The Climate Emergency
Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
I am pleased to take part in this debate today. There is no more important issue facing us than protecting the planet for future generations. We must test the measures in the Queen’s Speech against their ability to effectively tackle climate change and ensure that they go beyond warm words. In the short time that I have, I want to raise a number of issues that emerge from the Queen’s Speech.
It is good to see social care mentioned again in the Queen’s Speech, but little precise information is available about how the Government intend to fund it adequately and to standards that uphold dignity in old age and are befitting of the 21st century. Given the huge delays to the social care Green Paper, the Government must set out in detail how they intend to fix the crisis in social care that is affecting many of our constituents. Labour has committed to ending zero-hours contracts, ensuring that carers are paid a real living wage, giving access to training and ending 15-minute care visits. As a start, the Government must commit to this also.
It is good that additional money is available for education, but it is not clear how it will be distributed. We need a new policy from the Government that will rebuild and refurbish schools that desperately need it, whether or not they are in areas of high growth.
It is interesting that the Government have somewhat belatedly turned their attention to the problems in the justice system. I have three prisons and a youth offending institution in my constituency, and perhaps know more than most the devastating impact that cuts to prisons over the past decade have had on staff and prisoner safety. Years of cuts to prison services have left our staff and prisons in an increasingly pressured and violent state. Prisoner-on-prisoner assaults and rates of self-harm among inmates are at record highs, and this must be addressed.
It is interesting that there is no mention in the Queen’s Speech of specific issues facing women prisoners. We know that many women in prison should not be there, particularly those who have children or who are pregnant. Offender management policy needs to be reviewed, with much more emphasis placed on women’s centres and less on sending women to prison, especially as the Government seem so reluctant to invest in the women’s prison estate.
The Government have announced that they will publish a national infrastructure strategy to set out their plans in all areas of economic infrastructure. So far, so good, but how will this be delivered? Changes to building regulations are long overdue to take on board the Hackitt review proposals for improving safety. The response to date from the Government has been too slow. I hope the changes to the regulatory framework can be made as quickly as possible. It is also amazing that the Queen’s Speech contains no new measures to deliver the genuinely affordable housing that the country needs to address the housing crisis.
It is also interesting that there is a pensions Bill but nothing on WASPI—the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign. That is surely a disgrace. It is good to see that the Department for International Development will champion action on climate change and girls’ education, but it will be able to do this only if its budget is not constantly raided or reduced. Finally, I would have liked to see more about how universities will benefit from more money going into science and technology, and what the Government intend to do about the Augar review of post-18 education and its impact on the future of university funding.
Environment and Climate Change
Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn
The hon. Gentleman is right that that must be a high priority. I will be coming on to it towards the end of my speech, but he is correct that forests not only sustain a high level of biodiversity, but are a huge source of carbon capture, locking it up within the trees themselves.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech about the need to address climate change. Does he agree that if the Government were really committed to tackling climate change, they would not be investing in fracking? Instead, they would be investing in renewable energy sources, such as tidal energy and solar, that would help areas such as mine in the north-east.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act
Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
It is nothing short of a tragedy that today we are discussing this totally inadequate deal at the 11th hour, with the threat of “this deal or no deal” still being exercised by the Government, despite there being no majority in the House for no deal. It did not have to be this way.
As many others have said today, the Prime Minister should have reached out across the House to secure a cross-party agreement that we and the country could coalesce around. Instead, she pandered to her own Brexiteers and set ridiculous red lines, which is why I am voting against the agreement. It rules out a permanent customs union with a British say; it does not deliver a good deal on services; it would limit access for British businesses to vital EU markets; and it does not sufficiently guarantee workers’ rights or consumer or environmental protections. There are no guarantees that equivalent arrangements with EU programmes and agencies will survive the Brexit process. There is also a lack of clarity about our security arrangements and what will happen in Northern Ireland. Indeed, the political declaration is so big and conditional that I am surprised any Member could vote for this deal. I cannot understand what they think they are voting for.
I want to concentrate on four areas regarding why I think this is a bad deal, and why leaving the EU is not good for my constituents. First, as others have said, it will make my constituents poorer. The North East England chamber of commerce—not a bunch of remoaners —say that more than half its members believe that leaving the EU will have a negative impact on their company. Treasury analysis from 28 November shows that the north-east will be worse off after Brexit, with a GDP reduction of between 3% and a massive 16%, and with pharmaceutical and automotive industries most at risk. The loss of funding from the European Regional Development Fund for infrastructure and skills development will be a huge blow to the region, and as yet the Government have given no guarantees that the Prosperity Fund will replace that funding for the north-east.
