NHS Workforce

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Gentleman raises a serious point. I do not have the answer to hand, but I will ensure that the relevant Health Minister writes to him, because I understand why he raises it.

There has been a great deal of discussion about nurses’ pay, and we are extremely regretful and very much hoping that accommodations and agreements can be found. To put into context recent pay rises, more than 1 million staff including nurses have benefited from a pay rise of at least £1,400 backdated to April this year. That is on top of the 3% pay rise they received last year. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester asked an interesting question: does Labour support or oppose the independent pay review bodies, which set the recommendations that have been accepted?

[Karin Smyth]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Atkins]

I will not, because I have to finish.

Turning to non-doms, I must congratulate the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ealing North (James Murray), on his florid use of language in relation to my advocacy efforts in the Finance Bill debates. I hope that I am able to answer his question in a moment. The motion deals with non-dom taxpayers. As I have said repeatedly—and I hope at some point it will get through—non-dom residents who live in the UK have to pay UK taxes on their UK income and gains, just like everybody else. That raised £7.9 billion last year, and non-doms have invested £6 billion.

The area over which there is disagreement is the rules relating to foreign income, and the Opposition ask whether this is the answer. I have listened with great interest to how the sum they have put in their motion is apparently going to answer all sorts of economic difficulties, particularly during consideration of the Finance Bill, and I am not sure it will quite add up. Interestingly, it was a Conservative Government who reformed non-dom laws to end the ability to claim this status permanently, and I note that the non-dom status survived during 13 years of Labour government. In any event, the Chancellor said very frankly in evidence to the Treasury Committee last week that he has asked officials to look at it.

We have the workforce strategy, which will be delivered. NHS England has done considerable work, and we hope that it will report as soon as possible. It has been a real pleasure for me to be able to praise the NHS and thank its extraordinary staff. What the NHS needs is a Government making the right decisions for the economy, so that we can actually afford a world-class health service. That is what this Government are determined to deliver.

Question put.

Finance Bill

Karin Smyth Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

Later in my speech I will talk about our plan for growth, which will involve fixing the holes in the Brexit deal with which the Conservatives left the European Union. Alongside other measures, it is important to make sure that the deal has a proper plan for growth that is sorely lacking from this Government.

This Finance Bill is a bill in more ways than one, because as well as being legislation, it represents a bill landing on working people’s doormats. It is a bill that working people are being forced to pay for the Government’s failure. Working people are paying for the Tories’ decisions that, for the last 12 years, have held back the economy, and for the last 12 weeks have crashed it.

This Bill freezes the income tax personal allowance, which will leave an average earner paying over £500 more income tax a year by 2027-28. In the autumn statement, the Government announced a council tax bombshell that will force a £100 tax rise on families in the average band D house from next April. As a result of all the tax measures announced in this Parliament, middle-income households will see their tax bill rise by £1,400. That is what it looks like when working people are made to pay the price.

It is all the more galling for people to be asked to pay more when the Conservatives are so slapdash with public money. Today, new figures show that the current Prime Minister wasted a staggering £6.7 billion on covid payments to businesses and individuals that were fraudulent or mistakes. Despite wasting public money so carelessly, he is now happy to put up taxes on working people across the country.

It could have been different had the Government made fairer choices. The Government could have chosen to close the unfair private equity loophole that gives hedge fund managers a tax break on their bonuses. They could have chosen to reverse their tax cut for banks. Perhaps they have forgotten what their position is, having voted for the cut at the start of the year, before U-turning on it a few months ago and then, more recently, U-turning again.

The Government could have finally chosen to scrap non-dom tax status, an outdated and unfair tax break that costs the taxpayer £3.2 billion a year. A tax break for non-doms should have no place in the UK in 2022. As if evidence were needed that this tax break belongs in a different era, the law makes it clear that people can inherit non-dom status only from their father, unless their parents were unmarried. More fundamentally, this loophole ignores the principle of fairness that should be at the heart of our tax system. If a person makes Britain their home, they should pay their taxes here.

