European Union: UK Membership
Scott Arthur Excerpts(1 week, 3 days ago)
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Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Mundell. I congratulate the petitioners on securing this debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) for his eloquent and passionate speech.
I fear that I am in danger of picking at the scars and wounds referred to by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy)—a very learned Member—but I must reflect on these past nine years. On 23 June 2016, the people of Scotland voted to remain within the European Union by 62% to 38%. There was a majority for remain in every single one of Scotland’s local authorities. In anyone’s terms, that was decisive, and if the vote were rerun today, I suggest it would be even more decisive.
It is almost nine years since the disastrous misleading of the electorate by Gove, Johnson, Farage et al., and we might want to consider the extent to which this failure of democracy has increased support for Scottish independence—from 45% to 54% and rising. But still and all, democracy has been undermined in Scotland, because the imposition of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 restricted the previously agreed powers of the Scottish Parliament and ignored the Sewel convention by proceeding with UK legislation without the consent of the Scottish Parliament.
As a result of Brexit, we are a much poorer nation, at a time when we cannot afford to be poorer. That poverty equates to £3 billion in lost public revenues for Scotland each and every year since we left Europe.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
The hon. Member is of course right to talk about the economic impact of Brexit, but would it have been different if the vote had been won on our joining the customs union—a vote that the SNP abstained on?
Seamus Logan
I cannot comment, as I was not here at the time, but we will come back to the issue of the customs union in a moment.
The UK has endured the highest rate of inflation in the G7 for many months. Brexit has exacerbated the cost of living crisis, driving a £250 increase in annual household food bills. Food and drink inflation in 2023 was at a 45-year high, with food prices up by almost 25 percentage points between 2019 and 2023. Analysis suggests that a third of that increase is due to Brexit, meaning UK households have paid out almost £7 billion to cover the extra costs of overcoming trade barriers that make importing food from the EU harder.
No community has escaped, but inevitably it is our poorest families who are hurting the most. Our business community is also enduring increased costs and damaged trade. According to Scottish Government analysis, 44% of businesses in Scotland face difficulties trading overseas, and named Brexit as the main cause. They face significant additional costs and bureaucracy at a time when their margins are already being squeezed at home by decisions made here in Westminster. Our prized seafood industry has been hit with an estimated 50% increase in the cost of packaging items sent to the EU, and new export health certificates are costing the salmon sector alone approximately £1.3 million per year.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under you today, Chair—I notice that you have got younger just in the last few minutes. [Laughter.] I hope it is orderly to flatter the Chair.
Dr Arthur
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) for opening the debate so ably, and the many people in Edinburgh South West who signed this petition. I will speak briefly because what I was going to talk about has been well trod. Brexit has been an absolute tragedy for the UK, both economically and culturally. The Conservatives have taken a share of the blame today, along with Reform and its predecessor parties, but I have to be honest and say that when I think about how close the Brexit result was, I think about my party’s leadership at that time. More could have been done, so some blame should certainly be shared there.
I came to this place last July from higher education, so I want to speak about the impact of Brexit on that sector. I do so in the context of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I should also mention that Patrick Thomson from the University of Strathclyde is shadowing me today—which so far has largely involved drinking coffee when I drink coffee. In higher education, Brexit has been problematic. Fewer students now come from the EU to Scottish universities. That is primarily not a money issue; it is about the diversity of thought within the classroom. It is a real problem and it leaves us all poorer. It is harder for universities to attract staff from the EU now. If we are serious about growing the economy, we need the best staff from around the world in our universities, and we should not be ashamed of that. I remember when we were going through the Brexit process, EU nationals were leaving universities and going back to Europe. That is a tragedy, and we should be ashamed of it.
Research funding from within the EU has got harder. I know it has improved slightly recently, but during the process it was difficult to build consortiums with a UK lead, and some partners were even worried about having UK universities within their consortiums, so we should not overlook the impact of that. Those problems only amplify the wider economic problems that Brexit has imposed on our economy, and they are felt more inside our university sector. I am pleased that the current Government are trying to rebuild relationships and get as close as possible with Europe. If we are doing that work and looking for trailblazers, that should be done within our universities, because there is much more that can be done to rebuild those relationships.
