Cost of Living Increases
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
My constituents in Bolton South East, the 38th most deprived constituency in our country, need a Government and a council that will take the necessary steps to support them through the cost of living crisis.
The record of the Government of the last 13 years is clear. They are forcing through a 5% rise in council tax this spring; real wages have been squeezed since 2010; families are poorer than our European neighbours; the chaotic mini-Budget in September 2022 added £500 a month to first time buyers’ costs; food prices in the United Kingdom are up 50% faster than elsewhere in the G7; and we have had 24 tax rises since 2019, meaning the burden on working families is now the highest in 70 years.
Then there is the record of the Conservative council in Bolton, which has been in control since 2019. It failed to even apply to the levelling-up fund and we missed out on the opportunity of £40 million in investment; the urban redevelopment of Crompton Place has been cancelled and housing development on Moor Lane has been downgraded; and Marks & Spencer, a huge employer in Bolton, has announced that it will be leaving our town as it is not feasible for it to continue because of the stalled regeneration.
Meanwhile, the Labour party has a real plan for Bolton South East and for the country at large. We will freeze council tax this year and cut energy bills, paid for through a proper windfall tax on the gas and oil giants that have made billions of pounds in profits. A Labour Government will support small businesses, paid for by an online sales tax, allowing them to lower prices for customers on the high street. Our Treasury team will reverse the Conservative decision to hand the richest 1% of pension savers a £1 billion pound handout. Those are our immediate plans.
This afternoon, we have heard many Members on the Government Benches talk about the financial credibility of a Labour Government and of the Labour party, so I want to take a little journey through time. In 2006, nine years after Labour came into power, the GDP-to-debt ratio was 40.5%. Germany’s was 66.7% and France’s was 64.6%, so we were still doing better than those two countries. In 2008, as everyone knows, there was an economic crash that started with the Lehman Brothers collapse in the USA, and there was a global recession. The then Labour Chancellor borrowed money to save our economy, and everybody knows, if they put their hand on their heart, that he did: he stopped about half a million people losing their jobs and avoided the banking crisis.
Between 1997 and 2010, we also made a record investment in health, in education and in police numbers. Some £19 billion was spent on renovating council homes that had been left in an appalling situation because of years of Conservative government. Let us have no lectures from Government Members about who is financially prudent, bearing in mind that last year their Prime Minister collapsed the entire economy.
Oral Answers to Questions
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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James Cartlidge
What the IOD actually said about the Budget was that it was “hugely encouraging”, and I strongly agree. We have an extraordinary track record—the fastest-falling emissions in the whole of the G7 and extraordinary success in offshore wind—but we want to go further. That is why we have announced £20 billion for carbon capture and storage, and we will soon announce many more positive measures.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
The Government strongly encourage the effective utilisation of brownfield land, whether it was industrial, commercial or residential in its former use. We invest heavily in brownfield remediation programmes, including £1.8 billion at spending review 2021, as well as the levelling-up fund. National planning policy also sets out what planning policies and decisions should give substantial weight to the value of using suitable brownfield land.
Yasmin Qureshi
Bolton town centre is in a parlous state. We lost out in the latest round of levelling-up funding, and the Tory council failed even to send the earlier application for funding. As an ex-industrial town, we have large brownfield mill sites standing derelict and unused, and they are eyesores. We could retrofit them to create affordable social housing to alleviate our housing crisis, develop retail units for new businesses, and support local charities and community groups with such units. With that in mind, what discussion has the Treasury had with Bolton Council and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities about the merits of such a scheme for the borough?
