Oral Answers to Questions
Peter Dowd Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is a superb ambassador for Moray and Scotch whisky. He is right that it is a hugely successful export industry that supports tens of thousands of skilled jobs across Scotland. I will not tread on the Chancellor’s toes about future Budgets, but I am proud of this Government’s track record of supporting the industry, having removed US tariffs on Scotch whisky, reduced tariffs in deals with countries like Morocco and Argentina and supported the sector’s interests in our free trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand and, most recently, the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
Inflation was over 11% when I got this job. Inflation today is 4%, in common with the US, France and Germany. All countries have seen a mild tick-up in December, but the crucial thing is that inflation has been more than halved and delivered ahead of schedule. That is an enormous benefit to families up and down the country—a benefit that would be reversed by the Labour party’s plan to saddle them with £28 billion of tax rises.
Oral Answers to Questions
Peter Dowd Excerpts(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Michelle Donelan)
This year, my ministerial team and I will be laser-focused on delivery. We will back the science and tech businesses that are growing the economy, creating new jobs and improving lives across our country. We want to make sure that British people have the skills they need to take advantage of those jobs, and we also want to support innovative start-ups across our country to scale up here and stay in the UK. We want to use regulation as a tool for innovation, by designing a transparent set of rules that encourage our entrepreneurs to be bold, and we want to ensure that the British people truly feel the benefits.
Peter Dowd
In advance of the Budget, what discussions has the Minister had with the Treasury regarding crucial funding for the development and uptake of human-specific technologies, as opposed to using 3 million animals for experimentation and research in the UK?
The Minister for Science, Research and Innovation (Andrew Griffith)
The day cannot come quickly enough when we are able to end the practice of animal testing. That day is not now, but this Government are committed to doing everything we can to bring forward and support the development of replacement technologies. The hon. Gentleman has my commitment that we will do that at the right pace.
Public Procurement Processes
Peter Dowd Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Mick Whitley
The hon. Lady makes a good point, which I will cover a bit later.
Team Resolute is led by a Spanish ship company called Navantia, which is guaranteed to get at least 40% of the work, worth about £640 million. Ministers have confirmed that there is no limit on the jobs it can create in Spain. As for Navantia being part of a UK consortium, it is true that the bid includes Navantia UK, but here’s the rub: Navantia UK was created only in May last year as a subsidiary of the Spanish firm. It has no trading history, and its two directors live in Spain.
At the very heart of the problem lies the fact that a social value calculation is not included in the public procurement process. My call on the Government is simple: make it a compulsory component—make its inclusion in the consideration of all bids compulsory.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
Is my hon. Friend aware that in the other House, Members expressed concern that the Procurement Bill falls short of the Green Paper, in that there is no exact definition of key procurement principles, there are no specific requirements on climate objectives and, as he just said, there is no real emphasis on social value elements?
Mick Whitley
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention; I am just about to cover that point.
Only by including a social value calculation can we ensure that every contract is transparent, and that its impact on local communities, job creation, the standard of jobs and the local economy is taken into account and plays a key part in shaping the final decision. Its absence from the Bill is even more surprising given the noise the Cabinet Office made in response to the consultation on the original Green Paper, “Transforming Public Procurement”. The Cabinet Office wrote last December that social value
“can play a big role in contributing to the Government’s levelling-up goals.”
Mick Whitley
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The Government must be aware that the supply chains are too long. Instead of offshoring, they need to inshore.
Public money has been wasted on an industrial scale, and the ability of Ministers to throw taxpayers’ money away is now being codified in the Procurement Bill. Conservative peers voted down an amendment to ban the use of VIP lanes in the awarding of contracts. Together, my Labour colleagues and I will do our level best to change that and get the VIP lanes closed for good. The High Court has agreed with us and ruled the VIP lanes illegal.
Peter Dowd
I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend in mid flow. He has dealt with some specifics, but one of my concerns is that there does not appear to be any real assessment of how the measures in the Procurement Bill will fulfil its principles. For example, the Government want to launch new measures to promote jobs and new skills, but how many, and what sort of skills? They want to encourage economic prosperity and growth—God knows, we need it—but there is no indication of how. They want to tackle climate change and level up, but there are no indicators and no metrics at all to assess that. Does he agree that we need not just words but facts and assessment to back this up?
Mick Whitley
Yes, and the Minister should address that question in his response.
In summary, we cannot continue with a system under which one in six procurement contracts over a five-year period was found by the Fair Tax Foundation to have been awarded to companies with connections to tax havens. We cannot continue with VIP lanes. We need a system that is accountable and transparent and made watertight against cronyism; that places social value, local economies and fair employment practices at its heart; that enables the Government to recoup money from those who fail to deliver; that gives real opportunity to small, medium and social enterprises to win; and that recognises that outsourcing has been a complete failure and the time for a return to insourcing is overdue. Without extensive amendment, the Procurement Bill does none of those things.
