Coalfield Communities

Debate between Pat Glass and Andrew Bridgen

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I am very pleased to speak in this historic debate on justice for the coalfields campaign. It is clear from the Minister’s remarks that he simply does not understand that the scars from 1984-85 are still there and will not heal until all this is properly exposed. It is hard to fully measure the impact of Government actions on communities like mine in the 1980s and the years following. Those of us who lived through them were under no illusion at the time about the way in which the Government misled the public, vilified our people and attempted to politicise the police. It is good that a light is now being shone on this.

I am not attacking the police. I have been married to the constabulary for 30 years, but that does not mean that I am under any illusions about what the Thatcher Government did to try to politicise the police in this country in 1984.

My mother ran a miners support group in 1984. It was the forerunner of today’s Tory food banks. We supported 24 families throughout the strike. The miners we supported were good, honest, decent people who did not deserve what happened to them and their communities. They certainly did not deserve to be labelled the “enemy within” by the Prime Minister and other Ministers of the day. They were standing up for their communities, for their industry and for the dignity of the work that the Tory Government were taking away from them.

I support the call for an apology from Conservative Ministers for the secret pit closure plan and for even considering the deployment of the Army against the people of this country. I cannot actually believe that I am saying that the Government were considering deploying the Army against people who were doing nothing more than standing up for their communities.

I was elected to the House in 2010, and I have sat through a number of debates in the House in which I could not believe what I was hearing. I could not believe the way in which the Government behaved in relation to the Hillsborough tragedy, for example. I also could not believe what I was hearing as I sat through the Prime Minister’s statement on the death of Pat Finucane, a shameful episode that amounted to nothing less than state-sponsored murder. Now we are considering the Government’s behaviour in the period leading up to, and during, the miners’ strike.

We need to know exactly what went on between the Prime Minister’s office, MacGregor and the police in relation not only to Orgreave but to the hundreds of other state-sponsored illegal actions by the Government. I remember when my parents and my aunt and uncle set off from the north-east to travel to a brother’s funeral in Scunthorpe. They were turned back on the A1 by the police for no reason other than that my father was a trade unionist. They were dressed for a funeral, not for the picket line. As far as I am aware, my parents have never committed a crime. They have never been arrested and they do not have a criminal record, yet their movements were restricted because my father was a trade unionist. He was not even in the NUM.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Pat Glass]

I will not give way.

This happened not in Pinochet’s Chile or in South Africa during the apartheid regime; this happened in the 1980s in Thatcher’s Britain.

Consumer Credit Regulation

Debate between Pat Glass and Andrew Bridgen

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy)—sorry, my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, but soon to be promoted—for securing this debate. As a new Member, I am struck whenever I speak in Westminster Hall by the quality of the debates that take place here. It is such a shame that we do not have the same quality of debate on the Floor of the House, and I believe that that is recognised by all Members here.

Members on both sides of the Chamber have made good points. I know that many people wish to speak, so I intend to keep my remarks brief and largely to restrict them to the north-east and my constituency.

This problem arises in constituencies such as mine and many others because of a lack of affordable credit. People who work part-time and live on low incomes or minimum wage often find themselves with few options, which has resulted in an outbreak of high-cost credit. My constituency is large and made up of many small towns. I cannot walk down the high street of any of the small towns in my constituency without seeing an array of pawn shops that buy gold, cash cheques at exorbitant prices and generally prey on the poor in our communities who, like many hon. Members, I see in my surgery.

In the past seven years, the number of pay-day loan users has increased fourfold and the number of pawnbrokers has trebled. That is happening in constituencies such as mine and that of my hon. Friend. This is probably one of the best attended Westminster Hall debates that I have seen, so the problem clearly exists in other constituencies—not just in the north-east or poorer areas, but right across the country.

Irresponsible lending serves only to make things worse. Companies such as Oakam, which has been mentioned, and the Money Shop charge annual interest rates of more than 444%, despite a Bank of England base rate of just 0.5%. Borrowing at such rates can tip vulnerable people into a cycle of debt and poverty. High debt repayments are linked to rent, council tax and utility arrears, as well as other poverty indicators such as constraints on job-seeking behaviour, poor diet, cold homes, and mental and physical health problems.

The hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) said, rightly, that loan sharking has not resulted from the comprehensive spending review, but the review will simply make things worse. The Government’s plans to reduce housing benefit by 10% after a year will make things worse in constituencies such as mine. So far, the arguments in that debate have centred around what will happen in London, but the effects of the cuts will not be restricted to central London. In my constituency, they will mean people who are already struggling and in debt being forced to find another £15 a week that they simply do not have, and being forced to go to loan sharks and disreputable loan companies.