There are theories going around about why the Government are so reluctant to modernise the tax system and abolish the non-dom tax break. Perhaps the Minister will be able to confirm at the end of the debate, or in writing afterwards, whether the Prime Minister has been consulted on the option of abolishing non-dom tax status. Perhaps he can confirm whether the option was ever considered. When the current Prime Minister was Chancellor, did he recuse himself from discussions on this matter? I see the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury acknowledging my request, so I look forward to his response either later today or in due course.

We know that the Conservatives’ choices on tax are deeply unfair, but we also know that the lack of economic growth is the deep root of the rising tax burden in the UK. Over the last 12 years, the UK economy has grown a third less than the OECD average and a third less than during the previous Labour years. We are now the only G7 economy that is still smaller than it was before the pandemic, and over the next two years we are forecast to have the lowest growth of any country in the G20 bar Russia.

A plan for growth has been missing for a decade, and its absence is having a greater impact than ever. In its report this month, the OBR confirmed that measures announced at the autumn statement will make no difference to growth in the medium term. The CBI’s director general, Tony Danker, put it starkly following the autumn statement:

“There was really nothing there that tells us that the economy is going to avoid another decade of low productivity and low growth”.

We cannot afford another decade like the last. We cannot afford another decade of being held back, another decade of lost growth. That is why Labour’s plan is so crucial to raising wages and living standards, supporting and sustaining public services and driving business investment and job creation in the decade ahead.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, in stark contrast to what we have heard from the Conservative party. It is about people, working people and building back better. Does he agree that, for the people, particularly young people, who lost out so much during covid and are now facing another decade of low growth, we are particularly disappointed about the lack of support for further education and colleges to support the skills agenda for both 16 to 18-year-olds and adults who desperately need retraining and skills? That is starkly absent from what we have heard from this Government.

[James Murray]

I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution. She is a great advocate for investment in skills training and making sure that young people have opportunities in the decade ahead, which they have been denied in the last decade under this Conservative Government. The points she makes fit well within a wider plan for growth, which is at the heart of what Labour Members are proposing and pushing the Government to adopt.

That plan is wide ranging. It covers business rates being replaced with a fairer system that makes sure that high street businesses no longer have one hand tied behind their back. It relies on us implementing a modern industrial strategy to support an active partnership of government working hand in hand with businesses to succeed. Labour’s start-up reforms will help to make Britain the best place to start and grow a new business. Small businesses will benefit from our action on late payments and we will give businesses the flexibility they need to upskill their workforce. As I mentioned, we will fix holes in the Brexit deal so our businesses can export more abroad. Crucially, our green prosperity plan will create jobs across the country, from the plumbers and builders needed to insulate homes, to engineers and operators for nuclear and wind. We will invest in the industries of the future and the skills people need to be part of them. That is what a plan for growth should look like. As John Allan, the chair of Tesco, said recently, when it comes to growth, Labour are the

“only…team on the field.”

The truth is that the need for an effective plan for growth has exposed the emptiness and exhaustion of the Conservative party. All we have to show from 12 years of Cameron, May and Johnson is chronic economic stagnation.

Autumn Statement Resolutions

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

rose—

[John Glen]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman first and then to the hon. Lady.

[John Glen]

I give way to the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth).

[Karin Smyth]

The Minister said that local government has made appeals regarding social care implementation, which is obviously the responsibility of the Department of Health and Social Care. Has the Treasury made any assessment of the waste of money across local government since the Government made announcements about implementing the reforms and systems have been put in place? Has the Treasury considered who is going to deliver these magical packages of care without a workforce plan? In my extensive experience of delivering such projects, what will happen is that we will see tents in car parks again, new hotels being registered for spaces, and agency staff supporting the care packages on higher wages, thus costing the system more. We will be back here in six months’ time having not supported the workforce strategy, not properly recruited people and wasted more taxpayers’ money. What has the Treasury done in respect of the Department of Health and Social Care and local government about the efficiency of this particular measure?

