Definition of Islamophobia
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Mahmood
I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification. Of course I am not. I am saying that the definition of Muslimness as described in the report categorises people into those who dress a particular way and those who do not. By definition, the people who do not dress one way are excluded.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend talks about the dress code. The issue about Islamophobia is that we know that women who work in headscarves are repeatedly getting attacked and abused. That is where the Muslimness perception comes into it.
Mr Mahmood
I will quickly give way to the right hon. Member for Broxtowe, if she wishes, just to be fair.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
It is a pleasure to participate in the debate—well, I think it is—and it is certainly a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood). I found myself agreeing with a great deal of what he had to say, although I was struck by the fact that, I think, he had misunderstood something I had written as part of the foreword to the APPG report.
I was not involved in some of the initial stages of the APPG report, but its members came to me—I was a member in any event—and asked for my input, because they knew that I had participated in and indeed chaired the Citizens UK commission that produced “The Missing Muslims”, a document that looked at Muslim participation in the public life of our country. For that, we went around the country and took extensive evidence in a large number of locations. It was wide-ranging and dealt with problems in mosque management and discrimination against women. A great many difficult subjects were touched on in the course of that inquiry, but one thing that emerged with absolute, complete clarity was the fact that Islamophobia—and I shall return to that word in a moment—exists in this country in ways that are having a significant impact on the daily lives of British Muslims, and, indeed, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), those who may be mistaken for Muslims. Both his constituency and mine contain substantial Sikh communities.
Much of this behaviour falls well short of criminality. Indeed, I should make it clear that I do not believe that any useful purpose would be served by trying to criminalise it, because at that point one would embark on an endless cycle, which I think would have no benefit at all. Some Members who were around more than 10 years ago will remember that I was rather active when the legislation on incitement to religious hatred was introduced, arguing strongly in the House that the way in which the then Government were seeking to word it risked placing a fetter on free speech because it was too broadly drafted and included such terms as “ridicule”. I considered that it was within the tenets of a free society to express ridicule for another person’s religious beliefs. As a Christian, I encounter people who express ridicule for my beliefs, and I just have to live with it.
That having been said, I live, and have the benefit of living, in what is, in a sense, part of what would be seen as a majority community in this country, and I do not think we should underestimate the adverse impact that what I call Islamophobia is having on our society. It is acting as a preventer of integration, and we in the House should be paying some attention to it, because as leaders in our communities—which is what we are seen to be—we ought to be showing a lead in trying to eradicate it as much as possible. That does not mean preventing people from expressing perfectly reasoned criticisms, or, indeed, sometimes unreasonable criticisms, of other people’s religious beliefs; but human society cannot thrive unless we treat other human beings with respect, and lack of respect can have a corrosive impact.
Yasmin Qureshi
I agree with what the right hon. and learned Gentleman is saying. He mentioned discrimination. It is right that religions can be criticised, but I am sure he will agree that when certain sections of the media tell blatant lies about Muslims, media discussion of Islam becomes worrisome.
Mr Grieve
I often read in newspapers things about Islam that I know from my own experience—I am a trustee of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies—to be inaccurate. Of course, we must also acknowledge, as, indeed, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr did, that Islam is not a homogenous practice. It is extremely diverse, just as is Christianity or, for that matter, Judaism. There will be areas of practice and criticism within the faith itself. As we know from the events in the middle east and the hostility between Shi’a and Sunni, a deep division, or indeed hostility towards groups who are considered to be heretical, such as Ahmadiyyans, is a real issue.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
It is an absolute pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) on securing this debate, and I commend them and their colleagues in the all-party group on British Muslims for making history by putting together the first definition of Islamophobia. This definition is the culmination of almost two years of consultation and evidence gathering. It is a concrete definition that takes into account the views of organisations, politicians, faith leaders, eminent academics, victims of hate crime and communities up and down the country. I hope that the Secretary of State will have listened to the comments made by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who has also urged the Government to adopt the definition.
