Business of the House

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 20th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that issue: he is the second Member to raise it today, and I shall certainly make sure that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has heard his concerns. As I said before, we are acutely aware of the need to ensure that while we work through the backlog, new cases are dealt with swiftly. It does make a massive difference to outcomes, which is why we have stood up the new diagnostic centres and are bolstering the NHS in the way that we are. As well as the provision of those services, how people are able to access them is critical, and I know that hospital transport and accessibility of those services is very important. I wish him well in his bid.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

My office was contacted in March 2022 by a young Albanian national who entered the UK in 2019 and is still, to this day, awaiting a decision on her immigration status. She had a Home Office interview in May 2022, and in October 2022 she received long-awaited confirmation that she is a victim of modern slavery and that sexual exploitation had occurred in the UK between January and April 2019. She has a degree in English from Tirana University and a British interpretation qualification, yet she is unable to seek employment in Britain. Will the Leader of the House advise me on how much longer my constituent will have to wait for a final outcome from the Home Office on her immigration status?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am sorry to hear about this case. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has used the Home Office’s new surgery. We know it is very difficult to get answers via hotlines and correspondence, so the Home Office has established a new service, both on site and on Teams, so that Members can talk directly to a person dealing with an individual’s case. I am not part of that service, so I cannot give an answer on this case, but I will make sure he is able to access those surgeries. If he has any future problems, please contact my office.

Business of the House

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. A debate has been secured and he will know how to raise concerns about such matters with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and other Departments. It is incredibly important that we have the facts in the public domain—whether on such treaties or about vaccines and so forth. I would just again caution the hon. Gentleman, who this week has been inviting us to “join the dots”, promoting that Anthony Fauci created covid in the United States and then offshored that operation to Wuhan. Also, in Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions prior to this session, he started a new campaign to tell the public that the Government and their international network of World Economic Forum stooges are encouraging everyone to eat insects. Those are outrageous conspiracy theories that the hon. Gentleman is promoting on his social media and, more frequently, on the Floor of the House. I urge him to check his behaviour.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Parkinson’s UK estimates that 5,360 people live with Parkinson’s in the Greater Manchester health and social care partnership area, and 630 people a year are expected to be diagnosed. Shockingly, there is only one nurse supporting people in my constituency with Parkinson’s, and one left some time ago. The post has been advertised several times over the past few months, but has yet to be filled. This is deeply concerning, given the ageing population and the increase in the prevalence of progressive conditions such as Parkinson’s, the fastest-growing neurological condition in the world. We were promised an NHS workforce plan in the autumn statement but it is now long overdue. World Parkinson’s Day is on 11 April this year. As such, will the Leader of the House grant a debate in Government time on how the forthcoming NHS workforce plan will meet the needs of people with complex progressive conditions such as Parkinson's? Will she urge the Health Secretary to finally publish the long-awaited NHS workforce plan?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for shining a spotlight on this important disease. He will know how to secure a debate in the usual way, such as an Adjournment debate, and I am sure that the Backbench Business Committee would be interested in what he has to say, given the forthcoming awareness day. Although I will make sure that the Health Secretary has heard his remarks, I urge him to talk to his local care board about what it is doing to ensure that his constituents have the support and services that they need.

Business of the House

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

That is a very kind invitation, which I hope you will take up, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is an incredibly important sector, but I do not see how the hon. Gentleman can say that it has not been a focus of ours, and has not received support. It has had bespoke support, ranging from energy support to very considerable rates relief. We will continue to work with the sector, and to support it as we make a recovery.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Since 2011, the number of teachers of the deaf has dropped by almost 20% nationally. A recent written parliamentary question that I tabled regarding the number of teachers of the deaf in and around my constituency was met with the response,

“Information on the number of qualified teachers of the deaf is not collected by the department.”

