Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The investment that I announced yesterday is hugely important for the entire country, including Scotland. My hon. Friend is right to point to the abysmal record of the Scottish Government in delivering broadband for their people, so we should certainly look at whether there is a much better way to deliver it.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

T8. The real wages of working people are lower than they were before the global financial crisis, and while many Tory shires are better off, areas and residents like those in my constituency have been left behind by this Government. Is it not about time that this Government stopped lining the pockets of corporations and Tory shires and invested in people in communities like mine?

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Rishi Sunak)]

This Government passionately believe in helping those at the bottom end of the pay scale, which is why the Chancellor announced yesterday an increase in the national living wage, to abolish low pay in this country once and for all. Our track record over the last few years in this area has been exemplary. The fastest growth in incomes has been for those at the bottom end of the pay scale. Today, someone earning the national living wage is £3,500 better off than they were when we came into office. This is a Conservative Government on the side of those who are working hard.

Billy McNeill MBE

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Brendan O’Hara]

And the hon. Gentleman had been doing so well! However, he is right to say that, particularly in that centenary season, there was an aura. There was something that we knew.

The hon. Gentleman will also recall the semi-final when Celtic were a goal down to Hearts and heading for injury time. Somehow we scored two during injury time, and qualified for the final. We were a goal down in the final, but everyone just knew that it was going to be OK because it was written in the stars, and it was OK.

I was talking about Billy McNeill’s self-effacing character. I did once get him to talk about himself and how he felt. He was talking about the greatest moment of his career, when he went up to lift the European cup in Lisbon in 1967, but what he wanted to talk about was his regret at having to go alone. Because of the way in which the stadium was configured, all his team-mates were back in the dressing room, and he alone was taken across the pitch. What he wanted to talk about was how he led a team, yet he had been left to pick up Europe’s premier trophy on his own. That is the kind of player Billy McNeill was. That is the kind of captain Billy McNeill was. That is the kind of man Billy McNeill was.

Billy McNeill was born in Bellshill, Lanarkshire, on 2 March 1940. His dad, Jimmy, a Dundonian, was a career soldier who served 22 years with the Black Watch. His mum, Ellen, was the daughter of Lithuanian migrants, who, as Billy says in his autobiography, left Lithuania believing they were heading for the United States, only to be dumped on the docks of Leith by some unscrupulous sea captain. But my goodness, America’s loss was most certainly Scotland’s gain. Billy’s maternal grandparents gravitated towards Lanarkshire, where they settled, along with about 7,000 other Lithuanians who had gone there primarily to work in the coal mines.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman and I have discussed this outside the Chamber, but I am proud to have a strong familial link with the legend Billy McNeill. My grandma, who was of Lithuanian descent, and Billy’s mum, who was known as Nellie, were close friends. Indeed, I understand that Nellie went out with my great-uncle Charlie before she married Billy’s dad. Great-uncle Charlie was a wonderful man. He was Labour to his core, he was Celtic, and, obviously, he was Lithuanian. As I am sure we will hear from my hon. Friend shortly, Bellshill was very proud, and should still be very proud, of perhaps its most famous son.

Flybmi

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Monday 18th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

The Government have been consulting on arrangements for airline insolvencies for almost a year, so will the Minister explain how yet another UK airline can fail without the Government taking any action? Can I press the Minister to explain why the airline continued to sell tickets just hours before going into administration?

[Ms Ghani]

An independent review of airline insolvency by Peter Bucks is due to report, and it will make clear what happens to airlines when difficult decisions are made. There is an interesting point to note about how airlines can continue to sell tickets when they are struggling, which is one of the peculiar things that happens in the sector. If an airline were to stop selling tickets, that would make it clear that it was about to go into administration, so airlines do keep selling tickets quite close to the point at which they are about to go into administration. The Peter Bucks review will no doubt examine that point.

Financial Statement

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Well, at least I am demonstrating that we are all British. This relief will extend to any such facilities made available for public use, whether publicly or privately owned. I can honestly say that that is virtually the only announcement in this Budget that has not leaked. [Hon. Members: “More!”]

We cannot resolve the productivity challenge or deliver the high standards of living that the British people deserve without fixing our housing market. In last year’s Budget, I launched a five-year, £44 billion housing programme to deliver the biggest increase in housing supply since 1970, and I abolished stamp duty for first-time buyers on properties up to £300,000. Some 121,500 first-time buyers have already benefited from our new relief, and the number of first-time buyers is at an 11-year high. Today, I am extending that relief to all first-time buyers of shared ownership properties valued up to £500,000, and I will make the relief retrospective so that any first-time buyer who has made such a purchase since the previous Budget will benefit.

But we have more to do, so I can announce today a further £500 million for the housing infrastructure fund to unlock a further 650,000 homes, the next wave of strategic partnerships with nine housing associations, which will deliver 13,000 homes across England, and up to £1 billion of British Business Bank guarantees to support the revival of SME housebuilders. We are consulting on simplification of the process for conversion of commercial property into new homes, and because we want to see parishes and neighbourhoods enabling more homes for sale to local people to buy at prices they can afford, we are providing funding to empower up to 500 neighbourhoods to allocate or permission land for housing through the neighbourhood planning system for sale at a discount to local people in perpetuity.

I am also grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) for his review of build-out rates, published today. He concludes that the large housebuilders are not engaged in systematic speculative land banking—[Interruption.] Perhaps Opposition Members would like to read the report. My right hon. Friend makes several recommendations for reform of the planning system in respect of large strategic housing sites, and we will respond to his report in full in the new year.

Meeting the productivity challenge means tapping the potential of every region and nation. Our devolution agenda is giving power back to the people, and today we go further to fire up the northern powerhouse, fuel the midlands engine and back our regions across the UK. We are increasing the transforming cities fund to £2.4 billion and providing an additional £90 million to trial new models of smart transport, including on-demand buses—I think, Mr Deputy Speaker, that is what we used to call taxis in our day. We are launching a competition for proposals for business-led development corporations. We are funding 10 university enterprise zones. There is £115 million for digital catapults in the north-east, Northern Ireland and the south-east and for the medicines discovery catapult in Alderley, £70 million to develop the Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre near Loughborough, £37 million of additional development funding for northern powerhouse rail, and £10 million for a new pilot in Manchester to support the self-employed to acquire new skills. We are backing a new special economic area in south Tees, and we are providing £20 million to further develop the plan for the critical central section of east-west rail between Oxford and Cambridge. And here, in our capital, we support the delivery of a further 19,000 homes by improving the docklands light railway with housing infrastructure fund money.

The decisions announced in this Budget mean, in 2020-21, an additional £950 million for the Scottish Government, £550 million for the Welsh Government and £320 million for a Northern Ireland Executive. Obviously, there are much larger sums to come, as we move ahead over the spending review period with our NHS funding change.

I can also announce funding for further city and growth deals, including £150 million for Tay Cities, £350 million for Belfast and £120 million for North Wales, while negotiations progress with Ayrshire, Mid Wales and Borderlands, and will begin with Moray, Derry/Londonderry and Strabane as well.

