Sri Lanka

Debate between Stephen Timms and Catherine West

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I am aware that there is one more debate to fit in before the Adjournment, so I will be relatively brief. The hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) covered a lot of ground, as have the other excellent speakers.

I congratulate the Members who secured this very good debate. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) made a comprehensive introductory speech. I emphasise the long-standing campaigning role of my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on this issue. She has always been a champion for her Tamil constituents.

My hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) talked about increased militarisation and the disproport-ionate public spending on arms, with less money being spent on food and basics, which is clearly what the Sri Lankan people need right now. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) reminded the House of the worrying levels of corruption throughout the Rajapaksa years, and my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (James Murray) talked about the arbitrary detention of civilians during the disruptive events of the last few months.

It is not long since we had a very good urgent question on this subject, but I would like some updates from the Minister. Most importantly, I reiterate our friendship with the Sri Lankan people and our commitment to the basics so that they can keep going in a very tough economic climate for them. The UK has played its role in developing a good package with the IMF—£2.9 billion is the figure in the Library briefing paper—but, as well as the economic picture, we have concerns about the human rights abuses during the 2009 civil war.

We have often had Tamil delegations at our constituency events. In Hornsey and Wood Green, Tamils have come to see me because they are worried about disappeared relatives and about the tragic events that the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington so intimately described.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

On those tragic events, the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) mentioned the case of Shavendra Silva. Does my hon. Friend agree that our Government should be using the powers they now have to sanction people overseas? Shavendra Silva has been sanctioned by the US. Should we not be doing the same?

[Catherine West]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point, and I would like to hear the Minister’s assessment now that the UK has left the EU and has more flexibility on sanctions. Could this individual be the subject of powerful Magnitsky-style sanctions?

May I also ask the Minister what recent engagement he or colleagues within the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office have had with the Government of Sri Lanka, including on the economic situation, so that the crisis can be concluded and Sri Lanka can get back to being a tourist destination? It relies on that so heavily for its economy. Have the British Government proposed conditionality on the International Monetary Fund funding, so that we can reflect back what this House’s concerns are within that discussion about finance? What steps have the Government taken to support measures to bring to justice those accused of human rights abuses?

We have had an excellent airing of the debate this afternoon—in the past six months, we have also had urgent questions on Sri Lanka—and we await the Minister’s assessment on those key points. May I press him to convene with the Minister in the other House, Lord Ahmad, whom I understand is intimately aware of all these issues, to press the points about the economy? It is mentioned in the motion and I note the Government are accepting the motion as it stands. Will the Minister also press the point about the important human rights issues, which Tamil constituents have brought to our surgeries and on which we want to hear answers? Will he put anything else in the way of detail in the House of Commons Library, so that we can send it on to our constituents and they can be assured that we have had a full debate about the human rights picture and the desperate economic situation facing the people of Sri Lanka?

Financial and Social Emergency Support Package

Debate between Stephen Timms and Catherine West

Wednesday 25th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I very much agree about the need for more support for charitable organisations. I spoke yesterday to the chief executive of the Trussell Trust, who told me that of its 1,250 food banks, two have closed so far. One of them is reopening and some other arrangement is being put in place for the other one instead. It is a remarkable tribute to exactly the people that my hon. Friend refers to, who are running those food banks, that despite the potential risks to them, they are carrying on. The whole House will be grateful to them for their extraordinary effort.

[Catherine West]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. One of the constituency inquiries coming into inboxes at the moment is about the availability of certain food products to elderly people. Even those who do not need to go to a food bank but who are trying to get food from supermarkets find that the things that they want are not being fulfilled on their lists. Therefore, that is creating a situation of food insecurity, whether people have the money or are on universal credit. In general, the food supply is a really tricky situation, which the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs could look into.

[Stephen Timms]

That is one of quite a number of anxieties that are around at present.

What should happen with universal credit is that the advances that are payable to people up front—about a quarter of those who have been applying over the last few days have applied for an advance—should be converted to grants for the duration of the current crisis. We were told this morning that it is very difficult to change the IT so that the advances are not automatically clawed back from subsequent payments, but I really cannot believe, even with this extraordinary IT system that appears to be in place, that that is beyond the wit of those who are running it to manage. It is a very simple thing: just do not claw back the advances from subsequent payments, because otherwise, people will ask how the Government can treat self-employed people so badly by comparison with the package for employees.

