Oral Answers to Questions
Tulip Siddiq Excerpts(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
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John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Highgate) (Lab)
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
Seema Malhotra
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and I completely agree with him. Indeed, I also attended a wonderful interfaith iftar in Hounslow on Friday. Islamophobia is completely abhorrent and has no place in our society. No one should ever be the victim of hatred because of their religion or belief. The Government have established a new working group to provide the Government with a definition of anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia, and advise the Government and other bodies on how best to understand, quantify and define prejudice, discrimination and hate crime targeted against Muslims.
Tulip Siddiq
I thank the Minister for her commitment to mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting. However, I was disappointed to learn that the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority are rowing back on their proposals to boost diversity in financial services. I feel that risks pushing away the very best talent from the sector. Only 4% of financial services firms disclose their ethnicity pay gap. The announcement will only slow the pace of change that is needed to tackle inequalities. Does the Minister agree that initiatives that aim to reduce the ethnicity pay gap are not anti-growth, but pro-talent and pro-growth?
Seema Malhotra
Fair and equal treatment at work is a right, not a privilege. Companies like Deloitte, which I visited recently, are reporting voluntarily on their ethnicity pay gaps, and I have attended roundtables chaired by organisations such as Change the Race Ratio and ShareAction, which promote the benefits of ethnicity pay gap reporting. There has been progress; last week, the Parker review showed that there is an increasing number of ethnic minority board members in our FTSE companies. I agree with my hon. Friend that pay gap reporting can help employers to identify and remove barriers to progression for their workforces, and unleash talent from all our communities, thereby supporting economic growth, and I thank her for her work on this.
Oral Answers to Questions
Tulip Siddiq Excerpts(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
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The Prime Minister
Everyone should be equal before the law, and that is why the Lord Chancellor has taken up the issue with the Sentencing Council, but the hon. Gentleman needs to do his homework. The proposal that he complains about was drafted in 2024, and the last Government were consulted. When they were consulted, what did they say? They said they welcomed the proposal. I understand that the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), is taking the Sentencing Council to court. Perhaps he should add himself as a second defendant, so that he can get to the bottom of all this.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Highgate) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for raising the subject of those deeply concerning reports. It is completely unacceptable for anyone to experience racism, discrimination or prejudice in the health service, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary takes such reports extremely seriously, because it is a fundamental principle that the NHS provides care and treatment for everyone, regardless of race, faith or background.
Ukraine
Tulip Siddiq Excerpts(1 month ago)
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The Prime Minister
I do understand the right hon. Lady’s concern. As I explained to the House last week, the decision on defence was not one I wanted to take, but the defence and security of Europe required us to take it. On the fiscal rules, economic stability is vital. If we lose that, we will lose far more out of all our budgets. I will work across the House, in whatever ways we can, to increase development aid, notwithstanding the budgetary constraints. I spoke to the president of the World Bank on Friday to have that very discussion. Those discussions are to be had with other countries and institutions, and innovation and discussion across the House would be a valuable part of that exercise. The principle behind her question is the right one: we must support international development and aid.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Highgate) (Lab)
My constituency has welcomed hundreds of Ukrainian refugees into the community. I pass on their thanks to the Prime Minister for the strong leadership that he has shown over the past few weeks. The majority of these Ukrainians want to go back to their country when it is safe to do so, but a small minority of young Ukrainian refugees have approached me to say that they have laid down roots, built careers and started relationships here, but have no route to settled status. What consideration has the Prime Minister given to the lives of these young Ukrainians who want to make London their permanent home?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is my MP neighbour, and I remember that together, we saw some of the first Ukrainian refugees arrive in her constituency in the very early days. Obviously, we need to take this step by step, dealing with the conflict that it is. Many will want to return; some may not, but we are not, unfortunately, at the happy place where those who want to return can return. That has to be the first priority.
Storm Éowyn
Tulip Siddiq Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Pat McFadden
Let me echo what the hon. Gentleman says about different parts of the community who opened their doors to help their neighbours—he is absolutely right about that. On the Northern Ireland Executive, I actually want to pay tribute to the role played by the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister and the Executive in recent days. As I said, we believe it was the worst storm to affect Northern Ireland since 1998 or thereabouts. This is an emergency and a time when people in different parts of the country should pull together. I was very happy to chair a Cobra meeting and do whatever else—other calls over the weekend—to make sure that we got as much help to Northern Ireland as quickly as we could to where it was needed. I will continue to do that over the next few days.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Highgate) (Lab)
Whether our constituencies are rural or urban, the destruction that we saw last week should remind us of the need for urgent climate action. In the summer of 2021, my constituency experienced an extreme rainstorm, and homes in south Hampstead were invaded by water and raw sewage. One of my constituents, a recovering stroke victim, was left on the street with nothing but a small bag of belongings, and is now homeless. The same area was flooded in 2002 and in 1975, but no drainage improvements have been made. Can my right hon. Friend, who knows my constituency well, confirm that drainage infrastructure will be included in the Government’s resilience review?
