Elections Bill (Fourth sitting)
Patrick Grady ExcerptsThursday 16th September 2021
(3 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Elections Act 2022 View all Elections Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 16 September 2021 - (16 Sep 2021)
Jerome Mayhew
I am very grateful. That is the only thing I wanted to clarify.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Q
Could you also say a little more on the value or otherwise of a more comprehensive effort to consolidate electoral law? We have a lot of Representation of the People Acts. This is not a representation of the people Bill; it has been called the Elections Bill. I do not know whether there is any legislative or theological difference between the titling of these different Bills and Acts, or the things that they have done over the years. Where do you see the merit in perhaps a stronger effort to consolidate the different pieces of legislation that govern the electoral framework?
Gavin Millar: In relation to the Electoral Commission, we need to start at the beginning, as it were. The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, known in the trade as PPERA, created the Electoral Commission for the first time—it was the first time we had had one in this country—but [Inaudible] an Electoral Commission that does not actually have a role in administering, overseeing and running elections in real time, and that does not have powers to investigate conduct and outcomes, and still less overturn those outcomes. It is important to understand that other countries have equivalent entities with much stronger roles in each of those areas. We are starting from a pretty low base in terms of what the Electoral Commission has been created to do.
As far as I can see, there is no case here for any of the three main changes proposed in the legislation in relation to the Electoral Commission. First, there is the strategy and policy statement, which, as I understand it, is going to tell the regulator what it should and should not be doing. Secondly, the Electoral Commission’s willingness to do what it is told, and its success or otherwise in doing what it is told, will be overseen—one might cynically say “marked”—by the Speaker’s Committee. Thirdly, clause 15 takes away from the Electoral Commission the power to prosecute. I can see no case or justification for any of those measures.
An Electoral Commission should be independent of Government; it should be free from Government influence as a matter of principle, because of its role in a democracy. It should be rather akin to the police or the Crown Prosecution Service in that respect. Its decision making, and indeed its powers to investigate and act, should be framed and guided solely by the public interest and the merits of the evidence before it. Does this need to be investigated? To what extent does it need to be investigated? What has gone wrong? What needs to be done? It should be answerable to Parliament as a whole rather than to a single Committee or a small group of politicians. That seems to me a key and obvious point of principle.
My own view is that the Electoral Commission should have more powers and resources—hopefully under the codified and modernised statutory regime that I have suggested—rather than less, which is what seems to be the aim at the moment, particularly in relation to the removal of the power to prosecute. Why? Well, because it is the only player in the game. It is the only possible resource for dealing with breaches of election law, in its limited area, other than through criminal prosecution and civil litigation.
As far as the former is concerned, the police and prosecutors frankly do not have the resources or expertise to tackle offending under the RPA or PPERA, and I am absolutely certain that much goes uninvestigated and unprosecuted at the moment. That is extremely undesirable in our system. Civil litigation—by candidates, judicial review, election petitions and so on—is costly, cumbersome, time-consuming and very difficult to undertake. All those factors indicate that we need an empowered and funded Electoral Commission to tackle problems as they come up. They are experts and specialists; that is why they are there and should be there.
On the second point you asked about—I will try not to become boring, because I could wax lyrical about this for hours—as you probably know, essentially we have two strands to our election law. We have the Representation of the People Act 1983, which is the primary statute regulating three things: the exercise of the franchise, the conduct of elections and challenges to elections after the event. There are various problems with it, but the main one is that it is the most recent of a long succession of Acts with the same name in the 20th century, and indeed there were earlier equivalents going back into the 19th century. They have often been a political compromise in Parliament, simply enacted by way of consolidation with only minor amendments. What we have ended up with is really an awful lot of 19th-century provisions that have hardly changed in their wording.
On top of that, in that strand of the law—the actual regulation of the administration of elections—there have been many, many more pieces of primary and secondary legislation relating to those three areas of our law since 1983. They either come in statutory instruments or they go into amendments to the RPA, so you get these long lists of amended sections with ZA numbers after the primary number, and it becomes wholly unwieldy and unmanageable.
The Law Commission’s report, where it recommended this, alluded to a problem that surfaced in the 2010 general election. I am sure you all remember that there were queues at polling stations and people were unable to get in and vote when they closed at 10 pm. That is an unresolved issue in our election law. The Law Commission make the point that when Parliament had to correct that to make sure people queuing at that point could get in, 10 different pieces of legislation had to be amended to achieve that one single result. That is how bad it is.
