Budget Resolutions

Debate between Kate Green and Jacob Young

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The levy to fund social care is one more tax that will hit hard-pressed families in the spring and will do nothing about the deep-seated need to address the social care crisis and the increasing pressure from an ageing demographic—it will not even touch the sides.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

Is it not the case that the Labour party still has no plan for social care? When we put forward a plan only a few weeks ago, Labour Members voted against it.

[Kate Green]

The hon. Member may not remember the Dilnot plan, which had cross-party support until Conservative Members torpedoed it. He may not have read the five principles that Labour has set out to underpin our approach to social care, including preventive investment to keep people at home and living independently for as long as possible, as we all want to. We have a plan that would invest in the workforce. It is not enough just to wish for better social care; the people have to be there to deliver it. That is Labour’s plan, and if the hon. Member would like more details, I am very happy to send them to him.

Despite 1.6 million people waiting for treatment, there was no guarantee in last week’s Budget that mental health will receive its fair share of NHS funding. Health stakeholders were most critical of the lack of a workforce strategy or a multi-year funding settlement to support it. We cannot deliver world-class healthcare if we do not invest in recruitment, retention and staff development. It is no wonder that the NHS is struggling when the number of adult health and care students declined by 15% in the three years before the pandemic.

The pandemic also shone a light on the problems that our schools, colleges and early years providers were already facing. No doubt it exacerbated them, but it did not create them. Last week, the Chancellor set out a £3 billion investment in skills, and the Secretary of State claimed that it was the biggest in a decade—but it comes after a decade of cuts to post-16 provision. The Learning and Work Institute calculates that funding over the spending review period will still amount to only 60% of the 2010 figure.

It is astonishing that at a time when our economy has to adapt to the challenges that the Secretary of State referred to—globalisation, digitisation and climate change in the post-Brexit environment—investment in skills remains so lacking. Four in 10 young people are leaving education without the level of qualification they need, the number of apprenticeships has fallen by more than 40%, and 9 million adults lack basic skills in literacy or numeracy. No wonder the Chancellor can promise only a paltry 1.5% increase in growth in the final three years of the forecast period.

At the same time that it is talking up the importance of vocational education, the Department for Education is scrapping most BTECs—well-recognised and respected qualifications that give opportunities to hundreds of thousands of young people.

Committee on Standards

Debate between Kate Green and Jacob Young

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

As the only elected Member of this House to have been part of the interview panel and therefore to have seen the recruitment process from the inside, I want to start by addressing what I think I heard the Leader of the House say in his opening remarks when he appeared to question the conduct of the recruitment process. I feel it is incumbent on me, on behalf of my fellow panellists, three independent lay members, to speak up for the integrity and propriety with which they—and we all, including staff members who sought to advise on the process, and the recruitment agency—conducted the interview, selection and recommendation to the House of Commons Commission. I feel that is owed to my fellow panellists.

As we have said repeatedly this evening, the Leader of the House is seeking to introduce a new qualification to the recruitment process that is at explicit odds with what was in the recruitment pack that the House of Commons Commission, of which he is a member, approved before the process was publicised. Let me be very precise about what the pack said. If I may quote, it said to potential candidates that lay members would have to demonstrate impartiality specifically “during their time on the committee” and, further, that they should not “during their term in office” undertake any party political activity. I think the House will accept that any candidate would reasonably take from those words that they would not be barred from appointment on the basis of prior political activity. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) pointed out, the information pack was also quite clear in not including membership of a political party in and of itself in the definition of what constitutes party political activity.

[Jacob Young]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kate Green]

I think Madam Deputy Speaker would like me to speak as quickly as possible.

The Leader of the House said in his remarks that the interview questions were not seen by the Commission, and that is correct, but that is not the point I was making. The Commission should have seen the recruitment pack. If the Leader of the House did not see it and did not ask to see it prior to approving the process, I am surprised to hear that, given his thoroughness in approaching these matters. Perhaps he could be absolutely clear to the House whether or not he was aware of the contents of the pack before it was publicised.

The second thing I want to reiterate is that I am very concerned that, in unilaterally moving the goalposts from what the recruitment pack said, we are behaving as a House in a way that is deeply, deeply unfair to the successful candidates. It calls into question the conduct of the panel. It is therefore a real concern for the reputation and perception of this House. I think that matters, particularly because we know there is public and, of course, internal scepticism about the independence of our processes in dealing with Members who breach the code of conduct, particularly but not only in relation to bullying, harassment and sexual harassment. The House has worked very hard over the last couple of years to dispel that perception, but I believe that a vote now against a candidate, who has been recommended following a rigorous recruitment process in which the panel chair and three of the four panel members were not MPs, risks reinforcing it.

Finally, I just want to repeat that a vote tonight against a candidate who has been recommended for appointment as a result of an open recruitment process conducted fully in line with the Nolan principles will serve to discourage future potential candidates from applying for lay roles for which they would be eminently suited. We risk losing the valuable skills, perspectives and expertise that external appointees can bring, and that will be to our detriment.