Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that Labour stands against this sacking nurses Bill—the Minister chuntered earlier about that not being the case; if he would like to prove that, then the Government could accept our amendment that would resolve the unfair dismissal situation.

We oppose the Bill in the strongest terms on principle and by virtue of the serious flaws that render it utterly unworkable.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Lady think it is right that the police are restricted from taking strike action? If she does, why does she oppose similar restrictions on other important public services?

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Member should know, because of what has happened recently, that members and those who deliver critical public services have voluntary agreements to ensure that “life and limb” services are covered. The Bill, however, would restrict trade unions’ rights—which are already among the most restricted in the evolved democracies anywhere in the world—and further, goes from clapping nurses to sacking them. I hope he will vote with us tonight, at least on our amendments, if he does not want to see that happen.

The Secretary of State says we need this Bill to ensure safety levels on strike days, slandering the brave and hard-working ambulance workers as he goes and ignoring the “life and limb” deals that workers already agree. What about our constituents who cannot get an ambulance on any day, such is the crisis in the NHS? The Prime Minister admitted today the serious challenges facing the health service, and he is right, but it is his Government’s duty to protect the public’s access to essential services. The public are being put at risk every day due to this crisis of his own Government’s making.

Lives and livelihoods are already being lost. What about the commuters stopped from going to work because of the failing rail companies in the north? If the Prime Minister really cared, he would insist on fixing the broken public services we have today because of 13 years of Conservative failure. If they were confident of their case, why not agree to amendment 3 and provide us with reports on safety and service levels on any given day in transport, health, education and so on? Or are they just playing politics to distract from their 13 years of failure?

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[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. A great many Members are trying to get in. I cannot impose a time limit because we are in Committee, but I strongly advise colleagues to speak for rather less than 10 minutes. I also intend to prioritise those who have tabled amendments.

[Dr Mullan]

Let me begin by making it clear that I do, of course, want everyone working in the emergency services and the wider NHS to earn a decent living and to work in conditions that help them to perform at their best. I think that everyone wants that.

There is no doubt that our NHS has been under enormous pressure, and that continuing state of affairs has been the subject of much of the debate on this Bill, but I think we must recognise the record investment in the NHS. Demand has soared, and there are pressures on the service run by Labour in Wales and by the Scottish National party in Scotland. We hear the narrative of, “This party this” and “this party that”, but Labour Members keep their heads down when we are discussing the NHS in Wales. That just shows that they are making political capital out of the challenges in the NHS. The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) shakes her head, but the problems in the NHS are exactly the same in the Labour-run NHS in Wales. That is a fact—and there is more money per head for the NHS in Wales than for the NHS in England.

That said, I welcome the additional steps to support the NHS that the Government have taken today. We need to come to terms with the existence of an ageing population and increasing demand, although I recognise that issue is separate from what we are discussing today, which is what reasonable legislative steps we might take whether public services are performing well or not, and whether or not there is pressure on employees and wages.

I will always defend workers’ right to strike as important, but it has always been a qualified right, not an absolute right. I intervened on the deputy Leader of the Opposition to make the point that we already have legislation—not a voluntary agreement—that states that police officers cannot strike. I have not yet heard of the Labour party putting in their manifesto that they would repeal that if they were lucky enough to win the next election, because they think that legislation on mandatory strike control is unacceptable. That makes the politics of this issue very obvious. Any successful society must balance the right of workers in certain sectors of the economy.

[David Linden]

Does the hon. Gentleman not understand that if the police were to go on strike, the Prime Minister would not be issued with another fixed penalty notice? It is quite important that the police are able to do their job.

[Dr Mullan]

Perhaps there would not be investigations into some of the historical misconduct in the SNP. We can all throw stones at one another about misconduct. It is not relevant to the debate, but I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s attempt to put me off.

We need balance in society when it comes to the rights of workers, businesses and individual citizens.

[Ian Lavery]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Dr Mullan]

No, I want to make progress.

Unions have a requirement to represent the specific interests of specific people who pay them to do just that. Union leaders are not invested in the wider interests of society; they are required literally to deliver for the people who pay their subs. I welcome that as an important part of society and how we get good employment law, but it also means that unions are not a benevolent part of the discussion about businesses, society and the economy. They all have interests and they represent those interests. If that is given too much weight, they can hold a business or public service in a fixed point in time, unable to change and move with the times. It is no different from the battle we fought with the luddites. If unions were around at the time of the luddites, I guarantee that they would have been the first to say, “Destroy the machines; get rid of them; we don’t want them!” They will only ever look after the short-term interests of the people they represent. That is not what we as a Government should look at.