In addition, the second strand is the PPERA strand, which came into play in 2000 with completely new and different areas of election law. In particular, as we know, it included the regulation of national campaign expenditure by political parties and third-party campaigners, as well as permissible donations. Again, accretions and additions to that legislation over the years have made it incredibly complicated.
So what is election law? Well, it is ill-defined, but essentially it is everything surrounding those two huge pieces of legislation and the case law they have thrown up. One of the advantages of consolidation would be to be clear about what needs to be regulated in elections. As I have said, it seems to me that the whole issue of campaigning between long and short campaign periods is now election law. That is just the reality of it in the modern world, just as we have accepted that what goes on on the internet is election law, which we never did before. Modernising and consolidating would give us a much broader definition of election law.
As you point out, in this Bill we have bits relating to each. We have bits relating to PPERA and bits relating to the RPA regime, and it is now simply called the Elections Bill, which is a sort of combination of two strands of our law, and it is a bit of a rag-bag really. I am not saying that some of the things are not desirable—clearly they are—but they are not urgent and they should not be given priority over this much more fundamental issue that needs to be resolved, which is a consolidated and complete electoral code.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
Q
Gavin Millar: This strand of convention law—by which I mean, whether a piece of domestic legislation is incompatible with the provisions of the convention—does not work on an individual case-by-case basis. It works on the basis that if you have to look at compatibility in a court case, it is at the impact of the domestic rule of law—here, the voter ID provision—across the piece and the whole of the electoral system in the contracting party.
Is the impact of that legislative provision one that can be justified as being compatible with the convention? The convention—Strasbourg—has its own internal set of rules for saying what is and is not compatible. Very few rights are absolute, which is why you can have laws that prevent certain people—criminals and so on—from voting for a period, but to be compatible with the convention they have to be justifiable, in the sense of achieving a legitimate aim, one that is legitimate in that country for that political system and that voting system. It has to be a proportionate means of achieving that aim.
The question here—I accept that it would be assessed by the impact on individual groups of people, such as the Roma, whom you mentioned, but it would be much broader than that—is, if you try to justify what the Government are proposing to do across the electoral system as a whole, can it be justified as meeting a legitimate aim? Is there a problem that is so bad that it needs addressing in this system in this way? Is this a crude or a proportionate way of addressing it? The problem I have with clause 1 is that I cannot see the problem and, even if there is a problem, I cannot see that this is a targeted and proportionate way of addressing it, because it would just sweep out of the franchise somebody who did not happen to have a card or voter ID but was properly on the electoral register and entitled to vote when they turned up.
Why do I say that there is not a problem? You are all politicians, you have been elected and you know how this works, but you may not have looked at this from the point of view of an election lawyer, a criminal lawyer or someone looking at election fraud, which for my sins I have spent a lot of time doing for the past 20 years. The sort of fraud we are talking about here is called “personation” under the RPA. It is an electoral offence—it is impersonation, but misses off the “im” in the statutory historical categorisation. Personation is A turning up at the polling station pretending to be B, who is validly on the register.
It is not a problem of any great consequence in our system, and I speak from experience. Personation cases are almost non-existent. There are reasons why it is not a problem. First of all, it is extremely risky for anyone to try that. You are liable to be caught because somebody spots you and knows you are not that person. It is also ineffective because there is the alternative possibility that that person turns up and votes later, or indeed has already voted and is marked off the register when you try to impersonate them. If you are going to do it, you have to be absolutely certain that the person is dead or is not going to come and vote, and that you will not be found out that way. It is also hugely inefficient compared with other forms of fraud that have been perpetrated, particularly since postal voting on demand. You have to get a range of people, or yourself, to go around different polling stations at different times in the day, and all you get out of each criminal offence you commit is one vote. It is just not efficient or effective as a fraud, so it does not happen.
As I understand it, this came from the 2014 Tower Hamlets mayoral election. There were a whole range of election offences pleaded in that case and looked at by the court. One of them involved some personation at polling stations, but it was not the core problem. If that were the reason we had got to this point, this would be an example of a hard case making very bad law, and I would counsel against that. The fraud that exists in our system, or has existed since 2000, that everybody has read about and knows about, is a very different type of election fraud. One possibility is what is called roll-stuffing in Australia, where you put additional voters on the register who are not entitled to vote in a concerted fraud before the election, and then vote in their name. You normally apply for a postal vote for those non-existent voters at a particular address, and you pick up the postal vote papers and you vote.
