Budget Resolutions

Debate between Wes Streeting and Munira Wilson

Monday 11th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

The list is inexhaustible, is it not? It is just one thing after another, and then they have the audacity to say that Labour does not have any plans. If that is true, why are they swooping in like magpies every five minutes, ready to pick the next cherry from Labour’s tree?

It is just a shame that the Conservatives did not see the light earlier. Had they abolished non-dom tax status when Labour pledged to do so in 2022, 4.5 million children could be enjoying free breakfast clubs today. They could have funded an extra 3.6 million NHS appointments and operations, hundreds more artificial intelligence-enabled scanners, and 1.3 million more urgent and emergency dental appointments. The Prime Minister would have delivered on his pledge to cut waiting lists, if only he had listened to Labour. What stopped him? Why was the Prime Minister so wedded to the non-dom tax status?

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned schoolchildren a couple of times in passing. It was hugely disappointing to me that there was absolutely nothing in last week’s Budget about schools or colleges. Today’s theme is growing our economy, which starts in our classrooms. Investing in education is an investment in this country’s economy and society for generations to come, yet there was nothing for day-to-day spending, even though schools in my constituency and across the country are having to make cuts every day. Shockingly, the small print revealed that next year we will see a real-terms cut of £200 million in capital investment in school buildings, while hundreds of thousands of children learn in crumbling classrooms. Does he agree that the Conservatives have no clue about growing the economy if they will not focus on children and young people?

[Wes Streeting]

I agree with the hon. Member. Politics is about choices, which is why we choose to end the tax breaks enjoyed by private schools, which are attended by the 7%, in order to fund more teachers and education for the 93%. The Conservatives have not nicked that policy yet—it could be any day now—but it does say something about choices.

There is something else that I found really galling. When the Government appointed Sir Kevan Collins as their catch-up commissioner, they could not have found someone better to advise on education, life chances and how to correct the obvious damage that had been done to children’s education as a result of successive lockdowns. Most of us in this House—on both sides—felt that the lockdowns were necessary, given the scale of the virus, but we ought collectively to acknowledge that there was a consequence and a debt to be repaid to that generation. When Sir Kevan Collins published his report, which was commissioned by the Government, the Prime Minister decided that he could not do any more. If the Prime Minister’s children attended state schools and he understood the challenges that such schools were facing with recruiting teachers and providing the wide range of extra-curricular opportunities that so many independent schools offer, I wonder whether the Prime Minister would have made the same political choices—or is it just for other people’s children that this Prime Minister and his Government have low aspirations?

I think it is fair to say that we know why the Prime Minister was so wedded to the non-dom tax status. In fact, the only way the Chancellor could have upset his neighbours more was if he had raised taxes on helicopter rides and heated swimming pools too. But at least the Prime Minister can now look the British people in the eye and honestly tell them that we are all in this together. In fact, we have to pity poor non-doms—they cannot even look to their friends, or indeed their husbands, in the Conservative party to defend them any longer. Nor can pensioners, incidentally, because 8 million pensioners will see their taxes increase as a result of this Chancellor’s decisions. I do not think that is right or just, and I do not think people will forget it come the general election.

I turn to the Prime Minister and how he evaluates his own performance. At a Wetherspoons in Maltby last week, he told the public that at the start of this year we “turned a corner.” He is right: at the start of this year the economy turned the corner from flatlining and entered recession. Rishi’s recession is taking a heavy toll on working people. Labour’s candidate for Rother Valley, Jake Richards, told me about John from Maltby, who lives just down the road from what was probably the first ’Spoons the Prime Minister has ever been in. John is a veteran of our armed forces. He served his country and now, thanks to the recklessness and incompetence of this Government, he cannot make ends meet. That is the price that people are paying, and it is why this country is crying out for change.

Having crashed the economy just two years ago, the Conservative party is at it again with a £46 billion unfunded tax plan. Can any Conservative Member explain how on earth they are going to pay for the abolition of national insurance? This is a bigger unfunded commitment than the “kamikwasi” Budget of the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss). Mortgage payers are still paying the price for that grotesque act of economic self-harm, and the Conservatives are at it again—

NHS Workforce

Debate between Wes Streeting and Munira Wilson

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree. To deal with that problem—and, indeed, to satisfy the demands of the Conservative party, which looks to Labour for answers—we are putting forward a plan today to solve the crisis, to bring down waiting times, to get patients the treatment they need and to build a healthy society.

