Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her question, and I welcomed the chance to discuss this matter at length with her recently. The Chancellor has indicated that he would be happy to meet her, and I would also be happy to meet her again.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

8. If he will make an assessment with Cabinet colleagues of the potential impact of the spring Budget on gender equality.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)]

The Government remain committed to full genuine gender equality and to supporting women. In particular, we are supporting women into work through our new childcare package, which I just mentioned, allowing people to return to work sooner; encouraging business investment through schemes such as the community investment tax relief; and creating new job opportunities with our labour market package. In developing proposals for the spring Budget, the Treasury takes care to consider the equality impacts on those sharing protected characteristics, including gender, in line with our legal obligations and the Government’s strong commitment to promoting fairness.

[Kate Osborne]

I thank the Minister for his response. Let me help him out. If he had made an adequate assessment, he would have found that the spring Budget failed women. It failed young women, women in work and pensioners. Women are more likely to rely on and work in public services, and this Budget made their lives worse, not better. Most of the UK’s poorest pensioners are single women, and the gender pensions gap needs to be addressed. Will he agree to urgently put forward a compensation package to deal with the injustice faced by 1950s women—the WASPI women?

[John Glen]

I do not accept that. I think the WASPI issue has been covered many times, by Ministers from the Department for Work and Pensions and elsewhere. We are putting in £4.1 billion by 2027-28 to expand free childcare. This Government have a record to be proud of: we have increased the number of women in full-time work; we introduced shared parental leave; we introduced the Domestic Abuse Act 2021; and we made a range of interventions last week that many women up and down the country will be very pleased with.

Energy (oil and gas) profits levy

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

Last week’s autumn statement failed to address our major economic problems. We have had 12 years of cuts leading to the collapse of our public services. The Government are now proposing another round of austerity, but, Mr Deputy Speaker, there is nothing left to cut.

The Chancellor’s statement leaves people facing a winter of hardship, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies admitting that we have just got “a whole lot poorer”. It leaves our NHS, councils, schools, transport and police all unable to cope financially. It does nothing for small businesses struggling with bills and at risk of going under, or for new businesses, such as the independent vet practice, Bridge Referrals, in Boldon in my constituency, which has raised its concerns with me about soaring energy bills.

The statement also does nothing for our local government services. Councils have lost billions from their budget and cannot cope with more cuts. It does nothing for public sector workers who have seen their pay eroded—their wages are worth less now than they were in 2010. The autumn statement proposes more real-terms pay cuts, pushing more public service workers into food poverty. We have already seen reports that nurses, teachers and firefighters are now reliant on food banks. It does nothing for our NHS. As Health Secretary, the current Chancellor caused a huge amount of damage to our NHS with cuts and privatisation, leaving us with a waiting list of 7 million, 132,000 staff vacancies across our NHS, and another 165,000 vacancies in care. Now he wants to pretend that the NHS is being protected. Well, it is not. We can all see the push towards a two-tier system that prices the poorest out of healthcare.

There was nothing in the autumn statement to protect the lowest paid and most vulnerable in our communities. With average rent up by more than 8%, and some landlords asking for as much as a 15% rise, there was nothing to protect private renters. There was nothing for the 800,000 children living in poverty who do not even get a free school meal, and nothing for families who are living in fuel and food poverty.

I am in daily contact with people who are struggling—struggling not with a choice of heating or eating but because they are now unable to do either. Kathleen, a 73-year-old woman from Wardley in my Jarrow constituency, emailed me to say that she has cut back on both heating and eating and does not know what else to do. Then there is the couple living in Hebburn with two kids. A year ago, they still donated to the food bank. Now, they are using it themselves. They are turning to the food bank for blankets to keep warm and food for their kids. They have given up their car. They are both still working, but their bills and food prices have risen so much that they are now struggling and are at risk of losing their home.

So many people tell me that they cannot see any hope of things getting better. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. That is what the last 12 years of a Tory Government and the Chancellor’s autumn statement have done, and are doing, to our communities. On top of this, the autumn statement will force families such as the couple in Hebburn to pay more in tax, as the freeze in the income tax threshold equals a pay cut for millions. We have a stealth tax rise and a rise in council tax. We cannot carry on like this.

When the Chancellor said that the UK will “pay our way”, he meant that our communities will pay. When he said, ahead of his autumn statement, that

“everyone will have to make sacrifices”,

he did not actually mean everyone. The UK billionaires who increased their wealth by £55 billion last year will not be making any sacrifices. The companies that made obscene excess profits will not be making sacrifices. Those who can afford to make sacrifices are not being asked to pay for the crisis that their class has caused.

