Business of the House

Debate between Nigel Evans and Ian Mearns

Thursday 30th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the Backbench Business debates for Thursday 7 December. Let me give her early notice that if we are awarded time on Thursday 14 December, the Committee will intend to schedule debates on knife crime and the potential merger of Vodafone and Three. Is the Leader of the House considering giving the Backbench Business Committee any time in the week beginning Monday 18 December? If she is, we would love to know as soon as possible so that we can allocate debates and let Members know. I am glad to say that the Committee was re-established this week and is up and running, but we already have a backlog of debates, with 13 on our waiting list. It is good that we have plenty of business to come.

The Go North East bus industrial action continues, with very few buses running for weeks and, on many routes, not at all. That is having a huge detrimental impact on our local economy and jobs, and on the learning of students who cannot get to their local further education colleges such as Gateshead College in my constituency. Students who struggled to make up the learning lost during covid are being hit again, since they are unable to attend at all without incurring massive additional expense. Can we have a debate in Government time about introducing a compensation scheme from public transport providers that are singularly failing in their service delivery obligations?

Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment

Debate between Nigel Evans and Ian Mearns

Thursday 20th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns]

I think I am subject to another Government cut here, Mr Deputy Speaker. [Laughter.] This has been a wide-ranging and well-supported parliamentary event, with an oft-repeated theme of ticket office closures, and I am glad that the rail Minister has been here to reflect on some of that. It has been a fitting tribute to the memory of Sir David Amess, and I also need to mention the Member who was not here but who was—the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

Mr Deputy Speaker, to you, right hon. and hon. Members across the House, and all the staff who work tirelessly to support the functions of the House and keep us safe, I wish a fantastic and well-deserved summer recess. I wish Members safe journeys back to their constituencies, homes and loved ones.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered matters to be raised before the forthcoming adjournment.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Before everybody disappears, I just want to say that the spirit of Sir David Amess and his light absolutely shine bright on our proceedings. We all miss him greatly. We all have great memories of Sir David, and his spirit remains here.

I thank all my staff, because they at the frontline and take a lot of the flak before it gets anywhere near us, so we are grateful for them. All the staff who work here, from the Clerks to the cleaners, from the secretaries to the security, make sure that our democracy works as well as it does.

I want you all to have a superb recess. As president of the Royal Lancashire Agricultural Show, I look forward to welcoming thousands of visitors to the Ribble Valley tomorrow and over the weekend, demonstrating how important rural agriculture is to this country. Have a great recess everybody.

Points of Order

Debate between Nigel Evans and Ian Mearns

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful to Sir Bill Wiggin—I forgot to give you due deference there, Sir Bill. There were a lot of nods from Front Benchers and hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber when you mentioned Ronnie Radford.

[Ian Mearns]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I point out that I was not booing the late Ronnie Radford, for whom I have a high regard as a non-league player at the time when Hereford defeated Newcastle all those years ago. I was booing that fact that in the next week or so, we will probably see that goal on many occasions, which I think I have seen on only 4,953 previous occasions—every time the FA cup third round comes on each year. I have great respect and fondness for the late Ronnie Radford, but I hate being reminded about that goal.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

What can I say other than to ask that our deepest condolences be passed on to Ronnie’s family? He was remembered in the House today.

Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment

Debate between Nigel Evans and Ian Mearns

Thursday 21st July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered matters to be raised before the forthcoming adjournment.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to lead the first Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment debate ahead of the summer recess. It has been and, having been recently re-elected, continues to be a great privilege to chair the Backbench Business Committee since 2015.

Like many colleagues across the House, I will pay tribute to Sir David Amess, a distinguished and respected Member who served on the Backbench Business Committee between 2012 and 2015. Those of us who worked closely with Sir David will know how passionately he felt about Back-Bench issues, and it is entirely fitting that today’s debate and future debates of this kind will carry his name. While we must not forget the tragic circumstances that led to his death, it is right that we remember his positive impact on this House and how enthusiastically he represented his constituents in both Basildon and Southend West throughout his parliamentary career. Like Sir David, I seek to represent the constituents of my hometown of Gateshead in this House and, frankly, to anyone anywhere who will listen.

Last week, it was with some dismay, but not with any great surprise, that I read research published by End Child Poverty in conjunction with the North East Child Poverty Commission. It found that 38% of children across the north-east are growing up poor. In my constituency, that rises to 42%—over four in 10 children living in poverty. The north-east is no stranger to child poverty, but we now have another unenviable award in having the highest rate of child poverty in the UK. The reasons are many, not least the stripping back of the social security safety net, which has worsened poverty across my constituency, the effective £20 cut to universal credit, the two-child cap on universal credit, and the failure to increase payments in line with inflation for much of the past decade.

The apparent attitude across Departments seems to be to spend more effort looking for reasons not to give a positive response than actually tackling vital issues. In addition, we have seen over a decade of cuts to local authority budgets. Perhaps coincidentally, some areas with the greatest deprivation, such as Gateshead, have been subjected to proportionally much greater funding reductions. My own authority in Gateshead has seen its annual budget reduced by £170 million since 2010, even before increased population, greater levels of need and inflation are taken into account. That is £170 million a year extracted from my authority’s budget since 2010.

This Government’s funding model gives vague initiative funding which councils can bid for, only to find that much of the pot wends its way to favoured areas in, I am afraid to say, a pork barrel process. Even if some of that funding finds its way to us, it does relatively little to combat more than a decade of service cuts. Cuts to adult social care, children’s social care, youth services, early intervention proposals, special educational needs and family support all contribute to the situation we now face. Many families are in crisis.

The current cost of living crisis for many households in Gateshead is just acidic icing on an already bitter cake. Many families in Gateshead have spent a decade living from one week to the next, shaving ever more from their weekly shop, depriving themselves of food so they can feed their families, and going to bed early on winter evenings to save heating their homes. That is absolutely shameful and unsustainable. The fact that over 40% of children in my constituency live in poverty is unforgivable.

Gateshead is proud of taking an active role in Government resettlement schemes for families from Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine. These additional people are all being welcomed, but it is already a relatively poor community. While I welcome the wraparound support offered as part of those schemes, I draw the House’s attention to the hundreds of legitimate refugees from around the world outside these schemes who reside in Gateshead, many of whom are stuck in the Home Office processing backlog.

I want to raise the case of a lad called Victor—I call him a lad, but he is now over 60—who has been living in my constituency since 2006. Originally from Russia, Victor arrived in the UK after fleeing Russia and Putin due to his public criticism of the Russian regime—free speech is something we talk about so much in this House. Victor applied to the Home Office and has spent much of the last 16 years waiting for decisions. He still does not have leave to remain. Having spent much of his recent life in Gateshead, supported briefly by the Home Office and, after that, compassionately by Gateshead Council, sustaining him on just £30 a week, Victor is no further forward after 16 years.

The Home Office continues to refuse to grant him the right to stay in the UK, but at the same time recognises that Russia is not a safe place to deport him to, especially for those who are critical of the regime. It is not right that people like Victor, who come to the UK with a legitimate right to apply for asylum here, are left in limbo, not to say abject poverty, unable to work, unable to settle here and unable to build a home for fear of removal, yet left for nearly two decades in no man’s land. The recent illegal and brutal invasion of Ukraine by Putin has thrown into stark relief the systematic suppression of human rights, civil liberties and freedom of speech in Russia. The circumstances in Russia were never good, but they have changed for the worse. Let Victor stay in Gateshead.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call the Father of the House, Sir Peter Bottomley.