Budget Resolutions

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I should know that by now.

Of course, those Ministers have gone on to fulfil a fantastic pledge for every baby. I also pay tribute to parents and carers across England for their amazing contribution and their determination to have their voices heard and to make sure that “The Best Start for Life” works for all parents and carers.

I will take a moment to explain why that period of life is vital. Essentially, human babies are unique in the animal kingdom in the extent of their underdevelopment at birth. Every other animal can fend for itself pretty well from minutes, or at least hours, after it is born. Human babies cannot do anything for themselves until they are at least one year old, and often they are two before they can really fend for themselves.

The physical and brain underdevelopment of human babies means that they adapt to the environment in which they find themselves, so the baby who is born into a secure and happy home with a loving family will grow up learning that as an instinct for life. They will be able to do well at school, make friends, learn, get a job, hold down friendships and relationships, and then be a good parent themselves. Conversely, the baby who is born into a situation where there is interparental conflict, drug or alcohol misuse, mental health problems or severe deprivation will not have the same life chances. All the research demonstrates in spades that, for those babies, life is much harder. Their instinct for life is not good and they often go on to have all sorts of problems.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

There was a Sure Start programme that did exactly what the right hon. Lady is talking about. Does she now regret that that was abolished by her Government and that she voted to abolish it?

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

I am glad that the hon. Lady, whom I consider a friend, has given me a chance to tackle that, because the standard response is “What about Sure Start?” I have paid tribute in the House to the excellent efforts of many Sure Start centres and I worked with hon. and right hon. Members across the House on that subject, but Sure Start did not provide what most families need. Unfortunately—I can vouch for this, having led a charity that had to pay rent to provide a parent-infant mental health service within the walls of a Sure Start over 20 years ago—Sure Start did not stipulate services for families. It was all about the buildings, and therein lies the problem.

With the Government’s policy of family hubs, I hope we have something that Sure Start will build into: a welcoming place where families can go to find antenatal classes, meet health visitors, meet other parents and get support, whether for smoking cessation, mental health issues or breastfeeding advice and so on. Multidisciplinary services will be available under one roof, not just physically but virtually. One thing that we learned in lockdown was the incredible value that parents placed on being able to take part in something remotely, whether breastfeeding support or perhaps dads’ mental health support. These things can very well be provided online and remotely in the 21st-century digital age, so that if someone’s baby is crying and will not sleep in the middle of the night they can look at something online rather than waiting for Sure Start to open. Unfortunately, in many cases, a Sure Start centre might be open for only a few hours a week.

I must take the hon. Lady to task, because there are 3,000 Sure Start centres in England as we speak. My hope is that local authority areas will use that as a foundation and build on them to create the family hub model proposed by the Government.

I want to move on to other action areas in “The Best Start for Life: a Vision for the 1,001 Critical Days”. I am delighted that the Chancellor has announced funding for every local authority area to publish its own Start4Life offer. One critical thing that parents and carers said to us in the early years review was that they just did not know what they needed, let alone how to access it if they did know. If someone was pregnant for the first time, why would they know that they might need smoking cessation advice, breastfeeding and weaning advice, support to avoid oral decay and help with brushing their baby’s teeth? They might need debt advice or nursery advice and so on. When someone first finds out the hopefully, but not always, fantastic news that they are expecting a baby they do not know where to go, so the news that local authority areas can publish and offer parents a range of Start4Life services will be transformational.

The third measure for which the Chancellor is offering money is a digital version of the red book. Many of us have a plastic red book, with bits of paper falling out. We forget to take it to health visitor meetings and to immunisations, so the record is incomplete. Sadly, having spoken during the research phase of the project to many foster carers, including some fabulous people who had fostered 40 babies between them, I heard that only two of those babies had turned up with a red book. Those foster carers knew nothing about what had happened to that baby, what the baby’s birth experience was, what the situation was with the birth parents—there was no information at all. That must stop, so in the digital age, a digital version of the red book will be a game changer for every family. It will be important not just for families to see what happened—when did I wean my first baby? When do I need to meet the health visitor again?—but for early years professionals. Very often, parents say, “I have had to tell my story six times this week to six different people. Why don’t you ever talk to one another?” When there is a serious case review, all too often it is a case of “These people didn’t speak to those people” or “This team didn’t know what that team was doing”.

Joining up services in Start4Life for the period from conception to the age of two is the big win in today’s Budget in my opinion. That will be transformational for many millions of babies across England. The next steps will be the implementation—it is not done until it is done—and I want to thank many colleagues and professionals in the early years sectors, as well as many Ministers current and past, for the extraordinary coming-together of views that meant that today is the biggest win for families.

Speaker’s Statement

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

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

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I associate myself in full with the comments of the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), save the bit about the 1922 committee, which I have obviously not had the privilege—a dubious privilege, in my case—of serving on. Cheryl was, as the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and others have said, a member of the Public Accounts Committee. I have to confess, Mr Speaker, that I pursued her to join the Committee, and you would not have realised that she was dealing with this serious illness unless you knew. The amount of work she put in would put many other Members to shame. I really valued her intellect, her robustness and her good fun. We did sometimes disagree, but with Cheryl we always disagreed well. If we can take anything from the way she did things here, we can all learn from that hard work, that intellectual curiosity and that ability to work with people—even with those with whom she disagreed—in a gracious matter in these times.

I will miss her enormously. I cannot really believe that she has passed. It is also extraordinary to realise that only two Conservative women MPs elected prior to me are still serving in this House. Her loss is a loss for women in this place, too. I pass on my condolences to her family, her staff and her many friends.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. There are few people in politics you can consider a real friend, but Cheryl Gillan was exactly that: a real friend to so many people in this place, and in so many ways. She shaped and influenced so many of the things that have taken up a lot of our time in recent years. She was a huge friend to this House when a number of us, cross-party, were working on the complaints procedure. Cheryl was a stalwart a member of the 1922 committee who was determined to get it right—to provide the right level of protection for those who felt they had been wronged in these Houses of Parliament, and equally to be fair to those who serve here as elected Members. She was always absolutely determined to do the right thing, and always in a kind way.

