The Economy

Ruth George Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady was a fan of “Jackanory”; now I know why she joined the Labour party. It is all fitting into place.

On that point, some Members may point to the economic analysis, as the hon. Lady has, that was published by the Government in November of last year, but that document looks at the possible economic impact of a generic average free trade agreement; it does not represent the ambitious free trade agreement that we have agreed. We have agreed with the EU that both parties will have a deep, best-in-class free trade agreement that is far more ambitious on things like data exchange, tariffs, energy and financial services, and none of those benefits are captured in the Government’s previous modelling. So it is clear that what we need to do is this: end the dither and delay and move forward as a country.

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

The Chancellor said that the economic prosperity has been delivered by the hard work of the British people. Does he agree that that is the 14 million people who are now in poverty and the 4.5 million children who are living in poverty, and why is his Queen’s Speech silent on how to lift those people out of poverty and end what he calls their hard work?

[Sajid Javid]

I would think that, being a member of a party that is called the Labour party, the hon. Lady would understand that the best way out of poverty for anyone is a growing economy that creates jobs. Since 2010, there are over 1 million fewer workless households—a record low—there are 730,000 fewer children living in workless households, also a record low, and there are 50,000 fewer households where no member has ever worked.

Unregulated Accommodation: 16 to 17-year-olds

Ruth George Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

I completely agree; that is another reason for more regulatory oversight, which I will call for. Perhaps this issue needs to come up in planning policy as well.

Central Bedfordshire sends very few of its own children out of the area. As a Bedfordshire Member of Parliament, I am simply not prepared to accept this wholly unacceptable diversion of police resources caused by other local authorities acting irresponsibly and using provision that no local authority in Bedfordshire would put its own children in.

It is not as if this provision is cheap, either. A typical cost per child in these unregulated homes is around £800 per week, which is £42,000 per child per year. Some unregulated provision will cost considerably more than that, and it is completely unacceptable that taxpayers are paying such enormous amounts of money to private businesses, some of which do an appalling job and are more interested in making money than in looking after vulnerable children.

Given that several members of staff that I spoke to when I visited some of these homes told me that they needed no training whatsoever to undertake this work, I suspect that rates of pay are low and significant profits are being generated for the directors of these companies. Who is overseeing value for money for taxpayers, who are having to fork out these enormous amounts per child for such poor-quality provision, which in turn is placing a huge burden on other parts of the public sector such as the police?

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an important speech on an important subject. In my own constituency, we have a high number of homes—often regulated ones, which is good—but because we are in the wilds the children who tend to be sent there are the runners, who have run away from other homes. That means that when they go missing, as they often do because they have a history of it, they can be missing for a very long time and take not just police but mountain rescue out looking for them. Does he agree that it does not help that the care homes themselves are still charging fees when children are missing, so they have no incentive at all to go and look for them, and it is left to the police?

--- Later in debate ---

[Michelle Donelan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. This is a complex problem and we have a rising number of children in care, which we need to get to grips with. Those children are predominantly at an older age, which is resulting in such outcomes. So there are strains on the supply of accommodation. I will get on to the rest of what he raised within my speech, if he will just be patient with me.

As I said, a rising number of children are in care, and most of them live in registered children’s homes or foster care. However, the age of those children is rising; the demand on the system is increasing; and it is a somewhat unprecedented situation. We are not only taking steps to help local areas to manage the situation, but supporting local authorities to improve the work that they do with families to safely reduce the number of children who enter care in the first place—something I am particularly passionate about. Last week, I announced the investment of £84 million over five years to support 18 local authorities to do exactly that, as part of the strengthening families programme. We have already provided funding through our £200 million children’s social care innovation programme, and £5 million of that funding is specifically targeted at residential care.

For the most vulnerable children who need secure provision, we are working to increase the number of beds in secure homes through our £40 million capital grants programme. We are funding local authorities, with £110 million to date to implement “staying put” arrangements, under which care leavers remain with their foster carers while they are under 21. We are working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to help local authorities to develop more effective accommodation pathways for care leavers.