[John Glen]

Let me take those points in turn. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made a point about nurses’ salaries and the cost of not having that workforce in place. That is exactly what this work will do: we will look at the gaps and respond to the pay demands in due course.

The hon. Member for Bristol South asked what the Treasury has done in terms of the money that has already been expended in looking at the changes; I cannot give her a precise figure but I would be happy to write to her. The Treasury is focused on working closely with Patricia Hewitt, the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England to grip this issue in the fullest possible way, recognising the interaction between hospitals and social care, to ensure that we have the best possible solution to deal with the challenges we face.

Members will recognise that only by expanding the capacity of the social care system will we free up hospital beds, so we are making up to £2.8 billion of extra funding available to the adult social care system in England. That will increase to £4.7 billion in 2024-25. We of course need the NHS to continue to look at where it can squeeze more out of every pound—not at the expense of those on the frontline, but so that we can deliver ever-greater care—yet even with efficiency savings we will not have the NHS we all want without more money so, because of the difficult decisions taken elsewhere, we will increase the NHS budget in each of the next two years by an extra £3.3 billion. Taken together, our actions will ensure that up to £8 billion of additional funding is made available for health and social care in 2024-25.

The NHS and schools in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland face equivalent pressures, so the Barnett consequentials of today’s announcement will mean an extra £1.5 billion for the Scottish Government, £1.2 billion for the Welsh Government and £650 million for the Northern Ireland Executive. We make this investment not just because it is the right thing to do but as a central plank of our economic policy.

Similarly, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said, an investment in education is an investment in growth. The foundation of our success lies in the classroom just as much as it is found in the boardroom. I was very pleased to see representations from my parliamentary neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), who made that point very clearly, as did a number of colleagues.

We are not just going to protect the education budget; we are going to increase it. The core schools budget will rise by £2.3 billion in both of the next two years—2023-24 and 2024-25—restoring 2010 levels of per pupil funding in real terms. Not only is that the right thing to do, but it makes economic sense: more opportunity will not only reap a fairer society, but deliver a more prosperous economy.

Just as we look to improve opportunities for those aged 16 and under, we are determined to help people already in work to raise their incomes, progress in work and become financially independent. That is why we have uprated working age and disability benefits in line with inflation, at a cost of £11 billion. It is also why we will ask more than 600,000 more people on universal credit to meet a work coach, so that they can get the support they need to increase their hours or earnings, and we will invest an extra £280 million to crack down on benefit fraud and error over the next two years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

We have had a lost decade, and now we have another lost decade in sight. It is particularly hard for young people starting out in the world of work: they have experienced a decline in school and FE funding and now they face low wages, a recession, high rents and a Government bereft of ideas and hope to encourage them into the future.

The stats are staggering. I have not heard any Conservative Member this afternoon address the stat that I find most astonishing, which is that the average family will be about £10,000 a year worse off than comparable families across the OECD. That is the reason for the normalisation of food banks, children going hungry at school and cramped housing, with no prospect of the things that bring joy to individuals and families—things like meals out, day trips or holidays, which also drive our local economies. It is now predicted that there will be a further 7% fall in household incomes over the next two years, coupled with the cost of the Government’s £4,000 family tax burden.

The Government have not chosen to help make us resilient at any time in the last 12 years. I know that we have had the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, of course, but all of this was apparent before then. They could have chosen to make different choices last week, but they chose not to. They chose to protect non-doms; they chose to give the banks a tax cut; they chose, proudly, to keep the VAT exemption on private schools; and crucially, they offered no plan for growth and no plan to deliver a more productive workforce, to build for prosperity and to help wealth creation.

I am one of the few Members of Parliament to have attended a further education college, and I have spoken about that over the years. It is staggering how, over the last 12 years, the Tories have consistently shown their disdain for skills and opportunity by not using this resource at the heart of our communities. In its 2021 annual report, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said:

“Further education colleges and sixth forms have seen the largest falls in per-pupil funding of any sector of the education system since 2010-11. Funding per student aged 16-18 in further education and sixth-form colleges fell by 14% in real terms between 2010-11 and 2019-20”.