Pat McFadden
I can certainly confirm that the risk of flooding and extreme weather events will be covered in the review. It is important that we publish a national risk register that is updated constantly: we published our latest version just 10 days ago. As climate changes—and, indeed, as terrorism and other threats change—it is especially important, when we are considering resilience and how we should prepare and protect the country, that we are not caught in the past but look to the way in which the world is changing.
Income tax (charge)
Tulip Siddiq Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Sir Bernard Jenkin
I am not going to give way any more. We need only look around the world to see that the idea that an ever-larger state makes the people richer is confounded by economic experience, otherwise the richest countries in the world would be those with the biggest state. It is businesses and free enterprise that generate the wealth that pays for the public services we need.
We can all recall Milton Friedman’s four ways to spend money. There is people’s own money that they spend on themselves: they think about it, spend it very carefully and make sure they get the maximum value for money. There is money that people spend on other people, such as when they buy a present: they may want to keep the cost down and may not be sensitive about whether the person really wants a particular gift or not. There is somebody else’s money that people spend on themselves: when people use expense accounts, they go on the most expensive aeroplane or get the biggest car their company will pay for. Finally, there is somebody else’s money that is spent on other people: that is what Governments do. It is a reality that Governments are the worst allocators of resource for ensuring future wealth creation. That is just a fact.
The record will always confirm that if we want to create more wealth, the smaller the state can be, the faster economic growth will be and the more we can afford to then spend on public services. This Government are profoundly un-strategic—just look at what the OBR says about investment:
“Tax rises in this Budget weigh on real incomes, so private consumption falls as a share of GDP”—
that means people are going to be getting poorer. It continues:
“Corporate profits are expected to continue falling as a share of GDP in the near term”.
It adds that
“business investment falls as a share of GDP as profit margins are squeezed, and the net impact of Budget policies lowers business investment.”
Is that good for the British economy? I submit not.
What about debt? If someone has too much debt, the one thing they should do is not borrow more money, if they want to get out of a debt trap—[Interruption.] Members on the Government Benches have surgeries attended by people who are in debt. The one thing hon. Members will tell them not to do is to stack up more debt, but that is what the Government have chosen to do. That is not a long-term policy.
Finally, what about GDP? I take no pride in saying that growth in GDP has been struggling for a decade or more—
Sir Bernard Jenkin
Yes, I do not think we did enough to dynamise the British economy. We did not do enough, but I was very grateful for the support of the Liberal Democrats for the first five years of the Conservative Government. That helped us to keep public expenditure under better control so we could begin that process.
GDP per head has really been flatlining. We are falling significantly further behind the United States, but what are the trends? On these trends, we will be overtaken by Poland by 2030 in terms of GDP per head. What are this Government doing to address the real long-term trends? Let us look to 2050. What is the shape of public expenditure going to look like in 2050? This Budget does not begin to address that. What will be our national debt on a long-term basis? What is happening to our demographic, including the ageing population and the ratio of people in work and out of work? What are this Government doing to address that trend and to address the immigration trend, because that is adding to the cost of our economy?
How will we be able to increase defence spending? The Chief of the General Staff has recently said that this country could well be directly involved in a war within the lifetime of this Parliament. We will have to spend more on defence, as well as controlling the rest of the public sector. It is many decades since health, education and welfare started swamping out every other kind of expenditure in the Government. If we are to survive as a country, we will have to address these very damaging long-term trends.
Oral Answers to Questions
Tulip Siddiq Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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The Prime Minister
On Monday we launched a consultation on the largest ever roll-out of new bathing water sites: 27 potential new bathing waters in England, including an extra one on the River Teme in Ludlow in my right hon. Friend’s constituency. He is right that substantial improvements have been made in recent years. Almost 90% of designated bathing waters in England now meet the higher standards of good or excellent, up from just 76% in 2010; all part of our plan for water which, alongside those on the Conservative Benches voting for the strictest storm overflow targets and plans for unlimited penalties for polluting water companies, was opposed by the Labour party.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
We are delivering on what we said, which is 30 hours of free childcare a week for working parents of children from when they are nine months old until they start school. That is the largest ever expansion of childcare in our country’s history. Perhaps the hon. Lady might want to have a conversation with her Welsh Labour colleagues, who were given the funding to deliver childcare expansion in Wales, and what have they done? They have pocketed the money instead of matching our plans to support parents in England.
