Future Relationship with the EU

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I can give my hon. Friend those assurances. Services were one area where we were very poorly served by our membership of the EU. As well as the negotiations, the Department for International Trade has been doing fantastic work in signing roll-over trade agreements and new agreements with many nations. There are fantastic opportunities for our service economy in those nations.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

Investing in green industries and our transport infrastructure will be key to building back better after the pandemic and transitioning to net zero. With Government support, the automotive sector, including Vauxhall in my constituency, could move more quickly to producing more electric vehicles and councils could move to implementing the required green infrastructure to support them. Will the Minister outline whether a position on what is considered state aid has been reached, and whether any agreement will enable Government to invest in and subsidise green sectors?

[Penny Mordaunt]

There were certainly elements of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster’s statement earlier in the week that touched on that, but the hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that we want to be able to secure opportunities to set the conditions for our economy to thrive. Clearly, we have very challenging environmental goals that we wish to reach. Those are the freedoms we are working and fighting for.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

What representations he has received from organisations representing people who are ineligible for covid-19 financial support schemes; and if he will make a statement.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

What representations he has received from organisations representing people who are ineligible for covid-19 financial support schemes; and if he will make a statement.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rishi Sunak)]

Before I start, I know that Members from around the House will join me in commemorating World AIDS Day and the many organisations that make this day happen. As we remember those we have lost to HIV and AIDS, we also remind ourselves of the need for further action. I am proud that this Conservative Government’s policy is to end new HIV transmission by 2030—a commitment reaffirmed today at the launch of the HIV commission.

Throughout this crisis, the Government’s economic priority has been to protect jobs, livelihoods, businesses and public services, and we have spent more than £280 billion in doing so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

I feel very bad for David and Alice with the difficult situation that they are facing. However, I am sure that their small business, like a million other small companies across the country, has been able to benefit, I hope, from the bounce back loan programme, one of the most successful small business loan programmes that we have seen throughout this crisis. It has provided tens of billions of pounds to a million small and medium-sized businesses—up to £50,000—to help exactly those companies to get through this difficult time.

[Rachel Hopkins]

While the Government have provided support for creative institutions through the culture recovery fund, they are running the risk of losing our world-renowned elite west end musicians who are excluded from financial support due to being freelancers or limited companies. We risk losing these elite skills altogether and damage to the industry would have a negative impact on the ability of young musicians from working-class towns such as Luton being able to pursue a career in music.

Considering the sector provides more than £5 billion to our economy, can the Chancellor update the House on what barriers remain to getting support to musicians?

[Rishi Sunak]

There is no barrier to support for anyone to access any of the various things that we have put in place. I am glad that the hon. Lady mentioned the culture recovery fund. At £1.5 billion, it is something that I do not believe any other country has done at such a scale, coupled to which is our further support for the creative arts and the film and TV production industry, which my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will be talking about later. We agree that this is an important sector and we want to ensure that it can get back to work.

Spending Review 2020 and OBR Forecast

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support. He is right about my need to make difficult decisions and tough choices so that we can prioritise the things that he talked about. I believe that his local area has received some seed funding to examine proposals for the south Humber line, which I hope will make a difference to his constituents. I hope that he and I can have a productive conversation about our levelling-up fund, as we figure out how best to support the wonderful town of Grimsby with its future ambitions.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

It is irresponsible to pit public sector and private sector workers against one another in the race to the bottom on wages, especially when key workers across both sectors kept us going through the pandemic. Notwithstanding the small amount given to low-paid workers, who frankly deserve better, this pay freeze for civil servants will also freeze any meaningful action on tackling the gender pay gap in the civil service, which is 12%. Will the Chancellor outline what discussions he has had with the Cabinet Office about eradicating the gender pay gap in Departments?

[Rishi Sunak]

For the record, no one is trying to pit anyone against anyone else. This is simply about doing what is fair for the country. It is the right decision to make. It is a difficult decision, but we have taken a targeted approach to protect those on lower incomes and those in the NHS, ensuring that a majority of public servants will receive an increase in their pay next year. I would be happy to go away and look at the gender pay gap in the civil service and ensure that we are making good progress on eliminating it.

Black History Month

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) on securing this important debate and on the passion and eloquence of her opening speech. I echo her call to everyone who wants to make change happen to register to vote in next year’s elections. I am pleased to be speaking in the Black History Month debate today, particularly given the fact that many Luton South constituents have signed the parliamentary petitions on teaching black history as part of a more inclusive curriculum.