There are various other postal vote frauds that were recounted in the cases that have been cited. That form of fraud has been made much more difficult by Parliament and by the administrators because of the cases over the past 20 years, and there are less cases even of that form of fraud, but it is not a form of fraud that would be addressed by this piece of legislation, so what is the problem? What is it achieving? Why is this a proportionate way of addressing it? I have no answers to any of those questions, and of course in a situation where, by common estimates, we have something like 17% of eligible voters not on the register, one wonders why our efforts are not being concentrated on voter registration measures—getting more people on to the register and facilitating them in voting—rather than making it more difficult for them to do it by imposing this requirement, which we have never had.
I appreciate that advocates of the Bill will say, “It is not a lot to do, to get a piece of photo ID or have a piece of photo ID and bring it along to the polling station,” but we need only look at the Windrush scandal to see how many poor people and ordinary people in our society have difficulties with that sort of thing, not to mention disabled people and other discriminated-against groups who do not want to engage with obtaining this sort of identification, for fear that it will open them up to other scrutiny and investigation of an unjustifiable kind. It is wrong on every count, really.
To answer the question, yes, there will inevitably be challenges to this as incompatible with the European convention on human rights if it is introduced, and it seems to me that there is a strong case for doing that. The impact would be considerable, by all accounts—although somewhat unquantifiable—but I just have not seen the evidence that you would be required to produce at a judicial review or at a case in Strasbourg to justify this as an appropriate state interference with the right to vote.
Patrick Grady
Q
“such equipment as it is reasonable…for the purposes of enabling or making it easier for, relevant persons”.
Relevant persons would include blind or partially sighted people, but also people with other disabilities or impairments or difficulties.
Is there any reason why you could not just have both? You could keep the specific provisions, perhaps updating them so we are not limiting this to one specific piece of advice, and making a bit of a tweak so that we talk more generally about equipment that might change over time with technology, but keep those provisions and add in the extra requirement for a wider group of voters who might have difficulty accessing the polling stations. Do you see any incompatibility with that approach?
Fazilet Hadi: No, there is no incompatibility. My main point would be that if there is prescribed equipment—that is not just for blind people; if there is prescribed equipment for wheelchair users or people with dexterity problems—let that be prescribed, so that we get consistency across the board, but let us have an additional provision about how all reasonable adjustments should be made, which is actually just repeating the duty in the Equality Act, because electoral officers are discharging a public function anyway. I do not mind that being repeated, but I do not think we should be confusing prescribing equipment for whichever impairment group needs it with the duty to make reasonable adjustments. They can live together quite harmoniously—I agree.
The Chair
If there are no further questions from Members, I thank the witness for giving evidence today. It is much appreciated.
Examination of Witness
Dr Alan Renwick gave evidence.
Elections Bill (Third sitting)
Patrick Grady ExcerptsThursday 16th September 2021
(3 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Elections Act 2022 View all Elections Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 16 September 2021 - (16 Sep 2021)
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Q
I was also interested in something you said in passing, George, about an overseas constituency. I wonder if either of the panellists have a view on that. At the moment, a vote goes towards wherever the voter last resided, and I can well understand the point that although someone maintains an affinity for their country and has citizenship of the UK, surely after a considerable passage of time the local issues in the constituency will have changed considerably. Not every single overseas voter will still be paying attention to the exact circumstances in the constituency in which they lived. Is there any merit in the concept—which exists in other parliamentary democracies—of a dedicated overseas constituency that is represented by an MP for the overseas?
The Chair
Before you answer, may I interrupt to say that our third witness, Anne Wafer, is now with us. Anne, would you introduce yourself to the Committee please?
Anne Wafer: I am sorry for the delay; my computer decided to update something at just the wrong moment and it is now running a bit slowly, so it may not be perfect. It has been fine—it was perfect for the test.
Anyway, I am from Labour International, the international section of the Labour party. I am the communications officer. We have about 3,000 members, who live all over the world. I live in Slovakia and am the secretary of the central and east European branch. I could answer the question that has just been asked. Is that okay? Can I carry on to that, or do you want to know more about me?
The Chair
Order. I think we will move on. You have had quite a few questions. Patrick Grady is waiting to come in.
Patrick Grady
Q
“Voter fraud played a very small part, funnily enough, in Tower Hamlets.”––[Official Report, Elections Public Bill Committee, 15 September 2021; c. 14, Q13.]