To paint these things as black and white is a gross oversimplification of a complex balancing act. Opposition Members try to make out that we on the Government Benches are anti-union. We are not; we are anti unions running the country without balance and with a Government in their pockets. On other issues we might see whether we get the balancing act right by looking to other countries, but I think we can make those judgements on our own. Again, the Opposition are very keen to tell this Government to look to Europe to decide what is good legislation and the right way to protect workers’ rights. Conveniently, on this issue we can give examples of similar legislation in Europe, but they absolutely do not want that.

[Sam Tarry]

The truth emerging in this debate is that if we were to bring ourselves into line with Europe, those on the Government Front Benches would be suggesting collective bargaining levels of 80% or 90%, not the 25% we have in the UK. Will the hon. Gentleman withdraw his remark, because it is simply disingenuous and untrue that the legislation is comparable? The ILO has said so.

[Dr Mullan]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates my remarks. Whenever we say that, Opposition Members want to bring up differences in union law. The Government do not decide to make individual bits of legislation only if they match all the other legislation in a similar environment. This is a separate issue. Whether we have collective bargaining does not mean that minimum service legislation is or is not valid. You either think it is important to have minimum services, or you do not. Determining whether there can be a strike is completely separate from whether there are restrictions on the impact that a strike can have. I will not withdraw that remark; I stand by it.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Mullan]

No, I have given way a couple of times and I want to make progress. [Interruption.]

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The hon Gentleman says that he will not give way.

[Dr Mullan]

As I said, Opposition Members need to make up their minds. On the one hand, they want to constantly castigate this Government for moving away from what they say is the gold standard of employment relations in Europe—I do not agree with that—but when we come up with something that is done in Europe and that we want to do here, they are not interested. They talk about differences in how ballots are run and other elements that are separate from the issue of whether to have minimum service legislation.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

What does the hon. Gentleman say to the fact that France and Italy have legislation in place for minimum service, but have seen an increase in strikes rather than a decrease?

[Dr Mullan]

As I said, we will not have identical legislation to countries in Europe, but there are countries in Europe that Opposition Members frequently point to that do similar things to us. They pick and choose when they want to compare us to Europe. They hold Europe as an example, but on this occasion when we follow the example, they think it is totally irrelevant and we are way out of line. That does not make any sense and it is not a consistent argument.

Our nation cannot be held to ransom across critical infrastructure. Workers can exert their lawful power to strike in a way that creates disruption, but there must be limits, as there are with the police. That is perfectly reasonable. Under the Bill, regulations will determine specific services in each sector to which a minimum level of service will apply, and will set those levels. The regulations will be tailored to each relevant service, taking account of the different risks to public safety or the impact on daily life.

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[Dr Mullan]

The Government are committed to extensive consultation to set the minimum service levels, and that sets the spirit in which they want to reach the agreements. Agreements, and positive engagement with industry about them, are in place in Europe. As we have seen with the current strikes, it is not as if the will is not there to agree and recognise that there needs to be a degree of minimum service. As I have said, we have it in the police and it is part of legislation. I do not think it is right that we rely on voluntary agreements to secure others such as ambulance service workers. On principle, I do not think that it should purely be up to the negotiating process to decide that. We should aim for negotiation and for agreement, but not rely on voluntary agreements.

The Government expect to consult on this. It is not the huge attack that Opposition Members make it out to be, as we have seen with the police. We are taking a negotiated, compromised position, similar to many countries in Europe. On that, I conclude my remarks.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

It is interesting to follow the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan). As a proud trade unionist, I refer the Committee to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. For the avoidance of doubt, I declare that I do not have an £800,000 overdraft facilitated by the chair of the BBC, a multi-million-pound repayment with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs or shares in a tax haven.

I wholeheartedly oppose this hurried, vicious and anti-devolutionary Bill in its entirety, and will vote against it tonight. I rise to speak specifically to the amendments in my name and those of right hon. and hon. Members. Our country is in crisis. Millions of workers are seeing their terms and conditions ground down and their wages eroded. Many are unable to meet their bills and are saying very loudly “Enough is enough.” Yet this Government’s response to strikes called successfully—despite the most severe, draconian balloting requirements and restrictions that they have imposed on trade unions—is to say no to legitimate pay demands and to negotiations, and to attack the very right to strike itself. Britain already has the toughest anti-union laws in Europe.