I support this petition on rejoining the EU as soon as possible, but what does “as soon as possible” mean? My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) explained that it could take many years of harmonisation, which is a real challenge for us; however, the bigger challenge is the division and acrimony that comes with referendums, because we would need a referendum to go back in. I have lived through the Scottish independence referendum and the Brexit referendum, both of which divided our communities and were toxic in many respects. They divided families, workplaces and even households, which is incredible. We have to start building the case right now if we are to avoid that situation happening again, and we must make the positive arguments for rejoining the EU. We should start making them from within universities, because that is where international collaboration works best.
I also think that people were not wrong to vote for Brexit, but they were misled, so we have to be honest with them about that. We must explain why things have not unfolded as they were promised by people not in this room today, who should be owning up to the tragedy that they created. We have to be honest, frank and transparent with people, and we have to lead this debate. Hopefully, after the next election, we can build up to that referendum to rejoin.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John.
I have listened very carefully to all the speeches today. Some were fine; some were perhaps not so fine. And I have to say that I am not entirely sure where we are. I do not know what to make of this debate. I am really confused, and I hope the winding-up speeches will help me to get a better understanding of where the House is.
I say that because I heard Labour say throughout last year’s general election campaign that the only important thing are the red lines. It was all about not joining the single market or the customs union, and that was about it. As the months passed, we started to hear about this reset, and I thought, “Okay, let’s examine this. What does it mean? What are we going to get from this reset?” We have found that it is not very much. For this Government, a “reset” is the EU doing this Government some sort of favour to mitigate some of the impacts of Brexit without the Government giving anything back in return.
People have raised the issues of touring musicians and the youth mobility scheme, with both of which I am particularly associated. I do not know if I have mentioned it before, but I was a rock musician back in the day and toured Europe extensively. These two issues are related, because a negotiation started to happen within the EU. There was a sense that, in return for offering a youth mobility scheme to Europe, we would secure the rights for our artists to tour freely within the European Union once again, and that some sort of creative passport and visa would be given to our bands so they could once again have the pleasure of playing within the European Union. However, that was rejected out of hand. The Government were not interested, and these are their last words when it comes to a youth mobility scheme:
“We do not have plans for a youth mobility agreement.”
I say to Labour Members and colleagues in the Chamber today that I am encouraged by their enthusiasm for the European Union. I take heart from the fact they are starting to talk again about the single market and the customs union. And I say sincerely to them, “Go for it! Please, go for it! You’re our only hope.”
Pete Wishart
I cannot believe we are still debating that. What happened that day, and this is my final word on the issue—the hon. Gentleman was not there, but I was—is that the vote was on a customs union, not the customs union. That proposition was unacceptable to us and other colleagues across the House.
Now I have dealt with that myth, and now it is out of the way, let us get back to the beginning. That was a disappointing intervention, because I am actually praising Labour Members. I am saying that there is hope at last for those of us who want to return to the European Union, and that is great.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I congratulate Robert McMaster on creating this petition and I thank the 330 residents of my constituency who signed it—putting us in the top 5% in the country.
Five years ago, I gave my final speech in the European Parliament as leader of the Liberal Democrat group of MEPs. In that speech, I described Brexit as “a backward step” and as
“a vanity project that has no basis in reality.”
The fact that none of the four current Reform Members or any Conservatives—apart from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden), who is bravely sitting on his own—is here in the Chamber to defend Brexit speaks volumes.
Leaving the European Union was a significant moment. We left a union of nations that was established to promote peace on our continent, that had seen the dismantling of barriers between nations, and that had enabled trade and cultural ties to flourish. In terms of international co-operation, what the European Union has achieved is second to none in the world. I still believe that we are stronger together and that, as a small island nation, we played a much bigger part on the international stage as one of the key members of that union.