I have heard many others speak about their experiences at school, and I want to pay tribute to the fantastic education I got at a diverse, working-class comprehensive and the experiences that have enabled me to stand here in this debate as an ally with my black and brown friends from school. I also want to pay tribute to my former teacher, Mr Taylor, who did his bit for black history education over 30 years ago. But he was not a history teacher; he was our drama teacher. He recognised not only the importance of teaching black history but the fact that education comes in many forms. He recognised the power of drama and creativity to engage young people of all races with knowledge and ideas. This is not politicising education, as the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) said; it is, importantly, enabling young people to better understand the world around them. That was how a diverse bunch of working-class kids from a comprehensive in Luton in the ’80s learned about the life and actions of Martin Luther King and the wider civil rights movement in America. We did it through creating a play of his life in the form of a Greek tragedy, with the chorus reiterating: “Martin Luther King—he was black”. When we performed it at the end-of-term show, my mum said that you could have heard a pin drop.

I take that with me now, as I speak in this debate, because I have now been given the opportunity to stand up once again for my friends. People have referenced a shared history, and we must all own that shared history, but the racism experienced by my friends at school, and sometimes by me alongside them for being their friend, makes the sharing of that history really painful. We cannot just say, “It’s a shared history. Let’s explore it.” My experience of that history is very different from the experience of my black and brown friends.

I want to reflect on how we recognise and celebrate black history and the important black role models in my home town of Luton, and I shall do that by taking a moment to celebrate Luton’s first black woman mayor, Councillor Desline Stewart. She was mayor in the mid-1990s, and she served our town as a local councillor for over 30 years. I was pleased to serve alongside her as a local councillor for a number of years. Desline was one of the key founders of the Mary Seacole Housing Association in my constituency. In the 1980s, Desline responded to direct pleas from young people who were running away from home. They sought her out, as she had built a reputation for her philanthropic work accommodating people from a wide range of backgrounds. She welcomed everyone into her kitchen if they needed help. Over time, more and more people went to her for help, until it became clear that she would need to increase her outreach. With the support of local politicians, grants from Urban Aid and support from Luton Council and Luton churches, a recommendation to the Housing Corporation resulted in the purchase of the first two houses on Brantwood Road to support her work.

Here is another example of how educating about black history comes in all forms. Desline chose to name the housing trust because she wanted to recognise Mary Seacole, a pioneering British Jamaican nurse and heroine of the Crimean war who overcame racism and injustice to nurse soldiers during that war 200-odd years ago. Desline felt a strong kinship with Mary Seacole and wanted to recognise her humanitarian work and altruism. She believed that there was an affinity between her own rescuing of homeless young people and Seacole’s nursing of wounded soldiers on the battlefield. In celebrating black history, which is British history, we must remember that much of that history is recent and much of that history is local.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

After the next Member, I will have to reduce the time limit to four minutes, but on five minutes, I call Paul Bristow.

Areas with Additional Public Health Restrictions: Economic Support

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

From 1 November, the job support scheme will only be available to firms that can offer their staff at least a third of their usual working hours. For businesses forced to close as a result of local restrictions, that will not be possible. What do the Government suggest such businesses do in these circumstances to retain their staff who are skilled and who have been trained by these businesses?

[Steve Barclay]

As we covered earlier, there are specific measures for areas with local lockdowns, such as the £1,500 support for businesses that are closed for three weeks or more. The Chancellor announced a package of measures in the winter plan, including tax deferrals, loans and other cash-flow support, alongside the self-employed income support and job support that he announced in the same statement.

The Economy

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my hon. Friend, and I am glad that our initiatives have made such a difference on the ground to people in his constituency in protecting jobs, as I am sure they have elsewhere. I very much hope that I can come to visit him and Jono and his team at the Junction pub in the near future, and I wish them every support through the next few months. I hope that the measures we have put in place today will ensure that they continue to thrive in the future.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

I have called for targeted support for jobs in the aviation sector a number of times. The sector would be viable if not for the impact of coronavirus, but in my constituency easyJet, Tui and Luton Airport have already been forced into making redundancies due to the lack of Government support. Can the Chancellor explain why the Government waited until a week after the deadline passed for consultation on large redundancies caused by the end of the coronavirus job retention scheme to announce its replacement?

[Rishi Sunak]

Our response will continue to evolve as the circumstances demand. With respect to aviation, I have every sympathy for companies and employees in that sector; obviously, they have been very hard hit. The measures that we have put in place have made a significant difference to businesses in that sector. Indeed, I think that one of the ones the hon. Lady mentioned is among the many that have accessed some of our much larger loan schemes to provide vital liquidity at a very difficult time, and I know that many businesses in the aerospace supply chain will particularly welcome the part-time working job support scheme we have announced today, as it will be particularly well suited to their manufacturing businesses.