No worker wants to go on strike. It is a last resort taken at a financial cost. That desperation is evidenced by workers beating some of the strictest thresholds in the western world to do so. The reason that workers are pushed to strike is that in the face of a spiralling cost of living crisis, they have no other option. No amount of tightening the screws on trade unions will change that material fact. This Bill will do nothing to change the reality for millions of British workers who have seen their real-terms incomes drop dramatically since 2010.

COP27

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

I think we all have warm words for the COP26 President and the leadership he has shown. Obviously, he will continue to provide that leadership, and people around the world will be looking at him to see what he says in the future and at what was delivered at COP27.

We are leading a coalition to ensure that we are driving down emissions and investing in alternative renewable fuel and energy. That will ensure that we are resilient and can provide the fuel and energy that our constituents need up and down the country. We need a mix of fuel and energy, which includes offshore and nuclear as well. Unfortunately, the party that the hon. Lady represents is dead set against nuclear energy, which would enable us to have efficient, clean, green, resilient, homegrown fuel, allowing us to have a much healthier discussion when it comes not only to fuel resilience, but to energy prices, too.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

Despite the usual doom and gloom and negativity from those on the Opposition Benches and from campaigners glueing themselves to roads, will the Minister confirm that, according to the independent climate change performance index, the UK is the only G7 country in the top 10? We are ahead of Germany, France, the US and China. Perhaps those people glueing themselves to roads and moaning should focus their energies on those other countries that need to catch up with us. They could glue themselves to the roads over there—though, of course, they should not fly to get there.

[Ms Ghani]

Once again, my hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. The climate change performance index is not run by the Government; it is an independent organisation that monitors these issues. The UK is the only G7 country to be in the top 10, which shows that we are world leaders. Obviously, I cannot comment on his points about how individuals and political parties with issues about reaching net zero would do better to focus their attention on those other countries that are not doing so well.

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

I rise to speak in support of amendment 64. Economic crime is an issue that should always have the attention and concern of this House. It is theft on a grand scale, and often supports criminal networks and enterprises that are guilty of a much wider range of crimes, including violence, trafficking, drug dealing and all manner of actions that leave a trail of human suffering. These crimes may be committed in far-away places or have been committed in the distant past, which may go some way to explain why, to date, tackling this problem globally has not had the support it needs. However, we are considering this Bill in a changed world, where the human consequences of one major source of this kind of activity are plain for everyone to see.

Putin’s corrupt, criminal regime is waging war on the innocent population of Ukraine with absolute barbarity, almost certainly committing numerous war crimes. We have all seen the horrendous images of families lying dead on the street, shelled as they tried to flee during what was supposed to be a ceasefire. We have all seen the reckless assault on nuclear facilities and the apparent use of cluster bombs and indiscriminate weaponry in civilian areas, but we have also all seen the incredible bravery and patriotism of the Ukrainian people, with hundreds of thousands of volunteers from all walks of life picking up arms and fighting and dying for their country.

We can be proud of what we have done to help these people. We were the first country to supply lethal arms to them; we have trained more than 20,000 of their soldiers; and we joined the United States in doing our absolute best to warn the world about what was going to happen, often in the face of strong criticism. While these people are fighting for themselves and their country, they are also fighting for us. They are on the frontline of a battle that will decide whether the world order that has kept us safe for decades is upended. I understand why getting directly involved in this conflict could lead to much wider suffering and conflict, but because we are letting others fight and die on our behalf, it is incumbent on us to do everything else we possibly can to help them.

I want to challenge the impression that people who have heard today’s debates in the House and listened to the media may have received: that somehow, London and the UK have been uniquely susceptible to the finance that has been flowing from the Putin regime. This issue predates Putin. The transfer of the wealth of the Russian people to private individuals took place in the 1990s. That was the source of all this money, and every company, Government and individual that has had dealings with Russia since then has been tainted by it.

I am afraid there is plenty of blame to go around. It was the Labour party that introduced the tier 1 visa, which seems to have been one of the ways in which this country has been exploited. I remind Members that the Prime Minister at the time, Tony Blair, said at an EU-Russia investment conference he chaired that increasing reliance on Russian oil and gas was not something to be concerned about. A number of former Labour Prime Ministers and Members of the Lords have received handsome fees for speaking at Russian investment summits. Furthermore, Labour and Liberal Democrat Members argued against some parts of the original legislation in 2018 as too enabling of Ministers, with the shadow spokesperson saying that it contained excessive powers and was

“not justified by the need for speed”.—[Official Report, 1 May 2018; Vol. 640, c. 239.]

