Tackling Fraud and Preventing Government Waste

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

Many happy returns of the day, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy), who made an excellent speech.

I am very pleased to be able to speak on this topic today. Good governance and public trust rely on prudent public spending. The Conservative Government have a track record of wasting public money and failing to deliver value for money. The Chancellor has written off £4.3 billion of fraud related to the covid business support schemes. Let us put that in perspective: it is equal to the total 2022-23 combined planned spending of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for International Trade and Her Majesty’s Treasury. It is more than the entirety of the towns fund, and it is almost all the money allocated to the levelling-up fund.

People should not have to pay for the imminent Tory tax rises that will exacerbate the cost of living crisis when billions are leaked to fraud and wasted. It demonstrates this Conservative Government’s incompet-ence, letting fraudsters off the hook while continuing the underfunding of local communities and suppressing pay packets. That is especially so when it is reported that they expect to recover only £1 in every £4 lost.

The amount of fraud being written off works out at about £154 a household. That is a total cost of more than £6 million for my constituency of Luton South. I am sure my hard-working constituents would rather see it in invested in our community or have it in their pockets to spend in our local shops to drive our local economy. My constituents know that when living on a tight household budget, you have a keen eye for waste. From the Government’s actions, however, that does not seem to be a skill that Ministers have learned. We have cancelled contracts, overspent projects and written-off investments—“schoolboy errors”. Those are not my words, but those of the Government’s own anti-fraud Minister, Lord Agnew, as he resigned in protest. Are those on the Treasury Front Bench embarrassed when Lord Agnew talks of

“a combination of arrogance, indolence and ignorance”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 January 2022; Vol. 818, c. 21]—

in the Government’s decision making, which has led to an estimated total fraud loss across Government of £29 billion a year? It is just shameful.

The Government’s reckless waste is not just related to fraud—it cuts right across other areas of public spending. There has been £13 billion wasted on defence procurement in the last decade; £2.8 billion spent on PPE that was ultimately useless; £17 billion to rectify the Treasury’s discriminatory public sector pension reforms; and £550 million wasted by the Ministry of Justice in the past decade.

This Conservative Administration cannot be trusted—do not take it just from me and Opposition Members; take it from independent, trusted organisations. The Royal United Services Institute, the world’s oldest and the UK’s leading defence and security think-tank, has spoken of

“indifference and negligence at the heart of government.”

The bounce back loans scheme was

“vulnerable to abuse by individuals and…organised crime”

according to the British Business Bank, and the National Audit Office said:

“Counter-fraud activity was implemented too slowly to prevent fraud effectively”.

No Government should play fast and loose with public money, and the Tories’ appalling record on public spending must end.

I look forward to hearing the Minister acknowledge the shocking level of waste and Government mismanagement. I say that in the light of our greater recent focus on the Nolan principles—the principles of public life—which apply to anyone who works as a public office holder. All public office holders are both servants of the public and stewards of public resources.

Let us take the principle of selflessness. The Nolan principles state:

“Holders of public office should act solely in terms of the public interest.”

On accountability, they state:

“Holders of public office are accountable to the public for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.”

Will the Minister explain how giving out crony contracts, significant waste in Government and writing off huge levels of fraud serve the public and reflect good stewardship of public resources?

In particular, many ministerial directions were issued in 2020, and Ministers are fully accountable for those decisions. Let us take eat out to help out as an example. On 7 July 2020, the Chancellor gave a ministerial direction even though the first permanent secretary and chief executive officer of HMRC—he is the principal accounting officer, who needs to make decisions that are appropriate and consistent with managing public money—talked of “uncertainty” and said that

“there are…particular value for money risks surrounding the level of potential losses that could arise.”

Indeed, we have seen 8.5% of payments made under the scheme—£71 million—lost in fraud or paid out by mistake. I recognise that there may be some elements of fraud and payments lost, but 8.5% is a significant margin.

