United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 14th September 2020 Commons Chamber

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

It has been a pleasure to hear the erudite legal arguments tonight from Members including the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) and the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). I am not an erudite international lawyer, so I see it as it is, and perhaps I will put it in simpler terms. It is an utter shambles. It is chaotic.

We have a history of cheap slogans that are now coming home to roost. When people boil down major international issues into three-word slogans and believe that they are true, this is what happens. We had “Take back control”, when we already decided the vast majority of our laws. We had “Get Brexit done”, when it is not as simple as that at all, as we can see from our being here today discussing it. Then we had the “oven-ready deal”—the deal that was then delivered by the current Prime Minister but is now being undermined by his very own Bill. It threw up squarely and clearly the problems between Brexit and the hard-fought Good Friday agreement, and it is now being ripped up and is causing huge problems, playing fast and loose with devolution.

The impact on the independent decision making of the Welsh Government, the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive is frankly shocking, especially for a party that describes itself as the Conservative and Unionist party, but that is not entirely surprising. This is a Government who think that the law can be applied differentially. We saw it with the shutting down of Parliament illegally before the last general election. We have seen it with the breaking of lockdown rules for some favoured few. Shockingly, we see it now with the breaking of international law. The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) says that, if we break international law, it should not be done casually. Well, this seems rushed and casual to me. Less than a week ago, none of us knew that this was coming—perhaps not even the Prime Minister—but it has huge long-term impacts.

This afternoon, I chaired the Public Accounts Committee. We were looking seriously at the Government’s proposals around export strategy; the Government have a target to boost exports, which we would all expect. We were challenging the Department about how it was going to achieve that. There is a real will to deliver it, but what country will trust us now if we pass this Bill, which says that we will legislate our way out of any international deal?

In short, this Government are not competent. They have been cavalier, they are undermining the Union and they are damaging the UK’s international reputation irrevocably.

National Audit Office

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2020 Commons Chamber

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

It gives me great pleasure to support the motion proposed by the Prime Minister to appoint Dame Fiona Reynolds, who, as he has highlighted, has had a distinguished career, particularly as head of the National Trust and, more recently, as Master of Emmanuel College. She is the first woman to hold this important position, and I also put on record my thanks to Lord Bichard, who will have given six years of service when he hands over the reins to Dame Fiona in January.

The NAO is crucial in holding the Government to account, safeguarding taxpayers’ money, and, increasingly, under the new Comptroller and Auditor General, Gareth Davies, learning to do better. So it is heartening that the Prime Minister and I agree on the importance of the NAO and the suitability of Dame Fiona to take up this role. Her considerable experience will be well played in the NAO. Of course, the Comptroller and Auditor General determines all the audit procedures, but she will have a pivotal role on the board in making sure that the organisation becomes as modern and sophisticated as it needs to be to deal with the challenges of the modern world. So I fully and wholeheartedly endorse her. This was the first virtual appointment and I have not yet met Dame Fiona, so I look forward to doing so when lockdown restrictions lift still further.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The joint biosecurity centre is a very welcome addition to the armoury of weapons that the UK Government have in fighting this infection. It is the case that, for the JBC to work effectively, it needs to work across the whole United Kingdom. I can confirm that devolved Administration chief medical officers and Health Ministers have been working very successfully with the Secretary of State for Health in order to ensure that information can be shared in a way that benefits us all.

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

We know that test, track and trace has been slow to get to where it is, but we are glad it has started. However, the key thing, whatever happens centrally, is local tracking and tracing. Hackney Council is a pioneer borough, and we are really pleased that that is the case, but what is critical is that we are not getting the data that will help us track people. For example—forgive the long question, Mr Speaker—if an individual is tracked as having been close to someone who has tested positive, all Hackney gets is the information that they live in the borough of Hackney. That is not enough to act on. When will boroughs get that detailed localised information from central track and trace so that they can act and help attack this virus?

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point. I will be talking to the team who are operating the JBC later today, and I will raise that specific point with them. I am really grateful to her for raising it with me.

Budget Resolutions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I should declare an interest in the Budget as a leaseholder in a block that needs cladding removing, although, happily, in my case, the developer is footing the total cost. Would that all were so responsible!