John Glen
I agree with the hon. Lady that Bolton has great opportunities. Its brownfield register shows that it has more than 100 brownfield sites. Of course, the Government have given the Greater Manchester Combined Authority £150 million—£27 million just last year—to deliver local brownfield remediation. The breadth of the existing funds means that specific land remediation funding is not required, but there is provision in the Greater Manchester area, and I think that she should speak to the metro Mayor about it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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James Cartlidge
As a fellow East Anglian MP, it is great to see the hon. Member working in partnership with colleagues on these important matters for his constituency. He will know that the region was singled out by The Economist in August 2022 as being vital to invest in if the UK is to achieve growth and proper investment, and that East West Rail was a key recommendation in the National Infrastructure Commission’s 2017 report to unlock the potential of the Oxford and Cambridge area, including Milton Keynes. That has not changed and we are committed to it.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
The Government have made significant recent public investment in Bolton. For example, the first round of the levelling-up fund invested £20 million to create the Bolton College of Medical Sciences, and Bolton received £22.9 million from the towns fund to support its long-term economic and social regeneration. On the second part of the hon. Lady’s question, the Government do not routinely make estimates of private investment in towns.
Yasmin Qureshi
Last week, I met the chief executive of Bolton and Bury citizens advice bureau. Among the many pieces of work that it does, it employs money advisers. However, the Money and Pensions Service—the arm’s length body that funds citizens advice bureaux—is set to lose 10% of its funding. For my local branch, that means about £22,000, or the cost of one member of staff. With demand for its services doubling, given the energy and cost of living crises, how can the Chancellor push through those callous cuts to a scheme that supports some of the poorest and most vulnerable in Bolton? Will he reverse those cuts?
John Glen
The hon. Lady refers to the Money and Pensions Service. During the pandemic, additional Government grants were made available to support debt advisers. Some of that money was not used. There has been an attempt to look at how that money is distributed, but I would be happy to take this matter back and refer it to the Economic Secretary to see what can be done to give clarification.
Cost of Living: Fiscal Approach
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) for securing the debate.
My constituency, a place I am proud to represent, is the 38th most deprived in the UK. We have a wage crisis, a job crisis and a housing crisis. Now we have a Tory-made cost of living crisis, which my constituents literally cannot afford. It is a major issue, and it is filling my constituency mailbag and, I am sure, those of other Members. A recent survey by 38 Degrees found that it is the No. 1 issue facing constituents: 80% faced higher bills, 76% faced higher petrol prices, and 24% have lost income due to the universal credit cut. I wish I could stop there, but the testimony is even more telling. A constituent who wished to remain anonymous said:
“I am a pensioner with a lung health problem. I cannot afford to heat my home, which makes the health problem require greater medical attention, putting more strain on the NHS.”
Petrol is becoming almost unaffordable. In just eight months, a tank of petrol has gone up by roughly £17.50, so 5p off fuel duty will not begin to cut it. In areas such as mine, people are dependent on cars, because we have poor public transport links. As a result, the only affordable option has now become incredibly expensive. As my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central said, we must ask the Treasury to rethink the mileage cost allowance, at least for public sector workers, and to abolish hospital car parking charges.
The Bank of England is predicting a recession, interest rates will go up, as will the energy cap in October and again in 2023, and the inflation rate could pass 10%—the list goes on. There is so much that the Government could do but have refused to. Labour has called for a windfall tax to provide support to households. We could increase universal credit back to what it was throughout the pandemic, and cancel the national insurance rise. Those are measures that the Government could take, but they are refusing to do so.
Short-term policy responses will not put money into the pockets of working people; only a long-term plan to address the crisis will do so. The war in Ukraine has shown how important energy security is. We need to invest in renewables and nuclear energy, as the Labour party has pushed for, to end our dependency on foreign nations. That would create proper jobs on a living wage. We also need to invest heavily in our infrastructure—trams, trains and metros—to create further economic effects and to green up our nation. Again, that will create jobs.
As I find myself saying time and time again, this is an issue not of how but of political will. Sadly, I think it is an issue that the Government will continue to avoid, while the Opposition parties rightfully make the case for proper support. Our constituents are suffering; it is about time that the Government did something to help them. It is not surprising that no Conservative Back Benchers are present—they know that what is happening is indefensible.