I was pleased to be able to respond to a joint request from the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) and the hon. Members for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly) to provide the city with £2 million of help towards the recovery of the city centre following the fire at the iconic Bank Buildings, and we are also moving forward with schools projects in Northern Ireland worth £300 million to increase the provision of shared and integrated cross-community education. And we have agreed to the establishment of a working group to progress plans for short-haul air passenger duty devolution.

To continue to support Scotland’s oil and gas industry, we will maintain headline tax rates at their current level and launch a call for evidence on our plan to make Scotland a global hub for decommissioning. Finally, to support our vital fishing industry as we leave the EU, we will invest £12 million over the next three years in cutting-edge fisheries technology and safety measures.

A Conservative Government delivering for all our proud nations and for all our English regions, driving growth and prosperity across our United Kingdom.

We are driven by a determination to ensure that the next generation will be more prosperous than ours, but we cannot secure our children’s future unless we secure our planet’s future. So at this Budget I take further action with a package of measures, set out in the Red Book, to ensure that we leave our environment in a better state than we inherited it.

There is one particular measure I want to mention. The shadow Chancellor’s recent accident has reminded us all of how dangerous abandoned waste can be, so I will provide £10 million to deal with abandoned waste sites, although I cannot guarantee to the House that £10 million is going to be enough to stop him falling flat on his face in the future.

I also said at the spring statement that we must become a world leader in tackling the scourge of plastic littering our planet and our oceans. Billions of disposable plastic drinks cups, cartons, bags and other items are used every year in Britain—convenient for consumers, but deadly for our wildlife and our oceans. Where we cannot achieve reuse, we are determined to increase recycling, so we will introduce a new tax on the manufacture and import of plastic packaging which contains less than 30% recycled plastic, transforming the economics of sustainable packaging. We will consult on the detail and implementation timetable.

I have also looked carefully at the case for introducing a levy on the production of disposable plastic cups—not just for coffee, but for all types of beverage—and I have concluded that a tax in isolation would not, at this point, deliver a decisive shift from disposable to reusable cups across all beverage types. I will monitor carefully the effectiveness of the action which the takeaway drinks industry is already taking to reduce single-use plastics, and I will return to this issue if sufficient progress is not made. In parallel, my right hon. Friend the Environment Secretary will look to address this issue through the reform of the packaging producer responsibility scheme. Working across government, this ambitious package reflects our determination to lead the world in the crusade to rid the oceans and the environment of plastic waste.

It is only by dealing with our debts and tackling the long-term challenges our country faces that we can sustainably raise wages and living standards. But I recognise that many people are feeling pressure on their household budgets now, and because the hard work of the British people is paying off, I am pleased to be able to announce today a series of measures to help families across Britain with the cost of living.

Turning first to duties, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has already announced, we will freeze fuel duties for the ninth successive year, bringing the total saving to the average car driver to over £1,000 and to the average van driver to over £2,500. The tobacco duty escalator will continue to rise at inflation plus 2%. I have received numerous representations from my right hon. and hon. Friends on one particular subject, and in response I will be freezing beer and cider duty for the next year, keeping the cost of beer down for patrons of the great British pub. And in response to the concerted lobbying of my Scottish Conservative colleagues, I will also freeze duty on spirits, so that we can all afford to raise a wee dram to Ruth Davidson on the arrival of baby Finn, saving 2p on a pint of beer, 1p on a pint of cider and 30p on a bottle of Scotch or gin compared with the inflation assumption in the OBR forecast, while proceeding with the usual RPI increases on wine.

As promised at the autumn Budget 2017, so-called “white ciders” will be taxed at a new higher rate. From October next year, I can confirm that we will increase remote gaming duty on online games of chance to 21%, in order to fund the loss of revenue as we reduce FOBT—fixed odds betting terminals—stakes to £2.

From April 2020, APD—air passenger duty—will be indexed in line with inflation, but there will be no change in the duty rate for short-haul flights. The new 26-30 railcard, which I announced at Budget last year, will be available across the network by the end of the year, saving up to 4.4 million young people one third off their fares, and we launch a package of measures on affordable credit and support for credit unions, which is set out in detail in the Red Book.

The switch to universal credit is a long overdue and necessary reform. It replaces the broken system left by the last Labour Government, a system that trapped millions on out-of-work benefits for nearly a decade. This is not just a welfare measure; it is a major structural reform to our economy that will help to drive growth and employment in the years ahead, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), without whose tenacity universal credit would never have seen the light. However, I recognise the genuine concerns among many right hon. and hon. Friends about two issues, the first of which is the implementation of this programme. It is an enormous undertaking and we have always been clear we want the migration process to be as smooth as possible. I have already delivered nearly £3.5 billion to help with the transition, including a £1.5 billion package of support at last year’s Budget. Today I can go further, with a package of measures worth £1 billion over five years—[Interruption.] What a surprise. What a surprising response from the Opposition Front-Bench team. It is a package of measures to aid the transition worth £1 billion over five years, enabling my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to introduce additional protections as existing welfare claimants move on to UC. She will announce details when she introduces the managed migration regulations later this year.

Secondly, I have heard the concerns about the rates and allowances within the design of the system. In my first autumn statement, I reduced the UC taper rate from 65% to 63%. Today, I can tell the House that I am increasing work allowances in universal credit by £1,000 per annum, at a cost of £1.7 billion annually once roll-out is complete. That will benefit 2.4 million working families with children and people with disabilities by £630 per year. Universal credit is here to stay, and we are putting in the funding it needs to make it a success because, on this side of the House, we believe that work should always pay.

Delivering higher wages for those in work is core to my mission as Chancellor. Under this Conservative Government, the poorest 20% have seen their real incomes grow faster than the richest 20%, and the proportion of jobs that are low paid is at its lowest level for 20 years, thanks to the national living wage introduced by a Conservative Government in 2016. From April, it will rise again, by 4.9%, from £7.83 to £8.21, handing a full-time worker a further £690 annual pay increase and taking his or her total pay rise since the introduction of the national living wage to more than £2,750 a year.

We accept the Low Pay Commission’s recommendations on national minimum wage rates and will support young people and apprentices with further above-inflation increases. The Low Pay Commission’s current remit is for the national living wage to reach 60% of median earnings by 2020, subject to sustained economic growth. Next year, we will give the Low Pay Commission a new remit, beyond 2020. We will want to be ambitious, with the ultimate objective of ending low pay in the UK. We will also want to be careful, protecting employment for lower-paid workers, so we will engage responsibly with employers, the TUC and the Low Pay Commission itself over the coming months, gathering evidence and listening to views to ensure that we get it right. I will confirm the final remit at the Budget next year.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

You won’t be here!

[Mr Hammond]

I hear the hon. Lady, but her point is slightly blunted by the fact that she made it in the autumn of 2016, again in the spring of 2017 and again in the autumn of last year.