The Budget is optimistic—that is the polite way of describing it. It is a mix of old announcements repackaged and a very long wish list, and of course the devil will be in the detail of the delivery, which I and the Public Accounts Committee will be examining. It is a privilege to chair the Committee, although it also ruins me in terms of making cheap political promises, and it means I can spot a cheap political promise a mile off. There are missed opportunities in the Budget, on housing, education and social care, and it comes against the backdrop of a looming spending review—supposedly in July, though we understand that coronavirus could delay things—in preparation for which Departments are already facing 5% cuts on normal business.

Let’s not pretend, then, that a wave of a magic wand today and a flurry of promises means that what is being promised will be delivered. There are particular issues that may be quite problematic, which I will pick up on later, but I want to talk first about the proposals on statutory sick pay for coronavirus. I welcome the intent, of course, but so many people are on zero-hours contracts that this serious issue of coronavirus is underlining a systemic problem in our society. We have a two or even three-tier employment system, with too many people not even able to get statutory sick pay. In my constituency, we also have many self-employed people—a rising area of work—and the idea that a claim for benefits will be quick and easy is not realistic. I had the privilege of visiting my local jobcentre and meeting the fantastic team. They are working hard on a personal level to deliver for the people of Hackney on benefits. I did not get the chance to ask them about the Budget, but I think it will be quite hard to set up a scheme in which a load of checks would have to be waived, in which everything would have to be done over the phone, and in which a lot of the normal processes would have to be suspended. That will lead, I fear, to fraud, and particularly to the scourge of overpayment, because it will be difficult to do the necessary checks to make sure that people are getting what they should.

Zero-hours contracts are a growing issue. The Office for National Statistics labour force survey tells us that from October to December 2019, there were 974,000 workers on zero-hour contracts, which is 3% of the workforce. That is a record in both percentage and absolute terms. If we look at younger people, 9.1% of people aged 16 to 24 who are in employment—nearly one in 10—are on a zero-hours contract. The Government trumpet the new jobs that are being created, but we need to be mindful that many of them are part time, low paid and very insecure. It is not surprising that over a quarter of people on zero-hours contracts want an additional job, or a replacement job with additional hours. That is a big concern, particularly in the social care sector, where about a quarter of the workforce are recorded as being employed on zero-hours contracts.

We heard nothing, except in the Chancellor’s peroration, about social care—no solution for that sector. People in the national health service know that without investment in social care, any money thrown at the health service will have limited effect. Given the current situation with coronavirus, it is particularly vital that we protect social care.

[Seema Malhotra]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Meg Hillier]

I will not, I am afraid, because of the time.

Another issue that I am very concerned about is housing. Money for housing may be a start, but it depends exactly where it is going. According to the Red Book, the money is for an affordable housing fund, but my definition, and my constituents’ definition, of affordable housing is very different from the Prime Minister’s when he was Mayor of London. In high-cost areas such as Hackney, it is vital that housing be properly affordable. I have so many constituents living in really difficult circumstances. As of August last year, there were over 13,000 households on the housing register in Hackney. That is a 33% increase over the past five years, and responsibility for that lies firmly, squarely at the Government’s door. The wait for new housing is life-changing. The wait for a two-bedroom property for someone in the “urgent” band is seven years. For those in the “priority” band, it is three years, and it is six years for those in the “general” band. Madam Deputy Speaker, can you imagine waiting six or seven years to get your child and your family into stable accommodation? I have rafts of examples of people in temporary accommodation who are living in one room in a hostel with their children.

I absolutely welcome the money that the Chancellor has committed to removal of dangerous cladding. So many of my constituents are mortgage prisoners who face bankruptcy, and whose life is on hold, so that money is a welcome step, but—there is a “but”—it is probably not as much money as is needed. It may well be that £1 billion is a drop in the ocean of what is required, and the money is only for properties over 18 metres high, yet the latest Government guidance note includes buildings over 11 metres. The Chancellor spoke quite loosely about removing all dangerous cladding; that is a very wide promise, and in the Red Book, all I see is that detail will be laid out in the spending review that is expected in July, so there is a delay in getting more details, and a further delay before the promise is implemented. If the spending review is delayed because of coronavirus, or for any other reason, people in my constituency and across the country will remain in limbo, waiting to find out what will happen.