Nobody wants to revisit the division and toxicity of the Brexit debate, which dominated our national discourse for years. I understand the hesitation of the Government even to go there, but we must not forget that that debate was fuelled by misinformation and outright lies about what leaving the European Union would mean for the UK. Ultimately, it was a playground rivalry between two of our now former Prime Ministers that played out on the national stage, with one side never really believing that they would win and the other not preparing the ground for what would be a seismic shift in the way we do business and trade with our nearest neighbours.
I still believe that leaving the EU was one of the worst decisions that this country has made, and it is what brought me into politics. Having sat in this Parliament as a Member for almost exactly the same amount of time as I sat in the European Parliament, I can honestly say that the democratic deficit is not in Brussels. As an Opposition MP in this place, I believe I have less influence over decisions that will affect the people and the economy of my constituency than I did as a Member of the European Parliament. A Government elected by just one in three voters in this country have secured the biggest majority—aside from 1997—since the second world war, and yet they have chosen to set themselves red lines around our relationship with the European Union that continue to thwart growth, hamper economic development and curtail the opportunities of our young people, all of which are unnecessary and deeply damaging to the standing and prosperity of the UK.
There is a fundamental misunderstanding—possibly, a wilful ignorance—by those in Government as to what the British public really want now. I will use the example of Brixham in my constituency. Brixham is one of the major fishing ports in the UK, a place where the community believed the lies that they were told about what Brexit would mean for the fishing industry. When campaigning in Brixham over the past couple of years, I lost count of the number of people who told me that they had been lied to and who felt cheated by Brexit. People who would never have wanted to elect a Liberal Democrat wore the yellow T-shirt with the “Stop Brexit” slogan back in 2019, and they went out to vote for me last year, because they are so angry at what they see as a betrayal of their trust.
Caroline Voaden
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. People vote Lib Dem for lots of reasons—but maybe they do not think that we will betray them in the same way that the Conservatives did.
Only last week, with many colleagues, I returned to the European Parliament as part of the Parliamentary Partnership Assembly. While there, I heard the Minister for the Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), refer to research by Aston University that showed that exports to the European Union have fallen by 27% since Brexit. For a Government who want growth, that figure alone should be enough to change their attitude.
That figure is no surprise, however, to anyone who talks to some of the businesses in my constituency. One shellfish exporter tells me that they have to have 17 pieces of paper signed by a vet for every consignment of mussels they export to the EU, making it impossible to trade efficiently with their biggest customer and hampering growth in their business. A small household product retailer has had to end trade with all EU customers because of the new GPSR—general product safety regulation. Delicatessens struggle to cope with the red tape involved in importing smaller shipments of wine and food for the UK, which is the kind of regulations that only big suppliers are able to manage—I am sure that is repeated right across the country. A precision engineering company’s exports have also been badly affected by Brexit red tape—on and on it goes.
Apart from the impact on trade, the opportunities for our young people are being severely curtailed by Brexit. I will not revisit all the arguments that several Members have put forward in this debate, except to say that it is a tragedy that our children and grandchildren will not have the chances that we had—that so many of us had—to go to Europe to develop skills, including cultural understanding and language skills, and to bring all that experience back to the UK. It is high time that the Government agreed a youth mobility scheme with the EU. Last week, I welcomed the PPA agreement that said that the Government understood the need to establish a youth opportunity scheme, including apprenticeships. We all understand the need; let us hope that the Government will go further than that and address it.
Our country has been impoverished by Brexit in so many ways—economically, culturally and politically. I am sure that I am not the only one to be absolutely demoralised by the millions of hours of negotiations that took us out of the European Union, and now, potentially, the millions more that will go into negotiating the piecemeal, bit-by-bit replacements for all the benefits that we lost.
Oral Answers to Questions
Scott Arthur Excerpts(4 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Ian Murray
Indeed. The First Minister is all over the place on defence. He has suggested that we should increase the of 2.5% of GDP by scrapping Trident, but that is already included in the 2.5%, so it would make no difference whatsoever. The SNP are not credible at all when it comes to defence in Scotland, and I urge every member of every party in the House to get behind the Prime Minister in our national interest.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Kirsty McNeill)
The Employment Rights Bill represents the biggest upgrade of workers’ rights in a generation, banning zero-hours contracts, ending unscrupulous fire and rehire practices, providing day one protections for paternity leave and against unfair dismissal, and improving access to statutory sick pay. With International Women’s Day fast approaching, we should remember that it is working women who will benefit disproportionately from this groundbreaking legislation. That is what change looks like, and that is the difference that a Labour Government make.