As well as making work pay, we want working people to keep more of the money that they earn. When we came into office, the personal allowance stood at £6,475 and the higher rate threshold was at £43,875. In April, I raised the personal allowance to £11,850 and the higher rate threshold to £46,350, as steps towards our manifesto commitments of £12,500 and £50,000 respectively by 2020. Those manifesto commitments were, of course, made before our new funding pledge to the NHS. I have received representations that the least painful way for taxpayers to contribute to increased NHS funding would be to abandon our manifesto pledges and freeze the personal allowance and the higher rate threshold at current levels.

Let me reassure the House that, unlike the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), my idea of ending austerity does not involve increasing people’s tax bills. I did not come into politics to put taxes up, and the improvement that we have delivered in the public finances means that, based on the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast published today, I do not need to do so. I can therefore confirm today that I will meet our manifesto commitments for April 2020 to raise the personal allowance to £12,500 and the higher rate threshold to £50,000, before indexing both in line with inflation from 2021 to 2022. But our careful management of the economy allows me to go further, so I will raise both the personal allowance and the higher rate threshold to these levels from April 2019, delivering our manifesto commitments one year early. A tax cut for 32 million people, £130 in the pocket of a typical basic rate taxpayer, meaning that, since 2015, we have taken 1.7 million people out of tax altogether and nearly 1 million people out of higher rate tax. As a result of the announcements that I have made today, a single parent, receiving universal credit and working 25 hours a week on the national living wage will benefit by £890 next year—the hard work of the British people paying off in hard cash in their pockets.

We have turned an important corner and now we must pull together to build the bright, prosperous future that is within Britain’s grasp if we choose to seize it— embracing change, not hiding from it, building on the inherent strength of the British economy and the indomitable spirit of the British people.

Under this Conservative Government, austerity is coming to an end, but discipline will remain. [Interruption.] Austerity is coming to an end, but discipline will remain. That is the clear dividing line in British politics today: between a Conservative Government delivering on the British people’s priorities, supporting our public services, investing in Britain’s future, keeping taxes low and getting our debt down; or the Corbyn party, whose idea of ending austerity is to raise taxes to their highest level in peacetime history, which would send our debt soaring, squander the hard-won achievements of the past eight years and take this country back to square one. We are at a turning point in our history and we must resolve to go forwards, not backwards, and work together to build a Britain that we can all be proud of. I commend this statement to the House.

Mental Health: Absence from Work

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I thank the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey) for securing such an important and timely debate. Further, I thank him for his thoughtful speech. My friend the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), who represents two places that she knows I am familiar with from my childhood, spoke incredibly bravely, which is no surprise, about her own battle with mental health in the workplace. Everyone in the Chamber will agree with her that prevention and early intervention must be the key when we are looking at all aspects of mental health.

As other cases that we have heard about have shown, for the one in four people who experience mental health issues there are serious consequences in all areas of their lives. Of course that includes work, which the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said is where we spend most of our time—I am sure hon. Members agree. Right now, it is estimated that up to 5 million workers are experiencing a mental health condition, although we all acknowledge that it is difficult to quantify such numbers when we are talking about millions of people. Many are frightened to come forward, for a variety of reasons.

The human cost of the mental health epidemic we face is incalculable, and every individual deserves the treatment they need. When it comes to mental health in the workplace, research from Mind and others has shown that we can put a number to the cost of failure to fund our mental health services adequately. Poor mental health at work is estimated to cost taxpayers between £24 billion and £27 billion a year in NHS costs, benefit costs and lost tax revenue.

The costs for British businesses are also significant. Research from the insurance sector shows that it costs small and medium-sized enterprises £30,000 to replace a staff member in recruitment costs, training time and lost productivity. When 300,000 people with long-term mental health problems are losing their jobs each year, that is no small problem. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire also alluded to that figure. The total annual cost to the UK economy from our mental health crisis is an eye-watering £99 billion.

There is also a flip side. As the TUC points out, UK workers with mental health problems, despite often suffering illness, contributed £226 billion to UK GDP in 2016. Their work supports our economy and our society must support them. However, in so many cases of poor mental health at work there is a direct, negative link to Government policies. Many of the worst-affected professions are in our public services, which have suffered under austerity. For example, the Office for National Statistics has found that health and social careworkers—including those who treat others for mental health conditions—are at an especially high risk of experiencing poor mental health. It also found that low-income workers who do not earn enough to make ends meet, sometimes receiving a top-up via universal credit, are more than twice as likely to experience poor mental health as other workers. Not being able to put food on the table and being forced to rely on the shambolic universal credit system is enough to affect anybody’s mental health.

What about people in precarious work? Under this Government we have seen an explosion in the number of insecure workers: staff on zero-hours, temporary or agency contracts and workers forced to be self-employed so that employers do not have to take responsibility for their rights. Research from the GMB union—I declare an interest as a proud member of it—showed that more than 60% of precarious workers had suffered stress or anxiety as a result of their work or had been to work while unwell for fear of losing their pay or their job. Over a third would also struggle to cope with an unexpected bill for £500, with all the anxieties and stresses that creates.

Those with barely any employment rights have three options when it comes to their mental health. They can take days off unpaid, lose their insecure work due to their condition or suffer in silence, continuing to work as things get worse and worse. Seventy-eight per cent of the workers the GMB spoke to had previously been in permanent employment. That is not flexible working; it is the new normal. The Prime Minister has declared that austerity is over and promised to tackle insecure work. The Budget will be the test of whether she means it.

Health Ministers have given us warm words but little action on mental health. The Farmer-Stevenson report made a number of recommendations on mental health and employers, which the Government claimed to support wholeheartedly. However, almost a year since its publication, how much action has there been? Several recommendations were addressed to the Government, including changes in the public sector and ensuring the NHS prioritises mental health. However, the NHS is crippled by cuts, and its own staff are suffering. For example, the GMB found that 39% of ambulance workers have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and 12% took sick leave due to stress, anxiety, depression and related conditions in 2016-17, which totalled 80,000 sick days. Given that the chronic lack of funding for frontline mental health services has led to excessive waiting lists for even basic talking therapies, is it likely that those workers got timely and effective treatment as the Farmer-Stevenson report advocates?

The report also recommended an increased role for the Health and Safety Executive. However, instead of providing resources for its work, the Government have continued to cut its funding. In a particularly bitter irony, the HSE now has one of the highest levels of anxiety among its staff of any public service employer. Perhaps the Minister can tell us who will inspect the inspectors. What resources will go to the HSE and what progress has been made in implementing that specific recommendation?

One of the report’s key findings was that the stigma around mental health is still a barrier for employees seeking support. Other Members have alluded to that. The Conservative manifesto committed to

“extend Equalities Act protections against discrimination to mental health conditions that are episodic and fluctuating.”

That would protect people who have long-term mental conditions from discrimination, and people who have short-term episodes of poor mental health, such as those caused by bipolar disorder.