I was glad that the Chancellor, in an almost throwaway line, pledged that the Government would pursue building owners and developers to ensure that they paid their share. That is absolutely right. Some of the estimates are high because everything to do with fire safety that has gone wrong in a building is being added to the bill. Frankly, if a developer did not put a fire door in properly, it should not be down to the taxpayer or homeowner to backfill for that; that should be down to the people who made the mistake. The track record shows that for any Government, getting money back from the private sector once there has been a taxpayer-funded giveaway is challenging. I will look closely at the detail to make sure that those who were irresponsible do not get away with it.

An area that is missing from the Budget is Brexit preparations. We are due to leave the European Union on 31 December, yet there was nothing in the Budget about how we will pay for that. On two occasions in the past year, money has been spent like water to prepare for no deal. The Public Accounts Committee has been looking at that. It is very expensive to prepare when we do not yet know what is happening. Businesses up and down the country, among others, are living in uncertain times and will need information, so there will at the very least be an information campaign. Of course, a lot of other Government work is being done to prepare, but there is nothing in the Budget for that on top of what is in existing budgets.

The Chancellor talked about capital investment in further education; I only ask how much will be used to pay off the existing loans that the Government have had to bung to FE colleges because they are so cash-strapped that they were unable to pay back the grants they were given so those grants were turned into loans. That could absorb quite a chunk of money, so I wonder how much is actually for new capital investment that will be invested in vital technical and other education to make sure that we have a workforce fit for the future.

The Public Accounts Committee has looked into carbon capture and storage. There have been two attempts to deliver it and a third competition that delivered nothing. Millions of pounds have been wasted. An £800 million bung to a sector that has not managed it so far, when there is no capacity out there to deliver it, seems to me to be good money after bad. It is a great idea—I would love to see carbon capture and storage work to make sure that our energy-intensive industries can continue—but there is a long way between promising £800 million and getting it delivered. I really do hope that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is looking at the issue closely and actually has a plan behind the money. The worst thing is just to throw money at something for a cheap headline and not have a plan for delivery.

The health surcharge has a big impact. I have a constituency that is the world in one constituency—the world in one borough—and am proud of that. The many fees that are landing on migrants are having a huge impact on their ability to get on with their lives and become fully contributory members of our society. At £624 per annum—more than double the current rate—the health surcharge is going to mean a huge cost of more than £2,000 for a typical family. If a person applies for discretionary leave to remain, they now have to apply three times before they have the option of applying for citizenship. The fees rack up, at £800 a time for DLR and more than £1,000 for citizenship. It is no wonder that young people and older people are being deported from this country because the law currently says that if they do not have citizenship and commit a crime, they will be deported—many people would be citizens, if only they could afford the cost.

The issue with NHS pensions, which was first identified by the Public Accounts Committee in 2012, is now finally being tackled, eight years later, but at the huge cost of the loss of the experience of doctors that we now need in the NHS to deal with the coronavirus.

There are many promises, but little detail. I assure the Chancellor and the Treasury that there will be plenty of scrutiny from the Public Accounts Committee.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Duddridge]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his passion for Africa. We are committed to working with African countries to boost renewable energy potential and cleaner energy alternatives. For example, the Africa clean energy programme is working in over 15 countries to increase the deployment of off-grid renewable energy.

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

The Department invested nearly £300 million of taxpayers’ money in the airport on St Helena. Will the Minister update us on whether aircraft can now land and take off from that expensive airport?

Transport Infrastructure

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. It will be very important to collaborate with appropriate delivery vehicles, such as the charity that my hon. Friend mentions.

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

It is good to have certainty over HS2, but the Prime Minister has unveiled a raft of big spending projects. Where is the money going to come from?

[The Prime Minister]

The money is coming through the hard work and effort of the British people. This Government will manage our finances prudently and ensure that the economy is not wrecked, as it was by the last Labour Government.

Lobby and Media Briefings: Journalists' Access

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

The type of Government we are talking about is the type that has just won a resounding majority at a general election and has the support of the people. I think that is a pretty good answer to his question.

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

This does smack of either a deliberate decision to make sure that the mainstream press is being discussed in this way in this House today, or it was just an almighty mistake. Will the Minister, who is a reasonable woman, not use this opportunity to say sorry and that it will not happen again?