These oligarchs’ property empires are spread around the world, in Paris, New York, the French riviera and Berlin. If Members look at the media, they will see politicians from most of those capital cities identifying that they have been too lax on this issue for many years. Representatives of America’s justice system suggest that billions of pounds-worth of properties are hidden in New York limited liability companies.

As a financial centre of global importance and a high-value property market, it is not surprising that London seems to be a focal point for these oligarchs and their stolen wealth. While I accept things should have happened sooner, I question whether the world would have acted in the same way with us. There would be little point in cracking down on shell property ownership in London if all of it just fled to New York, Berlin and other capitals, so I caution against some of the self-righteousness we have heard from the Opposition.

The whole of the west has been too slow to act, and we can see we are all paying a price for that now. Every time we dealt with this regime’s puppets, we strengthened Putin. Every time Europe allowed its energy dependency to grow, we strengthened Putin. Whether it was behind closed doors, or in plain sight when they proceeded with the plans for Nord Stream 2, we know that ultimately that money and those projects date back to a corrupt, criminal regime that stole its funding from the Russian people.

In the end, authoritarian regimes get worse and worse—they always do. They are especially likely to do so in modern times, now that we have a modern surveillance state that makes it very difficult for the people to challenge or dislodge the regime. I welcome this Bill, and I welcome the spirit of the House generally in getting this legislation pushed through, even if at times I feel that people have been using it to make party political points.

I welcome the explanations we had from the Minister on Second Reading about a further Bill being drafted to tackle some of the wider issues, such as false declarations. It is right that we are focusing on the priority we have now, but that is a wider and bigger bit of work. I also draw Ministers’ attention to the challenge our enforcement agencies will have, and we must do more to help them. They can expect challenge in the courts. As others have said, the National Crime Agency and the Serious Fraud Office often face an onslaught of uneven legal competition whenever they proceed with any cases, and we can expect agencies such as Companies House to face the same. They can expect those supplying them with information to face legal attacks through the misuse of data protection laws.

We had a debate in this place on lawfare a few weeks ago that discussed strategic lawsuits against public participation, known as SLAPP. Those lawsuits go after not just journalists, but the kind of investigative companies that might help us tackle the huge task of proving who owns what. If we were already considering anti-SLAPP legislation, surely we need to put a rocket under that exercise to see whether there is more we can do. I know that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) has tabled some amendments in that regard.

Capital flight is a key issue, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) has described, and I welcome the commitments that have been given at the Dispatch Box to ensure that the action we take is not too late, but there have been suggestions that we either shorten the time for registration or, as amendment 64 would do, put in place day one restrictions when it comes to the sale or transfer of assets during this transition period. The latter suggestion seems more proportionate and achievable, and I welcome the commitment from the Minister on delivering that.

I accept there may be challenges for Companies House and the Treasury in delivering on ambitious and wide-ranging changes to our approach. I understand that, and I do not say this lightly, but when it comes to making the commitments we should make to deliver on this, the resources we put into this task as a Government should reflect the seriousness of what is happening in Ukraine, with Putin determined to upend the global order. As the Prime Minister has said, we must do everything we can to ensure he fails. If we are asking the Ukrainians to fight and die for their democracy, and if the west has to answer for its role in failing to take action against the Putin regime for many, many years, it is the least we can do.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am afraid I thought that was an utterly shabby little speech.

[Dr Mullan]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Member has only just spoken, so no, I am not going to give way. I think that speech was shabby, because it was partisan and completely inaccurate. Actually, many of us across the House were arguing for a very long time—all the way from 2010—for a proper sanctioning regime in this country. I think I personally asked different Prime Ministers 32 times for Magnitsky sanctions, and I was delighted when the Government introduced that legislation in 2018. I worked closely with the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab) to try to secure that, and I was delighted when he became the Justice Secretary, because I know he cares about this issue, and I have worked with him on it for many, many years.

Some of us argued for many, many years that it was wrong to have tier 1 visas doled out to people from authoritarian regimes around the world, including China and Russia, without asking any proper questions about where the money had come from that they supposedly had to invest in the UK. The levels were £2 million and £10 million. If someone had £10 million, they could get their permanent right to remain in the UK fast-tracked, and they could end up with UK citizenship. I think that has led to greater corruption of the British state, so it is absolutely disgraceful that an hon. Member should come to the House today and try to blame the Opposition for not introducing legislation when we were not in Government.