To tackle Islamophobia, we need to address a number of different issues, one of which is the role of the media. In Australia, where the Christchurch killer was born, raised and possibly radicalised, there has been a lot of debate on the extent to which the media—particularly that owned by Rupert Murdoch—contributed to sowing the seeds of hate that were unleashed in Christchurch. A study published in Sydney tallied up the number of negative stories that five Australian newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch produced in 2017. It found that almost 3,000 such stories referred to Islam or Muslims, alongside the words “violence”, “terrorism” or “radical”. Authors of the study reported that
“once every second day in 2017 there was a front page that demonised and spoke negatively about Muslims”.
Yes, it was on social media where the killer spread his ideology, but we need to recognise that white supremacy and other ideologies of hate predate the internet. So while we are right to pay attention to the sheer speed and global reach of the internet, we need to talk about how hateful ideologies come into being and what allows them to flourish.
The print and broadcast media are not without their share of responsibility. Recently, in an open letter to a newspaper, Neil Basu said:
“The reality is that every terrorist we have dealt with has sought inspiration from the propaganda of others, and when they can’t find it on Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter they only have to turn on the TV, read the paper or go to one of a myriad of mainstream media websites struggling to compete with those platforms.”
He cited the 2017 terror attack in Finsbury Park as an example of where a man was
“driven to an act of terror by far-right messaging he found mostly on mainstream media”.
It is time we accepted that a large proportion of the British press incites hatred against Muslims to millions of people every day. This is not about freedom of speech; it is plain, downright lying published in our media, day in, day out. For example, a Daily Express front page has proclaimed: “Muslims tell British: Go to hell”. The Daily Star printed the headline: “UK mosques fundraising for terror” then later apologised. Or let us consider the front page of The Sun, which declared that “1 in 5 Brit Muslims” had sympathy for jihadists, accompanied by a picture of “Jihadi John” wielding a knife. Months later, it acknowledged that its claims were misleading, but such retractions are always just two sentences occupying a tiny space at the back of the newspaper.
Such inaccuracies are not restricted to the tabloid press. The Times, for example, claimed Muslims were “silent on terror”. On another occasion, it issued a correction for a story headlined “Christian child forced into Muslim foster care”, which turned out to be a complete bag of lies. The Daily Mail then picked up on that story and showed a picture of a woman wearing a veil, suggesting that this was the lady who had adopted the child. That was a lie as well, because although the woman in question was a Muslim, she did not wear a veil. The Spectator published a piece claiming that
“there is not nearly enough Islamophobia within the Conservative party”.
It is not just misleading stories that are the problem. We consistently see articles that conflate Islam with criminality: “Muslim sex grooming” or “Imam beaten to death in sex grooming town”, for example. The latter resulted in the chief constable of Greater Manchester police writing an open letter criticising the newspaper.
A study from Lancaster University highlighted that for every mention of “moderate” Muslims in the media, there are 21 references to “extremist” Muslims, and that Muslims are collectively homogenised and portrayed as a threat to the “British way of life”. A study conducted by the University of Alabama found that Muslim extremists received 357% more coverage than non-Muslim extremists; by contrast, far-right terrorists are rationalised, understood to be lone wolves, or excused because they are suffering from poor mental health, instead of recognising the hatred that actually drove their atrocious actions. We saw that in the Daily Mirror’s coverage of Christchurch, describing the killer as an “angelic boy” in an attempt to humanise him and focusing on Muslims as victims. I do not think we have seen such a description given to any terrorist who happens to be Muslim.
In opinion pieces, the problem is even more apparent. The Sun’s Trevor Kavanagh ended one column with the question:
“What will we do about the Muslim problem then?”
We all know what that means. In July 2016, Fatima Manji reported on the Nice terror attack for Channel 4. Kelvin MacKenzie attacked her in The Sun, asking why a woman in a headscarf was reporting on a terrorist incident. Musing on why Channel 4 chose Manji for the slot, MacKenzie asked,
“Was it done to stick one in the eye of the ordinary viewer who looks at the hijab as a sign of the slavery of Muslim women by a male-dominated and clearly violent religion?”