The Government have repeatedly shown a lack of respect for public money, and our constituents deserve better. They deserve a Government who play by the rules and value every penny of public money.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. The Government and HMRC have taken significant action to ensure that hauliers and carriers are ready. HMRC has weekly meetings with strategic operators. It has conducted webinars for well over 1,000 haulage businesses and it sends monthly emails to more than 14,000 hauliers on the next steps. I appreciate that it might be that big businesses are more ready than small businesses, but we have done work there as well. I am very pleased to have met the Federation of Small Businesses about two weeks ago to discuss these issues.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

2. What recent steps he has taken to help reduce economic inequality.

[Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

3. What recent steps he has taken to help reduce economic inequality.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rishi Sunak)]

I am pleased to say that the distribution analysis published in the Budget showed that the actions of this Government since 2019, over this Parliament, will benefit those on the lowest incomes the most. Income inequality is also lower than it was in 2010, and we on the Conservative Benches know that the best way to reduce inequality is to get people into fantastic, well-paid jobs, which is exactly what we are doing.

[Rachel Hopkins]

Income inequality in the UK has barely changed over the past 10 years, so how can it possibly be fair to ask working people to pay even more tax through the national insurance increase next year, while the Government are also giving away a £4 billion tax cut for banks’ profits through cutting the banks’ surcharge from 2023? Will the Chancellor set out the combined impact of those two decisions on inequality?

[Rishi Sunak]

Income inequality on the last published statistics is lower than it was in 2010. There are also fewer people living in absolute poverty. With regard to national insurance, we took a decision to fund the NHS in a progressive manner to clear the backlog and usher in reforms to the social care system that will benefit everyone in this country. As for banks, I am not sure whether the hon. Lady has seen that the rate of corporation tax that banks will pay is going up from 27% to 28% while the rest of the UK corporate base will pay 25%. It is right that the banks pay a fair contribution to our coffers, but we should also recognise that financial services is a fantastic UK asset that employs 1 million people, two thirds of whom are outside of London and the south-east.

Access to Cash

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Miller. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) on securing this important debate.

We have heard much about how the pandemic has accelerated the trend in consumers moving away from using cash and towards digital payments, but cash is still critical for many people and local small businesses. If someone is on a low income, has a physical or mental health problem, is financially excluded, has poor digital connectivity, struggles with budgeting or lives in areas where local shops do not take cards, they will be disadvantaged by the continued reduction in access to cash.

Cash appears to have declined less in constituencies with higher deprivation, such as mine, during the pandemic. Protecting cash is an important sticking plaster. While total reliance on cash is due to wider structural issues such as a lack of digital access—whether that is due to a lack of physical devices or data or due to language—if that access continues to decline, vulnerable people will be at risk of being left further behind.

Between 2018 and 2019, the number of free-to-use ATMs fell by 13%, and the number of pay-to-use machines rose by 38%. According to LINK, in Luton South the number of free-to-use ATMs has reduced by 30% in three years from 140 to 98, with the total number of ATMs reducing by 16%. We cannot allow the creation of cash deserts where consumers cannot access cash. The Treasury’s 2019 access to cash review found that 47% of the population would find it problematic if there was no cash in society.

Finally, there is the issue of managing personal finances and the huge increase in personal debt. I have heard much about that from the Luton citizens advice bureau and from the debt advisers who work in the Salvation Army in Luton South. People who are pushed into using cards, digital or contactless find it less easy to manage their money, particularly if they are on low incomes or are vulnerable, as I have already said. They trip into increasing their personal debt. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what analysis has been done on the decrease in cash use and the increase in the preference for digital, and on the impact of the increase to £100 in contactless payments? What impact has there been on rising personal debt? I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate.

Ministerial Code/Register of Ministers’ Interests

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne will reflect on what she has done this afternoon, and if she does have ambitions in the leadership department, I would ask her to reflect on whether what she has done today is the hallmark of a leader.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab) [V]]

The ministerial code states that the register of interests must be published twice a year. The latest one is five months late, so it has been 10 or 11 months since the last one was published. At the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee last week, Lord Geidt told us that he was determined that a full list of Ministers’ interests would be published

“as quickly as possible…by the end of this month.”

