HMRC Impact Analysis: Customs
Madeleine Moon Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Jesse Norman
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s kind words about my book, but I cannot comment on remarks that may or may not have been made or rebutted on a media programme of which I know nothing.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Ford finally came up with its frustration in relation to a lack of customs union and single market and decided to close the engine factory in Bridgend, with 1,700 jobs lost directly at the plant and 12,000 across the south Wales economy. When I look at today’s report, I look with horror at what will happen to the small and medium-sized enterprises across my constituency. What assessment has the Treasury made of the impact of today’s report on SMEs in individual constituencies? Ordinary lives will be devastated, even more so in my constituency than they already have been.
Jesse Norman
The hon. Lady is absolutely right that any job losses are deeply regrettable, and I am sure she will be delighted that, in aggregate, this country has proven to be astonishingly adept at creating good new jobs over the past 10 years. With this impact assessment, I think I am right in saying that the detail is not available that allows for a constituency-by-constituency or even regional assessment, which is why it has been done in aggregate, based on the number of declarations that are expected and the cost per declaration. Of course, it may be possible for other entities to take the number of businesses that were expected to fill out declarations and produce impact assessments for the specific areas that they are concerned about.
Adult Learning and Vocational Skills: Metropolitan Borough of Dudley
Madeleine Moon Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon, and to have heard two very upbeat speeches, which come out of what has obviously been a very traumatic situation in Stourbridge.
I welcome the Minister to her place—I say “her place”, but we are still in some confusion about what the final settlement in the Department will be. We know that the Secretary of State has taken overall responsibility, but that does not really address adequately the need for a full-time day-to-day representative. The Minister has gallantly stepped into the breach as the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mrs Badenoch) is on maternity leave, but we remain concerned about how further education will be covered permanently in the Department in future, especially day to day.
I give great credit to the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) for summating and taking us through the problems that there have been, but also for looking to the future. She is absolutely right to talk about the critical issue of adult learners. When policy makers and Ministers of whatever hue looked at further education colleges in the past, they sometimes saw them in silos: 14 to 18, 18 to 24, and post-25. Governments often forget, as I am afraid this Government have done on several occasions, that introducing policies that affect one sector—I am thinking particularly of the advanced learner loans’ failure to be taken up in any significant or meaningful quantity; about half of them go back to the Treasury unused every year—can affect the overall competence and ability of colleges to deliver. One of the strengths of the FE sector is the ability to put on courses that cut across the generations, and across other things too. That is a real issue.
The hon. Lady rightly said that adult learners are down 40% since 2010 and that skills gaps and digital gaps remain, despite her work as a Minister and that of others. Those things will be critical in the 2020s. She is also right to mention underspending local enterprise partnerships; when I was shadow Minister for regional growth, it was extraordinary to see the uneven way in which LEPs engaged with their local communities. It sounds as though the hon. Lady’s area has a plethora of overlapping organisations; one can only hope that the funding she would like to see will come out of that.
I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), who was equally upbeat; given the statistics he cited, he was right to be. I am pleased to hear his apprenticeship figures, although sadly they are not reflected in many places across the country. He is absolutely right to praise Dudley College of Technology and to say how critical it is to engage with SMEs. The Government need to address the issues in the west midlands and the Black Country; as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, the region has an enviable tradition of producing highly skilled people, but nevertheless people are being left behind without traineeships and so on. Those things are an important part of what we need to do.
The hon. Member for Stourbridge took us through a little of Stourbridge College’s history, and I have been able to read about it in the excellent columns of the Express & Star, which the hon. Member for Dudley North mentioned, and in FE Week. I do not want to go through that blow by blow, but it is encouraging that the other local colleges have come to the fore, wanting to take students on board. Having looked at the history of what happened, I think the hon. Member for Stourbridge was right to be critical of the position in relation to the BMet takeover. It is important to pay tribute to all the people who lifted their heads above the parapet and kept the issue alive, including councillors of different persuasions, with whom I know the hon. Lady has engaged. There was a major protest against the closure of the college, at the end of June, which attracted hundreds of people to the streets, and that shows what pride there is in the historical position and what concern there is about what will happen in the future.