Oral Answers to Questions
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
The Government have announced that the self-employment income support scheme will continue until September, with a fourth and a fifth grant. This provides certainty to business as the economy reopens and it means that the self-employment income support scheme continues to be one of the most generous covid-19 support schemes for self-employment income around the world.
Jesse Norman
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. Of course, we have put in place £407 billion-worth of support across the whole of the pandemic, which is an astonishing level of support for a very wide range of businesses and people across the country. In relation to the self-employed, he may not be aware, but I have bent over backwards to engage with different groups of the self-employed. Repeatedly, across different meetings, we have looked with the greatest care at the proposals that they have put forward to bring in people who may not be able to qualify at the moment. As the Chancellor mentioned, 600,000 people previously ineligible may now be eligible, including those newly self-employed in 2019-20.
Yasmin Qureshi [V]
The Government may well throw these figures about, but we know that 3.8 million self-employed people have had no financial support throughout this whole pandemic. Freelancers, small companies and other people across Bolton and this country want the Chancellor to recognise the fact that his continued silence is just not good enough.
Jesse Norman
In mentioning Bolton, the hon. Lady somehow neglected to mention the £22.9 million-worth of towns funding that Bolton has recently received. I thought that she might kick off with that. The answer that I gave was perfectly clear about the matter: we are bending over backwards to support people. We have leant into this issue as hard as we can and we will continue to do so.
Coronavirus Bill
Yasmin Qureshi ExcerptsMonday 23rd March 2020
(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I do not think that the hon. Gentleman understood what I set out at the start. This is how these powers will be activated. Some of them will be for the UK Government with regard to England, but it is absolutely right that it is the devolved nations that will switch the powers on, and it could be in very localised areas. Those decisions will be taken in response to a very dynamic situation, probably in COBRA. Having sat around that table, and knowing some of the decisions that may be coming down the line, I think that is appropriate.
Let me turn to some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds). I touched on social care in my earlier remarks. He is absolutely right that we must have those measures in place, and I hope that what I said about my hon. Friend the Minister for Care has gone some way towards addressing that. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about domestic violence, and we must be alert to the potential for an increase in demand for those services.
I thank the Second Church Estates Commissioner, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), for tabling new clause 1, and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for supporting it. As my hon. Friend set out, the purpose of the new clause is to make provision for the postponement of the dissolution of the General Synod of the Church of England. The dissolution is to take place in July and will be followed by an election of the new General Synod over the summer. We support the new clause, which is consistent with the approach that the Government have taken to other elections.
Let me turn to other Government amendments, particularly on cremation, which many hon. Members have raised. For their engagement, I want to thank in particular the hon. Members for Bradford West (Naz Shah), for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) and for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), and my hon. Friends the Members for Peterborough (Paul Bristow), for Dudley North (Marco Longhi), for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), for Wycombe (Mr Baker), for Wealden (Ms Ghani) and for Meriden (Saqib Bhatti).
The policy that has been developed on dealing with excess deaths has involved all faith groups from the start. The purpose of the provisions is to ensure that people’s choices can be adhered to, that the dignity of the deceased is respected and that support services for families are in place, even in times of great stress. There should be no public health reason or capacity reason why someone who wished to be buried would be cremated. I hope that is very clear. I can give the House that reassurance. We have included further measures in the Bill. Local authority leaders will also want to reassure their communities in the coming days—clearly, it is local authority chief executives who will use these powers, if they are ever used. I also want to put on the record my thanks to Councillor Sharon Thompson of Birmingham City Council.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
The provision states that it is desirable for a local authority or public authority to seek the wishes of the deceased person’s family or a place of worship if there is no next of kin. Saying that it is desirable to take their views into consideration does not mean that those views will apply if a local authority or public authority decides that a cremation is going to take place, under the legislation as it stands. The Government could make an amendment to clearly specify that if somebody does not wish to be cremated, they will not be cremated. That is missing from the Bill at the moment.
