Papers Relating to the Home Secretary

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That, given the exceptional security concerns raised regarding the Rt Hon Member for Fareham serving as Secretary of State for the Home Department, this House:

(1) orders that there be laid before this House, within ten sitting days, a return of the following papers:

(a) any risk assessment of the Rt Hon Member for Fareham by the Cabinet Office or the Prime Minister’s Office relating to her appointment

(b) any document held by the Cabinet Office, the Home Office or the Prime Minister’s Office containing or related to

(i) any security breaches by the Rt Hon Member for Fareham

(ii) any leak inquiries regarding the Rt Hon Member for Fareham, including during her time as Home Secretary and Attorney General

(c) the minutes of, submissions relevant to and electronic communications relating to, any meeting within the Cabinet Office or the Prime Minister’s Office at which the appointment of the Rt Hon Member for Fareham, or advice relating to that appointment, was discussed in a form which may contain redactions, but such redactions shall be solely for the purposes of national security; and

(2) recommends that where material is laid before the House in a redacted form, the Government should at the same time provide unredacted copies of such material to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.

It is 15 days since the Prime Minister appointed his new Cabinet, and 14 days since it was reported that he had been advised not to reappoint certain Ministers, including the Home Secretary and, it was rumoured, the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson), to their posts on the grounds of standards and of security. Fourteen days in which it has been reported that the Home Secretary breached Home Office security arrangements not just once but seven times; that she may have also broken insider trading rules; that as Attorney General she was investigated several times by leak inquiries; that she ignored legal advice on Manston, contrary to her statement to Parliament; and that she failed to take the action needed to solve the dangerous overcrowding at Manston, leaving her successor and predecessor to pick up the pieces, and that she may well have run up a huge legal liability for the taxpayer as a result, breaching the ministerial code again in the process.

It has also been reported that the Minister with Portfolio sent abusive texts to the then Government Chief Whip, that the Prime Minister was told about this and knew the former Chief Whip had put in a formal complaint, and that there are other complaints against the Minister without Portfolio including, most seriously, words used towards a civil servant about slitting his throat or jumping out of windows—words that it is reported the Minister with Portfolio has not denied using.

This is in the space of two weeks. Many people have been appalled by these appointments, and serious doubts have been raised by many Conservative Members who believe standards need to be maintained. The Prime Minister promised us that this would be a break from his predecessors, from the favours-for-mates culture of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) and from the chaos of the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss). Instead, the opposite has happened.

People have been appointed to senior jobs in the Cabinet, running the country, not because they can do the job or because they will maintain the high standards and security that the Government need but because of dodgy political deals. Here is what we know: the Home Secretary breached the ministerial code, sent Government documents not only to her private email but to other people outside Government who were not authorised to receive them, including a Back-Bench Member, his spouse, and someone else entirely by accident. She was forced to resign and then, six days later, she was reappointed.

That, in itself, is extremely hard for people outside the Conservative party to understand. For a police officer who breached their code of ethics or who was responsible for security lapses to the point of being forced to resign, or for a civil servant, public appointee or company employee who was found to have broken their employment code or security rules to the point of being required to resign, the idea that they could be reappointed to that same job just six days later is unthinkable—the idea that somehow, because they had apologised in the meantime, six days off is just fine.