Cheryl was a great friend to my constituents in South Northamptonshire as she fought so diligently on their behalf and on behalf of her own constituents and others against HS2—but we will leave that there for now, Mr Speaker. She has been a true friend. Perhaps most of all, she was someone who loved to hug. As the Mother of the House said, Cheryl called everyone “darling”, but she also hugged frequently. We do not do enough of that either.

I completely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) that Cheryl was harmed by the fact that she was always so keen to give, yet only lately, when she was very ill, did this House enable her to vote by proxy and take part virtually. We need to think about that. I agree with my hon. Friend that we should call it “Cheryl’s Vote”, and I hope we will make progress on it.

I send my deepest condolences to Cheryl’s family and friends.

Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

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

[Andrea Leadsom]

This is a matter for the House to decide. I am talking about seven parliamentarians, because that is what is currently on the shadow Sponsor Body. It is, of course, for the House to make such decisions. The parties put forward their nominees, and that is the reason there are four peers and three Members of this House. This is precisely a very good example of where it is for the House to decide what structure it wants. With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall make a bit more progress.

The Bill is not simply about restoring an old building in an urgent state of disrepair. This is about the ambition we have for a 21st century Parliament, which is more family-friendly and a truly modern workplace. The work we are undertaking provides Parliament with the opportunity to consider the daily working of the Palace. It is clear that the programme should seek improvements to the Palace for people with disabilities to gain access, but there is also an opportunity to resolve issues with long queues at visitor entrances and to offer more inclusive access to Parliament across the country by improving some of our broadcasting services.

The work will also provide employment opportunities right across the UK. The programme will require specialist skills, which, especially in the heritage sector, tend to be found in small and medium-sized enterprises. Apprenticeship schemes right across the UK will be able to engage in the work of restoring the Palace. This is already happening on other projects being carried out on the parliamentary estate, such as the encaustic tile conservation project. R and R also offers the opportunity to enhance the experience of students visiting Westminster, whether through improved educational facilities in the Palace or the opportunities of the Richmond House replica Chamber.

As hon. Members across the House know, I passionately believe in making Parliament a more family-friendly place to work. R and R will provide an opportunity to help make our workplace the best it can be in supporting Members to balance the long hours they work in this House with their family commitments and better reflect the public we are here to represent. That is just a run-through of some of my own views, but I recognise that all Members will have opinions on what they want to see delivered as part of R and R. That is why the Bill includes a specific duty on the Sponsor Body to consult parliamentarians on the strategic objectives of the R and R works.

Members across the House will also have views on the decant to our temporary workplace during R and R. In passing the motions in early 2018, Parliament was clear that as part of R and R it would temporarily leave the Palace, so that the restoration and renewal work can be done more quickly and more cheaply.

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

One concern people have expressed to me, and which we all have concerns about, is mission creep. Will the Leader of the House explain clearly how she sees the Sponsor Body and the Delivery Authority ensuring that once the case is set, future generations do not add in bells and whistles that will cost a lot more?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I hope I can assure the hon. Lady that the outline business case will be the project outline. The Estimates Commission will lay the annual estimates to the House for it to reject or approve. I have no doubt that the hon. Lady’s Public Accounts Committee and others, including the National Audit Office, will want to look very carefully at value for money and to ensure that there has not been scope creep. I absolutely accept the point she makes. This is a parliamentary project, so a very important feature will be that Members accept and respect the fact that we are seeking to restore this place at the best possible value for taxpayers’ money.

The work on the decant of the House of Commons is at present led by the House authorities and is not the responsibility of the Sponsor Body. I know that many of those who are engaged with the programme already, through visiting the booth in Portcullis House and reading the consultation strategy, will have had their own views and made them known. I have heard plenty of positive comments about the innovative and modern plans for the temporary Chamber, but there may well be something specific that Members would like to see. I therefore hope that everybody will feed their ideas and views into the consultation on the plans for the temporary decant and for the northern estate project.

I want to point out that the redeveloped Richmond House will provide a number of potential legacy benefits, the first of which relates to business resilience. All major organisations require a contingency plan. The works to Richmond House will provide a more robust future resilience plan, making sure that Parliament is prepared for business continuity, should it ever be needed, outside the Palace. Secondly, there is no doubt that it will improve the experience of the more than 1 million visitors to the parliamentary estate each year. The replica Chamber could become a hub for educational facilities, where schoolchildren could learn at first hand how Parliament works and could hold regular debates. It could become a home for the Parliamentary Archives, and it could be a location for major parliamentary and other exhibitions. The views of Members will be very welcome.

Thirdly, Richmond House is well placed in terms of security. The Murphy review, following the tragic murder of PC Keith Palmer in 2017, brought home the need for a fully secure perimeter around the Palace. Richmond House is the only option for decant within that secure perimeter. I encourage all Members to provide their views during the consultation on Richmond House, which is currently under way. However, I want to remind Members that the Bill before the House today is not concerned with where we will go while the works take place; it solely puts in place governance arrangements in order to deliver the vital works to the Palace at the best value to taxpayers.

To conclude, the time for patching and mending this place has come to an end. Those of us who are fully aware of the speed of deterioration of the Palace know that the sensible and decisive option is to facilitate a full restoration project. The choice before the House is to preserve the Palace of Westminster as the home of the UK Parliament for future generations or to keep risking a catastrophic failure, which I believe would be an unforgivable dereliction of duty. I look forward to hearing today’s contributions, and I commend the Bill to the House.

Business of the House

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman feels extremely strongly about this, and I absolutely sympathise with his view. He will appreciate, as will all hon. Members, that this issue comes up frequently at business questions, and I do keep the House updated on the several different measures that the Government have in train to tackle it, including through early prevention, through working with communities and with police officers, through legislation such as the Offensive Weapons Bill, through our serious violence taskforce and indeed through the public health approach to preventing knife crime. However, I hear what he is saying and I will take this up again with the Home Office.