The north-east is a hot spot for illegal loan sharking. The North East Illegal Money Lending Team, which was set up by the previous Government in December 2007, has identified 1,083 illegal lenders—92 in the first quarter of this year; convicted 40 loan sharks; and saved borrowers more than £2 million. When loan sharks are convicted, the cases are publicised widely in the local press and on television.

Some people have argued that a cap on total lending will simply increase illegal loan sharking, but, coming from an area where it is prolific and is blighting the lives of the poor, I would argue that a cap on total lending, as well as investigating and jailing loan sharks, and publicising the cases widely, would improve the position for the poor in my constituency.

This is very much a gender issue. Fair Finance, a social enterprise bank that offers loans and debt advice, has seen clear trends in those seeking its help: 75% are women, 70% are single mothers and 80% are on benefits. The issue disproportionately affects women. In the north-east, there are recorded cases of women being forced into prostitution because of loan sharks.

All families—all of us—experience financial emergencies from time to time, but when a financial emergency hits a poorer household, it is often the catalyst that sets it into a downward spiral of debt. Many people in such situations are vulnerable at all kinds of levels. Many live on the margins and are preyed upon routinely. One of my constituents was forced to borrow £200—a relatively small sum—from a loan shark to fund a trip to Wales. His sister had been murdered by her partner, and he needed to make a trip from the north-east to Wales to organise the funeral and to settle her debts and affairs. His neighbours rallied round and paid off the loan, but many of them are also poor and vulnerable. If those people can see that there is an issue, surely we can, too, and the Government should act on it.

[Andrew Bridgen]

The hon. Lady speaks with great passion about individuals in her constituency, and I really feel for them. I hate the phrase, “This is not a partisan point,” because we all know what comes next, so I shall not say it. Does she think that the previous Government’s claims to have ended boom and bust encouraged or discouraged vulnerable people to gear up with more debt?

[Pat Glass]

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I do not think that it is relevant to the debate, or helpful.

The current situation of allowing very high interest rates to be charged to the lowest-income households leads to greater wealth inequality and greater child poverty, and it constrains efforts to regenerate deprived communities. We have heard about Provident Personal Credit, a legal loan company that operates widely in the north-east. It controls 60% of the home credit and legal doorstep lending there. It mainly offers small, short-term and unsecured cash loans. The typical annual percentage rate on a Provident loan is 272.2%, and 70% of its customers are women. The Government can address those issues and make the lives of those living in the poorest households easier.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Pat Glass and Andrew Bridgen

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass]

Sadly, that happens far too often. Unfortunately, when children are diagnosed with ASD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, whether they are put through the behaviour system or the autism system greatly depends on family background and the clinical specialist they see.

[Andrew Bridgen]

What does the hon. Lady believe to be the underlying level of SEN in the pupil population?

[Pat Glass]

That is a difficult question. The more severe and complex end of SEN is growing quickly, for all sorts of reasons. For example, we are the binge capital of Europe, so why are we surprised when there is an impact on complex and severe needs? I think that the figure is approximately 0.06% of the school population. It is a small proportion. The figure for children who experience some special educational need during their education is between 18 and 20%. That does not mean that all those children have SEN throughout their career. However, vulnerable children who under-achieve are a much greater proportion of the population—approximately 30%.

Let me revert to low incidence SEN. Special educational needs and admissions are the biggest parts of the ombudsman’s work. Local authorities sometimes get them right and sometimes get them wrong. They are the most contentious areas in education. I predict that the only people who will get anything out of this measure will be lawyers. Defining low incidence SEN is a lawyer’s dream. If we do not get that right now, the House will end up returning to the issue later in the year, as someone rightly said, but in the meantime, parents and children will lose out.

Educational psychology is not defined as a service for low incidence SEN pupils. Given the degree of cuts that my local authority needs to make, it is currently looking at what percentage of the educational psychology service it can reasonably cut without damaging front-line services. Low incidence SEN services do not necessarily cover autism—depending on the local authority—educational psychology services, or children with physical or medical difficulties. The Bill mentions “low incidence…disabilities”. I worked in children’s services for most of my adult life, but I have no idea what that means. I guess we must leave it to a lawyer to decide.

One thing that I am very concerned about is that parents are not involved. I have learned over the years to my cost—I have done things wrong in the past that I have learned from—that the most important people in such procedures are parents, but they will not be consulted under the Bill, which is being rushed through the House without any consultation with the organisations that support parents or with parents themselves. Frankly, the Government will come to regret that.

The hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) talked about the code of practice being an administrative issue. If he had a child with SEN, he would not see it that way. The code of practice is about children’s lives and chances, and if we lose it, it will not come back.