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

I have had letters from upset civil servants who have seen colleagues make lesser misdemeanours and lose their jobs, yet seen the Home Secretary, the woman in charge of national security, hold on to hers. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this shows that there is one rule for the Home Secretary and one rule for everybody else?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is exactly right on that. It is worse, as the Government do believe that standards on ethics and security should be upheld throughout the public sector or across the economy, just not, it would seem, in the Cabinet—not in the post responsible for upholding the law and for maintaining our security. It really is one rule for them and another for everyone else.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will recall that what happened at Napier was that the Government ended up with a huge outbreak of more than 200 covid cases, at the height of a covid crisis, because they were failing to follow basic public health rules and requirements. To be honest, it was an incident that the Home Office again does not seem to have learned from, as we have had outbreaks of diphtheria, MRSA and scabies at Manston. Frankly, if the Home Office and the Government want to solve this properly, they need to address the total collapse in decision making, with just 14,000 decisions being made a year, which is half the number being decided just five or six years ago. That huge backlog has increased as a result of Government legislation that has added to the bureaucracy and made those delays much worse.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The backlog is a hugely significant issue. Among my heavy case load, I have a surgeon who cannot move hospitals because he cannot get his visa turned around, families who are separated and spouses who cannot live together. That is the real human impact. We are turning our back on good people who want to work and live in this country because they are caught in the backlog as a result of the Home Secretary’s actions.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Just before the shadow Home Secretary responds, I say to Members on both sides of the House that this is quite a specific motion on the papers relating to the Home Secretary. It is not a general debate on the Home Secretary or other Government Ministers, so please be mindful of that in any interventions from either side of the House, so that we can focus on what this motion is about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Quin]

I do not know the cases to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Every case must be looked at on a case-by-case basis. What we are dealing with here is a circumstance in which a breach of the ministerial code happened. The Home Secretary accepted that. She acknowledged her error; it will not happen again. The Prime Minister had to take a judgment on that basis, and he did.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

Once again, the Government have put out the man who defends anything, however bad it is, to speak for them. This is not just a matter of a security leak; it is a fundamental matter of the judgment of the woman who is responsible for our national security—the Minister cannot just brush it under the carpet as a six-day matter. The Home Secretary’s judgment is at stake, and there is no evidence that that judgment is any better today than it was when she made these leaks.

[Jeremy Quin]

The Home Secretary does not deny that it was an error of judgment; she made that absolutely clear in her letter to the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North, the Chairman of the Select Committee. It was an error of judgment; she recognised that error of judgment, she apologised for it and it will not be repeated.

However, coming back to the motion for return, it is critical to the functioning of government that conversations that occur around appointments are able to take place in confidence. There is therefore a long-standing practice, implemented by Governments of all political persuasions, of protecting that confidentiality. Without the ability to speak freely ahead of an appointment on matters that will be personal, that can be sensitive and that can even relate to personal security, the ability for meaningful advice to be delivered would be massively undermined. Individuals being considered for appointment need to know that they can speak freely and without reservation to the Prime Minister and officials, and if necessary share concerns, without the prospect of confidential information being placed into the public domain.

I wish to reassure hon. Members that appointments in Government are of course subject to advice on matters of propriety. In the formation of this Government, the usual reshuffle procedures were followed, as is appropriate, but the Government firmly and resolutely believe that any information relating to those procedures is not appropriate for publication, either now or in the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister was asked—

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

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 2 November.

[The Prime Minister (Rishi Sunak)]

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The Prime Minister promised integrity, professionalism and accountability in Government. His Home Secretary has leaked information, is overseeing chaos in the Home Office and has broken the law. What will she actually have to do to get the sack?

[The Prime Minister]

The Home Secretary made an error of judgment, but she recognised her mistake and took accountability for her actions. She has now set out, transparently and in detail, a full sequence of events in a letter to the Labour Chair of the Home Affairs Committee and offered to share relevant documents with the Chair. She is now getting on with the job: cracking down on crime and defending our borders, something that the Labour party has no interest in supporting.

Home Secretary: Resignation and Reappointment

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

It depends on the circumstances. If someone says that they have made a mistake, it is important that their mistake is looked at in the context of the ministerial code, which has a range of sanctions. We all serve and do our utmost, and admitting a mistake, having it recognised and being sanctioned is in itself a serious matter, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman would agree.