Yet the testimony of one of my constituents, whose sixth-month-old daughter is deaf, was that although her teacher was amazing, they were overworked and running on empty, due to recent staff shortages. I am deeply concerned that the Government will not get to grips with this crisis unless the Department for Education has collated the necessary data, so will the Leader of the House grant a debate in Government time on the workload of teachers of the deaf, and on ensuring that the Department has the relevant data?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this important point. Anyone who suffers from any kind of disability, be it hearing loss or a special education need, needs proper, qualified teachers to enable them to reach their full potential. Given that Education questions are a little way off, I will write to the Secretary of State for Education, as well as the Minister for Women and Equalities and the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, because I think that this type of data is held in the Cabinet Office, in its equalities section. I will find that out for the hon. Gentleman. I would be very surprised if the data was not held somewhere, but clearly it should be with the Department for Education. I will follow up for him.

Business of the House

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

My hon. Friend has very clearly got his concerns on the record. I know that they are shared by others in his constituency. The BBC, as he and all Members know, is governed by the royal charter—it is an independent body—and we also have in Ofcom a regulator whose job it is to ensure that the BBC is robustly held to account for delivering its public service duties, including accuracy and impartiality. I would suggest that he engage with the BBC and Ofcom if he feels the need to, but he has got his concerns on the record today.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I place on the record my own comments about Republic Day in India. Millions and millions of people will be celebrating the 74th Republic Day today.

Tragically, the son of Ms Jayne Toulson-Burke and Mr Bob Toulson-Burke passed away from dengue fever while travelling in Asia. The NHS has said that there is presently no known treatment or vaccine for dengue fever, and warns that people at increased risk of the fever should avoid travelling to nations in which the infection is found. However, there is little information about the infection for people who are travelling to countries where it can be contracted. Will the Leader of the House grant a debate, in Government time, about raising awareness of dengue fever?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for helping to raise awareness of that important point by speaking about it in the House today—his points are well made. Health questions are not until a little further on, so I shall raise this with the Department. I think it would be an excellent topic for an Adjournment debate.

Business of the House

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am extremely sorry to hear about that situation. The hon. Lady is right that some of the problems that we face with medical devices and so on can quite often be designed out. As I say, Health questions are on 24 January; I encourage her to raise the matter then. I will certainly let the Secretary of State know about her idea.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Research tells us that diabetics suffer with disproportionately high rates of mental health problems. A report published by Diabetes UK in 2019 found that 50% of diabetics consulted said that they would be comfortable talking about their emotional wellbeing, but seven in 10 of these people say that they are rarely or never supported to have those conversations. Given how stark the statistics are, the Government have clearly been letting diabetics down. There is an evident need for dedicated mental health support, so will the Leader of the House grant a debate on adequate mental health support for those who live with diabetes?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that important issue. Let me also declare an interest in that I was a director of Diabetes UK, a great organisation that does fantastic work. As he says, people with long-term conditions encounter all sorts of additional complications and situations. I shall certainly ensure that the Secretary of State is aware of the concerns that he has raised, but this also points to the immense importance of community care, specialist diabetes nurses and experts in the field, and I know that Diabetes UK also wants to ensure that the pipeline of people going into those specialisms remains strong.

Business of the House

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important issue. We spend about £3 billion on these services every year. Of course, at the start of last year we had an uplift in funding to help cope with the backlog and with getting more people access to a dentist. He will know that this depends a great deal on local commissioners using the flexibility that they have, and a debate would be an excellent way to compare performance in different areas. I encourage him to apply for one and to raise that with the Department of Health and Social Care on 24 January.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

My best wishes to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to everyone in the House for 2023. I know that, like me, Mr Speaker is a keen cricket fan. In my constituency we are lucky to have several excellent cricket clubs, including Offerton cricket club, which dates back to 1921, Heaton Mersey cricket club, founded in 1879, and Heaton Mersey Village cricket club. As we approach the cricket season, which is starting in just a few months, I know that so many more people could be budding cricketers, yet sadly even before the pandemic the number of people participating in grassroots cricket was falling. As such, will the Leader of the House grant a debate in Government time on investment in grassroots cricket in Stockport and across England?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I wish the hon. Gentleman a happy new year too. He will know that, earlier this week, we had a debate on community sport and school sport, where I think many Members took the opportunity to discuss those issues. If there is further appetite, he knows how to apply for a debate, whether through the Backbench Business Committee or an Adjournment debate.