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)
I am pleased to speak under your chairpersonship, Ms McVey.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley), who has made a great contribution to the debate. I agree with him that the procurement of services and goods during the pandemic was a disgrace. It is hard to avoid the word “racketeering” when we consider what happened. There was a time when suppliers would meet on the golf course—perhaps at the 19th hole, as they used to say—to rig the prices for providing services to local councils, and there was debate about whether that took place in freemasons’ lodges and elsewhere; now, it seems that they just pick up the phone to a Tory Minister or MP and it gives them access to the VIP lane.
One pound in every £3 of public spending goes on procurement, and possibly more. It is around £300 billion, which is an astonishing amount of money. The OECD, the European Commission and the United Nations have all said that procurement carries the biggest risk of corruption or fraud in modern states. Of the £12 billion that was spent on PPE, £4 billion was spent on contracts that failed to meet the NHS standards—a third was spent on supplies that were not fit for purpose. Some £10.5 billion-worth of contracts was awarded without any fair or open competition in a seven-month period at the height of the pandemic. We understand that there was a national crisis and huge pressure on the NHS, but notwithstanding that, something went badly wrong; everybody must agree with that.
Peter Dowd
It is interesting that a Government publication said:
“Value to the taxpayer should lie at the heart of our procurement decisions.”
Does my hon. Friend believe that there was value for the taxpayer in that particular process?
Jon Trickett
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to ask that question. No convincing answer has been provided as to whether value for money was achieved. In fact, it is as plain as the nose on your face that there was no value for money, and I will come to that in a second.
In recent decades, there has been a presumption in favour of outsourcing. That was never the case before. Britain used to be proud of its public service and of the high standards of ethics in the civil service and in politics. It is hard to share that pride these days. The presumption in favour of outsourcing contracts and obtaining services from the private sector has gone through the leadership of all the political parties, and it is time it stopped.
There are seven separate reasons why one should be cautious about that presumption. I hasten to say, though, that there will always be a case for some procurement from the private sector—for instance, police motorbikes will not be nationalised in the immediate future, so one can see that there is a case there—but the presumption should end. Let me briefly refer to the seven issues that it is important to consider.
First, the Government Procurement Service is not as professional as it needs to be. It is possible to get a university degree these days in good procurement practice. That is a necessity to ensure value for money for every penny spent, but the service is under-resourced and not as professional as it needs to be. That is not to criticise the civil servants who do a difficult job in difficult circumstances, but they are in danger of being flooded by the provision of contracts.
I worked in the private sector, as a plumber in the building industry. We were monitored by the main developers to make sure that we provided value for money. Quite often, I confess, we would see whether we could get extras built in on top of the money in the original contract. It was for the quantity surveyors who worked for the developers and builders to make sure that we did not get away with anything. Can we honestly say that every single line in every contract is monitored in the same way as in the private sector? I do not think we can. The reason is because staff are under-resourced, and we are under-resourced because we are outsourcing as an ideological decision rather than anything else.
Here is my second point. More often than not, there is no public comparator. When I was the leader of Leeds City Council, I would ensure that if something was going out to the private sector, there would be a public sector bid made by the council, which would not have a slice on top for profitability. I would then see whether the private sector could compete with the public sector bid. That is one thing that might be done, but there are no public sector comparators under the present neoliberal economic settlement, which we regard with despair, to be honest. Therefore, there is no guarantee that a cartel or group of racketeers is not fixing prices between them to rip off the taxpayer. We cannot be clear about whether that is happening, although without a proper procurement service, I am sure that it is.
My third point is this. No evidence has been produced anywhere in the world that outsourcing is cheaper than insourcing. It has been looked at by the Public Accounts Committee and various bodies throughout the world. What is striking is that larger global companies are now insourcing. They were outsourcing, buying in accountancy and legal services and so on. That is stopping. Why are they insourcing? Because it is cheaper and more effective, and delivers better value for money. Yet here we are with a Government that seem hellbent on outsourcing, for ideological reasons rather than to protect the public purse.
My fourth point is that the private sector puts in prices, but the first thing it does when it wins the contract is to drive down the pay and conditions of the staff employed. Wherever one looks, that is the case. I have experience of that in my constituency. We had a service for cleaning a school a few years ago. The first thing the company did was to cut wages and try to get rid of some of the staff. The staff went on strike, which went on a long time, and the school was filthy. That contract was frankly a disgrace. We all know that that happens everywhere. We see wages falling as a share of GDP. What is the process behind that happening? There are a number of processes, but one is outsourcing, driving down wages in order to increase profits.