Currently, a small but growing number of children are placed in settings that are not registered with Ofsted. Some of these settings are not registered because they provide only accommodation and not care, although they may provide some support. They offer semi-independent living for older children and care leavers who are ready to live with some independence, and they can act as a stepping stone to adult life. Let me be clear, though: we set a high bar for the level of care that must be provided by registered children’s homes, and children who need this care should not be placed anywhere else.

I have visited some excellent examples of semi-independent living, even in my own constituency. There is a place for this type of provision when local authorities have taken the required steps to ensure that it is of high quality and is used appropriately.

[Ruth George]

Will the Minister give way?

[Michelle Donelan]

Time is really tight and I have a lot of ground to cover. If I have time in a moment, I will give way.

Not all the provision of the type I have described is being used correctly, and the quality across the board is simply not good enough. I am determined to tackle that. Just as worrying is the placement of children in settings that are offering care but have not been registered with Ofsted. Such settings are illegal, and Ofsted has the power to prosecute such providers. I invite my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire to meet me to flag up any homes that he believes fit the criteria, and I invite any other Member to do the same, because they must be stopped. Permanent settings that deliver both accommodation and care must be registered with and inspected by Ofsted.

Another policy area on which the Department is focused is the age of those in unregulated provision, as referred to by my hon. Friend. I have received reports from Ofsted, local authorities and police forces about some younger children living in unregulated, semi-independent provision. Let me be clear again that I do not want children under the age of 16 to be living in an environment without care. Today, I call on all local authorities to put their houses in order on this issue and to ensure that further action is taken. My hon. Friend will know that if a child is placed in a semi-independent, unregulated setting, the local authority is required by law to ensure that the provision is suitable. My predecessor wrote to all directors of children’s services earlier this year to remind them of this duty. As I stressed earlier, such providers should be registered, and those that choose not to be are acting illegally.

Ofsted is taking a lead and has, over the past few months, already ramped up its focus. Ofsted has conducted more than 150 investigations in the past year alone. I will continue to apply pressure in this policy area. Alongside that, Ofsted has tightened up the requirements, under its inspection regime, for local authorities to share how they monitor children in unregulated provision, by increasing the data that they request from local authorities and issuing further advice to inspectors. However, recent research commissioned by the Department suggests that, despite our guidelines, some local authorities are genuinely unclear about what is permissible in relation to the use of unregulated and unregistered provision. I want to ensure that there is no confusion at all, so I am working with my Department to ensure that there is new statutory guidance so that everyone involved in providing care to looked-after children and care leavers is absolutely clear about what is required of them.

My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) highlighted the number of children who go missing in unregulated provision. Not only is that a threat to a young person’s safety, it can also be a serious flag to other things that are going on in their lives. Some local areas are already developing effective responses, but we need to ensure that all local areas recognise the threats to vulnerable children and young people and respond appropriately.

On 9 May, the Department for Education announced a £2 million tackling child exploitation support programme to provide dedicated advice and practical support. This programme will help areas to develop effective multi-agency responses to deal with things that will affect vulnerable children, including county lines.

I want to take this opportunity again to thank my hon. Friend for South West Bedfordshire for securing this debate to highlight this crucial issue here today. It is clear to me that the current system leaves far too much room for variability and inconsistency across the whole sector. Although we have tried to address that, I recognise that there is still so much more to do and so much more that can be done. Alongside the Education Secretary, I have been meeting members of Ofsted and others in the sector to determine where further action should be taken and the broader landscape of checks and inspections on the types of provision that we want to see. I know that local authorities do not take decisions lightly. These complex issues should not be underestimated, but children must be placed in settings that are suitable for their needs.

I thank all Members who have contributed to this debate. I am aware that this is not a new issue and it is right that, as a newly appointed Minister, it is at the top of my agenda. Both the Secretary of State and I are clear that the current system is completely untenable. We must get this right, and I will ensure that we do.

Question put and agreed to.

Youth Services

Ruth George Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

It is good to hear that there are some isolated examples of youth work going on, but in my county of Derbyshire every single youth worker has been made redundant—ironically, on the same day we had our first knife stabbing by young people, in Buxton. That is what is happening up and down the country. Isolated examples—the NCS lasts for two weeks—are no replacement for the long-term relationships and commitment that youth workers give young people around our country.

[Mims Davies]

It is vital that our young people have an opportunity to be involved in the NCS, but it is also vital that we have other interventions. I do not see this as a case of one or the other, although I understand the point the hon. Lady is making.