It might be thought that the Government would want to help people back into the productive workforce, but adult education has been particularly badly hit. Again, the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that total spending on adult education and apprenticeships will be 25% lower in 2024-25 compared with 2010-11. Looking at classroom-based learning on its own, the IFS found that spending has plummeted by 50% over 10 years—and they wonder why we have a low-skills, unproductive workforce.

I once co-chaired the APPG on apprenticeships with the right hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), who is now Secretary of State for Education. Every year, I brought together employers, Bristol City Council, apprenticeship providers and young people at an annual apprenticeship fair, and I will continue to do so. It is the best way to support young people into a productive career, and I still strongly believe in the ladder of opportunity, but significant issues remain unresolved on the levy and the wider supply chain to get people into the apprenticeships that are needed. The Government need to sort it out.

[Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)]

This Government have done a huge amount for apprenticeships. I should know, having been a businessman for the past 30 years and having employed more than 60 apprentices—I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—and much of that has been with the help of a Conservative Government who are putting a further £2.3 billion into education this year and next. It is fairly disingenuous to say what the hon. Member is saying.

[Karin Smyth]

I quoted the IFS and, if I had longer, I would quote more on what has happened to apprenticeships. I met Airbus recently, and several small businesses from my constituency, and I did not hear any of them say that it is working particularly well. We are not getting the promised benefit for small employers from the levy on large employers. We have gone backwards, and the numbers show how far backwards we have gone.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) asked the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), at oral questions whether he will visit Bristol to talk to our local council and better understand our budget shortfall and its impact. I am not sure whether the Minister accepted, but I back my hon. Friend’s invitation. Of course, Bristol City Council has considered efficiencies. Every council has, which is why Conservative council leaders are making the same plea as Labour council leaders.

Many of the issues faced by our communities are in the Government’s gift, including their decision to freeze local housing allowance rates. My constituent has a teenage son and daughter aged 12, so she is entitled to a three-bedroom property. She works but is on a low income, so she receives universal credit. She was paying £1,050 a month in rent, but her landlord increased it to £1,350 a month in January 2022. Local housing allowance means she can receive £950 a month for the housing element of universal credit. She was £100 a month short, but she is now £400 a month short. Even the cheapest alternative bedroomed property in Bristol South is around £1,300 a month. If landlords evict due to rent arrears, Bristol City Council has to house under the Housing Act 1996, but its budget for emergency housing is already £5 million overspent in this financial year. Emergency housing costs far more than ordinary properties, which are well beyond the LHA rates, so the additional cost is falling on the council. Last month, Bristol City Council spent over £1 million on interim housing. This is stressful and heartbreaking for families, and it is grossly inefficient. It is a really false economy.

Let me turn to care. The Government again ignored supporting young people and families. There was nothing on childcare, the cost of which in Bristol is now totally prohibitive. I am a former governor of one of Bristol’s nurseries. We have a long and proud history, and we still have 11 nurseries in the city, but they are under threat. Support is needed there to help people, and particularly women, back to work, and to help to educate young people in pre-school.

Finally, on social care, in 2015, 2017 and 2019, we saw Prime Ministers standing on the doorstep of No. 10 and making promises that they then broke. Councils have spent thousands of pounds preparing for the new changes from next October. Individuals and families were planning on the basis of changing to thresholds and the introduction of the cap. People are already at their wits’ end. The measures sneaked out last week really are a bitter blow. Why has it happened? It has happened for the same reason that this Government have let people in this country down over the last 12 years. There was no grip from the Department of Health and Social Care on this massive project and totally unrealistic financial resources to make it happen. The Department of Health does not just need to look at others for efficiency; it needs to look at itself. It has no idea how local government works or what the burden of the changes will be. We had funding for packages of care in the budget. Who on earth is going to deliver these packages of care? The workforce is short of 165,000 people. This is a short-term measure. It will not work and we will be back here next year, facing the same crisis in social care.