Those are just the tip of the iceberg of lies in the media about Islam.
That should lead us to ask why this is happening. The answer is simple: stories that play on public fears and feed prejudices are popular, especially in times when, according to polls, more than half of British people see Islam as a threat to western liberal democracy, and others may not see Muslims as threats but feel softer dislike and that Muslims and Islam are not compatible. The fact is that most people in this country have probably never met a Muslim person and know nothing about Islam, but their reading and understanding of Islam are derived from the media. That is why so many of them, when surveyed, express views that clearly show that they have been affected by what they read.
Research by Cambridge University showed that mainstream media reporting on the Muslim community was contributing to an atmosphere of rising hostility toward Muslims in Britain, corroborating the findings of an Islamophobia roundtable in Stockholm. Do the Minister and the Government accept that the media have played a role in the growth of Islamophobia and that that is no longer tenable?
This is not a matter of freedom of speech; it is about the choice of editors to tolerate, if not encourage, bigotry in our papers. We live in a country that rightly cherishes freedom of the press, and that must be respected, but freedom comes with responsibility, which must be upheld. To publish inaccurate stories helps the rise of the far right; the othering of Muslims has real-world consequences. The National Union of Journalists understands that and has demanded an inquiry into Islamophobia in the media. Done properly, that could have the impact that the Macpherson report had on the police and encourage a sea change in attitudes. Will the Minister commit today to set up a Government inquiry into Islamophobia in the media?
These are not just my concerns. Respectable academics and think-tanks are concerned about what is happening. Last year, in the Home Affairs Committee, the new owner of the Daily Express said:
“Each and every editor has a responsibility for every single word that’s published in a newspaper. Cumulatively, some of the headlines that have appeared in the past have created an Islamophobic sentiment which I find uncomfortable”—
Local Government Funding
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker) on securing a vital debate, and I pay tribute to council staff. It is rightly fashionable to pay tribute to emergency staff in the health, police and fire services, but sometimes we do not recognise the work done by council staff day in, day out, and by the council leaders and cabinet members who must deliver, on a daily basis, the services our constituents want.
Chi Onwurah
I agree with my hon. Friend, and want to emphasise that councillors and officials in Newcastle City Council are under huge pressure, working not to implement the cuts for the public. They deserve our thanks.
Yasmin Qureshi
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.
We are all aware of the fact that post-industrial towns and cities in the north of England such as Bolton have been hit hardest by the deep cuts to local government spending. The idea that the Government sometimes project—that austerity hits everyone equally—is nonsense. The cuts are nothing less than politically motivated. The heaviest have been in the most deprived regions that are often thought of as economically left behind. That is compounded by the fact that those areas have the highest levels of poverty and a lower capacity to mitigate cuts through local taxation or asset sales.
My local council, Bolton, has lost about £l billion in spending power since austerity began in 2010. That has impacted on social care, with adult and child services taking the biggest hit, despite being the areas with the highest demand. As many hon. Members have said, we have an ageing population and therefore the impact on the social care budget is getting bigger. More and more children are being taken into care, meaning that the amount of money required is increasing.
Colleagues have mentioned the pressures on local authorities. For example, over the past three years, Bolton Council’s adult services department had to find more than £10 million of savings, including £8.8 million from children’s services. My local authority had to raise council tax, specifically to pay for social care. That led to its critics saying, “Oh, the council is raising taxes”, but nobody spoke about the fact that it had no choice. With funding cuts of 50%, what was it to do other than raise local taxation to fill that gap? The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated that between 2010 and 2020 local government will have had its direct funding cut by 79%. Let that sink in: 79%!
Faisal Rashid
While the Prime Minister was announcing the end of austerity last October, more than 5,000 councillors signed the “Breaking Point” petition to call on the Government to cancel their planned cuts for the new year and immediately to invest £2 billion in children and adult services. Does—
Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)
Order. Interventions must be brief. That was a mini-speech, and the hon. Gentleman has been here for only half the debate. I want to give the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) time to continue with her speech. I am sure she has the gist of what he had to say.