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

We have seen the scandal of Windrush and, in Hackney, we have thousands of Commonwealth citizens who are likely to be affected. Some 41,000 European citizens are going through the immigration process and there are increasing problems with entrepreneur and spouse visas. Is it not time we had a proper debate in Government time about the functioning, or mis-functioning, of the Government’s immigration system?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady will be aware that the Home Secretary made a statement to the House about the Windrush compensation scheme only a few days ago, so I hope that she had the opportunity to raise her concerns with him then. I understand that she has particular concerns. If she wants to raise those with Home Office Ministers, I am sure that they will be delighted to meet her to discuss them.

Business of the House

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman will know that there has been a steady desire on the part of the Government to seek agreement to the withdrawal agreement and future political declaration and to seek legally binding changes that would enable parliamentarians to support it. The Prime Minister indicated her extreme sadness at the fact that the House has declined to support the deal. She set out two weeks ago the next steps should that be the case. So we are following the process that the Prime Minister set out a couple of weeks ago. It is still our intention, if at all possible, to leave the European Union on 29 March with a good deal.

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

Will the Government lay out on Thursday, alongside the motion, their considerations on what will no doubt be a proposed period of extension, which could obviously be amended? Through the work of the Public Accounts Committee, we see the real challenges of being prepared to leave, even with a deal, by 29 March. Even a short extension would give little comfort to people out there. So will the Leader of the House give us, either now or then, an indication of the length of time that the Government would be proposing on Thursday for an extension to article 50?

Restoration and Renewal (Report of the Joint Committee)

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman’s perspective on this, but the reality is that we have to look at the best value for taxpayers’ money, not simply at the one proposal made by the Joint Committee, which it acknowledged it had not fully costed. To quote the Joint Committee report:

“We recognise that there is still work to be completed in order to validate our conclusions.”

The costs allocated were not budgets for the programme, and there are real concerns around value for taxpayers’ money arising from the hon. Gentleman’s amendment.

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

The right hon. Lady is seeking to say that her motions suggest better value for the taxpayer, but if we make a decision with three options that have to be fully worked up and costed, that will mean a considerable cost in time and taxpayers’ money. However, making a decision now, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, will mean that we can get on with it, set the path forward and get value for taxpayers.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am sorry, but I must absolutely disagree with the hon. Lady. The problem with going for the one solution that she suggests is that the Joint Committee itself made it clear that it had not fully costed the options or even considered the options for fully decanting both Houses. She is also wrong, as is the amendment, on the grounds of the capability for full decant. If Members consider the challenge of decanting from this place, what exactly are they proposing? The planning that will go into fully decanting potentially 7,500 people—the works of art, the furniture, the books—will take a considerable amount of time in itself. That has to be properly planned, properly costed and properly evaluated, so the option for partial decant could, potentially, be a better, more valued option for the taxpayer than the proposal for full decant.

Business of the House

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 6th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

May I say that that is utter nonsense and not worthy of the hon. Gentleman? Would he like to mention the Secretary of State for Scotland’s support for the Scottish oil and gas sector? He gave hours and hours of committed time to the discussion of a package of fiscal reliefs to support the oil and gas sector in Scotland. I was an Energy Minister myself, so I know very well what he did in the energy space: he spent hours with me working on a supply chain to give Scottish fabrication yards the chance to build the parts for the offshore wind sector that this Government have supported. We have half the world’s offshore wind turbines, but the hon. Gentleman does not mention any of that. This is a petty and spiteful act from an Opposition who should be ashamed of themselves. The Secretary of State for Scotland has spoken up for the people of Scotland at every opportunity.

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

In the previous Parliament, the Public Accounts Committee and several constituency Members from all parties expressed concerns about Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs estate reorganisation. It appears that major contracts were signed while Parliament was dissolved, which appears to fly in the face of official guidance to the civil service on not making big decisions on commercial contracts during purdah. Will the Leader of the House, the champion of the House in the Government, undertake to look into this matter and report back, or ensure that a Minister reports back? As HMRC is not a ministerially led Department, will she grant a debate in Government time so that Members can express their concerns directly?

[Andrea Leadsom]

If the hon. Lady would like to raise specific issues relating to HMRC processes, I will certainly take them forward for her, but I wish to use this opportunity to point out that since 2010 HMRC has secured £150 billion for this country in additional compliance revenues as a result of its actions to tackle tax evasion, tax avoidance and non-compliance. In 2016 alone, HMRC collected record revenues of £26.5 billion from compliance activities. We have secured nearly £3 billion from offshore tax evaders and more than £2.5 billion extra from the very wealthiest since 2010. If the hon. Lady or anyone else in the Chamber would like to praise HMRC for its contribution to sorting out the economy and getting us back to living within our means, I would be delighted to hear it.

Business of the House

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 29th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

We will all have seen recent press reports of close shaves, and this certainly seems to be an increasing challenge. If my hon. Friend would like to write to me on this point, I will certainly take it up with the Department for Transport.

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

The National Audit Office says it will cost nearly £7 billion to get existing school buildings up to scratch, yet the Government are spending money hand over fist on developing free school sites, including four in London that have cost more than £30 million each. Should we not have a debate in Government time about how we manage the capital budget for schools so that all our pupils can be in schools with decent sports facilities and playgrounds, rather than in old office blocks that are not fit for purpose?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I remind the hon. Lady that 1.8 million more children are in good and outstanding schools than in 2010—[Interruption.] Opposition Members tut but, for parents, a decent education is absolutely essential in a globally competitive world. She makes a good point about the fabric of buildings. It is not as important a point as the quality of education that our children are getting, but I would be very happy to take it up for her if she would like to write to me.

Business of the House

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

As luck would have it, the very next debate on the Queen’s Speech is on the subject of housing. My hon. Friend may well want to take part in that debate later today.

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

Last year the Department of Health laid its accounts before the House on 21 July, the last day the House sat before the summer recess. Will the newly appointed Leader of the House—the champion of this place in Cabinet—ensure that this does not happen again? Could the accounts of not only the Department of Health but all Government Departments be laid so that we can scrutinise them?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I appreciate what the hon. Lady says. As she will appreciate, Departments move heaven and earth to ensure that they get reports out on sitting days. There is always a rush to try to get them out before the recess begins. I have some sympathy for Departments trying to meet those deadlines and trying not to deliver during recesses, but I certainly take the hon. Lady’s point and will ask colleagues to try to ensure that there is time for parliamentary scrutiny.