Economic Update

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I am very happy that the hon. Gentleman is concerned about what the people of Scotland voted for, which was to remain in the United Kingdom.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

In the past year, I have found myself regularly agreeing with the right hon. Gentleman when he warned that workforce burnout across the NHS and social care had reached emergency levels and

“is an extraordinarily dangerous risk to the…functioning of both services.”

Does he stand by that assessment today and will he now support an independent workforce plan?

Health and Social Care Levy (Repeal) Bill

Karin Smyth Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 11th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I can categorically assure my hon. Friend that that is not affected. The £8 billion that was allocated over the spending review period to catch up on the elective backlog is completely unchanged by this measure, and the funding for social care—£5.4 billion over three years—is also unaffected. The rest of the money, because that is not all of it, will continue to be available to the Department of Health and Social Care to spend on the NHS and social care precisely as was intended. As a result of repealing the Health and Social Care Levy Act 2021, not a single penny less will go to social care or the NHS, or in particular the elective programme that he refers to. I cannot answer on Winchester hospital, but I am sure that the Health Secretary would be delighted to discuss that with him.

My hon. Friend also made a good point about vacancies. We have a lot of vacancies in the economy. Earlier this year, I believe for the first time in history, there were more vacancies than there were people in unemployment. If we are keen to tackle poverty and help people into a more prosperous future, getting them off benefits and into work is clearly the answer.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

To follow on from the former Health Minister, the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), if it is true that the levy was essentially not needed for the social care reforms and the catch-up, and that everything is still staying, will the Minister tell us what advice he has had from the DHSC about what it will not do now that, presumably, there is less money for the other things that it was going to do?

[Chris Philp]

The funding provided by the Treasury to the DHSC is completely unchanged as a result of the reversal of the NIC increase. That applies both to the money that was essentially hypothecated to the DHSC and its other budget. It is completely unaffected, so we are not moving money from one part of the health service budget to backfill something else. The complete health service budget is unchanged. There is not a penny less for the health service in any way as a result of the changes, but we are changing the way we fund the expenditure. Instead of funding it from the health and social care levy, it will be funded differently, partly by general taxation and other means, which will be set out in the medium-term fiscal plan. However, not a single penny less will go to the health service as a result of this change.

Financial Statement

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I am very sorry to hear that, and I am hopeful—in fact, confident—that the policies we have announced today will help those who are most vulnerable. We have made sure, as we have over the last two years, that we are standing by the British people, and that is what the policies announced today do.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

I am old enough to remember the rampant inflation of the 1990s, when I started my career. I am old enough to remember when, under Ted Heath’s Government, we had to go to the local café because we had no lights on in the house. However, I am not old enough to remember Anthony Eden and the 1950s. What does the Chancellor have to say today to pensioners who worked through the 1950s about the fact that he is presiding over the greatest fall in living standards since that time?

[Rishi Sunak]

I am pleased that, because of the actions of Conservative-led Governments since 2010, the state pension is £2,000 higher today; 700 of that is specifically because of the triple lock. That shows that this Government are on the side of pensioners.

Economic Update

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight one of the categories of those who are exempt that we want to get support to and ensure that they are included in the discretionary fund. I know from our conversations that she has also highlighted those living in rural constituencies such as hers who are off the gas grid, and I hope she is reassured by the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake).

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

The Chancellor’s proposal to “buy now, pay back later” while ignoring the eye-watering profits from oil and gas companies, as he did with the fraudsters, tells us all we need to know about whose side he is on. Prepayment meter customers face a much higher rate—£708 on average—so can he tell us how these plans will help the people who pop down to the corner shop to top up their prepayment cards?

[Rishi Sunak]

Around 4 million households have prepayment meters, and about 40% of those will be able to receive the rebate on bills automatically because of the nature of their prepayment meter. For the remaining 60%, we will have to do something more manual and there are various ways we can do that, whether by sending barcodes or QR codes through the post or by email—[Interruption.] Before the Opposition say anything, that is exactly how we already deliver the warm home discount to those people, and we did exactly the same thing in a similar measure in 2012 under the coalition. This affects less than 9% of all households, but we have a plan for them. We will work with the energy companies to ensure that all those on prepayment meters benefit in exactly the same way.