Penny Mordaunt
We have brought forward an amendment that gives those guarantees with regard to someone’s beliefs, religion or wishes. In addition, I stress that it has never been the case—there has never been any doubt about this—that somebody who wished to be buried would have to be cremated. There is no public health reason or capacity reason why that should be the case. We have worked from the off with all faiths to produce the guidelines, and the amendment was produced through consultation. I see no circumstance—and it certainly would not relate to these powers—in which somebody would be cremated against their wishes. I do not think I can give any more guarantees than that. That is absolutely not the intent of the policy and it is certainly not anything to do with the practice.
Penny Mordaunt
I am going to make progress, but I thank all Members who have spoken to me over the past few days, in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden, who has also been very helpful to me and Public Health England with regard to additional things we may need to do with funeral services.
The Government have tabled a number of other new clauses and amendments. New clause 16 relates to the industrial development cap. New clause 20 removes existing requirements for local authorities and councils to hold annual meetings. New clause 24 touches on issues that the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) raised earlier in respect of suspending new evictions from social or private rented accommodation. What I said in my previous remarks about that applies. Amendment 27 will indemnify returning officers for the cancellation of polls. Amendments 79 to 82 relate to the use of video in extradition hearings. Amendments 55 and 56, on trading standards enforcement, relate to the enforcement of provisions on gatherings, events and premises. They widen the scope of those who can be given powers and bring proceedings for offences.
New clause 23 is concerned with biometrics, which are a critical tool used daily in support of our national security. The new clause establishes a time-limited power to enable the Home Secretary to make regulations, after consulting the independent Biometrics Commissioner, to extend the statutory retention deadlines for biometrics already held by the police and for national security reasons by up to six months.
Mr Kevan Jones
I ask the Minister to look again at the provisions in the Bill around the Mental Health Act 1983. I accept the reasons why having one doctor to free up capacity might be relevant, but could the Minister consider provisions under which one doctor signs and that is reviewed by a second doctor within a day or a very short period? Without that, some very vulnerable people could be left unprotected.
I accept the reason why elections have been postponed. However, in County Durham, we have a police and crime commissioner by-election due in May because of the death of the PCC. The acting commissioner is only in there for six months, so is there provision to extend his period by up to another 12 months? That will be needed, because the elections will not take place next year.
Lastly, I urge the Minister and the Treasury to do something for self-employed people.
Yasmin Qureshi
Earlier, I asked the Minister about cremation and I know that she gave me the assurance that no one would be cremated or buried against their religious wishes. However, with all due respect, assurances from the Minister are not the same as provisions in the Bill. The Bill still says that it is “desirable” to ask for views and to do something, but unless the body of the Bill actually states that nobody can be buried or cremated against their religious wishes, the law as it stands is that that is not compulsory—the idea is only advisable or only something to do with consultation. I say that because currently the legislation is that someone cannot be cremated without the consent of the person.
The precise reason why the Government introduced the legislation was so that they could circumvent that by putting in the provision saying it is “desirable”. In a court of law, “desirable” is not the same as saying “you must” or “you cannot cremate or bury somebody unless they wish that to be so”. That is the kind of guarantee that is required in the body of the Bill.
Non-stun Slaughter of Animals
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Mr Robertson
My hon. Friend raises a good and important point. I do not pretend for one moment that the practice is absolutely perfect. It does need to be improved, but the objective should be to go down that road, rather than have animals slaughtered without stunning. He raises a perfectly good point.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that on many occasions stunning involves sending a very strong electric shock to the animal, which can suffer for about 20 or 25 minutes while it is being made unconscious, causing excruciating pain?
Mr Robertson
That should not be the case, but if it is, that practice needs outlawing as well.