Amendment of the Law

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 19th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am glad that the hon. Lady has clarified what she meant.

I would like to tackle head-on the lazy idea held by many Labour Members that when a country grows, it is the Government who do the running. It is not the Government; it is businesses and hard-working individuals.

In this Budget, as in all previous fiscal statements, this Government have demonstrated our pro-business, pro-growth credentials. That means more tax credits for key sectors, whether they be energy-intensive heavy industries or creative industries maintaining Britain’s status as a cultural centre of the world. It means further action to stimulate investment in the North sea through investments and tax cuts, and a long-term strategy for superfast broadband, enabling the next step in the technological revolution.

Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced that next April we will abolish national insurance altogether for employing a young apprentice. We will be holding a major review of business rates, reflecting the fact that the old system needs to be reviewed so that it works better to support aspiring business owners in our country. He announced the abolition of class 2 national insurance contributions for the self- employed, and the abolition of the annual tax return altogether. I can tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I had phone calls to my office from two constituents, one of whom said that the Government’s Help to Buy ISA will persuade them to vote for me, while the other said that the abolition of the annual tax return will encourage them to do the same. On the basis of my own small opinion poll, this is already making a difference.

[Meg Hillier]

The Minister raises the important issue of national insurance contributions. Will she highlight for many of the self-employed people in my constituency what that will mean for their pensions?

[Andrea Leadsom]

We are consulting on that, and further information will come out in due course.

To help the food, drink and hospitality industry, we are freezing wine duty, cutting beer duty by a penny a pint, and cutting duty on cider, Scotch whisky and other spirits by 2%. To help any business that depends on a car, a truck or a van—or even a pink bus—we are cancelling the fuel duty increase scheduled for September. This is the longest duty freeze in over 20 years, saving someone filling up a Ford transit van £15 at the pumps every time they fill the tank. To help our businesses expand internationally, we are putting ourselves forward to be a founding member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and we are doubling our support for British exporters to China. These are all vital steps to improve Britain’s ability to export and to support those businesses that are returning Britain’s economy to health.

This is a Budget that helps businesses from a Government who understand businesses. This is a Budget that will help secure Britain’s economic future for years to come. This is a Budget that will deliver prosperity for all, and I commend it to the House.

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Mr Vara.)

Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Commons Chamber

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

Since funding for lending was introduced, funding for small businesses has actually gone down. Businesses in my constituency tell me that one of the biggest problems is the withdrawal of overdraft facilities by many banks. What is the Minister doing to ensure that such short-term cover is available.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Only recently, the national policy chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses said that funding for lending is helping to bring down the cost of credit for small businesses. It is vital that banks focus on rebuilding business lending, and many of them are doing so. As the economy recovers, we expect that to pick up. Indeed, gross lending is 12% higher than in 2012-13.

Finance (No.2) Bill

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

Tuesday 8th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier]

This is such an important issue that I hope we do not end up with a false party political divide. The new clause is a sensible and proportionate measure that we should all support, because it would not tie anyone to anything much. It simply suggests that we should assess the impact of changes to the tax and tax credits system, to ensure that we all work together to make the system fairer, simpler and more cost-effective for parents and better for children.

The issue of child care is about both supporting supply and ensuring that it is affordable for the user, and both parts of that need to be simple. We have seen problems in the system, because without subsidy at the supply end there is a disincentive to provide supply. I have suggestions about how we might address that through the tax system, which I will come on to later.

Governments of all parties often talk about the difference between child care and early years education, and we have heard a little of that divide in this debate. However, I am sure that all of us who have had experience of the matter would like to see the two combined in most cases. When Governments talk about early years education, which is inevitably expensive, they mean providing 15 or 25 hours a week, not the number of hours that would be needed for somebody to work full time. I recognise that that is unaffordable at the moment, although I have ambitions on the matter—I do not speak for my Front-Bench colleagues, but I have aspirations for what they will achieve in time.

Child care needs to be different for different children. I will come to the issue of older children, but whether it is after-school care or pre-school care, flexibility is the key. I concur with the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), although not completely—she decided to rubbish the Labour Government’s achievements, and I will make no apology for what Labour achieved through Sure Start, with a massive increase in the quality and availability of child care and reductions in cost in many places. As she, I and other Members recognise, flexibility is vital, because people, particularly in London, do not work nine-to-five as much as is often believed.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am moved to intervene as the chair of the all-party group on Sure Start children’s centres. I once wore a hat in the Chamber so that I could take my hat off to the Opposition for having created Sure Start. However, I hold to the fact that, brilliant as the idea was, there is still a huge amount to be improved on. I urge the hon. Lady to agree that we do not do nearly enough to focus on the developmental needs of the very young.

[Meg Hillier]

There is cross-party support for all of that, because I agree that Sure Start was a revolution in early years support. I felt that it should continue so that there was Sure Start at the ages of five and 11. We would stray off the debate if I got into that territory, but my constituency still has 37% of children living in poverty and it is a young constituency. Families of all backgrounds have used Sure Start, learned from each other and got support. Whatever their background, people have challenges with their children at an early stage, and children really have got a sure start. Titles of Government initiatives often become glib, but Sure Start meant something to me and to many of my constituents.

The London assembly Labour group carried out a study on the London cost of living, and it found that flexibility in child care was particularly important in London, where there are long commute times and variable hours. One of the benefits of the child care voucher system, which is not universal, is that where it has been taken up it has provided a good deal of flexibility for parents to buy into properly qualified, registered child care. Again, the study proposed by the new clause could investigate how to support quality through a tax voucher system. Of course, we have seen a reduction in tax credits, although I welcome and support what my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) said about the U-turn on universal credit paying 85% of child care costs. The key point is that we can have Government initiative after Government initiative, but parents want the system to be kept simple. They want to know what money they have to play with and where they can spend it, which means that both the supplier and the purchaser of a service, in this case the parent, can understand the system.

We need cross-party agreement so that we have a system that sticks and is not tinkered with time after time so that people do not have to work out, “Does that apply to me? My child is going to be that age on that date, so does it apply to them? Oh, they have missed that cut off by one day, so that whole term will be more expensive than it will be for the neighbouring child, who got in by one day.” There are all sorts of silly little bits of the system that make it complicated for people to understand. Such things can be disincentives for accessing child care and ensuring that people get the right support, particularly mothers who are going back to work.

