Oral Answers to Questions

Natalie McGarry Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Natalie McGarry (Glasgow East) (Ind)]

7. What assessment she has made of the effect on further education institutions of the potential loss of access to the (a) European social fund and (b) European regional development fund after the UK leaves the EU.

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Robert Halfon)]

Following the European Union referendum on 23 June we are considering all aspects of how the vote of the people of the UK to leave the EU might impact on further education institutions. This includes consideration of institutions’ access to EU funding sources. We are committed to ensuring the FE sector remains effective in delivering learning that provides individuals with the skills the economy needs for growth.

[Natalie McGarry]

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has committed to stability and certainty in the period leading up to our departure from the EU. Further education institutions in Glasgow—including Glasgow Kelvin College in my constituency—and across the UK will need that certainty in any post-Brexit scenario. Those colleges have benefited from European social funding to the tune of £1.5 million this year alone. Brexit was not a matter of Scotland’s choosing or of Glasgow’s choosing. Will the Government commit to abandoning the empty “Brexit means Brexit” rhetoric, publishing detailed plans, providing certainty and standing by our colleges on funding?

[Robert Halfon]

Leaving the European Union will mean that we will want to take our own decisions on how to deliver the policy objectives previously targeted by EU funding. The Government are consulting closely with stakeholders to review all EU funding schemes in the round, to ensure that any ongoing funding commitments best serve the UK’s national interest while ensuring appropriate certainty.

Oral Answers to Questions

Natalie McGarry Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

Last week—perhaps it was the week before—the hon. Gentleman was shroud waving, suggesting that there would be cuts of somewhere between 25% and 40% to the per pupil funding for 16-to-19 education. I did not hear him welcome the Chancellor’s confirmation that it will remain flat cash throughout this Parliament. It is, of course, important that sixth form colleges can prosper, which is why we introduced this proposal.

[Natalie McGarry (Glasgow East) (Ind)]

6. What recent assessment she has made of the effect of the abolition of the education maintenance allowance on educational participation and attainment inequality.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

The purpose of the education maintenance allowance was to raise educational participation. Our reforms, including targeted routes to employment for all 16 to 19-year-olds and the creation of 3 million apprenticeships, deliver far higher participation and attainment than EMA on its own ever did.

[Natalie McGarry]

In Scotland, EMA provides a lifeline of support for talented young people from a low-income background to give them access to decent opportunities. In England, EMA has been yet another casualty of the Government’s austerity obsession. Why has the Minister not followed the lead of the Scottish Government, who have not only retained EMA support but from January will expand that key support to an additional 12,000 students in Scotland?

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and congratulate her on her recent engagement to a Conservative councillor. I did not think such things were possible, but they are yet another reminder that there are ways in which we are better together.

I draw the hon. Lady’s attention to the point made by the Scottish Education Minister on narrowing the gap: children from the 20% most deprived areas in Scotland are seven times less likely to attain three A grades in their highers than their most affluent peers. There are no lessons that we can take from Scotland on narrowing the gap.

Trade Union Bill

Natalie McGarry Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Natalie McGarry (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I would like to make it clear at the outset that I am proud of my previous membership of a trade union, but I am certainly not financed or sponsored by one. I come to the Chamber to speak today because it is right to oppose this ideological attack on workers, a Bill that will have widespread ramifications for workers’ ability to organise and take industrial action, which we on the Scottish National party Benches view as deeply pernicious. It can be no coincidence that any increase in public sector strike action coincides with Tory-imposed austerity on public sector services and the restriction of access to justice with the implementation of tribunal fees, especially for women. It will come as no surprise to anyone who has heard the Tories’ poisonous rhetoric towards trade unions that this Bill should seek to undermine workers’ rights. If anybody had yet to see through the Tories’ claim to be the “party of working people”, the Bill exposes that claim as the ridiculous and ludicrous lie that it is.

Trade unions are the very fabric of this society: we may not always like what they have to say or always agree with them, but they perform a vital role in protecting workers and strengthening their voice. We should protect their right to strike with every breath we have. It is important in matters such as pay, work and employment conditions that unions are the first point of support and advice to people across all types of professions. In attacking the trade unions, the UK Government are actively undermining their support and attacking the ability of workers to stand up for their own rights. Amnesty International has said this Bill is a major attack on civil liberties. In looking at the potential impact of it, I would rather place my trust in Amnesty International than in the Conservative party.

This measure effectively treats abstentions as no votes, which warps the democratic process. Indeed, the 40% rule will be familiar to people in my Glasgow East constituency and in Scotland, as the same trick that saw the ’79 devolution referendum overturned—with the abstention of even the dead yet to be removed from the electoral register counting as a no vote.

The hypocrisy is clear, with this coming from a majority Government who received the votes of just a quarter of the total electorate earlier this year. For his part, the Business Secretary received almost 54% of the vote in his constituency, but just 38% of the local electorate actively voted for him. Would he say that he did not win a decisive mandate in that election? It is utterly inexcusable that he seeks to hold trade union democracy to a completely different standard.

This Bill will damage workers’ rights and impose undemocratic and hypocritical restrictions on the right to strike. Rather than de-legitimising last-resort industrial action, this Government should be working with trade unions and employers to create a better environment. That would be a far more ambitious and constructive approach to take if this Bill really were about progress.

Equal Pay and the Gender Pay Gap

Natalie McGarry Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and welcome her to the House. I am about to come on to the regulations that will apply to companies with more than 250 employees. I say to those businesses and employers in her constituency who may not be paying the right amounts that I know she will be an active MP and will be asking them what they are going to do to ensure there is no gender pay gap in their businesses.

I can assure the Opposition that the consultation to which I just referred will consider the mechanisms for monitoring and enforcement.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission may well play a role in monitoring, as is the case for the public sector equality duty, but as hon. Members will be aware the commission already has the ability to carry out the work envisaged in the motion. I must return to my earlier comments on the distinction between equal pay and the gender pay gap, which are unhelpfully conflated in the motion.

[Natalie McGarry (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I welcome this debate. Has the Secretary of State seen and acknowledged the Fawcett Society research which shows that since 2010 some 85% of cuts to benefits, tax credits, pay and pensions have been taken from women’s incomes?

[Nicky Morgan]

I welcome the hon. Lady to the House. I have seen that report. I do not agree with it, and think the figures are flawed, because it makes assumptions about household income and the way men and women—two people in a household—divide their income, and those assumptions are not always right.

Let me return to the motion. All of its suggestions, apart from the formal laying of the annual document before Parliament, can already be done by the EHRC without changes to legislation or instruction by Government. The motion also talks about an annual equal pay check. The critical point here is that I do not think the hon. Member for Ashfield is actually talking about an annual equal pay check; instead, she is talking about an annual gender pay check. An annual equal pay check implies an assessment of the extent to which companies are acting lawfully under the equal pay provisions of the Equality Act and that information would not be obtainable from companies’ gender pay data. I am not saying the issues are not important, but that is the reason for our queries about the motion.

Our aim is to create greater transparency on the gender pay gap. We know from Office for National Statistics data that pay gaps can vary widely by sector. Publishing the data will help companies to understand these differences.