The hon. Lady is right, and in different circumstances I too have campaigned when councils and others have thought that a closed site should just be developed for housing. It is clear from what she says that that is not a good use for the site, and it is my understanding that interest has been shown by potential training providers. That should not be dismissed because, of course, seven out of 10 of the apprenticeships that are still delivered in this country come from training providers. They are a critical part of the local economy. All those things are of particular importance.
The hon. Lady has asked the National Audit Office to look closely at the situation at BMet. That has resonance not only in relation to BMet, but in relation to how we look at the stability of further education and whether we have got things right in terms of the early warning. It would be useful if the Minister shed further light on one of the things that have become a problem in this area—which, indeed, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), whom I shadowed as Skills Minister for several years, has always pointed out: the importance for FE students of adequate travel and financial capability.
I have two or three questions for the Minister, although it is with some diffidence that I put them to her, as she is new in her post, and was not in it when the legislation was introduced. I want to ask her about the implications of what has happened at Stourbridge in the context of the Technical and Further Education Act 2017, which I took through Parliament with the then Skills Minister, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), in 2016-17. It established the principle of having an education adviser in circumstances where colleges were closed or sold off. We know what the trigger was in the present case—the report of the Further Education Commissioner. I should like to know whether the case is technically an insolvency or a sell-off. Those are critical issues with respect to the Act.
Does the Minister know how many of the students were SEND students? I know that special educational needs and disabilities are among her day-to-day occupations in her role. Do we know how many of those affected were doing apprenticeships? Are there any other vulnerable groups, in any number? The hon. Member for Stourbridge gave an admirable list of the various different types of people who have been affected by the transfer process and who have not yet been accommodated as they should have been. In Committee in December 2016, we moved amendments to the Bill to the effect that in the event of potential closures there should be full consultation with bodies representing FE staff and students. The Minister at the time said that such occasions, when colleges became insolvent or were disposed of, would be relatively rare, but sadly that has not been the case.
I will quote what the University and College Union has said in its briefing note for this debate about what has happened in Dudley. It made some of the points that the hon. Lady has made about BMet, but it also said that it had been
“extremely concerned at the lack of meaningful consultation with staff, students and the local community about the decision to close Stourbridge College.”
It goes on to say it was
“essentially presented as a fait accompli… with no real chance to look at alternative options”.
Significantly, UCU has also carried out a survey about the issues around travel to Dudley or Halesowen. Some students—quite a number—said that that travel could make their studies more problematic; some said it would require them to take two buses; and several staff members raised concerns about the suitability of facilities at Dudley and Halesowen to deliver the required scale of provision following the transfer of Stourbridge students. I have no detailed knowledge of what is happening on the ground in these areas, but those issues should be looked at.
More broadly, UCU is—I think this is a fair point—critical of the experience of Stourbridge, seeing it as
“symptomatic of a more widespread failure by the FE Commissioner to engage effectively with staff and students”
who have been affected by his recommendations.
In my view, UCU is absolutely right to say that, because it shows up some of the inadequacies in the 2017 Act. Of course, the FE commissioner can only work to the remit that the Government and the Education and Skills Funding Agency give him, but this illustrates how flawed and disconnected that system for colleges can become. It has become far too casual about how it engages with people in the colleges, and apprenticeships have not been engaged with in any meaningful way.
Failures such as Stourbridge are not isolated. In May 2018, The Times Educational Supplement said that there were inadequacies and that one college in eight was in poor financial health. In recent weeks, the columns of FE Week have been littered with accounts of problems at other colleges. At Brooklands College, ESFA ignored a whistleblower nearly two years earlier; it is planned that a flagship national college will dissolve, despite Department for Education bailouts; and indeed, Lord Agnew himself has been brought in as an enforcer.
I am afraid that those things are not signals of a healthy eco-sphere in this area, and the Government fail—they have failed, despite yesterday’s announcements by the Secretary of State about new technology colleges—to understand that axing grants and offering loans has been a disaster. There is no strategy from the Government for the staffing crisis, with retirement depletions. Again, I am talking nationally, but since 2010 24,000 teachers have left FE. In real terms, pay has fallen by 25%.