I am a London Member, and the new clause would particularly benefit people in London, because child care costs in London are inevitably higher. The costs of premises are higher. Although there is a minimum wage, child carers are rightly paid more, and in London their wages will be higher than in other parts of the country. Research by child care site Findababysitter.com found that a quarter of parents in London who were not in work were prevented from getting a job because of high child care costs. The Resolution Foundation found that one in five mothers who were already employed would like to take on an extra 10 hours’ work a week on average but could not do so because they would need the commensurate extra child care—not just 10 hours extra but enough child care to allow them to travel to and from work.

A parent in London buying 50 hours of child care a week for a child under two would face an average annual bill of nearly £14,000, if they can find a child care setting that opens during the hours that they need to work. In the current climate, in which people are expected to work longer and harder for their money, 50 hours of child care is the bare minimum. Anyone who is not working regular hours, as the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire said, would need the flexibility of having someone come to their home, or a very flexible childminder. That might be manageable for a child under two, but things get much more complicated with children above that age who are looked after outside the home.

Just over a year ago, I called for child care to become a top priority, and it is heartening that we are having more debates on the issue, but talking about it does not mean that the Government are getting it right with the offer of so-called tax-free child care. I will not repeat the arguments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North, but the Government’s offer depends on how much people spend, and it is complicated for people to understand. I know a number of people on low incomes who have a simple approach to the tax system and who will find the proposal complicated. They will not benefit to the same extent because of the amount of child care that many of them will access because of their working hours.

I represent one of the youngest parliamentary seats in the UK. More than a fifth of residents are under 16 and more than a third, about 34%, are under 24, so child care is a big concern. I am stopped on the streets of Hackney South and Shoreditch by mums, childminders and others who want to raise that concern. When I ask any working parent what the toughest part is, they say that it is sorting out the child care, which is a logistical challenge as well as a financial challenge. I know that, because I am a working mother of three, and I am lucky to be well paid enough to buy in that flexibility. For anyone who does not have a salary as generous as mine, buying in that flexibility is very difficult.

Nationally, we know that 70% of working parents do not work nine-to-five Monday to Friday, and in London, because of the journey times, doing a full day’s work means long and expensive child care, if parents can get it. We have the most expensive system in the world. The review proposed in new clause 1 could consider examples from around the world. In Denmark, a day care Act means that local councils provide child care for all between 8 am to 5 pm, with parents and the Government—this is where new clause 1 would come in—contributing to the cost. Child care is free for families on the lowest incomes. The subsidy is tapered, depending on the family income—in this country, it would need to be done sensibly through the tax and tax credit systems—which means that three quarters, 76%, of Danish women are working. That is a huge improvement on the number of women working in the UK. I will touch on the points made by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) on women wanting to stay at home, but we need women to be economically active. This is not just about child care, but about giving women their rightful place in the work force. Hearteningly, women outnumber men in the Chamber at the moment. I applaud my male colleagues of all parties for being here, because this is not just a women’s issue. Women who play their equal role in society and in the work force are more satisfied, better role models and better parents as a result, if we make things as stress free as possible, which is about providing flexibility.

[Andrea Leadsom]

That is such a sweeping statement. It completely undermines those women who choose to do the utterly groundbreaking and profoundly valuable job of staying home to raise their children. The hon. Lady is not being fair to those people.

[Meg Hillier]

I will come to that point in a moment. I am saying not that women who want to stay at home and who can afford to do so should not make that choice, but that it is important that women have the choice to work and to be economically active and play their full role in society in that way. Even women who stay at home to look after their children for a period of their child’s early years may well need or want to work at a later stage. That choice is therefore important whatever stage we are talking about. We should not conflate being at home with a very young child under five with being at home all the time. Under the hon. Lady’s Government’s benefits system, parents have to work or they will seriously lose money, and their children will be pushed into greater poverty.

In Hackney South and Shoreditch, women’s average earnings are higher than men’s, which shows what could be achieved if that was applied across the workplace. A decent universal system of child care will pay for itself in the long run. More parents working and paying taxes, and not claiming tax credits and benefits, more than pay for the state’s investment. I do not speak for my party on this, but I hope that those who do take that mantle and look towards the overall goal of a universal free child care system that will pay for itself. That is an aim we need to work towards. If the Government agree to new clause 1, we will be set on a cross-party basis along that route. It would not solve the problem overnight or mean that things will be easy, but it would mean that we can look closely at the options.

As I have said, child care costs in London are higher than in the rest of the country. I will not go into the details but, for instance, a nursery place for an under two is £140 a week typically in London compared with a UK average of £109. I know many people who pay a lot more than that. There is an idea that people have choice, but it is not often the case. Many parents take the option of what is available at the time, which is why we need to provide incentives at the supply end.

I have a couple of suggestions that the study proposed in new clause 1 could consider. It could examine the idea of a London weighting in universal credit for the provision of child care. It could also consider more family-friendly approaches by employers. Practices such as working from home arrangements and on-site nurseries could be fuelled by tax breaks. Speaking as a member of the Public Accounts Committee, we would clearly need to monitor that to ensure that it was not abused, but the brilliant brains in the Treasury, including the Minister’s, could probably work through such a system.

We need to push private and public sector providers to extend the hours available to parents, particularly late in the evening and weekends. That could happen through a tax incentive or a tax break system. There are an awful lot of opportunities. The Minister is nodding. I am sure that she, as a working mum, will recognise the challenges and needs.

I commend to colleagues the London cost of living report by the London assembly Labour group. Although it is a Labour report, it can be read by other parties. I read it as a cross-party report. The Institute for Public Policy Research has done a big bit of work on child care. It has found that directly funding child care facilities, which happens in other European countries, can function better for parents and be more cost-effective, because there is a guarantee of a place. We have to monitor and ensure that the money is not wasted, but it would mean certainty for the supplier, which means certainty for the parent trying to buy.