Where the Conservatives are holding the best and brightest students back from playing their part in the health of our nation, Labour will unleash their talent in the NHS: we will double medical school places, training 15,000 doctors a year so that patients can see a doctor when they need to. Where the Conservatives have left nurses working unsafe hours, unable to spend the time they need with patients to provide good care—where the Conservatives have left the NHS so short of midwives that expectant mothers are turned away from maternity units that do not have the capacity to deliver their child—Labour will act: we will train 10,000 more nurses and midwives every year.

We will go further. The way we deliver healthcare has to change. For many patients, a hospital is not the best place to be, yet in the past 12 years all the other parts of our health and care service have been eroded by underinvestment. When our society is ageing and people increasingly want to be cared for in the comfort of their own home, surrounded by their loved ones, why have four in 10 district nursing posts been cut? Labour is proud to have district nursing at the heart of our plans to modernise the NHS, and we will double the number of district nurses qualifying every year.

Many colleagues across the House have campaigned for years on the importance of the early years of a child’s development. All the evidence says that the first 1,000 days of a child’s life are vital to their development and life chances, yet the number of health visitors has been cut in half since 2015. Labour will ensure that every child has a healthy start to life, training 5,000 more health visitors. That is what our motion would deliver.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

The hon. Member raises children and early intervention, but one area he has not touched on is the tidal wave of cases relating to children and young people’s mental health. As we all see in our casework every week, children and young people who have not been treated early get worse and worse and therefore get referred to acute services. In the past year, referrals to child and adolescent mental health services have gone up almost 25% and consultant psychiatrist numbers have come down. In terms of early intervention, we are not seeing enough mental health support in our schools. In Richmond, we cannot recruit clinical psychologists even though we have the money to do so. Does the hon. Member agree that we really need to focus on the future of this country—our children—by training more psychiatrists, counsellors and psychologists?

[Wes Streeting]

I totally agree. We have had lots of perfectly good speeches from Conservative Prime Ministers over the past 12 years, and we have had more than our fair share of unbelievably bad Conservative Prime Ministers over the same period. One thing that each of those speeches has had in common is warm rhetoric and no delivery. We are not prepared to make the same mistake, so although it is not on today’s Order Paper, I am pleased to confirm that my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition has announced a mental health pledge that will mean 8,500 more mental health professionals being recruited. It will enable us to provide mental health hubs in every community, dedicated mental health support in every school and the aim of guaranteeing treatment within a month.

Our pledge will be transformational to mental health support in this country. It will particularly benefit young people, whose mental health and wellbeing have borne the brunt of the pandemic. It will really help to free up capacity for GPs and accident and emergency departments, which are increasingly seeing mental ill health cases coming through their door because the specialist support that people need is unavailable. Our plan, like our motion on today’s Order Paper, is fully costed and fully funded and will make a real difference to patients. Just as the Conservative party is welcome to steal Labour’s NHS workforce pledge, it is very welcome to steal our mental health plan too.

As well as recruiting the doctors, nurses and allied health professionals we need, we also need to keep the staff we have.

Public Health

Debate between Wes Streeting and Munira Wilson

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

For now, we think the Government have struck the right balance. The measure is limited to nightclubs and larger venues. However, as the Secretary of State knows, we listen to the chief medical officer, we listen to the chief scientific adviser, we listen to the scientific advisory group for emergencies, we listen to the NHS and we make decisions based on evidence. If ever the Government want to come forward with further proposals, we will consider them in a genuinely bipartisan way and we will act in what we believe to be the national interest. I do not think anyone would expect less of us.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

With the covid passes, there is the option of using a lateral flow test or double vaccination. Does the hon. Member recognise that double vaccination, which many people will use, gives a very false sense of security? We know that someone can be vaccinated and still transmit. Most of the people we know getting covid at the moment have already been vaccinated. Double vaccination is not very effective, and it will give a real false sense of security.

[Wes Streeting]

I think the hon. Member should look at the evidence from our friends on the continent, which is that this approach not only works in giving people confidence to go out and enjoy themselves, but encourages people to take up vaccination. On that basis, I think the Liberal Democrats ought to reconsider their position.

Support for Self-employed and Freelance Workers

Debate between Wes Streeting and Munira Wilson

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are practical ways through this. We do not pretend that it is not difficult, but the problems are not insurmountable if the Government would only show flexibility and willingness to listen. Millions of people’s hopes were crushed and their lives thrown into chaos and anxiety when they saw the ship was sailing and had left them behind.

