Pat McFadden
Main Page: Pat McFadden (Labour - Wolverhampton South East)Department Debates - View all Pat McFadden's debates with the HM Treasury
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House notes that UK economic growth is forecast to grind to a halt next year, with only Russia worse in the OECD; further notes that GDP has fallen in recent months while inflation has risen to 9.1 per cent and that food prices, petrol costs and bills in general are soaring for millions across the country; believes that the Government is leaving Britain with backlogs such as long waits for passports, driving licences, GP and hospital appointments, court dates, and at airports; and calls on the Government to set out a new approach to the economy that will end 12 years of slow growth and high taxation under successive Conservative governments.
It is my pleasure to speak to the motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, and those of me and my right hon. and hon. Friends. The Prime Minister told us at the weekend, speaking from the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Rwanda, that he was “actively considering” his third term in office. The shadow Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), replied that she was actively considering marrying Ryan Reynolds.
While the Prime Minister considers his future, here at home concerns are more prosaic and more real. In area after area of life, standards of service that used to be taken for granted have crumbled, leaving people facing delays and backlogs for basic services, and all this is coming on top of the cost of living crisis, which is biting deeper with each passing week. As each new backlog and delay builds up, the Government look more and more powerless to address them. Even the Government’s supporters do not seem to believe that the announcements made by No. 10 will be followed through with any proper delivery. The Government were supposed to take us forward to the future, but as we read the news each day, it feels more and more like a step back in time towards the 1970s.
In another, more candid remark, also on Saturday, the Prime Minister admitted that since the Conservatives took office the UK economy had
“not grown as it should”.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Does the right hon. Member agree with me that if you wish to improve service you do not go on strike and if you wish to pay for higher wages you do not go on strike? Will he give that advice to the rail unions?
Mr McFadden
I had anticipated one or two interventions on strikes, so let me say to the right hon. Gentleman that whoever’s responsibility the strikes are, it is certainly not that of a party that has been in opposition for 12 years. He and the Ministers he supports will have to take responsibility for the industrial strife they are presiding over. I say that to him in the anticipation of other interventions in the same vein.
Mr McFadden
Not at the moment.
I am grateful for the Prime Minister’s candour on economic growth. That is a very important admission, because without good economic growth the country is less prosperous, the fiscal position is weaker—in fact, it is weaker to the tune of some £40 billion a year compared with the pattern of economic growth we had in the first decade of this century—and people’s wages are lower by thousands of pounds a year. We know that people are paying higher taxes due to the Government breaking their manifesto pledges, but let us see what they are getting for their money.
It is often said in this place that the first duty of Government is to protect their citizens and that justice delayed is justice denied. Both those statements are true, so let us look at what is happening with access to justice. Victims of crime have a right to expect a trial in a reasonable amount of time after that crime has been committed. In the year before the pandemic—I repeat, before the pandemic—the number of cases awaiting trial at Crown courts grew by 23% to more than 40,000.
Rob Butler
Does the right hon. Gentleman think that the backlog in the courts will be lengthened or shortened by barristers going on strike?
Mr McFadden
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.
As I have said, the number of cases grew by 23% to over 40,000 before the pandemic, and that number now stands at 57,000. For magistrates courts, the number is 364,000. The typical wait for a case of robbery to come to court is two years, and for rape it is often three years. No wonder that in a recent sexual offences case that had been delayed for more than three years the presiding judge, Patrick Thompson, branded the delays “absolutely farcical” and said:
“How this is justice is beyond me.”
He is not alone in his judgment. These delays leave victims without redress and without justice and with the crime that they have suffered hanging over them. They are not just a symptom of the pandemic: we must remember that in the year before the pandemic the number of cases awaiting trial had grown by 23%.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is making excellent points. Does he agree that the excessive delays in the justice system, in particular for rape, have a huge mental health impact on the victims yet our mental health system is also failing to respond quickly to those needs?
Mr McFadden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As she outlines, these backlogs have real and important human effects; they are not just numbers on a page.
Mr McFadden
I will make some progress.
This is happening not just in the field of justice. Record numbers of patients are waiting for NHS treatment, and they are waiting longer than ever: the waiting list for NHS treatment is now 6.5 million, with more than 300,000 patients having been on the list for over a year.
