Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Meg Hillier

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The path to carbon capture and storage is littered with failure: three previous projects never got off the ground, despite lots of taxpayer money going into them. What precisely are the Government going to do to ensure that this project delivers?

[Mr Speaker]

If the hon. Lady would look towards me a little bit, I will be able to hear the question.

Debate on the Address

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Meg Hillier

Wednesday 17th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), but I confess I am a little disappointed with him because today he walked into the Chamber. He could at least have tried a bungee jump or maybe freewheeling on a bicycle. I applaud him for his efforts in the campaign; they kept us all entertained and, looking at the number of Members on the Liberal Democrat Benches, clearly paid dividends.

I welcome and thank my hon. Friends who proposed and seconded the Humble Address, but I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) that he may be the youngest of eight, but I am the second of 10. New Members of the House will hear a lot about Big Brother, but I can tell them that they have a big sister here to support them; I am sure my hon. Friend will support them too. After 19 years in this place, I know my way around a bit, although I too still get lost, so they should not be worried about that.

I was delighted to hear the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi). I first came across her when she was a Member of the London Assembly. I knew then that she had something special about her and we saw that here today.

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I spent nearly a decade chairing the Public Accounts Committee in this place, in the last Parliament and the previous two. In that role, I saw many egregious examples of incompetence, bungling and waste, whether it was water companies, school buildings with reinforced concrete and other things falling down, the running sore of rail infrastructure, the national embarrassment of defence procurement and the scandal of personal protective equipment procurement during covid. Time and again, we saw Government bungles, poorly drafted contracts, lack of oversight, dodged responsibility, endless excuses, and the taxpayer picking up the tab. No wonder people were so angry at the election. No wonder they voted for change and for my right hon. and learned Friend the Prime Minister.

Now the true extent of the Tory mess is coming to light. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has revealed, it is even worse than we thought. She has opened the books, looked under the bonnet and seen the true extent of the mess that is now for a Labour Government to clear up. The previous Government partied, squabbled and helped their mates, but they did not fix the roof when the sun shone. They trashed the joint. From austerity to the PPE scandal and Trussonomics—remember that?—they weakened the fundamentals of our economy and stretched our public services to breaking point.

In my annual report, which was one of my last reports as the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, I listed what I called the “big nasties”, some of which the Chancellor is revealing to us now: 700,000 pupils are in schools that are not fit for purpose; there were in fact far fewer new hospitals than the 40 that were much vaunted and they were never going to be delivered to the promised timetable; and the gaping hole in our defence budget. I certainly applaud the approach of this Government, and it seems some consensus from the Opposition Benches, that we need to see an increase in defence spending.

The consequences of the mess that has been left behind by the previous Government are human. According to the House of Commons Library, nearly one fifth of children in my borough of Hackney live in absolute poverty. Four in 10 children in Hackney live in poverty after housing costs are taken into account, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s recent figures. My constituency is in the top 5% of English constituencies with children who are income deprived. That is the shameful legacy of 14 years of failure.

In one of the world’s greatest and richest cities—a bus ride from the financial powerhouse of Liverpool Street—no child should be cold or hungry, or lack a winter coat or decent shoes. Schools in Hackney have kit rooms for the children who turn up without the requisite uniform and lend it for the day in return for a token like their Oyster card. No parent should be having to skip meals to feed their kids, which is happening too often in Hackney and elsewhere in the country. No child should be arriving at school with a rumbling tummy, which is why I welcome the breakfast clubs that we already have in Hackney and the fact that one of the first acts of this Labour Government will be to make sure that every child in primary school has a decent breakfast.

When we talk about stagnant wages, low productivity, flattening growth, lack of investment in skills and schools, the abolition of Sure Start, and the gig economy, there is this human cost. Right now, in a Hackney school, there is a hungry child whose huge potential is being wasted, whose opportunities are stunted and whose life chances are hobbled. When I first arrived in this place 19 years ago, I had to tell people about the good things that were going on in Hackney, because people had written off my borough as a poor and deprived area where things did not happen. Now people think of the Shoreditch hipster, the tech companies and the city fringe, but underneath that there is this huge poverty and opportunity being stunted for our children. This is the mess that this Government now have to clear up.

