Post Office Court of Appeal Judgment

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

Indeed, it is important that the Post Office engages with all the appellants who have had their convictions quashed. As we are getting those answers, we will work to ensure that we can get fair compensation.

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab) [V]]

This gross miscarriage of justice has taken a terrible toll not only on the wrongly convicted sub-postmasters who have endured so much suffering and struggled for so long to see justice, but on the local communities that rely on post offices as precious community resources. In the wake of this scandal, can the Minister tell us what steps the Government are taking to ensure that every community has easy access to a post office?

[Paul Scully]

There are universal access provisions for the Post Office. Although, yes, we are giving them a network waiver because of the effect of covid at the moment, we will make sure that we are up to 11,500 post offices across the country, with access criteria to ensure that the most vulnerable are closest to a post office and have those services that add such social value to their communities.

Vagrancy Act 1824

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab) [V]]

Sir Charles, it is a privilege and honour to serve under your chairmanship. Members will be aware that this is an issue of great interest to me, and I thank the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) for securing this important debate. Before the pandemic began, I volunteered each Sunday at Charles Thompson’s Mission in my constituency to help serve hot breakfasts to over 350 people who were then homeless across Merseyside. For me this was not a chore, it was a privilege.

The causes of homelessness are many and complex. Everyone I met at the mission had a different story to tell. Some were casualties of the housing crisis and a cruel and often incomprehensible welfare system, and some had fled domestic violence. Many struggled with substance abuse and mental ill health, and all were victims of a decade of brutal spending cuts that has left frontline services struggling to survive. The decade of austerity led to a staggering 165% increase in the number of rough sleepers in England. That is a shameful legacy and its victims deserve support, not punishment. No one deserves to be criminalised simply because they have nowhere to call home. Seven out of 10 local authorities continue to use some form of enforcement against homeless communities. In Merseyside alone, nearly 300 proceedings were brought under the Vagrancy Act 1824 in 2019.

For those who fall victim to this pernicious piece of legislation, the consequences can be devastating. Fines can sometimes be as high as £1,000—a whopping amount that will only plunge people further into dire poverty. It makes any chance of escaping the streets impossible. Just the threat of being fined or moved on by the police can drive many homeless people away from places of visibility. That puts them out of reach of frontline services and third sector organisations that could help them. It increases the likelihood that homeless people, who are already 17 times more likely to be victims of crime, will be subject to violence, abuse and criminal exploitation.

The Vagrancy Act traps homeless people in a vicious circle of criminalisation and marginalisation. I was therefore heartened to see the Communities Secretary tell the House that he thought the Act should be scrapped, at last adopting the position my party has held for many years. Nearly 200 years after the great abolitionist William Wilberforce first condemned this spiteful Act in the House, we now have the opportunity to right a wrong that has endured for too long.

However, we must go further. In place of the Vagrancy Act, we need a compassionate and holistic approach that tackles the root cause of homelessness, rather than simply giving homeless people a one-way ticket to the criminal justice system. That means restoring funding to frontline public services, which do vital work helping homeless people battling with mental ill health and substance abuse. It means giving local authorities the resources they need to tackle this issue with a public health-focused approach. We must write off all the debts incurred over the pandemic and restore funding after 10 years of austerity. Above all, it means tackling the housing crisis by ending the right to buy and launching a massive council house building scheme that creates homes fit for the 21st century and ends the blight of homelessness once and for all.

Covid-19: Hospitality Industry

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab) [V]]

I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

At long last, we find ourselves in the final stretch of the long war with covid-19. Thanks to the tireless efforts of NHS staff and volunteers, vaccination rates are soaring, and many of us are now eagerly looking forward to the gradual relaxation of lockdown measures and the reopening of shops, cafés, restaurants and pubs. However, for much of the hospitality industry, the next few months will be fraught with uncertainty and worry. Independent businesses up and down our high streets are in the midst of an intense cash crisis. Grants and loans have been exhausted; proprietors are being forced to defer bills and mortgage payments; over half of businesses in the accommodation and food services industry have just three months’ cash reserves; and many small businesses find themselves burdened with unmanageable levels of debt that could well sink our economic recovery. Once again, this Government are failing to do what is needed to protect the hospitality industry.