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

We all know that mistakes happen, but the Minister talks as if it were a junior member of staff who had made an inadvertent clerical error. This is a Home Secretary who released secret information through a personal email address. This suggests a pattern of behaviour, and that she thinks it is okay to snap on her phone at 4 o’clock in the morning and make this atrocious mistake. This is much more serious than the Minister is trying to paint it. I had the privilege of serving in the Home Office, and it would never have happened under previous Governments. Will the Minister not demean himself any further and honestly recognise to the House that this is of a different scale than he is trying to present it?

[Jeremy Quin]

I am not trying to present it in any way other than the known facts, as contained in the Home Secretary’s resignation letter, which set out that she had made a mistake and she apologised for it. The Prime Minister has clearly taken a view and the Home Secretary has returned to Government, and she has a task ahead of her.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

4. What assessment he has made of the potential role of energy efficiency in meeting the UK’s climate targets.

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

6. What assessment he has made of the potential role of energy efficiency in meeting the UK’s climate targets.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

8. What assessment he has made of the potential role of energy efficiency in meeting the UK’s climate targets.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alok Sharma]

The Government are making £6.6 billion available over this Parliament to improve energy efficiency, and nearly half the homes in England are now rated band C or above, compared with 14% in 2010. On the wider point, we need an even bigger focus on energy efficiency in homes and buildings, as it will also help our energy security by driving down demand and bringing down people’s bills.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The Government have had a series of failed programmes on home insulation: the green new deal failed, and the recent green homes grant scheme failed, as the Public Accounts Committee has repeatedly reported. Does the Minister have any confidence that the Government will listen and tackle this major cause of emissions? If it is not tackled, it will put a serious dent in achieving the target of net zero by 2050.

[Alok Sharma]

The Government will, of course, respond to the report on the green homes grant, but I point out that some elements of it—the local authority delivery element and the social housing decarbonisation fund—have provided significant amounts of funding.

Standards in Public Life

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Commons Chamber

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

The Minister has danced on a pinhead here, but as the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) says, we are not just MPs, Ministers or Whips; we also employ staff in this place. Staff, who are often alone in our offices with us, rely on a code and a proper workplace. We do not have that here and this just undermines the support that we should be providing to the many people who work here. We have to get away from the idea of MP exceptionalism and stop dancing on a pinhead. The Minister should heed the words of the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) and say, “Enough is enough.”

[Michael Ellis]

I agree with the hon. Lady in as much as she says that we need to have care for our employees here. That is something with which we would all agree. In fact, it is this Government who set up the independent complaints and grievance system for staffers from this place to do that. So I ask her to characterise it as something on which we are all on the same side. I urge anyone who has any complaints at any time to make those complaints known. That is how justice is done.

Standards in Public Life

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

That too is an important point. The opposition to the Prime Minister comes from many different walks of political life—from his own Back Benchers, from some of his predecessors, and, obviously, from Members on these Benches. This is not really a political issue; it is more about the question of what our democracy stands for. If we do not draw a line in relation to these standards and ensure that we hold to them, the public will have a mistrust of politicians, and that is damaging for everyone, not just Conservative Members.

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

My right hon. Friend has talked about the ministerial code, but let us also consider just three of the Nolan principles: honesty, integrity and openness. We know that there are people in much lower offices in public service who adhere to those principles without question and without problems. Does my right hon. Friend find it regrettable that the Prime Minister does not?

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Not only does the Prime Minister not adhere to those principles; he deleted them from his own foreword to the ministerial code, which is pretty unbelievable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We need look no further than the Prime Minister’s response when it was revealed that the Home Secretary has been bullying her staff. He threw a protective ring around her, pardoning bullying in the workplace and forcing the resignation of his widely respected independent adviser.

Another protective ring was assembled for the former Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, who unlawfully tried to save a Tory donor from a £40 million tax bill on a huge property deal. The former Health Secretary’s sister was handed lucrative NHS contracts while a protective ring was denied to care homes up and down this country, leaving residents and staff locked down and terrified as covid swept through the country. It is one rule for them and another rule for the rest of us.