I want to pick up on some of the comments made by other hon. Members. The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate talked about the importance of informal child care and I think we would all agree with that. Any parent will use informal child care at some point, whether for an evening out or as part of a longer-term arrangement with grandparents. Let us be honest, though. Not every grandparent wants to take on child care. I meet grandparents, and those whose own parents are caring for their children, who say that they do not necessarily want to take on child care but feel they should to support their child. Many of those grandparents are young and give up work to look after their grandchildren. That is fine if it is a matter of choice, but it is a real issue if they feel they have to step in because of the lack of availability and options. There is a danger of creating generational issues. For every individual who wants to work but cannot, we reduce the tax take. We need to bear that in mind.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrea Leadsom]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), with whom I agree on many aspects of early years.

The first thing I want to say is that children are everything to those of us who have them, and to those of us who have young nieces, nephews and grandchildren. Children are at the centre and heart of our world. They make incredibly selfish human beings become extraordinarily unselfish. It is when a child is about to get run over that a parent gets superhuman strength to push them out of the way. People are capable of the most enormous sacrifices for the sake of their children. It is clear to us all that top quality child care is vital.

In my case, with three kids of my own—aged 18, almost 16 and 10—I have had just about every form of child care that can be imagined. I was fortunate to start off with my stepfather acting as my nanny until my second son was five years old. Therefore, I thoroughly recommend informal child care. There are not many childminders who will take two little boys out—one in a backpack, one in a frontpack—and explain to them for hours what a worm cast is, build little toy forts and play with toy cars. Even today, I cannot get to Parliament until I have dropped one off at a friend’s, sorted out another with some A-level revision and got the third out of his bed, basically. For us, particularly mums, our children and the child care at whatever age they are—I talk to people with older children who are still looking for food, money or a taxi service—are at the centre of our lives. We all spend a lot of time thinking about the safe and happy lives of our children. Child care is a vital part of whatever we can offer to support those at work in our society.

We also need to support thoroughly the choices that families want to make. They may want an au pair and to deal with someone who is living in and who, perhaps, does not speak very good English. I asked one au pair I had to make a salad. She peeled some parsnips and gave us the peel, nicely dressed, as a salad. That was an interesting one. There are also childminders although, sadly, not nearly enough of them. There is also the formal child care setting; some truly superb, others truly awful. Unfortunately it was the formal child care setting—the nurseries—that led to the old joke about “hair or care”; in other words, someone not smart enough to be a hairdresser could try to become a nursery nurse. That was the reality 10 years ago where some young girls—themselves barely out of their teens—would become the carers looking after our very young children in nurseries. Care for our children comes in all shapes and sizes.

I also want to say a word on behalf of those heroic mums—I would have loved to have been one—who have stayed home and looked after their children themselves, giving up potentially lucrative, satisfying and successful careers. They might feel very depressed about their lack of self-worth, certainly in the eyes of too many politicians. I want to pay tribute to those women who decide to stay home and raise their own children.

[Meg Hillier]

I just want to go back to the point about au pairs and others. Will the hon. Lady acknowledge that with the cost of housing and the overcrowding in many cases in London, the idea of someone living in your home is not an option, which is why the formal setting is particularly important in a city such as London?

[Andrea Leadsom]

Yes of course I agree. My point was merely that child care comes in all shapes and sizes. My real point is that we should support the choices that families want to make, which are the best choices for them. That is particularly why I am so delighted that the Government have introduced shared parental leave. What more choice could there be for a woman who perhaps is earning more than her husband than to be able to decide to go back to work in the knowledge that he will be doing that critical early part of the child care? That is a huge tribute to the Government and many families will be delighted. It will be life changing for them.

Another area for which the Government deserve a lot of credit is the introduction of the early years professional status, particularly to deal with the quality of child care. I have been told by the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson)—who is Minister for children—that early years professional status will require a great deal of training. It will involve learning about the importance of secure attachment, about how the brain of a baby develops, and about how vital it is for the baby to receive loving, attentive care, whether that care is provided by parents or in a formal setting. As the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) pointed out, when life at home is devastatingly awful because of domestic violence, bereavement or drug or alcohol misuse, the attachment needs of a baby may be far better met in a formal child care setting than at home. What is really important is choice and good quality.

Another enormous tribute should be paid to the Government for the creation of childminder agencies. I know that that has been a contentious issue, but I believe that children’s centres that adopt childminder agency status can serve as signposts for all families who seek child care. They can provide ongoing professional development for childminders, many of whom have felt unloved and uncared-for over the last few decades—which, along with over-regulation, has been their reason for leaving the business. The agencies can help childminders to understand regulation, to become established, and to provide the top-quality care that they so want to provide.

[Meg Hillier]

I thank the hon. Lady for being so generous with her time. Childminders have told me that their main fear is that childminder agencies could replicate the private sector company model for older people’s domiciliary care, creaming off a profit from childminders’ salaries and not delivering a good service. The hon. Lady has described an entirely different model. Does she have any inside information about what will be announced?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I do not, but I can tell the hon. Lady that I have been lobbying the Minister, and telling him that children’s centres could play a fantastic and very appropriate role if they became childminder agencies. I think that the support, encouragement, training and quality control that they could offer would be good for childminders, and it would certainly be good for families.

What else have the Government done for families? They have done an enormous amount. Child care tax credit has been given a huge boost: a contribution of up to £2,000 per child will greatly help families to make the right child care choices. Even more significant is the increase in the tax-free personal allowance, which has put an enormous amount of money back into the hands of taxpayers, and which will benefit working families of all shapes and sizes. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), the fuel duty freeze has made the cost of living for families lower than it would have been under the Opposition.

But what have we really, fundamentally done for our children—the children who are at the heart of everything that we do? We have paid down the deficit by a third, which is no inconsiderable feat. Why is that so important? As a result of the financial crisis and the Labour Government’s overspending, we put ourselves in a position in which we stole not just from our children, but from our grandchildren. We mortgaged their future. This Government have paid down the deficit significantly, with the intention of clearing it altogether so that we can start to reduce the debts that our children and grandchildren would otherwise be paying. We have been able to keep the cost of borrowing down, because we had a credible plan for returning strength to our economy. That has enabled all families with mortgages to keep down their borrowing costs, and has been a huge boost to families that is never talked about.