Thank you, Maurice; your contributions have been extremely helpful. You spoke a little bit about automatic voter registration. Could you say a little more about how you think that might work in practice and what impact it could have on turnout and participation, particularly among minority communities? Could you also say something about access to postal voting among minority communities and what impact that has? Does that help or hinder turnout, participation and engagement?
In Scotland, we have recently extended the franchise for Scottish Parliament elections to pretty much everyone with settled status, including EU nationals and people with settled refugee status. Are there any lessons that might be learned from that, particularly in terms of the message it might send to counteract some of what you have described as the hostile environment and how it might make it clear that everyone is welcome and everyone ought to participate in the democratic system?
Maurice Mcleod: I will try—sorry; I was not writing those down, but I will try to remember the questions.
The first was about how automatic registration could happen—I think that is what you said. I am not a techie, so there is no way I will be able to describe what the functions would be to make sure that happens, but, as I said, the same process that issues a national insurance number or the same process that says, “You are now this age and a British citizen, or whatever, therefore you can work and pay taxes” should also say, “Therefore you can now vote” and some information should be sent out with that. It might say, “Congratulations, you are 18”—you can argue whether the voting age should be younger, but it should be like a rite of passage—“You are now an adult in our society. You now have this right to have a say in how we are run as a country.” That would send a really strong message, rather than having to apply.
One of my fears about the Bill is that the people who will be most impacted by it and who really will be excluded from having a say are probably the people who are less able and probably less keen to talk about it. It is not something they are bothered about; they do not vote, so they do not vote. They are not going to be marching on Parliament demanding a vote that they do not use anyway. You end up arguing on people’s behalf.
I cannot remember the second part of your question.
Patrick Grady
Q
Picking up on what you said there, however, that relates to some of what was discussed yesterday. Is there something about civic education and awareness raising about the importance of participation in our democratic systems among minority communities that might also help to increase turnout and participation?
Maurice Mcleod: Absolutely. We should do loads more for all communities, not just minority communities. Learning how your country works, how you get involved in it and how you change things, if you feel that they need to changed, should be among the most important things that we are taught as we grow up in this society. Instead, it is seen as a bit of a fringe subject or people say, “Oh, let’s not talk about politics because it might get too political and then we might be accused of being one way or the other.” Instead, we should have a real love for democracy. We should instil the idea that you, as an individual, have a say in the country that you run. That is really important and I do not think we do anywhere near enough of that, so we should consider anything that increases knowledge among the public about how you change things—what’s a councillor; who’s an MP; what’s an Assembly Member; what do these things mean; who does what. Most of us do not know this stuff—most of us in this room might do—most people out there do not know this stuff. Anything that improves that would be great.
In terms of extending the mandate, I personally am of the opinion that anyone who is resident here should have a say in what goes on here. Anyone who lives and works in our society should have a say about what goes on here. I would extend that in ways that may be tricky to do, but I think prisoners should have a say—lots of people should have a say. In my opinion the mandate should be extended to all residents in this country.
You mentioned postal voting. I have not got any evidence of whether it has a particular impact on black and minority ethnic people, but I know that you have a longer window when you have a postal vote. We should give people the ability to go down and post their vote in the middle of night, or whenever they want to to fit in with their lives; we all live these piecemeal, sometimes slightly precarious, lives and we have responsibilities. You cannot always say, “Right, I am going to go down on a Thursday and queue up if I need to, and vote” because you might need to be at work or drop off your kids. Just allowing people to vote by post is massively beneficial.
The Chair
I have Tom Randall, followed by Fleur Anderson, Kate Hollern and Jerome Mayhew. If there is time at the end, I will bring Paul Bristow back in.
Tom Randall
Q
Maurice Mcleod: No, I have not.
Patrick Grady
On a point of order, Ms Rees. Can I just confirm that witnesses have been invited to speak to this Committee on the basis of their experience and there is no requirement or expectation of any of the witnesses who appear today or who appeared yesterday to back up their evidence with primary source research evidence? We have not asked any other witness to detail the evidential base. We are entitled to ask questions and witnesses are entitled to respond on the basis of their experience. Can I confirm that, please?
The Chair
Thank you, Mr Grady. The witnesses have been invited to give evidence on the basis of their experience. They do not have to have any research as a back-up. We are very grateful that the witnesses have agreed to come along and give evidence.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Grady Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Dr Coffey
I was not misleading the House in any way in any of my statements made so far, and I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Why are lifetime individual savings accounts counted as capital in the calculation of universal credit entitlement? They are designed not to be touched until the saver reaches 60 or is buying a house, so why are people like my constituent being hit by penalty charges because the DWP is forcing them to withdraw from a lifetime ISA early?