The OBR’s assessment is that this never-ending austerity will lead to a further decline of 7% in our living standards. Yet the Chancellor claims that his Government are compassionate. There is nothing in the autumn statement that shows compassion. A compassionate Government would ensure that our kids were not hungry. A compassionate Government would introduce a one-off 1% wealth tax on households with more than £1 million, generating £260 billion, but, instead, the Government are content to force people into deeper poverty while lifting the cap on bankers’ bonuses. People in our communities need investment, not more cuts. In her summing up, will the Minister tell us when the Government will stop making the political choice to keep people in poverty?

Tackling Short-term and Long-term Cost of Living Increases

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

The cost of living crisis presents the biggest threat in a generation to the living standards of the working class in this country. The removal of the energy price cap has meant that bills have risen by up to 54% for millions of households in the UK. This has meant the highest real-terms energy price increase in living memory, with the worst fall in living standards since the 1950s.

Shockingly, the cost of living crisis is having a disproportionate effect on women. According to work done by the shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), more than 7.5 million women are currently living in relative poverty. That translates to almost a quarter of all women across the UK. The TUC has said that the Chancellor’s response to the cost of living crisis has been “woefully inadequate”. It says that he needs to call

“an emergency budget to get pay rising, help families with soaring bills, and keep the economy moving”—

and it is absolutely right.

This cost of living crisis is underpinned by financial injustice and unfairness. It is a crisis where Tory smoke and mirrors cannot hide the truth, and where people have had to choose between eating and heating their homes while paying crippling bills. Against the backdrop of these cruel choices, oil and gas companies have managed to turn over record profits in the first quarter of 2022, with Shell recording a record quarterly profit of $9.1 billion, up from $6.3 billion in the final three months of 2021, while BP has seen its profits for the first quarter more than double on the previous year to $6.2 billion. This cannot be right.

I was proud to be elected on a manifesto that committed to bringing energy companies into public ownership, which would have regulated prices and ultimately put accountability to the people over profit. This Government should have looked towards countries such as France, Spain and Germany and used the Queen’s Speech as an opportunity to implement a low-percentage price cap on energy prices, and they should have committed to implementing a windfall tax. Calls for a windfall tax are supported not only by those on the Opposition side of the House, but elsewhere, including by the Tesco chairman, John Allan.

If the best this Chancellor can provide is a tacit threat to impose a windfall tax on energy companies, rather than a legislative commitment, that is simply not good enough. The increase in energy prices and the responsibility for the terrifying cost of living crisis stop at the Government’s door, and they have failed to use this Queen’s Speech as an opportunity to rebalance the financial burden in this country. More people will suffer through their lack of action.

As we emerge from this pandemic, people in this country are enduring one of the worst cost of living crises seen in post-war Britain. The simple fact is that it does not have to be like this, and the Government have a duty to alleviate this crisis by making corporations, and those who can, contribute more. This Queen’s Speech was an opportunity to redress the balance, but it was also incumbent on the Government to take action, and they have not. This Queen’s Speech, put forward by this Government, has no substance and shows no willingness to redress the balance of power in this country. Unless they do more, I fear for the people I represent in the Jarrow constituency and for those in the rest of the UK.

Cabinet Office

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Ministerial Corrections

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

16. When the Government plan to bring forward legislative proposals to reform public procurement.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

19. When the Government plan to bring forward legislative proposals to reform public procurement.

[The Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)]

In December 2020, we published the Government’s response to the consultation on the Green Paper on “Transforming Public Procurement”. We intend to bring forward these detailed and ambitious legislative proposals when parliamentary time allows.

[Official Report, 13 January 2022, Vol. 706, c. 631.]

Letter of correction from the Paymaster General:

An error has been identified in my response to these questions.

The correct information should have been:

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I know that that is a very important constituency issue, and my hon. Friend has championed it frequently. He will know that, through the long-term plan, there is a £33.9 billion uplift in core funding, in addition to the other funding through covid and other measures announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. I am very happy to discuss the matter with my hon. Friend; I know that it is a key constituency issue, and he is right to focus on it.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

T6. Research by the Disabled Children’s Partnership has revealed that nearly three quarters of disabled children have regressed in managing their conditions during the pandemic as vital services have been delayed. Ahead of the forthcoming spending review, will the Chancellor consider offering a lifeline to families and funding dedicated recovery to help disabled children and their families to catch up on missed services?

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising that important point. I would be very happy to make sure that it is considered as part of the spending review.

Finance Bill

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Monday 24th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

In March, the Government had the opportunity to set out a plan to build a fairer, healthier, greener Britain. Instead, the Chancellor has chosen to continue down the path of further inequality and insecurity by writing off the tax liabilities of huge multinationals such as Amazon and Google. These big tech firms have made huge profits during the pandemic, and now the Government are enabling them to hide their money from the very people who have sustained them.