[Chloe Smith]

The hon. Lady takes us on to very, very sober ground, and rightly so. She has great experience as a scrutiniser in this House, but the fact is that that is the wrong characterisation of what has happened. I have set out what the facts of the matter are: what we are dealing with is standard lobby procedures supplemented by an additional specialist briefing. There is nothing more sinister than that, and I think that even she, who is also a very reasonable Member of this Chamber, is just going a little too far.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. Not only that, but we can do it in such a way as to continue this country’s reduction in hydrocarbon emissions.

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

Q10. The shortage of GPs has reached crisis point. In his answer to the hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter), the Prime Minister did nothing to allay the fears and concerns of patients who are waiting weeks to see a GP now. People in training is all very well, but what is he going to do now to make sure patients can access GPs?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Member is right to raise the point, but the number of GPs is already going up, and as I have just told the House, we are recruiting 6,000 more.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons & Money resolution & Programme motion & Ways and Means resolution
Friday 20th December 2019 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), who spoke characteristically thoughtfully and without triumphalism. He was absolutely right to do so—I speak as someone who represents a constituency that voted 78% for remain—and this debate must continue in that tone.

Let us be clear about why we are here. There has been a total failure of political craft. In 2015 even I voted for the referendum, because it is a convention of this House to support a majority Government in the early days of their administration. The Conservative party won the 2015 general election and I backed that referendum, against many of my instincts. From then on, there was failure: things were slow, cumbersome, secretive and there was a lot of dither. Then, very reluctantly and late in the day, I came to the idea of a second referendum as a way of breaking that impasse, but, even in my very remain constituency, that was not part of the major discourse in the 2017 general election. We have to remember that. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the entrenchment of positions when debating this issue, but I urge Government Members to remember that, too.

The Secretary of State and I—and, indeed, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire—once served together on the Public Accounts Committee. Over the past two years, the Committee membership has represented every range of views on Brexit. It would not be possible to find a more diverse range of views, yet we were unanimous in our agreement on the more than 11 reports we produced. We were critical of the Government at times, and rightly so—I hope that the right hon. Gentleman would expect us to be critical of him when he gets things wrong—but we went at it constructively by looking at the facts and the data and by working hard to press the Government to do a better job.

I will list my reasons for not voting to give the Bill its Second Reading, and I hope the Government will listen. We will vote against it not because we are sore losers, but because there are valid reasons to believe that this rushed Bill and rushed debate could result in real problems for the future.

The Bill is weak on workers’ rights—that is categorically clear. It is a poor argument to assume that there will be a trickle down of benefits when businesses allegedly—or hopefully, as the Government would say—do well. Very many people in my constituency are working several low-paid jobs on irregular contracts. They are very insecure. I cannot see how they will experience the benefits. I want to see protection in law.

The provision to provide support for unaccompanied asylum seeker children has been removed. I have been dealing with this issue as an elected politician since 1994, when I was a councillor and we found children wandering alone on Holloway Road in Islington. It is important to work in partnership with the EU to deal with that. Let us not forget why they come—trafficking. Let us deal with the cause, not the symptom. It is mean spirited to take out that provision. There are also many issues relating to security, but we do not have time to go into them today. As a Home Office Minister, I negotiated many of these issues on behalf of the British Government when Labour was last in government, which was some time ago.

I say respectfully to the right hon. Gentleman that the decision to remove the possibility of extending the implementation period is a foolish step, because it allows no wiggle room. I know that the Government have a great belief that setting a deadline will give them greater ability to negotiate, but I think there is a real risk that they could end up throwing the baby out with the bath- water. That would not bring the country together.

We are also going to see quangos rising like the phoenix, as many European regulations will have to be replicated in British law. So much for the bonfire of red tape.

On immigration, I tremble. Between us, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and I represent 40,000 EU citizens. It is foolhardy of the Government to believe that they can suddenly change the immigration system and achieve a great, simple new deal. I have been there. I have seen 10 years of it getting worse, and the Government need to heed that warning very carefully. I am also concerned about the time allocated for this debate. It has been too short and it is not democratic.

Debate on the Address

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2019 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to welcome you back to the Chair of the House, Mr Speaker, and it is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), because despite our political disagreements she and I agree on what she said about everybody counting and the Government’s being there for everybody. I thank the people of Hackney South and Shoreditch who re-elected me for the fifth time to stand up for them all—not just for the 73% of them who voted for me, but for the others who did not. I will stop at nothing to stand up for them in this House.

