Johnston Press: Administration

Rachel Reeves Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

Yes, I am happy to do that. In fact, the first newspaper I ever appeared in was my hon. Friend’s local newspaper, so it has a particular place in my heart. She is right: one thing that we expect Dame Frances Cairncross to do, and upon which we will wish to act, is to preserve good-quality, well-sourced, authoritative journalism at local and national levels. It is fundamental to the way in which we hold power to account, and it is an important part of the antidote to so-called fake news, on which my hon. Friend’s Select Committee has done such good work.

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

I refer to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

May I pick up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), who asked what will happen to people who are currently in receipt of pensions? I do not think it is correct to say, as the Secretary of State has said, that their pensions will not be affected, because they will be uprated in line with consumer prices index inflation rather than retail prices index inflation for years to come. If someone expects to carry on taking a pension for 20 years, they will lose out on thousands of pounds if their pension is uprated at this lower rate. Will the Secretary of State confirm that people who are currently in receipt of final salary pension schemes at JPI Media, to which they have now been transferred from Johnston Press, may indeed lose out to the tune of thousands of pounds because of these changes?

[Jeremy Wright]

Again, I must I am afraid remind the House of what I said earlier. There are good reasons why, at this stage at least, I need to be cautious about what I say about the detail of this transaction and the background to it. What I would say to the hon. Lady is that it is very clear that this business was having significant difficulty before this transaction was carried out over the course of the weekend, and were these businesses to have been liquidated there would have been very serious consequences for all concerned. As I say, it is important that I am cautious at this stage about what I say.

Loneliness Strategy

Rachel Reeves Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tracey Crouch]

This is a great opportunity to celebrate the work being done across the country. In fact, I have just met members of VASL at the strategy’s parliamentary launch. The “chatty café” scheme is fantastic, and there are lots of similar initiatives. Having worked on loneliness, it is incredibly heartwarming that a number of organisations out there have just been getting on with it for a significant length of time. When we announced the strategy, I was contacted by thousands of organisations similar to those in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

I commend my hon. Friend’s work with the all-party group, and long may addressing this issue continue to be on the agenda of all politicians.

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

If Jo were still here today, she would have been a Member of Parliament for almost three and a half years. She was in this House for just one year, but in that short space of time she achieved more than most of us could hope to achieve in a lifetime.

Tackling loneliness is part of Jo’s legacy, and it is a tribute to her approach to politics and her approach to life, which is that we have more in common than that which divides us.

I am proud to have played a small part in taking forward Jo’s work on this very important issue, but I want to build on what other Members have said this afternoon. The good thing about loneliness is that it is something we can all do something about, one conversation at a time.

Will the Minister join me in encouraging all of us in this House, and all of us in all of our constituencies, to live our lives a little more like Jo Cox lived hers, by putting other people first and by always thinking about what we can do? Whether it is people in our friendship groups, our families or our communities, we should have one conversation at a time to try to reach out and help those who are struggling with loneliness. If we do that, we will all help to secure Jo’s legacy and help to build a world that is a little less lonely.

[Tracey Crouch]

I cannot pay enough tribute to the hon. Lady’s work in taking forward the work that Jo started. Like me, the hon. Lady was rather daunted when she started on the journey to tackle this incredibly complex issue. There is no single cause of loneliness, and there is no single solution. The more we can talk about it in this place and beyond, the better. We are on loneliness where we were on mental health 10 years ago, and where we can reduce stigma by going out to support our constituents, our friends and our families, we will be all the better for it.