Christmas Adjournment

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

This morning, I joined nurses on strike outside Great Ormond Street Hospital. They were out there not because they wished to be but because of their utter desperation about the situation they are in. After seven years of inadequate pay rises, huge workloads and a huge fall in nursing numbers—to the extent that the numbers recruited barely keep up with the numbers leaving—there is a crisis in the national health service. The strike by the Royal College of Nursing is an example of that.

The picket was joined by people from hospitals in other parts of the country, including a group from Southampton, who came with their own handwritten slogan that said to the Secretary of State:

“Open your fat purses and pay for the nurses”.

They were demanding a decent pay rise. I would have thought that the very least the Secretary of State could do before the Christmas break is meet the nursing and health unions and listen to what they have to say, not just about pay, but about their working conditions, the stress they are under and the poverty in which many of them live.

We surely cannot be proud of the national health service if we clap for its staff during the covid crisis but ignore the mental health stress that they go through the rest of the time and expect them to continue on what is often very low pay. Some of them even have to access food banks just to survive. Surely, we can do a lot better than that for our national health service workers. We must stop threatening them with more privatisation—of the ambulance service and so much else—and with bringing in the military to do the jobs of nurses and ambulance staff during this particular dispute. That is not what the military exists for; it should not be used as a battering ram to deliver those services by a Government who refuse to meet the workers’ representatives.

Health workers are not the only people taking strike action. We should think for a moment of postal workers, who have now been taking strike action for several months. They are incredibly hardworking people. Everyone in this House loves their postie and likes to say what a great job their postie does, except when they want to be decently paid. They want to be decently paid for their work and recognised as the important part of the community that they are. Royal Mail—a privatised industry thanks to the Liberal Democrats during the coalition Government—is now paying out enormous dividends to its shareholders and an enormous salary to its chief executive, and it is refusing to give the postal workers an offer of at least an inflation-linked pay rise and insisting that any pay rise be attached to job losses, speed-ups at work and yet further pressures on them to undertake that work. I have talked to postal workers all over the country—not just in the past few weeks, but over many years—and they tell me how they once enjoyed the job they were doing and being part of the community, but are now so deeply stressed that they are leaving the service on mental health grounds, because of the pressure under which they have been placed.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Having visited the local Royal Mail workforce several times in the past few years, it seems to me that there is an agenda to basically reduce the job of postal workers to a zero-hours, gig economy, disposable job where they do not know what hours they are doing next week or tomorrow. We seem to have disgraceful behaviour by the chief executive and senior management at Royal Mail in their failure to reach an agreement with CWU.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

My friend is absolutely right. The management of Royal Mail is trying to reduce postal workers to gig workers and put them on a par with other delivery companies that pay far lower wages and have far worse conditions. Surely we should be proud of the fact that we have the universal service obligation Royal Mail that can deliver a letter or package to every single house in the UK. Royal Mail leadership wants to end that monopoly and the universality of the service and thus destroy our postal service. This is the time, surely, for the Government to intervene and not just to speculate on the sidelines and attack Dave Ward and all the other leaders of the Communication Workers Union. The Government should recognise that they are speaking up democratically on behalf of their members who want to deliver that service to us all.