These issues are really serious and there is not much point in promising more shiny buildings if there is no money on the ground to effect the sort of major transformations in the 2020s that the hon. Members for Dudley North and for Stourbridge talked about regarding training. Continuing professional development, decent salaries and decent conditions are things that we in our party have considered—across the silos—in our new lifelong learning commission, in the promises that we made in our 2017 manifesto about properly funding and nurturing the FE sector, and in our commitment to a green new deal.
Stourbridge College was not failing, but it was still put into this situation. It had those buildings, which the hon. Lady is so keen to preserve in another capacity, but that did not save it from being shut down. And before the Government get too cock-a-hoop about the promises of new shiny buildings, I urge them to look at some of the issues regarding the staff, the teachers and the students of the 2020s.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)
In welcoming the Minister to her new post, I remind her to try to leave one or two minutes for the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) to wind up.
Summer Adjournment
Madeleine Moon Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
People who have watched this House during this Session might think that all we do is talk about Brexit, but we have also been addressing the absolute disaster that universal credit is proving to be and the devastating effect it has had on too many families. We have also been very engaged with the issue of many seriously ill people receiving the wrong personal independence payment assessments. Many of these people are terminally ill and some have got zero points at assessment. I am still battling against failed assessments and it is totally unacceptable. My Access to Welfare (Terminal Illness Definition) Bill has not been able to move forward because we have not had ongoing sitting Fridays. That is really frustrating.
Another issue we face is that of the bereavement benefits lost by children and their parent when the person they lost was not married to the child’s mother or father. It is absolutely shocking. We were promised that that would be resolved, but we are still waiting. There is also the matter of child trust funds, some 2,700 of which are dormant in my Bridgend constituency, with claimants who did not even know they had a trust fund waiting for money that could change their life. What are we going to do to make that possible?
The devastation of Brexit has led to the closure of the Ford plant in my constituency, with the loss of 1,700 jobs there and 12,000 job losses at Ford across Europe. I am not involved in the meetings between Westminster Ministers and Welsh Assembly Ministers, yet it is to me that people come to know what is happening. Can we have access to the relevant people for my constituents and those of my colleagues in the south Wales region whose families are terribly worried about their future? Those who work in small and medium-sized enterprises are also devastated. We need to know what is going on, with regular feedback.
Earlier today, the Leader of the House talked about the important role the Foreign Office plays in protecting British citizens when they are abroad. My constituent John Tossell left his hotel on 17 June wearing a T-shirt, shorts and open-toed sandals, with €10 in his pocket. He disappeared. He was last seen going for a swim near the Windmill hotel in Argassi on the island of Zante. Can anyone who is going to Argassi on holiday please look out for this man? Will they look at their holiday photographs and let his family know if they have seen him? Also, will the Foreign and Commonwealth Office agree to keep the family aware of what is happening in the investigation throughout the summer?
Bridgend is a great place with great people, great hospitality and the best further education college in the United Kingdom. If anyone is wandering into Wales, I suggest they visit Porthcawl, where we have sea, sun, surfing, sandcastles, strolling on the prom and probably the best Italian ice cream in the whole of Wales. Our lifeboat, which is one of the busiest in the UK, keeps people safe in the water; hon. Members would be amazed at how many people on this island nation have no understanding of the risks of going into the sea. Our National Coastwatch Institution is absolutely superb. It is possible to walk from Newton bay down the River Ogmore, along a local nature reserve and right around the coast to the site of special scientific interest at Kenfig. It is an amazing opportunity to visit Wales and see the wonderful life that we are determined to protect and to ensure remains a part of the European Union. I will certainly be doing my best, when the House comes back, to ensure that that continues.
We all have to thank all the staff of the House—especially the catering staff who keep us going, the Doorkeepers who keep us informed and the security staff who keep us safe, but also the guides who show our visitors around the place. I also want to thank my staff, both in my Bridgend office and my Westminster office, because none of us would get through the volume of work without them.
EU Customs Union and Draft Withdrawal Agreement: Cost
Madeleine Moon Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I will take the three remaining questioners if it is a short sentence from each—no more than that. I call Mrs Madeleine Moon.