David Rutley
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am really pleased that the Conservative party is interested in this issue, and I am really pleased that the Labour party and the Scottish National party are taking an active interest too. This is a cross-party issue. We are trying to push through so much legislation and I know that there is frustration about just when we will be able to make it happen. I share that frustration, but hopefully hon. Members know, after all the debates that we have had in recent days, that we are working very hard to try to make these things happen.
Let me come back to the point about religious slaughter. On non-stun slaughter in particular, I restate that it is the Government’s preference that all animals are stunned before slaughter. However, as I said in answer to the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain)—this relates to the comments made by the hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah)—the Government respect the rights of Jews and Muslims to eat meat prepared in accordance with their beliefs. Therefore, we allow religious slaughter of animals by Muslims and Jews intended for consumption by Muslim and Jewish communities, in keeping with their traditions.
The Government believe that this is an important religious freedom. There is a long history of upholding it in legislation, dating back to the Slaughter of Animals Act 1933. We remember from our history books what was going on at that time in the ’30s. Important decisions were made in relation to that Act, which contained an exception from stunning for religious slaughter for Jews and Muslims. Since then, the rules governing religious slaughter have developed to provide additional protections to animals that are slaughtered in accordance with religious rites, while still permitting non-stun slaughter for Jews and Muslims.
When we discuss religious slaughter, it is worth bearing in mind that often in the case of halal meat the relevant Muslim authorities are content that the animal is stunned. Although we produce a significant amount of halal sheepmeat in this country, two thirds of it is from sheep that are stunned before slaughter.
Today there are both EU and domestic regulations that protect the welfare of animals at the time of killing. Within that legislation, there are additional rules for those animals slaughtered in accordance with religious rites, specifically for the production of halal or kosher meat. The primary aim of the welfare at slaughter regulations, which are based on a body of scientific evidence and advice from the European Food Safety Authority, is to ensure that animals are spared avoidable pain, distress or suffering at the time of killing, which was one of the key points that my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury made in his very important speech.
The Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing (England) Regulations 2015— WATOK—imposed stricter national rules for religious slaughter and provided greater protections than those contained in the EU regulation, which sets baseline Europe-wide standards. For instance, we prohibit the inversion of cattle for religious slaughter, which some member states, such as France, still allow. This ban followed the 1985 report of the Farm Animal Welfare Council, which recommended that inversion be banned.
The hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) raised concerns about mis-stunning. The official veterinarians of the Food Standards Agency will take enforcement action against mis-stunning.
Yasmin Qureshi
I thank the Minister for mentioning mis-stunning. Will he ensure that if there is going to be labelling, we are told on the label exactly the methodology adopted in the stunning?
David Rutley
That is an important point. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury, there are so many things that I would like to talk about to try to reassure people here. I will skim through them and then come back to that point about labelling. If I may, I will make that the last intervention, then I think I will be able to answer the other points that have been made.
Unauthorised Overdrafts
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Rachel Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for speaking on behalf of her constituent. We have all experienced people in our patches being ripped off by banks. Frankly, that is not what people expect. They expect to be able to trust their high street bank to give them a good deal and treat them fairly, yet in my hon. Friend’s constituent’s case, that just is not happening.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this excellent debate. She talked about the Which? report. She will be aware that NatWest customers face fees of £180 for exceeding their limit by £100 for 30 days, and that Lloyds and Santander demand £160. That is completely uncalled for.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (in the Chair)
Order. I remind Members that interventions need to be very short and punchy, particularly when we have only half an hour.
Rachel Reeves
I agree. What really worries me is that most of the £1 billion that is made every year from unauthorised charges is made on the backs of those who are most financially vulnerable. It is a bitter irony that it is now a better deal for some people who need short-term credit to go to a payday lender rather than their high street bank. Most of us regard banks as more reputable and fairer to customers, yet for many people that is just not the case.
