Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Gill Furniss

Monday 18th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Time and again, pensioners have been let down by this Government. They suspended the triple lock, breaking a key manifesto promise; their disastrous mini-Budget knocked hundreds of billions of pounds from pension pots; and their failure to get a grip on the cost of living means that pensioners are mainly living in cold homes over the winter and have a choice between heating or eating. Against this backdrop, is the Minister at all surprised that almost one in five pensioners are now living in poverty?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Gill Furniss

Monday 5th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The good news is that Mrs Shannon is still giving him advice. I call the shadow Minister.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

One of the simplest ways to get people saving for the future is by ensuring that they are enrolled in a pension scheme, but all too many are currently excluded from auto-enrolment, particularly women, who are twice as likely to miss out. The Government have known about this problem for years. They first proposed widening the criteria in 2017. Last year, thanks to a private Member’s Bill, the Minister was given the power to do just that, but still we have seen no update on when this will be implemented. Can the Secretary of State shed light on when these vital changes will take place?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Gill Furniss

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

New figures on pension credit update have shed light on the catastrophic failure to get money to the people who desperately need it. Up to 880,000 pensioners are now missing out. Thousands of households would be so much better off and able to keep the heating on and food on the table this winter. Underpinning the figures is a huge drop in uptake among the under-75s, with a fall of up to 20%. With so many new pensioners seemingly unaware of their entitlement to pension credit, will the Government stop burying their head in the sand and get a grip now?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Gill Furniss

Thursday 13th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

One of the most effective ways to increase active travel uptake is to improve road safety, but progress in this area has stagnated: the last Labour Government cut road fatalities by almost 50%, compared with a mere 8% reduction under this Conservative Government. Back in 2021, Ministers promised a new road safety strategic framework, but two years and two Secretaries of State later all we have been told is that it will be published in due course. Meanwhile, countless people remain hesitant to embrace active travel due to safety concerns. Will the Minister move beyond the soundbites and provide some much needed clarity on when the strategy will finally see the light of day?

[Jesse Norman]

We take safety extremely seriously and have done a lot of work on this issue over the years. The whole point of having dedicated active travel infrastructure on the scale that it is being rolled out at the moment is to segregate and improve safety for those using active travel. I am sure that the hon. Lady will welcome the excellent work done on connected and autonomous vehicles, because they offer a potentially revolutionary improvement in safety over time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Gill Furniss

Thursday 8th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

May I associate myself with the condolences that have been sent to those in India?

In 2021, Ministers set themselves four targets to measure progress in active travel uptake. Three years on, how many of these targets are they confident of meeting? I can tell Members that it is not a single one, according to the Government’s own assessment revealed by the National Audit Office yesterday. The NAO report also uncovered a staggering cut to active travel funding of £166 million, which, by the Government’s own workings, would cost the taxpayer more than £700 million in the long run. Will the Minister finally come clean and confirm whether he will be slashing this vital funding by 60% next year, too—yes or no?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Gill Furniss

Wednesday 15th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

6. What steps she is taking to increase the number of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics jobs.

[Mr Speaker]

Who’s answering? One of you, please—the Secretary of State will do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Gill Furniss

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Last year, UK car production slumped to a 66-year low. The covid pandemic, supply chain shortages, and chaos at Dover have left this key industry fighting for survival. Manufacturers are crying out for a shred of certainty, but far from supporting them and the 150,000 workers they employ, this Government are leaving them in a state of limbo. With less than a year to go before it takes effect, why is the Minister still keeping the design of the zero-emission vehicle mandate a well-guarded secret? When can manufacturers expect finally to get some clarity from the Government to allow them to plan for the future?

[Jesse Norman]

The hon. Lady wildly overstates the issue with regard to electric vehicles. In 2022, we had the second largest market across Europe for electric vehicles, which demonstrates the level of energy and support we are giving the industry, including £2 billion of public money. We consult closely with both large car manufacturers and small manufacturers, who have quite different interests in many different ways. They will be quite comfortable with this important mandate when it comes out, and they will be because we have consulted extensively on it with them over the past two years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Gill Furniss

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

This week, I and colleagues hosted leading figures from across the car industry. They are desperate for the UK to lead the world in electric vehicles, but they are banging their head against the wall at the state of the charging infrastructure. In 2019, there were 33 electric vehicles per rapid charger; today there are almost 90 vehicles per charger. Given how critical the charging network is to confidence in the EV market, why on earth are there yet more delays to the botched roll-out of the rapid charging fund? Will the Minister consider using binding targets to speed up the roll-out?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Gill Furniss

Thursday 24th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister, Gill Furniss.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

One way to build local support for promoting electric vehicles is by incentivising the switch to electric vehicles, but at the pace the Government are going, the UK is set to miss the target for 300,000 charge points not by one year or two years but by 17 years. This risks stalling the switch, and this week we learned that, far from charging ahead, this Government are slipping back, with rapid charging fund trials delayed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Gill Furniss

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Q3.   Days before the election of disgraced former Conservative MP Imran Ahmad Khan, his victim warned the Conservative party of the abuse that he had suffered.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is still an appeal, and sub judice applies, so the hon. Lady should be careful in how she words the question.

[Gill Furniss]

Shockingly, the party has failed to act on the report and still will not explain why. That is why Rotherham child sexual exploitation survivor Sammy Woodhouse has called for an independent investigation into the failure, warning that the Conservative party has

“broken the trust of victims”.

Will the Prime Minister personally back that call and launch an independent investigation into the failure to act so that victims can have confidence that his party will never again turn a blind eye?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Gill Furniss

Thursday 17th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

The road investment strategy will now have to take into account remedial work on smart motorways. Just last week it was revealed that for almost a week prior to a tragic collision on the M4, vehicle detection technology, there to protect stranded motorists, had been broken. What is more, overnight it has been reported that one in six stopped vehicle detection cameras on the M25 are currently out of action. These serious flaws in safety-critical technology on smart motorways are continuing to put lives at risk. I beg the Minister to urgently address these serious flaws and, in the meantime, to reinstate the hard shoulder before more lives are needlessly lost.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Gill Furniss

Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Minister, that is nothing to do with the question. The problem is that supplementaries have to be linked to the question. If the hon. Lady tries again in topicals, she may just catch my eye.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Business of the House

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Gill Furniss

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

As I did point out earlier, there is a road map going through to the Commission on Monday. Also, the Leader of the House does have a duty of care to the staff, as I do, to ensure that we try to keep in line with Public Health England.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

The vaccine roll-out is the most important national mission our country has undertaken in decades. While more and more people are being inoculated every day, I am concerned that there is a lack of a coherent national strategy for distributing oversupplies of the vaccine. Does the Leader of the House agree with me that we must ensure excess vaccines are distributed to those in need, especially in diverse communities like my own in Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, where there are significant health inequalities and where, sadly, infections remain higher than the national average in some cases? Does he agree with me that the Government should urgently publish a strategy on this issue which can be scrutinised by this House?