My fifth point is this. A service provided in the public sector is motivated by the single ethos of public service. It tries to provide a service to the public without a mind to delivering profits and dividends to shareholders. There are two contesting ethoses—if that is the correct plural—in play. One is serving and enhancing shareholder value as a private sector provider; the other is public service. Well, I know what I want for the staff who treat me, my family or my constituents. I want people who are motivated by one thing only: providing the highest possible quality service. That is what motivated people. The three women I just talked about, who were cleaners and went on strike, were treated in a really shabby way. Their greatest concern was the kids left in the school. The toilets were not being cleaned. They would talk to me regularly about their guilty consciences at being unable to provide the service. They were interested in only one thing: providing a service to those children.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I thank the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) for introducing the debate. I often come to support him in his debates in Westminster Hall, and I am here today to do the same, because he raises important issues and I want to add my support. It is also a pleasure to follow the contribution of the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett), which also was full of detailed evidence and content.
The hon. Member for Birkenhead referred to the Procurement Bill, which is currently going through Parliament. It applies to the devolved institutions, including Northern Ireland; however, we maintain our own legal framework for Northern Ireland, so that might give us a bit more input in the process as we go forward. It is no secret that I am a Brexiteer like yourself, Ms McVey, and I am proud to be a Brexiteer. I have always been positive about the opportunities provided to us by leaving the EU, notably our chance to secure British contracts with British companies to secure jobs for our people—for my constituents and the constituents of everybody here. It is great to be here to discuss how we can encourage that through the procurement process. I particularly look forward to the Minister’s response. I am fairly sure that we are on the same page. That being the case, I will ask my question only at the end of my contribution. I am keen to get the Minister’s response.
It is always important that we take the correct steps for our economy in terms of where we produce our products and where we procure them from. Some say that we have made mistakes in the past—it would be unfair to say that we have not, especially throughout the pandemic—but the principle behind the Bill gives us an opportunity to change that. A classic example from Northern Ireland, which I have referred to, goes back to March 2022, when leading UK bus manufacturer, Wrightbus, announced its second international zero-emission bus deal in a fortnight, under which it will ship dozens of clean buses to Europe. That is really good news.
Wrightbus has signed a deal with the German bus operator Regionalverkehr Köln GmbH, or RVK as it is better known—that is easier for me to say than to try and speak German—to supply up to up to 60 Kite Hydroliner single-decker buses over the next two years. All of those buses will be fully built at the Wrightbus factory in Ballymena, north Antrim, supporting green jobs and the wider Northern Ireland economy. While that is a welcome step, I can remember a time—of course, my lifetime is maybe a bit more than others—when London buses were ordered from Egypt, despite the UK containing the world-renowned manufacturer Wrightbus. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), and thank him for his energy and commitment in pursuing Wrightbus deals, not just in the United Kingdom but across the whole world. His pushing for that company as its MP has certainly paid dividends.
Thankfully, the procurement of London buses was brought home and the superior manufacturing that takes place in Ballymena is securing additional projects, but my point is that we need a legislative change to ensure that contracts within the UK are weighted, with procurement taking into account the impact on the local economy. While we have to remain competitive, every Government contract must consider our own manufacturers; we are indebted to them, and should be focusing on them, outsourcing only when there are exceptional reasons for doing so. That includes British companies that operate outside the United Kingdom.
In addition, I recall from a debate I spoke in some time ago that it had been highlighted by the House of Lords that the NHS sourced materials made by the forced labour of Christians, Tibetans, Uyghurs and Falun Gong practitioners in Xinjiang, China, and the Government took steps to deal with that. That has also become an issue in international procurement: making sure that the materials we rely on are not made or processed by those subject to human rights violations such as forced labour, child labour, unsafe working conditions or illegal wages. Those human rights violations have become increasingly apparent in the apparel sector—clothes, handbags, accessories and so on—where young children are being trafficked into child labour and forced to produce affordable clothes. Those clothes will attract millions of people internationally, but the price—the human rights price, the physical price, the emotional price—is just too high.
Our national procurement policy statement will ultimately ask public authorities to consider benefits for the public, such as the creation of new jobs, improving diversity, and ensuring integrity and value for money. I put great stress on integrity, and I think it is important that we focus on that as well. Many think that we must procure internationally to be successful and diverse; however, I suggest that there are numerous opportunities in our own back yard that we can take advantage of. We should be focusing on those and supporting them, not to the detriment of elsewhere in the world, but certainly to the advantage of our own manufacturers.
I have mentioned the importance of defence and cyber-security procurement for the United Kingdom. Contractors such as GKN Aerospace, or Thales in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), have the capacity to build our own products to the highest standard, and should be made aware of more procurement opportunities.
Peter Dowd
One definition of contract monitoring is the process of tracking the performance and status of contracts, to ensure that the obligations within them are being fulfilled as intended; it is not just about the purchase of a contract, but the monitoring. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in the current climate, given the massive cuts that local government has endured over the past 13 years, it is being denuded of its ability to monitor some of those contracts, and that that issue has to be addressed as well?
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which was succinctly put. I am sure that the Minister is taking notes, and I hope that he will reply to his request.