Can the Minister confirm that all Cabinet Ministers have resubmitted their interests and give a more precise date for when the new list will be published, given that the end of the month is during parliamentary recess?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am sure that the right hon. Lord Geidt will publish the register before the end of this month. That is what he has said; I am sure that he will wish to do it in a way that is helpful to the House and that he will have heard what the hon. Lady has said. I do not know which Cabinet Minister has filled out which form; all I can tell the hon. Lady is that as a Minister of the Crown, I have certainly filled out mine, and I am sure that my colleagues have done so as well.

Better Jobs and a Fair Deal at Work

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

Over the past year, workers across the country have risked their lives to keep us safe and our country moving, but workers’ rights and the long overdue employment Bill were not mentioned once in the Queen’s Speech. It shows that workers’ rights are nothing but an afterthought for this Conservative Government when they have to quickly put out a statement saying:

“We will introduce the Employment Bill when the time is right”.

However, the employment Bill could not be more urgent.

The pandemic has exposed appalling working conditions in the UK, which have left workers unprotected. Zero-hours contracts and the exploitative working practice of fire and rehire must be banned through legislation. The TUC has found that nearly one in 10 workers have been told to reapply for their jobs on worse terms and conditions or face the sack. We need proper rights for every worker from day one, an increase to statutory sick pay and the living wage to be raised to at least £10 an hour—something that would have increased pay for 8.6 million workers.

The Government’s commitment to investing in access to education and training throughout people’s lives rings hollow when the same Government are cutting the union learning fund, which supported more than 200,000 learners in workplaces across England in 2019-20. It is a complete fallacy for the Government to state, on the one hand, that they want to level up the country but, on the other hand, to fail to legislate to support the one in eight workers trapped in in-work poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has said that it is

“deeply concerned that providing security for low-paid workers was not a priority”

in the Queen’s Speech, and this exposes the central point. The Conservative party is not acting to fix the system, as for the past 11 years it has enacted the policies that have exacerbated the inequalities and insecurities at the heart of our economic system.

There is no new deal for workers, as there was no pay increase for public sector workers in the Budget. Instead, as workers continue to suffer from exploitative practices, the Government have prioritised the introduction of completely unnecessary voter ID plans, which will lock millions of people—predominantly elderly, low-income, and black, Asian and ethnic minority voters—out of our democracy. In 2019, a year with a high-turnout general election, the UK saw just one conviction for impersonation out of over 59 million votes. It is a total waste of money that will cost the taxpayer £20 million every single election. Voting is a right, not a privilege.

However the Government choose to spin it, fundamentally, their programme plans on levelling down our democracy and the living standards of workers. “Levelling up” is nothing more than a marketing slogan, and it is certainly no call to action. My constituents in Luton South and communities across the UK deserve much better than empty platitudes. We deserve a transformative, interventionist strategy that prioritises improving living standards through well-paid, secure, unionised jobs and strong public services.

Covid-19: Government Transparency and Accountability

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), who gave a very passionate speech. It was an honour to serve on the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee during this inquiry and to contribute to the production of such an excellent report, and I thank the Committee staff for all their hard work.

The Nolan principles of public life speak of objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership as being core to public office and good governance. However, given the report’s conclusions, the Government’s stewardship of each of these principles has been brought into serious question. I want to speak specifically to recommendations relating to the Government needing to improve transparency by publishing data and information that underpin decision making.

Throughout the pandemic, when people have died, freedoms have been curtailed, families have been separated and living standards have suffered, the Government should have been more open and transparent about the data and information that have informed the decisions that have asked the public to make such huge sacrifices. There is a moral imperative to justify and evidence these decisions and to clearly show that they are working. When necessary, it is about the Government being honest about the uncertainties in the data, which would help to encourage trust, rather than scepticism. As the report states:

“Transparency builds trust, and trust aids compliance with rules.”