Dr Arthur
Residents throughout my constituency welcome the improvements in workers’ rights, but parents are greatly concerned about the impact of the growing gap in attainment in Scottish schools between the richest and the poorest, and what it means for their children’s ability to find their first jobs. This week I have been inundated with comments from parents who are worried about the recent Audit Scotland report on support for children with additional needs; it is a disgraceful report. Can the Minister assure me that she will use whatever influence she has to ensure that the Scottish Government make education a priority?
Kirsty McNeill
My hon. Friend is right to raise the concerns of parents who are worried about how their kids will get good jobs. The SNP has said that a zero- hours contract is “a positive destination” for a school leaver, but this Labour Government will ban such exploitative contracts. Labour’s Budget delivered an extra £4.9 billion for Scottish public services, but after 18 years the SNP still does not see Scottish kids as a priority. It should stand aside, and give Scotland the chance of the new direction that it deserves.
Covid-19 Inquiry
Scott Arthur Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Pat McFadden
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his service to the public during the pandemic, and anybody who worked or volunteered in the NHS or in other ways for what they did. Of course, MPs and the Government must have access to the best information they can, but I remind him of something else I said in my opening statement. In the end, the accountability for policy and resource allocation decisions lies with the Government of the day. I do not say that in a partisan way. It is important to establish it as an understanding of how we deal with these things in future.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
I pass the national covid memorial wall every day on my way to this place. It and the inquiry are a reminder of what happens when Governments get things wrong. I absolutely welcome the announcement of a national pandemic response exercise later this year, but the inquiry found that a similar exercise took place in Scotland under the control of the Scottish Government before the pandemic, and that they failed to implement its conclusions. First, can the Minister reassure us that any outcomes from such an exercise will be reported to this House and that we will have oversight of the implementation of any recommendations? Secondly, I know it is outside the remit of the Minister’s statement, but can he give us an update on the recovery of any money lost through dodgy contracts to the mates of the previous Government?
Pat McFadden
Let me repeat the praise I gave to the volunteers who maintain the national covid memorial wall. Hon. Members may not be aware of it when they look at the red hearts, but over time they fade—they fade to pink. The reason they are kept red is that there is a group of volunteers down there overpainting the hearts to make sure that the wall does not fade away and that the memory of the names recorded does not fade away. The conclusions of the national pandemic exercise will be reported. Predictions are a dangerous game, but let me make one: there will be things that go wrong. Shortfalls will be exposed and not everything will go right, but that is part of the purpose of doing an exercise like this. I am happy to assure him in terms of learning from it and the conclusions.
Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government
Scott Arthur Excerpts(3 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Pat McFadden
The goals in this document can make a real difference to rural communities. We know that many people in rural communities are worried about rural crime, so more neighbourhood policing can help them. We also know that many young people in rural communities are wondering how they will ever have a home of their own. That is why we support more house building, as well as shorter hospital waiting lists and neighbourhood policing teams, as set out in the document.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
I am the last Member to be called, but I will try not to take too long. I welcome the scale of the ambition in the Secretary of State’s statement, but I challenge what he said about there being only one millstone in the UK. My residents in Edinburgh South West increasingly feel held back by our incoherent Scottish Government. Yesterday was a fine example of that. In the Scottish Parliament, the SNP Government set their Budget—one largely funded by the hard work of Scottish Labour MPs in this place, who secured the biggest ever settlement for Scotland. Meanwhile, SNP MPs in this place voted against our money-raising measures. They want to eat their cake and have it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. Supplementary questions should be short and not a speech. Perhaps the hon. Member would like to come to the conclusion of his question.