Oral Answers to Questions

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend, who has been a champion in this area, throughout his experience in government and in his work now as Chair of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs. In addition to what he has set out, we responded to the call to raise the national living wage. It may interest him to know that the April 2022 increase will mean that a full-time worker’s annual salary will have increased by more than £5,000 since the national living wage was introduced, when he was in government, in April 2016.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

I recently visited the newly opened jobcentre in Knowle to support people back to work, and I have previously been chair of the all-party group on apprenticeships. I cannot fathom why the Government are abolishing BTECs, which are a crucial bridge for young people in Bristol South. Has the Treasury done an assessment of abolishing BTECs, and will the Government reconsider?

[John Glen]

The hon. Lady will know of the Government’s investment in T-levels and the additional investment last week in apprenticeships, as well as a number of other interventions that the Chancellor has worked tirelessly with employers’ organisations and trade unions on to develop the workforce and opportunities over the past 18 months.

Working People’s Finances: Government Policy

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), who is a good friend. He put his arguments so forcefully and cogently. So many of the contributions this afternoon, certainly from Opposition Members, have been impressive and consistent in their criticism of the Government’s attitude and policies for addressing a fundamental problem in our society.

That perhaps comes as no surprise. When someone has their lunch hand-delivered to them every day by a company based in the Cotswolds, they might not be totally in touch with what is going on out in the economy—the price of food, the price of sandwiches and so on—but as I understand it, that is exactly what happens for the Prime Minister; one of his donors delivers a sandwich to him every day. It is a very reputable and nice business, based in the Cotswolds; I actually visited it myself once.

That kind of out-of-touch-ness is at the heart of this Government. They are divorced from the harsh impacts of what is going on in our economy—of inflation and the real cost of living. We must think about what has happened in the past 15 or 18 months for our nurses, hairdressers, decorators, plumbers, brickies, care workers—all those who are now facing the severe impacts of really high inflation, with wage growth not keeping up.

Those of us who are in touch with the weekly shop, as was evidenced by my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), know how much we are seeing in price increases—not just the standard price increases that are going on, but the price gouging that is happening on our high streets. I have seen that at first hand. We have a Tesco store on the Parade in Leamington, and there is sometimes a 60% price difference between what people pay in the Tesco superstore a mile and a half away and what the vulnerable, the elderly and so on pay in that store on the high street.

I am not sure how this computes. If someone’s real concerns are about buying Lulu Lytle wallpaper at £840 a roll, I do not think that necessarily puts them in touch with what is really going on at the local DIY store, or the cost of timber down the timber merchant to build themselves a shed. I think that is at the heart of the policy and the Government’s inaction in addressing inflation and the pressures on families up and down our country. Certainly, the hard-working people in Warwick and Leamington are being very hard hit by rising costs. We are all facing the rising prices of energy, food, travel and housing, all of which are contributing to rising inflation, not to mention, as has been said repeatedly from the Opposition Benches, the sledgehammer of the universal credit cut and the pressure on pensions. When we put all that into the mix, together with tax increases, we realise how hard it will be for people and families up and down the country.

Looking at inflation—sadly, I am one of those who takes a real interest in this sort of stuff—the biggest jump on record was in August. The Bank of England expects inflation to peak at 4%. I think it is slightly underestimating the impact of what could happen—personally, I think it might exceed that—but even 4% is double the Bank of England inflation target of 2%. The Government, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor seem to be acting surprised that inflation will be peaking at 4%, but surely they will have access to briefings from the Bank of England and the senior economists—the likes of Andy Haldane and others—who will be saying what is happening to the UK and global economy and where the price pressures are that will impact on ordinary households. They track the data and get input data from businesses in the regions—in the west midlands, all the businesses will be feeding that information into the Bank of England’s regional office.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point about inflation. He and I may be of a similar age and remember how, perhaps in our younger years, inflation was such an important issue that we were mindful of almost daily. However, there is a generation that does not really understand, or perhaps has not experienced, what inflation means to the daily and weekly cost of living for ordinary families. By not being up-front or public about this, the Government are perhaps not educating people on how to manage the coming crisis.