I confirm today ongoing funding of £280,000 to six of our most promising Centre for Social Action initiatives, to help them to grow. That includes support for the Grandmentors initiative run by Volunteering Matters, which uses mentoring to help our young care leavers. This complements the existing outstanding work done by civil society and our local authorities.

Local councils have a statutory duty to provide services for our young people. No one can deny that there has been an operational challenge in the financial environment for that provision, but as we perhaps heard just now, open access to youth services has in some cases been far too easy to target for cuts. Credit should therefore go to those local authorities that have helped to set up new structures, attracting new partners and direct funding into this space. We have seen fantastic examples of this from Devon to Doncaster, in Manchester and on Merseyside. That is why—this is key—we have launched a review of guidance for our local councils on the statutory duty to provide youth services. The Government want to see a more accessible approach, without putting any underfunded burdens on our local authorities.

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[Cat Smith]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point, particularly with regard to rural services. Young people in rural areas can feel particularly isolated because when the school bus drops them back off in their village at perhaps 3.30 or 4 o’clock, that is it until the next morning. That is increasingly the case, as those are some of the areas where we have seen youth provision really drop off a cliff.

[Ruth George]

My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) have made excellent points about services in rural areas. High Peak is another rural area that is now being targeted by county lines drugs gangs. Our young people desperately need youth services at the exact time when they are being decimated and taken away.

[Cat Smith]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent plea for youth services. There is a particular need in areas that are being targeted by county lines, which are having an impact on young people’s lives. This really highlights the importance of today’s debate. I am pleased to see that so many Members want to speak, so with the permission of other Members, I will make some progress with my speech so that we can hear from Back Benchers.

The loss of this open access youth work has had a devastating impact on young people’s lives because they simply cannot get any of the support they need when they do not meet the threshold for the targeted interventions. As a result, young people have lost the role models—someone who they can build a trusted relationship with—who can empower them to realise their own strengths and divert them away from potential harms. They have lost safe spaces: somewhere to go outside school hours to develop social networks and friendship groups outside school and to have a sense of belonging and ownership in their local area. They have also lost opportunities—to learn new skills, to take part in social action projects and perhaps even to re-engage with education.

As Parliament goes into recess and schools go into their summer holidays, the impact of these cuts on young people’s lives will be felt to an even greater extent. I welcome the Minister’s announcement in her opening remarks of £400 million funding for sport this summer, with the national lottery, but it strikes me as being too little too late, given that the schools are breaking up for their summer holidays this week, as we are doing here in Westminster. In this context, it is hardly surprising that we are seeing chronic levels of loneliness and mental ill health and a rising number of children and young people tragically involved in knife crime and gangs. This is supported by research conducted by the all-party parliamentary group on knife crime, which found that local authority areas suffering the largest cuts to spending on young people have seen the biggest increases in knife crime.

The Government decision to slash youth services for the sake of short-term cash savings is reckless and short-sighted. Last Friday, I visited Central Lancaster High School in my constituency, where I discussed with the head the challenges the school faces in supporting young people without having a youth service to pick up the pieces outside the school gates. The head told me that the school has had to invest heavily in student support officers, behaviour mentors and alternative provision education programmes—for example, the Queensberry alternative provision programme, which works with students at risk of exclusion to engage them in projects and activities and which has led to a massive shift in their attitudes and behaviours, with one year 10 student saying,

“Queensberry helps me to think before I do”,

and another saying,

“I think more about the impact of what I do.”

Such programmes allow young people the space to reflect, which is not often found in the school environment. However, this school-based provision comes at significant cost to the school budget, which is already diminishing in real terms year on year.

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[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

It gives me great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), who is such an expert and has done so much work in this field. I shall speak about our experience of youth work and youth services in a corner of north Derbyshire.

Last September, I visited Fairfield youth club, the only evening youth club left in our rural community. There were 60 or so young people there, having fun, chatting, and engaging with the staff. They wanted to make a video with me. They asked if I would interview them about what they wanted for their area and their hopes for the future. Once the camera was on them and I was asking questions, those young people opened up in a way that I will never forget. They spoke about their youth centre and youth club as a safe place to go. Their friends had fallen prey to the drug gangs, and it was the only place out of the house where they could go and feel safe.