I also think that the current savings limit for eligibility for universal credit needs to be lifted, if it is going to do the job of supporting self-employed people. At the moment, if someone has more than £16,000 in savings, they get nothing at all from universal credit. If someone has more than £6,000 in savings, the amount that they get in universal credit starts to be reduced. If we are going to support adequately self-employed people over the next few months, that needs to change.

I hope as well that during this crisis, there will be a long and careful look at the rules around sanctions for universal credit. People will not be required to go into jobcentres for the time being, which is welcome—I am glad that that has been announced—but I hope the opportunity is taken to ensure that sanctions are not applied, because people will not be required to look for work in the normal way. As for the handling of deductions for past debts—tax credit overpayments and that kind of thing—I hope that there will be some easements in the application of terms.

I very much welcome the increase in the local housing allowance, which is back up to the 30th percentile. I hope that it will stay at that level so that it can adequately support rent in the future. However, there is a problem in London of the interaction between that new higher level of the local housing allowance and the separate housing support cap, which means that many renters in London will not be able to benefit from the increase in the local housing allowance. I hope that the cap will be addressed. I was disappointed this morning to hear that there will not be any change in the overall benefit cap level, and I think that that may well need to be looked at again as things develop over the next few months.

My final point has been referred to already a number of times in this debate. There is a large group of people in my constituency, and in many others, who are hard-working, law abiding, and permitted to work in the UK, but they do not have indefinite leave to remain and they do not have recourse to public funds. That means that if they have to stop working because they have to self-isolate, or because their business has collapsed, they will get no help at all as things stand. We do need people in that position to be able to support themselves, because, otherwise, they will have no alternative but to carry on working at risk to themselves and to wider public health. I want to end with a plea that the Government should, at least temporarily, lift the restriction of no recourse to public funds to those who have leave to remain but not yet indefinite leave to remain.

Foreign Aid Expenditure

Debate between Stephen Timms and Catherine West

Monday 13th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. During those campaigns, I remember that a Treasury Minister turned up to work one morning to find the Treasury surrounded by campaigners, arm in arm all the way around the building. They inundated the Treasury with postcards with £1 coins sellotaped to the back of them, one of which we worked out had been sent in by Gordon Brown’s mother. The organisers of the two campaigns—Jubilee 2000 and Make Poverty History—estimated that about 80% of the people who supported the campaigns and did those things were from the Churches. That is the reason for this cross-party consensus. It is a remarkable example. People sometimes say that the Churches never achieve much anymore; in this instance, the Churches achieved a huge amount, and it is important to recognise the source and strength of the existing consensus.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that in the same way as Make Poverty History was a huge issue then, climate change is a huge issue now? Value-for-money programmes in Bangladesh, such as those to do with flooding, have an enormous impact. They can prevent not only flooding, but famine, helping with unwanted migration and so on—issues we need to look at. Even terrorism can be linked to the failure to address climate change.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Stephen Timms and Catherine West

Thursday 17th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) and I agree with some of the points she made in the early part of her speech. Like her, I want to comment on the education measures in the Budget.

In 2001-02 I was the Schools Minister responsible for the introduction of the Teach First programme. That was a successful response to the teacher recruitment crisis at that time, and it has continued to do a great job until the present day. We now need that kind of innovation and imagination from current Ministers, to respond to the teacher recruitment problems that we have at the moment. There was nothing in the Budget about teacher recruitment or retention, but those problems are building and we need an initiative on that front.

Along with London Challenge, Teach First was a key element in the dramatic improvement in the performance of London schools since 1997, and it is important that the new national schools funding formula does not put that improvement at risk. As has been mentioned, the Chancellor said yesterday that he was providing an additional half a billion pounds to speed up the implementation of the school funding formula so that it will apply to 90% of schools by 2020. Will that extra money be used—as I hope it will be—to ensure that the formula is implemented by levelling up the finances of underfunded schools, not by taking funding away from schools that are adequately funded at the moment? I hope that that is what the half a billion pounds is for, and I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed that at the end of the debate.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that some boroughs, particularly in London, are affected by as much as 10% by some of these worrying proposals?