The Queen’s Speech is quite incredible. It talks about investment in education, the NHS and public services, but this Government have slashed spending over the past nine and a half years. The promise of more funding for schools comes now, but only after nine years of funding cuts that have led to an 8% per pupil funding decrease over the past decade. The Government talk about more police, but who was it who cut their numbers in the first place? The Prime Minister has been keen to talk about the past as though it were a different country; were he in his place, I would remind him that he has been not just the Prime Minister for a few hundred days but an MP and the Mayor of London. He cannot dodge responsibility.

I will of course welcome things in the Queen’s Speech that will deliver for the people of my constituency. It feels a bit bitter to hear talk about investment in broadband from the same Government who rigged the most recent broadband competition, particularly for rural broadband, so that only one bidder could win, but it is important that we invest in infrastructure in our country. Even in my constituency—even in Shoreditch—where we have the best tech businesses beating like a heartbeat for Britain, we have too poor a broadband service. I will join the Government in supporting investment in broadband if they will deliver in my constituency and across the country.

I cannot stand here today without highlighting the real challenges for the people of Hackney South and Shoreditch. As the former Prime Minister said, everybody counts. In my constituency, that includes half of our children who live in poverty after housing costs are taken into account. In my constituency, or across Hackney, 30% of deaths are still premature, and the leading cause of that is cancer, so investment in our health service for early diagnosis and treatment is absolutely vital. One fifth of adults, which is above average, still smoke in my constituency, compared with around 14% of the London population.

With a ratio of nearly one in 10, Hackney has the highest rate of diagnosed depression of any London borough. I would welcome a review of mental health support, but, as the former Prime Minister said, I think that we may need to be more radical than that, so I will be watching what happens closely. Hackney as a borough is the 11th most deprived of the 326 English local authorities. Although some people talk about our being achingly cool—they think of the hipsters with their beers and of our bread makers and our beer makers and so on—a very high percentage of my constituents are in great need, with more than a third living in financial poverty, earning 60% of median earnings after housing costs are taken into account.

I wanted this Queen’s Speech to say a lot more about housing. In my borough, it takes 17 times a person’s salary to buy a home. That compares with the London average of 13.8 times, which is pretty high, and the England and Wales average of eight times the amount, which is also high. It means that home ownership is out of the reach of so very many. In my constituency, there are more private renters than homeowners. Half of all households are represented in social housing, which is more than the other two combined.

A real stain on one of the richest countries in Europe and in the world is the fact that more than 3,000 families are living in temporary accommodation. Just in the past few weeks, a man wrote to me begging for help because for two and a half years he has lived with his eight-year-old son in one room in a hostel. We have a fantastic Labour elected mayor in Hackney, who is doing his utmost to resolve this housing crisis, which is costly to the individuals concerned, costly to our communities and costly to the taxpayer. Without more from this Government, it will be difficult—if not impossible—to deliver for those 3,000 families who need help, and for those children who will be living without a permanent roof over their heads and who will be celebrating Christmas in one room in a hostel or in short-term, inadequate temporary accommodation.

I would not want to suggest that this poverty is also a poverty of ambition, because boy, do my constituents want to get on in life. None the less, without those basic building blocks of primarily secure long-term, affordable housing, and swift and easy access to proper healthcare, to secure and properly paid jobs and to skills development, they will never get there. Some in my constituency earn enough money to work a four-day week, but many, many more work three or four jobs on poverty wages on zero-hours contracts just to pay the rent. There is also the invidious bedroom tax policy, which does not work. On one estate, the Wenlock Barn estate in Hoxton, 74 families are hit by this policy and they do not have an option to move to a different property. It is a cloud cuckoo policy, and if the Prime Minister is anywhere near honest about his desire to be a one nation Conservative, it is one that he would abolish right now.

All Governments should be creating a ladder of opportunity for the people of this country. This Government, or the Governments before them, have ripped away the lower rungs of that ladder, so it is a very long reach for too many of my constituents. I want to see some commitment from this Government that they will help my constituents.