The second issue is university funding. It is no coincidence that the previous two higher education Ministers resigned their positions, because they know this deal is bad for our universities. Universities UK has been clear about what is needed from the Government in terms of guaranteeing access to the EU’s research and innovation programmes and research networks, yet what we see in the political declaration is very vague language indeed:
“The parties will explore the participation of the United Kingdom in the European research infrastructure consortium”.
That is no guarantee whatsoever. The third reason is that the EU provides strong policies that seek to protect our natural environment, heritage, rights at work, and helps us to tackle climate change, but again there is no guarantee from the Government that those policies will be maintained.
Fourthly, I come to Northern Ireland. A few weeks ago I asked the Prime Minister to come back to the House with guarantees to ensure that the Good Friday agreement would not be put at risk by her deal. I therefore read the addendum on Northern Ireland with great interest, but I was saddened because, although it mentions the importance of the unique relationship with Ireland, and of fostering the development of the seamless border that now enables unprecedented levels of trade and co-operation, it contains nothing to say how that will be achieved. All the points in the addendum relate to the operation of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and I am afraid I was led to believe that the Government have not realised that the Assembly has not been sitting for two years. We need to hear a lot more from the Government about how they will ensure that the Good Friday agreement—in particular the cross-border institutions and structures that support it—will not be diminished whenever Northern Ireland leaves the EU. The Government have heard from other Members about the issues with the backstop, but I want to hear about the Good Friday agreement.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I am sorry, I will not because we are short of time.
If the deal is voted down next week, as we expect it to be, and if there is no general election, the House must have the guts to go back to the country and ask again for people’s opinion on this deal. When people voted in 2016, in good faith, we did not have the details of this deal, and in order to make progress it is important to allow them to be considered.
Oral Answers to Questions
Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
If I can encourage the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) to overcome any unnecessary shyness, and in light of the fact that we are not likely to reach question 13, I would say to her that her question is very similar to this question, so perhaps she would like to make her point now.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
Dr Coffey
Plastic waste exports happen because overseas processers recognise the value of how it can be used. I am conscious that plastic with a certain contamination level no longer goes to China. Other countries have taken it up, but of course we want more to be recycled here in the UK. The hon. Lady will see more in our resources and waste strategy, which will be published very soon.
Flooding
Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
I agree that we should pay tribute to the fantastic work done by volunteers throughout Yorkshire and Lancashire at a very difficult time. Many of them had given up their Christmas.
As I have said, we will of course look at the Leeds scheme. We need to do so, given that water levels in the Aire have been a metre higher than they have ever been before. I should be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and other colleagues in Leeds to discuss the issue.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
As the Secretary of State probably knows, my constituency is being flooded as we speak, the River Wear having burst its banks earlier today. Durham faces real challenges, because the huge cuts imposed on the local authority make it difficult to respond to flooding and the problems that emerge from it, such as a lack of appropriate dredging of the river and building on the flood plain. How will the Secretary of State tackle those issues?
Elizabeth Truss
An official Cobra call is taking place at the moment to ensure that the people of Durham have every resource that can be provided for them.
Agricultural Wages Board
Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Paterson
The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood. All the existing conditions continue.
As I say, abolition will remove outdated and prescriptive regulations that hamper the ability of industry to offer flexible modern employment packages, such as the payment of annual salaries. It will simplify employment legislation in the sector, provide transparency and make it easier to recruit workers. In the absence of the board, farmers and workers will be able to agree employment terms and conditions that suit the requirements of the farming sector and the particular circumstances of individuals.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
I wonder whether the Secretary of State will answer a question that was asked many times but never answered when the Public Bodies Act 2011 was in Committee. Did the Government consider modernising the board rather than abolishing it?
Mr Paterson
All sorts of options were considered, but we concluded that the answer was to abolish the board, thus bringing agriculture into line with every other employment sector in the country.
I fully understand the concern about the impact on workers’ wages and terms and conditions as they adjust to the level playing field and move from being set by a system of statutory wage fixing to being set by the market. However, the figures that the hon. Member for Wakefield and Unite have been using have been cherry-picked from the impact assessment and are based on the worst possible scenario, namely a reduction in the wages of every single worker in the agricultural sector. Anyone with any understanding of the farming industry, or the market, knows that that simply will not happen.
The abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board will not
“lead to a race to the bottom on wages in rural areas”
or “impoverish rural workers”, as the motion suggests. It will give farmers and workers the same flexibility to agree terms and conditions as is given to employers and workers in all other sectors of the economy, while also securing the same levels of protection. Most workers already have terms and conditions over and above those in the agricultural wages order, and as contracts are already in place, their wages should not be affected. In 2010, the basic pay of full-time permanent workers was 12% above the AWB minimum for their grade, and non-permanent grade 1 and 2 workers were paid 4% above the AWB minimum for their grade. More than two thirds of permanent employees aged over 21 earn above the agricultural wage minimum at grade 1, and more than half do so at grade 6.
The National Farmers Union has described the abolition of the AWB as “a progressive reform”, which is something in which the Labour party used to believe. The “bottom up” takeover of the party by the trade unions seems to be almost complete.
I can reassure the House that agricultural workers who have existing contracts at the time of abolition will continue to retain rights to pay at the appropriate grade level, along with the other terms and conditions in the current agricultural wages order. For the avoidance of any doubt, we intend to provide for that in legislation. Employers will not be able unilaterally to alter terms and conditions for an existing worker without legal consequences. New workers coming into the industry will be protected by the national minimum wage and by wider employment legislation.
The hon. Lady has described the national minimum wage as
“one of the Labour Government’s greatest achievements.”
Why should we not let agricultural workers benefit from that achievement? The national minimum wage provides sufficient protection for 99.5% cent of the work force, including those who operate factory machinery, those who drive heavy vehicles, and those who care for the sick, the elderly or children. There is no reason why it should not also provide sufficient protection for agricultural workers.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
I am pleased to take part in the debate. I have a constituency interest, and I led for the Opposition in the Committee on the Public Bodies Bill, so it is a matter of some disappointment to me that in the intervening two years the Government have not refined their arguments, nor have they produced further evidence to suggest why the board should be abolished. Given the catastrophic effect abolition could have on the pay, terms and conditions of the country’s 152,000 agricultural workers, not least in my constituency, where well over 100 workers will be affected, it is important to ask serious questions of the Government about why they consider it necessary and, in particular, whose interests they are serving.
As we have heard, the Agricultural Wages Board was formed in 1948, but its lineage goes back to 1924. The fact that it has survived so long is testament to its continuing relevance. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) is right: it has modernised over the years and could modernise further. The board has demonstrated its importance for protecting the rights of workers in the sector. Those rights are now very much at risk.
The Government’s response when asked why they want to abolish the AWB is that agricultural workers, like others, are now covered by minimum wage legislation. Excellent though the minimum wage legislation is, it does not cover the same range of wage levels and categories as the AWB. The agricultural industry needs to attract people with the right skills and aptitude, which is becoming more important as farming methods continue to develop technologically. The AWB has a grading system for the terms and conditions of employment for agricultural workers that reflects the diversity of skills needed and the responsibilities attached. As many others have said, minimum wage legislation does not cover the many other areas overseen by the AWB, such as the standard of tied accommodation, overtime rates, sick pay and holiday entitlement. Why are the Government abolishing the board, and in whose interests will it be?
When the Public Bodies Bill was being considered in Committee, far from Labour Members being out of line, as the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) suggested, it was Government Members who were out of line, because the only people supporting abolition were some parts of the National Farmers Union. Indeed, it was only some in the union. We received many representations from farmers and farm workers who thought that getting rid of the AWB was an extremely bad idea because they liked the structure that it gave to negotiations.
We know that the abolition is not in the interests of not only hard-pressed agricultural workers, who stand to lose significantly from the change, but those wishing to enter the sector. I have a very good agricultural and horticultural training college in my constituency. From talking to several of the young people studying at Houghall, I know that they are worried about what will happen to terms and conditions in the sector following the abolition of the AWB. They are also concerned that they will no longer have a clear career ladder after leaving college, yet no Government Member has addressed that problem. We know from Lantra, the skills body overseeing the sector, that another 60,000 people will soon be needed in the industry because 25% of agricultural workers are over 55. Ministers cannot seriously be suggesting that the abolition of the board will make the industry more attractive to young people, because they have told me directly that it will not.