Time and again I have called in the House for a comprehensive package of support that gives owners and workers much needed security and peace of mind in the challenging months ahead. Instead, all this Government have delivered are piecemeal measures that have left much of the hospitality industry barely able to keep its head above water. Businesses today have access to lower levels of financial support than they did at the start of the pandemic, despite finding themselves in far more severe financial trouble. The Government were far too late in extending the furlough scheme and business rate relief—a delay that needlessly cost jobs. The March Budget contained no measures whatsoever to assist small businesses with much-needed debt restructuring.

The impact on workers has been devastating. Prior to the pandemic, more than 3 million people—8% of the entire UK workforce—worked in hospitality. Over the last year, a wave of redundancies has swept the sector, with the youngest and lowest-paid workers bearing the brunt. Our economic recovery will be built on the backs of small businesses and our local high streets. We now need decisive action that gives independent businesses confidence in the future, and safeguards people’s livelihoods.

That is why Labour is calling for an ambitious high streets fightback fund that will give much-needed assistance to those businesses that have been most devastated by the pandemic. Labour’s plans will stop small to medium-sized enterprises being swallowed by a black hole of debt, by allowing businesses to start repaying Government loans only when they begin to grow again. Businesses must also be allowed to convert debts into employee ownership trusts, giving workers a real stake in the future of their workplaces. We must also create the conditions that allow local shops to compete with online retailers on a more equal footing, and give local authorities the powers they need to fill empty units as a means of revitalising our neglected high streets. Finally, we need action to tackle the scourge of low pay and insecure work that has plagued the hospitality industry for far too long. That means ensuring that every employee is paid at least the minimum wage and has a guaranteed number of hours each week.

Residential Leaseholders and Interim Fire Safety Costs

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) for securing this important debate. She has long been a passionate supporter of all those who have been so terribly affected by this issue, and I have no doubt that we are all immensely grateful for her tireless efforts. I also pay tribute to our nation’s heroic fire and rescue teams, who put their lives on the line every day to keep us all safe.

The fact that we have been forced to have this debate at all is a matter of deep regret. Nearly four years after the Grenfell fire, the Government are still to learn the lessons of that tragedy and to take the action that is so desperately needed to ensure that everyone is safe in their home. Too many people remain stuck in unsafe flats that they cannot sell, pushed to the brink of bankruptcy by the colossal costs of waking watches and cladding removal, and in fear of going to sleep each night. In Merseyside alone, there are 25 buildings with waking watches in operation, and there are 65 across the north-west.

With the Fire Safety Bill, the Government had the opportunity to draw a line in the sand, but that Bill failed to go far enough or fast enough, and will have done little to address the very real concerns of the many thousands of people stranded in unsafe buildings. Similarly, the £3.5 billion announced by the Communities Secretary simply will not address the scale of this crisis. While it may help people living in buildings over 18 metres, those stuck in smaller housing blocks still face being burdened with debts that many of them can never even hope to repay. Let us be clear: leaseholders should be not be forced to shoulder the costs of other people’s mistakes, but despite saying on no less than 17 occasions that leaseholders will not be forced to meet the costs of fire safety measures, that is exactly what the Government now expect thousands of people to do. The Government also said nothing about addressing the issue of non-cladding-related fire risks, such as wooden balconies, despite the considerable risks that these pose to tenants.

Finally, as we consider the Government’s failure to step up and ensure the safety of leaseholders, we must not forget the role that 10 years of sweeping funding cuts to frontline fire and rescue have played in the undermining of all our safety. Since the Conservatives came to power in 2010, 400 firefighters have been lost in Merseyside alone. Across the country, thousands more posts have been axed and hundreds of stations closed. The tragic consequence is that response times have fallen and our fire service’s ability to tackle incidents and save lives has been critically undermined.

Winter Homelessness Support

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. I thank the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) for securing this important debate.