What is the payback? Our economy is the fastest-growing in the developed world. Wages are rising faster than they have done for seven years—that was announced today—and the private sector has created 1.6 million new jobs. That means that well over 1.5 million new families are finding work, and are able to meet the needs of their household budgets.

Child Care

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Meg Hillier]

I am sorry, I do not have time to take interventions.

The assault on Sure Start by this Government is surely their greatest act of vandalism—an assault on the future of the poorest and most vulnerable children and parents. We know that—

[Andrea Leadsom]

rose—

[Meg Hillier]

I regret not having the chance to debate, but I have three and a half minutes left—a very short time in what we thought would be a longer debate.

The “pile them high, teach them cheap” policy promoted by the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) is another example of the Government’s attitude to child care. I want to focus on three areas—first, that child care is not a peripheral issue, a soft issue or even a women’s issue. Quality child care goes to the heart of our society, our economy and our country’s prosperity. No policy matters more. As we see, with a squeeze on living standards throughout the country, people are looking at costs. We see the challenges.

For example, research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that the cost of necessities required to give a child a decent standard of living increased by 4% in the past year alone. A recent OECD report found that the UK has some of the most expensive child care in the world. I will not repeat the arguments that colleagues have made, but we know that a further 1.3 million women want to work more hours. If our employment rate for mothers moved up to the average of the world’s top five nations, 320,000 more women would have jobs, and crucially tax receipts would rise by £1.7 billion.

Secondly, we need to be bold. I urge those on my Front-Bench to be even bolder. We should be proud of our record, but in the past progress was sometimes slower than it should have been. It was sometimes piecemeal. I do not speak for my Front Bench, but I would like to see a child care Bill in the first Queen’s Speech, announcing our aim to move towards universal child care. The Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank has shown that a decent universal system of child care pays for itself in the long run. More parents working, paying taxes and not claiming tax credits and benefits more than pays for the state’s investment in child care. We know from Scandinavia that that increases women’s participation in the work force, so we need to be bold.

The third area that I have a brief moment to flag up, as I know we are running out of time, is the idea of sustainability and ownership. I am a proud co-operator, and there must be a greater role for co-op and mutual models when it comes to child care. Many of the original Sure Start centres were run by boards of parents. I worked among them as my own older children were growing up and saw the empowerment that that gave many of those women. These community assets should not be at the command of Ministers of any party. They remain under threat if Ministers do not care about child care. Parents know best. I would like to see more co-operative ownership, including childminding co-ops, rather than the agencies that the Government are promoting, which would cream off a profit and remove the parent relationship with their own childminder, which would be a great mistake.

In my final minute, I give way to the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom).

[Andrea Leadsom]

I just want to say that the hon. Lady is making a big mistake by turning child care into such a political issue. She knows as well as I do that Sure Start centres are doing brilliant work in our society. There is so much potential from the Sure Start movement. She should be proud that Labour introduced it and that this Government are building on it. Opposition Members should stop trying to frighten parents into thinking that it is all going pear-shaped.

[Meg Hillier]

But we know that services are being watered down. The great thing about Sure Start centres is that they were open to all and a range of services were provided. It was a one-stop shop. It will always be a challenge to decide what services should be provided when money is tight, but Sure Start was a great unifier, a great starting point, a great melting pot, a great mix. I am glad to hear from the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire that she is a champion of it on her Benches. It is a shame that the Government are not, and their funding cuts to local authorities are putting Sure Start under threat. I am not being partisan for the sake of it. Our record is strong, and parents and child carers in my constituency worry about their future under this Government.

Social Mobility

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 28th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Meg Hillier]

Absolutely. That is important. The Government buy a lot of business from a lot of organisations, so I ask the Minister whether it would be possible to include a requirement in Government contracts to provide support to young people from the types of background under discussion.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

May I make a quick plug for MPs recruiting apprentices to their own offices? I have had a fantastic experience with my first apprentice caseworker over the past year, and will shortly take on another one from a school in my constituency. It is a fantastic experience for them and for me.

[Meg Hillier]

I hear what the hon. Lady says; we could all set an example in that respect. The lack of diversity with regard to people applying for jobs in Parliament is an issue that we all could and should tackle in our recruitment.

I am sure that other Members will raise issues relating to access to university, but I want to highlight how the Open university is doing an awful lot to improve access and helping people progress from the OU to Russell group universities, which is important.

I want to talk briefly about what is happening with young people in Hackney. I have set up a networking programme called “Next Steps”, which is similar to the programme described by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles. It provides access to young people to build networks with professional and business people. So far, I have hosted one event—there will be another one next week—in which professionals taught young people about networks and provided the connections.

A young woman who wants to be a medical student had written to everyone she could think of to try to get a placement, but without success. I was able to find her one, however, because an MP’s address book—this might be true even if I were not an MP, but that is how I have progressed to this point in life—means that we have that access. We need to do more of that. Young people tell me, “We don’t want handouts; we want help. We want HR, not social responsibility.”

Hackney council’s children and young people scrutiny commission looked at raising aspirations and talked to young people themselves. Hackney youth parliament commissioned research of the views of young people in Hackney. They say—we should all listen to this—that they want better listening and engagement with young people when devising participation strategies. In other words, “Don’t tell us how to do it. Ask us what we want and what we need.” They also say that they want young people to be involved in the world of work, including improving the careers service.

I have high hopes for our careers service. As the hon. Member for East Hampshire said, careers services are never perfect, but I live in hope. The young people of Hackney also want the development of a world of work curriculum as part of personal, social, health and economic education. They also want to showcase opportunities for children, young people, carers and parents, and for them to include enterprise days, milk rounds, paid placements and so on. They know what they want and what their parents need to help them break through. We need to make sure that that happens.

Parental support can be challenging for parents, particularly those from backgrounds where there are no professional links and where English might not be their first language. Perhaps literacy in even their mother tongue is challenging and connections with their mother-tongue community are not great. Such people need support in understanding that there are good opportunities for their young people to pursue. The support of parents in making the right choices is very important, but unless we help educate parents, as well as provide support to young people, we will not make that breakthrough.