In fact, the only specified sanction in the new ministerial code is for deliberately misleading Parliament. It is right that the sanction for misleading Parliament remains resignation, which is a long-established principle, yet the Prime Minister is still in his place. He remains in his position, clinging on to office and degrading that principle a little more each day. This Prime Minister should be long gone but, despite the majority of his Back Benchers telling him to get on his bike, he cannot take the hint.

The Committee on Standards in Public Life made numerous recommendations, including a proposal to end the revolving door that allowed the Greensill scandal to occur, but they have all been ignored by the Prime Minister. The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments was already a toothless watchdog, but under this Government it has been muzzled and neutered. Forget the revolving door, we have a system in which the door is held wide open for former Ministers who want to line their pockets as soon as they leave office.

ACOBA used to have the power to issue lobbying bans of up to five years for rule breaking, but as the Committee on Standards in Public Life said,

“The lack of any meaningful sanctions for a breach of the rules is no longer sustainable.”

ACOBA should be given meaningful powers, making its decisions directly binding rather than mere recommendations. We must put a stop to the current provision in the governance code for Ministers that enables them to go ahead and appoint candidates who have been deemed inappropriate by an assessment panel.

Urgent reform is required to the process of making appointments in public life, with a stronger guarantee of independence. A number of direct ministerial appointments are entirely unregulated, which must change. Labour supports the proposal of the Committee on Standards in Public Life to create an obligation in primary legislation for the Prime Minister to publish the ministerial code and to grant it a more appropriate constitutional status. I hope the Minister will take note. There is a precedent, as the codes of conduct for the civil service, for special advisers and for the diplomatic service are all on a statutory footing to ensure serious offences are properly investigated. I am sure he would agree it is only right that holders of public office are held to the same standard.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

In the early days of Nolan, I was an independent assessor of public appointments, which was a role I took very seriously. Has my right hon. Friend noticed the trend in many public appointments to pack the panel with people with a particular political direction? In one case, a sacked special adviser with limited experience was on a panel for an important role.

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She does tremendous work on the Public Accounts Committee, deep diving into some of these issues.

The Committee on Standards in Public Life concluded that the current system of transparency on lobbying is not fit for purpose. There is cross-party agreement that change is needed to update our system and strengthen standards in public life. Those standards are being chipped away day by day. It is time to rebuild, repair and restore public trust in our politics.

The Committee on Standards in Public Life has a pre-written, some might say “oven ready,” package of solutions, so let us get it done. After a decade of inaction by this Government, Britain is lagging behind the curve compared with our allies when it comes to ethical standards in government. President Biden has committed to setting up a commission on federal ethics, a single Government agency with the power to oversee and enforce federal anti-corruption laws. The Australian Labour party, which is now in government, has plans for a Commonwealth integrity commission that will have powers to investigate public corruption. In Canada, the ethics commissioner enforces breaches of the law covering public office holders.

Far from keeping up with our global partners, this Government have allowed standards in Britain to wither on the vine. The Government greeted the report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life with complete silence back in November. When the Prime Minister finally got around to updating the ministerial code 10 days ago, he cherry-picked the bits he liked from the report, completely undermining its aim.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Ellis]

As it should, constitutionally. The reality is, as I think the right hon. Lady will confirm, that this does strengthen the position—certainly it does not weaken it. The Committee on Standards in Public Life first made recommendations on the ministerial code and the role of the independent adviser on 15 April 2021, prior to the appointment of Lord Geidt later that same month. At that time, or roughly at the same time, Lord Evans called for greater independence for the independent adviser in the initiation of investigations and publication of findings; and for there to be a “proportionate range of sanctions” available for breaches of the code.