[Dr Mullan]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

No, I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman. I remind him what happened on 1 May 2018 when we debated the remaining stages of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. We voted on whether to introduce—guess what?—an economic crime Bill to bring forward a public register of the ownership of properties. Conservative Members all voted against that and the Opposition voted in favour, so I will not take any lectures from him on that.

I care passionately about the issue because we are facing an absolutely critical moment. None of us elected as MPs in this generation thought that we would see the elected Mayor of a town gunned down by Russian mercenaries when giving out aid in a democratic society, as Yuri Prylypko, Mayor of Hostomel, was today; none of us thought that we would see the Russian Government bombing refugees when there was meant to be a ceasefire; and none of us thought that we would see ceasefires repeatedly ignored day after day, so timeliness is all today. This is not really emergency legislation—it is just long overdue—but it is timely and important. In fact, I suggest that the amendments that the Government have tabled are more important than the material in the original Bill.

What depresses me is how many Putin-related Russian oligarchs and people with large assets in the UK have still yet to condemn the invasion of Ukraine. It is an absolutely deafening silence. It shames all of us that we have sanctioned only 11 oligarchs so far, or perhaps 17 individuals—there are different ways of counting it; it depends who we count as an oligarch—whereas the United States of America and the European Union have done far more.

In the Foreign Affairs Committee this afternoon, the Foreign Secretary tried to blame me for not having done enough. It was all my fault because apparently I had said something that she had to subsequently retract because it turned out that that was not true and I had not said it at all. She has apologised. The point is that everything that we are doing today should have been done in 2018, so we are genuinely frustrated.

We are seeking transparency about who owns what. The Bill does a substantial amount of that, of course, but we also want that to be enforced. There is a major problem that Companies House cannot even question whether the information that it has been provided with is accurate. If someone looks up a director on the Companies House website, it says that it cannot verify whether the information is correct. We want to go that step further and it seems bizarre not to include that in the Bill, which is why there are amendments about that.

We want individuals to be sanctioned. The measure that the Minister has introduced has gone some considerable way to making that easier, but I still do not understand why we made it so difficult in the first place. We also want the seizure of assets. There is not much point in sanctioning people if it will not have any effect. That is also extremely timely and must happen rapidly because of all the things that we have said about asset flight.

My anxiety is that without new clause 29 we are not doing that last part at all. My guess is that if we have to wait for the Government to introduce further legislation, that will not happen until after the Queen’s Speech sometime in May, so it will not go through both Houses for another six months. If we leave things that long, we will do exactly what we did in 2014 over Crimea: the moment will have passed and we will forget. Our memories will be short, another issue will come along and Putin will have won.

That is why I have tabled four simple amendments. Amendments 24 and 25 say that when someone registers or updates the register of beneficial ownership, they simply have to say whether any of the individuals that they are referring to are sanctioned individuals. That is important because it means that the people who are doing the registering have to check whether they are sanctioned individuals. We might think that they would want to do that anyway, but forcing them to do it means that, when they then register incorrectly, they are committing the offence, rather than the sanctioned individual. That is why that is important.

Income Tax (Charge)

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We have been successful in offshore wind generation, and it is right to acknowledge that. The ground was laid by the last Labour Government, but I will leave that to one side. We have been successful at generating the wind energy, but not the jobs. He is completely right that we have not delivered for many people when it comes to jobs.

As I was saying, not acting increases the cost, so the prudent responsible choice is to invest. I will mention some key sectors, because again, there has been a deafening silence. I come back to the steel industry, which is such a litmus test. It needs about £6 billion of investment to get to net zero by 2035. The view is shared on both sides of the House that it needs to get to net zero and that it is a foundational industry that we need and that is incredibly important to communities across the country. There are 20 demonstration projects around Europe but none here at the moment. It requires a partnership of the public and private sectors and needs both sides to invest. There is a crucial role for the Government in that.

We have set out a commitment of up to £3 billion over a decade to create that partnership with the steel industry so it can make the transition and we can keep those good jobs with good wages that are vital to many communities. It is a test of us as a House of Commons.