I do not need to list the exclusions, but can we drop this idea once and for all that these are all super-wealthy people living it up on savings or shares? One of my constituents affected is a face painter and balloon artist. She has a simple job, which is to bring joy to children, and it is a job she loves doing, but it is a job she could not do when, like every other business, she went into lockdown and her business closed. Now, as she is trying to get her business back up and running, she finds the rule of six has once again crushed the party business. She is not super rich, she cannot do her job through no fault of her own and she has not had a penny of support since April.

We have heard other powerful examples, including from my hon. Friends the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous). There are so many examples we could give, but we have so little time and those people have even less time. “You will not face this alone”, the Chancellor said. Unfortunately, that was true in only one respect: they found each other. Through ExcludedUK, ForgottenLtd and other campaign groups, they have found a support network and managed to win a hearing in the huge cross-party support they have built in this House. So why is the Chancellor not listening? Why is he being so stubborn and inflexible? Why, even now, do Ministers refuse the basic request, which is just to meet and talk with people who are willing to come forward with ideas and practical solutions? The consequences of the Government’s failure to act are clear. Before the crisis began, around 15% of the workforce were self-employed. That figure has fallen sharply during this crisis. We heard powerful personal testimony on this from the hon. Members for Buckingham (Greg Smith) and for Warrington South (Andy Carter)—people who know what it means to take the plunge, take the risk and start a business.

We have heard powerful contributions on the arts and creative industries, not least from my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), who knows how to build an audience. We have heard other brilliant speeches, too, from my hon. Friends the Members for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) and for Belfast South (Claire Hanna), from Conservative Members, such as the hon. Members for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller), for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) and for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), and from right across the Back Benches, from SNP and Plaid Cymru Members.

People might think that theatre is frivolous and all about singing and dancing and having a good time, but there is an important economic issue here. There is a reason central London is empty: the theatres are closed. The live music sector contributed £4.5 billion to the UK economy in 2019. We also see in the figures that some of the sharpest falls have been in construction, professional, scientific and technical services, and administration and support services. The Resolution Foundation has highlighted the sharp fall in these people’s earnings.

Labour has repeatedly called on the Government to listen to the concerns of the excluded. The shadow Chancellor has written to the Chancellor four times in recent months to highlight problems and suggest solutions, and we are always willing to meet, if only the Government were not so stubborn and unwilling to listen. The Federation of Small Businesses—experts in this area—has repeatedly called for a rescue plan for those left out of Government support. It is right to argue that those whose businesses are often suffering through no fault of their own should not be left out of support. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) underlined, the Government do not understand Britain’s self-employed. As a result, they have not valued them and because of that they have not provided them with the support they desperately need.

Before I was elected to this House, I spent just a year as a freelancer. It was one of the most terrifying professional experiences of my life—not knowing if I would get the next job, or if the invoice would be paid on time; worrying about things such as my cash flow, bills, my incomes, my outgoings. It is a stressful experience. I can speak for the self-employed and the excluded in my constituency—we have heard so many others speak for their constituents too—but none of us can truly understand what these people have been through this year, seeing other people receive support and themselves left behind.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Does the hon. Member agree that many freelancers, particularly in the creative industries, where it is really precarious and people live contract to contract, make ends meet with casual work, but that has totally dried up in the hospitality sector, in ushering and in box office work, for example? So they have absolutely nothing, and they are desperate and running out of savings.

[Wes Streeting]

That is absolutely true. One of the things I find most worrying about the trends we have seen is that—as if the inequality that has gripped this country was not bad enough entering the crisis—there have been two very different experiences of the pandemic. If people are in a job with stable employment and have had money coming in every month, they may well be one of the households who has contributed to a record rise in savings. They may well feel that their outgoings have gone down and that they can start planning for home improvements or a decent family holiday. However, if people have lost their job, or were self-employed or freelance and their business activity went completely down to zero, this has been an absolutely terrible experience. I do not think that any of us, unless we have been in that position, can really understand what those people are going through.

In conclusion, I say to the Minister, whose task in responding to the debate I do not envy—with the notable and honourable exception of the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne), I think she has found herself pretty alone in this debate—that the cross-party calls for the Government to listen, even to meet, are overwhelming. The privilege of being able to govern comes with the responsibility of taking action, of seeing people through difficult times. We know that the Government have a difficult job. We would not have wished this pandemic on anyone, but so many of us on both sides of the House simply do not understand the Chancellor’s intransigence, stubbornness and unwillingness to listen on this issue. So please, I beg the Minister, on behalf of millions of people across this country who have felt unheard or excluded: it is time to act.