That is not unreasonable. It is perfectly reasonable to have a proportionate availability—a range of options—for someone who has been found to be in breach of the code, just as this House has when Members of Parliament are found to be in breach of the standards expected of this House and just as a military court martial or court of law would have. Currently, the ministerial code does not allow for that range of options, so punishments can be disproportionate.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman always comes to the Dispatch Box and eruditely dances on a pinhead to justify his paymaster. Fundamentally, the difference is that when my party was in government, Ministers were sacked for lesser things than have been done recently, because the Prime Ministers of the day had regard to the standards in public life and had no truck with anyone who crossed the line. That is surely the difference in respect of what we all want to see—and, actually, given what we can see on the Government Benches, what a lot of the Minister’s party would like to see.

[Michael Ellis]

I understand the hon. Lady’s wish to paint her party’s former leaders as paragons of virtue, but the important thing—the test—is whether a Minister retains the confidence of the Prime Minister of the day, whether that be a Labour or Conservative Prime Minister.

The Government acted on the recommendations last year. In a letter to Lord Evans on 28 April 2021, the Prime Minister set out the commitment to improving the independence of the investigations process; to providing guarantees of timely publication; and to directly implementing the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life on graduated sanctions, the independent adviser’s non-renewable term and his secretariat support. All those things strengthen the independent adviser rather than weaken him.

The committee then made further recommendations on the ministerial code and the independent adviser in its report of November last year. The Government considered those recommendations and consulted the noble Lord Geidt, before publishing their policy statement on the ministerial code and the adviser on 27 May.

Debate on the Address

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2022 Commons Chamber

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

We finally have the Queen’s Speech, 30 Bills and what the Prime Minister calls “fiscal firepower,” but I cannot see that fiscal firepower in what is being done to support our constituents. I fear that many of those 30 Bills are, as many recent Government policies have been, mere headlines—or, worse, dog-whistle headlines that appeal to a certain section of our electorate but do nothing to solve the real problems that our constituents face.

I declare at the outset that I am a leaseholder of a property that is having cladding removed, and I concur completely with the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) about the challenges for that group of people and for leaseholders more generally. It is disappointing that there is still so much work to be done on leasehold reform.

In Hackney South and Shoreditch, as in many constituencies up and down the country, we need real support for the people who have been left behind. We see a huge challenge; one in two children are living in poverty after housing costs are taken into account. In London, 60% of households in poverty are working households, which is an increase from 44% only a few years ago. That is a reflection of the low pay too many workers are paid and the high housing costs in constituencies such as mine. We all know that employment is a huge opportunity, but it is not a route out of poverty on its own for many people in London because of these high living costs.

The cost of living crisis is not just hitting those in constituencies such as mine with those high prices, but biting everybody. It is now biting those who were just about managing—those who are on good incomes, but are hitting huge increases to their fuel bills. We know that the Government’s response to that, from the Klarna Chancellor, has been to lend the money now and people are going to have to pay it back later, further indebting particularly the poorest households.

We need much better support for those left behind. The Government talk about levelling up, but in Hackney we do not see much of this levelling-up fund. We are the seventh most deprived local authority area in the country, but in the Government’s approach to levelling up Hackney counts as priority 2. Constituencies such as Richmond (Yorks), Derbyshire Dales and High Peak, which are respectively the 256th, the 265th and the 202nd most deprived constituencies in the country, are being prioritised over the children in my constituency living in poverty—living in overcrowded conditions and too often sharing a bed with a parent up to their early teens because there is nowhere else for them to sleep—and over the people struggling because of the challenges of the pandemic.

Those people need support, and we must make sure—the Government need to hear this—that levelling up is not just about levelling up between different regions of the UK, but in parts of our amazing capital city. Of all people, the Prime Minister, who had the honour—the honour—of serving as the elected Mayor of London, should be aware of that, and shame on him that he is not tackling this head-on.