European Affairs
Madeleine Moon Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
It was wonderful to hear the speech by the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). I cannot say how much I agree with her about how much this House knows that what we are working towards will be an absolute unmitigated disaster for our constituents. Every one of us in the House, apart from the tiny minority who are driving this disastrous move forward, is absolutely clear that we are going to leave our country and our constituents poorer. It will be a disaster.
I have to say to the hon. Member for Clacton (Giles Watling) that it is nonsense to say that when the facts change, one does not change one’s opinion. Were that true, there would be no divorce. It would mean saying to every woman in the House, “You would never be able to take back that dress that you thought was wonderful when you first saw it but that looked an absolute unmitigated disaster when you got it home.” The facts are changing and we are finally getting to the truth of the disaster of where we are going, so it is right that we go back to the people and say, “Do you want to change your mind? Is this the right direction?”
The impact on London will be tremendous, as we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), but I cannot begin to talk about how disastrous it will be for Wales. May I start with the issue of gross value added? Gross value added is one of those terms that does not really resonate with constituents, but let us look at what it means in Wales. In 2016, it was £59.6 billion. The Government’s projections mean that Wales would lose about £5.7 billion in the event of no deal, and around £3.3 billion if we secure a trade agreement. That is over a period of about 15 years, but it will have a huge impact on the Welsh economy. It is not the most vibrant economy, but it will have a devastating impact.
I could throw lots of figures about, but one that impacts on families across my constituency is inflation. Inflation remains at 3%. Wages are not going up, but prices are, and my families are becoming worse off. The cost of food and other goods is soaring as a result of the fall in the value of the pound, which remains about 15% below pre-referendum levels. That is a visible and very real impact on the daily lives of my constituents. Having seen that impact, my constituents deserve the right to another opportunity to decide whether this is a bet that they want to take given that, even under the Government’s own policies and analysis, it will bring further poverty, further disaster and limited opportunities for their children.
I have talked to many of my constituents about how they voted. Some of them say, yes, they got a great result. They got the result that they wanted out of the referendum; they got rid of David Cameron—job done. That is what they have actually said to me. It was not about Europe; it was about austerity. They hated what was happening to their families. They hated the fact that so many of them were heading off to food banks. Some of them say, yes, it was about immigration, but really it was about the wages that they were getting and the 1% pay rise that, year on year, meant that they and their families were falling behind.
For many of them, it was about taking back control. They would say to me, “These unelected bureaucrats”, and I would say, “Well, okay, but tell me the name of the director of education in Bridgend County Borough Council.” They would say, “What? I don’t know, Mrs Moon.” Well, that is an unelected bureaucrat. It is not who the bureaucrats are that we need to know; it is who the politicians are. It is the politicians who hold those bureaucrats to account and it is the politicians who make the decisions. It is about knowing who our politicians are and getting behind them that is the important part of democracy.
A grim time lies ahead. Most businesses constantly approach MPs to say that if we leave the customs union there will be severe consequences, which makes me really, really nervous. I have two major employers at two ends of my constituency: the Ford engine plant and Tata Steel. The impact on both the car industry and the steel industry will be devastating when we leave the European Union. I cannot begin to talk about the impact that job losses in those two industries will have on my constituents. I cannot begin to talk about the loss of future opportunities for the children in my constituency. I have fantastic schools and I am so proud of the bright, alert, really eager youngsters for whom we should, as a country, be promoting a future of opportunity, instead of which I hear fantasies about wonderful trade deals with countries that will never, ever bring the benefits—I ask Members to read the submission from Tata Steel—that access to the European markets currently brings to Tata Steel.
Anna Soubry
The hon. Lady is making a very important speech. I suggest that my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Giles Watling) visits her constituency, and talks to Ford and Tata Steel in order to understand the importance of frictionless supply chains, membership of the customs union and membership of the single market in the very real industrial world that the hon. Lady and her constituents inhabit.
Mrs Moon
I thank the right hon. Lady for saying that, because I have those conversations all the time.