Yasmin Qureshi
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I entirely agree with what he said. We have seen our youth centres, museums and libraries close, and a social care system in crisis, and that is due to the Government’s ambition to reduce the public sector.
Most of what Bolton Council has done has been to provide the best for the people who live there. Successive council leaders and cabinet members have considered the benefits of their discretionary services, and the impact of cutting them, and looked at how to run things differently internally without affecting frontline services and staff. For example, when a member of the local authority leaves, they are not replaced, which means that the burden of the work falls on fewer people. Such savings help the council to fulfil its obligations.
Bolton Council is good in that it is still finding ways to invest in the borough beyond the statutory requirements. It has innovated in the face of austerity through capital investment projects such as improving access for disabled people, investing in leisure facilities, and putting millions into community and environmental projects. It has been working with businesses, and its latest capital strategy involves spending £212 million on various projects across the borough. Some of that will go towards the town centre masterplan, but other investments include school expansions, fixing roads, and improving the township generally.
The council has stimulated the market, and it is sharing that success with extra investment in our schools, and in the area, so that the lives of those who live in Bolton can be improved. Bolton Council has the lowest priced school meals in the entire United Kingdom, and we still offer free breakfasts in schools where they are needed. We are the first council in the country to open a new children’s centre, while Tory-run administrations continue to cut such services. The bottom line, however, is that 10 years of austerity and three years of focusing on Brexit has left local government on the ropes. Councils are facing a funding black hole of more than £5 billion by the end of the decade, and it is still unclear how they will be funded beyond 2020.
It is upsetting and nauseating when Conservative politicians in Bolton, who know that the council has had to make cuts because its grants have reduced by 50%, dishonestly blame the Labour council for not providing the things that people want—for example, filling potholes. If the choice is between giving money to an elderly vulnerable person or filling a pothole, we know what the council has to do. People are being disingenuous when they jump on such issues, as has happened in Bolton where Conservative politicians go on about potholes, even though they know where the problem lies.
The independent parties are no better either, as they deliberately mislead people about why certain things are not happening in our town. For example, in Farnworth, which is one of the deprived areas, our local authority has been involved for a number of years in a project to renovate the town centre, but on two occasions the private companies pulled out. The council has now taken on that work, but the opposition parties use that as a mechanism to say, “The local authority is not doing anything”, which is misleading. That annoys people, and they can sense that we are angry about this. There is misrepresentation by independent political parties as well as by the main opposition party in Bolton.
Bolton Council has been doing a fantastic job with limited money, and we ask the Government to think seriously about how funding should be allocated. Removing deprivation from the factors that influence funding is completely unacceptable, as that should be one of the main criteria used when considering local authority funding for a particular area. Until and unless funding is properly resolved, those problems will continue, and councils and people who live in certain towns—especially in the north—will suffer.
Northern Rail Services: Greater Manchester
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Sir David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Northern rail services in Greater Manchester.
It is always a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. When I was elected 21 years ago, in 1997, our railways were still, in effect, publicly owned. The reality then was that the service was rubbish, and it had been rubbish for a very long time. John Major, the then Prime Minister, having starved the railways of investment, privatised them in indecent haste—I think he thought that would be his legacy; perhaps it is—just before he was forcefully expelled from office in the 1997 Labour landslide.
The ensuing Labour Government decided that there were more important priorities, particularly in health and education, than the renationalisation of the rail system. The truth is that we wrongly assumed, as far as public transport was concerned, that things could only get better. In fairness, there has been significant investment in the system in the intervening years, paid for by rail travellers through increased fares and passenger numbers. I am certainly not in favour of returning to the failed services delivered by British Rail in the 1990s, and I do not believe that anyone else is, but the fact is that the present system is broken and was unfit for purpose from the outset. That is clearly demonstrated today and every day in Greater Manchester and the north by the delivery of services by Northern rail.