It is right that we oversee and ensure that local government, wherever it may be, has the same opportunity and is not precluded by financial or other restrictions. In Northern Ireland, we are fortunate to have some of the best cyber-security companies in the whole of the United Kingdom. There are some in south-east England that perhaps might be able to match them, but we have been at the fore in cyber-security, and that includes the two companies that I referred to. Thales, for instance, is at the fore in supporting the NLAWs—next generation light anti-tank weapons—being provided to Ukraine. Again, our cyber-security is excellent. Does the Minister agree that Northern Ireland must be included in the Procurement Bill? Its inclusion will bring significant benefits for the country and Northern Ireland businesses, as well as our great Union, which we are here to protect and promote.
To conclude, many would say that it is time that the Bill is put into law so that we can repeal the current EU-based procurement regulations and make our own. It is time to do that. After the UK’s exit from the EU, we should have the scope to create new home-grown procedures, select suppliers and award contracts. That will also allow for the advancement of smaller businesses. My constituency has many small businesses; it has some large ones as well, but there are a larger number, percentage-wise, of smaller businesses. They are the backbone of my constituency of Strangford and of the economy. I look forward to learning about the opportunities for us to do all that we can to ensure that this great nation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, progresses together in the way that it should.
Kirsty Blackman
I absolutely do. It is disappointing, especially given some of the excellent things that are happening in Wales, particularly around the work of the Future Generations Commissioner and how that is embedded in what the Welsh Government do. To hand that over to Westminster seems a real dereliction of duty, and I am concerned that that is the direction that has been chosen.
The biggest concern that we have about the Procurement Bill is its significant impact on Scotland in relation to devolution and the implementation of trade deals, including the Australia and New Zealand trade deals. We agree that trade deals are reserved. Obviously, we want to be independent, and we will be signing our own trade deals then, but while they are reserved, we agree that that is what the devolution settlement looks like. However, the implementation of trade deals in Scotland touches on devolved areas. We should be able to implement the procurement rules that come out of trade deals ourselves. The Procurement Bill will allow UK Ministers to implement, through secondary legislation, procurement practices in Scotland, as well as in the rest of the UK. That should be the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Ministers, and the UK Government should put that in the Bill rather than reserving that additional power.
Peter Dowd
Does the hon. Lady agree that the Bill is taking back control to Westminster, not to the places that actually need it?
Alex Burghart
If the hon. Gentleman is talking about fleet solid support ships, they are built to a British design. There is a huge amount of construction in Belfast and Appledore—the final assembly is completed in Belfast—bringing shipbuilding back to Northern Ireland. This is an enormous opportunity for levelling up and bringing jobs into exactly the sort of shipyards around the country that I am sure the hon. Gentleman wants to see benefit, so I do not quite recognise all the allegations he has made.
Peter Dowd
One of the issues that I am trying to tease out is that even when we were in the European Union—I know this, the Minister knows this, and so does everybody in this Chamber—those countries had an imaginative approach to public procurement, and we did not. Even under those rules, we had a less imaginative approach. Even under the provisions that the Government are bringing forward, they cannot move away from the anal retention and enable us to take a much more imaginative approach to procurement. What in the Bill is more imaginative and will enable us to do what we want and we were promised when we were coming out of Europe?
Alex Burghart
I blush to quote the hon. Gentleman back at him, but there is a lot less of the form of retention that he describes in this Bill than he would have found in the existing European rules. As he heard me say to the hon. Member for Birkenhead, the system is moving from MEAT to MAT. This is a broader understanding of what public authorities can choose to do when they procure goods and services, and that is a really good thing.
The hon. Members for Bootle (Peter Dowd) and for Birkenhead talked about buying British. This Bill will help, but we start from a strong position: between 2016 and 2019, 98% of contracts given out by public authorities in the UK went to British firms. In the Bill, we are making it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises, the majority of which are likely to be in the vicinity of public body procuring, to access contracts from public authorities. We are making it much more likely that there will be more jobs and more opportunities for growing businesses. That is very exciting and one of the most appealing things about the Bill. My noble Friend Baroness Neville-Rolfe wrote a good piece for The Times showing how we are removing barriers to engagement for SMEs in a meaningful way. She has vast experience in business and was able to shine a light on that.
Let me turn to the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett), who talked about insourcing and outsourcing, and the need for an ideological shift. I hope he will not mind me reminding the House that he entered the Commons in 1996 and supported one of the great outsourcing Governments—that of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. It is so interesting to see the hon. Gentleman’s ideological shift since that time.
I gently remind the hon. Gentleman that public authorities absolutely have the freedom to insource if they think that is the best thing to do. The important thing is that they have the choice, and I hope he would not want to deprive local authorities and local councils of that choice. Maybe he would.
Ministerial Appointments: Vetting and Managing Conflicts of Interest
Peter Dowd Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Jeremy Quin
What is absolutely the case is that a summary of the findings of the independent adviser and the outcome of that work will be shared with the House.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
A person is 23 times more likely to be prosecuted for benefit irregularities than to be prosecuted for tax irregularities, but tax irregularities lose the economy nine times more. Have the Government any plans to redress that imbalance?