We need much better support for housing generally. I have more private renters in my constituency than I have homeowners and more social housing tenants than both of those combined, and all have real problems. The Government are finally unveiling their renters reform Bill—something we are all keen to see—but just abolishing no-fault evictions is not enough to solve the challenges of where people can live. Those people cannot now live in the private sector and grow a family, because even with no-fault evictions being abolished, if that does eventually happen, that will not make for a stable home, with rents escalating at the whim of the landlord.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does the hon. Member not understand that this Gracious Speech is all about levelling up and giving people more opportunity, and that there needs to be a surge of private investment into these places, with better-paid jobs, better skills training and better education? That is the whole point of it. Will she support that?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

Well, if that is the whole point of it, forgive me, but I cannot see that. I have the privilege of chairing the Public Accounts Committee, in which we have looked at the towns fund and the levelling-up approach, and it is a chaotic policy. It is a headline without proper detail and analysis of how to deliver it. Outside London, only the Bristol area has seen economic growth. This has been a challenge for every Government over many decades now, but the idea that headlines saying it is going to happen mean it will actually be delivered is just for the birds.

We see the huge increase in private renters, yet there is no real support for them. Where is the security if people cannot afford to buy their own home and cannot qualify for social rented housing? In my constituency, that is in massively short supply in any case, with hundreds—thousands—of families living in massively overcrowded conditions. We have all been on the doorsteps a lot in the last week and it is always a privilege to meet constituents, but when I keep meeting constituents who I knew when their children were toddlers, and whose children, who are now young adults, are still sharing the bedroom—two or three of them—while their parents live in the living room, it is not good enough.

There is no hope for those people, because the Government’s proposed Bills will do nothing to enable councils to build that important social rented housing, to give better rights to renters or to provide a proper stepladder for people to purchase their own home. Every policy so far has fuelled the equity of those who already own their home, rather than giving a real leg-up to wannabe first-time buyers in constituencies such as mine, where—I have said this repeatedly in this House, but I repeat it again—a modern two-bedroom flat will be on the market for about £750,000. That is just for a two-bedroom leasehold flat.

As of June last year, the median house price in my constituency was £600,000, but in many parts of it I would struggle to find a property for that price. That is a huge increase—9.1% over the past five years. A house in Hackney costs more than 16 times the average Hackney salary. Hackney has a range of salaries, but there are a lot of people at the poorer end. One in 35 people in my constituency are officially recorded as being homeless or in temporary accommodation. That does not include those who are overcrowded because there is no space for them, or those with no recourse to public funds who cannot possibly afford to rent privately even though they are working. They could certainly never buy a property and, as we know, rents are very high. We need much better support, and there is no real solution in the Queen’s Speech.

Crucially, we need real support for a lost generation. Many people have been badly affected by covid, but I worry particularly about our children who have lost out on two years of education. Hats off to the teachers and schools that kept educating them, but for many children, however well the school did, if they did not have the technology at home and were clustered around one computer and a mobile phone with poor data, that would never be the same as a classroom experience. Schools did the best they could, and many did a very good job, but there is a challenge for children who lost out on education, and who, under the Government’s proposals, will go through the system without catching up.

I look forward to seeing what is in the Government’s Bill, but I have been talking to schools in my constituency about the cost of their energy bills, which is just one recent crisis. The cost increase on their energy bills means a choice between heating the school and keeping a teacher. It is either having our children freeze in a classroom but being taught by a teacher, or a warm school where children can concentrate on learning but they lose that crucial classroom teacher. That is the stark reality. I am happy to share with anybody in government the figures from schools that have provided them to me, and perhaps we could work together for a solution. It is vital that we pay the cost of catch-up. It is taxpayers’ money well spent to invest in the generation that will be the engine and the entrepreneurs of our future. My constituency may be poor, but there is no poverty of aspiration, and unless we give those children a leg-up and catch-up now, they will not get the advantages they should have.

