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Category: Speeches

  • Victoria Atkins – 2020 Statement on Child Protection

    Victoria Atkins – 2020 Statement on Child Protection

    Below is the text of the statement made by Victoria Atkins, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, on 27 February 2020.

    With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on Her Majesty’s inspectorate of police, fire and rescue services’ thematic report on its national child protection inspection programme. This important report was published today and summarises the findings of 64 inspections and re-inspections of police forces’ approaches to child protection since the programme began in 2014.

    Keeping our children safe is an absolute priority for this Government, and we welcome Her Majesty’s inspectorate’s work in this area. Protecting vulnerable people should be of utmost importance to the police, and we are committed to ensuring that police forces demonstrate continued improvement in this regard. The activity of our independent inspectorates is critical to our ability to monitor progress and drive change. In the five years since it began, the national child protection inspection programme has been a vital source of independent scrutiny and challenge, and it has been instrumental in driving improvements in the way the police work with vulnerable children. As we know too well, this is an area of police work in which we have seen some of the worst failures in the past.

    The report notes that

    “we have continued to see an unambiguous commitment from police leaders, officers and staff to the protection of children.”

    The report recognises improvements—in some cases, significant improvements—in the service received by children at risk. In every case, when inspectors returned to a police force that had previously been inspected, they saw progress being made and better outcomes for children. They saw examples of good, innovative work, such as the programme in Wales to provide early support to children exposed to adverse childhood experiences. Officers are better at understanding the signs of vulnerability and recognising children who are at risk. We welcome the positive findings in today’s report.

    The report is clear, however, that more needs to be done. Although the police have a better understanding of risk, their resources are too often focused on areas of acute risk. Not enough is being done to spot the earliest signs of risk and prevent those risks from escalating. There are concerning findings around the detention of vulnerable children. Children are too often being detained in custody when they should not be, and they are not being appropriately safeguarded in those situations. There are inconsistencies in how forces manage dangerous offenders, and the escalation in the prevalence of digital technology in offending is a significant challenge, meaning that it is taking too long to identify and safeguard children who have been the victims of sexual abuse online.

    These are serious matters, and I want to set out the steps the Government are taking to address them. As the Home Secretary stated yesterday, we are an ambitious and dynamic new Government with law and order at our heart. Our mission is clear. It is to deliver on the people’s priorities: to cut crime and to protect the public. We have recognised the huge demands placed on our police forces, and we are addressing these pressures with the recruitment of an unprecedented 20,000 additional ​officers over three years. We are investing a further £1.1 billion in policing next year—taking the total up to £15.2 billion—with the help of police and crime commissioners using their precepts. The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary are driving a united Government response with a new cross-Whitehall crime and justice taskforce to ensure that we use every lever at our disposal to fight crime. However, as today’s report makes clear, the rise in high-harm crimes such as serious violence and child sexual abuse is having a particular impact on the most vulnerable, requiring more from our police officers. They need to be able to look beyond the obvious and to develop a deeper understanding of risk.

    We have worked with the College of Policing and are providing £1.9 million of funding to develop a more comprehensive package of training for first responders, so that they are better able to identify signs of vulnerability and provide support to victims. We have also funded the police’s own vulnerability, knowledge and practice programme to develop policing best practice in response to vulnerability as a whole. The programme is recognised in today’s report for its work to evaluate best practice in early intervention. We have introduced stronger multi-agency child safeguarding arrangements with shared responsibility between local authorities, police and health partners for the local strategic response to safeguarding, including harms such as child sexual exploitation. Again, these reforms, which were implemented in every local area in England last September, are recognised in today’s report as a key opportunity to deliver the kind of systemic change we need to see.

    In relation to the inappropriate detention of children, we will look carefully at the recommendation and do what we can to ensure that vulnerable children receive an appropriate service from the police. We will continue to monitor the effectiveness of the 2017 concordat on children in custody, which sets out the statutory duties of the police and local authorities and provides a protocol for how transfers should work in practice.

    Today’s report also recognises that the nature of risk is changing, and investment in officers and changing police culture are only part of the solution. That is why we are investing in new capabilities to tackle the exploitation of vulnerable children through crimes such as child sexual exploitation, child criminal exploitation and county lines. Last year we announced a £30 million investment in funding for work to tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation in 2020-21. The new funding will include investment in the child abuse image database—CAID—which the Home Office has developed in collaboration with UK law enforcement. CAID is a single database of indecent images of children which enables UK law enforcement to work collaboratively to safeguard children and bring people to justice. The new funding will allow us to deliver upgrades to CAID, including a fast, forensic tool to rapidly analyse seized devices and find images already known to law enforcement; an image categorisation algorithm to assist officers to identify and categorise the severity of illegal imagery; and a capability to detect images with matching scenes to help to identify children in indecent images in order to safeguard victims.

    We have announced £25 million of targeted investment across 2019-20 and 2020-21 to strengthen the law enforcement response to county lines and increase the ​support available to the children, young people and families who are affected. This is in addition to establishing the national county lines co-ordination centre, with £3.6 million of Home Office funding, and providing a range of support for county lines victims. We also recognise that by the time children experience these forms of exploitation, the harm has been done. Police and other services need to spot the signs of risk and intervene earlier. Through our £13 million four-year trusted relationships programme, we are trialling 11 innovative projects in England working to protect vulnerable 10 to 17-year-olds who are at high risk of sexual exploitation and other forms of harm. We want to do more, however, which is why this year we will be publishing a first-of-its-kind national strategy to tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation.

    We welcome today’s report. The protection of vulnerable children from harm is of the highest priority to this Government, as it should be to our police forces, and the inspectorate’s work in this area is vital in shaping our work in the future. The Home Secretary intends to meet inspectors to discuss today’s report and understand what more we and the police can do to ensure that children receive the highest levels of protection in the future. I commend this statement to the House.

  • Sarah Jones – 2020 Speech on Rough Sleeping

    Below is the text of the speech made by Sarah Jones, the Labour MP for Croydon Central, in the House of Commons on 27 February 2020.

    I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. Rough sleeping is not inevitable in a country as decent and well off as ours. The cost of a decade of austerity has been over 700 deaths last year on our streets and huge numbers of children and families in bed-and-breakfast and temporary accommodation. It is the defining mark of this Conservative Government. Any improvement on that record is welcome, but today’s figures show that the number of people sleeping rough in shop doorways and on park benches is more than double what it was when Labour left government. That shames us all and it shames Conservative Ministers most of all. It must end.