Jeremy Quin
As I know from my work in the Cabinet Office, there is a huge focus across Government on ensuring that we go after tax evasion in all its forms. It is incredibly important that we do so and that we cut waste across Government, particularly when it results from fraudulent behaviour. That is what we do every day, and HMRC is responsible for following it up and making certain that people pay the tax that is owed.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges
Peter Dowd Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
The motion refers to the Prime Minister’s comments in this place on 1 and 8 December 2021, but these are simply specimens. It could have referred to many other occasions when the Prime Minister may have inveigled this House by using the fact that no one could challenge his veracity because of the protection afforded to him by parliamentary etiquette.
The Prime Minister has form. First, there were the early warning signs way back in 2019 and earlier, such as when he refused the invitation from my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) to apologise for his dreadful Spectator article arguing that people affected by the Hillsborough disaster were wallowing in their “victim status”.
Secondly, what about the Prime Minister’s absurd claim in this place on 29 January 2020 that the Conservatives have grown the economy by 73%, a claim that relies on data stretching back to 1997? Thirdly, he made a false assertion on 4 March 2020 that his Government have provided free hospital parking for all, a comment that still stands uncorrected on the parliamentary record.
Fourthly, he said on 11 March 2020, “We are cutting”—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I remind hon. Members of what Mr Speaker said at the beginning of the debate:
“While it is perfectly in order for hon. Members to question the veracity of the Prime Minister’s responses to the House cited in the motion, it is not in order to challenge more generally the truthfulness of the Prime Minister or any other hon. or right hon. Member.”
I am sure the hon. Gentleman will adjust his speech accordingly.
Peter Dowd
In September 2020, the Prime Minister stated in relation to covid guidance:
“There is nothing more frustrating for the vast majority who do comply…than the sight of a few brazenly defying the rules, so these rules will be enforced by tighter penalties.”—[Official Report, 22 September 2020; Vol. 680, c. 798.]
Those were his words. On 16 December 2020, he said:
“This Christmas it’s vital that everyone exercises the greatest possible personal responsibility.”
That was on the same day that London went into tier 3 restrictions. Two days later, there was a party at No. 10 Downing Street. The Prime Minister promised the House that he would publish all his personal exchanges with Sir James Dyson in relation to covid-19 contracts, but those have never appeared.
This list goes on. Those at Downing Street tell us that he “follows the ministerial code” and principles to the letter. The Prime Minister then told the House that it is “common sense” for people to wear a mask “in confined spaces”, but, surprisingly, he was photographed later the same day at Wembley stadium without a mask on. He stated in relation to covid that
“all guidance was followed completely in No.10.”—[Official Report, 1 December 2021; Vol. 704, c. 909.]
Was it? He then said at Prime Minister’s Question Time:
“I have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that no covid rules were broken.”—[Official Report, 8 December 2021; Vol. 705, c. 372.]
As hon. Members have said, either the Prime Minister was not being candid or his staff were not. So who was not? Possibly, it was both. He said he was “furious” to see the clip of his own staff discussing No. 10 parties, as though somehow he did not live there—he did! On 15 December 2021, at a Downing Street press conference, he said:
“I follow the rules. Everybody across politics should follow the rules.”
Indeed, they should, but the Prime Minister did not. And so it goes on.
What we are trying to do today is set in train a process whereby this House really does need to look into the concerns of so many Members and, more importantly, of the many constituents who have written to each of us about their concerns. They deserve answers. They are not that interested in parliamentary protocols often; they just want answers to their deeply held concerns and questions. This House, and surely Members opposite, cannot allow allegations of the Prime Minister’s insouciant and nonchalant attitude—allegedly—towards the truth to go unchallenged. We need to send a message to the country that when all the police inquires have been completed, this House will through its own processes, the very ones that have protected the Prime Minister from blunt assertions on the Floor of this Chamber, and consider those allegations thoroughly and openly. Finally, let me say that the mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa approach from the Prime Minister does not wash with my constituents.
Oral Answers to Questions
Peter Dowd Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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The Prime Minister
Yes, I am delighted that there will be a new hospital at Shotley Bridge, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work he has done to lobby for that. It proves that, in spite of the pandemic and in spite of war in Ukraine, this Government are getting on with the job.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Gentleman very much. I think everybody understands the anguish of people who have not been able to see their loved ones during the pandemic, and as he knows, we have relaxed the restrictions in care homes. I would be happy to offer a meeting between him and the relevant Health Minister to discuss his further concerns.
UK Shared Prosperity Fund
Peter Dowd Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
We have had 11 speakers and interventions, and I think they have all expressed their concern about the lack of detail. I thank the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) for bringing this to our attention.
The breaking news as I arrived in the Chamber was that the right hon. Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson), the Prime Minister’s brother, is standing down from Parliament, apparently to spend less time with his family.