When I trotted over to DExEU to read the wonderful insight reports that we were meant to see, I was absolutely appalled by the poor quality of analysis that would be devastating for the people I represent. I will not vote for anything in this House that I think will damage the people I represent. I feel awful guilt—the right hon. Member for Broxtowe also mentioned this—about having voted for that referendum without insisting that we had all these debates before we took it to the people. I recently attended one of my local Women’s Institutes, where a lady said to me, “We shouldn’t have been asked to vote, should we? I didn’t really know what I was voting for. I went with what everybody else was saying, but I didn’t really understand the consequences, and now I’m worried about my grandchildren.” We should all be worried about those grandchildren.
So here we are. It is really quite obvious that we are not going to have frictionless trade. If we leave the single market and the customs union, we are going to make sure that our families are worse off. Europe is on our doorstep. We can get from here into the centre of Europe in a matter of hours. The EU has 37 trade deals with more than 65 countries around the world, covering 15% to 17% of the UK’s trade in goods. The EU has trade deals in place with more countries than the US, which has 20; China, which has 23; and Australia, which has 19. And yet, what are we going to do? We are going to throw that away.
Finally, I am a Member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Every time I attend a meeting, colleagues there tell me of their fear of the consequence of Britain’s departure for the stability of Europe. Every time I see them they ask me, “Is there any chance?” I just hope to God that we wake up in time and say, “Yes, there’s a chance.”
Jonathan Edwards
We look forward, as I am sure my comrades in the SNP do, to holding the Government to account on the result of last week’s very important debate.
With regard to a meaningful vote, Members should not be in a position in which we can vote for either a bad deal or no deal. That position was outlined in the other place yesterday when my colleague, Lord Wigley, raised this issue. That strengthens the argument put forward by a number of Members, in particular the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who made the case for a second referendum on the terms of the deal.
I disagree slightly with the argument of the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) that there has been no change in public opinion, and I speak from my experience. When I was at the hairdressers in Ammanford on Friday, I spoke to many people who voted out. They were pleading with me to sort out the mess that we now face and said that they would now vote differently. On Saturday morning, when I was buying tiles with my wife in Cross Hands for the bathroom in our home, everybody there said exactly the same thing. I think there has been a big change in public opinion. If people were given the opportunity to vote on the facts before them, there would be a change of opinion.
The next issue I want to discuss is the prospect of no deal. We often hear from pro-Brexit MPs that that should be a bargaining position to hold against the European Union. As the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) excellently set out, a no-deal scenario for Wales would be absolutely catastrophic, and I see no reason to reiterate her points.
I will conclude on perhaps one of the biggest issues, which relates to Brexit’s constitutional implications: the power grab that is now facing and impacting on the Welsh Government, the Scottish Government, the National Assembly for Wales and the Scottish Parliament.
Jonathan Edwards
I fully agree. We have had two referendums in Wales to enshrine our constitutional settlement, but we have a British Government who are driving a sledgehammer through that settlement. I enjoyed the phrase “puppet Parliament” that was used by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood). The reality is that if clause 11 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill goes through unamended, and unless the British Government accept the recommendations of the Welsh Government and the Scottish Government, our respective Parliaments would be puppet Parliaments within the British state.
That brings me to the new UK internal market that will have to be created following Brexit. Of course, we currently have the EU internal market, which deals with issues of trade within the British state. As somebody who supports Welsh independence, I recognise that there will have to be a UK internal market, if we end up leaving the EU single market, but the challenge at hand is who constructs that UK internal market. Will that be done on the basis of the political reality that we face in the British state—a multipolar state with four national Governments—or will it done through direct rule from Westminster? That is about not only the construction of the internal market, but how it is regulated.
Let me finish on this point: Westminster plays about with the constitutional settlements of Scotland and Wales at its peril. Unless respect is shown to the Welsh Government and to the people of Wales and the people of Scotland, instead of the disrespect agenda that we have at the moment, we will be discussing not Brexit in the years to come, but “Wexit” and “Scexit”.
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs
Madeleine Moon Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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Clive Lewis
I agree with my hon. Friend. During my time on the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking and as a Back-Bench MP before that, I heard many similar stories of companies that had been forcibly distressed, or had been described as being distressed by the bank and then carved up like a Sunday roast.
Clive Lewis
I will continue.
As many Members will know, the stories keep coming, backed up by evidence. It is now clear that we are seeing not just a series of individual scandals, but a full, systemic failure that needs to be addressed by the House.