    Today’s figures come with a big health warning: everyone, from the Secretary of State to homelessness charities, knows that these statistics are an unreliable undercount of the true scale of the problem. The figures have been refused national statistics status—a mark of

    “trustworthiness, quality and public value”

    Yesterday, Labour’s shadow Housing Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), wrote to the UK Statistics Authority to ask it to investigate their accuracy.

    That follows new data obtained by the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act, showing that Ministers have been dramatically under-reporting the scale of rough sleeping. The BBC revealed that 25,000 people are sleeping rough in England—five times the number recorded by the Government’s statistics. Even on today’s unreliable figures, the Government are set to break their pledge to end rough sleeping by the end of the Parliament. At the current rate of progress, they will not end rough ​sleeping until 2037, so while the Secretary of State’s ambitious words are welcome, how does he intend to reach his target without further investment?

    The announcement today that the Government will go some way towards following Labour’s proposals and fund housing for rough sleepers following the Housing First model is welcome, but we remember that the Secretary of State’s party promised 200,000 starter homes and did not build a single one. When the Prime Minster was Mayor of London, he promised to end rough sleeping in the capital by 2012, but rough sleeping doubled. We are right to be sceptical and ask the Secretary of State to clarify: by what date will these homes will be made available? How will the locations be determined? And is the funding genuinely extra, as he claims, or has it been diverted from other programmes in the Department’s budget?

    It is not just that the Government have turned a blind eye to the homelessness crisis for so long—which they have—but they have refused to face up to the fact that they actively created the crisis. They have cut £1 billion a year from local homelessness reduction budgets and there is no commitment to reverse that. They have cut investment in new homes for social rent to record levels, with no commitment to reverse that, and they have failed to deliver on their pledge to end unfair evictions—the leading cause of homelessness.

    Much like other symptoms of the housing crisis, such as the spiralling housing benefit bill, the funding needed to tackle rough sleeping will continue to rise if we do not invest in addressing the root causes of the housing crisis. That means more than warm words about bringing health and housing together; it means facing up to the impact of deep cuts to welfare, mental health support and addiction services since 2010. However, the Government are in denial about the root causes of homelessness. Perhaps that is why the Housing Secretary chose to appoint someone as his Parliamentary Private Secretary, with specific responsibility for rough sleeping, who thinks that sleeping rough is a lifestyle choice and who claimed that

    “many people choose to be on the street”—[Official Report, 29 January 2020; Vol. 670, c. 858.]

    He also claimed that it is more comfortable than going on exercise in the Army— [Interruption.]

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)

    Order.

    Sarah Jones

    That is particularly insulting to the hundreds of our armed forces veterans who are sleeping rough, who this Government have abandoned despite their years of service to our country.

    As the first snow of the new decade falls on our streets outside, we must face up to the human cost of this Conservative Government: two people a day are dying on our streets; 127,000 children are homeless in temporary accommodation; and the rough sleeping figures are five times higher than the official statistics. Homelessness was tackled by the last Labour Government when we inherited a similar scale of crisis. We reduced rough sleeping by three quarters. The Secretary of State’s announcements today will not go far enough to deliver on his targets. To quote Louise Casey:

    “We have gone from a beacon of success to an international example of failure”,​

    and we

    “must not allow this issue to be ignored, we must feel its impact and act as the country we are proud to be.”

  • Robert Jenrick – 2020 Statement on Rough Sleeping

    Robert Jenrick – 2020 Statement on Rough Sleeping

    Below is the text of the statement made by Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, in the House of Commons on 27 February 2020.

    With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to update the House on the latest rough sleeping annual statistics for 2019, published today, and the Government’s new approach.

    I think we can all agree that it is a moral shame that we see so many people sleeping rough on our streets. We are determined to end the blight of rough sleeping and have placed this great social ill at the heart of the moral mission of the Government. Today’s figures are encouraging. They show that for a second year in a row the number of people sleeping rough has fallen. Across England, the numbers have fallen by 9%, building on last year’s reduction which was the first fall in eight years. Areas funded by the Government’s rough sleeping initiative saw a 12% decrease. Manchester is down 26%; Camden down 54%; Birmingham down 43%; and Enfield down 69%. Cornwall is down 55%; Hastings down 56%; the City of London is down 39%; Swale down 69%; Bedford down 41%; and Tameside is down by 86%. London saw a decrease of 11%. That is the first decrease in the number of rough sleepers in London for six years and the largest decrease since 2010. That, as colleagues who represent London constituencies will know, comes despite the very considerable and specific challenges faced in the capital, including, as the figures show, the fact that 42% of those sleeping rough in the city, and quite possibly more than that, are non-UK nationals.

    Those figures confirm what I have seen since I became Housing Secretary in the summer: dedicated and targeted support, backed by significant levels of Government support, is getting vulnerable people off the streets and into safe accommodation where they can begin to turn their lives around. The Government’s strategy is working. I would like to pay tribute to the hard work of charities, service providers, local authorities and many, many volunteers backed by Government funding across the country, who are working tirelessly to give rough sleepers the support they need to help them off the streets, and to begin the long and complex process of turning their lives around. That does not mean our work ends here. We are perhaps coming up out of the valley, but we are very far from the mountain top.

    This Conservative Government have made it an overriding priority to end rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament. There is a great deal more to do and we must be honest with ourselves about the scale of the challenge and tackle it head-on with renewed vigour. That is why I am pleased that the Prime Minister and I are today announcing that Dame Louise Casey will lead a review of rough sleeping. This work will consider the links between 24-hour street activity and rough sleeping, particularly physical and mental health issues, and provide advice to me and to the Prime Minister on how we can best use the levers of central and local government to support this group and continue to reduce rough sleeping across the country. I know that Dame Louise’s vast experience, rigour and candour, and the fact that she has worked across party for many years, mean that she is the right person to look at what is needed and help to get the job done. I want to support ​Dame Louise to move at a pace commensurate with the seriousness and urgency of the action we must take now.

    Meanwhile, we will continue to build on our successful rough sleeping strategy, guided by the best evidence, intervening rapidly where people are sleeping on the streets, and supporting people’s recovery to ensure that they never have to sleep rough again. Putting this ambition into practice, the Government have today announced £236 million of new money for move-on accommodation, safely supporting up to an additional 6,000 rough sleepers, and those at immediate risk of rough sleeping, off the streets into the safe and secure accommodation they deserve, with support wrapped around them. This is on top of the £437 million that the Government have provided to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping in the next financial year, including more than £112 million to fund services through the rough sleeping initiative. This funding will be used by councils to provide up to 6,000 beds and 2,500 support staff over the next year, so the number of beds will be increasing very rapidly.