Huge progress has been made on the charges faced by people who access finance through payday lenders, as my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) mentioned, with the introduction of a cap following great work by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), so why are banks still allowed to get away with these unfair practices? There was some hope last year that this problem would be addressed when the Competition and Markets Authority undertook a review of the retail banking market. The CMA recognised the issue and the inquiry’s chair subsequently told the Treasury Committee that unauthorised overdrafts are
“the biggest single problem in the personal banking market”.
The CMA published its review of retail banking on 9 August, but frankly its conclusions and proposals were a missed opportunity. It found that overdraft users make up almost half of those with personal current accounts and that many find it hard to keep on top of their arranged or unarranged overdrafts. It acknowledged that failing to do so can be costly, since overdraft users can accumulate high costs from the complicated mix of interest, fees and charges.
The review goes on to say that overdraft users, like other personal current account customers, have very low switching rates, which is particularly striking given that they often have the most to gain from switching. One reason for that is that overdraft users can be uncertain about whether they will be able to obtain an overdraft facility from a different bank or when such a facility would be made available to them and are therefore worried about moving accounts,. Anyway, none of the major high street banks has a great offer for customers who are financially vulnerable.
When it came to remedies, the CMA’s proposals, quite frankly, fell well short of the mark. Some measures will go some way to addressing problems for some people, but not for those who most need support. One proposal says that customers need to be given clear notice when they are going overdrawn and that banks will be required to notify customers when they are going into an unarranged overdraft. Customers also need to be given the opportunity to avoid incurring charges, and the alerts that banks will be required to provide will inform them of a grace period during which they have an opportunity to avoid charges by paying more money into their account.
Critically, the CMA fell short of proposing an independently set maximum cap on the charges on overdrafts, as we have with payday loans. Instead, the report said that banks will be required to set their own ceilings on their unarranged overdraft charges in the form of a monthly maximum charge. However, most banks already have that. The problem is not that banks do not have a maximum charge—they do, and it might be £5 a day or £90 a month—but that the maximum charge is much too high.
The major four high street banks, which make up 77% of the current account market, already set their own caps on charges, and those charges can be up to £100 a month. The CMA’s proposals represent little more than business as usual for those banks. Competition in this section of the market is weak, and in the past few years it has got weaker still with the merger of many of our high street banks. Heavy unarranged overdraft users are the least likely to switch banks accounts. Banks make more than £1 billion from unarranged overdraft charges and, given the substantial revenues they generate, there is little financial incentive to lower existing charges.
Ultimately, the proposals in the CMA report might take small steps towards helping some, but for the majority of people who are already struggling and do not have the means to prevent unauthorised overdrafts even if they are alerted to them, they will do little, if anything, to help. The monthly maximum cap as proposed by the CMA will likely do nothing to stop the deepening of a person’s debt crisis, with punitive and disproportionate charges.
I do not want to deny the banks the right to charge for the services they provide, but I do want some fairness and proportionality. It is not fair to charge £5 a day or £90 a month for being a few pence over an overdraft limit, and it is not fair to whack charges on customers who are struggling with debt, in the knowledge that the charges will make their problems worse, not better. Banks need to take some responsibility for their customers.
As the Competition and Markets Authority admitted at a meeting of the Treasury Committee, the measures proposed in the report are geared at everybody and not in particular those who are financially vulnerable, for whom no direct action is proposed. When I asked whether the banks were taking advantage of financially vulnerable customers, it conceded that those customers who are least likely to switch are a “captive audience” for the banks and their excessive charges.
Ultimately, the Competition and Markets Authority report was a huge opportunity finally to put an end to what it calls “uncomfortably high” charges and to address what it said was the
“biggest single problem in the personal banking market”.
However, the opportunity was squandered. In effect, it passed the buck by asking the Financial Conduct Authority to respond to the recommendations. Peter Vicary-Smith, the chief executive of Which?, said to the Treasury Committee that the Competition and Markets Authority had left the heavy lifting and the difficult decisions for the Financial Conduct Authority to make. In response to that buck-passing, the new chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, Andrew Bailey, has made the welcome decision to include this issue in its ongoing review of high-cost short-term credit, which will report later this year.