Let me now focus on how we can move forward. The APPG on fair business banking has identified a series of achievable and transformative objectives that will support our business community. My focus today, however, will be on dispute resolution, restitution, and the need for an independent financial services tribunal with the teeth that will enable it to tackle complex and, for the individuals involved, life-changing scenarios.
I want to touch briefly on the past, because it is important to separate the crises into two distinct phases. The first crisis, in 2007-08, was a crisis of liquidity. The second, which we are discussing today, is a conduct crisis that not only spans the financial services industry, but extends to the role of the professional advisers who are such an integral part of the system. They are Law of Property Act receivers, surveyors, accountants, insolvency practitioners and solicitors. They are all fundamental parts of this matrix, and I will return to them shortly.
The recent section 166 FCA report on RBS GRG concentrates on the years between 2008 and 2013, when banks were under extreme pressure to shore up their balance sheets. However, that behaviour did not spring up spontaneously. Senior banking insiders who worked in RBS between the mid-1990s and the crisis are clear that there was such a modus operandi in GRG for years before the liquidity crisis. Indeed, GRG and its predecessor, Specialist Lending Services, had been known as the “mortuary for businesses” since the late 1990s. During those heady days of liquidity, businesses might have had an opportunity to re-bank with competitors, but once the liquidity crisis hit, that was no longer an option Ever since then our business community has had to deal with the consequences, which have been ramped up to an industrial scale.
Although the title of the debate refers to RBS GRG, it is just a symptom of the underlying issues. In the course of the APPG’s work, it is hard to identify an institution that has not found itself at the centre of a conduct scandal, and I am sure that other Members will give many examples today. The APPG has come across similar instances among the major banking institutions. The HBOS Reading fraud, as a result of which bankers and their associates were jailed for a total of 47 years earlier this year, may seem easy to push aside as “a few bad apples”, but, in reality, it is a consequence of the same systemic failure.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
If we do not agree today that there is going to be justice for all those people who have been damaged by the banking crisis—by the illegal actions that have taken place across the banking sector and among the organisations that worked alongside the banks, including the valuers and surveyors—all the distrust of this House will be valid. It is in our power to give those people justice, and that justice must start today.
My constituent Mr Smith ran a small engineering company and had banked with NatWest for 12 years. He took out a £180,000 mortgage on a new building. He reduced the mortgage because his company was doing well; in fact, it was worth £220,000 fairly quickly. He decided to invest in new equipment to help him to expand. Unfortunately, when the bank agreed to fund the investment in new equipment, it put a second charge of £80,000 on his home, assuring him that it was not a problem because the bank would always negotiate with him if his company had any difficulty.
There were rumours that the bank needed money, so Mr Smith asked the bank manager whether things were okay, but he was assured that it was as safe as houses. As we know, though, the bank collapsed, and within weeks the flow of work into Mr Smith’s company also collapsed. A contract worth £30,000 was closed down literally overnight.
Mr Smith then had a problem with the Royal Mint, which was supposed to make a payment into his bank account on the Wednesday but rang at the last moment to say it would be made on the Thursday. Unfortunately, Mr Smith had arranged to pay suppliers on that same Wednesday. Instead of doing what it had always done previously, which was to act reasonably and say, “Don’t worry about it,” the bank charged him £600, adding to his financial problems.
The situation quickly became a huge problem for Mr Smith. He started to get phone calls from a few departments at the bank. [Interruption.] I am sorry about my phone ringing, Madam Deputy Speaker! In fairness, it did seem like it was RBS calling. The bank was calling Mr Smith to ask him to come in to discuss his loans. That was when he entered the GRG bracket. In the end, he was forced to close his business.
Despite Mr Smith’s attending court on numerous occasions and being a litigant in person, RBS often did not send people, or appeared badly prepared. It was only when I finally managed to get through to the bank and criticised its actions that it agreed to a meeting with Mr Smith. The bank actually said to Mr Smith’s wife, “It is not a matter of if we will take your home, but when.”
Mr Smith and his family have gone through hell. Like many of the companies that have been discussed in the debate, they would have been a cornerstone of Britain’s economic recovery. Instead, trust, confidence and belief in the British banking system has been systemically destroyed.