    We recognise that there are particular challenges in responding to the increase in European economic area national rough sleepers, and hon. Members may recall that as part of the cold weather fund, the Government took the unprecedented decision to extend limited powers to the most affected local authorities to support certain EEA nationals sleeping rough for a limited period. That approach has been successful, with over 400 EEA nationals accommodated in November and December last year, and many of them supported into work or to return home. The Government have today taken the decision to continue some of those services until 31 December 2020, when the transition period ends and the new immigration system will be in place. I will work closely with the Home Secretary on how we address those challenges at the end of the transition period.

    While prevention, outreach and emergency support are of course vital, we need secure, sustainable accommodation to end rough sleeping for good, and increasing the provision of affordable housing is fundamental to making that happen. This Government have delivered nearly half a million new, affordable homes. We have also abolished the council borrowing cap, so that local authorities are able to build up to 10,000 more social homes a year, and many are doing that.

    We cannot and will not let that momentum slip. That is why we have already committed to 250,000 new affordable homes by March 2022 through the affordable homes programme, backed by £9 billion. We are increasing the supply of social housing and we will ensure that rough sleepers, and those at risk of rough sleeping, are provided with homes that are available long term and are appropriate to their needs. We simply must build more homes as a country and I will be doing all I can to ensure that that happens.

    However, boosting housing supply is just one of many long-term measures that we must take to properly and permanently address homelessness and rough sleeping. We have to redouble our efforts to tackle the underlying problems that have led many people to fall into a life on the streets. Last year, four in 10 of the rough sleeping population in London were suffering from a severe drug dependency and the same proportion were suffering from alcohol dependency. Half of all rough sleepers ​were assessed as having a mental health support need, and, shockingly, data from 2017 indicates that eight in 10 rough sleepers who have died in London suffered from severe mental health conditions. We cannot allow this injustice to continue. We are stepping up our work to provide specialist help and support for those suffering from mental ill health, and that is backed by £30 million of additional funding from NHS England.

    On top of that, we are working to implement test models of community-based provision across six projects that are designed to enable access to health and support services for people who are sleeping rough with both mental ill health and substance dependency needs. Rough sleeping is as much a health challenge as a housing one and our work will reflect that. We also need a concerted effort to bring the different support services together—from outreach to housing, health, policing and immigration—so that we can effectively tackle the multiple issues that lead to individuals finding themselves homeless.

    We are acutely aware of the scale of the challenge before us. Ending rough sleeping within this Parliament is one of the most ambitious targets set by any Government since the publication of the Beveridge report and the creation of the welfare state. We accept this challenge as a moral mission and obligation that we cannot pass up. Many of the underlying causes of rough sleeping that I have spoken about are deep-rooted, built up over successive generations and successive Governments. I hope that Members across the House will support us in this collective endeavour and help us, as a country, to achieve this simple but profoundly important objective: to bring rough sleeping to an end once and for all.

  • Pete Wishart – 2020 Speech on the Relationship with the European Union

    Below is the text of the speech made by Pete Wishart, the SNP MP for Perth and North Perthshire, in the House of Commons on 27 February 2020.

    What a load of bunkum, baloney and codswallop! This is nothing other than a route map to the cherished no deal, which is the real ambition of the Brexit zealots on the Conservative Benches. They are, even now, prepared to break international law to achieve that outcome.

    Let us dispense with the unicornism and see if we can start to make sense of the real world and what we are actually dealing with. The EU expects nothing other than the political declaration to be implemented in full. It expects that level playing field to be realised and it will not accept anything else. How many times do the Government need to be told that the UK will not leave with a better deal and arrangement than that which is currently enjoyed? It does not matter if it is Canada-plus. It does not matter if it is Australia. It does not even matter if it is outer space-minus-minus-minus. The Government will have an inferior product at the end of the day when we finally get an agreement with the EU. Look at who we are up against: it is the clown-shoe UK up against the efficient, effective EU, with its negotiating experience—[Laughter.] Conservative Members are laughing, sitting there with their proposals which mean absolutely nothing. They will be trounced by the EU in the negotiating process. Their hard Brexit will do nothing but hurt my nation. Even with one of these free trade agreements, our GDP will be hit by 6.1%. If they get their cherished no deal, the consequences will be absolutely catastrophic for my nation of Scotland.

    Scotland wanted nothing whatever to do with this ruinous Brexit and we will not accept it. I am sure the hon. Gentlemen who have been laughing and scoffing have seen the opinion polls in Scotland. There is now ​sustained majority support for independence for Scotland. One of the things driving that is all of them saying no to Scotland and pursuing their hard Brexit. Scotland is not going to be a part of this, Secretary of State. We will not accept it. When will you allow us to have a referendum, so we can get out of this mad Brexit?

  • Paul Bromfield – 2020 Speech on the Relationship with the European Union

    Below is the text of the speech made by Paul Bromfield, the Labour MP for Sheffield Central, in the House of Commons on 27 February 2020.

    I thank the Minister for the Cabinet Office for prior sight of his statement. He talks about having got Brexit done, but he knows that is not the case. We have taken the first step in leaving the European Union, but Brexit, as he knows, is far from done. The Government’s ambition for our new relationship with our most important trading partner is, frankly, underwhelming. They started with a commitment to securing the exact same benefits; then scaled it back to frictionless trade to protect our vital supply chains; then it was Canada-plus-plus-plus; and now it is Canada so long as that does not get in the way of ending our alignment with the standards that we have previously enjoyed.

    The Minister talked about the Government’s mandate in the general election, which was based on a withdrawal agreement and a political declaration that says the free trade agreement will be

    “underpinned by provisions ensuring a level playing field”.

    They now apparently reject that. The Minister spoke of higher UK standards than are required within the EU, and he is right—there are some examples; there are also contrary examples—but EU standards are a floor, not a ceiling. May I ask the Minister: if the Government have no intention of falling below those standards, why are they unwilling to make that commitment?

    I spent Monday evening with manufacturing companies from across the north of England, and they are not worried by alignment; indeed, they want it. They are concerned about the barriers to trade undermining their position in the crucial European market. I know that the Prime Minister has made his contempt for the views of business well known, but will the Government not think again at this crucial moment, because they are taking serious risks with our economy, people’s jobs and their livelihoods?