Dr Coffey
Since universal credit was introduced, there has always been a capital recognition, recognising when people have resources that they can draw on to support themselves rather than drawing on the resources of other taxpayers. That is the principle of why capital is included when people want support for their other living expenses.
Social Security
Patrick Grady Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
Before I get to the substance of my remarks on the order before us, I want to take a moment to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray), who previously served as Scottish National party work and pensions spokesperson. More than just an exceptional five-a-side football player, he was a passionate advocate of social justice long before he entered this House, and although I am sad that he will soon be leaving this Parliament, I very much hope that Westminster’s loss will be Holyrood’s gain as he seeks to represent the finest town and football club in our national Parliament.
In taking on this role of shadowing the DWP, there are many things on which I will disagree with the United Kingdom Government in terms of policy and ideology, but I am very much on the same page as the Minister in paying tribute to our work coaches and DWP staff, who are the finest in the land, as I see at Shettleston jobcentre in my constituency.
Let me turn to the order before us. To be blunt, after a decade of Tory cuts to social security spending and with millions facing hardship, current social security provision simply does not go far enough to support people in a decent and caring society. These policies are part of a wider austerity agenda that continually attacks the most vulnerable in society. We see it time and again: the two-child limit, and the associated rape clause; and the benefit cap. The list gets bigger, yet the Union dividend for Scotland gets smaller. The structure and support of our social security system says a lot about us as a society and how we treat the most vulnerable when they need that safety net the most. Right now, this Tory Government are failing enormously to guarantee the future certainty of social security payments in the coming months. Ministers must therefore listen to the widespread calls to make the £20 uplift to universal credit and working tax credit permanent, and indeed extend this to the legacy benefits.
The crux of this issue for us in Scotland is that 85% of welfare expenditure and income replacement benefits remain reserved to the United Kingdom Government here in London. As we find ourselves in the middle of a pandemic facing not only a public health crisis but an economic crisis, Scotland should not have to wait and merely hope for the UK Government to reject austerity and help the poorest in our communities. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation highlighted the devastating effect of years of Tory austerity and welfare cuts on many families across Scotland, with levels of destitution rising by 35% between 2017 and 2019. Today’s uprating does not make up for four long years of benefit freezing prior to the pandemic. The proposed uplift also fails to account of the financial hardship that many families are facing as a result of the pandemic. Research by the Trussell Trust found that nearly a quarter of a million parents worry that they will not be will be able to properly feed their children if the £20-a-week boost to universal credit is whipped away in April. I do not think that the Minister would be suggesting that the Trussell Trust is scaremongering.
A case from our citizens advice bureau in the west of Scotland reports a client with a young baby facing financial difficulties as a result of unexplained deductions to her benefits. That client’s deductions are around £50 a month, meaning that any removal of the uplift will push her into more severe hardship. I do not think that the Minister would be suggesting that the citizens advice bureau in the west of Scotland is scaremongering. Indeed, at a national level, Citizens Advice Scotland reports that, without the universal credit uplift, more than seven in 10 people receiving complex debt advice from citizens advice bureaux will be unable to meet their basic living costs. I do not think that the Minister is suggesting that Citizens Advice Scotland is scare- mongering.
Throughout the pandemic, we in the SNP have urged the UK Government to make permanent the £20 uplift to universal credit. However, it is not only the SNP demanding urgent action; these calls are coming from right across the political spectrum. In its report published only this morning, the Work and Pensions Committee said:
“We stand by our recommendation—made in October 2020—that the increase in Universal Credit should be maintained, with annual inflation-based increases.”
It went on to say that
“if the Chancellor cannot yet commit to making the increase permanent, he should at the very least extend it for a further 12 months.”
I do not think the cross-party Work and Pensions Committee, which includes a majority of Conservative MPs, is scaremongering.
A cross-party report published last week by the all-party group on poverty urged the Government to retain the uplift and to suspend the benefit cap. I do not think the all-party group on poverty, co-chaired by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), is scaremongering.
The Prime Minister’s assurance that the £20 uplift will remain in place until at least April is simply not good enough. People are now facing a cliff edge in April, because the UK Government have failed to act and, as usual, have let the issue run on until the 11th hour. Analysis by the Scottish Government has made it clear that removing the £20 uplift will have a devastating impact, forcing a further 60,000 people in Scotland, including 20,000 children, into poverty.