Support for Self-employed and Freelance Workers

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

I begin by congratulating a stellar cast of cross-party MPs, led by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), on securing this important, well-attended and over-subscribed debate, which the Backbench Business Committee granted in its wisdom.

As we have heard so powerfully, the Chancellor plans to cut off support for every self-employed worker in the country from October, no matter whether they are back at work or back under local lockdown. It is almost as if he thinks that the economic crisis that we are living through is somehow unrelated to the Government’s catastrophic failure on test, track and trace.

As we have heard throughout the debate, the people we are discussing—the self-employed and freelancers across the country—are the backbone of Britain’s economy. They are entrepreneurs, innovators, creators, risk takers and entertainers. They are not looking for a permanent handout, just the support they need to weather the crisis, get back on their feet and help build Britain’s recovery. Let us be honest: they have been an afterthought since the crisis began. Few of us will forget the despair they felt when the Chancellor promised to do “whatever it takes”, yet they found themselves out in the cold when the job retention scheme was first announced.

Without an outcry from the Opposition, we would never have had a self-employment income support scheme and more than 2.7 million people would have missed out on any support at all. Sadly, we do not have to imagine what that would have meant for those people because, if the anguish people felt when they were left out of the job retention scheme package was not bad enough, it was dwarfed by the total despair that 3 million people felt when the Chancellor announced the self-employment income support scheme and excluded them.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

Many of those excluded from the schemes are in the creative industries, which contribute £111.7 billion to the UK economy. That affects not only them as individuals, but our future recovery.

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She is second to none in championing that issue on behalf of the people of Luton.

The Economy

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

Today’s statement on the economy is a clear opportunity to confront some of the vulnerabilities that covid-19 is exploiting, including rising unemployment and the ever-present climate emergency. Without greater and targeted intervention, both those intertwined crises will exacerbate class inequalities and severely damage living standards.

After borrowing “Jobs, jobs, jobs”, the Government’s latest strap line is “Build, build, build”, but that is not enough. We also need to “Make, make, make”, with a hands-on, interventionist approach to manufacturing to stimulate growth in our communities. We need bold, innovative solutions to reinvigorate a greener job market.

Two predominant sectors in my constituency of Luton South are aviation and automotive, and they would both benefit dramatically from a targeted economic strategy that roots a green recovery in our communities to ensure that local people reap the rewards of growth in their area. A 21st century industrial strategy requires an end to economic short-termism and a greater focus on the creation of quality, unionised green jobs.

I am a member of Unite the union, the recent report of which, “Manufacturing Matters”, evidences the need for strategic state investment to reinvigorate the UK’s manufacturing base and create new sustainable employment and education opportunities in our communities. In Luton, this could be represented by additional support for Vauxhall to help its transition towards the manufacture of electric vehicles. Such an approach is not radical; the French Government have already adopted a similar strategy.

Green economic growth must be built into inclusive local economies. Anchor institutions must drive the green transition. Local authorities must be empowered to construct green local infrastructure, including clean local transport systems and electric vehicle charging points. This would create skilled green jobs that are fit for the 21st century.

The Government have a unique window of opportunity to accelerate a green transition in the aviation sector. A targeted economic package would protect thousands of jobs and stimulate a sectorial transition towards net zero. Commitments attached to economic support could include strict time-bound decarbonisation expectations and obligations to adopt cleaner fuels and low emission technologies. A green aviation package would save jobs in Luton during the pandemic while creating a thriving, sustainable job market for future generations.

The UK needs an economic strategy that directly lifts people out of economic insecurity, gives them secure, quality jobs and protects our climate for future generations. This will be achieved only through a state-driven industrial strategy; the market will not deliver it. I urge the Government to put people and their living standards first.

Economic Update

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

The hon. Member talks about real cash and business rates grants. We have deployed more than £10 billion in cash to local authorities across this country, which has found its way to 800,000-plus businesses, through grants of either £10,000 or £25,000 targeted at businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sector. It has been a lifeline for small shops and businesses up and down the country.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

I am pleased that the Chancellor has spoken about the hospitality and retail sectors, but in my constituency many of those are reliant on passengers going through Luton airport. Until there is targeted support for the aviation industry, those employees will not be supported. Many are young and from BAME backgrounds. Can I be assured that detailed equality impact assessments have been done on all aspects of the plan?

[Rishi Sunak]

I have said before that this is a matter of social justice. It is precisely because the people who work in the sectors most affected are disproportionately younger, from BAME communities and women, and on lower pay and often are part time, that we have taken bold and decisive action to help those sectors. Ultimately, we are trying to help those 2 million employed people. The hon. Member is right. It is because of the equalities impact that the moment demands such action.