    The Treasury analysis from November 2018 predicted that a Canada-style FTA would shrink the economy by up to 6.4%. I know the Government have rubbished their own analysis already, but what new analysis have they done? May I ask the Minister: will the Government publish a full economic impact assessment of the deal that they are seeking? Will they also publish the assessment of the other trade deals that he mentioned? A recent freedom of information request revealed that the Department for International Trade has commissioned and received, but not yet published, assessments of the impact on the UK economy of the FTA with the US, of that with Japan and of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Will he commit to publishing those impact assessments immediately?

    The Prime Minister has told us time and again that his Brexit deal

    “represents stability and certainty for business.”—[Official Report, 19 October 2019; Vol. 666, c. 594.]

    But in ruling out extending the transition period, the Government are taking business from one set of uncertainties to a new set. They are expecting to complete enormously complex negotiations in just 10 months, with a cavalier disregard for the consequences of failing to do so. The Minister’s warning to business that customs ​checks are “inevitable” and that “almost everybody” will face extra barriers at the border is deeply concerning. Indeed, the one place where the Government claim that there will not be checks—for GB trade with Northern Ireland—is the only place where they have actually so far committed to having them: down the Irish sea. In light of the conflicting statements from so many of his colleagues, will the Minister clarify the extent of checks along the border that the Government have created down the Irish sea?

    Labour wants the best deal for Britain in trade, security and all the other areas mentioned by the Minister. That means maintaining the closest possible relationship with our most important trading partner, and it is on that that we will hold the Government to account.

  • Michael Gove – 2020 Statement on the Relationship with the European Union

    Michael Gove – 2020 Statement on the Relationship with the European Union

    Below is the text of the statement made by Michael Gove, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in the House of Commons on 27 February 2020.

    With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Government’s approach to our future relationship with the European Union.

    Now that Britain has left the EU, we are entering a new chapter in the history of these islands. This Government have honoured the clearly expressed wish of the British people. Their instruction to us, their servants, to secure our departure from the EU has been followed. The votes of 17.4 million people—more than have ever voted for any democratic proposition in our history—were implemented on 31 January and we are now on a new journey. As a sovereign, self-governing, independent nation, we will have the freedom to frame our own laws, control our own borders, lower all our taxes, set our own tariffs, determine our own trade relationships, and ensure that we follow the people’s priorities on security, the economy, and democratic accountability. Over the next nine months, we will negotiate a new relationship with our friends and partners in the EU based on free trade and friendly co-operation. We have today published the approach for these negotiations, and copies of the document, “The Future Relationship with the EU”, were made available to Members in the Vote Office from 9.30 am.

    Talks with the EU on our future relationship begin next week. It is our aim to secure a comprehensive free trade agreement as well as agreement on questions such as fisheries, internal security and aviation. We are confident that those negotiations will lead to outcomes that work for both the UK and the EU, but this House, our European partners, and, above all, the British people should be in no doubt: at the end of the transition period on 31 December, the United Kingdom will fully recover its economic and political independence. We want the best possible trading relationship with the EU, but in pursuit of a deal, we will not trade away our sovereignty.

    The Government’s vision for the UK’s future relationship with the EU was outlined with crystal clarity by the Prime Minister during the general election campaign, and the election result comprehensively confirmed public support for our direction of travel. In his speech in the Painted Hall in Greenwich on 3 February, the Prime Minister laid out in detail how we will reach our destination. The first principle of our approach is that we wish to secure a relationship based on friendly co-operation between sovereign equals. We respect the EU’s sovereignty, autonomy and distinctive legal order, and we expect it to respect ours. We will not accept or agree to any obligations where our laws are aligned with the EU or the EU’s institutions, including the Court of Justice. Instead, each party will respect the other’s independence and the right to manage its own borders, immigration policy and taxes.

    The second and allied principle of our approach is that we will seek to emulate and build on the types of relationship that the EU already has with other independent sovereign states. We will use precedents already well established and well understood to ensure that both sides’ sovereignty is respected. By using already existing ​precedents, we should be able to expedite agreement. We will seek functional arrangements that the EU will recognise from its many other relationships. Our proposal draws on existing EU agreements such as the comprehensive economic and trade agreement with Canada, the EU-Japan economic partnership agreement and the EU-South Korea free trade agreement. That approach should enable us to move swiftly towards the goal envisaged in the political declaration agreed last October, in which both sides set the aim of concluding a zero-tariff, zero-quota free trade agreement.

    As well as concluding a full FTA, we will require a wholly separate agreement on fisheries. We will take back control of our waters as an independent coastal state, and we will not link access to our waters to access to EU markets. Our fishing waters are our sovereign resource, and we will determine other countries’ access to our resources on our terms. We also hope to conclude an agreement on law enforcement and judicial co-operation in criminal matters, so that we can work with the EU to protect their citizens and ours from shared threats, but we will not allow our own legal order to be compromised. By taking back full control of our borders, we can implement measures to make the British people even safer, and we can tackle terrorism and organised crime even more effectively. We also wish to conclude a number of technical agreements covering aviation and civil nuclear co-operation, which will help to ensure continuity for the UK on its new footing as an independent sovereign nation.

    Securing agreement on all those questions should not, in principle, be difficult. We are, after all, only seeking relationships with the EU that it has with other nations—relationships that respect the interests and the sovereignty of both partners. It is in that light that we should view discussions about what has been termed the “level playing field”. It has been argued that EU demands in this area will make full agreement difficult, yet there is no intrinsic reason why requirements that both parties uphold desirable standards should prejudice any deal.

    The United Kingdom has a proud record when it comes to environmental enhancement, workers’ rights and social protection. In a number of key areas, we either exceed EU standards or have led the way to improve standards. On workers’ rights, for example, the UK offers a year of maternity leave, with the option to convert it to parental leave, so that both parents can share care. The EU minimum is just 14 weeks. On environmental standards, we were the first country in the world to introduce legally binding greenhouse gas emission reduction targets through the Climate Change Act 2008. We were also the first major global economy to set a legally binding target to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across the economy by 2050.

    We will not dilute any existing protections. Indeed, as the Environment Bill debated yesterday demonstrates, we wish to go further and faster than the EU in improving the natural environment. We do not need the EU’s permission to be a liberal nation leading the world in the fight against climate change and for social progress. That is why the UK Government seek an FTA with robust protections for the environment and labour standards, but we do not see why the test of suitability in those areas should be adherence to EU law and submission to EU models of governance. The EU does ​not apply those principles to free trade agreements with other sovereign nations, and they should not apply to a sovereign United Kingdom.