This £20 uplift has helped 2.5 million households across the UK during the pandemic, but the effects of the pandemic will be long lasting, with many industries suffering and countless people facing redundancies, so it is clear that this uplift needs to remain. The British Government have a moral duty to ensure that people have enough money to get by, so I argue that making this small increase permanent would be a big step towards doing that.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment to his new post. Is it not the case that lots of families are, for the first time, experiencing what it is like to be on universal credit? There will be a double whammy for those who have come on to universal credit over the course of the past year and then face this cliff edge of the further reduction. It is actually increasing the long-term cost to the Government, society and the economy if people are not properly helped back on their feet from the pandemic.
David Linden
My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. Far too often during this pandemic—whether in response to the public health aspects of the pandemic or, indeed, to the economic aspects of it—everything the Government have done has been about trying to get to the next day. It has been about trying to get a quick win and just get through the day, but unless we see a strategic thought-through process from the Government, we will continue to see these problems reinvent themselves.
Alongside increasing universal credit at the outset of the pandemic, the UK Government enhanced local housing allowance to cover the lowest 30th percentile of market rents. Both these actions effectively reversed the effect of George Osborne’s freeze on the benefit introduced in 2016. The benefits freeze is a prime example of what the Tories believe to be acceptable social security policy, but the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has made it very clear that the benefits freeze has been the biggest contributory factor in exacerbating poverty levels among working families.
Although there was a welcome increase to universal credit during the pandemic, there was sadly no increase to legacy benefits such as employment and support allowance and income support. Without this increase, those who are claiming legacy benefits face unprecedented financial challenges related to the pandemic, and this further risks worsening the financial situation for those claimants who are already facing difficulties. That specifically includes those with disabilities who cannot and should not be left behind by this Government who already have a pretty woeful record when it comes to penalising those with a disability. Increasing the value of the legacy benefits would also protect people from having to make complex and very difficult decisions about whether they would be better off moving to universal credit. The Government should ease pressure on households receiving legacy benefits by applying an uplift to mirror increases to the standard allowance within universal credit.
Before I conclude, I want to make reference to the two-child policy and rape clause. The Minister is probably wincing at the reference to the rape clause—indeed, he recently wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), pleading with her not to call it that. Presumably, Ministers would prefer it to be given its Sunday name: the non-consensual-sex exemption. If the Minister is embarrassed by the reference to the rape clause, I suggest that it is not the wording that should embarrass him, but the very essence of a policy that is surely the most barbaric ever to come out of Whitehall.
The Westminster austerity agenda continues to punish some of the most vulnerable people in our communities and make their lives a misery. The order before the House today is a mere formality; for as long as Scotland remains chained to Westminster, my party and I will always speak up for the most vulnerable and make the case for a decent, generous and robust social security system. But there is no escaping the fact that until Scotland is independent we are forced to accept the majority of social security policy from a Westminster Government we did not vote for—whose support, at best, could only be described as meagre.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Grady Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr Coffey
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to stress that point. As I have already indicated, his council will receive just over half a million pounds. The grant has come with conditions to ensure that the money is targeted towards the most disadvantaged people, and councils will be expected to report on that. They have a wide range of information to help them, including access to who is on benefits and other elements, to ensure that they reach people who really are disadvantaged at this time of year.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
The further funding for our plan for jobs—particularly the £2.9 billion for the restart programme that is focusing on those at risk of long-term unemployment —as well as ongoing support for our other schemes and work coaches shows our focus on helping people to get back into work. Through Barnett consequentials, £36 million of funding will be available for equivalent measures in Scotland next year. Other elements, such as the record increase in defence spending and the 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution, will help to create new jobs that will positively impact Scotland and the wider UK.
Patrick Grady
That will be news to my constituents in Glasgow North, who have had to cope with the closure of their jobcentre. That decision, along with the closure of 200 other jobcentres since 2010, is starting to look a little bit short-sighted. The Chancellor says that he will do everything it takes to support the estimated 2.6 million people who will be unemployed next year, so where exactly are these job coaches going to be based, and will the Government prioritise the places that have already suffered from the closure of local jobcentres?