As a Member of Parliament who represents a Merseyside seat, I very much appreciate, in a personal sense, the role that EU funds have played in ensuring investment in our region, as in other regions. I remember that Geoffrey Howe, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, talked about the managed decline of Merseyside in the early 1980s. The European economic community was virtually the only social and economic lifeline that the city region had.
The Minister can sit there chuntering and shouting from the Front Bench, but I think he should behave in a much more dignified way. The Tories are using bully-boy tactics at the moment, threatening everybody. The Minister should pause and think about the distress that his Government caused to so many regions, and continue to cause to so many regions now. We have a bully-boy Minister, a bully-boy Prime Minister, and a bully-boy adviser in Dominic Cummings. Let us see a little bit of respect for the Chamber and for the democracy that it embodies.
EEC funds helped Merseyside, and they helped other regions. The Government’s proposals raise a fundamental question that others have raised today and that the House must address. Even if the UK leaves the European Union and ends our participation in these funds—or substitute funds—can we trust the Government to ensure that the proposed prosperity fund will offer the same funding and reach the same communities? That question has been asked by virtually every Member, including Conservative Members, and there is also concern about the delay.
As was pointed out in June by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), a report published recently by the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions states that had the UK remained in the EU we would have been entitled to €13 billion from EU structural funds between 2021 and 2027. That amount, an increase from €10.6 billion, would have allowed five regions—including west Wales and the valleys, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Tees valley and Durham, Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire—to receive the lion’s share of the funds, as they represent some of the least developed regions in Europe, where GDP falls below 75% of the European average. The fact that those regions fall below the 75% threshold is itself a indictment of a Government who have let them down and continue to do so. The very fact that the UK has gone from having two less developed regions to five in a matter of six years testifies to the failure of their economic policies.
Falling GDP is another legacy of the Conservative Government’s austerity agenda, which resulted in 200,000 more children living in poverty in the north than five years ago. As other Members have said, under this Government regional inequality is at an all-time high. According to analysis conducted by the Institute for Public Policy Research, the north of England has lost £6.3 billion of public spending as a result of the Conservatives’ economic policies, while the south has gained £3.2 billion. The Chancellor’s spending round statement yesterday did little to address regional inequality, despite what was promised earlier in the year.
The importance of the structural funds that the UK receives from the EU should not be underestimated. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, they are worth £2.4 billion a year, which goes to the very people whom the Government have left behind. That £2.4 billion is broken down between £1.2 billion a year from the EU and equal funding matched by other public and private sources. The funds finance research and development projects, support the retraining and skilling of workforces, help small and medium-sized businesses to grow, and encourage local areas to make the transition to a low-carbon economy.
Let me now deal specifically with the proposal for a shared prosperity fund. Previously, Ministers have committed themselves to maintaining the current arrangements for structural funds throughout the transition period. Given the Government’s commitment to pushing the UK towards a no-deal Brexit, perhaps the Minister will tell us for how long the Government will now commit themselves to similar levels of funding, and over what period. I am sure that he will be able to do so.
Similarly, while the Government have said that the fund will “reduce inequalities between communities”, they have consistently failed to offer further details about the specific design of the funds and who will be likely to administer them. Virtually every Member who has spoken today has drawn attention to that pattern. There is a fear, particularly among the devolved Governments and the metro mayors, that the shared prosperity fund will be yet another centralised fund controlled by Whitehall—a slush fund, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock). The clue is in this: the Prime Minister said at a recent leadership hustings in Cardiff that there should be a “strong Conservative influence” over how money that replaces EU structural funds is spent in Wales, implying at the very least that this Government will interfere with the distribution of funds far more than previously stated. That is key.
Ministers have claimed that a shared prosperity fund would be easier to administer and reduce bureaucracy, but again there is little detail on how this will be achieved, especially if the Treasury is hellbent on administering these funds centrally and with little flexibility for the involvement of the regions and devolved Governments.
The UK remains one of the most economically unequal countries in Europe. The gap between the richest and poorest is almost twice as large as in France and three quarters larger than in Germany. The EU structural funds have played an important role in addressing these regional inequalities, which the poorest communities cannot afford to lose. It is time for the Government to dispense with the smoke and mirrors, come clean about the details of the Government’s plan to replace EU structural funds and offer a cast-iron guarantee that the communities that rely on these funds will not be cut adrift and there will be as much devolution and subsidiarity in these funds as possible.
The prevarication and procrastination at the heart of the Government is affecting the continuity of services already being provided, with staff in various agencies currently funded by EU funds being laid off. For example, Members will probably have had contact from employment support providers for ex-offenders, particularly vulnerable people whom Jobcentre Plus is ill-equipped to help. Staff are having to be laid off because we do not know about the future of the fund.
At this stage, we still do not have any details on what the fund will cover. The Government are more than six months behind schedule in providing details of the post-2020 funding and have not yet published a consultation. The indecision of the Government in so many policy areas is damaging the country and their indecision on this particular fund follows that pattern. Ministers need to get a grip of this sooner rather than later.