    Some argue that we must accept EU procedures as the benchmark because of the scale of UK trade with the EU, but the volume of UK trade with the EU is no greater than the volume of US trade with the EU, and the EU was more than willing to offer zero-tariff access to the US without the application of EU procedures to US standard setting. The EU has also argued that the UK is a unique case, owing to its geographical location, but proximity is not a determining factor in any other FTA between neighbouring states with large economies. It is not a reason for us to accept EU rules and regulations. We need only look at the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement for an example of a trade agreement that does not require regulatory alignment to one side’s rules or demand a role for one side’s court. Geography is no reason to undermine democracy.

    To be clear, we will not be seeking to align dynamically with EU rules on EU terms governed by EU laws and EU institutions. The British people voted to take back control, to bring power home and to have the rules governing this country made by those who are directly accountable to the people of this country, and that is what we are delivering.

    The negotiations are due to begin next week, led by the Prime Minister’s sherpa, David Frost, and I would like to end by looking ahead optimistically to the coming months. There is ample time during the transition period to strike the right deal for the UK. We hope to reach a broad agreement ahead of the EU Council’s high-level summit in June, whereupon we will take stock.

    We know that our proposals are measured and our approach is fair. We know what we want to achieve. We are ready to go, and this Government are committed to establishing a future relationship in ways that benefit the whole UK and strengthen the Union. We are committed to working with the devolved Administrations to deliver a future relationship with the EU that works for the whole UK, and I take this opportunity to reassure colleagues that our negotiation that will be undertaken without prejudice and with full respect to the Northern Ireland protocol.

    This Government will act in these negotiations on behalf of all of the territories for whose international relations the UK is responsible. In negotiating the future relationship between these territories and the EU, the UK Government will seek outcomes that support the territories’ security and economic interests, and reflect their unique characteristics. As the Prime Minister committed to do on Second Reading of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, we will keep Parliament fully informed about the negotiations, and colleagues will be able to scrutinise our progress.

    This Government are delivering on our manifesto commitments with energy and determination. This Government got Brexit done, and we will use our recovered sovereignty to be a force for good in the world and a fairer nation at home. We want and we will always seek the best possible relationship with our friends and allies in Europe, but we will always put the welfare of the British people first. That means ensuring the British people exercise the democratic control over our destiny ​for which they voted so decisively. That compact with the people is the most important deal of all, and in that spirit, I commend this statement to the House.

  • Matt Hancock – 2020 Speech on Social Care

    Matt Hancock – 2020 Speech on Social Care

    Below is the text of the speech made by Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, in the House of Commons on 25 February 2020.

    I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:

    “notes that the Government is committed to fixing the crisis in social care; and supports the Government’s commitment to find a long term solution for the growing need for care and commitment to an ambitious three point plan, including extra funding every year, seeking a cross party consensus and ensuring the prerequisite of any solution is a guarantee that no one needing care has to sell their home to pay for it.”

    This is a welcome opportunity to debate social care—a subject of vital importance—and I want to set out how we must rise to the challenges and celebrate all that is good. We must recognise at the start of the debate that there is much to celebrate, including the millions of people who work in social care, to whom we pay tribute. I want to welcome someone who is new to working in ​social care: my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), who has joined the team as Minister for Care. I pay tribute to her predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), who led the care system so effectively and delivered a legacy of better training, better recruitment and a real focus on carers; that is a legacy to be proud of.

    Let me start with the context for this debate. It is rightly about both adults of working age and older adults. The people of this country are living longer. Over the next decade, the population aged 75 and over is set to increase by 1.5 million, and over the next 20 years, the number of people aged 65 and over is set to increase by almost half. That is emphatically a good thing. More people living for longer is not some problem to be managed; it is an opportunity to be welcomed, and welcome it we do.

    Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)

    My right hon. Friend is right to highlight the significant challenge that an ageing population with multiple medical co-morbidities presents to the health and care system. In that context, it is not just about extra funding, which is obviously welcome to the care system; it is also about transforming the way we deliver care. Is it not time to consider a single point of commissioning for health and social care? If we were designing the system today, given the demographic challenges he has outlined, it would look very different from the system we have.

    Matt Hancock

    My hon. Friend is right that it is about more than just money. The money is, of course, important, but it is also about how the system is structured. There are parts of the country where the co-commissioning he calls for already exists, and we can see the improvement in efficiency that we get out of that. The hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) rightly mentioned those with learning disabilities and autism, of whom there are more than 2,000 in in-patient settings. We are reducing that number and supporting more people to move into the community, including in the example that she mentioned. She talked about the challenge of that requiring more money. Actually, community settings are often better for the patient and cost the taxpayer less. As my hon. Friend says, improving the commissioning and the system is a critical part of the solution, so that yet more people can be moved out of in-patient settings.

    Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)

    The Secretary of State talks about transforming care and services so that we focus more on prevention, early intervention and help in the community and at home. That is what we should be doing, so why, as the National Audit Office has just reported, have we seen less money spent on public health, primary care and community care under this Government in the last five years? This Government are obsessed with hospitals, which is not the way that we want to go—it is about care in the community and at home.

    Matt Hancock

    The hon. Lady is dead right, and I have changed that direction of travel. This year is the first year for a generation when there has been an increase in the proportion of the NHS budget going to primary and community care. That change was at the core of the long-term plan. I insisted on that because I ​entirely agree with her analysis that getting more support out into the community is critical. This has been going in the wrong direction for a generation, and we are just starting to fix it.

    Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)

    I want to pick the Secretary of State up on the point that he made a few moments ago. We had an exchange at the end of January about life expectancy. He says that life expectancy is increasing. It is absolutely clear from Professor Sir Michael Marmot’s report, and it has been clear since 2017, that life expectancy is stalling. Sir Michael said that

    “life expectancy actually fell in the most deprived communities outside London for women and in some regions for men.”

    I have written to the Secretary of State and I have not yet had a response, but he has an opportunity to correct the record now.

    Matt Hancock

    I saw the letter and I absolutely will reply to the hon. Lady. What I have said before, and I repeat now, is that life expectancy in this country is rising. There are parts of the country where that is not true.

    Debbie Abrahams

    It is flat.