Northern is the trading name of Arriva Rail North, whose franchise began in April 2016. Provided that it does not walk away, we may suffer it until 2025. Arriva Rail North has been a disaster from day one. It has been in freefall ever since, and it does not deserve to be entrusted with the franchise for another day. The Northern franchise, which is one of the largest in the UK, provides more than 16,000 train services to a population of 15 million people. In Greater Manchester, Northern trains call at 97 stations, which are used every day by a huge number of people, who depend on the service to go to work and education, as well as to enjoy their social and family lives. According to Office of Rail and Road estimates of station usage, there were nearly 81 million passenger entries and exits at Greater Manchester stations in 2016-17.
The quality of those services is essential to the lives of thousands of families and has an enormous effect on the economy of the north. It is a very big deal. We must not allow the political argument about our transport deficiencies to descend into the Government automatically supporting all private transport providers and the Opposition automatically attacking them all. Regardless of our views about nationalisation and privatisation, Northern rail is failing.
When Northern was first awarded the franchise, it promised more than 2,000 additional trains each week, with more frequent, earlier and later trains offering passengers greater choice. It promised a 37% increase in peak-time capacity. It promised 281 new carriages, plus the full refurbishment of the remaining fleet and the removal of all Pacer trains within three years. Yet according to the Office of Rail and Road, the punctuality of Northern’s services in Greater Manchester and Liverpool has plummeted from 90% to 83% since the start of 2017. It must be compelled to do much better, and fair compensation is central to improving its performance.
If we are to remain with a privatised service, franchisees must be answerable to passengers. As the situation stands, they are not. As we would expect from an operation focused on profit, Northern does little to encourage passengers to claim compensation. The Consumers Association, which publishes Which? magazine, has called for improvements in the delivery of compensation. Its research found that only a third of passengers who may have been entitled to compensation made a claim. The two main reasons why people fail to claim are that it is too complex and there is a lack of information about the claims process. The Consumers Association found that unsurprising, as the way train companies award compensation varies widely across the country. It reports that train companies can take up to 20 days to respond to claims, with one in four people needing to prompt the train company about their claim.
Northern’s compensation scheme excludes people with multi-modal tickets, despite Ministers stating that it must include them, and passengers are left waiting for as much as four months for a response to their refund applications. Over the past two months, things have gone from extremely bad to even worse. All that adds up to Northern’s record before the unbelievable timetable transfer.
When things go wrong at Northern—and things are certainly going wrong—the whole of Greater Manchester is in danger of grinding to a halt, because the road alternatives are often close to gridlock. The major problem at the moment is that Northern simply does not employ enough drivers to allow for flexibility. Its model is dependent on drivers working on their rest day. To make matters worse, the company clearly has industrial relations problems, and there has been no rest day working agreement since February. It blames industrial action for its poor performance, but when the Government privatised the system in 1997, they privatised its industrial relations, too. It is just not acceptable to blame the trade unions and no one else. The company must be accountable for disputes with its employees. It must manage its industrial relations. That is its job, not anyone else’s. The sad reality is that most of Northern’s employees despise their employer about as much as most of its passengers do.
In fairness—this is the only time I will say that—Northern’s operational problems have certainly been made much worse by delays to the electrification of the Blackpool to Preston line by Network Rail. Drivers have to undergo safety training before trains can operate on new lines, but Northern’s lack of planning meant that, from 16 April, drivers were pulled away from scheduled services across the network to undergo training. Services were cancelled every day, leaving passengers stranded at stations on their way to work. Northern knew well in advance that that combination of problems would leave it short of drivers to operate the timetable. Those problems should in no way have taken it by surprise, yet they have gone on for weeks and weeks. Sources tell me that on 16 May—a full month after the issues with driver training began and before the timetable fiasco—91 trains were fully cancelled, 140 were part-cancelled and 48 had a reduced number of carriages. Every day is the same, yet Northern buries its head in the sand and acts surprised by its driver shortage.