Another example of that is the housing crisis. A safe, warm and affordable place in which to live should be, and is, a basic right. We all need a roof over our heads before we can do anything else in our life—whether it be study, work, or bringing up our families—yet, after 14 years, my constituents face a housing crisis whatever the tenure.

According to Hackney council, the median household income in Hackney is just under £36,500 a year, yet the median house price in my constituency—which has doubled since 2010—is £610,000. For those who have not caught up on the maths yet, this means that a house costs more than 16 times the median household income. According to the Land Registry, the average first-time buyer in Hackney paid just under £600,000: over half a million pounds for a first-time buyer. Well, that’s not most first-time buyers, is it? It is the lucky few who either have a very good job, or have got help from the bank of mum and dad or other family members. I do not deny them that help, but it should be an opportunity available to all.

It is utterly ridiculous that we are in this situation. Young professionals with double incomes are simply unable to afford a deposit to get a place of their own and are often stuck living with family members into their 30s. Others are forced into rented accommodation, with no security of tenure and rents so high that there is no spare money to save to get on the housing ladder.

According to the work of the Public Accounts Committee, around 13% of privately rented properties—589,000 properties—pose a serious threat to health, so landlords are getting the rent but landing their tenants in hospital with lung diseases, mental illness or physical injury. I hope the Chancellor’s ears are pricking up, because the Public Accounts Committee estimated that this situation costs the NHS £340 million a year. That goes to the broader point: economic inefficiency, child poverty, the housing crisis and failing public services all cost us more money. The economics of decline is an expensive business, but—we see hope now, with this Labour Government—investment in jobs, homes, schools, skills, roads, the NHS and tackling crime saves the public money down the line. As I was often saying when I had the honour of holding the role of Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, a penny of waste is theft from working people’s pockets, and a fair economy is also an efficient one.

I warmly welcome the measures in this King’s Speech under a Labour Government; how nice it is to say those words after 14 years. Since 5 July my colleagues in the Cabinet—I was about to say the shadow Cabinet; old habits die hard—including Labour Secretaries of State, have moved into action from the inertia of what went before, and that means that we are on the road to recovery. It is going to be a long haul, but I welcome the measures to support start-ups and tech companies, particularly as I represent Shoreditch, where so many are based; to revive skills; to modernise our health services, particularly prioritising mental health; to get more teachers into Hackney schools; and, crucially, to build more affordable homes.

We need many affordable homes in inner London, in constituencies such as mine, where social housing is the only option for so many people. Only last week, a woman came to my surgery who had four children in a one-bedroom flat, and her elderly, sick father had had to come to live with them. That is how the family lived —four children in a one-bedroom flat—and it is not uncommon at all. We need to drive change to deliver housing around the country, but particularly in the inner city.

I also recognise the lead and step change in tackling the issue of net zero to decarbonise our economy with investment in renewables, insulation, carbon capture, and green jobs—things I have examined a lot over the last decade and on which we have seen the previous Government fail so often.

Above all, I welcome the commitment of His Majesty’s Government—our Labour Government—to kickstart growth in our economy. Without steady, sustainable economic growth and without the proceeds of growth fairly shared across the nation, we will continue our national decline. Instead, in this King’s Speech, we are offered a hopeful prospectus for change, the prospect of progress, and a new sense of national renewal and hope after 14 years. We know it will not be easy, nor will it be as quick as we all impatiently want it to be. As a former Minister and having been a member of the Public Accounts Committee for 13 years, I know that modernisation and reform can be frustratingly slow. I have seen many good ambitions frustrated by poor delivery.

If I may proffer a word of advice for those on the Treasury Bench, finding themselves newly surrounded by eager officials, many of whom came in front of my Committee, and red boxes, it is this: “Please stay focused. Look up at that horizon. Think of the people who sent us here, who voted for that change you want to deliver and we all want to see. Keep an eye on that guiding goal of growth. Test every proposition that comes across your desk against that simple question, ‘Does this promote or hinder growth?’”