    Matt Hancock

    It is not flat, it is rising, and it is really important that this debate, which is so critical, is based on the facts. The increase in life expectancy should be shared right across the country, and it is not, and we are determined to fix that. We are determined to ensure that life expectancy in this country rises everywhere. That is not the case and it needs to be the case, but life expectancy overall is going up. That is the fact.

    Debbie Abrahams

    The report says that it has almost ground to a halt since 2011. These are the facts, and there is an onus on the Minister to be absolutely clear about this. We cannot fudge this issue.

    Matt Hancock

    As I said, life expectancy is rising, Madam Deputy Speaker.

    Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)

    The Secretary of State will have seen Sir Michael Marmot’s report, launched today. Indeed, one of his own departmental officials spoke at the launch, because he could not make it, and said that no one could disagree with the analysis. Sir Michael Marmot says that life expectancy advances are flattening and even going backwards—they are decreasing—for the poorest 10% of women. Is Sir Michael Marmot wrong? Is that what the Secretary of State is saying?

    Matt Hancock

    No. What I am saying is that life expectancy, as I have repeated, is going up, but there are areas where it is not, and we will and we must tackle that. The challenge for us as a country is not to try to pretend that things are different to the facts. The challenge here, which Opposition Members will not accept, is that there are parts of the country where life expectancy is advancing rapidly and there are parts where it is not, and we must tackle that. We cannot have a decent policy conversation if half of the debate will not accept the facts on the ground.​

    The Marmot report was published this morning. It is absolutely critical that we level up life expectancy. The fact that in Blackpool a healthy life expectancy for men is 53 years yet in Buckingham it is 68 years is a disgrace, and we will put that right, but you cannot put things right if you ignore the facts when you are starting.

    Barbara Keeley

    I just want to round this point off. What does the right hon. Gentleman think happens with life expectancy when 1.5 million older people are going without care? Does he not think that the impact of the lack of social care, especially on women in deprived areas, is a key factor?

    Matt Hancock

    I do not recognise those figures, because—

    Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)

    Because they don’t suit.

    Matt Hancock

    No, I do not recognise those figures because they are not the accurate representation of what is actually happening. There are many within that figure who are judged under legislation to need to pay for their own care, and they do. We have to start from a basis of fact and, frankly, until Labour Members start working on this from a basis of fact, it is very difficult to take their contributions seriously.

    The critical thing is that, as life expectancy is increasing, more people are looking forward to ageing in comfort and dignity, and that is good news. Opposition Members may not like it. It is odd; they do not seem to want to think that life expectancy is going up. We have a duty to ensure that our social care system is equal to the task. There are many things we should be proud of in our social care system, although we would not have gathered that from the speech by the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South. Some 84% of providers of social care are rated as good or outstanding, and 90% of people who receive care are satisfied with its standard. The proportion of adults with learning disabilities living in their own home or with their family has increased every year since 2014-15. That is good news, which we should welcome.

    Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)

    Is my right hon. Friend not right to say that life expectancy is continuing to go up? We would expect it to slow down, because we are not all going to live forever. The key thing is not just how long we live for; it is how long we live a high-quality, healthy life for.

    Matt Hancock

    My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is the sort of analysis on which we can make decent policy progress, because it based on the facts, rather than on making things up.

    Debbie Abrahams rose—

    Matt Hancock

    I will give way to the hon. Lady one more time and then I will move on, because we need to make some progress.

    Debbie Abrahams

    Again, for the record, let me say, as a former public health consultant, that healthy life expectancy is also going down.

    ​Matt Hancock

    I will write to the hon. Lady to give her the facts. Do Members know what the facts will say? The facts show that life expectancy is going up—I think I have made that point. Opposition Members may not like the fact that things are getting better in this country, but we will make sure that we level up, so that things get better in all parts of this country. We welcome progress, but we demand more.

    Several hon. Members rose—

    Matt Hancock

    I am going to make some progress and talk about the long-term solutions we are seeking on social care. For all its many strengths, it is clear that the system cannot remain as it is. Three out of four over-65s will face some care costs in their lifetime, and approximately one in 10 will face lifetime costs of more than £100,000. We need a long-term funding solution, so that the system can continue to do all that we ask of it long into the future. Crucially, we need a solution that solves the problem, commands the widest possible support and stands the test of time. We know in this House that that challenge has been ducked for many years; we have had more than a dozen commissions, reviews and reports, and more than two decades of inaction, from Governments of all political stripes. We do not need another commission —we need a plan. So in our manifesto we set out our three-point plan to solve the crisis, as referred to in our amendment tonight, which I hope the whole House will support.

    The first point is to deliver the funding that is needed now to stabilise the system. The funding will provide certainty for local authorities and providers while we put in place the long-term solution. At the last spending round, we said that would make an extra £1.5 billion available in 2020-21. That includes £1 billion of additional grant funding and the 2% adult social care precept, allowing councils access to a further half a billion pounds. Overall, that is part of a 4.4% real-terms increase in local authority core spending in 2021, and that spending comes on top of £2.5 billion in existing social care grants that will be maintained. All in all, our investment since 2015 has allowed an 11% cash-terms rise in social care spending by councils. So the amount of money going into the system is going up, and I am very glad about that, but clearly further progress needs to be made.

    Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)

    Will the Secretary of State commit to publishing a distributional analysis of where that money is coming from and who it is going to?

    Matt Hancock

    The £1 billion comes from general taxation and the half a billion comes from the social care precept, and we have been absolutely clear about that.

    The second part of the plan is to recommit to seeking a cross-party solution. In my view, past attempts at reform have not failed for lack of ideas or good will on the part of many people and many policy makers; they have failed because solving this problem is not just a task of policy making, but an act of political economy. The consequences of the decisions on the reform of social care will play out over decades and, as with past reforms—for instance, pension auto-enrolment—this is best done with cross-party support.

    ​Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)

    Last year, the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) and I set up the all-party group on social care. We produced a report on the professionalisation of the workforce, which looked, in particular, at the undervaluing of the wider workforce in pay, training and qualifications. Will the Secretary of State commit to looking at that report, as the basis of his cross-party consensus?

    Matt Hancock

    Yes, I have. As the hon. Member knows, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) was my Parliamentary Private Secretary, and we talked about this a lot, so I welcome that work. Indeed, the amount of work from various Select Committees and groups in this House has been considerable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) made clear earlier. There has been an awful lot of reports and of very good work, including the work to which the hon. Member has contributed.

    Barbara Keeley

    The right hon. Member knows that I raised with him on the day of the first Queen’s Speech, in October last year, the need for us to set up cross-party talks. He has done nothing about that since then—nothing has happened on that. There was some vague talk about sitting down with the former Minister for Care for a cup of tea, but that is not cross-party talks. Will he say now: is he going to set up cross-party talks?