Even in High Peak, our beautiful rural corner of Derbyshire, we have drug gangs preying on young people who are hanging around, as young people do when they have nowhere to go and nothing to do. I spoke to all our headteachers of secondary schools shortly before the end of term, and they highlighted to me how concerned they were about the summer holidays and about the preying on young people that they had already seen in term time. Parents would phone them up, worried about whether they should pay a drug debt for their child. Drug gangs would give a child drugs and tell them to sell them to their friends and would then come seeking the money. There were young people, often from ordinary middle-class families, owing £1,000 in drug debt, and being told that their bodies would be smashed if they or their parents did not pay. That is what we see, unfortunately, and I am sure that my area is far from being different from other places, especially ones that border large cities.

At the same time as all that, under universal credit, we have seen parents with children, the youngest of whom was 12, forced to seek work full time for 35 hours a week, regardless of school holidays. I have spoken to Save the Children about the threat to our young people and their safety and security. The other week, I spoke to a parent whose children are 12 and eight years old. She was told that she could go out to work and leave her 12-year-old in charge of her eight-year-old throughout the summer holidays. If that is the sort of advice parents are being given by a Government agency, what hope do our children have?

We are not only seeing the decimation of support services. In Derbyshire, not only has every youth worker been given redundancy, but hundreds of early-help support workers for families have disappeared, as have our sexual health clinics, where so many young people could go when they disclose sexual abuse. We have seen our school nurses halved and our police force halved. At the same time as all that, parents are told that they should be out looking for work full time and leaving young people alone.

We have been desperate for summer holiday provision, which used to be provided by our youth services but is no longer. We no longer even have youth clubs that the county council provides statutorily. We used to have eight or nine youth workers locally, and 80 throughout Derbyshire; the number has gone down to eight across the entire county. Those places left are for supporting voluntary groups and parents who set up clubs and voluntary provision. That is fine, but as has been pointed out, voluntary groups often cannot provide the continuity and the sort of support that youth workers can give.

The youth workers in my area have been instrumental in supporting young people with the disclosure of sexual abuse, to deal with disability and mental health issues and to resist the drugs gangs that prey on them. That is not a job that we can ask volunteers to do. We have some wonderful voluntary groups. I pay tribute to parents, a wonderful group of whom set up a Monday-night youth club in Chinley, a village in my constituency. They see 80 or 90 young people come from all across the area because there is nothing else on.

We have sports teams, and we have Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, Brownies, Guides and Sea Scouts. There are some fantastic activities going on and a real wealth of provision for some young people, but such activities often cost money. Cubs and Scouts costs £30 for a term, and often more for different trips. There are sports clubs on the private finance initiative-provided playing fields, but it costs £6 or £7 a night to play football. That is not something that parents on a low income can pay. The most vulnerable young people often feel that they cannot take part in guided activities and are not prepared to do that.

Young people often want to hang out. We have some brilliant youth centres, which were provided next to our parks, in exactly the place where young people want to hang out and to get a bit of support as well. When I spent a day in one of my local secondary schools, I spoke to some year 9s—they were 13 and 14-year-olds—and said, “What do you want from your area? What do you want from your politicians?” Their answer was that they wanted a covered bench so that they had somewhere to sit that was out of the rain—so that they could sit and chat with their friends and not get wet. It is not very much to ask.

In the same town, there is a youth centre right next to the park. It was exactly what young people needed. It used to provide youth services on a Tuesday and Friday night. Young people could run in and out, talk to the staff, get a drink, have fun and get support at the same time. That is exactly the sort of provision we need. We have the buildings there, but they are mothballed—they are not in use anymore—and the staff have just been given redundancy notices. Staff with years of experience who are trusted among young people across our communities are, with very heavy hearts, having to give up the jobs that they loved and believed in.

We need our young people to have such support. I am delighted to hear the Minister say that she will put in place more statutory guidelines and that she wants the UK to be the best place in which young people can grow up, but I am afraid that one of our youth workers told me the other week that it is a terrible time to be both a young person in Derbyshire and a youth worker. This is tough not just on our young people, but on the people who work with them. It takes years to build not just the apprenticeships, but the experience and dedication of those members of staff. At the moment, we are seeing their skills and that dedication put on the scrapheap. This Government need urgently to put in place long-term, funded, ring-fenced statutory provision for young people before we see any more suffer and made vulnerable.