Jake Berry
I am so pleased that the hon. Gentleman is listening closely to my response. What I would say is that if he, like me, is concerned about protecting the British taxpayer’s pound, perhaps he will reflect on the fact that the Bill passed by Opposition parties last night in this Parliament will cost the UK taxpayer £1 billion a month for every additional month we spend in the European Union. That will cost up to £24 billion. Maybe he should be committed, as I am, to leaving on 31 October, as the British people want, if he is concerned about spending money.
Peter Dowd
I am glad the Minister is telling us how much it costs—£1 billion a week or a month or whatever it happens to be. He is very good with his numbers, so can he give us an estimate of how much a no-deal Brexit will cost the country each month?
Jake Berry
It seems to me that the hon. Gentleman is suffering from a version of Stockholm syndrome. I happen to believe that the British people and this British Parliament are best able to determine the future for our country. The rebel alliance is going to Europe with its flag fluttering behind it—a white cross on a white background—surrendering British sovereignty, but I am proud to be part of a Government that will never support that.
Peter Dowd
This stuff about surrendering is bizarre, because this is the Government who surrendered last night to what is apparently the surrender Bill. That is the situation we are in. They should publish the Yellowhammer report and make it transparent, so that we can see how much a no-deal crashing out will cost us. Let us get the facts on the table, so that we can examine them—if they do not prorogue Parliament before then.
Jake Berry
I am sure the hon. Gentleman would like to have blamed the passing of his surrender Bill on the House of Lords. The Members of Parliament who voted for it know that the Opposition parties have passed a law meaning that we cannot leave the European Union on 31 October, deal or no deal. If we do get to an election—if the Labour party finally has the backbone to have a general election—I will be reminding lots of those constituencies in the north of England that it was the Labour party that stopped us leaving on 31October.
Comptroller and Auditor General
Peter Dowd Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
I rise to offer the Opposition’s backing to the appointment of Mr Gareth Davies as Comptroller and Auditor General. The position was initiated by William Gladstone, a Liverpudlian at birth who lived at Seaforth in what is now my constituency of Bootle and actually went to school in Bootle at one point.
The importance of the position is reflected by the fact that the Prime Minister is in attendance and has formally moved this appointment. Similarly, its significance is demonstrated by the rigorous vetting process undertaken by the Chair and members of the Public Accounts Committee. This reflects the central role parliamentary Select Committees play in modernising Parliament, ensuring that the appointments made by Governments of whatever colour receive proper parliamentary scrutiny.
As the chief executive of the National Audit Office, the work of the Comptroller and Auditor General cannot be overestimated. The NAO provides an indispensable role in independently auditing Government Departments, ensuring financial transparency and good value for money, as was mentioned by the Prime Minister.
I know that I speak for all Members when I say that the NAO’s work is vital in establishing an accurate picture of Government spending and in helping Members to properly hold Ministers to account. That work will be more important than ever as Ministers continue to spend increasing amounts of public money in preparation for no deal, with appropriate oversight from this House. I have no doubt that the new Comptroller and Auditor General will continue the forensic examination of accounts that we have all come to respect and that I hope the Government and their Departments—particularly those that have “Transport” in their name—will recognise, now and in the future. At this pressing time, the NAO’s workload will be made even heavier by the Government’s departmental spending review, which may put more strains upon services.
I echo the Prime Minister’s tribute to the outgoing Comptroller and Auditor General, Sir Amyas Morse. He has served with distinction under difficult circumstances, given that under his tenure the NAO has not found itself protected from cuts to resources and staffing.
Let me turn to the appointment of Mr Davies, who has more than 30 years of mixed experience as a public auditor, including work with local public services, central Government and the charity sector. The Opposition support the recommendation of the cross-party Public Accounts Committee and its satisfaction
“that Mr Davies has suitable audit and professional experience and demonstrates the necessary independence and resilience to make a success of the role.”
It goes without saying that Mr Davies is taking over the position at a difficult time and has an important task ahead. However, the Opposition are confident that he will perform his role with distinction and diligence. On behalf of the Opposition, I wish him well.
Leaving the EU: Customs
Peter Dowd Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
Call me old-fashioned, but what is wrong with the House having papers, presentations and economic analyses on the Government’s post-Brexit preferred customs arrangements, including a customs partnership and maximum facilitation? What is wrong with that? What we have is a Government who are waiting, like Mr Micawber, for something to turn up. That is what it is.
The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) asked why we have this Humble Address motion before us. I will tell him why: it is because this Parliament is getting stitched up and gagged by the Tories. They would not allow amendments to the law in the Finance Bill. They have threatened the House of Lords. They have statutory instruments coming out of their ears and ministerial diktats will follow. That is why we have this motion. The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton) told us that this Humble Address was a Mickey Mouse motion. Well, I tell you what: Mickey Mouse is 80 years old this year and he is a well-respected, popular icon—respected by generations and millions of people. If this is a Mickey Mouse Humble Address, I will have them every single day.