Successful government, as the Prime Minister said, is mission led. Of course we want to tackle poverty, build homes and transform our NHS, but the main mission is growth, because without that we cannot deliver any of the others.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the leader of the SNP.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Meg Hillier

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

So sit down, and we will move on.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

For all the sound and fury from the Secretary of State, he knows that the maths does not lie and that the Government have failed on their targets. They have downgraded their affordable housing targets, and have still failed on those. When will the Secretary of State bite the bullet and provide more properly affordable social housing for people in my constituency and others who simply cannot afford to buy their own homes?

[Michael Gove]

I withdraw the word “gangster”, Mr Speaker; I should have said “huckster”.

I will tell the hon. Lady who has downgraded their social housing targets: it is the hon. Lady herself. When she was running for the deputy leadership of her party, she said that she wanted 100,000 new social homes every year. What is the target now? Zero.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Meg Hillier

Monday 24th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It is not a full lesson we are putting out, just a good answer.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Disadvantage knows no boundaries and, likewise, we have huge challenges in our schools in Hackney. The Government promised that the starting salary for teachers would be £30,000. How close are the Government to reaching that manifesto commitment?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Meg Hillier

Tuesday 11th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Dame Meg Hillier.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister talks about vacancies in the job market. There are vacancies, of course, but many of my constituents earn under £12,000 a year. They will not benefit from the tax cut, so they rely on universal credit to make up the gap. They cannot afford to work because of the high cost of childcare. They are already on the poverty line. What is his advice to them? Will he give us some comfort that the Government will make the right decision on uprating benefits?

Sewage Pollution

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Meg Hillier

Tuesday 6th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Dame Meg Hillier.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

In 2019, the River Lea suffered a discharge for 1,000 hours. That was three years ago, and the ripple effect of it will be longer than just this summer. But the Environment Agency, in response to my questions, says—as the Minister said—“Well, it is okay, we are monitoring more.” But that monitoring does not seem to deter the water companies from repeating their action. So why does he think the threat of prosecution and fines is not delivering quicker and better investment to stop this happening?

Tackling Fraud and Preventing Government Waste

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Meg Hillier

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dame Meg Hillier]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker, I am reluctant to make a point of order in a debate, but it is important to reflect on what the Paymaster General has just said and he may wish to correct the impression that he gave. Those loans are 10-year loans, so it cannot be the case that 80% of them have been repaid at this point. He may want to look again at his notes and perhaps correct the impression he gave.

[Mr Speaker]

I think that is more a point of clarification than a point of order, but it is now on the record.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Meg Hillier

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Dame Meg Hillier.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

More than 1 million people still use only cash, and approximately 4 million use cash regularly, so it is vital that they have access to it. This is now the second consultation that the Treasury is going through, but as the PAC has seen, all the distribution of cash is in the hands of private providers. Can the Economic Secretary give any indication of the type of legislation that he can introduce to ensure that if people are very poor, they can get cash? That does not mean going to the supermarket and getting it out when they do not even know what is in their own account.

Defence and Security Industrial Strategy

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Meg Hillier

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Meg Hillier.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome that we are getting more clarity on some of the issues around defence spending, and particularly the Minister’s bold statement that he wants to see us

“achieving real reform in how we procure.”

It would be great if we saw some of that go down to our SMEs. However, as he knows, the National Audit Office concluded in its recent report on the defence equipment plan that the Department

“continues to make over-optimistic and inconsistent judgements when forecasting costs.”

That information comes from the Department’s own cost assurance and analysis service. Can the Minister tell the House and the country what precisely he is going to do differently to ensure that procurement and cost management in the equipment plan is managed better? What precise actions is he going to take?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Meg Hillier

Tuesday 15th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

As you might expect, Mr Speaker, the Public Accounts Committee is already beginning the reckoning of costs, and there is a cost to the Exchequer from all those people who were self-employed, or employed on short-term contracts, and who received no support. Ultimately, the state still has to support those people, and no tax comes in from them. Will the Chancellor go back to the drawing board and consider the long-term issue of the cost to our country of not supporting people who have a good track record with HMRC and who could be supported? They have lived on fresh air for all these months.

Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Meg Hillier

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier]

The Comptroller and Auditor General at the National Audit Office is coming to the end of his term at the end of this month, and one item on my list of things to talk to the new Comptroller and Auditor General about is ensuring that there is a good and thorough process. Of course the National Audit Office does an excellent job, but we need to ensure that this is on its radar in the right timeframe and that we work up a way of ensuring that everything works effectively. We need to get in early to ensure that costs are not suddenly ramped up at the end.

I need to talk a bit about costs, and I will come to that in a moment. Other Select Committees will of course have the chance to examine these issues and, as the Leader of the House has said, there will be a further chance for this House to have a say in 2021. It is important that we build in scrutiny of the evaluation of, for example, the jobs and the money and of where the contracts are being let. In our speeches today, we have all been putting pressure on the Sponsor Body seriously to consider having a mechanism for ensuring that the wealth opportunities from this huge, amazing, international project are shared fairly across the UK wherever possible, and we must ensure that it is held to account for any pledges that it makes. We will hold its feet to the fire on this, and other Select Committees will have a role in that regard as well.

I want to touch on the northern estate. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, who is no longer in his place, suggested that it might be better not to glue that project to the main Palace project. However, my Committee believes that it is pretty vital that the Sponsor Body manages both projects, because they are so interconnected. The fact that the cloisters have now been empty for 18 months even though that was an urgent project is not a demonstration of a lack of will—there are many issues involved—but with all goodwill to the Clerks the House, they are not project managers of major projects. The whole point about the Sponsor Body is that it will have the expertise to hold those who deliver these big projects to account and to ensure that they get on with it. It is important that we also hand over the northern estate to a body of people who really have that expertise.

I am pleased that the Ministry of Defence car park issue now seems to be resolved, as it was getting ludicrous. The Committee was horrified to discover that a delay in that area could have meant a three-year delay and hundreds of millions of pounds in extra costs. We will also get future office space and more flexibility over the buildings as a result of any new buildings on the northern estate.

I remember when I visited New South Wales—I was there on holiday; this was not done at the taxpayer’s expense—I went to the head of the Sydney Olympics and was given the opportunity to visit the New South Wales culture minister. They had an amazing project to work with local businesses to help them to get ready to bid for projects on the Sydney Olympics. This helped businesses to learn how to procure and to work out a whole list of everything that would be needed on the Olympics. I would urge the Sponsor Body to adopt a similar approach, so that hon. Members who have already expressed an interest in bringing business, opportunities and work to their constituencies can show their local businesses what will be needed. For example, we will need to know how many wood carvers and stone carvers will be needed, so that the people out there who know how to do those things can gear up and be ready when bidding for that work starts.

I want to finish by talking about the important issue of costs. We need to nail them down, but we must not rush to pluck a figure from the air. The costs that we have been talking about so far—around the £4 billion mark—were indicative figures based on 2014 prices. They are not the true cost of establishing the work necessary to improve this building. That cannot be known until the business case has been worked up and we actually discover what is behind things. There will be a number of known unknowns, because every time we remove a bit of wood panelling there may be asbestos behind it. We just do not know, because the building’s plans are not accurate. There will need to be figures in the business case, but a proper contingency must also be built in that will have to be explained to the Sponsor Body in case the Delivery Authority needs to draw on it, and the relevant bodies need to be held firmly to account. To put inaccurate figures out now would be unhelpful, and we must ensure—the Leader of the House will be on this—that the figures are in the realms of reality.

No matter how expensive the project is, we must be honest with the taxpaying public about what is being spent. However, there will be no blank cheque. The Public Accounts Committee, under my watch or that of any successor, will keep a close eye on things, as will Members of this House, but we need to get on with the project now. We need to get the Sponsor Body in place, and it needs to appoint the Delivery Authority. I congratulate the Leader of the House on, I hope, getting us to a consensus tonight.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I am going to bring in the Opposition spokesman for his first appearance at the Dispatch Box since his election in 2001. I see that he has quite an audience. I call Mark Tami.

Carillion

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Meg Hillier

Thursday 24th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I obviously welcome the hon. Gentleman to his position, but for future reference, he is supposed to ask a shortish question. Brief questions are ideal, even from Front-Bench speakers.

