Affordable and Safe Housing for All

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

We see each other again, Madam Deputy Speaker.

There cannot be a more positive note on which to start my remarks than to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Anum Qaisar-Javed) to her place in the Chamber. She fought a hard campaign and I know she will make her mark in the House on behalf of her constituents.

In trying to stay positive for as long as possible on the issue of the Gracious Speech, let me first acknowledge the work the Government are doing to prepare for COP26, which comes to the city of Glasgow later this year. There is a good positive working relationship between the Governments and the authorities in the city to get the event ready as we welcome the world to the finest city on these islands. All of us want to see it succeed, because the challenge we face is the biggest of our time.

That, I am afraid, is where the consensus ends. The speech, gracious though it was in its delivery, is deeply egregious in its content—not just what is in it, but what is not in it. Let me start with the Government’s proposals to require voters to have some form of photographic identification to vote, chasing a phantom fraud that all of us, including Government Members, know does not exist. A levelling-up agenda that seeks to disenfranchise people who will probably not vote for the governing party is a fraud in and of itself, and should be fought tooth and nail by every Member of this House. Indeed, Conservative Members will note that the right hon. Ruth Davidson, who will be joining the other place, has also called out the Government’s proposals for what they are.

Let me deal with two issues that are not directly related to housing, but which, if the Government do not get them right, will result in their housing policy lying in pieces: work and good, sustainable work. Members will know that I brought forward a Bill in the 2017-19 Parliament to outlaw unpaid work trials. Unfortunately, it was talked out by the Government, but the practice still continues. People are still being abused by loopholes and the Government’s action to clamp down on them has so far been so weak that it has all the performative muscle of a new-born kitten. That is why we are seeing young people in particular being exploited in the way that they are, and it is costing the Treasury up to £3 billion each and every single year. How can Conservative Members of Parliament not see that it is in our collective interests to clamp down on that kind of egregious practice? If people are not getting paid for work, they ain’t paying their mortgage or their rent.

That leads me to a case I want to quickly draw to the attention of the Minister—I know it is not his portfolio, but I know him to be a versatile type—relating to workers in Glasgow who work for Blue Dog and AdLib. Next month marks a year from when they still have not received any full furlough payments from their employer. HMRC confirmed to me recently that those furlough payments have been paid out, but they are still not in the bank accounts of staff members. They are people whose rent, mortgages and bills have not been getting paid. My appeal to the Minister—the Paymaster General, the right hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) is aware of the case—is to please take up this case and come back to me in some form in future.

We will have many fights over the course of the Government’s programme in the days to come.