The Financial Conduct Authority needs to do more to tackle the detriment caused by persistent overdraft use. I have been pleased by the focus that the FCA has placed on this issue so far, picking up where unfortunately the CMA left off. StepChange Debt Charity says that the review
“should include looking at what more can be done by lenders to support people who are trapped in an overdraft cycle and give them better and more affordable ways of paying back their debts.”
Yasmin Qureshi
Does my hon. Friend consider that what the banks are doing is insidious, bearing in mind that they and the Government can borrow at very low rates of interest?
Rachel Reeves
My hon. Friend is right. The bank rate is so low and banks are being given access to money at such low rates from the Bank of England. The problem is that they are not passing that on to their customers, and certainly not to those who most need it. The banks should be doing much more to ensure that those low interest rates are passed on, because that would give the whole economy a boost as well as helping those people who most need it.
I have been calling on and will continue to urge the Financial Conduct Authority to look at setting a cap for banks on unauthorised overdrafts as has already been done for payday lenders. It must look at such lending by banks in exactly the same way and not shy away from setting a cap for banks, too.
I also urge the Government to take action, because while the Financial Conduct Authority undertakes its review, every single day more financially vulnerable customers are being exploited and more and more are being pushed further into a cycle of debt. That is simply not acceptable. The justification for a cap in these markets has been made with the introduction of a cap in the payday lending market, and those are two different sources for the same short-term credit for people who need it immediately. They can either go to a payday lender or go into an unarranged overdraft. Whichever option they decide on to meet their short-term needs, they should not be exploited. The Government recognised that for payday lending and now need to recognise that on unarranged overdraft charges.
Frankly, it is a disgrace that the banks are charging more than payday lenders for short-term lending and getting away with it, so the Government should take action. That is why I am calling on the Minister and the Government to legislate for a cap on overdraft fees and charges, as they have already done for payday lending through the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013. That would allow the FCA to implement such a cap without delay and without the risk of the banks taking the matter to the courts.
It is not right that the banks are making huge profits at the expense of the most vulnerable. Anything less than an independently set cap on overdraft charges will not be enough. I urge the Minister and the Government to act now, and I ask that as a first step the Minister will agree to meet me and representatives of Which? and StepChange to discuss this issue further so that we can ensure that all customers are afforded the protection they deserve.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
They say that the first casualty of war is truth, and sadly, that seems to be the default position of the Conservative party. The country, however, has a right not to be misled by this Tory Government and by the previous Con-Dem Government, whose mantra was, to a man and to a woman, that the financial crisis had been created by the Labour party. The Government know full well that it was caused by, among other things, the sub-prime mortgages in the United States of America and the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and that many other countries faced the same financial crisis.
I hear some sighs and moans from Conservative Members. Perhaps I should take them on a trip down memory lane. When Labour came to power in 1997, the ratio of GDP to national debt was 40.4%. By 2007-08, after 10 years of Labour government, it was 36.4%. However, by 2011 it was 60%. In 1997, the total public sector debt was £352 billion. What do Conservative Members think it is now? It is £902 billion. What was the level of Government borrowing in 1997-98? It was £7.8 billion. What do Conservative Members think it is now? It is £145 billion. When Conservative Members tell us how prudent they are with the economy, that is just plain rubbish. The facts do not bear it out.
The Chancellor talks of trying to cut the national debt. It currently stands at £1.5 trillion, which is 82% of GDP. So much for the Government’s economic competence. Again in pursuit of a falsehood, the Chancellor said that the United Kingdom had the fastest-growing economy in the world. Absolute rubbish. The IMF has said that the economies of the USA, Spain and Ireland have grown the fastest. One reason why they have grown so fast is the fact that their Governments invested in their economies. The USA’s financial stimulus package is worth £831 billion, so it is not surprising that its economy recovered.