However, the communication has not always been transparent, which has damaged trust in sectors and communities across the UK.

The Committee heard from hospitality business organisations about the impact of the pandemic and I have discussed this with hospitality businesses in Luton South. Employers and employees understand the need for public health restrictions but are frustrated that they were left in the dark by not being provided with the information that underpinned the restrictions that impacted on their business operations. Pubs specifically required further information on the 10 pm curfew and the restrictions on wet-led pubs.

Lessons must be learned, as the Government are still failing to communicate the restrictions effectively with businesses. I have spoken to a number of businesses in the aviation sector that are stuck in limbo. They fully recognise the critical importance of the health restrictions to prevent the importing of cases and variants, but throughout this last year, they have consistently requested clarity on the information informing the restrictions in their sector in order to plan, particularly for the future and the opening up of our economy.

The traffic-light system is welcome, but there are still so many questions left unanswered. What information informs the criteria that places countries in the green, orange or red categories? What information underpins the operation of the green watch list? How will Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office travel advice work alongside the new framework? It is still unclear when further information will be provided. If it is possibly some time in May, business and airports will have such limited time—a week or so—to prepare for the potential introduction of the system on 17 May.

The sector needs certainty. This is not just about people going on holiday; the aviation sector is critical to our economy, supporting local economies and thousands of jobs. I fully support the report’s recommendation that the Government should publish, as a matter of urgency, the data that underpins the restrictions on businesses that will remain in place at each step of the road map, along with data thresholds for the road map, which would avoid confusion when decisions are made to move between the steps. I hope the Government will put those recommendations, and others in the report, into action to improve trust and compliance with the regulations.

Although the report focuses on the data, its conclusions reaffirm the Committee’s previous call for a public inquiry into the Government’s handling of the covid-19 pandemic. I emphasise that the Committee worked collectively on the report, but the Labour party will continue to call for an inquiry to start as soon as possible so that crucial, life-saving lessons can be learned.

Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

Yes, that is absolutely right: I do agree. We need to focus on what works and why, as well as what does not and why, so that we can target our resources where they will be most effective. The report looks at why certain groups that are very similar end up with completely different outcomes, which is why institutional racism cannot be the defining reason. When black African and black Caribbean groups, and Indians and Pakistanis, have diverging outcomes, it is clear that something else is going on. I hope that my hon. Friend will work with Government to try to find out what measures we can put in place to address these disparities.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab) [V]]

The report talks about creating agency so that individuals can take greater control of decisions that impact their lives. In response, will the Minister recommend that English for speakers of other languages funding, which has been cut by more than 50% since the Conservatives came to power in 2010, be reinstated?

[Kemi Badenoch]

If the hon. Lady has a comprehensive proposal about that, she can write to me and we will consider it in the light of the Government response.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee of the Whole House (Day 1)
Monday 19th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey [V]]

I will limit my comments to the super deduction which, as we have already heard today, will be one of the largest single-year tax giveaways ever enacted in the UK. Arguably, some companies’ corporation tax bills will be wiped out entirely for a couple of years.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has already said that the Public Accounts Committee found that tax reliefs cost more than £100 billion a year in forgone tax, but HMRC does not know how many reliefs exist; nor does it monitor the efficacy of such reliefs. That is staggering. Can we be confident that HMRC will know what effect the super deduction will have, and who will actually benefit from it? Many of my small and medium-sized enterprises in Salford would love a super deduction, but sadly it will not benefit them. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury told the House last year that the enhanced annual investment allowance of £1 million already covers the capital expenses of 99% of businesses in the UK, so it seems that this super-relief will overwhelmingly benefit only 1% of extremely large businesses.

I would have no problem if such businesses desperately required the relief in order to protect jobs or to invest in our local economies, but let us look at some of the potential beneficiaries. Amazon has benefited from the pandemic, seeing its sales jump by 50%. According to TaxWatch, the company’s latest accounts show that they spent £66.8 million on plant and machinery, £80.4 million on office equipment and £15.3 million on computer equipment in the same year, so the 130% super deduction could entirely account for the pre-tax profits of the company even before any deductions of staff pay awards.