The abolition is not in the interests of the rural economy as a whole, especially in the north-east, given that millions of pounds will be taken out of an economy that is already suffering from high unemployment. The Government’s policies have hit my constituency hard. The latest unemployment figures show that City of Durham’s claimant rate has almost doubled in the past 12 months, which is one of the biggest rises in the country. It will be difficult for people in the agricultural sector to argue for a better standard of living when unemployment is so high, because they will be told, “If you don’t like it, lump it, because there are lots of people in the county who will be able to take your job.” The Government simply are not addressing that problem, yet because the abolition of the board will remove workers’ protections, it will be more difficult for them to argue for a better standard of living.
I will conclude, because I want to give others time to speak, but it is difficult to understand what the abolition of the board will achieve. It does not cost much to operate, but it protects workers in the sector, and sets a clear framework for negotiations and a career structure. It could be modernised in line with the new skills needed for farming, but one can only assume that the Government, as they have shown with other policies, are hellbent on driving down the wages of the low-paid in this country while at the same time giving tax cuts to millionaires.
Mr Heath
There were a number of points. There was the introduction of the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000, the Employment Act 2002, the Fixed-term Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2002, the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004, the Pensions Act 2008, the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, and the Agency Workers Regulations 2010. All those provided the protections that I wanted for rural workers. They exist, and that is why we no longer need the Agricultural Wages Board, because it duplicates that position. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I am glad he asked me that question.
In reality, when we debated these issues, Labour Members in support of the Labour Government resisted me when I spoke about rural poverty and denied that the biggest single removal of money from rural areas was the fuel escalator, which far outweighed anything that could possibly happen through the provision under discussion. They resisted my Fuel Poverty Bill applying to rural areas; they would not even allow for the existence of rural poverty, yet now they have the nerve to lecture the Government about what happens in rural areas.
Let me be clear because misinformation—deliberate I think—is being spread about some areas of this subject. There is a suggestion that people who work in the agriculture industry will no longer have any protection, which is absolute nonsense. The national minimum wage affects 99.5% of all workers in this country but is apparently hopelessly inadequate for the other 0.5%. However, I believe that the national minimum wage—which after the recent settlement is now well ahead of the first grade of pay for agricultural workers—is a valuable protection.
Every single worker who is currently paid under the protection of the Agricultural Wages Board will continue to receive that protection and to enjoy every aspect of their pay and conditions, and we shall ensure that they receive the benefit of legislative protection on that.
Mr Heath
I am afraid I have no time left.
Opposition Members are telling us that the basement protection for the lowest-paid workers is the 2p difference per hour between last year’s AWB rate and the national minimum wage, and that that makes all the difference to rural poverty. I am afraid I do not believe that.
As many Government Members have said, agricultural workers are a precious resource in our rural areas. Do Opposition Members not understand that farmers cannot get a skilled stock man or woman in many areas? They have to pay them to attract them. Do they not understand that farmers do not put someone on the national minimum wage in charge of a £500,000 machine? That is the reality of the modern agriculture industry.
We are therefore left with a statutory body that, uniquely, deals with career progression in one half of one industry—the AWB does not apply to everybody in food and farming. I simply do not believe that a statutory body is necessary to do that—we can do it in better ways. I want to see career progression, flexibility of contracts and modern conditions. Those are the keys to a modern and effective agricultural industry.
Oral Answers to Questions
Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
1. What recent discussions she has had with the chair of the independent panel on forestry on the future of the public forest estate.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)
First, I am sure that the House would like to join me in wishing the Bishop of Liverpool, who chairs the independent panel, a speedy recovery from his recent operation. As the panel is independent, it is important that its members, including the chair, enjoy complete freedom to produce their report, the scope of which extends beyond the public forest estate to include the future of all England’s forests.
Roberta Blackman-Woods
First, may I associate myself with the right hon. Lady’s comments about James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool? She will be aware that at least some members of the independent panel think that more of our woodlands should be in public ownership, not less, so will she give the House a commitment not to sell off any more publicly owned forests and woodland, and instead to seek to work with partners to find ways of adding to it?
Mrs Spelman
As I have said, the panel is independent, and I have had no separate conversations with its members to hear the views that the hon. Lady has expressed. The important thing is to wait for the panel to report to us with its recommendations. In the interim, Ministers have made it absolutely clear that there will be no further sale of the public forest estate.