Business of the House
Madeleine Moon Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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Paul Maynard
I recognise the fact that my hon. Friend has a long-running concern over these issues, and I urge him to apply for either an Adjournment debate or a Westminster Hall debate so that he can give them a proper airing and get the ministerial response to which I believe he is genuinely entitled.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
The NatWest bank is 73% publicly owned, yet it is closing its branch in Porthcawl where millions roll in from the businesses across the town and the large number of retirees who live there. Is it not time for the largely publicly owned banks that were bailed out by the public to sign a social responsibility clause before being allowed to continue, so that they cannot close without the permission of the community they serve?
Paul Maynard
I recognise the fact that the hon. Lady’s concerns over banking in the community are widely shared on both sides of the House. At a time when banking practices, and the ways in which consumers engage with their banks, are changing, this remains a concern. She will know that she will have a chance to take part in a debate on the role of banking in the community at 3 pm today in Westminster Hall, and I am sure that she will make her voice heard there.
Budget Resolutions
Madeleine Moon Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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John McDonnell
It is absolutely shocking when, as a society, we are looking to integrate everybody into the mainstream as best we can. It means that those children will be deprived for the rest of their lives. More than 4,000 children with an approved education, health and social care plan are still not receiving the provision they are entitled to, which confirms what my hon. Friend reports.
The Local Government Association is now warning the Government that the cuts to local government will mean schools being forced to turn away students with special needs. Yesterday’s Budget offered £177 million for additional maths and IT teachers, supposedly to make us fit for the future, at a time when just 10% of our schools offer IT GCSEs—£177 million to compensate for £1.7 billion, or £1 pound given back for every £10 taken away. Capital spending on schools is also scheduled to be cut by £600 million over this Parliament, at a time when class sizes are rising.
On the NHS, experts and health professionals are agreed that it is approaching breaking point. The NHS needs proper funding. The chief executive of NHS England has said our national health service needs £4 billion this year to prevent it from falling over. He has warned of 5 million people being left on the waiting lists if there is not additional funding.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Is my right hon. Friend aware that clinical commissioning groups in the NHS are looking to introduce new taxes on patients? Kernow CCG proposes to make kidney dialysis patients pay for transport to their dialysis. This is a death tax of £120 a month. Dialysis or death—that is their option.
John McDonnell
Under the figures that have been announced this week in the Budget, there will be more of this. There will be more rationing. There will be more people suffering. There will be more people’s lives put at risk.
Under this Government, 4 million people are now waiting for care—the highest level in a decade. More than 100,000 patients were left waiting more than two weeks to see a specialist after being diagnosed with cancer, and more than one in 10 did not start treatment within 62 days. Only three in 10 of the most urgent 999 calls for help are answered within the targeted time. Yet, the Government have brought forward less than half the amount that is needed and that professional, sober assessments say is needed. The claim in yesterday’s Budget that £10 million in capital funding is available is totally misleading. The Government will provide less than half of that. The remainder will come from selling off NHS estates or from the private sector.
Nor has the pay cap that has driven hard-working public sector workers to despair been tackled. The dedication of the staff is extraordinary. There are nurses waiting behind after 12-hour shifts to give care to keep the system from imploding. These are the same NHS nurses who have seen their pay fall so much in real terms that one in four must take a second job to make ends meet. The Royal College of Nursing reports that nurses are even visiting food banks, such is their desperation. It is not possible to run a health service worthy of the name on the unpaid and underpaid dedication of its staff alone. The Chancellor is able to offer nothing for them.
Economy and Jobs
Madeleine Moon Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
If we are talking about protecting jobs in our constituencies, the major employer in my constituency is Ford. I am absolutely determined to protect the jobs at Ford, but the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has made it clear that retaining the benefits of the single market—and tariff-free and customs-free trade—is essential for those jobs. How will we have that if we carry on down the Brexit route laid before us so far?
Robert Neill
It happens that before I came into this House I contested the Dagenham constituency on two occasions. It rather fought back, but that experience gave me some knowledge of the motor industry. The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and perhaps I can link her point to mine.