The hon. Member for Gordon (Colin Clark) said, “Get on with it,” but what are we supposed to be getting on with? The Government do not actually know. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis) said that this is a shambles, that we are a laughing stock, and he is absolutely spot on. The hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) said that we are undermining our negotiating position. Well, we do not have a negotiating position, so how can we undermine something that we do not have? It was particularly bizarre.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) talked about the threat to manufacturing in her constituency, which the Government do not care about. It is as simple as that. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson) referred to Adam Smith and “The Wealth of Nations”. Let me remind him that before “The Wealth of Nations” came “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”. Well, there is nothing moral in what this Government are doing on this particular issue. There is secrecy, intrigue and furtiveness, and there is nothing moral about that whatsoever.
As for the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), what we want to know is: what did he have in his right pocket? Was it a Rubik’s cube or a redacted Brexit Sub-Committee minute? Get it out and let us have a look. The hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) mumbled something and then sat down. I think some of his hon. Friends should have done exactly the same thing and we might have been able to move on. The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) said that we need to take time to get it right. Well, we do not have the time because the Government have been dragging their feet for a year or more.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) said the Government were in chaos, and she was absolutely spot on. The hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) said she wanted to deliver a sensible Brexit—well, get on with it then! We will join them, if they do want to deliver a sensible Brexit, but there is no suggestion they do. My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Jo Platt) called it shambolic, and it is shambolic. It is as simple as that. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Frith) said there was nothing heroic about putting people out of work, and he was absolutely spot on. My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Ruth George) said the Government were not listening, which sums it up, and we are losing business because of it.
In contemporary parlance, the Prime Minister is “shook”—totally unable to stand up to the right-wing press and back the only sensible way forward, which is Labour’s plan for a customs union. That is what we want. Instead, the Cabinet has been offered two options to decide between. First, we have what the Prime Minister calls a customs partnership. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) has mentioned, this partnership would require UK officials to collect tariffs on behalf of the EU for any goods coming to the UK that are travelling onward to an EU state. As hon. Members have said, the Prime Minister’s plan has been described as “crazy” by the Foreign Secretary and as having “significant question marks” by the Environment Secretary, while HMRC sources have called it “unviable” and suggested that Ministers are “having a laugh”.
Perhaps the Minister can clarify: is the Prime Minister’s preferred option “crazy” or merely “unviable”? It cannot be forgotten that HMRC resources have been decimated, with staffing and resourcing slashed by 17% since 2010. Nevertheless, the Government now think it appropriate to use what little resource is left to protect the EU’s customs union for it, without the UK receiving the full economic benefits. This feels like the worst of all worlds.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that even if the Prime Minister can persuade her divided Cabinet and then the EU negotiators to accept one or other of those two proposals, neither would be ready before the end of the transition period? Is it not therefore time for the Government finally to admit that we will be remaining in a customs union with the EU for some time to come?
Peter Dowd
That is a fair assessment from my right hon. Friend.
As Members have mentioned already, we have been told by the Brexit Secretary that:
“Faced with intractable problems with political pressure for a solution, the government reaches for a headline grabbing high-tech ‘solution’. Rather than spend the resources, time and thought necessary to get a real answer, they naively grasp solutions that to the technologically illiterate ministers look like magic.”
It is not me who is suggesting that the Brexit Secretary has not acquired the technical prowess to rocket us into this scientific utopia; it is the Brexit Secretary himself. The Government’s search for a magical fix to questions of such seriousness as the Northern Irish border leads us to believe that it is now in the public interest for Parliament itself to scrutinise the two options proposed by the Prime Minister. To do so, we must have access to the necessary information: in this case, the information contained in the papers, presentations and analyses provided to the Cabinet on each of these proposals.
Labour’s position is clear. We would negotiate a customs union that would ensure a strong and collaborative future relationship with the EU, deliver the exact same benefits as we currently have with members of the single market and customs union, ensure the fair management of migration in the interests of the economy and communities, defend the rights of workers and environmental protections, prevent a race to the bottom, protect national security and our capacity to tackle cross-border crime and deliver for all the regions. Let us then expose the Government’s total failure to reach a feasible negotiating position and in the process move one step forward to the goal of a new customs union with the EU, which is a position, I suspect, that is backed by Members across the House and one that meets all the key conditions of a final exit settlement.
Oral Answers to Questions
Peter Dowd Excerpts(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
The Prime Minister (Mrs Theresa May)
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I will have further such meetings later today.
Peter Dowd
May I take the opportunity to wish you, Mr Speaker, and all Members of the House a merry Christmas and a happy new year?
In the light of the Foreign Secretary’s display of chronic “foot in mouth” disease, when deciding on Cabinet positions, does the Prime Minister now regret that pencilling “FO” against his name should have been an instruction, not a job offer?