I have repeatedly asked why no strategy was in place and why there was no set schedule for cancellations so that passengers would know what to expect. Why were there no rail replacement bus services? Northern has provided no explanations for its failures. The restatement of its explanation that cancellations are due to driver shortages is simply not good enough; neither is the promise that things will improve by 2020. Northern, I am sad to say, reminds me very much of the Secretary of State, repeating the mantra, “It’s not our fault. Things will get better.” Ordinary, hard-working people’s jobs are at risk, and family livelihoods depend on the ability to get to work on time, yet Northern, along with the Secretary of State, has taken no action and just looked the other way. If my constituents were to apologise to their employers for being late for work every day, while assuring their bosses that their timekeeping would improve by 2020, they would be out of a job long before 2020—and Northern should be, too.
Unbelievably, when the new timetable began on 21 May, things got very much worse. There was clearly a major change: Northern admitted that 90 % of the new schedule was different from the old one, and services along what is already an overcrowded corridor were greatly reduced. Commuters in my constituency, with their long-term experience of this operator, were braced for a difficult experience that day, but they still expected trains to arrive. What they got was chaos. Right across Greater Manchester, passengers were left stranded on platforms with no trains and no information.
I am told that, on the first Monday of the new timetable, there were 196 cancelled services and 131 part-cancelled services across the Northern network. Forty-two of those cancelled services were due to stop in Bolton. Just over a week later, on 29 May, the number of cancellations had risen to 254, and as of 7.30 this morning there had been 50 cancellations, with 43 trains part-cancelled. Is it any wonder that my constituents are striving to pass their driving tests, buy cars and block up even more of our overcrowded roads? These are people who just want to go out and do a hard day’s work, and it is our responsibility and the Government’s responsibility to help them and encourage more travellers to get on the train.
The week before the new timetable was introduced, passengers were being told by train guards that the drivers’ new work schedule would not be completed in time. Passengers expected chaos, and train guards expected chaos. Only the Secretary of State and his so-called experts were in the dark. Drivers were expected to turn up for work on 21 May as though nothing had changed, even though 90% of services changed in the new timetable. When Northern said that services were cancelled because of staffing issues, they should have said they were cancelled because of management issues and its own incompetence. If it was as good at running trains as it is at making excuses, we would have nothing to complain about, Mr Howarth, and we would not be bothering you with this debate. The fact is, they failed to plan properly for the biggest timetable change in years. These are problems of Northern’s own making, and far too often it leaves Greater Manchester without the basic train service it is entitled to.
Passengers do not really want to know about new ticket machines and wi-fi on the train; they just want to go to the station and catch a train that is on time and that has a seat for them to sit down on. One of my constituents texted me to say she was stood in the toilet of a packed train with three other people she did not know. Let me tell the Minister that wi-fi cannot be used in those circumstances. He will understand my constituent’s concern.
I frequently say that we have an excellent train line in Bolton, which runs right through my constituency. There is potentially a great service—all we need is some trains with enough carriages. It is not rocket science, is it? When a peak-hour train with two carriages—instead of the promised four—arrives at Bromley Cross station in my constituency, an audible groan runs right down the platform, because people expect to have to fight to get on.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
That train then goes to Bolton station, in my constituency, and by that time there is no space for anyone to get on it.
Sir David Crausby
That is right, because nobody gets off in Bolton—they are going to Manchester. People are getting on the train all down the line, so the closer people are to Manchester, the smaller chance they have of getting on at all. Four-carriage trains are essential. That has nothing to do with the timetable issues. Promises on the delivery of extra carriages have been repeatedly broken by Secretaries of State and by the previous Prime Minister, who visited Bolton before the 2015 election and is now long gone down the line. We are fed up with the daily struggle to catch a train.