Postal workers are of course not the only group taking action; rail workers are also taking action and have announced new strike days. Before anyone gets up and immediately condemns Mick Lynch, Eddie Dempsey and everyone else in the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, I will say two things. They should stop calling the elected leaders of unions “union bosses”; they are elected leaders, democratically appointed by their members, just like we are all elected to this particular Parliament. They are taking action with the agreement of their members through a balloting process, and the members have shown they are prepared to make the sacrifice of losing pay to try to persuade the Government, essentially, that they deserve decent pay and that the strings attached to that should not be further job losses in the railway industry.

Instead, there should be recognition that the public have invested a great deal in the rail industry, and a great deal of money has been made out of the rail industry by the private sector. The only people not doing well out of it are those who actually work in it, run it safely and give us the service we need and deserve. Again, I hope that the Government will just think for a moment that using the newspapers to attack union leaders only gets them so far. They have to think of why people are taking action, which is that they want to be able to live decently and not rely on food banks to survive.

Sadly, in the new year the situation will not get better unless the Government intervene. Our teachers all over the country do an amazing job under enormous stress, with over-stressed, over-tested children, and they are balloting to take strike action. Surely it is time to think carefully about the value of public service and how it is delivered in our society.

I will conclude with this, because I do not want to go over my time. In the covid crisis, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, now Prime Minister for a while had a dalliance with Keynesian economics. He paid money into the health service, local government and the furlough scheme to keep industry and so on going. That was done with general approval. After that, we have now had a series of financial statements, all of which redistribute wealth in the wrong direction and all of which make life better for the very wealthiest in our society on the basis of some strange idea of trickle-down economics that will help the poorest in our society, when it does not. We have a decline in working-class living standards, real wage levels and, with that, a loss of service as a whole. That creates enormous stress in our society, no more so than among young people. They are over-tested and overstretched in school, and over-indebted if they have the temerity to go to university. Because they are unable to access council housing due to the shortage of it, and unable to raise enough money to buy their own place, they end up paying huge rents in the private rented sector, certainly in London and all the other big cities. Can we not have some resolution that, in the new year, we will provide real hope for young people, value their contribution to our society, and not put them under such stress and in such debt?

We all represent constituencies, and I am very proud to represent mine. I thank all the public services in my constituency, and all the community centres, food banks and food co-ops, for all that they do. That wonderful sense of community that was there through covid is there all the time, and the worst-off and hardest-up are supported and fed by the churches, synagogues, mosques and other places throughout this period.

Mr Deputy Speaker, we wish everyone a great Christmas, a great Hanukkah and a great new year. Above all, we wish everyone a peaceful new year in which we recognise that those desperate people who are seeking asylum in this country are not our enemies, but human beings just trying to survive in a cruel world.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

Before I outline one or two local issues, let me comment on what the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) has just said. It is notable that he aligned himself with all those who are on strike. I give him credit for the fact that he has held that position consistently. I will be interested to note whether Opposition Front Benchers are equally prepared to align themselves with those who are causing great inconvenience and putting the public at risk.

Turning to local issues, I do not pretend by any means that everything is going perfectly, but I noticed that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who is no longer in his place, said that everything was going wrong. He did not exclude the Labour party from that. Perhaps that was an oversight on his part, or perhaps he recognises the deficiencies in his party.

The most notable issue facing my constituents is the train service provided by TransPennine Express. I spoke about that in the summer Adjournment debate, when I suggested to Ministers that they should consider withdrawing the franchise from TransPennine, which has provided an appalling service to my constituents for over a year now. That is rather sad because, after it took over the franchise 15 years or more ago—I cannot remember exactly when—TPE built up good patronage and provided a great service. Sadly, since November last year, due to a whole range of issues to do with driver training, rest day working and the like, it has provided an appalling service.

[Navendu Mishra]

A few weeks ago, I raised the link between TransPennine Express and Avanti West Coast. I believe that TransPennine Express is entirely owned by FirstGroup, which also has a 70% stake in Avanti. It seems to me that FirstGroup is terribly mismanaging both franchises. Services are provided in Stockport by both companies. I believe that the hon. Gentleman is calling for TPE to be stripped of its franchise, and I am glad; I am certainly calling for FirstGroup to be stripped of the Avanti West Coast franchise.