The Government talk about a £250 million clean steel fund, but even that has still not been delivered. I hope that it is still Government policy, but it seems to be in the balance and might have been got rid of. That is not good enough. The Treasury has to understand that unless we invest in steel, automotive and hydrogen, we will fall behind in the global race, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) said.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

You are clearly talking about the tension between the costs of going too late or too soon in terms of efficiencies. Do you agree that you might have more credibility—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Will the hon. Gentleman please refer to the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) as the right hon. Gentleman, not “you”? When someone says “you” in this House, they mean the Chair. We have to start getting that right; it is unprofessional not to.

[Dr Mullan]

My apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that he would have more credibility on the issue if he had not backed Labour’s 2030 net zero target, which even his own unions did not support? He has no credibility on that point.

[Edward Miliband]

That is definitely the Whips Office’s talking point. The reality is—[Interruption.] I will tell them: our last manifesto said that

“the substantial majority of our emissions reductions”

should happen by 2030, and that is absolutely right. We should be going faster and we should not be delaying. The interesting point is that delay is wrong not just for the climate, but economically. That is the brilliant platform on which my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West, the green shadow Chancellor, is standing. We will fall behind if we do not act, and I suspect that, in his heart of hearts, the Business Secretary knows it.

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[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

I want to start where the Chancellor left off, by saying that I strongly believe that it is not just for the Government to fix every problem and tackle every challenge. I am a Conservative because I believe in and want to support strong families, strong communities, the voluntary sector and charities coming together to make our country a better place to live, work and raise a family. We saw that during the pandemic. The state played an enormously important role but so did families, volunteers and charities in Crewe and Nantwich and across the country, and I shall focus on welcoming the measures in the Budget that support families.

I welcome the introduction of family hubs—I supported my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) in campaigning for that—further funding for parenting support, more support for adopted children and their families, and the continuation of the holiday activity programme. In discussing the stability of families and poverty, we cannot ignore, and must pay greater attention to, some of the factors that make it much more likely for children to be living in poverty. Single-parent families and families with three or more children are much more likely to be living in poverty and I wish campaigners and those on the Opposition Benches would pay as much attention to these important factors as they do to the role of Government in topping up family incomes.

The emphasis on the first 1,001 days is also welcome. We are seeing increasing understanding across Government that the big impact we can have early on in terms of children and families is worth our attention and gets better results in the long run.

The Opposition too often focus purely on financial security. Of course financial security is important, but it is also important to support people to be the best parents they can be and to ensure that their children grow up with emotional security and have the kind of self-belief and aspiration that I was given by my family. Sadly, when I meet some children in my constituency, they do not have that. We have to do better at giving that to them.

As much as we argue over relatively small, albeit important, changes in the percentages and numbers of people living in absolute and relative poverty, if we take a step back and look at the big historical trends, those figures have been stubbornly in roughly the same place. I think that is because we focus too much on the money and not enough on the other factors that might lift people out of poverty and give them aspiration and opportunity.

Supporting people into work and better jobs is absolutely part of that, not just because it improves people’s incomes but because we know that work helps to improve people’s mental and physical wellbeing. I am proud that, compared with 2010, there are half a million fewer children growing up in a household that has been out of work long term. That is the kind of achievement that sustainably lifts people out of poverty.

That is why I welcome the emphasis on the changes we have made to universal credit—using the money wisely to encourage people into work and to keep more of their own money—and to the minimum wage. We need to do everything we can to ensure that the right incentives are there for people to be in work. Of course, closely tied to that are the commitments we made earlier in the year on things such as the lifetime skills guarantee and further funding to support free childcare. We need to look closely at whether we can go further when it comes to childcare. We still have historically high childcare costs in this country, and that remains a difficult barrier to work. Things such as the change in the taper would go further if childcare were cheaper.

We also need to look at child maintenance, which is another key factor in poverty. Some 60% of children living in single-parent households that are not in receipt of maintenance would be lifted out of poverty if that maintenance were received. When the restrictions and measures brought in to tackle this issue, which largely focused on things such as deduction orders for people’s earnings and court orders to seize assets, were considered, I do not think enough thought was given to the realities of using them, because most of those things make it difficult for someone to earn money, which defeats the object. Consideration was given to home curfews for people who were non-compliant with their child maintenance, but those powers were never enacted. We need to look at that again if we want to drive down the absence of child maintenance payments.