We have seen the complete failure of the tutoring scheme, which the cross-party Public Accounts Committee highlighted as a concern early on. We said, “Where are these tutors who will go in and tutor?”, and of course that contract has been axed. We still need a lot of support. According to teachers in my constituency, children in years 7 and 8 are having to be taught how to do decent handwriting because they missed those crucial years at primary school. In some areas, pupils in years 7 and 8 are losing out because the qualified teachers are focused on the exam years. We all want our children to succeed, and the Government need to ensure that school funding is properly resolved. That funding has fallen in real terms per pupil by 1.2% for the most deprived fifth of schools, but has increased by nearly 3% for the least deprived fifth of schools. Is that levelling up? It does not look like it to me. The Prime Minister purports to be an intelligent man, and I am sure he can do the maths and work out that that means an awful lot of children are losing out.

I was pleased that the victims Bill is finally—finally!—perhaps going to appear. It has only been in three manifestos and four Queen’s Speeches. This is a crucial problem. My Committee has looked at the backlog in the criminal courts, and there are many factors behind that, some of which cannot be resolved through legislation. The sheer grind of day-to-day delivery and the governance of decent public services seems alien to the Prime Minister and his Front Bench. That aside, we need the victims Bill to support victims better. For example, a woman in my constituency was violently attacked by her partner in front of her seven-year-old daughter. She went to the police. The court case was set for two years after that violent attack, and it is no surprise that her partner has repeatedly broken his non-molestation order because he feels that he can get away with it scot-free. That is happening to victims of domestic abuse up and down the country. She has said to me, “I just want to move. I want shot of this. I don’t want to be reliving this, nor do I want my daughter to relive this over the next two years.” If the victims Bill is to mean anything on domestic violence, it needs decent options on alternative housing for victims, because so often that is the break that those people need, but they cannot get it. In my constituency, with such a shortage of housing, that is a huge and ongoing issue.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

The hon. Lady has referred on numerous occasions to the shortage of housing and how we need to get more houses delivered. Will she support the reforms to the planning system incorporated in the Queen’s Speech?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I will support anything that delivers that housing. I have not had a chance to look at the detail, and I do not think we yet know all of it. Absolutely, if there is a bit of land where nothing is moving, we will look at that as an option for housing, but we cannot fit everything into an inner-city London borough. We need a better balance of housing, and we definitely need more affordable housing. In constituencies such as mine, we need more socially rented housing, because the other options are not real options.

People housed in temporary accommodation in boroughs outside my constituency often want to move back. I tell those on a five-year lease, “At the moment, thanks to the Government, that is often the best you’ll get.” But when the rent is as high as we see in the private sector, they worry because they cannot survive without some benefit top-up—if that fits in with the housing benefit cap—so they are stuck in a terrible cycle of never being able to have a permanent home.

I want to touch on a couple of other issues that were raised in a lengthy Queen’s Speech. The Prime Minister talks about Brexit being done, but he knows, and I know, that it is not done, is it? It is far from done. There was no planning after the vote in 2016 and there is a very long tail of changes that have been repeatedly delayed. We have seen import controls delayed once again. It is not even clear what will change—businesses and people are confused—and that lack of planning is coming home to roost. He can use the slogans, but we can see through them. He can peruse our Committee’s reports highlighting those concerns on any day he wants.

The Queen’s Speech had a whole chunk on divisive issues. The Prime Minister would love me to engage with them now, but I will not give him that satisfaction, because I want real results for the people in my constituency, not flim-flam and cheap headlines on things that he hopes will start culture wars between Members of the House and our voters. Everybody in the House and all our constituents know that the cost of living must be a priority and that levelling up must be a priority.

I was pleased to see the announcement of a UK Infrastructure Bank, but I am a bit puzzled, because the same Government created the green investment bank and, a few years later, sold it off to the private sector. If the infrastructure bank is to invest in green technologies, that is good—if it works—but why have we had a wasted decade on that opportunity?