[Meg Hillier]

I would say to my hon. Friend that a piece of the jigsaw is missing. The papers released to the Public Accounts Committee only went so far, and the evidence we were given does not indicate when the Government made a decision about what to do with the recommendation in the risk assessment papers. I cannot provide any more evidence for why the Government chose not to implement the “black” rating at that stage, but I assure my hon. Friend that we are widening our inquiry and have access to the other papers. Sadly, and rather depressingly, the Committee has a large back catalogue, and we have highlighted a number of issues to do with contract management in government. We will not leave a stone unturned in our inquiry, and as I said to the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), we hope to publish a report by the summer recess.

Department for Communities and Local Government

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Meg Hillier

Tuesday 26th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I regret that when I spoke earlier I neglected to draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and I seek to rectify that now.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

That has now been noted and rectified.

Energy Bill [Lords]

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Meg Hillier

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I think that the hon. Lady has made her point.

[Meg Hillier]

First does not always mean best. We want the Bill to succeed in its aims, but if the hon. Lady looks at the detail of the Bill and reads the report of proceedings in the other place, she will observe the glaring gaps that I will shortly highlight. As I have said, the task is obvious and the challenge is great.

Identity Documents Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Meg Hillier

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 4—Transfer of information from National Identity Register to Identity and Passport Service

‘The Secretary of State must ensure that any information recorded in the National Identity Register which—

(a) relates to a person (“P”) who has indicated that P wishes to retain P’s identity card until its expiry date, and

(b) is relevant to an application by P for a passport,

is transferred to the Identity and Passport Service.’.

Amendment 5, page 1, line 16, in clause 2, leave out from ‘day’ to end of line 10 on page 3 and insert

‘will remain valid until their expiry date.’.

Amendment 6, page 2, line 13, leave out clause 3.

Amendment 8, page 2, line 16, in clause 3, at end insert—

‘(2) The Secretary of State must, before the end of the period of four months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, present to Parliament a report identifying the information destroyed in accordance with subsection (1).’.

[Meg Hillier]

I shall not rehearse all the arguments that were made in Committee, but the Opposition are concerned about the mean-spirited nature of the Bill. Some 14,000 people took up ID cards, most of which were paid for, and those individuals thought that the cards would be valid for 10 years. It was a simple transaction not just with a commercial body, but with Her Majesty’s Government and, indeed, the Identity and Passport Service, one of the most trusted public bodies in this country, as research shows. Yet if the Bill goes the way the Government wish and, similarly, through the Lords, one month after Royal Assent those individuals will lose the ability to use the card that they had thought would be valid for 10 years. We have tabled some new proposals and given the Government a choice about how to deal with the matter. There is still an opportunity for the Minister for Immigration to recognise that, in his haste to get rid of identity cards, which for him is a big ideological issue, he does not need also to be unfair to those who in good faith paid their £30.

The new clause and amendments detail two proposals. There is no money resolution attached to the Bill, so we cannot press for a refund. However, we propose that the fee that people paid be added as a credit to the passport database. The data-matching would be relatively straightforward, given that everybody who holds an identity card, including myself, has, or has recently had, a passport. Of course, there are data protection rules, and we would have to gain permission from those individuals, but I would happily give permission for my data to be transferred.

In the process, we would lose the fingerprint, because it cannot be stored—[Interruption.] I am glad to see that the Minister is listening. It cannot be stored on the passport database—[Interruption.] I am being ironic: the Minister will, I hope, be listening in a moment. It cannot be stored, because the Government, in their desire to get rid of it so quickly—[Interruption.] In their reckless desire to get rid of it quickly, I repeat for the Minister, the Government do not plan to introduce passports with fingerprints. However, that credit would give some comfort to those who paid £30, and it would represent basic fairness.

The Government make great play of fairness—they often point to their coalition agreement, which makes much of it—and, as we seem to be quoting manifestos today, each individual party spoke about fairness in its manifesto, so we ask that the proposal be considered. It would be a relatively straightforward transaction, and with another amendment we will probe the Minister on a further issue. If the Government are planning to destroy the data, they will have to handle the information and do something with it, so they might as well pass it over to the passport database.