Another missed opportunity in the Budget was the opportunity to help regenerate our economy. The Chancellor cut capital gains tax, but I should have liked him to put money aside for the building of more affordable homes. When Labour came to power in 1997, it inherited millions of derelict homes that were not fit for human habitation. It spent £25 billion on trying to repair those homes, which created jobs—proper, solid jobs that allowed people to pay income tax. Of course, the building of homes does not just provide jobs for labourers; it provides jobs in related sectors supplying cement, pipes, electric wiring, baths and toilets. I suppose the Government could not care less, because to them an affordable home is a home that costs about £450,000. I am not sure that many Labour Members, or many voters in this country, could afford homes of that sort.
The Government could also have taken the opportunity to invest in renewables. So much work was going on, so many companies were producing stuff, and that was creating jobs. But what did the Government do? They scrapped all that. Now they say that there is an energy crisis, and that in order to deal with it, they will start fracking all over the United Kingdom, even though it has been well established that most fracking is dangerous. Lancashire is a beautiful county, but it seems that the Government have overridden local people’s and local authorities’ objections and granted exploratory licences, so the whole of Lancashire will be wrecked. Moreover, given the geography of the county, there is a real risk that our water will be poisoned. The Government say that they are concerned about energy, but they could have taken steps that would have saved energy, and there would have been no need for the fracking that will ruin and pollute our country. But we know that a Tory politician recently said, “Go and frack in the north, where they don’t mind. Just don’t do it in my backyard in the south.”
It is reprehensible that this Government should take money from the most vulnerable disabled people while giving others tax cuts. It is surprising to see how they really do not care about the ordinary person.
There are many other things that I could say about this Budget, but I shall end with these points. Everyone knows that hundreds of millions of pounds has been wasted on academies in the past few years. Even though there are some fantastic schools, there is no record to show that academies have better standards. Even so, the Government want to force every school to become an academy. At the same time, they talk about wanting to give local people power. They say that they want to give local people a voice in their community, yet at every stage they override the wishes of local people. This hypocrisy—
Yasmin Qureshi
No, I am sorry; I am coming to the end of my speech.
The other fiction that exists is that of the northern powerhouse. As a north-west MP, I have not seen that. The electrification of our railways has been cancelled or delayed, and I do not see anything else happening. This Budget is all about smoke and mirrors.
Tax Credits
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Clive Efford
I am taking my time, Mr Deputy Speaker.
The Prime Minister and others were asked specifically, “Will you cut tax credits?”, and the answer was no.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I agree with everything my hon. Friend is saying. Does he agree that this cut is being imposed because the Conservative party, for ideological reasons, does not like poor or working people, and only wants to help and enrich the rich people?
Clive Efford
Absolutely.
If I were to accuse people of lying, Mr Deputy Speaker, you would rightly rule me out of order, but the people out there will have to make up their own minds. When the Justice Secretary went on to Martha Kearney’s programme, he was specifically asked what the Government would do on tax credits, and he said, “No, we’re going to freeze them for two years.” I do not know what the definition of a lie is, but I know that people outside the House will make up their own minds—although we cannot use that language in here.
We know the Conservatives have lost the argument. This started at the autumn statement when the Chancellor said, “Britain deserves a pay increase, and Britain is going to get a pay increase”, but Government Members did not know when they cheered him that he was going to cut tax credits and make people worse off. Even the increase in the national minimum wage—it is not a national living wage, it is a Tory living wage—will be wiped out for those on it by the cut to tax credits.
I say to those who are upset about these proposals: it is not good enough just to have a chat in private with the Chancellor or the Prime Minister. This is where they represent their constituents—here in the House of Commons—and if they do not agree with what their Front-Bench team are telling them to do, they should join us in the Lobby tonight to vote against what the Government are doing to people on tax credits.