[Matt Western]

I thank my hon. Friend; she is incredibly generous to suggest that I might be of a similar age, but I will take that compliment from her. Of course, I agree. Certainly, I think about my generation and what happened to inflation in, say, 1990 and 1991, as someone who was paying a mortgage at the time and seeing 60% of my income going on the mortgage because of the excessive interest. Those on tracker mortgages and so on will be really worried about what is happening, because their incomes are certainly not keeping up with that kind of increase. I speak as someone who suffered—okay, I am nowhere near, and never have been, the sharp edge of the sort of extreme poverty that we are here to talk about. However, we should realise the pressure that that puts people under emotionally and psychologically, and the impact on mental health. What inflation can do, in eroding pensions and impacting on household budgets, should be a real concern to everyone in this House.

Health and Social Care Levy

Karin Smyth Excerpts

1st reading
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

For too long, successive Governments of all stripes have failed to grasp the nettle on social care reform. In fact, we have mostly failed to acknowledge that there was a nettle at all. That is largely because this burden overwhelmingly falls on women, and our voices have been silent. I will not rehearse all the debates that we have had, but this is this time to start something better.

When he came into office, the Prime Minister promised that he had “a plan” to fix social care in England. It is now clear that he did not. But—I say this with all sincerity—he has since started one, and he has brought it to this place at some political risk. This is worthy of a sliver of credit in itself. But having brought these plans forward, we now need an honest and thorough debate here and across the country about their merits and deficiencies. Yesterday I said that the Prime Minister may have broken the dam, and he looked slightly confused. That is because he thinks he has now fixed the problem. The trio of the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Health Secretary looked very comfortable with themselves yesterday. They are very wealthy men. They seem to have heard something, but this has not fixed it. They need to understand that behind the dam there is a torrent of questions, costings and aspirations, none of which the Government seem prepared to acknowledge.

This motion does not represent a sustainable plan. Instead, what we have is a shoddy push to nod through these changes without even paying lip service to the scrutiny that they need. Millions of families are hoping for something else, and we must not give them false hope. That would be cruel and unnecessary. There is only one longer-term solution that we will need to inch our way towards in the coming months and years, and that is a universal system based on the same NHS principles of fair taxation based on the ability to pay and according to need. Crucially, like the last Labour Government, we need to start moving people with us on the journey to that solution. Pitting people and generations against each other and talking solely about tax rises is a narrative that is now infecting our debate. It needs to stop.

Today is my birthday—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Very kind. I was once in my 20s, and my message to young people is that they will get older. A young woman talked movingly on the BBC yesterday about her struggles with social care, and she said that everyone is one accident away from social care. We have to remake the social contract for a new generation.

Reform is too late for my mother, who is in her 80s, and it is too late for me in my mid-ish 50s. It cannot be too late for my children, which is what I need to explain to them, rather than talking of generational warfare.

On the smoke and mirrors around the NHS settlement, I spent most of my career in NHS management and I was part of the great improvement in health services under the last Labour Government. If we are really going to start delivering on this, it will require a massive clinical and managerial effort to transform the legacy of the pandemic and austerity in the health service, and to change those waiting lists.

Politicians like to talk nicely to managers in private conferences and then take pot shots at them the rest of the time, but clearing the waiting lists is a massive managerial and clinical challenge. The clerical and clinical validation of that list to help people move through the care system will be a massive task, and they need support.

The Prime Minister has a majority of 80 MPs. It is in his gift to deliver a policy that could truly stand the test of time. Having bitten the bullet and picked the fight, he seems determined to squander the opportunity with the solution before us today. I urge him and the Government to think again. He should seek to build the consensus that could exist in this House on doing something truly lasting after the terrible pandemic we have all been through.