Dr Arthur
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is always good to be guided by you. The Secretary of State set out how living standards will increase right across the UK, and Scotland is part of that. How will he work with the Scottish Government and the incoherent SNP Government to do that?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that the recent devolution financial settlements were the biggest in real terms since devolution was introduced, as a consequence of the announcements made by the Labour Chancellor at the Budget. That provided the funding, and it is completely incoherent to welcome that funding—in fact, to run around saying that it will be spent on this and that—but then to vote against the revenue measures that contribute to it. If we want increased investment and boosted services, we must support the revenue-raising measures that make that possible; and then we have to combine investment with the reform necessary to deliver. That is the next step.
Income tax (charge)
Scott Arthur Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
It has been a real privilege to share the debate with so maiden speeches this afternoon—something I did not expect. My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis) is not in her place just now, but I am sure her father would have been proud of her, as will her husband. I have a fantastic charity in my constituency called Dads Rock, which supports dads and gives them confidence. It sounds like her husband is a dad who rocks.
It has been remarkable that Margaret Thatcher has been invoked quite a few times. It is quite unusual for her name to be mentioned so many times in my presence. I grew up in Fife during the 1980s, and I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes and Mid Fife (Richard Baker) would agree that the impact that she had there is still felt today. People still feel the impact of the rapid deindustrialisation of proud communities. I am sure that my hon. Friend has casework still about the impact of that.
It was emotional yesterday to hear the Chancellor deliver her fantastic speech. I am still a little hoarse today from all the emotion. This is the Budget our country needs, and the IMF agrees, which is incredible. It was great news for Labour MPs to wake up to this morning—I expect colleagues from other parties were less happy. The chances of my being elected were always slim, but I promised those I met on the campaign trail that Labour would get our country back on track. Yesterday’s Budget is proof that we are serious about that. We have spent the weeks since the election clearing up the mess which was left by others, but the Budget sets down the foundation for what we want to do next. It is transformative Budget. I cannot believe we are achieving so much in our first Budget, but it is only the start of a real change for our country.
The Budget will work for both the working people who call Edinburgh South West home, but also the young and retired people who deserve well-funded public services. The measures that we set out yesterday are a re-set, establishing the tone for the remainder of this Parliament and for the coming decade, not just five years. Gone are the irresponsible commitments, without plans to follow through, that we have been dealing with since the election. It feels like the grown-ups are now running the country.
We have a Budget that provides the stability to encourage growth and investment in our nation’s infrastructure and our public services. After reading through the details of the Budget, it was clear that when my colleague Anas Sarwar said,
“Read my lips: no austerity under Labour”
he meant it. The Chancellor has delivered. The Budget will deliver for the people of Scotland, with a record-breaking £47.7 billion for the Scottish Government’s budget in 2025-26. That has the potential to be entirely life changing not just for my constituents, but for people right across Scotland. The Chancellor yesterday proved that when Labour wins, Scotland wins, with the measures announced resulting in more investment per head of population in Scotland than in the rest of the UK.
The Scotland Office is now equipped with a budget for trade missions around the world, selling brand Scotland and bringing in new investment and custom to countless Scottish businesses. Some 200,000 of the lowest-paid Scots will also feel the benefit in their payslips. We will close the age banding on the living wage, which has always been unacceptable. The Budget has protected working Scots and has laid the foundations for a new era of investment and growth in Scotland, raising money from those with the broadest shoulders.
With all that in mind, I find it rather embarrassing that SNP Members talk with a straight face about this being an austerity Budget. It is almost as if they wrote their speech before they heard the Budget. It is quite curious. I can only guess—as others have commented, none of them are here today—that they are busy rewriting their lines and thinking about how they are going to respond. But I think a lot of people in Scotland will find it unacceptable that no SNP Members are here today to engage in this debate.
Is it not time, when the UK Labour Government have given the Scottish Government their largest ever funding settlement, that the SNP begins to take responsibility for its own mismanagement of Scotland’s finances? In government, the SNP has wasted millions on pet projects rather than the services on which so many Scots rely. We have had ferries with painted windows. As I speak, a hospital in Edinburgh is being closed as an emergency action because of a lack of maintenance. This is not a small hospital. The Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion caters for 1,400 out-patients per week and it has been closed almost overnight. It is a planned process, but one that has been forced. It is absolutely incredible and shameful.