Similarly, many energy and water companies find themselves also able to wipe out their tax bill. United Utilities spent £1.275 billion on property, plant and equipment in the past two years, compared with a current tax liability of just under £89 million. Electricity North West stated that covid has had a limited impact, and it had a tax bill of £45 million for 2019-20 while investing £449 million in property, plant and equipment. For both companies, it would only take a small proportion of the capital investment to be spent on plant and equipment to use the super deduction to eradicate their tax bill, too.

Do these buoyant companies really need a super deduction? The answer is no. In the absence of any clear conditions specifying the use of such savings or providing a wider social benefit, such as increasing salaries for workers, investing in decarbonisation or reducing costs for end consumers, I struggle to see the benefits being passed on to anyone other than shareholders.

I hope that the Government support amendment 11 and new clauses 1, 2 and 6 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington and others, as well as the Labour Front-Bench amendments, because there are companies that do need support to help them recover from the pandemic. There is a real need to support long-term, patient investment by industry, but the untargeted nature of this relief, without conditions, is not the best use of public money. In fact, it borders on the obscene.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab) [V]]

I shall speak in support of the amendments in the name of the Leader of the Opposition and those in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). The Budget and Finance Bill represent the Government taking steps towards further structuring our economy on insecure, precarious work and deregulation, which will widen income and wealth inequality.

The Government’s unambitious plan provides neither a foundation for rebuilding our economy nor a plan to tackle the climate emergency that my constituents have called for. They have announced a future cut to social security and a real-terms pay cut for public sector workers at the same time as introducing a super deduction tax cut for big businesses, allowing firms to write off 130% of the value of qualifying capital investment against their taxes.

When we look across the Atlantic to the US, we see a stark contrast. The Biden Administration have committed to fast-tracking a $1.9 trillion Government-led stimulus package, which is about 10% of the annual output of the US economy and which contained no promises of future deficit reduction. That is alongside a forward-looking plan to spend a further $2 trillion on infrastructure. Biden’s spending plan, in proportion to GDP, is three times the size of the UK’s.

Contingencies Fund (No. 2) Bill

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Committee of the whole House & Committee stage
Thursday 11th March 2021 Commons Chamber

The simple story is this: the Government had millions to hand wastefully to their friends, but for those who worked day and night on hospital wards a pay cut and a clap are all they get. This must never happen again. Labour has tabled an amendment and will press it to a vote later today so that we can improve transparency of emergency spending from the contingency fund. Never again can we let such Tory waste, negligence and cronyism take place.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab) [V]]

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a member of the Public and Commercial Services Union.

Parliamentary authorisation of public expenditure is critical, but we all recognise the need for this Bill to ensure that the Government can act quickly to support the economy. That said, the Government should not be able to act without accountability and transparency. I support the comments made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) with regard to transparency and scrutiny. Indeed, just this morning, as part of business questions, the Leader of the House reiterated the point that Members have a right and a duty to hold the Government to account. He also said that scrutiny leads to better government, and that it is in the interests of Government that scrutiny takes place.

It is with those principles in mind that I want to speak in favour of the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, which seeks to improve Government accountability to Parliament for as long as the increased flexibility of the contingency fund is in place. I want to speak specifically with regard to the checks on the regularity, propriety and value for money of any Government procurement decisions, particularly the importance of the reporting of any written ministerial directions given, so that Parliament can be clear when Ministers have decided to override objections made by senior civil servants.

Throughout the pandemic, the Government’s record on transparent procurement processes and securing value for money on public spending has been, sadly, too often completely inexcusable. Despite NHS Test and Trace being allocated a total of £37 billion and a Conservative peer being handed the top job, the Public Accounts Committee’s report on test, track and trace made this finding. In terms of tackling the pandemic, it said:

“There is still no clear evidence to judge NHST&T’s overall effectiveness.”