Israel and Gaza
Tulip Siddiq Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I agree with my right hon. Friend that Iran both poses an unacceptable threat to Israel and has a destabilising influence throughout the region. That is why we have sanctioned more than 350 Iranian individuals, including the entirety of the IRGC. The new National Security Act 2023 also gives us the powers that we need to keep us safe here at home. I assure him that we will continue to work closely with our allies in finding the best possible way to contain Iran’s pernicious activities.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
I represent one of this country’s biggest Jewish communities, in my constituency of Hampstead and Kilburn. Following Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel, there has been an increase in antisemitic incidents in my local area. Most heartbreakingly, I have had emails from local parents who are very worried about their children going to a local Jewish school because aggressive men have been standing outside taking photos. Some of the parents have had their car tyres slashed. The Prime Minister has pledged support to Jewish institutions, but will he commit publicly to ensuring that the support actually reaches local Jewish schools? Will he provide some much-needed reassurance to parents in Hampstead and Kilburn?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. This morning I visited a Jewish school in north London to ensure that the community there knew that I will do everything I can to keep them safe. That is why last week I met with the Community Security Trust, which does an excellent job. We have provided it with extra funding, which it will ensure gets to the frontline, whether that is to schools, synagogues or other institutions. We will continue to do everything we can to keep our Jewish communities safe. What is happening to our schoolchildren is simply unacceptable and sickening, and we will work very hard to bring it to an end.
Infected Blood Inquiry Update
Tulip Siddiq Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Jeremy Quin
On the timetable, we are determined to be in the best possible place to respond to the inquiry when it concludes. As I have said to other hon. Members, that does not preclude us taking other steps earlier, if that is what we determine to do, as a Government. We are working at pace to go through all the implications of the report.
On the hon. Gentleman’s second point, he will appreciate why I cannot go through individual recommendations at this stage, but I recognise the extremely strong case that Sir Brian has made for a number of those who have been affected, including carers who have given up a great deal to support others.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
One of my constituents contracted hepatitis C from a botched blood bag in the 1980s. Her daughter wrote to me last year:
“I am furious that you have grudgingly decided to pay interim compensation after she finally could fight no longer, seven weeks after she died…In the meantime, I’m left with grief and nothing else to show for all the misery.”
In addition to all the horrors that my constituent and her mother went through, the daughter is not eligible for compensation as she is not a bereaved partner. Does the Minister think that is fair?
Jeremy Quin
I am very sorry to hear about the loss of the hon. Lady’s constituent. It was a significant and positive step forward that the Government accepted in full Sir Brian’s recommendation about those infected and bereaved partners and brought forward the £100,000 of compensation, which was paid last October. It is tragic that, for the reasons stated earlier in relation to the scale of ongoing loss from this scandal, individuals will have missed out on that compensation because of their death between the announcement and the payment of the compensation. I really feel for the family of her constituent.
The hon. Lady referred to payments beyond the interim payments that were made last year. Sir Brian has made a very specific recommendation on that. We are not responding to that today, but it is one of the many recommendations that we are working through.
Oral Answers to Questions
Tulip Siddiq Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. People in mental health crisis deserve compassionate care in a safe and appropriate setting. Too often, they end up in A&E when they should be receiving specialist treatment elsewhere. This week’s announcement on mental health ambulances, crisis cafés, crisis houses and mental health urgent treatment centres will ensure that patients get the vital help that they need while easing pressures on emergency departments and freeing up staff time. He is absolutely right to highlight the issue. Our announcement will make a major difference.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
Over the last few years, the United Kingdom has opened up its hearts and homes to hundreds of thousands of people from Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Hong Kong and provided refuge and sanctuary to many children in that process, but the reports that we have read about are concerning. Local authorities have a statutory duty to protect all children regardless of where they go missing from, and in that situation they work closely with local agencies, including the police, to establish their whereabouts. That is why it is so important that we end the use of hotels for unaccompanied asylum seekers and reduce pressure on the overall system. That is what our plans will do.
Oral Answers to Questions
Tulip Siddiq Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I know that my hon. Friend speaks for colleagues up and down the country. We want to make sure that councils are able to build in the right place and sensitively to local needs. That is what we insist on, but I want to make it absolutely clear that part of the genius of levelling up is that it will encourage us to take some of the pressure and heat out of the south-east of England, which has been overburdened for decades, and we can do it.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
Of course I understand the hon. Lady’s indignation about the case she mentions, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will be looking into it, but the record of this country in processing I think well over 100,000—120,000—visas for Ukrainians so far is very creditable and I thank all the staff who have been involved in that effort.