The Chancellor’s super deduction incentive is not the innovative idea that he might like to portray it as. The Government’s plan to rapidly increase corporation tax after many years of cutting it means that the super deduction is an incentive to prevent businesses from pushing investment to the end of the period. It will make no difference to investment in the long run. All it does is change when businesses will decide to invest, rather than encouraging them to invest more. The super deduction is not targeted at British businesses that have been struggling. It is targeted at multinationals such as Amazon and Google, which will be able to use it to write off their entire remaining UK tax bill.

The Treasury will lose tens of billions through this tax cut, which makes even more confusing its argument that it has not been possible to find the smaller sums required to give our NHS workers a well-deserved pay rise. It is essential that the income from wealth is taxed at the same level as income from work, and that multinationals such as Amazon are forced to redistribute their huge profits into our communities by paying their fair share of tax. Multinationals paying their tax does not just result in more spending on our public services; it also means that British firms that pay tax here will not be undercut by companies such as Amazon, which can shift profits overseas to take advantage of very low rates of corporation tax elsewhere.

The online shopping boom that sprung from the covid lockdowns has led to Amazon creating more than 1,300 jobs in Gateshead. While job creation in my constituency is welcome, shocking employment practices have been reported at Amazon fulfilment centres in the UK and across the globe. Do the Government really believe that all large corporations should be entitled to tax breaks, regardless of how well or how badly they treat their employees? I join Unite the union in demanding that workers at Amazon have the right to join a trade union without fear of reprisal.

Nothing angers the British public more than multinationals such as Amazon and Google and others paying ultra-low levels of tax. If the Government were serious about their levelling-up agenda, I am sure they would be happy to support new clause 22, which would prevent subsidiary companies registered in tax havens from benefiting from UK tax relief, and new clause 31, which would prevent multinational corporations with a history of corporate tax avoidance from benefiting from the super deductions in the Bill.

Better Jobs and a Fair Deal at Work

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

This is a Queen’s Speech that fails working people and seeks to further curtail people’s rights and freedoms. In 2019, the Government promised to bring forward an employment Bill, which, they said, would make the UK the best place in the world to work and include measures to strengthen workers’ rights and protections. Many of these measures were also promised back in 2018 on the back of the Taylor review.

Yesterday, the Government put out a statement saying that they have taken all steps to protect workers, so why has this Queen’s Speech failed to deliver an employment Bill that would repeal the current anti-trade union legislation and make it illegal once and for all for employers to fire and rehire their staff on much worse pay, terms and conditions? It has shown that the Government are not prepared to do anything about how weak employment rights have caused unsafe workplaces and economic insecurity, all of which have been an issue for many years but have been exacerbated by the impact of the pandemic.

This Government’s inaction—they have not done anything—on rogue employers using fire and rehire practices is, once again, a clear example of how they are not the party of working people. Fire and rehire is a disgraceful practice where employers, who have often made millions, or even billions, during the past 12 months or so, are now using the pandemic as a cover to reduce pay, strip back pensions and steal holiday entitlement from their hard-working staff.

We have had plenty of lip service from the Prime Minister and his Ministers on fire and rehire. On 13 January, the Prime Minister said:

“We regard fire and rehire as unacceptable, and we will continue to make that point and seek further means of redress.”—[Official Report, 13 January 2021; Vol. 687, c. 294.]

On 23 March, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), said:

“We will not kick this into the long grass. We will tackle it. We will not allow bully boy tactics.”—[Official Report, 23 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 790.]

Just today, the Chancellor said that fire and rehire should not be used as a negotiating tactic. He went on to say that the Government await the findings of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service report—but the Government have had the report since February.

I am afraid that this Queen’s Speech has shown that the only thing that workers can expect from this Government are empty words. Can the Government seriously talk about levelling up across the country when they are doing nothing about the fact that pay and terms and conditions are being levelled down across the sectors and the economy because of the Government’s failure to protect and enhance employment rights?

If the Government really cared about working people, they would have used this Queen’s Speech to protect workers, to strengthen their rights and to end fire and rehire once and for all.

Government's Management of the Economy

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab) [V]]

If the coronavirus pandemic has shown us anything, it is that the Conservative austerity programme just does not work. A decade of Conservative spending cuts has left our economy weak and unable to deal effectively with the crisis when it hit. This, coupled with the Government’s irresponsible decision making, is why we have had the worst economic crisis of any major economy. This economic crisis has hit individuals, families and businesses hard, many being robbed of their livelihoods.

So many of those who have had a drop in their income have had to turn to our social security system for support. This is why we need to invest in an ethical social security system that people can rely on and why the £20 a week uplift to universal credit must remain permanently, as well as be extended to all those on legacy benefits. The uplift has simply been a lifeline to so many. It might not seem a lot to some of us in this place, but to some it is the difference between having heating in their home or food on their table. Figures released today show that, in January, 7.3% of the adult working population in my constituency of Jarrow were in receipt of jobseeker’s allowance or universal credit. That compares with 4.8% when the pandemic began. Those figures serve as a reminder that the journey to economic recovery will be long.