[Martin Vickers]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. As I mentioned, I asked Ministers to consider the franchise position of TransPennine in the equivalent July debate, because these issues have been going on for more than a year. I am not interested in Avanti at the moment; I am focusing on TransPennine, which serves my constituents. It is supposed to provide an hourly service from 5.20 am until 9.20 pm. At the moment, the website says that the 16.24 from Cleethorpes is cancelled, the 17.24 is running, the 18.24 is cancelled, the 19.24 is cancelled, the 20.24 is cancelled and the 21.24 is cancelled. That emphasises the appalling state of affairs that TransPennine is delivering. I urge the Leader of the House to contact the Department for Transport and ask it to reconsider whether the franchise should be withdrawn.

On the subject of trains, I have long campaigned to reinstate the direct service from Cleethorpes through Grimsby, Market Rasen and Lincoln to King’s Cross, which was withdrawn by the then nationalised British Rail in 1992. It is now in the draft timetable for the coming summer, so I hope that the Leader of the House will pass on to Transport Ministers my wish that it happens. At present, five or six trains run from King’s Cross to Lincoln and it would be easy to continue those services to Grimsby and Cleethorpes. Indeed, I understand that Azuma trains have done trial runs to ensure that there is clearance through to Cleethorpes. That is a vital part of levelling up north and north-east Lincolnshire.

On levelling up, as the Leader of the House will know, three freeports were given final approval only a week or two ago. I hope that work can be done to ensure that the Humber ports are also given that approval soon. That designation is vital to the levelling up and regeneration of the area, and the potential for thousands of jobs is of great value.

I fully support the Government’s policy on renewable energy. My constituency and neighbouring Grimsby have greatly benefited from the offshore renewable sector in the North sea. I am told by Ørsted that the servicing and maintenance facility on Grimsby docks that overlaps into my constituency is the largest of its kind in the world, which is yet another reason to give maximum support to the area through infrastructure and the rail network.

We are close to a devolution deal for the whole of Lincolnshire. I urge the Leader of the House to pass on to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government the desire for the two unitary councils in the north of the county and the county council that serves the remainder of the county to be, for once, totally agreed on a devolution deal. I wish you, Mr Deputy Speaker, all hon. Members and staff a happy Christmas, and I hope that the true Christmas message gets through to everyone in the coming weeks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

One of the key points that I want to cover is the debt collection practice employed by several local authorities. I recently had a constituent in my constituency surgery who was in council tax arrears. She had a difficult situation: she owed just over £681 and was struggling to pay that to Stockport Council. She worked in catering and, during the pandemic, she was unable to work due to the lockdown, so her debt was passed on by Stockport Council to a debt collection agency. She came to see me and, in a difficult conversation for her, she made it clear that she was in a difficult situation when it came to her family as well as financially. She was being hounded by a debt collection agency to pay the money owed to the council. She felt that the debt collection agency’s behaviour was “intimidating and aggressive” and that it was holding a gun to her head in trying to get her to pay off the debt. I wrote to Stockport Council about that earlier this year, asking it to clarify its policy on debt collection agencies, including what intervention and payment measures are offered to constituents before it proceeds to instruct its contractor, Jacobs Enforcement.

In January 2021, Citizens Advice estimated that more than 3.5 million people were behind on their council tax, of whom 51% were not behind before the pandemic. As the cost of living crisis deepens, that, sadly, will only get worse. It also found that bailiff fees add an average £310 of debt for people struggling with council tax arrears.

Research last year by Policy in Practice found that, primarily, there is

“no clear relationship between stricter council tax collection policies and higher council tax collection rates”.

I urge the Minister to look into that.