I am providing a summer school for 16 to 24-year-olds this week. It has been a real honour to interact with those young people, to hear about their hopes and dreams and to get them planning and campaigning on what they want to do. They will be out tomorrow in one of our local towns, holding a drop-in for young people to talk about politics, to register to vote, to get involved and to have a say. As Members of Parliament, that is something that we can all do. Young people want to be able to change things, but they are left powerless. We can put power into their hands. We can give them the support that they need. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) spoke very movingly about the support that she had that enabled her to get to where she is today. That is what we need to do for all our young people, and I hope that the Government will not just listen but act.

Kew Gardens (Leases) (No. 3) Bill [Lords]

Ruth George Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Member intend to let hon. Members who have gathered in the House for the debate on youth services, or lack thereof, to discuss that important matter? The number of pages left of his speech indicates that he does not. It would be nice if he could inform the House of his intentions so that we can get to that important business.

[Patrick Grady]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. I do not intend to detain the House desperately long. I want to ensure that that debate can be had. It is particularly relevant, of course, to Members from England and Wales. We just had a procedure of the so-called English Parliament. This was what was supposed to happen as a result of the independence referendum and the reform of devolution, but it is patently failing, as she demonstrates. There are only two amendments, however, and I am speaking about the second, so her patience should not be tested for too much longer.

One of the key points is that the leases will raise money. That money will generate tax take, that tax take will go to the Treasury, and that money will eventually work its way into public expenditure, first through the UK consolidated fund, and then, presumably, some of it will end up in the Scottish consolidated fund through the Barnett formula. This has been the crux of our problem with the EVEL procedure from the very start—We do not see the full consequences and knock-on effects. That is why the amendment suggests that the Minister make an estimate or report on the sums expected to accrue to the Treasury as a result of any lease granted.

We were told when the EVEL procedure was introduced that we would be able to scrutinise all these things through the estimates process, but this is not the only time my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire has been called out of order and required by the Chair to resume his seat, because previously when he tried to talk about estimates, he was also ruled out of order and was unable to speak. There has been a small reform to the estimates process, which we have welcomed, but it is still not sufficient for us to have the kind of say we want. We cannot table meaningful amendments and the subjects and time available for debate are still limited.

We are demonstrating, even in the frustration of the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) about the squeeze on the important debate to follow on youth services in England, the fundamental failures, first of the EVEL system, and secondly of the overall impact of the attempt at reform and the potential silencing of voices from England and Wales. The EVEL procedure, sadly, is becoming a laughing stock. There is a risk of Parliament falling into the same trap. Certainly, laughing stocks will not be in short supply outside our doors and down Whitehall.

Politics is a bit chaotic at the moment, and these kinds of procedural shenanigans do not enhance that, but they serve to prove the point. In the interests of consensus and not delaying the Bill any further by sending it to ping-pong with the Lords, I do not intend to press my amendments, but I hope the point has been made, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth George Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

We have been closely involved in this issue, discussing it both in the EU and with the Swiss. I can tell the House that although on the face of it the withdrawal of equivalence had a very significant effect on the ability of UK shareholders to trade Swiss shares on the Swiss stock exchange, the measures that the European Securities and Markets Authority announced on Friday significantly mitigate the impact. So we very much hope that the European Union and Switzerland will be able to reach agreement, and of course there is a very direct relevance to the UK’s own negotiations with the European Union.

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

Will the Chancellor commit to enabling the 120,000 families on very low incomes who find out about a tax credit overpayment when they claim universal credit to have a fair chance to appeal against those deductions averaging £1,500 being made and to giving them a chance to raise themselves out of poverty?

[Jesse Norman]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the question, and I am happy to refer her to the welfare Secretary on the matter.