I also ask the Minister whether he has reflected on yesterday’s report by the National Audit Office on Test and Trace and whether it contained any lessons to be learned by the Government as well.

The theme of incompetence and cronyism does not end there. In a Westminster Hall debate back in December, I joined many other MPs in highlighting the fact that the National Audit Office report on the Government’s procurement during the pandemic had found that contracts had been awarded without due diligence, with a lack of documentation, and no clear audit trail or transparency. Just a few weeks ago, the High Court ruled that the Government had acted unlawfully by not publishing details on the contracts awarded within 30 days, including many awarded through the Government’s VIP lane. The judge ruled that the Government’s inaction breached a vital public function of transparency regarding how vast quantities of taxpayers’ money was spent. The passage of the Bill should not allow the Government to act without accountability and transparency. There are too many instances of the Government’s poor procurement policy representing poor value for money.

In conclusion, I wish to press the point that Ministers must be accountable and civil servants must not be scapegoated for the Government’s poor decision making. The legally binding protection of written ministerial directions ensure that they are not implicated in the Government’s incompetent decision making and cronyism. This is not unnecessary bureaucracy, as referred to by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake); it is right for Parliament to be able to scrutinise them in a timely manner in the public interest.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP) [V]]

I will be brief. The concerns of Scottish National party MPs over certain covid-related Government procurements are well known and on the record, and we will continue to hold the UK Government to account for them. Nevertheless, whether the new clause is viewed through that particular lens or not, the fact remains that taken on its own terms it would greatly improve scrutiny, oversight and accountability, without creating any disproportionate impact on the Government or the overall efficiency of the spending process. Trying to equate the improvement in process that would result with an attack on business, as we have heard today, is frankly nonsense. It smacks of desperation, and I am certain that that is exactly how it will be seen.

The SNP will be supporting this amendment. If the Government have any care at all for transparency on these matters, and for being able to demonstrate that there is proper stewardship of public funds, there is frankly no good reason for them not to support it as well.

Government's Management of the Economy

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab) [V]]

The covid-19 pandemic has exposed the roots of a broken economic system that fails to serve the public. Our frail economic system did not emerge overnight; it is a result of the Conservative party’s economic dogma, which sees the state purely as a market fixer and rejects a role for an active state in shaping the market’s direction. It is committed to outsourcing the state’s capacity and services to private companies. That failure of the Government’s industrial strategy has led to the UK’s labour market having an over-reliance on the insecure, low-paid gig economy, where people struggle to make ends meet, while at the same time allowing huge, reckless levels of corporate debt due to dividend payments, share buy-backs and growing executive pay, leaving businesses with little in reserve to weather the crisis.

In 10 years as a local councillor, I have seen how the Government’s austerity programme, rather than driving growth and productivity through an innovative industrial strategy, has caused the slowest economic recovery since the 1930s. It has devastated living standards and meant that more children in my constituency of Luton South live in poverty.

We have seen £138 million stripped from our local council’s budget, The public health grant for 2020-21 is £600,000 lower than it was four years ago. NHS hospitals, mental health services and community providers have a shortage of around 84,000 staff; 38,000 of them nurses. Bedfordshire fire and rescue service’s budget has been cut by 19% since 2016-17. Everyone has seen homelessness increase at the same time as the housing crisis has worsened. Food bank use in the east has risen by 74% since 2015-16 and there has been substantial wage stagnation. Throughout the pandemic, the Government’s “whatever it takes” rhetoric has rung hollow as for the past decade they have downgraded the public sector’s ability to respond to a crisis.

The past shows us that the market is incapable of finding solutions to climate change, to widening inequality and to the continuation of the public health emergency. We need an empowered public sector at the wheel, driving a green economic recovery that redistributes economic prosperity and creates well-paid, secure, unionised jobs. To help with the economic recovery, the Government should value our local councils, which are on the frontline, supporting our communities, and scrap the council tax hike that is being forced on them.