I recently submitted a freedom of information request to Stockport Council, asking it to detail the number of residents referred to enforcement agents and, subsequently, the data for people classed as vulnerable. I welcome the fact that the number went from 588 people in 2021-22 to 270 in 2022-23, although I appreciate that this year is not over. It is clearly an inappropriate course of action to use debt collection agencies to hound people who are struggling financially.

I have tabled a number of written parliamentary questions on the matter, including one asking

“how many local authorities have stopped using bailiffs to collect unpaid council tax.”

The Government’s answers have been weak, and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities seems to have no oversight on the use of bailiffs. It is important that it publishes a proper policy on that, outlining alternative ways for collecting council tax that do not create further stress for vulnerable people.

In response to written question 108439, the Minister said:

“The Department does not collect data on the enforcement methods used by local authorities to collect unpaid council tax.”

I do not think that is good enough. The Government should do better. I must highlight, though, that Stockport Council has seen a 32.5% reduction in its settlement funding since 2015-16. We know that the austerity programme instigated by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition Government was a disaster for local authorities, and now we see increasing moves to decentralise spending decisions to local government without providing it with adequate funding. That is not levelling up; clearly it is levelling down.

I want to highlight that Stockport Council staff do a really important job in challenging circumstances. I thank them, as well as Debt Justice, the campaigning group, which has done a lot of work on this issue.

The issue I receive most correspondence on every week is Stockport Homes, the local social housing provider in my borough. Sadly, over 7,000 households—not people, households—are on the waiting list in my borough. People are desperate to get a property they can call home. We have seen levels of poverty increasing and the challenges that households are facing. Communities are seeing an increased level of antisocial behaviour and low-level crime. I also receive a lot of correspondence on that issue. Stockport Homes does a really good job and I am grateful to the staff, but it needs proper settlement funding for building new social housing and for allocating people houses that are good to live in.

I will not dwell too much on Avanti West Coast, because I spoke in the Backbench Business debate last week, but I will reiterate the fact that Avanti West Coast is not fit to provide that service. It should be stripped of the contract and it should be taken under public ownership so that the service is provided for the benefit of our communities, cutting carbon emissions and congestion on our roads. It simply cannot run the railway system.

I will be going to see local postal workers in my constituency later in the week. I have been in touch with them over the last few months and years. In particular, I want to place on record my thanks to Mr David Kennedy, the Communication Workers Union branch secretary for north-west central amalgamated branch, which is my local CWU branch. Its offices are based a five-minute walk from my constituency office. I intervened earlier on the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) on the disgraceful behaviour of the chief executive of Royal Mail. A lot of people will not be receiving letters, Christmas cards and Christmas presents because Royal Mail senior management has failed to resolve the dispute. I thank Mr David Kennedy for his support and for keeping me up to date with the dispute.

I congratulate the former hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston, Kate Green. She will take up her new role in January as the new Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester, covering police, crime and fire. I will continue to call out the Government on their cuts to firefighters. We have lost over 600 full-time firefighter roles in Greater Manchester since 2010 and that is simply not acceptable.

Manchester Airport is the third largest airport in Britain. It is an international gateway for trade and travel, acting as a major draw for investment and development in Greater Manchester and the wider north-west region. The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) mentioned the trade deal currently being negotiated between Britain and India. I want to put on record that the trade deal must benefit people in Stockport and Greater Manchester, not just the south of England. I tabled a written parliamentary question earlier this year. The Minister responded:

“A United Kingdom-India trade deal…could boost the economy in the North West of England by up to £304 million. The North West of England exported over £350 million of goods to India in 2021.”

I also tabled a number of questions subsequently. The trade deal must benefit people in Stockport and Greater Manchester, not just when it comes to trade but cultural and educational links too. Currently, Manchester Airport does not provide direct flights to key cities in India and people have to travel to Heathrow. The economy of Stockport, Greater Manchester and the wider north-west would benefit from direct air links between Manchester Airport and key cities in India. That would make it easier for trade, and educational and cultural links between both nations.

