the overwhelming majority of Syrians who are still in the region. I have met many refugees from the Syrian crisis in my time in this role and I am proud that Britain has played a leading role in the humanitarian response to the crisis. We have pledged more than £1 billion to date, the largest ever response from the UK to any humanitarian crisis, which gives a sense of how complex, wide-ranging and challenging the Syrian crisis is. That is also the biggest bilateral country support for the Syrian crisis, other than that from the US.

The picture inside Syria today is unspeakably bleak. We have debated, discussed and had questions about the Syrian crisis in this Chamber many times and it seems almost impossible that it can continue to get worse, but it does. For four years the people of Syria have been bombed, starved and driven from their homes. I have met children in the Zaatari camp in a little classroom where they can play and spend time with one another, but when they hear a supply plane overhead delivering supplies to the camp they dive for cover under the table because they are used to planes that are about to bomb them. I have met children in classrooms that Britain is helping to fund, with teachers whom we are helping to do double shifts so that they can teach not only their own Jordanian and Lebanese children but find time in the school day to accommodate the Syrian children who are now living locally. I have seen the pictures those children draw when they are asked to do art, and they are pictures of their homes having been bombed, of planes with bombs and of their friends having been bombed. Those children deserve the support of the United Kingdom and they are getting that support.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I do not think that any Opposition Member is criticising what the Government are doing, but what the Government are not doing, which includes their duty as a member of the European Union in respect of migrants in Europe. May I also raise the issue of refugees from Daesh in Iraq? We have a duty in Iraq and Yazidis, Christians and Muslims have had to flee in very similar circumstances. Will the Secretary of State extend the vulnerable persons relocation scheme to refugees in Iraq who cannot be catered for by the Iraqi Government?

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that Britain is playing our role in dealing with crises that go far more broadly across the middle east than the Syrian conflict. I can reassure him that we are working specifically to try to ensure that we support children who are part of the many millions of displaced people in Iraq. Let me give the House some sense of that, although I know that I need to make some progress with my speech. We are providing not only the medical assistance that they will often need but trauma counselling. That is not uncomplicated as the specialised support the children need and the language capability required of the people providing it are not easy to access, but we are part of ensuring that that is done as far as it possibly can be. We are providing and helping to fund safe areas within camps so that unaccompanied children and parents who have lost their children can easily link up with them again. More than 80% of unaccompanied children in Jordan have managed to be linked up with their families through such efforts. Out of sight, we are working incredibly hard in a range of areas, particularly to help children affected by the crisis. We will keep doing that.

High-speed Rail

Debate between Justine Greening and Andy Slaughter

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend will know that one of the things I am committed to doing in my role is to bring about a more strategic relationship, in terms of our procurement, with suppliers in the UK, and non-UK suppliers. I think that puts companies in production in the UK in a good position. There is unprecedented investment going into the railways at the moment. I have just announced the biggest railway infrastructure project that this country has seen in over a century. I think that is good news for Britain, but also good news for jobs and good news, hopefully, for companies like Tata.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State dismisses in one sentence the Select Committee’s recommendation that the London terminus should be at Old Oak rather than at Euston. Will she look at that again, or at least publish the evidence on which she bases that view, and will she assure us that the mitigation will apply at least as much to Labour seats in west London as Tory seats in the Chilterns?

[Justine Greening]

We looked very carefully at where the HS2 line should terminate when it got to London. Our decision was that it was far better to terminate it in London than, as it were, at Old Oak Common, which would have seen people then have to transfer again. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman says Crossrail, but of course they would have to transfer on to Crossrail. That is an added advantage that they will have, but we believe it is far better for HS2 to come in to Euston.

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I worked as hard looking at mitigation elsewhere on the line as I did looking at it in the AONB in the Chilterns, and I am committed to making sure that I continue to do that throughout this entire process.

Comprehensive Spending Review

Debate between Justine Greening and Andy Slaughter

Thursday 28th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I do not accept that at all. The right hon. Gentleman needs to have a chat with the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), who was claiming that families on £79,000 a year are too rich to get support from the local council to access housing in London but too poor to have their child benefit withdrawn. That shows the incoherence of Labour’s policy on the economy, particularly on welfare—a budget that accounts for almost £1 in every £3 that we spend.