Breathing Space Scheme

Ruth George Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I acknowledge the hon. Lady’s deep interest in and work on this topic over several years. She has raised points to which it is difficult for me to respond because they are outwith my responsibilities. As she will know, in the Budget we announced a £1.7 billion package of additional financial support for universal credit. I acknowledge that the hon. Lady disagrees with one element, but that additional support did involve the reduction of the maximum deduction from the standard allowance, from 40% to 30%. I cannot speak for a policy area for which I do not have responsibility. I am delivering a breathing space scheme that covers a wide range of debts and reaches deep into public sector debts, which I was keen for it to do from the outset.

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

As I set out in a recent Westminster Hall debate, the amounts being deducted from universal credit are a significant part of the reasons people fall into problem debt. I agree that a lot of that is down to Department for Work and Pensions policy, but I have seen many examples of people whose tax credit overpayments are being deducted from their universal credit, and of people being told that they have overpayments dating from 2006 or 2011, when they were supposed to have been written off. The average of £1,200 being deducted from people’s universal credit is contributing to their not having enough to get by or to pay their bills. Will the Minister and the Treasury please look into this issue as a matter of urgency and allow people to appeal against such deductions?

[John Glen]

The hon. Lady will know that, as I said in response to the previous question, that is an issue of the administration of benefits and is the responsibility of the DWP. I will certainly make her observations clear to my colleagues in Government. Universal credit over- payments will be included from day one. I will make sure that I fully address the hon. Lady’s points and write to her on the detail.

Financial Exclusion: Access to Cash

Ruth George Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Seema Malhotra]

My hon. Friend’s extremely important point is one I was about to go on to. We have seen this debate previously in relation to post offices, and have then seen post offices become an important part of the strategy for maintaining access to cash—Mastercard and others are also working with them. Research from the Post Office shows that about 44% of small businesses believe that the convenience of cash is essential to their business, and also that they use post offices. Yet, alongside this debate, we see these warnings, and alongside the challenges that the post office network faces, deprived and rural communities will have even poorer access to cash.

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that the change in the post office contracts, particularly in the local and local plus contracts, meaning that post offices get only £12 for handling £1,000 of cash, is driving down the provision of post offices in rural communities and towns in particular?

[Seema Malhotra]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Post offices in my constituency have raised similar concerns.

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[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

This is not a minor issue, particularly in constituencies such as mine with a large rural area and market towns. The LINK Access to Cash Review found that cash is an economic necessity for 25 million people, and that 8 million adults—17%—would struggle to cope in a cashless society. In my constituency, as in others that have been mentioned, banks, post offices and ATMs have closed, making it more difficult not just for ordinary people to go about their everyday lives and make transactions, but for market traders, those wishing to hold community events, and charities—[Interruption.] I hope that we can all recover from that cry for attention from the alarm system.

I was speaking about the problems faced by market traders and charities in holding events, fundraising and bring communities together. Such events rely on cash to make them happen. It is already becoming much harder, with insurance premiums and regulations governing them. That means that people are less and less able to hold such events to bring people together. A lack of cash also means that people in rural areas who need it feel that they have to take out larger sums when they travel to a town. That makes them more vulnerable to crime and to people seeking to prey on them. The Government have to be mindful of that.

Post offices are expected to pick up the pieces of access to cash, as well as the lack of banks. As I mentioned, post office contracts are extremely important. Sub-postmasters across my constituency on all different types of contract tell me that they are struggling, but particularly those on the local and the local plus contract. However, it is not possible to scrutinise those contracts and how the changes have affected the profitability of post offices. I urge the Minister to speak urgently to colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy about that much-needed review.

Convenience stores must not be left to carry the load. As chair of the all-party parliamentary small shops group, that is certainly close to my heart. At the moment, 62% of convenience stores provide ATMs, almost three quarters of which are free to use. Interchange fees have been reduced twice already, resulting in cuts worth more than £1,000, split between the operator and the retailer. In spite of the delay in next year’s cut, ATM operators serving 73% of free-to-use ATMs not hosted by banks are now implementing or considering a decision to switch to pay-to-use machines. They are also penalised by business rates; I call on the Minister to look strongly at the fact that average ATM rates add £4,000 a year to the bills of a small retailer. That seems punitive, certainly for free-to-use ATMs at a time when we need to encourage them.

LINK says that we need

“a clear government policy on cash...market forces alone won’t make any of this happen.”