Let me move on the specifics of the Queen’s Speech. Her Majesty talked about the Government continuing to “lead the way” in tackling climate change. It has been my great sorrow, in one of my responsibilities as the former Chair of the Public Accounts Committee—a role I hope to resume in this Parliament—to have pored over the detail of the Government’s policy on climate change. And what do we see? There was carbon capture and storage: three expensive competitions, wasting millions of pounds achieving absolutely nothing. There was the much vaunted green deal, with the noble aim of greening our homes, because, let’s face it, more domestic emissions come from housing than from aviation. But that scheme was scrapped as a total failure—predictably—and cost the taxpayer the equivalent of £17,000 per loan granted.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The hon. Member is making a powerful speech. She will know that the Committee on Climate Change wrote to the Prime Minister yesterday to say that action on climate change is falling short. Does she agree that that will continue to be the case for as long as this Government do not commit to leaving fossil fuels in the ground, and that that means ending mass road building, mass aviation expansion and the mass subsidies to the fossil fuel industry?

[Meg Hillier]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point, which I am sure she will be making more firmly later.

We have to look at this issue in the long term. Let us be clear: Governments of different colours did not deal with it early enough or properly, but we now need to tackle it, and a Government with a majority of 80 have every opportunity to be bold and ambitious in this direction. But they privatised the green investment bank, which became the Green Investment Group and now does not even need to deliver on any of its green principles. There are very few guarantees about where that money will go. Had the green investment bank remained in public hands, we would have had a huge opportunity to invest in emerging green industries to create jobs and opportunities as well as tackle climate change issues. But that was another squandered opportunity.

In order to compare this situation with what Labour in power can do, I turn to my own borough—the Labour-run Borough of Hackney—which has set bold targets to tackle climate change, and is achieving those targets. Already, half the electricity for the council and local schools is generated from renewable sources, and that will rise to 100% by April next year. Only very recently, the council established a publicly owned clean energy company that will maximise all council-owned roof space to generate renewable electricity. The council is also decarbonising its vehicles and tackling many other issues. I do not have time to go into everything today, but it is setting an example to show what can be done. If one London borough can do this, what could a Government do if they set their mind to it? This Government really need to step up. Of course, we await reshuffles, but I invite the relevant Minister to come and see what my borough is doing; we can show them how we are leading the way.

The Queen’s Speech also touched on “swift justice” for knife possession. There is a scourge of knife possession among our young people in particular, and too many people in my borough are fearful of walking their own streets because of the impact of knife crime. Only during this election campaign, another young man’s life was lost and another family are bereaved. I am angry and disturbed for the families I visit who have lost loved ones and whose lives have been devastated as a result of knife crime. However, I urge the Government to tread carefully. Yes, knife crime is a scourge, but if we simply say that we will criminalise more the people who carry knives, people will choose to carry other sharp weapons. We will need to look closely at the detail of that legislation to ensure that it achieves what it sets out to—not just a headline.

The Queen’s Speech included new rules requiring councils, police, schools and housing associations to work together. Of course, the Labour Mayor of London set up the violence reduction unit to do just that, and my constituency has the Hackney Integrated Gangs Unit. Once again, I genuinely and openly offer the Government the opportunity to come and see what we are doing locally in Hackney. We do not have all the answers, but we are tackling this issue—unfortunately, from bitter experience of the impact on our community.

It rather surprised me to hear Her Majesty talk about setting up a royal commission on justice. I do not think this is really necessary. I could refer the Government to a slew of Public Accounts Committee reports and concerns raised on probation, where we have seen a failure of the modernisation of the system and an attempt to reverse those changes; on prisons, where we have seen a slashing of prison officer numbers and huge issues there; on chaos in courts and tribunals; and on a huge IT project that is behind schedule. The problem is that several Secretaries of State for Justice were throwing everything in the air wanting to change everything overnight, and that is a recipe for chaos. We need to go back to the basics—to stability. We must not have stop-start and reversal; we must make sure that there is proper investment in our criminal justice system. A royal commission worries me. It kicks the can down the road as there is a danger that we will never actually deliver. A royal commission can take a couple of years and then the Government have to consider it. We do not have that time to wait. Actually, it is much simpler than that. I hope the Government will look at those bits of our work and make sure that they take those points on board.