In January, I delivered my maiden speech on homelessness, and it seems appropriate to return to the subject for what is likely to be my final contribution of 2020. Much has changed since then. The country has found itself under attack from an invisible and previously unknown enemy. While the public were urged to stay at home, local authorities and third sector organisations leapt into action to ensure that no one was left on the streets. Thanks to their tireless efforts, countless lives were saved, but the Government failed to capitalise on that success. Decisive action was needed to end the scourge of homelessness forever. Instead, the funding dried up and people were sent back on to the streets once again.

As we draw closer to the longest night of the year with the temperatures set to plummet, we find ourselves once again debating support for homeless people. The scale of the crisis was demonstrated by the recent news that 778 homeless people died in 2019. That was a 7% increase on the year before and the highest number since the Office for National Statistics began to monitor cases in 2013.

Every single one of those deaths is a tragedy, and those of us who have the great privilege of serving here must ensure that that awful death toll is never repeated. Local authorities must be given the resources that they need to provide rough sleepers with safe, self-contained accommodation this winter. I am deeply concerned by the Government’s decision to reopen communal night shelters over the Christmas period, a decision that has been criticised by Crisis and more than 16 other housing and health charities.

Homeless people are far more likely to suffer from underlying health conditions that make them more vulnerable to covid-19. They should not be forced to choose between spending a night freezing on the streets or jeopardising their health in communal accommodation. We also need to take steps to prevent people driven into poverty by the combined threat of deprivation and covid from becoming yet more involuntary recruits to the ranks of the homeless this winter and every winter to come.

I welcome the Government’s decision to extend the ban on evictions until 11 January, but with cases rising across the country and joblessness soaring, it is imperative that the ban is extended until we have decisively won the war on covid. I also urge the Government to listen to leading housing charities and remove the benefit cap, end the freeze on local housing allowance and strengthen financial support for those at risk of homelessness. Support must be made available for everyone who needs it, regardless of nationality or immigration status. That means ending once and for all the punitive and discriminatory policy of no recourse to public funds.

The housing crisis must be tackled head on. For far too long, successive Governments have failed to address the pressing need to build secure and affordable housing. There are more than 1.2 million people on the waiting list for social housing, but a mere 5,000 new homes were built last year. That has left millions of people in precarious housing situations, paying sky-high rents that spiral ever upwards while wages spiral down.

Today, almost half of private renters are just one pay cheque away from homelessness. That has to change. More than ever, we need an ambitious house building programme that delivers the high-quality, affordable housing stock that our country desperately needs. We need to end the disastrous right to buy programme, which for decades has prevented local authorities from building much-needed council houses. I believe that council house building on a scale similar to that of the post-war years is the best way to end the scourge of homelessness and the shameful shortage of decent homes.

Our ambition should match the needs of our country. Our reward will be more stable and prosperous communities, homes to be proud of and an end to the tragedy of human beings being forced to live their lives on the streets and taking shelter beneath cardboard boxes.

Covid-19: Funding for Local Authorities

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) for securing this debate. I want to begin by paying tribute to Wirral Council for the incredible support it has provided to my constituents during the pandemic. This includes instituting a greatly deserved pay rise for care workers, helping homeless people off the streets and into appropriate accommodation, co-ordinating mutual aid efforts and providing much-needed financial support to residents whose livelihoods have been devastated by the lockdown restrictions.

Despite all the difficulties that council workers have faced themselves, their commitment to the poorest and most vulnerable people in our community has always shone through. As a matter of local pride, I would argue that Wirral Council is exceptional, but I note that its efforts are being replicated nationwide and all hon. Members will have similar stories to share.

After years of being underfunded, marginalised and overlooked, local authorities have risen to meet the challenges of covid-19 admirably. This year has shown what a vital role councils play, not just in the provision of services, but as powerful advocates for those people whose voices are too rarely listened to by central Government.