As my hon. Friends the Members for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) said in their powerful speeches, work simply does not pay in our welfare system. People are put on benefits with no prospect of ever being better off in work and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) pointed out, successive generations are condemned to a life of state dependency. Opposition Members might think that that is fair, but I do not. It is one reason why over the coming years and next two Parliaments the Government will introduce the universal credit—to make sure that people on welfare will always be better off by moving into work.

[Mr Slaughter]

The Leader of the House will confirm that at business questions today, I quoted the Mayor of London on the reduction of housing benefit, which he described as “Kosovo-style social cleansing.” Since then, he has said:

“I do not agree with the wild accusations that reform will lead to social cleansing.”

Why has he changed his mind in the six hours between now and then? Is it by any chance anything to do with a call from No. 10 Downing street?

[Justine Greening]

That was a completely ineffective intervention. The hon. Gentleman ought to complain to Labour Front Benchers for their being so utterly ineffective at creating extra social housing in the capital during their many years in power. It was shocking how little affordable housing was created under the previous Government.

Even when spending is being reined in, we have found more resources for our schools and for the early-years education of our children. That has meant other Departments taking bigger cuts, but we believe that that is the right choice for our country’s future. The right hon. Member for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks) quoted Eleanor Rathbone, who said that children are assets to the community. She was right, which is precisely why there will be a real increase in the money for schools in the next four years. In fact, my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) also recognised the importance of that. That is why the schools budget will rise from £35 billion to £39 billion, why we are maintaining cash spending on Sure Start, and why we are introducing a new £2.5 billion pupil premium to focus our resources on the children from the most deprived backgrounds in our country.

Our third and final principle in the spending review was public service reform. We are reducing back-office costs to free more resources for the front line. The right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) spoke of the challenges of improving efficiency in government, but unlike her party when in power, we aim to be successful. We have started that process by finding every last penny of possible savings, and we are beginning to eliminate the monumental waste that became endemic in the past decade. We are tackling administration, improving procurement, and scrapping ineffective and expensive IT systems, which became a feature of the previous Government. When we started that process, we looked to make £3 billion of savings, but now we will make £6 billion of savings.

Finally, our reform agenda will see a massive devolution of power from the centre. Apart from schools and public health, we will end the ring-fencing of all Government grants to local authorities from April next year. More than 90 separate core grants to councils will be reduced to fewer than 10. Councils welcome that freedom even if the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) does not. We will change how services are delivered through increased payment by results and personal budgets, and by introducing new rights for communities to run services and own assets. We are therefore giving more powers to the front line and more to local government and communities—the very people who know their area best.

We are cutting the ridiculous levels of red tape that tie the hands of our police forces and so many other people who are working hard in the public sector to deliver the services on which our communities rely. Our approach is different to that of the previous Government. By cutting waste and abolishing unnecessary targets, we will free the public sector to deliver a more efficient, transparent and better-tailored service to the people and communities who rely on them most.

Let me conclude the debate by saying that the decisions that we have taken have restored credibility to our public finances and stability to our economy. When the coalition Government came to power, we faced the worst economic inheritance in modern history. The previous Government spent our money like there was no tomorrow, but tomorrow has now arrived. The Labour Government left debts that undermined the funding of our public services and threatened every job in the country. They wanted to introduce a jobs tax at the very time when employers were crying out for help.

We have had to make tough choices, but they are the right choices. We are determined to ensure that everybody pays their fair share. I simply reject the comments of Opposition Members. As ever in such debates, they spent several hours explaining what they did not like, but simply failed to say what they did like. It is unacceptable to participate in such a debate without offering a meaningful alternative plan.

We have ensured that everybody pays their fair share. We are reforming welfare and cutting waste, and we are investing in growth, schools and health. That is how we will drive growth in this country and create jobs for the future. With no help from the Labour party, we have taken our country back from the brink of bankruptcy and we will build the more dynamic, prosperous and sustainable economy that Britain so badly deserves.

That is why this spending review is how we will get our country back on track. I believe that generations to come will recognise that when our—