I am conscious that Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy colleagues are leading today’s debate, so I want to mention an area that will be important for job opportunities in Crewe and Nantwich, which I have been talking to the Secretary of State about—the geothermal industry. We saw earlier in the year the difficulties of over-relying on solar and wind power when it comes to our renewable energy drive. Geothermal is an under-utilised opportunity in this country. Unfortunately, earlier in the year, just as the industry wanted to invest, we removed the tariff that would give it a guaranteed return. That has obviously had a devastating impact on investment in geothermal. We see it rising across Europe and across the world, but it is not rising in this country because we do not have that guarantee. I will continue to work with BEIS colleagues to see whether we can do something about that.

Levelling up is important to us all. It is no good encouraging families and encouraging ambition if opportunity is not spread evenly around the country, as colleagues have mentioned. Yesterday, we saw the announcement of hundreds of millions of pounds of investment through the levelling-up fund. Through the impact of the £22.9 million Crewe town deal that we were awarded earlier this year, I have seen the real, tangible difference that those projects can make—led by local MPs, working with local authorities and, importantly, picking projects that are important to local communities across a whole range of issues. I look forward to us making a levelling-up fund bid in future funding rounds.

I am afraid that we have heard the usual today from those on the Opposition Benches. Labour Members want to tell everyone that there are no difficult decisions. There is never a request for more benefit spending that they say no to. There is no problem to which their answer is not just “tax the rich”, despite the increasing proportion of our tax bill being paid by the wealthy. Some 30% of income tax is paid by the top 1% of earners. I am not quite sure where Labour Members want that figure to be before they will accept that those with the broadest shoulders are carrying the biggest burden, and I do not think it is sensible in a global economy to further discourage wealth creators from living in this country.

Labour Members know that their rhetoric on taxing the rich does not add up. That is why, despite all the talk, they have outlined only one measure, which—along with all the measures they have talked about but failed to detail—they know full well does not come close to meeting their continual spending commitments. For example, they wanted us to spend not just £6 billion on retaining the uplift on universal credit, but £2 billion to extend it to those on legacy benefits, and £1 billion to extend it to those on tax credits. They wanted £2 billion to scrap the two-child policy; £2 billion to turn advances into grants—I could go on. They never explain how they would pay for that, besides broad discussions about taxing the rich. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), from a sedentary position, talks about champagne. It is classic Labour to misunderstand what it means to be aspirational. The people I know who want to buy a glass of champagne are not wealthy; they are people from ordinary families who maybe have a wedding or another special occasion and want to enjoy themselves. The hon. Gentleman’s disdain for that measure just shows how he does not understand the people he is supposed to represent.

[Paul Howell]

Does my hon. Friend agree that when we talk about champagne, we are probably more likely to be talking about a £7 bottle of prosecco?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Mullan]

Absolutely. That is the kind of thing that the Conservative party understands when it comes to aspiration, but those on the Labour Benches simply do not.

I want to pick up on some of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller). We cannot underestimate the real economic risks we face at present. We must be extremely careful. We have talked about how slight changes in interest rates and inflation can have a huge impact. The amount of money that we had to spend to get the country through the pandemic—of course, the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) wanted to criticise the Government for creating that level of debt—would have been even higher had the Opposition been in charge. Despite spending £407 billion, it will never be enough for those on the Labour Benches. We cannot pretend it will all be smooth sailing. There will still be difficult decisions to come. We will need to say no at certain points. The Conservatives are trusted repeatedly on the economy by our voters because we understand that.

I want to pick up on the usual lines about the cuts we have made. Opposition Members have tried, again and again, to win elections by convincing the public that we made those choices freely and happily, but the public understand that we had no choice, given the economic mess we inherited. I encourage the Opposition to think about a new line of attack and perhaps they will have better success with it in future.

Difficult times ahead—and a difficult Budget. It is not risk free and we may still need to make difficult decisions, but the emphasis on families, early years, people in work and getting on in life is a direction of travel I welcome. In that regard, I support the Budget and support the Government in their attempts to get us back on track.

Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Friday 22nd October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I welcome the Bill and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) for the incredible campaign he has fought up and down the country over recent months to stop fire and rehire. I also put on record the thanks of the whole House to my hon. Friend—

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Imran Hussain]

I have yet to begin, so the hon. Gentleman might want to wait, but okay.

[Dr Mullan]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman can clarify something. The campaign is to end fire and rehire, which is what Unite says, but the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) has clarified several times that the legislation would not end fire and rehire, so I am a bit confused as to what he is seeking to achieve.

[Imran Hussain]

If Members intervene before someone has really started their speech, it does lead to confusion, so they may want to wait a little longer on occasion. There is probably a lesson there for the hon. Gentleman. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent North has made it absolutely clear that although he does not seek to ban fire and rehire, it should end. There is a difference, and I will come to that later.