I am interested in the national skills fund. I hope—maybe too much—that this might mean investment for people in low-paid work who want to improve their skills, as the Labour manifesto proposed. I hope that it will end the barrier to skills and training in further education that is the loan system. Many of my constituents who are women returning to work, had been in low-paid jobs and had children do not want to take the risk of a loan in order to possibly get a better-paid job. They cannot afford that, they do not have the credit record for it, and they are very nervous about it. If the national skills fund supports them, then fantastic. If it also makes sure that our young people are training in the tech skills—the global skills—that many of my tech businesses in Shoreditch find hard to get in the UK, then great. As I said at the very beginning, if there is something that the Government are doing that will help my constituents, I will work with them on that, but I wait to see the detail.

On immigration, I am sadly an expert in the failings of the Home Office in this area, as one of its top six customers among the 650 Members of this House in representing constituents’ concerns. I represent the world in one borough. People from across the world come to my surgery telling me their problems with immigration. We have 40,000 European citizens in Hackney, as well as many Commonwealth citizens. The hostile environment is a reality in my borough. When leave to remain was reduced from five years to three years, guess what—that meant that constituents had to pay two fees before they could apply for their citizenship. Then, in a very mean-spirited way, it was reduced to two years, so they have to pay three times the fees before they can qualify for citizenship. Many of my constituents really struggle with those costs. Of course, I want a fair system, a clear system and a faster system, but we should not be putting up barriers to people who have demonstrably shown that they have a legitimate right to be here and are being pushed through a bureaucratic process that delays their eventual proper opportunity to fulfil work and family hopes and to contribute to our communities and our economy.

The Government have talked about investment and borrowing in this Queen’s Speech. That is a very simple phrase and I look forward to seeing the detail. Her Majesty talked about the Government

“keeping borrowing and debt under control”

and “a responsible fiscal strategy”. Let me assure the Government that if I am returned to the position of Chair of the Public Accounts Committee—or, indeed, even if I am not—I will hope that that Committee watches every penny and pound of taxpayers’ money that is being spent. I will be challenging the Government on the efficiency, effectiveness and economy of every promise made in this Queen’s Speech and every plan that emerges from it. But above all, I will challenge, cajole, criticise and at every stage make sure that this Government are doing what they can to deliver for the best interests of my constituents in Hackney South and Shoreditch.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Davey]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Shelter’s report made that very point this week. There was no mention of homeless people in the Queen’s Speech, and no mention of tackling child poverty.

There was another huge omission from the Queen’s Speech: the climate emergency. Sure, we heard the unambitious 2050 net zero target mentioned again, but just like in the Conservative manifesto, there was a lack of a sense of urgency and of a set of practical but radical measures. I find that truly alarming. It is particularly alarming because this Prime Minister has previously written so scathingly about the need to tackle climate change.

[Meg Hillier]

The right hon. Gentleman will know, as a former Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, how long it takes to get these major projects that will deliver big change up and running. In my speech, I outlined three failures that happened because of this Government and their predecessor. Does he agree that we need to get action going now?

[Sir Edward Davey]

I absolutely do. In her speech, the hon. Lady mentioned carbon capture and storage; I had pushed that competition forward, and it was going very well but, directly after the 2015 election, the then Chancellor cancelled it overnight and put Britain’s global leadership on this key climate change technology back years. It was a disgraceful measure.

I was talking about the opinions of the Prime Minister on climate change. Just seven years ago, in his infamous Telegraph column, he sought to cast doubt on mainstream climate science, dismissing it as complete tosh. You can hear him saying that, can you not, Mr Deputy Speaker? Instead, he warned about the

“encroachment of a mini ice age”.

That is what our Prime Minister said.

On wind power, in which Britain now leads the world thanks to Liberal Democrat Ministers—[Hon. Members: “Oh!”] If anybody wants to contest that point, I am happy to take an intervention. None are coming. What did this Prime Minister have to say about what is now the cheapest form of renewable power? He said that wind farms would barely

“pull the skin off a rice pudding”.

This technology is a global leader from Britain. It is powering our homes, but the Prime Minister apparently does not believe in it.

Then we see the Conservative record on climate change since 2015, voted for at every stage by the Prime Minister: scrapping the zero carbon homes regulations, banning onshore wind power and stopping tidal lagoon power.

And then we come to Heathrow. In south-west London, we do not forget what the Prime Minister said just four years ago, when he promised that he would

“lie down in front of those bulldozers and stop the construction of that third runway.”

If only, Mr Deputy Speaker—if only.