People with such life-changing conditions might be deemed by an employer not to meet the current Equality Act 2010 definition. In one case, a worker with bipolar disorder was stable on medication, but asked to start work a little later because of the effect of the medication. Their boss refused. Mental health charity Rethink advised the worker that they could take legal action, but they felt that would just cause more stress. With the stigma around complex conditions such as bipolar disorder, when will the Equality Act 2010 be extended so that people get the support they so desperately need?

Similarly, employers sometimes see making reasonable adjustments as doing someone a favour rather than meeting their legal obligations. I have heard this in my constituency surgeries—I suspect others have heard the same. Will the Minister tell us how the Department has been monitoring progress from employers on achieving their legal obligations and what it has done to ensure proper HR training and processes?

Given that people spend on average 90,000 hours at work over a lifetime, the Government must ensure that employers prioritise health and wellbeing in their workplaces. The Government must also put their own house in order. Mental health services are still reeling from years of underfunding and we are all paying a price. It is high time this Government put their money where their mouth is.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Nigel Adams)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey) on securing this important debate and on putting his point across with such characteristic eloquence.

I was particularly struck by the recognition in the debate that employers and Government both have a stake in the nation’s mental health. The Government provide the necessary health support, offer a safety net when people are out of work and promote the right action in the workplace. However, employers are increasingly recognising that they have a crucial role to play in creating healthy workplaces to enable their employees to remain in work and thrive, providing a supportive environment in which their employees can discuss health issues, and helping people return to work promptly when they fall ill.

Mental health is a matter of national importance. It is particularly relevant this month, following World Mental Health Day on 10 October, during which the Prime Minister announced that the Government are providing £1.8 million over the next four years to cover the cost of calls to the Samaritans helpline. This will enable more people to receive support when they reach out for help.

The Prime Minister is personally committed to improving mental health services and addressing one of the most burning injustices in our society. As we have heard, the Government are backing that up by investing record levels in mental health, with annual spending reaching just under £12 billion last year. In addition, the Prime Minister announced a five-year funding settlement, which will see the NHS budget grow by more than £20 billion a year in real terms in the next five years. In return, she has asked the NHS to develop a long-term plan for the next 10 years. She has been clear that mental health needs to be a key element of that.

Financial difficulties can have a serious detrimental impact on mental health, but mental health problems can devastate our finances, too. As we heard from the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff), one in four people who suffer from mental health problems may have debt problems as well. Supporting people with their financial resilience is vital. We are committed to addressing issues faced by people who fall into problem debt. This year, the Government commissioned the Money Advice Service and spent just over £56 million to provide help to more than 530,000 people.

The NHS provides some services to people who may be experiencing the symptoms of debt problems or financial difficulties. Mental health services, including improving access to psychological therapies, may also signpost patients to debt advice services as part of their care. In our 2017 manifesto, we committed to developing a breathing space scheme for people in problem debt. We will publish a consultation shortly and lay before the House regulations on breathing space by the end of 2019. The Prime Minister has also announced a review of the practice of GPs charging patients to complete debt and mental health evidence forms. We are considering options to end the need for GPs to charge their patients to provide this information to their creditors, and I know that that will be welcomed.

We know that too many people with a mental health condition do not participate fully in key activities of society, including work. The figures are stark: people who are unemployed for more than 12 weeks are between four and 10 times more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. That is why this Government are committed to supporting people with mental health conditions who are out of work, including through our Jobcentre Plus network. All work coaches across the network receive training on supporting people with health conditions and disabilities. In addition, the roll-out of the health and work conversation across the UK supports work coaches to continue to build engagement with claimants who have disabilities and health issues.

The Government also continue to invest in mental health-related trials and studies. These include doubling the number of employment advisers in IAPT services and launching a £4.2 million challenge fund to build the evidence base of what works to support people with mental health conditions, as well as musculoskeletal conditions.

The good news is that staying in or returning to work after a period of mental ill health can help mental health recovery. Good work supports our good health. It keeps us healthy, mentally and physically. It enables us to be economically independent and gives us more choices and opportunities to fulfil our other ambitions in life. Our Command Paper, “Improving lives: the future of work, health and disability”, which was published jointly by the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Work and Pensions last November, sets out a comprehensive strategy for achieving the Government’s challenging target of ensuring that 1 million more disabled people are in work by 2027.

Given the scale of this ambition, a key part of our programme is to achieve transformational change by focusing action on three key areas: welfare, workplace and health. We have made good progress. Employment rates are at historic highs and the number of disabled people in work reached 3.5 million in 2017, having increased by nearly 600,000 since 2013. The Government recognise the crucial role of employers in creating mentally healthy workplaces. Too many people fall out of work because of their mental health. We are asking employers to do more to prevent that.

That is why, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire, in January 2017 the Prime Minister commissioned Lord Dennis Stevenson and Paul Farmer, the chief executive of Mind, to conduct an independent review into how employers can better support all employees, including those with mental ill health or wellbeing issues. The review set out a compelling business case for action, with the central recommendation that all employers should adopt a set of six core mental health standards to encourage an open and transparent organisational culture that supports employees’ mental health. Those standards included developing mental health awareness among employees, encouraging open conversations about mental health and routinely monitoring employee mental health and wellbeing.

The review went further by recommending that all public sector employers, and private sector companies with more than 500 employees, deliver mental health enhanced standards, including increasing transparency and accountability through internal and external reporting. We have made progress with implementation and are developing with partners, including employers, a framework for voluntary reporting on mental health and disability. We will publish supporting guidance, including on the important issue of how to encourage employees to disclose health issues.

It will take time before we can call all of our workplaces truly healthy and inclusive, but we have been encouraged by the level of engagement and commitment to this agenda. Momentum is building around the challenge to all employers to adopt the core standards that lay the basic foundations for good workplace mental health, and to larger businesses to adopt the enhanced standards. Following the Prime Minister’s acceptance of the Stevenson-Farmer recommendations as they apply to the NHS and the civil service as major employers, both organisations are making progress.

Working in partnership is vital. The Government recognise the collaborative approach that has created the new mental health at work gateway, which is aimed at employers, senior management and line managers, to help them to support a colleague, challenge the stigma or learn more about mental health in the workplace. Looking at the wider system in which employers make decisions, the Government are committed to reforming the current system of statutory sick pay so that it supports more flexible working, which can help people to return to work after a period of sickness.

I will use this opportunity to take a moment to address some of the points raised by hon. Members in the debate. I will come on to my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire shortly. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who gave a characteristically eloquent exposition of the issues, talked about employees sharing responsibility. I could not agree more, and nor could the Government. Employers have a key role to play in creating good working conditions and providing supportive line management so that people have the opportunity to speak out about issues and keep in contact with employees. I was encouraged by what he said about ensuring that his own staff took breaks and had some downtime during the working day.

It is also important that we keep in contact with employees who happen to go off sick. The Government have worked with Mind to produce a new website resource, and we are reviewing current obligations and incentives to see what we can do to encourage more good behaviour. The hon. Gentleman talked about suicide prevention; as hon. Members will be aware, on World Mental Health Day the Prime Minister announced not only the appointment of my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) as Minister for suicide prevention, but, as I mentioned earlier, almost £2 million to cover the costs of calls to the Samaritans helpline, where there will be help for people who reach out.