The Queen’s Speech is not about bringing our country together and supporting people who need that; it is about division. Our Prime Minister has his head in the sand about real life and the real challenges for so many of our constituents in the cost of living and finding a home. There is no direction from the Government, who are flailing around, trying to come up with a list of headlines but unable to govern the country competently in the interests of the people I represent.

Covid-19 Update

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point; it is a fundamental point about fairness. It was raised with me last night at the press conference by one of the public questioners. It would not be fair to insist on boosters as meaning that someone has been fully vaccinated until young people in particular have had a chance to get boosted.

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

We have seen a huge demand for lateral flow tests. Does the Prime Minister regret urging everyone at his press conference to get “tested, tested, tested”, without making sure that there were the supplies necessary to deliver on that?

[The Prime Minister]

No, because it is thanks to the efforts of the NHS testing operation and of testing manufacturers not just around the world, but in this country—there was stupefying ignorance displayed by those on the Labour Front Bench—that we have been able to triple our testing capacity. We are testing more per head than any other European country. Usually, they love these European statistics, but they seem a bit shy about this one. That is the reality though. Testing is a good thing. It is very important that people do it, and people should certainly get a test.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)]

5. What progress the Government have made on negotiating revisions to the Northern Ireland protocol.

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

7. What progress the Government have made on negotiations on the Northern Ireland protocol.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

8. What assessment he has made of the progress of the negotiations with the EU on the Northern Ireland protocol.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brandon Lewis]

The UK Government have been very clear and transparent about our intentions all the way through, as we were when we launched the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill last year, as we were when we took action back in March, and as we were when we published the Command Paper. The current situation with the Northern Ireland protocol is not working for the United Kingdom internal market and it is not working for anybody or any business in Northern Ireland. That is not sustainable and it needs to be corrected.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The Secretary of State has said today that the Northern Ireland protocol is not working for the people of Northern Ireland, but it was his Government who negotiated the protocol and voted for the exit from the EU. Is he not embarrassed to stand here as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in a Government who have effectively thrown Northern Ireland under the bus in the name of Brexit?

[Brandon Lewis]

The objectives the Northern Ireland protocol include ensuring that the everyday lives of people and their communities are not disrupted, that the UK internal market is respected and that all three strands of the Good Friday agreement are respected. The EU’s implementation of the protocol is breaching those issues and we will not tolerate that. It is abhorrent to be in a situation in which members of the Jewish community in Northern Ireland cannot practise their religion under the EU’s requirements. That should not be tolerated by anybody in this House.

Speaker's Statement

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I, too, have more to say than I have time for. Others have talked about James’s ministerial career. I first met James when we were elected together in 2005, and when I became a Minister in the Home Office, he was my shadow. As others have said, you always had to be on your mettle, because you knew that he would be on the case. I often reflected on the fact that, when the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) was Home Secretary, she was very lucky to have James in that post. I did notice that his portfolio seemed to grow in that Department, but every tricky area of the Home Office—having been a Home Office Minister I know all of those tricky areas—came to James because, in all the best traditions of this place, he was an assiduous and proper Minister. In a period when we have a lot of fracture in our politics and in society, and in an era when being a YouTuber or a celebrity is seen as something very important, James did the job really well and really properly. That is often underplayed, but it is really important. All of us, whether we are in government or we aspire to be in government, should use James and the work that he did as a model for how to do the job.

The last point I want to make is about his courage. When he was Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government post-Grenfell, he gave a ministerial direction to set up a £200 million fund to provide money to deal with some of the dangerous cladding. Many Ministers do not want to give ministerial directions—that is when they have to instruct officials that they are going to spend taxpayers’ money—and he did not do so lightly; he thought it through. I remember him saying to me in a conversation that, in one case, there were about 89 owners of a block, and if he had not made this decision, it would have got caught up forever and the people living in those homes would have suffered. There is still unfinished business there, as the Father of the House has said, but James set the tone and made a bold decision. He was courageous, he was good and we will miss him in this House.