I will finish by wishing everyone who works in this House, from cleaners to clerks to lawyers, a merry Christmas. I hope they manage to get some rest. I wish colleagues—including you, Mr Deputy Speaker—on both sides of the House a merry Christmas. I hope they manage to get some rest over new year. Finally, I want to thank everyone who works in my constituency office and Charlie who works in the office here. I thank them for everything they do. I wish them all a very prosperous 2023.

Business of the House

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that and thank all hon. Members who have facilitated and will be attending the reception later today. He is absolutely right that it is incredibly important that we focus on skills. We are also encouraging young people and giving them confidence, and the event will certainly do that.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Earlier this week, I met representatives of Greater Manchester Fire Brigades Union here in the Palace of Westminster. They are currently balloting for industrial action after an inadequate pay offer of 5% was put forward, which is well below inflation and underfunded, coming out of existing fire and rescue budgets. No firefighter wants to takes that course of action, but after 11,000 job losses, including 631 full-time firefighter roles in Greater Manchester since 2010, and a pay offer that will impact local services, what are they meant to do? As such, will the Leader of the House allocate Government time for a debate on increasing firefighter pay and properly investing in fire and rescue services across the country?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising those points. It is deeply regrettable that any sector feels the need to go on strike, even though there will be minimum services and, of course, it is rightly the policy of the union that if there is a major incident, people will come in and attend that. I suggest that he raises that at the next Home Office questions on 19 December.

Business of the House

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising this. There are many views on these matters on both sides of the House. Indeed, I remember that the opinion of the House was tested by the Daylight Saving Bill during the coalition Government. I encourage him to raise the matter at the relevant Question Time, but I will also write to the Cabinet Office, as it affects a number of Departments, to make sure it is aware of his concerns.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Last month, the retail union USDAW—the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers—marked Respect for Shopworkers Week, and I was pleased to visit the Co-op on Castle Street in my constituency to speak to branch staff about various issues. USDAW has surveyed almost 5,000 retail workers recently, revealing the high levels of abuse and violence faced by them: 71% experienced verbal abuse, 48% were threatened by a customer and 5% were assaulted. Yet a staggering 20% of assaulted shop workers do not report the incident. As such, will the Leader of the House allocate Government time for a debate on strengthening legislation to protect retail workers?

[Penny Mordaunt]

This important issue will be of relevance to all Members of this House, and it has been a continuing concern for convenience stores, newsagents and others. The hon. Member will be aware of the work that the high streets team at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has done in increasing security, and sharing best practice and what has worked in other places—warden schemes, for example. I will write to the Secretary of State, who is getting a lot of letters from me this week, to make sure that he is aware of the hon. Member’s concerns.

Business of the House

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for that practical suggestion. I understand she is seeking to hold the Government to account on these issues and I wish her well with her campaign to be Chair of the Select Committee. The kind of schemes she is referring to would benefit from the integrated transport block funding, which is for small and medium-sized transport improvements. It is not ringfenced funding and it is channelled through local authorities. I take the point that larger schemes often would not qualify for that. I will write to the Department for Transport to ask it to contact her on its future plans.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

In January 2021, Citizens Advice estimated that more than 3.5 million people were behind on their council tax, of whom 51% were not behind before the pandemic. As the cost of living crisis deepens, this will, sadly, only get worse. Many local authorities are using debt collection agencies, despite there being no evidence that bailiff use increases collection rates. These agencies and their methods cause additional stress for people who are already facing hardship. As such, will the Leader of the House allow a debate in Government time on tackling the root cause of missed payments and rising household debt across the nation?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising these matters, which are clearly going to be extremely stressful for his constituents and others across the country. I know that the new Secretary of State, who is back in that Department, is very much looking at this agenda and has had a huge focus on trying to get some practical things to happen for people, particularly those who have no hope of repaying those arrears. I will write to my right hon. Friend and ask him to contact the hon. Gentleman’s office.