Given that the system had to focus on dealing with covid, some might point to pandemic effects. There would be some justification for that argument if we had not gone into the pandemic with waiting lists that had already rocketed, but we went into the pandemic with waiting lists of 4.4 million patients, almost double the number on the lists when this Government came to power. Long waits and more people waiting are not just features of the pandemic. The number waiting more than 18 weeks is now 2.5 million, but even before the pandemic that number was nearly three quarters of a million. Some 840,000 patients were told in April that they will have to wait more than a month for a GP appointment—if they can even get through to the surgery in the first place. Millions of people are struggling to get any access to NHS dental treatment. Last year 2,000 dentists left the NHS, almost one in 10 across the whole country. There are 4,500 fewer GPs than in 2013, and Conservative manifesto promises to increase the number of GPs have been broken repeatedly. These delays are not the fault of NHS staff or the patients; they are the result of 12 long years of the Conservatives presiding over the system we have and it is time they took responsibility for the backlogs and the delays that have resulted from their long period in office.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. The situation in our dental services is so dire that people are having to carry out do-it-yourself operations at home without anaesthetic or any other medical facilities. Does he agree that it is disgraceful that people are having to resort to such measures as a result of the Conservatives’ backlog given that we are the world’s fifth largest economy?
Mr McFadden
My hon. Friend is right. In a debate on the subject last week, the shadow Health Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), outlined a horrific case.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
Is the situation not more nuanced? Healthcare is devolved in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England, with four different parties running it, but all have suffered and seen waiting times go up not only during the pandemic but in the preceding 10 years. Does that not show that there is a fundamental problem across the western world, because the likes of Germany, the Netherlands and France are all struggling and suffering the same fate?
Mr McFadden
To govern is to take responsibility, and the problem with saying that it is all about the post-pandemic situation is that waiting lists had almost doubled before the pandemic. I could give the hon. Member the figures again, but I do not want to read them out twice.
It is not just about the NHS. There are also delays at our ports. We have seen long queues of lorries—the delays are well known—and increased costs and bureaucracy for exporters.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, when the last Labour Government left office in 2010, satisfaction in the national health service was among the highest in the world and that through reform programmes, disruption and cuts in funding the Government have created problems in the NHS? They need to get a grip.
We also have chaos in the courts. I see that in my constituency, where the family courts are really struggling with long waiting lists because of shortages of judges and lawyers. We also have passport queues and disruption across the country. The Government have lost control and need to get a grip.
Mr McFadden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I remember seeing the driving down of waiting times and waiting lists in government, and never at any point did anyone say, “We can take our foot off the gas” because there might have been problems in Germany or somewhere else. We took responsibility for the system that we were running.
As I said, there have been large queues at the ports. The Government do not need to rerun the Brexit argument—Ministers should have realised that we can leave only once—but there are things that they could do. They could at least seek a veterinary agreement with the EU—even New Zealand has one—which would be a better deal for our farmers and our food industry and may cut the bureaucracy and delays at our ports.
Let us take the asylum system, which is of significant concern to our constituents. The number of cases taking more than six months to decide has been up every quarter since the Home Secretary took office, and the backlog has tripled in the last three years. That matters because delays cost money and leave everyone in limbo.
Hywel Williams
On ports, another aspect of the problem is the decline in business through ports in Wales and western UK ports involved in trade with Ireland. In fact, trade through Holyhead is down 34% as a permanent feature. It seems to me—perhaps to the right hon. Gentleman as well—that the Government are doing absolutely nothing about that.
Mr McFadden
Well, the Government have chosen the route that we discussed in the Chamber last night. I do not want to repeat that, but other routes are available to them to reduce the bureaucracy experienced by our farmers and exporters.
The delays in asylum matter because they cost money. Seventy-five per cent of asylum claims are eventually endorsed, but, until they are decided, legitimate claimants cannot make a positive contribution to the country by taking up a job, and claimants who are denied cannot be removed from the country. It is neither in the interests of those who seek refuge nor in the national interest to have a system so beset by delays and backlogs. It is certainly not value for money for the taxpayer, either.
On passports and driving licences, people are being asked to wait up to 10 weeks for a passport—a standard that was itself breached more than 35,000 times in the first quarter of the year according to the Home Office. That is where backlogs beget backlogs. There are reports of travellers being asked to seek emergency travel documents because passports have not been issued, but now—this is the least surprising news ever—there is a queue for those documents, too.
Three quarters of a million drivers are waiting for their licences to be processed because of the backlog at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. A large proportion of those drivers have medical conditions and need specific permission to keep driving. That is where the backlog begets workforce issues, because, until those people get their new licences, they often cannot return to work. I appreciate that none of that may be as exciting as the latest wedge issue thought up in No. 10, but delivering on basic governance is the Government’s job, and it is time to do that job. The duty of service delivery does not go away. At the heart of this are two issues: getting the workforce right and making the most of new technology.