We must ensure that the coronavirus job retention scheme, which is set to end in April, is extended and that the decision is made now, not in four weeks’ time. If the scheme is removed or the Chancellor waits until the last minute to make an announcement, as he has done on previous occasions, many businesses will have to make the difficult decision to make employees redundant, causing increased unemployment and meaning that more people claim universal credit.

The Government must also bring in an amendment to existing employment legislation to outlaw “fire and rehire” practices that are being used by employers to force workers to sign up to wage cuts and inferior terms and conditions under the threat of dismissal. The coronavirus crisis should not be used by employers or the Government as a way to weaken workers’ rights. Instead, those should be enhanced and workers in the UK should be treated with decency. Our trade union movement is doing a fantastic job in pushing back these disgraceful practices, but the Government must step up. I urge the Government and Members across the House to act now and back this motion to protect the finances of not just my constituents, but theirs. Waiting until the Budget will only cause many families even more uncertainty at a time when certainty is needed.

Economic Update

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the question, and he is absolutely right. We must try to get our cash support out to businesses as quickly as possible; they are suffering as we speak. The Welsh Government have been provided with over £5 billion in an up-front funding guarantee, and he is right to highlight the importance of that money getting out to support the local businesses that he knows are so important to driving the future prosperity of the Welsh economy.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab) [V]]

Analysis by the Resolution Foundation, based on the number of households claiming universal credit or working tax credit in April last year, found that 34% of working-age households across the north-east stood to lose out on over £1,000 a year if the uplift is cut, as currently planned, in April 2021. Unless I am mistaken that is still the case, although the Chancellor said it was at the end of the year in answer to an earlier question, so maybe he can clarify that. Can I ask the Chancellor if he agrees with me that it would now be unthinkable to cut this lifeline given the ongoing significant impact the pandemic has had on low-income families?

[Rishi Sunak]

It is important to recognise some of the other things that we have put in place for next year already, notably support for over 3.5 million vulnerable households with their council tax bills—£150 each, worth £670 million in aggregate—but also increasing the national living wage above inflation, at 2.2%, providing about £350 of benefit to those on low wages. Those are the kinds of things that this Government will continue to champion.

Financial Reward for Government Workers and Key Workers

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) and the Petitions Committee for this debate. I also thank those of my constituents who contacted me about both public sector and key worker pay, including the 700 Jarrow constituents who put their names to both petitions.

As colleagues have pointed out, we cannot let this argument descend into one about levelling down; there should be fair pay in both the private and the public sectors. We should not let the debate become a tool for the Government to pit private and public sector workers against each other once again. Week after week at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister attacks the Opposition for caring about or focusing on the public sector alone. He recently said that there is a

“deep underlying Labour hatred of the private sector”.—[Official Report, 25 November 2020; Vol. 684, c. 818.]

That is, of course, not the case, but how can public sector workers support private businesses if they cannot afford to buy their products or pay for their services? That simply makes no economic sense.

The pay freeze for public sector workers comes on top of an 11-year pay restraint. Ten years ago, the Government implemented a two-year pay freeze that was followed by a six-year pay cap of 1%. Since, average salary levels in the civil service have fallen in value by comparison with inflation. This point has already been made, but I will reiterate it because I think it is important: that means that the average civil servant on a salary of £26,000 is now worse off by more than £2,000 a year.

Hard-working civil servants in my Jarrow constituency simply cannot afford a further pay freeze and, frankly, they do not deserve it. A great number of the civil servants in my constituency are employed by the Department for Work and Pensions in Newcastle. Many of those who administer benefits are at virtually the same income levels as those receiving them. How is that situation sustainable?

We all recognise the huge economic impact that the pandemic has had, but public servants and key workers across sectors have kept the country running during this difficult time, and they deserve a pay rise, not a real-terms pay cut. Not only is the pay freeze unfair, it also makes no economic sense: research from the New Economics Foundation found that paying all pubic sector workers a real living wage and increasing public sector pay would boost GDP by between £1.1 billion and £2.1 billion, with an increased tax take of between £370 million and £700 million.

There must be no return to the austerity programme implemented in the aftermath of the crash. Ten years of a flatlining economy has exposed the economic illiteracy of austerity, and a significant uplift in pay should be central to the post-pandemic recovery across all sectors of our workforce. Yes, we need to thank public sector and key workers for all that they have done throughout the crisis and beyond, but, Minister, thanking and clapping them on doorsteps is not enough. They simply need a pay rise.