Dr Coffey
I think it is the situation in Glasgow that a number of jobcentres were consolidated into one area. I am a great believer that, instead of necessarily investing money in bricks and mortar, we should invest in the people who will provide that support. In Scotland more broadly, we are aiming to hire over 800 new work coaches; 400 have already been recruited to date, and I know that some of those are in Glasgow.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Grady Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Dr Coffey
I have tried to make clear to the House that people will not be penalised for doing the right thing. It is important that people have that conversation with their work coach. As I emphasised to the House, work coaches can exercise discretion but the important thing is a claimant’s ongoing conversation with their work coach.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Grady Excerpts(4 years, 12 months ago)
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Justin Tomlinson
This Government are spending an additional £9 billion per year—a record high of £55 billion—supporting those with disabilities and long-term health conditions. The universal credit rate for the most severely disabled is more than double the equivalent employment and support allowance group rate, at £336.20, compared with a legacy payment of just £167.05.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)
Universal credit ensures that support goes to those who need it, allowing 700,000 more people to receive benefits than did previously—this is worth approximately an extra £2.4 billion. Those who move to UC from legacy benefits and whose circumstances remain the same will be eligible for protection of their entitlement at the point of transition.
Patrick Grady
This is Challenge Poverty Week, and plenty of people are challenged by UC. They face what Citizens Advice Scotland describes as an “acute dilemma” between enforced hardship for five weeks, while there is no income whatsoever, and ongoing hardship if they choose to take out a loan and have to face reduced monthly payments while they pay back that loan for the first five weeks.
Guy Opperman
The situation is that this is an assessment period and no one has to wait to receive a UC payment; an advance of up to 100% is available to those in need, and significant funding has gone to Citizens Advice Scotland.
Pension Funds: Financial and Ethical Investments
Patrick Grady Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth, and I congratulate you on managing to fit in nine Back-Bench speeches, as well as the one by the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) and several interventions. That demonstrates the importance of this issue to hon. Members across the House and their constituents.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton on securing the debate, and on framing it in such an interesting way that enabled us to consider both the ethical and the financial risks of investment in fossil fuels. As well as risks, however, there are immense investment opportunities. We have an important chance to get this right and to build a cleaner, greener and more sustainable future for us all.
The subject is of considerable concern to many of our constituents—I have certainly received emails about it, and people have come to my surgery to speak to me, which is always a demonstration of the importance that people attach to an issue. The divestment campaign has been running for a considerable time. In 2014 there was a successful campaign at the University of Glasgow in my constituency, since when the university has made a concerted effort to divest away from polluting and fossil fuel technologies.
As the extremity of climate events increases, the urgency becomes clearer and the momentum behind the campaign continues. Hon. Members have mentioned that energy companies and other such industries are willing to engage with that momentum, but they also need support and incentives. The declaration of a climate emergency is crucial because it helps to reframe that policy debate. We in Parliament have declared a climate emergency, civil society is doing so, and Glasgow University and Glasgow City Council have done so. The Scottish Government and the SNP have also made that declaration, but I think I am right in saying that the UK Government have not done so yet. They may have accepted the motion that was passed but they have not yet declared a climate emergency, and that is a missed opportunity to show leadership.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Does my hon. Friend agree that consistent, reliable policy frameworks from Governments are essential when encouraging investors to take up the ethical investment opportunities that I know they are keen to take up?
Patrick Grady
My hon. Friend is right, and I hope we will hear that point from the Minister.
Difficult decisions will have to be made. The Scottish Government have halted their plans to cut departure tax at airports, and the First Minister said in the Chamber that we will have to look again at our stance on the expansion of Heathrow. Those are the ways that we can begin to make that just transition, and that is the importance of the Divest Parliament pledge, which I and the vast majority of SNP Members have signed and are happy to endorse.
Patrick Grady
I am conscious of the time, and as the Chair said, we must ensure there is time for the Minister and shadow Minister to respond.
We must lead by example, and starting with our own pension funds is one of the best ways to do that. Like the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), and others, I hope that the trustees are listening to this debate.
It is right to place an emphasis on both the ethical and the financial risks. The ethical risks are there for us all to see. The impact of over-reliance on fossil fuels over the years most affects people in developing countries, whose consumption of fossil fuels has been the least, but who are feeling the impact of climate change first and hardest. As the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) said, this is not just about financial prudence; there is also a financial logic to switching investments towards clean, green and diversified technologies. Even without a reduction in emissions for reasons of climate change, fossil fuels are a finite resource, and one day they will run out. We must make the transition.
While we still use fossil fuels, we must do so as cleanly as possible. That means investment in things like carbon capture and storage, on which the UK Government have again been woefully lacking. Governments have a responsibility to create a climate-friendly investment environment. The Scottish Government are doing their part with solid environmental and ethical considerations and procurement guidance, as well as the establishment of the Just Transition Commission, which will seize those transition opportunities while ensuring that communities are not left behind as they were during the deindustrialisation of the 1980s.