I commend the resolve shown by the metro Mayors, Steve Rotheram and Andy Burnham, when the Government plunged their regions into a tier 3 lockdown with only cut-price financial support, and I was deeply moved by the testimony of the newly elected leader of Wirral Council, Jeanette Williamson, as she opposed the Government’s callous decision to let children go hungry over the holidays. I was also very glad to work so closely with council leaders from across Merseyside in successfully lobbying for the reopening of gyms and leisure centres before the current lockdown was announced.

But now our councils face an uncertain future. Across the country, the threat of cuts to frontline services and even bankruptcy looms. Expenditures have soared while income in the form of business rates, council tax and parking charges has plummeted. Wirral Council faces a black hole of £60 million in its budget, and it is not alone. Last week, the County Councils Network warned that 60% of its members anticipate having to make a fundamental reduction in frontline services, while just one fifth are confident that they can set a balanced budget next year. At a time of spiralling unemployment and a public health crisis unlike any known in our lifetime, we simply cannot afford further cuts to already overstretched and underfunded frontline services. The human cost would be unthinkable.

In March, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government promised that the Government would support councils in doing whatever it would take to protect their communities. Now it is time to honour that promise. The Government should listen to the Local Government Association and provide a minimum of an additional £8.7 billion in core funding over the next financial year. Councils in areas as diverse as Wirral, Nottingham and Gloucestershire have also called for the cancellation of debt held by the Public Works Loans Board. That would massively increase the spending power of local authorities and allow them to make critically important investments in housing, adult social care and green development.

Covid-19: Employment Rights

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I thank the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) for securing this debate. I should first declare an interest. Many Members will know by now that I am a lifelong trade unionist and former regional secretary of Unite the Union. My experience in the labour movement spurred me to stand for Parliament, so I warmly welcome the opportunity to contribute to this important debate.

The British public have been asked to make enormous sacrifices to win the war on covid-19. Livelihoods have been lost, businesses forced to close and families separated. At the same time, people have come together in a newly-found spirit of solidarity and community-mindedness. Across my constituency of Birkenhead, people have given up valuable time to produce and distribute personal protective equipment, deliver food parcels and look after the most vulnerable and isolated. They understand that we are all in this together but, for some, that message has fallen on deaf ears. Instead of playing their part, several large companies have cynically exploited the public health crisis to slash pay and attack working conditions. Despite receiving millions in taxpayers’ money, companies such as British Airways and Sainsbury’s continue to lay off vast swathes of their workforce. Such attacks have shone a spotlight on the many limitations placed on trade unions to hamper their ability to act in support of their members.

Employment rights in the UK are among the worst in western Europe. Our employment laws are the most draconian of any western democracy with the exception of the United States. Over the past 40 years, successive Conservative Governments have introduced restrictions on the right to strike, to picket, to belong to a trade union, to access industrial tribunals, and more besides. Each piece of legislation has eroded the ability of the unions to act effectively. As the Trades Union Congress has highlighted, the Trade Union Act 2016 represented the most serious attack on the rights of trade unions and their members in a generation, yet the crisis has shown how vital it is to have a strong labour movement. With unemployment spiralling out of control and covid-19 hitting frontline workers hardest, trade unions have leapt to the defence of their members.

Shop stewards have fought hard to keep their members safe in the workplace. Members have gone on strike to defend highly skilled, dignified work at sites such as Rolls-Royce, Barnoldswick. The trade union movement played a pivotal role in the introduction of the furlough scheme in March, as well as securing its extension last month, but too many employers regard the unions, to quote a former Prime Minister, as the “enemy within”. The scandalous practice of fire and rehire is a glaring example of why we need to overhaul the employment laws system. The Government must now acknowledge the central role that the trade unions have to play in forging Britain’s economic recovery. The Government have already withdrawn their knee-jerk reaction to banning socially distant picketing during strikes, but only as a result of a legal challenge by Unite the Union. Now they must follow that up. The Trade Union Act 2016 must go for a start, and a new charter must ensure that when bad employers use bad practices and mistreat their staff, the unions have the means and legal right to fight back.

Homelessness

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Thank you for allowing me to speak on this important subject, Madam Deputy Speaker. I congratulate you on your appointment and all the other Members who have made their maiden speeches during this session.