James Daly
The right hon. Gentleman touched on criminal justice earlier. Will he join me in asking Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, to take responsibility for the appalling situation that the criminal justice system is in, in Greater Manchester? It is not protecting vulnerable people or investigating crime, as a result of which my local residents are suffering. Will he join me in asking Andy Burnham to take responsibility and do something about it, which is his job?
Mr McFadden
I detect a pattern with these interventions. They seem to be saying that the problem is everyone’s responsibility except the Government’s. There is no escaping 12 years in office.
There are two issues at the heart of this: workforce and technology. Staff shortages are common in many areas. The unemployment figures have fallen, but so too has the overall number of people in employment. More than half a million people have left the labour market since the pandemic. They are from all age groups, but the biggest group is the over-50s, and their biggest reasons for leaving the labour market are ongoing health issues and caring responsibilities.
This is where the delays and backlogs become a vicious circle. I have already mentioned that when people with medical conditions cannot get a new driving licence approved, it can prevent their return to work. The Access to Work programme is there to help people with disabilities into work, but people face delays of up to 12 weeks in their application being processed, and the waiting list for decisions has quadrupled over the past year. That holds people back from taking up jobs and makes the staff shortages worse.
The NHS employs some 1.2 million people, but it went into the pandemic with 100,000 unfilled vacancies. We have argued for a forward plan for NHS staffing, and for training so that the vacancies can be filled. That was supported by the cross-party Health and Social Care Committee, but fiercely resisted by the Government. I have to say to the Minister that looking the other way will not make the workforce issues go away. Why are the Government so resistant to the forward planning needed by the NHS?
The question is how we make the most of our potential workforce, and help those who could go back to work to do so. Many people in this country are suffering from long covid. There are people with mental health issues, and people for whom childcare costs are a barrier. We support an expansion in mental healthcare, so that we get support to those who need it within a month, and we support mental health hubs in our local communities. More breakfast clubs and after-school activities would not only be good for children but would help parents get back to work, too.
The point of all this is that we should use the talent and energy of everyone who can make a contribution, and address any barriers to work that they face, but that is not the Government’s response to the backlogs; they have proposed staffing cuts of 20%. How will that help anyone to get a passport, driving licence or health treatment quicker, or get their case to court sooner? Is it really the best that the Government can come up with? Is it even a real response, or just another initiative thrown up to provoke a debate that distracts attention from the real issues that people face?
The issue is not just about the workforce; it is also about using innovation and technology to make public services better for the public. Covid has been described as the great acceleration. It was a time when years of change were compressed into months—in education, in the way we work, in the way we shop and pay for things, in accessing healthcare and so on. The question is how we make the most of what we have learned, and of all the other rapid changes in daily life that are powered by technology, to reform our public services for the future. Our ambition should not be just to return to where we were in 2019; it should be to improve, so that we can have high-quality public services for all.
We already knew that the Conservatives were running a high-tax, low-growth economy—we have said that many times—but the backlogs that I have outlined in public services, in area after area, show that it is also a high-tax, low-delivery economy. We have the highest tax burden since the 1950s, but people cannot get a passport or an appointment with a dentist. That is simply not a good enough deal for the British public.
The Prime Minister says that he wants another two terms in office, but our public services cannot afford another two terms of backlogs and chaos. This Government are not really governing any more. They are simply campaigning.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
My apologies to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for attending the start of this debate tardily. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is a Scottish dimension? We talk about the number of Governments we have had. Today, pregnant mothers have to make a round trip of more than 200 miles from Caithness to Inverness to give birth. Health services have gone backwards in my constituency, so all that is being said is also relevant to the Government north of the border.
Mr McFadden
I am glad that the hon. Member had the opportunity to make that point, whether he is wearing a tie or not.
The sole purpose of the Government is the survival of the Prime Minister. They have trashed standards in public life, as we have seen; they have damaged our standing in the world; and they are now trashing service delivery. When people pay the price for Government dysfunction in constant delays and backlogs, which have a damaging effect on quality of life; when the things that we used to take for granted become an endless slog and a debilitating battle; and when all this comes at the price of broken tax promises, people conclude that they cannot rely on the Prime Minister and on this Government. That is what is happening. As long as he and they remain in office, the chaos that has led to Boris Johnson’s backlog Britain will continue.