The UK Government must play their part, and we heard interesting proposals from the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton about aligning decisions to the Paris agreement targets. I suggest that aligning decisions to the sustainable development goals would also make a lot of sense. In reserved areas, the Government should fully operationalise carbon capture technologies and accelerate action to decarbonise the gas grid. They should redesign vehicle and tax incentives to support industry, and commit to adhering to future EU emissions standards, irrespective of our future status within the EU. They should reduce VAT on energy efficiency and home improvements, and support the renewables industry more generally. All that would create a more incentivised investment environment for new, clean and green technologies.
We should listen to the future generations and climate change school protesters. If they wish to claim a pension in a sustainable environment in decades to come, that will require action now to tackle climate change and build a financially viable and sustainable pension fund. For them we must seize this opportunity and look not just at financial and ethical risks, but at the financial and ethical opportunities of a cleaner, greener and more just world.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Grady Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Amber Rudd
I would like to reassure the hon. Gentleman that we are ensuring that we are prepared for any situation, whether that is leaving the European Union or changes to the workplace in general. We are working closely with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to ensure that we are prepared for changes to employment structures, and I have been making some comments on that issue recently to ensure that the necessary training is provided in the workplace in the private sector as well as the assistance that we can give.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)
The Government remain committed to tackling poverty so that we can make a lasting difference to long-term outcomes. This Government have lifted 400,000 people out of absolute poverty since 2010, and income inequality has fallen.
Patrick Grady
Very few people in Glasgow North moving on to universal credit feel as if they are moving out of hardship and poverty. As my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) said, 60% of claimants across the country automatically apply for the advance payment, which means that they automatically start receiving less universal credit as the repayments kick in, regardless of their means. How on earth is that helping to tackle hardship or people’s ability to manage their money? Will the Department urgently review the advance payment system?
Justin Tomlinson
The hon. Gentleman highlights the importance of ensuring that claimants do not go without any money, which is why we welcomed the improvements to make advance payments more accessible. Let us remember that, under the complicated six legacy benefits, more than £2.4 billion of benefits were left unclaimed every year, worth an average of £280 per month; that meant that 700,000 of some of the most vulnerable people were missing out on their entitlement.
Food Poverty: Scotland
Patrick Grady Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Hugh Gaffney
Yes, I do agree. In fact, I was in Bellshill West Parish Church last week and spoke to the ladies who are involved in this work in the community. These are people who are not recognised as helpers, but they do a tremendous job helping out to fill the gaps—no, they do more than that.
I wish that we did not have to live in a country where food banks are needed in constituencies such as mine across the country. NHS Health Scotland recognises that food banks are a symbol of a food poverty crisis in Scotland. It states that
“the existence of emergency food aid provision reflects the growth of chronic severe food poverty.”
The Trussell Trust is the single largest food bank provider in Scotland. It distributed more than 170,000 food parcels in 2017-18, which meant that Scotland received the second highest number of food parcels distributed in the UK by the Trussell Trust. In their recent research, the Independent Food Aid Network and A Menu for Change also examined the role of independent food bank providers in Scotland. They found that the Trussell Trust and the independent food banks collectively distributed more than 480,000 food parcels across Scotland in 2017-18. Let me repeat that figure—480,000 food parcels across Scotland.
In North Lanarkshire, 27,000 food parcels were distributed by food banks in 2017-18. The Trussell Trust also revealed that 5,000 of those food parcels were three-day emergency supplies. I want to send my best wishes to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex on the birth of their baby boy, but have to reflect on the fact that there are many children in my constituency who will not enjoy the same chances in life and who are living in food poverty.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. The points that he is making are very important. I also congratulate the food banks in my own area in Ruchill Kelvinside Parish Church and Gairbraid Parish Church, which distribute food on behalf of the Trussell Trust. Does he agree that, when we talk about support, it is not just the quantity of food that people have access to that is hugely important, but the quality of food? They need the right kind of nutrition, and that is particularly important when we think of free school meals for younger children. It should not simply be food for fuel, but food that properly nourishes them.
Hugh Gaffney
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that very important point. It is not about the price of the food, but about the quality of the food.
Indeed, the Trussell Trust revealed that three-day emergency supplies were sent to 1,800 households with children in North Lanarkshire. I agree with Dr Mary Anne McLeod of A Menu for Change when she says that these figures are truly shameful for Scotland. They are, and I hope that they will serve as a call to action.