Besides looking for a joined-up policy on cash in rural areas, towns and hard-to-reach areas, I encourage the Minister to look at the review of the interchange fee and at enabling banking in all areas, reviewing post office contracts and profitability, and exempting free-to-use ATMs from business rates. If he wants some practical methods to look at, I hope that that gives him a start.

[Sir Henry Bellingham (in the Chair)]

Thank you for being so brief. I call Paul Sweeney.

Loan Charge

Ruth George Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

Constituents who have come to me are overwhelmingly people with their own businesses who took out a scheme in order to free up more money to invest in those businesses, to employ people and to make sure that that business had a sustainable future. They do not object to the fact that it has, since 2012, been found that those schemes are wrong, but they do object to the fact that they are being sought for payments from before that time. The advice they are getting from the Inland Revenue on settlement figures is extremely late. One of my constituents was informed on Tuesday 2 April that he needed to make a settlement agreement by that Friday, when he was working abroad and had no access to his accounts. That sort of behaviour is simply unreasonable, and no taxpayer should have to accept it.

The Inland Revenue has stated that it does not expect anybody to have to sell their main residence, yet it is requiring taxpayers to seek to take out a large loan or mortgage on their only or main residence. These people are often in their late 40s or 50s, coming to the end of their working life, so they cannot take out such large loans on their property, and if they do they are in danger of defaulting, in which case they will lose the property anyway. I therefore ask the Minister to look at what the Inland Revenue is requiring by way of loans on main properties. Does he stand by the Inland Revenue’s advice that main properties are not to be put at risk?

I also ask the Minister, and those who are supporting people with the loan charge, to look at the case of professional indemnity insurance for the chartered accountants or tax advisers who often gave this advice, and at whether the scheme promoters were covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, because if it was pensions or any other area of financial services, we would be going straight to professional indemnity and to the Financial Ombudsman Service to seek compensation.

The Minister needs to look at the advice that is being given. The Inland Revenue told the Public Accounts Committee two weeks ago, “Among the disguised remuneration users, there are undoubtedly people who have liabilities for years, where under the normal rules we do not now have assessing rights…we have asked those people to settle voluntarily for those years, which they may choose to do so.” Those figures are not divided out and people are not given the opportunity to pay back the loans to the companies that made them. Will he look at that?

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth George Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

Of course, the rates relief that we have offered over a two-year period to smaller independent retailers will help the high street, but retailers have to use that breathing space to adapt to the changing environment that they face. We cannot freeze the high street in aspic and we must face the reality of the digitisation of our economy. So let us work together to transform our high streets so that they are sustainable for the future.

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

T6. The Chief Secretary said in response to the right hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin), who is no longer in his place, that schools would be funded for the additional costs of the teacher pension scheme, yet the Minister for School Standards wrote to me yesterday saying that he was still in the process of reviewing evidence. Schools have not been informed. They have not been given those costs within their budgets and they are having to decide whether to make redundancies because they do not have the information. Please will the Chief Secretary provide clarification?

[Elizabeth Truss]

As I have said, we have committed ourselves to ensuring that schools will be funded for that purpose.

Tax Avoidance, Evasion and Compliance

Ruth George Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

I echo the words of the Chairs of the Treasury Committee and the Select Committee on Justice. The Minister’s words that the Government will not focus on enforcing historical IR35 cases will stick in the gullet of those, like my constituents, who are sick with anxiety at facing huge bills of over £100,000 relating to the loan charge. These are not affluent people; they are businesspeople who have ploughed everything they have into their business and into employing local people. Does the Minister understand just how stressful this is when they have not even received their settlement amount from the Inland Revenue after the date, at the end of February, by which they were promised it?

[Mel Stride]

It is very important for us to be extremely clear as to what disguised remuneration is all about. It is a situation where I, as an employer, instead of paying an employee in the normal manner, on which basis PAYE would be due—that would be income tax, employee’s national insurance and employer’s national insurance—I say to the employee, “Look, we’ll do it a different way. I’ll send some money out, typically into a trust in a low-tax or no-tax overseas jurisdiction. That money will then come back into the United Kingdom disguised as a loan”—not a real loan, as the hon. Lady and I would recognise, but one where there is no expectation that it will be repaid—“and, as a consequence because it is treated as a loan and not earnings, it attracts no tax at all.” This Government do not believe that is right.