In parallel with that, local authorities have been starved of cash and our towns and cities have found their public services decimated. On Tuesday, I met third sector groups in my constituency who were preparing to make staff redundant due the pressures of SNP cuts to social care. At 10 past 12 yesterday, just as the Chancellor was getting ready to speak, I received a WhatsApp message from a GP serving one of the most deprived parts of my constituency. She described the cuts to social care services in Edinburgh as catastrophic and devastating. At quarter past 11 last night, I received an email from a GP making exactly the same points. The SNP will blame Westminster or howl austerity, but in reality that is mince—that is a Scottish phrase, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Scottish Government’s own decisions are to blame for “much of the pressure” facing Scotland’s finances. That is not just my view, but the considered view of the official economic forecaster in Scotland.
The Budget presents the Scottish Government with a choice. They can use the record funding to own the problems that they created and get our public services back on track, including the social care services I talked about. The only alternative to that is handing over power to Anas Sarwar in Scotland, because more guddle cannot be an option but I fear that that is what we are going to get. If the SNP is not up for that challenge, Scottish Labour is ready to step in. My constituents know more than most the impact of the SNP’s cuts and mismanagement, because Edinburgh—Scotland’s capital—has the worst-funded local authority in Scotland. With this additional funding, it is high time that the Scottish Government do the right thing and stop starving our council of the resources it needs. Councillor Cammy Day, Edinburgh’s council leader, made that demand yesterday. Let us hope that the funding will be a lifeline to social care providers.
In 2026, Scottish voters will have the opportunity to elect a Scottish Labour Government that will work hand in hand with this UK Labour Government to continue to deliver for the people of Scotland. However, until then, we Scottish Labour MPs, and our colleagues at Holyrood and in council chambers, will hold the Scottish Government to account for how they choose to spend the additional funding. After all, I think we can all agree that the Scottish Government have not just needed more cash; they have needed to get better at spending it.
We saw yesterday what a Labour Chancellor can do to turn around the lives of working people, even in the face of a shocking legacy handed to us by the Conservatives. This Government have given the Scottish Government all the financial tools they need to succeed. Just imagine how truly transformative it would be if we had a Scottish Labour Finance Secretary working in partnership with a Labour Chancellor here in London. That is our goal.
Oral Answers to Questions
Scott Arthur Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Georgia Gould
This Government are determined to support growth in this country, as one of their driving missions. Work is going on across Government to support economic growth and investment and to ensure that high streets thrive again.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
Jo Platt (Leigh and Atherton) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Georgia Gould)
We will end the waste, inefficiency and cronyism that set in under the previous Government. Under this Government, procurement will deliver value for money, better public services and our national missions. As a first step, we are bringing forward a new national procurement policy statement under the Procurement Act 2023, which will deliver a mission-led procurement regime. It will drive value for money, economic growth and social value. We have also taken steps to cut down on wasteful consultancy spending, and have worked to set up a new covid counter-fraud commissioner. As set out in our plan to make work pay, we will also take further reforms set out in our manifesto.
Dr Arthur
I thank the Minister for mentioning cronyism in her answer. The biggest procurement scandal I have seen in my lifetime was under the last Conservative Government, when Ministers gave dodgy contracts to their mates and donors. They took our country’s reputation for honesty and integrity and trashed it. Residents in my constituency are not only angry but disgusted and ashamed. Will the Minister update the House on the steps the Government are taking to ensure that there will never be a repeat of this episode?
Georgia Gould
My hon. Friend can see just how keen I am to act on this issue. He is right that taxpayers are paying the price for the Conservative Government allowing waste and fraud to spiral out of control. The Chancellor of the Exchequer recently took decisive action by appointing a new covid counter-fraud commissioner to help us recover public money and ensure that this never happens again. I am working closely with the Public Sector Fraud Authority to push every avenue to detect fraud, from advanced artificial intelligence and analytics through to strengthening our enforcement powers.