In relation to both financial services and manufacturing, particularly when there are complicated and cross-national supply chains involved, it is critical that we have sensible transitional arrangements that are, wherever necessary, as lengthy as they need to be. Many financial services contracts, be they derivatives, insurance or legal contracts, of various kinds or with an international dimension, are written over a period of years. Those who enter into them must have the certainty that the legal obligations that they are undertaking can be enforced right the way through the life of those contracts, otherwise they will not invest in or enter into them.
This is not just about avoiding a cliff edge at the time; it is about not having a disincentive to invest in those areas, be it financial services or cross-border manufacturing, that are important to us. Indeed, manufacturing is still a great asset to this country, but our financial services sector is one in which we run a significant surplus with the European Union. Although we will undoubtedly develop opportunities in other markets, it remains a key sector for our activity and we must therefore keep the closest possible access.
I do not think that we can leave the European Union and remain in the single market, simply as a matter of law, but the Chancellor is right to say that we should seek to remain as close as we can. That is what we need to achieve. That has to be the primary task of Brexit, in a pragmatic, business-focused, non-ideological way. I hope that we can try to find a way forward across the House to achieve that, because although the fact of leaving the European Union was on the ballot paper, the nature of our leaving was not and neither was the nature of our future relationship. That is where this House can constructively and legitimately play a role in assisting Government to deliver on the basic requirement to respect the will of the British people. That is what we must do.
There are other things in the Queen’s Speech that I want to touch on briefly. I welcome the fact that work is still being done on courts reform and mental health. In my 25 years as a barrister and more recently, when I had the honour for the last two years to chair the Select Committee on Justice, it has struck me forcefully that mental health is overlooked. That has appalling consequences for individuals and their families and creates real pressures on our social services, our local authorities, our police forces and our criminal justice and prison systems. The Prime Minister has emphasised that, which I welcome.
I am sorry that there is no legislation to introduce a statutory purpose for prisons, or to place the role of the prisons ombudsman on a statutory basis, but there may be time for that in due course. I am glad to learn that the Lord Chancellor, whose appointment I welcome, is committed to proceeding with much of the rest of the prison reform agenda. We must take our opportunities. Let me also say, as an unashamed one nation Conservative, that we must do so with a sense of optimism that means believing in aspiration and helping to pull people up and improve their lot. That is what the Tory party is about—that is what the party that I joined is about—and that is why I want to see this Queen’s Speech deliver.
Good Parliament Report
Madeleine Moon Excerpts(7 years, 6 months ago)
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Several hon. Members rose—
Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)
Order. Because of the length of the introductory speech, I am afraid I am going to have to introduce a time limit of five minutes, which may reduce depending on the length of interventions.
Ms Ahmed-Sheikh
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention—[Interruption.] Other comments have been made from a sedentary position, but I am happy to accept interventions on that point or any other. It is worthy of note, however, that many men in this Parliament and beyond very much support the work being done on equal representation. That is something that should be commended, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his work.
I mentioned the elections and our representation in Parliament. The SNP has gone from having one female Member of Parliament to having 20. At the 2016 Scottish parliamentary elections we increased women’s representation in the SNP group at Holyrood from the 25% of 2011 to 43% by adopting positive mechanisms to ensure that women are properly reflected in Parliament, which is the right thing to do.
It is also worthy of note that it is a matter of political will. In any political party, candidates go through a vetting process, and men and women all go through the same process, and at the end of the day it is up to the political party to decide whether it wants representation to be equal, because people have already passed the test—the bar of being effective and capable. I accept no argument that selection is on merit, because if it were we would see more women in Parliament than we have today. Indeed—I am sure many will agree—we women also set ourselves a very high bar to begin with, before we even enter any race or competition, so quality is guaranteed and is never an issue.
We have a lot of work to do, and the fight continues. We all know that nothing will come to us because people gift it to us. Before us, however, is a set of recommendations and, to replicate some of the positive change discussed and certainly seen in my political party—we have also heard from the Labour party over a number of years—we must commit ourselves to implementing them, and now.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)
Before we move to the Front-Benchers, given the time constraints I suggest that the Scottish National party has five minutes, the Labour party seven minutes and the Minister 10 minutes. With some generosity on everyone’s part, I hope that that leaves us with a minute or two for the formal wind-up from Kirsty Blackman.