The hon. Gentleman also talked about parity of esteem for mental and physical health. It was this Government who legislated for parity of esteem by making mental and physical health an equal responsibility for the NHS in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. We are also backing our commitment with a significant increase in funding.

We are all extremely delighted to see the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) in her place, and it was a genuine pleasure to hear from her. It takes enormous courage to admit that one has suffered mental health problems, so to hear that from the hon. Lady was incredibly moving, and it was a privilege to be in the Chamber for that moment. It is important that employers create the right supportive environment. One thing we are doing is investing to make sure that there are 1 million mental health first aiders in the workplace, which is crucial.

The hon. Lady talked about the impact of low wages, and I agree with her. That is why we introduced the national living wage and are providing in-work financial support through tax credits and now through universal credit. That also makes it easier for people to move in and out of work, removing difficult transitions. She mentioned work capability assessments; it is true that they are designed to determine benefit eligibility, but they should not be viewed in isolation. We provide personalised and tailored support through work coaches in our jobcentres.

Moving on to the remarks of the hon. Member for Dewsbury, I politely and gently remind her that the funding picture in the NHS is not quite so gloomy as she painted it. We are backing our commitments with some significant funding increases in this space. We have record levels of investment in mental health, with annual spending reaching just under £12 billion just last year. The Prime Minister, as I have mentioned, has announced a five-year funding settlement. That is not the picture that the hon. Lady paints.

[Paula Sherriff]

How would the Minister respond to the professionals I speak to every single week, who tell me that mental health services—particularly child and adolescent services—are in crisis; that on some weekends there is not a single psychiatric bed available in the country; and that people are travelling up to 300 miles to get an inpatient psychiatric bed? Perhaps there are positives out there, but it is difficult to say that things are not so gloomy when that is what I hear every week.

[Nigel Adams]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point. The need to travel hundreds of miles out of area, in some cases, for inpatient treatment is something that we desperately need to tackle, and we are tackling it. That is why we are putting in the investment. I gently remind her again of the additional £20 billion a year in real terms for the NHS over the next five years. Nobody is saying that this is a perfect situation, but we are matching our words with real-terms cash and investing a further £1.4 billion for mental health services for children and young people, which I am sure she would support.

We briefly mentioned the Stevenson-Farmer report, and I remind the hon. Lady that we responded in full through the “Improving Lives: the Future of Work, Health and Disability” Command Paper and fully supported all 40 recommendations of the Stevenson-Farmer review. Progress is being made, and has been made, on implementing those recommendations.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire raised the role that the insurance industry can play. We recognise the positive aspects of group income protection for helping to retain sick employees, in particular access to expert-led health services and the financial certainty it offers individuals. I am not entirely sure that the product is widely known out there in the business space; I have run businesses for the last 20-odd years and was not aware that such insurance products were available. I very much hope that my former colleagues are tuned in at this precise moment and will do some research on it.

GIP is clearly a product that works well for those employees who choose to buy it, and we encourage the industry to continue to promote its benefits. I am sure the Association of British Insurers is doing a good job of that. However, we believe that small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, lack sufficient incentives to invest in GIP as it is currently structured, because they often choose not to offer sick pay for periods beyond statutory requirements. That is why we have been looking more broadly at incentives and obligations on employers. We will continue to engage with the industry, and I know that the ABI will play a big role in that as well. We are listening closely to employers’ views about the appropriate products that retain the positive aspects of GIP and that overcome the existing barriers to increasing take-up.

By working with our partners, including employers, the Government can continue to tackle poor mental health, ensuring that disabled people, and people with physical and mental health conditions, go as far as their talents can take them.

Eating Disorders

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. Like others, I thank the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for securing this important debate and for speaking so passionately.

As we have heard from many colleagues, eating disorders manifest in many different ways. They are mental illnesses that involve disordered eating behaviour, with types including anorexia, binge eating disorder, bulimia, purging disorder and avoidant or restrictive food intake disorder—that list is clearly not exhaustive. Their severity and complexity should never be underestimated. Sufferers will commonly go to extreme lengths to hide their symptoms and behaviours even from those closest to them.

It is thought that the majority of people with eating disorders are young women aged 12 to 20, but it is harmful to stereotype; the possibility that someone can develop such a disorder should never be ruled out. The number of boys and young men developing them is rising, and the numbers could be higher than we think, mainly due to stigmatisation and fear of speaking out. Indeed, when I visited the Navigo eating disorder service, which my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) spoke about, I met four service users of whom two were women over 40 and another was a young man in his late teens. That shows that we must not stereotype.

Eating disorders have the highest mortality rates among psychiatric disorders, with anorexia having the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder. Of those who survive, 50% recover, whereas 30% improve and 20% remain chronically ill. It is estimated that 40% of sufferers will also self-harm. Given those startling statistics, it is clear that more needs to be done to help sufferers with their recovery and that access to treatments must be greatly improved. Someone with an eating disorder will currently wait an average of 3.5 years before receiving treatment. As we have heard, it is worse for adults, who statistics show have to wait twice as long as children before accessing treatment.

In 2015, clinical commissioning groups were given extra money to help children and adolescents suffering with eating disorders. Unfortunately, in the CCGs’ bid to balance the books in these times of severe NHS funding cuts, much of that money never found its way to the frontline and, of what did, little was actually used for eating disorder services. We heard from the hon. Members for Bath and for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) about how services are patchy. There does appear to be a postcode lottery and disparate availability of services. However, we do recognise that some fabulous work is going on, including the service run by Navigo in Grimsby.

Much more needs to be done to raise awareness and to remove stigmas. Common misconceptions include that people with eating disorders are more responsible for their symptoms and that they would be more likely to use their disorder to gain attention than those suffering from other mental illnesses. Such misconceptions must be dispelled and greater awareness must be raised. The popular TV series “Hollyoaks” is currently running a story highlighting a young woman’s struggle with her eating disorder. Well-researched storylines such as that are an important way of educating people and dispelling myths, but there is still much work to be done.

My hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans), who made a passionate speech, spoke about how the media controls much of the narrative. I remember looking at women’s magazines—I tend not to buy them so much anymore—and constantly seeing frighteningly thin models; plus-size models are rarely seen, even though being bigger than a size 10 does not necessarily mean that someone is unhealthy. Equally, social media plays a big part. Role models also have a responsibility. I remember a supermodel famously saying that nothing tastes as good as thin feels. Children and adolescents in particular look up to those people, who must recognise that they are role models in society.

Data on access, quality, workforce and investment in adult eating disorders services, which is key to the evaluation of whether services are effective, is not routinely collected and published. That would not be acceptable for physical health conditions, so why is it for a mental health condition? Furthermore, we have heard that there are no waiting time targets in place for over-18s. It would be great if the Minister responded on that.