It is one of the greatest privileges of my life to have been elected to represent the place where I was born and spent my formative years, and I would like to thank all those who placed their faith in me last December. As I stand here, I am conscious of the fact that a Member for Birkenhead has not delivered a maiden speech in this House for over 40 years.

My predecessor, Frank Field, was a long serving and greatly respected presence in this House, and he served the town of Birkenhead well. He was particularly noted for his powerful campaigning on the issues of poverty, hunger and the deep failings of our welfare system. He also moved Members of the House to tears by highlighting the misery endured by many people claiming universal credit. He would no doubt have had much to contribute to this debate.

I applaud my party for choosing homelessness as the subject of this Opposition day debate. Homelessness is—I doubt anyone would disagree—one of the most pressing issues of our time. Certainly it is a real and growing concern in my constituency. Birkenhead Park, a proud reminder of Birkenhead’s prosperous and industrious past, now regularly hosts rough sleepers seeking sanctuary and a safe night’s sleep. As a volunteer at Charles Thompson’s Mission every Sunday, helping to serve hot breakfasts to homeless people and families suffering in-work poverty, I see at first hand how homelessness devastates people’s lives.

Charles Thompson’s Mission is one of many community initiatives in my constituency attempting to fill the cracks. Every night, homeless people seek shelter at Wirral Ark or the YMCA on Whetstone Lane. These projects embody the very best of Birkenhead—our sense of solidarity and community spirit—but the truth is that they should not have to exist. For far too long, the Government have failed to address the crisis of homelessness with any seriousness at all. Since the Conservatives came to power in 2010, homelessness has risen by 165%, and over £1 billion has been cut from homelessness budgets across the country.

While the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 mandated local authorities to take action to prevent homelessness, many councils and third sector organisations are still struggling to provide basic support for homeless people due to massive demand and sweeping cuts in funding. The announcement yesterday that local authorities would share £112 million in rough sleeping initiative funding was rightly described by the shadow Housing Secretary as a “paltry sum”. It is simply too little, too late.

If we are serious about tackling the homelessness crisis, we must also begin to address the economic factors that have given birth to it. In my constituency, the skilled and dignified work that my generation took for granted is largely gone. Unemployment in Birkenhead now stands at nearly twice the national average, and everywhere I see the potential and promise of younger generations being stifled by a low-pay economy dominated by zero-hours contracts and precarious employment. So too do I see families and young people struggling to secure the kind of quality, affordable housing in which I was able to raise a family. As the recently redundant Thomas Cook workers said so clearly, those out of work find themselves victims of universal credit, lost in a bureaucratic maze designed to make their lives more difficult, not to provide them with a much-needed safety net.

The consequences of this low-pay, precarious economy are chilling. Last year, Shelter revealed that 3 million people—half of all working people living in privately rented accommodation—are now only one paycheque away from homelessness. The average person is only two paycheques away. Right to buy, the failure of successive Governments to build adequate social housing and the inability of local councils to regulate the rental sector effectively mean that many tenants are now too scared to speak up against rogue landlords for fear of losing their homes.

Even on my short walk from Westminster tube station to Parliament today, I passed, as I have done each day since being elected to this House, a line of homeless people on Bridge Street between Portcullis House and the Palace of Westminster. Even here, at the very heart of our democracy, in one of the five richest boroughs in the richest city in the sixth richest country in the world, we are still faced with the outrage of homelessness, and that should shame us all into taking action.

The homelessness crisis has no easy solutions. We must commit, as Shelter and other housing charities have so often urged, to a radical and ambitious house building programme that will create 90,000 new social houses. We must also end the right to buy and preserve our existing social housing stock, ensuring that it is available for those who need it. We must pledge far greater investment in our crumbling health and social care system so that the most at risk of homelessness are properly looked after and so that their needs, in their complexity, are fully addressed. We must also build a fairer economy so that we can provide security and stability for all. We can end homelessness in Britain.

[Several hon. Members rose—]