First, let me thank my hon. Friend, who cited real examples of working people who are being impacted by this abhorrent practice. Sometimes in the Chamber, we move away from real examples and towards theses or even the law, which is important, but we must always keep in touch with the real impact on real people.

As I made clear in the Westminster Hall debate in April, fire and rehire is a deplorable tactic used by unscrupulous employers. Using the threat of permanent dismissal, employers bully their staff and force them to reapply for a job that they already had. They force them to sign away their pay, rights and conditions and rip up their original contracts. These bad bosses—these unscrupulous employers—do so knowing full well that staff cannot refuse without being cast out into an uncertain job market. Let me be clear: these are not negotiating tactics, they are nothing more than a form of legalised blackmail, with all the power in the hands of bad bosses. They are tactics that leave working people worse off to the tune of several thousand pounds a year while working longer hours on exhausting shift patterns. They leave working people with fewer days of annual leave, with no paid lunch breaks and with no protections when they fall ill. They leave working people without the dignity in work that they deserve, all while CEOs pay themselves inflated salaries and bumper bonuses worth millions of pounds.

So let there be no doubt. Fire and rehire is abhorrent, morally bankrupt and a stain on our economy. Put simply, these employers are employing bully-boy tactics—surprisingly, those are not my words but the words of the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

Reference has been made to messages going out from the House. It is important to make one thing clear to those who have been potentially misled by some of the remarks made by Opposition Members. There are already steps that people can take if they are dismissed unfairly. We should not lead people to believe that they have no legal protection if an employer dismisses them claiming a business need that was not really there.

[Paul Scully]

My hon. Friend is right. We heard another accusation, in relation to whether or not those on this side of the House are uncaring when it comes to workers’ rights. What it boils down to is this: would an employee facing a rogue employer using a bully-boy tactic rather have a solution that protects their rights, or would they rather have a jabbing-finger Opposition politician who relies on an unstable future for such workers for his or her political future?

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con) [V]]

Over the past 12 months, this country has faced its biggest challenge for a generation. Our constituents, our economy and our health service have all been tested. We have been asked to make enormous sacrifices of all different kinds: friends and family cut off from each other; some people not seeing loved ones at the end of their lives; hard-grown businesses ground to a halt; and young people missing out on their education at a key time in their lives and their growth. We have all, as taxpayers, paid an enormous financial price, and this comes on the back of a decade of everybody making sacrifices to help get the deficit under control. We can all be very glad that we achieved that, as it allowed us to spend quickly and to spend big at this crucial time.

We are now faced again with a difficult journey to get our economy back on track. I want to talk about three of the Government’s approaches that are vital, not just for driving our recovery now, but for ensuring that we continue to be a country that gives its citizens opportunities: first, the lifetime skills guarantee; secondly, the commitment to apprenticeships; and thirdly, the targeted approach to corporation tax and incentives for capital investment.

We know that there are employers out there who are growing their workforces and expanding their operations. We also know that, for years now, hundreds of thousands of jobs have gone unfilled. Whenever a skilled job goes unfilled or whenever an employer needs to look abroad to fill it, that is a missed opportunity for one of our constituents—an opportunity to get a better paid job, to earn enough to support their own families and to get on the housing ladder.

During National Apprenticeship Week, I had the opportunity to talk to apprentices working at Bentley and at Alstom in Crewe. Those young people were incredibly ambitious and determined, and were very clear about the course they wanted to chart in their lives. They knew that their future was going to be more secure in skilled work, using their hands and minds to apply themselves.

What we are doing with apprenticeships can be built on with the lifetime skills guarantee. Now more than ever, our workforce need to be able to gain new skills and be flexible. The challenge is not just about whether a course is available and free; it is about changing how we think and feel about our careers throughout our adult lives. Too many people will feel that they have failed or done something wrong if they need to change skills and careers. We have to change that mindset. I encourage the Government to ensure that we shout loudly about the lifetime skills offer, and keep shouting about it until everybody has heard the message loud and clear.

Our approach to tax will encourage businesses to keep creating jobs for our constituents to take up. Recovery is not going to be pain-free. I am a member of the Conservative party because we know that the Government cannot wipe out the pain and difficulty with a click of our fingers, or fix it all on the back of wealthy people. We are starting to get to grips with what this recovery needs to look like. I welcome the Government’s aims and ambitions as laid out in this Budget, and will be supporting it this evening.