In December 2017, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman published its findings after investigating the death of 19-year-old Averil Hart from anorexia. Its investigation “Ignoring the alarms: How NHS eating disorder services are failing patients” found that there had been inadequate co-ordination and planning of Averil’s care and that, tragically, Averil’s death could have been prevented had the NHS provided appropriate care and treatment.

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and Beat, which I also thank—it does fabulous work and lobbies Members of Parliament to ensure that this issue is firmly on the agenda—have recommended that the General Medical Council conduct a review of training for all junior doctors on eating disorders to improve understanding of complex mental illnesses. As we have heard, although eating disorders affect an estimated 1.25 million people in the UK, training on it is limited to just a few hours over several years of training.

GPs, who are often the first port of call for people with eating disorders, must be provided with the training they need to identify the illness and to know what steps to take next. Blame is attached not to NHS staff but to how the service is run. The problems in the NHS have not come about overnight; the Government knew they would happen. Junior doctors have protested against the situation.

Much more needs to be done to aid the early stages of diagnosing and treating eating disorders because, as with much else, early intervention is crucial. A constituent of mine who was suffering from an eating disorder was praised on her weight gain during a consultation—such comments are enough to set recovery back for months. Health professionals should be given training on acceptable basic language when dealing with these sensitive issues. I am interested to explore family therapy further, because when I have met sufferers of eating disorders and their families, its great impact on the whole family has been clear. Family therapy is therefore a positive way forward.

I am conscious that I am running short of time, so I will try to summarise the remainder of my speech. NICE guidance for eating disorders states that children and young people with suspected eating disorders should start treatment within four weeks. However, a 2017 survey by Beat found that only 14% are referred within four weeks of their first GP visit. The average wait for referral is more than 11 weeks, and those aged 19 and over wait significantly longer. The situation is worse for men and boys, who make up between 10% and 20% of people with anorexia or bulimia.

We know—it has been said before—that mental health services are the poor relation in a cash-starved NHS. Some 40% of NHS mental health trusts are having their budgets cut, and we appear to be moving further and further away from parity of esteem. When I recently questioned the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), it emerged that an average of 2,000 mental health staff are leaving their posts in the NHS every month. At the end of June this year, one in 10 mental health posts was vacant, despite promises by the then Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Mr Hunt), that he would increase the mental health workforce by 21,000.

As Labour’s shadow mental health Minister, I am passionate about seeing improvements across all our mental health services—as I know everyone in the Chamber is. I am committed to delivering on Labour’s promise to have a counsellor in every high school, as early intervention is the key to preventing serious mental health issues. We would also ensure that budgets for mental health services are ring-fenced and ensure parity of esteem, providing a properly funded NHS with properly funded mental health services.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mel Stride)]

I certainly agree with my right hon. Friend’s assertion of the importance of our heritage, which was recognised when last year the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport gave grants of more than £140 million in that respect. On VAT relief for repairs to historic buildings, the situation that currently pertains to EU regulations is that if we were to make changes or reductions, we would have to apply them to all buildings in the UK, at onerous cost, but that is something we can look into as and when we leave the EU.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

T2. The tampon tax fund gave a quarter of a million pounds to an anti-abortion group, so we are being taxed on our bodies to pay for people who do not think we should have control over them. Will the Minister look again at setting aside much needed funds to tackle period poverty instead?

[Mel Stride]

As the hon. Lady will know, we have committed to zero-rate tampons at the earliest opportunity. The fact that we are not doing that at the moment is due to our membership of the EU. She will also know that we are providing to women’s charities an amount equivalent to what we raise through taxing tampons.

Sanitary Products

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as chair of the all-party group on women’s health.

I am grateful to have secured the final debate before the recess to raise the issue of period poverty. I have touched on this matter before in this House in the context of homelessness. I wish to expand on that, and also to talk about the shocking recent reports of period poverty among school-age girls in west Yorkshire. The phenomenon of period poverty has gone under the radar for some time and is only now starting to be discussed after the successes of the campaign against the tampon tax. It is a unique challenge faced by women in poverty, who all too often face a choice between buying sanitary products or food. In the worst-case scenario, homeless women have been faced with a choice between stealing sanitary products and doing without.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that women using sanitary products beyond their recommended duration are at risk of toxic shock syndrome, and that homeless women, in particular, self-ration these products at great risk to their health?

[Paula Sherriff]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I will be coming to the issue of toxic shock syndrome and other associated health conditions, but she makes that crucial point very well.

The horror of these choices cannot be overstated, and they are choices that women in one of the most advanced industrial nations on earth should not face. Period poverty represents nothing less than the affected women being robbed of their human dignity. As an illustration of this, the Salvation Army has relayed to me the experiences at its Darlington Citadel food bank, where women have turned up literally begging for sanitary products. With your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will quote its commanding officer in full, because I believe that the House really needs to hear this:

“Since we have started supplying”

sanitary products,

“with tears in their eyes many women have told us what they do when they can’t afford them. They use rolled up socks, they rip up clothing, they even use newspaper, they stuff these into their underwear as makeshift sanitary wear—or they simply have to free bleed. These women however, struggle to pay for electricity and so doing laundry to a sufficient level to kill any bacteria is a problem and they are putting themselves and their daughters at risk of infection resulting in possible medical treatment with antibiotics or even hospitalization. Some women have informed us that they have needed dilation and curettage treatment and courses of antibiotics for infections, costing the NHS money and resources.”

Unfortunately, this testimony does not stand alone. An investigation by Amanda Ternblad of Goldsmiths University into period poverty in London has found that some women resort to using toilet roll, which can pose a risk of thrush infection, or using sanitary products for longer than they should be used—that follows on from the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins)—which can lead to fatal toxic shock syndrome and the risk of further long-standing health problems. Of course, that costs the NHS in the long run, but that should be as nothing compared with the desperation, indignity, humiliation and degradation visited on those women, who are already among the most vulnerable in our society. That should beggar belief in one of the wealthiest nations on the planet.

The problem is most pronounced for women who are homeless, who typically have no stable source of income with which to buy sanitary products. In the debate on homelessness on 14 December 2016, I mentioned that homeless shelters get an allowance from the Government to provide items such as condoms and razors, but they have no such allowance to buy sanitary products, leaving them reliant on charity donations instead.

When I last raised that point in the House, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), said that the Government provide funding for outreach services for homeless people, meaning that such facilities would ultimately be funded anyway. Unfortunately, the point is that there appears to be a shortfall in toiletries such as sanitary protection for women. In many places in the UK, condoms are given away for free, and there is a clear and well-understood public argument for that. Why, then, is that not commonplace for sanitary products, which every woman requires, and the absence of which can have grave health consequences? Although valuable work has been done in the past couple of years by organisations such as St Mungo’s to ensure that homelessness services are gender-appropriate, the Government’s allowance for such products does not appear to have kept pace and speaks to something of a male-dominated view of homelessness.

In reality, women who are homeless face numerous unique challenges, from their personal safety, to vulnerability and falling into prostitution. Those challenges, while grave, have in various ways been targeted before by the good works of homelessness charities. Period poverty, however, is one of the unique challenges for women that has been under-represented, which makes it all the more important that it is now taken seriously.