A seriously disabled passenger who wants to travel to work in Manchester from Bolton might as well give up their job, because catching a train in the peak period from Bolton is a rugby scrum, and people need to be 100% fit to succeed. It is a disgrace. There is no room for prams and no room for bikes, and it is absolutely impossible for anyone with mobility issues. In this country, in the 21st century, that is completely unacceptable. Northern must accept its responsibility and be called to account by the Secretary of State.
Bolton has suffered disproportionately from a terrible service over many years, and our experience is a result of problems that continue within the system. The division of responsibility between rail companies, Network Rail, rolling stock leasing companies and the Government has allowed them all to blame each other for failures, and passengers end up paying for them, sometimes with their jobs. What is wrong with this privatisation model is that passengers cannot vote with their feet and use another provider—and too many train operators know it. If publicly owned monopolies are unsuitable, privately owned monopolies are very much worse.
The ultimate responsibility for this catalogue of failures must lie with the Secretary of State for Transport. If not, what is the point in having a Secretary of State for Transport? I very much doubt that he will sort out these problems, but if he does not do that in the short, medium and long term, there is certainly no point in this Secretary of State for Transport, and he should clear his desk, along with Northern rail.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Sir David Crausby) on securing this timely debate, coming as it does with the fiasco of the timetable chaos. I will not repeat what my colleagues have said. Hon. Members have dealt with the issues and challenges and with the main problems with the transport system in the north, and they have also mentioned solutions.
I want to talk about the experience of people using transport in the north, and particularly my personal experience. I will declare an interest here: I am a regular traveller on the trains from Bolton to Manchester and then onwards. Most of the time, I never find a seat to sit on, and we are always crammed in like sardines. At peak times, many of us cannot get on the train at all because it is already fully crowded. I am not talking just about problems with people occupying seats or people standing; we are literally pressed against each other. As a result, some people cannot even get on the train, which means they miss that train. The next one is about 20 or 25 minutes later, which means people miss connecting trains. Students are delayed getting to universities, colleges and schools. Most of the people who work, especially in the early hours of the morning, often get to work late. I am not exaggerating when I say that I have had constituents write to me to say they have lost their jobs because they have been turning up late day in, day out. That is not an exaggeration—it is the complete truth.
On Monday I received an email from Mrs Dearden, who wrote:
“I’m writing to ask you to seek some responsibility and accountability from Northern Rail, and the Government, to sort out the sorry state of rail travel around Greater Manchester. I just wanted to add to your portfolio another tale of the family stress this is causing. My daughter-in-law, a solicitor, travels to work, in Preston, from Bolton every day. She also needs to take and collect her son to and from nursery. For the past few weeks the...unpredictable service that Northern Rail has been providing has meant that she has been faced with the ‘choice’ of getting to work later each day and leaving work earlier in order to collect her son from nursery. As you can understand, this doesn’t amount to a normal working week from her employer’s point of view, nor to her colleagues. It leaves her child, and his nursery, with uncertainty.”
She is not alone, and her case is not exceptional. Many thousands of people in similar situations are suffering extreme disruption to their family life and are being put under stress from a service that they, as customers, pay for. It is not a free service, but something they pay for.
The situation is not new. It has been going on for years. In February 2014 I met senior managers from Northern Rail, Transport for Greater Manchester and First TransPennine Express to discuss the problems with our rail services, and on 5 March 2014 I went to see the then Transport Minister, the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), to present a petition to him and to lobby for improved rail services. I have had frequent discussions with Northern and correspondence with subsequent Transport Ministers, but nothing has changed. It is clear that rail in the north is being discriminated against in favour of the train system in the south. I have nothing against people in the south having a great transport network, but I would like to see that in the north as well.
I want to thank and acknowledge those involved in the strong campaign that has been run by newspapers in the north, including The Bolton News and Manchester Evening News. All we want is a decent, safe, reliable rail service. I would like the Minister to ask the Prime Minister—clearly, the Secretary of State seems not to have dealt with this matter properly—to summon transport chiefs and business leaders to 10 Downing Street this week for an emergency summit to devise an action plan to get the region moving again, to announce a special compensation scheme for the passengers most affected by the delays and disruption, and to give Transport for the North the necessary policy and financial powers so that it can have full oversight of all local, suburban and regional services and work in tandem with Network Rail. It is quite clear, as has been pointed out, that our railways cannot be cared for properly from London.