Finance Bill

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting & Report: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 2nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) on his maiden speech and warmly welcome him to his place. I shall attempt to tune my Surrey ears to his Cumbrian dialect, and I very much look forward to hearing more from him.

I want to take this opportunity to ask the Government, in their response to the coronavirus and all the challenges that are still to come, to focus particularly on two priorities when making their decisions about how to allocate resources to meet this enormous challenge. The first is to focus on the interests of our children and young people. It would have been unthinkable at any other time for an entire generation of schoolchildren to have missed a whole term and a half of schooling. Among all the justifiable anxiety about infection rates, testing, PPE and reopening the economy, the needs of our children seem to have been somewhat sidelined.

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement earlier today about reopening schools in September. Like the rest of the House, I fervently hope that infection rates continue to decline to facilitate this. I would like to see a wholesale commitment from this Government to overcoming the educational deficit that has resulted from the shutdown. We already know how much of an attainment gap opens up between different groups of children over the summer holidays, and we can only imagine how much more pronounced that this will have become after half a year’s worth of missed schooling. I urge the Government to allocate generous resources to schools so that they may invest in the additional staffing and resources that they need to meet the needs of all children who have been disadvantaged.

I would also like to see a commitment to more diverse forms of learning to help engage young people who have become alienated from traditional forms of learning over their time away. Music, drama, sport, and open-air learning can all help children to re-engage with their education and will also help to revive employment sectors that have been damaged by the shutdown.

Beyond education, we have a cohort of school leavers who are attempting to enter employment at the worst possible time. If we are not to doom this cohort to a lifetime of missed opportunities, we must act now to provide them with the employment opportunities where they can build real skills and lay the foundations for a meaningful working life. In that spirit, I welcome the aspiration in the Prime Minister’s speech to build, build, build, as I recognise that this will provide opportunities for high-skilled jobs and apprenticeships. However, I ask that the Government include a real commitment to retraining career changers to help people who have lost their jobs in this pandemic to find work among the new opportunities that these projects will provide.

I note that the sectors the Prime Minister promises to provide funding for are areas of employment that are typically masculine. I urge the Government to redouble their efforts to engage young women and female career changers in training for careers in construction and engineering if those are the sectors where employment is due most quickly to recover. We know that child poverty is most effectively overcome when women are in work and earning a good wage, supported by affordable childcare.

On that note, I draw the Government’s attention to the financial precariousness of both our pre-school providers and our universities. Every one of these institutions that is forced to close or scale back activity as a result of the pandemic is a narrowing of opportunities for our children and young people, and every effort should be made to support these sectors. While I am on this point, I should like to take the opportunity to raise the issue of travel in London for those under-18. For many years, it has been free for under-18s to travel on Transport for London services, and that has opened up to all of them a much wider range of opportunities—education, cultural, sporting and social. As part of the package that the Government put in place to bail out Transport for London earlier this summer, they specified that that travel offering for the under-18s had to be scrapped. In support of that decision, they cited the fact that young people use buses only for short journeys that they would otherwise walk. I have obtained from the Minister the evidence for that assertion, and it came from a report published some years ago that concluded that free travel for under-18s had an overwhelmingly positive impact on young people’s social and educational lives. I urge the Government to prioritise young people in this recovery and to make a start by scrapping this restriction on their travel.

The second area that I call on the Government to prioritise as we plan our future beyond this pandemic is the environment. I was really disappointed not to hear a greater emphasis on the progress towards our net-zero carbon targets in the Prime Minister’s speech. This is a fantastic opportunity to implement carbon-free and low-carbon standards into our construction of new homes and into our transport systems. We can also take this opportunity to specify new standards for biodiversity, water quality and air quality and to redouble our efforts to increase the proportion of our energy that comes from renewable sources. I particularly encourage the Government to think not just about new buildings, but about bringing existing buildings up to 21st-century standards. Committing to a programme of retrofitting insulation to our ageing homes, especially those belonging to low-income families, can provide skilled employment opportunities and help us to make substantial progress towards our net-zero carbon goals.

There are so many other challenges that this Government will need to face over the next few months and so many calls on taxpayers’ money, but I want to see the Government establish clear strategic priorities for their future spending, and I would like those priorities to be our children, our young people and our environment.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

After a decade of austerity, which has seen an assault on people’s living standards and our social security system, child poverty is at a disgracefully high level, and the Bill will not work towards tackling the root causes. I am speaking in support of Labour’s new clause 29, which would ensure that the Government review the impact of the Bill on poverty, and I commend my hon. Friend on the Front Bench for his opening remarks and others on this side of the House for the passion and understanding with which they have spoken.