The reliance on charity is a problem in itself. Donations of sanitary products to food banks and homeless shelters are often not enough to keep up with demand, while supply is variable across the country, meaning that the donations are not always made in the areas with most demand. The Homeless Period campaign is an attempt to gain more attention for the problem and to secure more donations of sanitary items to homeless shelters and food banks so that their stocks are more readily available. I again wish to pay tribute to the incredible work of Laura Coryton, who campaigned so effectively with me on the issue of the tampon tax, for her work in bringing the issue to wider public attention.

As part of my support for the campaign, I have secured a trial of a donation point for toiletries at a Boots store in Dewsbury to go to the Fusion Housing charity, which supports food banks in the Kirklees area. It is a small step, but I hope that many more like it can be achieved in the near future and that they will make a difference.

If, as we sadly now find, the Government are content to let charity supplant welfare in providing for the needy in our society, I will call on other companies to follow the example of Boots. Every area will have similar problems, and similar charities will try to cope with them. Many companies that deal with toiletries could set up similar schemes as part of their wider corporate responsibility to their communities. I was encouraged by an example on a recent trip to Brussels, where a hotel chain was donating surplus toiletries to its local facility for the homeless. With a bit of ingenuity, companies can make a significant difference to the lives of some of the most vulnerable—as could this Government.

It is not, however, just homeless women who are vulnerable to period poverty. I was absolutely appalled—actually, I was heartbroken—by the recent BBC Radio Leeds report that a west Yorkshire charity called Freedom4Girls, which usually sends sanitary products to girls in Kenya, had been contacted by a school in Leeds to provide sanitary products to girls there. Concerns were raised after girls were found to be playing truant because they could not afford sanitary protection. I ask everyone to take a moment to consider what is happening in one of the richest nations in the world.

As with the homeless women in the examples I mentioned earlier, the same makeshift and risky remedies had been tried. We heard about 15-year-old girls sellotaping toilet roll to their knickers because they could not afford tampons or sanitary towels. Girls would rather not attend school than go through the indignity of doing so in a vulnerable state. There are related reports of teachers having to pay for sanitary products for their pupils. That, too, beggars belief. Schools are the perfect place for the Government to enact early intervention on matters relating to women’s health, as has been borne out by the valuable human papilloma virus vaccination programme. I urge the Government to investigate how the problem of period poverty can be tackled in schools, for example by including menstrual health in sex and relationships education and by looking at the possibility of using eligibility for free school meals for the provision of sanitary products to vulnerable young girls.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate and praise her for the passionate way in which she speaks about the issue, on which she has campaigned for a long time. I have heard the BBC Radio Leeds report about the girls in school. I am a father to young girls, as she knows, so it was something that hit me. Has she thought about whether the tampon tax funds that are being distributed at the moment could be directed to support girls from low-income backgrounds with tampons and sanitary towels? Perhaps pupil premium money could be used, or boosted, to help to provide those much-needed products to girls so that they do not have to go through the horrible situation that the west Yorkshire girls faced.

[Paula Sherriff]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I note that the first time we debated the tampon tax in this House, he chose to vote to keep it, but I do take on board what he says about the tampon tax funds. I would much rather see the tax removed from sanitary products, but while it is still there—I appreciate that Brexit causes complications—I would absolutely support some of the money going towards schools.

[Jason McCartney]

I remember the night when the hon. Lady forced a vote on the tampon tax. As she is well aware, it is due to EU regulation. She had a lot of cross-party support, and this is not party political—it is about coming together to look after young, vulnerable girls, and homeless people. The Government are trying to address that with their approach on the tampon tax. As she knows, through cross-party working, we can help those vulnerable women, rather than scoring puerile, partisan points.

[Paula Sherriff]

The existence of this problem in our schools speaks to my grave concern that we are seeing just the tip of the iceberg. I dare say that if we looked hard enough, up and down the country, we would find examples of similar schools whose girls face the same problem. Leeds City Council has the same concern. It notes:

“This issue has happened in Leeds—a city where services for children are judged to be ‘Good’ and over 90% of schools are judged to be ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted—and as such could be happening in towns and cities right across the UK.”

The Salvation Army has said that

“it appears that this phenomenon may be more widespread”.

We need to ask ourselves what is so fundamentally broken with our society that the poorest families, even those in work and secure housing, cannot afford sanitary protection for their daughters.

When the House returns from the recess, the two-child cap under the Government’s universal credit will have come into effect. The poverty that led the girls in Leeds into this position existed even before that, but I ask the Government whether they honestly believe that their changes will not make the situation even worse. The Opposition have repeatedly said that any such limit to child tax credit will serve only to punish unjustly the children involved. I fear that we may be setting a time bomb of poverty, misery and indignity for the underprivileged girls of the future if we do not act now to ensure that period poverty goes no further.

My sense of sadness about this issue comes not only from the assault on the health and dignity of the women involved—as I have repeatedly said, they are some of the most vulnerable in our society—but from the fact that the whole situation is absolutely avoidable. It is no accident of history that these women are being left in such a vulnerable situation; it is a direct result of the obsession with austerity of this Government and their coalition predecessor, which is disproportionately hitting the poorest in society. Many families now experience in-work poverty because of increasingly insecure jobs and hours. That leaves thousands of women at risk of being unable to afford sanitary products, with many on the precipice of rent arrears or in danger of losing their home altogether.

This sorry state of affairs was not always the case. Under the previous Labour Government, rough sleeping was nearly eliminated, but last year it increased by 16%—the sixth successive annual rise. In the final year of the previous Labour Government, 41,000 people were given aid by Trussell Trust food banks, compared with over 1.1 million in 2015-16. It should go without saying that when more women are homeless and more are relying on food banks just to get by, period poverty is going to be an increasing problem.

I implore the Government today—I beg the Minister—to find the political will to ensure that these horrors are not visited on any more women in our country. In the words of Tina Leslie of Freedom4Girls,

“we need to give these girls their dignity back.”

May I finish by taking this opportunity, Madam Deputy Speaker, to wish you, the other Deputy Speakers and Mr Speaker a very happy Easter? I thank all the staff of the House who, particularly during the past seven or eight days, have performed their jobs at the most incredible level. I also pay tribute to those affected by last week’s horrendous Westminster attack, especially the families of the bereaved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jane Ellison]

I will certainly draw my hon. Friend’s comments to the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East, the Minister for Civil Society, and I will come to some of the support available in schools and the work already under way as a response to recent questions in Parliament.

My hon. Friend the Minister for Civil Society has today announced the full list of funding for charities from the latest round of the tampon tax fund. That means that more than 90 charities are now set to benefit from the fund over this Parliament. The fund continues to benefit organisations in every corner of the UK, from Children North East to the Women’s Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre in Cornwall. It is helping to improve the lives of women and girls who suffer disadvantage, supporting our wider ambition to create a fairer society for everyone.

[Paula Sherriff]

I recognise that some excellent charities are receiving funds from the tampon tax, including Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust, which I have been working with very closely. How will those charities be provided for when we finally see the abolition of the tampon tax, which I hope will come very soon?