Living Standards

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Commons Chamber

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

This Government are having a big impact on poorer people. We see that particularly clearly in my constituency, where 21% of households have an income of less than £15,000 per annum. Indeed, we have the dubious honour of being beaten in that regard by only one other London borough. As of March this year the majority of young people in my constituency—just over 58% of those aged up to 19 years—lived in households in receipt of means-tested benefits. In Hackney, 39% of adults live in households receiving benefit, and that proportion rises to a staggeringly high 71% when we combine those in social housing and lone parents with two or more children.

I would therefore be very concerned about the impacts on real people of the policies of any Government. In this House, we often hear esoteric debate about the impacts of quantitative easing and the big economic arguments. However, although it is important that we deal with the deficit, we are not accountants. Rather, we are politicians, and we need to challenge Government about such impacts on people and we need to bring people with us.

I want to tell Members a little about some of the people in my constituency, therefore. Many Members have spoken about the many financial pressures facing people, and I might add that businesses in Hackney central, my area’s main shopping centre, tell me that footfall is down by about 40%. Things are hard for them too, therefore, as greater pressure on household incomes means people have less money to spend.

Some families facing financial pressures in my constituency will also face a shortfall in housing benefit from next year, and they will have to cover that by finding some money from their other income. Where will they find that money, however, given all the other price increases, such as for food and energy?

This week, I met a young mother who works at McDonald’s. She does the 5 am to 9 am shift so that her husband can look after the children, and she works 16 hours so that she can get help in the form of tax credits, but the Chancellor’s announcements of this week will have an impact on that.

My constituency may have higher than average deprivation figures, but there is no lack of aspiration. In the last week alone, I have met two middle-aged women who used to work in schools before losing their jobs, but who are keen to get new jobs—to do any job in order to work—and I met a young African woman, immaculately turned out and at a good school, who is keen to go on to university, but her home is minimally furnished, with clothes stored in suitcases and the household investing only in necessities, as their income does not stretch to purchasing items that Members of this House would expect to be able to have.

We need to focus on the impacts on real people, and I therefore welcome the Government’s support for disadvantaged two-year-olds. All Members regardless of party allegiance agree that early intervention is crucial, but the key question is how we do that. Other Government measures are having a disproportionately great impact on poorer households, of which I represent many.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Is the hon. Lady aware that an all-party group inquiry into Sure Start found that fewer than 10 children’s centres had closed? Local councils have shown huge commitment to the ongoing success of this important matter.

[Meg Hillier]

It is easy for the Government to talk in figures, but many centres have been run down to the bare minimum and are helping just a few families, whereas before it was a universal service, which was one of the benefits.

The children in my constituency who turn up at school without breakfast because of their alcoholic or drug-addicted parents—the same children who turn up malnourished at the end of the school holidays—are the young people whom we should be helping to have a better future. All the Government’s actions—all the talk as though the Government are accountants—do not help those families. Whatever our party, we should not be hoodwinked by academic and esoteric debate but should govern for the people we represent and remember that not all of them enjoy the same advantages as we in this place do.

Energy Bill [Lords]

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Commons Chamber

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

I was starting to think that my moment might not come this afternoon. I am delighted that the Secretary of State managed to make it to the House this afternoon to speak to his own legislation. The power of Twitter knows no end!

It is important to outline where the Opposition stand on the vital issues facing the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Government. We would all agree that there is no greater threat facing the planet than global warming. In the 19 years since the Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro, when climate change was firmly put on the agenda, the issue has moved from the fringes to the centre stage. Even during the 13-year period of the last Labour Government, for whom I had the privilege to serve, the issue became more urgent and pressing. That is why Labour not only introduced tough targets to reduce our emissions of the gases that cause global warming, but enshrined them in law.

This coalition Government cannot be accused of ignoring climate change. The Prime Minister himself put the environment at the top of the Tory agenda when he took his husky ride to the Norwegian glacier. At the time, there were sceptics—including the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change—who dismissed that as merely a public relations stunt. We could doubt the Prime Minister’s commitment; after all, he has uttered hardly a word on the matter since. Why else, though, would one install a wind turbine on the roof unless one were committed?

As the Secretary of State has said, the Energy Bill provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to catalyse Britain’s journey from a high-carbon to a low-carbon economy, to change customer behaviour for ever, to lead the world in reducing carbon emissions and to be a bright beacon to our partners in Europe, America and the Commonwealth. So the coalition Government have set out their stall, claiming to be “the greenest Government ever”, and what have they come up with? After months of bravado, bragging and boasts from the Energy Secretary and his ministerial team, we have a Bill that adds new meaning to the word “disappointment”. It is a flaccid lettuce leaf of a Bill, laden with missed opportunities and ducked decisions. If the school playgrounds of Britain have indeed adopted a new phrase, “doing a Clegg”—which, for the benefit of Liberal Democrat Members, means saying one thing and doing another—the lexicon will soon contain another new phrase, “doing a Huhne”. That will mean “talking big”, for 45 minutes in this instance, “but delivering little”.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am very disappointed by what the hon. Lady is saying, on behalf of many of my constituents. A couple of months ago I was at a fish-and-chips supper with some retired people, and one elderly lady was literally in tears, saying that given her very limited resources she did not know how she would manage to keep warm in the winter and eat as well. I find it pretty shocking that an initiative that is making a bold effort to remedy that situation should meet with such complete disregard from the Opposition.

[Meg Hillier]

The hon. Lady may be jumping to conclusions. It is this Government who are removing the Warm Front scheme, and it is this Bill that is failing to deliver for the fuel poor. I shall say more about that shortly.

In his 45-minute peroration, the Secretary of State promised 100,000 jobs. He promised that the poorest would be saved from the cold, and that the market would protect the consumer and many others. However, he did not give us the details of some important matters. We have a Secretary of State who has been rolled over by the Tory Chancellor—and, we have learned in recent hours in days, by his own party colleagues, particularly the Business Secretary—on every important issue in his Department. We have also learned today that the ECO may be within the levy cap, but not yet. We have a Liberal Democrat sheep in a wolfish Government: a Government who want to be green-tinged, but who are under-delivering on their grand promises.