[Stephen Timms]

There is a lot of worry about the proposals, and I hope that the Government will assure us that there will be no real-term cuts in the funding of individual schools. Half a billion pounds could go a long way to achieving that, and it would be helpful if the Minister could give us that assurance.

As we have heard, the Red Book contains a chapter called the “Devolution Revolution”, but the Budget ends local authority influence over education, which always used to be devolved. The hon. Member for Taunton Deane said that it was wonderful that we will have one system for education in the future, but I thought the Government were in favour of devolution, and the Red Book claims that they are. It is a big contradiction to proclaim devolution on the one hand, at the same time as ending local influence over education.

I am particularly sceptical about the benefits of turning every primary school into an academy, because I have seen no evidence that doing that will be a good thing. The Minister and the Secretary of State will know of local educational authorities—other Members have spoken of them in the debate—that do a very good job in supporting the local network of primary schools, enabling schools that are struggling to be supported, for example by a gifted head from another school nearby. I therefore want to put this question to the Minister and ask him to respond on behalf of the Secretary of State: what is the case for simply dismantling and smashing up all the successful arrangements of that kind?

The Church of England referred in its response to

“the particular challenges that many smaller primary schools will face as they seek to develop such partnerships”.

The Sutton Trust was quoted by the Secretary of State and by me in an intervention. It rightly makes the point in its impressive research that good

“academy chains are having a transformational impact on pupils’ life chances”,

which is a very good thing, but it also says that

“others have seriously underperformed and have expanded too rapidly.”

That is why I pressed the Secretary of State specifically on whether the mass process of turning every primary school and every remaining secondary maintained school into an academy will be done by adding those schools on to existing chains, too many of which are underperforming. Only about a third are doing well, according to the Sutton Trust. The chains that are doing badly are doing badly because they have expanded too quickly. The process could make that far worse by forcing hundreds of additional schools into those same underperforming chains. I therefore press the Minister again. I did not get the assurance I was seeking from the Secretary of State that the process would not be done by adding new schools on to underperforming chains. I hope he can give us that reassurance in his response.

Local authority support for families of primary schools is successful. Do the Government envisage those simply being rebadged as multi-academy trusts? Perhaps that is one way out of the problem. Destroying those arrangements is potentially very damaging.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Stephen Timms and Catherine West

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

Child poverty fell dramatically under the previous Government; now it has plateaued. I fear that because of measures announced in the Budget, it is going to rocket, and we are determined to stop that happening if we can.

Another reform in the Bill that we support in principle is the provision to turn support for mortgage interest into a repayable loan. That is a sensible step, in principle, given that the benefit enables homeowners to retain an asset and potentially gain substantially from rising house prices. However, it must not make affordability problems worse for people struggling to stay in their homes. Repayments must not tip people into repossession and homelessness. The Secretary of State did not tell us what arrangements are proposed for repaying these loans. We will argue that those who access that support should be able to defer repayment until they sell the property without pressure from the Government to do so. The Budget announced an increase in the waiting period for support for mortgage interest from 13 weeks to 39 weeks. That is too long. As it is a loan scheme, why make people wait, particularly as that could force them into the hands of loan sharks? With support for mortgage interest becoming, in effect, a form of low-risk consumer credit, it should be readily available without nine months of delay to those struggling to make repayments.

We welcome the plans to reduce social rents, which will save 1.2 million households £700 a year, but we have grave concerns about the impact on housing associations and local authorities. They will face a huge reduction in rent revenue, drastically undermining their capacity to borrow and to build. The Office for Budget Responsibility says that many fewer homes will be built; the National Housing Federation puts the figure at 27,000. We will table amendments to address that.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that up to billions of pounds will go missing from local authorities? If we lifted the cap, they could build more homes and thereby help address the terrible housing crisis, particularly in London and the south-east?

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Affordable home building is already at a historic low, and the Government need to stop making things worse. We will table an amendment requiring the Secretary of State to produce a plan to make up the shortfall in house building funds that will result from this change.