[Jane Ellison]

Indeed; that is something we have explored in debates. We said at the time that while this is inevitably a time-limited fund by its nature, we will look at all those issues in the round. It is, of course, only one of a number of sources from which we support civil society organisations. I am glad that the hon. Lady picked out Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust, a charity that I greatly enjoyed working with when I was at the Department of Health and that does excellent work.

A number of worthwhile organisations are going to benefit from the money, and the Government have committed to continuing the fund until EU rules allow a zero rate of VAT to be applied on women’s sanitary products, or until the UK leaves the EU—whichever comes first within the legal framework. The hon. Lady mentioned this in her speech, but I note that she has recently championed national retailers in her constituency to support the cause through charitable means, as she has outlined today, for those least able to afford sanitary products. I noted her work with her local Boots on that.

Turning to practical matters, like hon. Members on both sides of the House, I, too, heard the same BBC Radio Leeds report that has been referred to. It was a distressing listen. It was very difficult to hear about the girls in Leeds who were unable to attend school because they could not afford sanitary products. Of course, if this country is going to work for everyone, we clearly need an education system that enables people to achieve their potential. That is the Government’s clear aspiration. If someone cannot attend school on the days that they are having their period, it is obviously much harder for them to reach their potential.

My hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) talked about school funding. Schools do have discretion over how they use their funding. The Department for Education does not currently give schools guidance on this specific issue, as we believe that headteachers should be able to use their professional judgment. However, we do encourage all schools to use their resources to support their pupils to be safe, healthy and ready to learn each day, so schools are free to support girls in this way if they need to. The evidence is clear—we have all seen that every extra day of school missed can affect a pupil’s chances of achieving good GCSEs, with a lasting effect on their life chances. We therefore strongly encourage all parents and schools to do everything they can to support children to attend schools.

The hon. Member for Dewsbury made a number of suggestions about funding. As one would expect, that question has been raised in recent days by a number of hon. Members. In fact, in response to the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), the Secretary of State for Education acknowledged the importance of the issue and said that she is looking carefully at it, and she has undertaken to write to him. I think there is more to be said by the Department for Education on this subject. The Secretary of State was very clear about the seriousness with which she takes the issue and her own commitment to gender equality is well documented.

We touched on the support available through the education system and the wider welfare system. We talked about the legal commitment we have made to zero-rating sanitary products as soon as possible, fully recognising the importance of the issue. In the meantime, we are using the VAT we receive to benefit women’s charities. I hope those responses go some way towards addressing the issues raised in the debate.

More widely, I believe the Government can hold their head up high on supporting women. The gender pay gap is at a record low and the number of women in work is close to a record high. We are one of the first countries in the world to introduce gender pay gap reporting, but we always acknowledge that we can go further. As I mentioned earlier, the national living wage will be increased to £7.50 an hour from next month. We expect that two thirds of those who will benefit from the rise in the national living wage will be women.

As well as continuing our efforts to get more women back into the workplace, we are providing an additional £20 million of funding over this Parliament to support organisations working to tackle domestic violence and abuse—a strong personal priority for the Prime Minister. She has committed to bringing forward a domestic violence and abuse Bill. The funding I have just mentioned increases the total funding for the Government’s violence against women and girls strategy to £100 million over this Parliament.

The hon. Lady raised the additional vulnerability of homeless women, which I think we all acknowledge. In October, the Prime Minister announced a new £40 million programme to provide an innovative approach to tackling homelessness, with prevention at its heart, looking at the complex underlying causes that I think all of us as constituency MPs acknowledge can lead to a person losing their home. That includes a £10 million rough sleeping prevention fund and £20 million for local authorities to trial new initiatives for those most at risk. I will draw the hon. Lady’s particular concerns about the additional vulnerabilities of homeless women to the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones).

All in all, the Government are committed to supporting those who are struggling to get by. I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this important issue to the attention of Parliament. We feel that by taking steps to improve the living standards of ordinary working families across the country, committing to eliminating the VAT charge on sanitary products, and striving to provide greater equality more generally for women, the Government are showing they are sensitive to these issues. There are 200,000 fewer children in low-income households than in 2010, which is one of the ways in which we have demonstrated our commitment to tackling the root causes of disadvantage. I hope that in my response today I have shown that the Government take these issues seriously. We are looking carefully at the points raised today and will aim to respond further to them.

In closing, I echo the words of the hon. Lady in paying tribute to the actions of many of the staff of the House in recent days, and in wishing you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as well as hon. Members on all sides and all staff of the House, a restful Easter recess.

Question put and agreed to.

Class 4 National Insurance Contributions

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

There is a soft hypothecation around national insurance contributions: 20% of the fund goes to the national health service. They fund the state pension to which self-employed people now have full access for the first time—an extraordinary enhancement in the entitlement. I am told that, for a 45-year-old man, the enhanced pension in retirement, £1,800 or more a year, would cost about £50,000 as a capital sum to purchase an annuity in the marketplace. That is an extraordinary expansion of the entitlement offered to the self-employed.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

Well, well. They do say a week is a long time in politics and I am sure the Chancellor would agree with me on this occasion. Now, £2 billion would account for over 10,000 police officers, 10,000 teachers, 12,000 nurses and 5,000 doctors. Will the Chancellor guarantee that none of those posts will be cut as a result of his Government’s gross incompetence?

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Lady might also have remarked that £2 billion was the amount we put into social care funding in the Budget last week, alongside additional capital for the NHS, investment in schools and investment in skills. [Interruption.] Not enough, she says. I understand why she says that, because the shadow Chancellor tells her, “You can borrow for everything you want to do. Don’t worry, the kids will pick up the tab.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

1. If his Department will increase the level of funding provided to the Department of Health.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

12. If his Department will increase the level of funding provided to the Department of Health.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

Annual funding to the Department of Health is already being increased by £17 billion by 2020-21. This reflects the priority that the Government put on investing in the NHS.

[Mr Gauke]

I think the hon. Gentleman will find that the OECD has more recently put out revised numbers to show that the UK’s expenditure on health is very close to some of those other countries. The fact is that we can only have a properly funded NHS if we have a strong economy, and only the Conservative party can deliver it—a point that the people of Copeland may have noticed.

[Paula Sherriff]

When lives are on the line it is imperative that we as parliamentarians get it right. We need some honesty about what the current NHS crisis means: cuts to staff, longer waits, and hospitals at risk of closure. Does the Minister agree that the Government need to provide a long-term, sustainable financial package to guarantee NHS services for the future?

[Mr Gauke]

It was this Government who announced a long-term, financially sustainable package, which is why, in real terms, funding for the NHS will increase by £10 billion above inflation by 2020-21. Let us remember that since 2010 there are 2,300 more people attending accident and emergency departments within the four-hour A&E standard, 5,000 more operations every day, and 1,400 more people every day treated for mental health conditions, and the NHS is conducting 16,000 more diagnostic tests every day.