The Government must commit themselves to a full and fundamental review of rail franchising. The Northern fiasco is just another example of franchisees over-promising and under-delivering. Will the Government also demonstrate a commitment to fair transport funding for the north, with a pledge to give the planned high-speed line across the Pennines equal priority with Crossrail 2 in London?
Local Government Finance
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
The financing of local authorities and local government has caused problems for many Governments over the years. It arises from the fact that parts of the country with a lot of businesses or a lot of rich people are able to raise quite a lot of money locally for some of the services that have to be provided. However, there are many constituencies and many parts of the country where that is not the case, where there are issues of deprivation and where there are issues that require money, and where local authorities are unable to raise the money from their constituents or from the local area. When national Governments decide how much money to give to different areas, it is therefore important that those issues are properly considered and addressed.
My constituency of Bolton South East is high up on the indices that judge poverty and health and education issues. The mortality rate is higher in my constituency than in the rest of the country. The number of people with a university degree is not in proportion with the rest of the country. The number of people who own their home is not equivalent to the rest of the country. On many issues and in many areas, the local council is not able to fulfil its obligations.
Having said all that, Bolton Council has been run by Labour for many years, and it is regarded as an incredibly sensible and financially prudent council—it has even received four-star ratings in the past. Despite that, there has been a 54% cut to Government funding since 2010. Those cuts are not acceptable. My local council is basically spending all its resources on its statutory obligations such as social care and services for the elderly and the young, including children in care, looked-after children and protected children.
Yasmin Qureshi
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I was going to make this point later, but I will make it now. I am not being party political, but I find it appalling and galling that the Tory councillors of Bolton complain that the council is not doing some of the things it needs to do—the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green), a Conservative, recently complained to the local newspaper that the council has not filled the potholes. Well, the council cannot do those things because its grant has been cut by 54% since 2010. The council has to spend the money it has on vital services such as looking after our elderly and our children.
There is no money left for potholes or for environmental services. In some parts of my constituency young people cause a lot of social nuisance and a lot of problems, such as breaking car windows and breaking people’s doors and windows. The local authority is being blamed for all of that, and people are saying, “You are not doing anything.” The political parties, especially the Conservative opposition, try to put it on the council. But, again, the council does not have the resources. It is doing everything it can. Where it can find some money, it is spending on the local area to try to improve the roads, get street lighting and help look after those communities affected by crime. The council is spending its money, but it does not have enough to give. When the hon. Member for Bolton West complains about things, I always say that he should be going to his own Government and Ministers. He should be asking them for that money. We have had a 54% cut in our budget over the past eight years and they are the people responsible for the situation we are in. He should be going to them asking for that extra money—the same thing applies in respect of policing cuts. Since this Government came to power 30,000 police have been cut—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. May I help the hon. Lady a little? We did have the police debate before. I presume that as you were going to name the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) in the way that you have and quote the newspaper, you made him aware that you were going to speak about him. Did you do that? I am just a bit concerned that he has not been notified.
Yasmin Qureshi
My apologies, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will let the hon. Gentleman know after this debate that I have referred to him.
Let me get back to the facts. Certain parts of the country need extra resources, and any funding formula that is created must take account of that. Many areas are unable to raise the money that they need and it is a big challenge for local authorities. While I am on my feet, may I ask for some extra money to fix the potholes in Bolton? May I also ask about an application that the council has made in respect of a mill on Crescent Road and a brownfield site being turned into housing? We still have not heard any response from Ministers about whether they are giving permission for building to take place. Finally, on housing, when the Labour Government came to power in 1997 they spent £18 billion on repairing homes. They did that in their first few years in office. So when people say we did not look after the issue of housing, I say that we did. We then also started building homes as well. We need more of those.