    Matt Hancock

    We will fulfil all the commitments in the manifesto, which, as the hon. Member set out, includes one on this subject, and that is part of our plan.

    Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)

    We have been talking for some time. Indeed, we legislated: we decided to legislate for Dilnot. Can the Secretary of State take us through why we resiled from that position?

    Matt Hancock

    The honest truth is that that decision was made in the 2015-17 Parliament, and it was a decision the Government made at the time. I think that we need to take action to solve this problem, and that is what we are planning to do. The third part of the plan—[Interruption.] Well, I am halfway through explaining the plan.

    The third part of the plan is to seek a solution that brings dignity and security to all those who need social care, with a system in which nobody needing care is forced to sell their home to pay for it. Such a solution would go against one of the most basic human impulses, which is the drive to provide for one’s family. We want to encourage people to save and we want to reward them for the fruits of their endeavours. As we said in our manifesto, we want to guarantee that

    “nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it.”

    We are determined to tackle this challenge in this Parliament, and to bring forward these reforms.

    Fixing the funding, as my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) said, is only half of the equation, and the other half needs attention, too. We should be helping more people to live at home for longer; finding a cure for dementia, because we refuse to accept that dementia is an inevitable part of ageing; and harnessing technology to improve ​care. The stereotype of social care as a kind of digital backwater is increasingly out of date; there are many examples of brilliant social care organisations, public and private, using wearables and new technology to support the round-the-clock care that they give. We should also be breaking down the silos between health and social care. We will always support our carers, both paid and unpaid alike.

    Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)

    In the 1990s, the Germans were grappling with exactly the same problem we are grappling with now, with regional imbalances, a postcode lottery in funding and a lack of a cohesive social offer. They came up with social care insurance—there was cross-party consensus, and it is now not a political issue—and it works. Will the Secretary of State look at that model?

    Matt Hancock

    That is the sort of contribution I think we need in this debate. We should not be saying, “We have one answer, and we won’t engage on anything else”, but saying, “Here is an interesting answer, and let’s solve it.” We are committed to solving it in this Parliament. We will not duck the difficult decisions, we will take the action that is needed and we will secure the future of social care in this country. As we are increasingly an older society, let us also be a wiser society, and commit to fixing this problem once and for all.

  • Barbara Keeley – 2020 Speech on Social Care

    Below is the text of the speech made by Barbara Keeley, the Labour MP for Worsley and Eccles South, in the House of Commons on 25 February 2020.

    I beg to move,

    That this House notes that almost ten years of Government cuts to council budgets have resulted in a social care funding crisis which means 1.5 million older people have unmet social care needs; further notes the increasing funding gap for adult social care; believes proposals from the Government for access to additional funding for both adult and children’s social care will do nothing to ease the crisis or address the funding gap; and calls on the Government to bring forward as a matter of urgency plans to reform social care including plans for free personal care.

    It is right that we have a chance to debate social care today: it is two weeks ahead of the Budget and there is the ever present hope that the Government will announce much-needed social care reform. This reform is long overdue. After nearly a decade of cuts, our social care system is on its knees. For the people who rely on social care and for their families, the reality is that things have got much worse under successive Conservative Governments. Every day last year, 2,000 older people who had approached their local authority for help with social care were turned down. The result is that there are currently 1.5 million older people who are not getting the support they need—each one struggling to cope with basic everyday tasks. This can mean people left trapped in bed all day or going unwashed all week, because family carers can visit them only on the weekends, and those are the people who are fortunate enough to have help from unpaid carers. Around half the 1.5 million get no help at all—not even from family and friends. They cope as best they can until they end up in hospital, and then they cannot get out of hospital because they can only be discharged safely once a social care package is set up, with the local authorities struggling to find the funding for it.

    Another failure in our social care system is where people are held in entirely inappropriate institutions because the local authority cannot fund the care they need to keep them safe in the community. There are 2,200 autistic people and people with learning disabilities who continue to be detained on in-patient wards. This is one of the most egregious failures of our social care system. They should be able to live in their own homes with a support package, but the funding is not there. For eight years the Government have been promising to end this scandal, but they have failed to do so.

    Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)

    My hon. Friend is making a great start to a very important speech. Does she agree that it is quite astonishing that the Equality and Human Rights Commission has been forced into a position where it is having to threaten to take action over the Government because of their failure to accommodate people with autism and learning disabilities, and it is people who are suffering as a result?

    Barbara Keeley

    I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The only way that we will see real change is if the Government put in funding to provide the housing ​and support needed for those people currently trapped in inappropriate institutions. I first raised this issue with the Secretary of State in October 2018, citing the case of a young autistic woman called Bethany. It took 14 months before Bethany was moved out of a seclusion cell and into a more supported environment. Now we have, as my hon. Friend has said, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission launching a legal challenge against the Department for its failure to move those 2,200 autistic people and people with learning disabilities out of those inappropriate units.

    We must see action on this issue, because it is a national scandal. We need to see reform so that more people can get the care they need, rather than being left to struggle on alone. Even when people are able to access publicly funded care, there is no guarantee that it will be of acceptable quality. Last year, one in six social care services was rated by the Care Quality Commission as “inadequate” or “requires improvement”. That can mean care homes that are so unclean that residents are at risk of picking up infections. It can mean home care agencies that have not even carried out basic checks on their staff, or home care staff being so rushed that they do not have the time to take off their coats during a visit.

    Twenty per cent of councils in England and Wales still commission 15-minute care visits. That is clearly not long enough to provide care. It is not long enough to get to know someone and support them to do the things that they want to do.

    Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)

    A German style system of social insurance would allow somebody who is defined as needing social care to draw down a certain amount of money which they could then use to pay to a relative, a loved one, or a neighbour who understands that person best and who can care for them best. Is that not a sensible basis for a cross-party discussion, between the Opposition and the Government, about whether a German style social insurance system could solve this problem?

    Barbara Keeley

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point; he does make it on every occasion that we debate this subject, so I congratulate him on doing so again. However, the person he needs to be directing his comments about cross-party talks to is sitting on the Government Front Bench. I am hopeful that the Secretary of State is going to tell us what he is going to do about cross-party talks, because those 15-minute visits are really not good enough.

    Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)

    I agree entirely about the need for cross-party consensus on this issue, but there can be no consensus until there is an acknowledgement of what has caused the care crisis—the underfunding of the health service and cuts to local government budgets, which have had an impact on A&Es, GPs and other services. Until there is an acknowledgement of what caused the situation, there can be no consensus towards a solution.

    Barbara Keeley

    My hon. Friend is right. I will come to the causes, because it is important to mention them.

    The 15-minute care visit reduces the giving of care by care staff to a series of physical tasks, rather than the staff being able to see a person with their own interests, ​desires and opinions. It really strips them of the time to do the job they want to do. I pay tribute to all care staff, who go above and beyond in their jobs to improve the lives of the people they support. Without them, our social care system would not work, but they do not get the pay and recognition that they deserve.

    Care staff, who provide essential practical and emotional support to some of the most vulnerable people in society, are among the most poorly paid workers. The average hourly pay for care staff is below the rate paid in most UK supermarkets. On average, care staff are paid less than cleaners and healthcare assistants in the NHS, and this has led to a vacancy rate of 122,000 care jobs and a turnover rate of 33%. Now the Government are planning to make the situation worse by turning away people who want to come to this country to work in social care. One in seven care workers is from outside the UK, but the average care worker earns £10,000 a year less than the Government’s immigration salary threshold, so will the Secretary of State tell us just how he thinks he is going to be able to fill the large number of vacancies in the social care workforce?

    Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)

    My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does she share my concern that poor pay and conditions mean not only that these workers are exploited, but that there is a high degree of turnover and a lack of investment in training and development, which in themselves have a significant impact on the quality of care that is delivered to some of our most vulnerable residents?

    Barbara Keeley

    Once again, I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend is right to emphasise that point.

    Last week I met home care support workers in my constituency who are campaigning to be paid a real living wage, and they told me about their struggles to manage financially. One staff member talked of working 90 hours for four consecutive weeks at an effective rate of £6.10 an hour. Others talked about being bitten or punched, yet still they continue to do the support job that they love. I pay tribute to their commitment; in the case of social care, doing a rewarding job does not pay the bills.

    Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)

    Does my hon. Friend agree that far too many essential careworkers are employed on zero-hours contracts, which we really need to see kicked into history?

    Barbara Keeley

    I very much agree. We need to pay care staff the real living wage, provide them with training and end the use of zero-hours contracts.

    I think it is clear enough that the Labour party believes that the current system is not working, and I am sure that the Secretary of State knows it too. Councils just do not have the funding required to deliver the care that people need, and they are faced with a stark choice—either they cut back on the quality of care, or even fewer people receive any help at all. Only a third of directors of adult social services think that their budget will be enough to meet their statutory duties this year, which means that thousands of people who approach their local authority for help with their care are turned down for support. Without investment and a plan, social care services will be pushed deeper and deeper ​into crisis. Expert report after expert report has pointed to social care being on the verge of collapse, and those reports make it clear that councils cannot deliver adequate adult social care provision without a sustainable, long-term funding strategy. Yet what we have seen from the Government, year after year, is short-term and piecemeal funding.

    The Secretary of State may repeat, as his colleagues did yesterday, that the Government are allowing councils to raise council tax this year to fund social care services, but the Opposition know that council tax is a deeply unfair way to fund this vital public service. A 2% rise in council tax rates in Wokingham will raise twice as much money as it would in Knowsley. Even if we raised council tax by 2% every year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that by the end of the decade social care will make up over half of all local government spending. This means that other vital services will continue to be cut back. That is certainly the situation I see in my own local authority area.

    Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)

    The shortage of resource and people in the system means that more responsibility falls on families. I know that my hon. Friend recognises the unsung heroes who are young carers—children who miss out on education, a social life and so much more to care for a parent or sibling. Does she agree that the Government need to do more to help to support organisations like the Eastern Ravens Trust in Stockton, which does so much to help these young carers to have a life of their own?

    Barbara Keeley

    Indeed I do. I am looking forward to the establishment of the new all-party group on young carers, but it is tragic, in a way, that we have to meet in new all-party groups to try to find some way of taking the burden from those young carers.

    As local authorities struggle to fund social care, an increasing number of people are forced to take on the financial burden themselves. Some 143,000 people are currently faced with catastrophic costs of over £100,000 for their own care. Over the past three years, 9,000 people have asked their local authority for help after completely depleting their own savings to pay for their care. This means that people are having to sell their homes that they may have lived in for their entire lives to fund the care that they need. The Prime Minister has promised to stop this situation, but with no plan and no proposals for how he achieves that, it is likely that many more people will be put in this position going forward. The Government could drastically reduce the number of people faced with catastrophic costs for their care if they set a lifetime cap on care costs. The Government proposed a cap in 2013. They legislated for it, but dropped it in 2016. That cap would have gone some way towards reducing the number of people now faced with catastrophic social care costs. The Government’s own impact assessment showed that by this year 37,000 people would have benefited from the cap if it had been introduced in 2016.

    But reform is not just about protecting housing wealth. It is important to do that, but reform also has to offer a solution to the people who are currently stuck in bed all day unable to get themselves dressed, or needlessly stuck in hospital. The solution that Labour favours is to ​offer free personal care to ensure that everyone is supported with the basic tasks regardless of their ability to pay. Free personal care was introduced by a Labour-led Government in Scotland in 2002, and it is ensuring that more people there receive publicly funded social care. Free personal care has been backed by the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee and by charities and think-tanks.

    We believe that it is vital that we push forward with this reform because progress to date has been far too slow. In October 2018, the Secretary of State talked about:

    “The adult social care Green Paper, which will be published later this year”.—[Official Report, 17 October 2018; Vol. 647, c. 736.]

    In 2019, we were told that there would be a Green Paper “that summer” that would set out the future of social care, but it never arrived. It was delayed twice before being dropped completely. Seven months ago, the Prime Minister stood on the steps of Downing Street and said that he had a plan to fix the social care crisis. There is still no sign of it. Perhaps this plan is in the same state as the promised Green Paper. The Government said that they would instigate cross-party talks on social care within the first 100 days of the election. We are now 75 days on and we have yet to hear from the Government on their proposals.

    Labour is the only party, as it stands today, with clear plans for the future of social care. Labour’s plan for social care would close the funding gap, cap care costs, and introduce free personal care and improved pay and working conditions for care staff. In contrast, we have no action from the Government on social care. Councils are reliant on piecemeal funding announcements and raising ever higher levels of council tax, yet these measures leave them struggling to meet demand. So Labour’s message to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State is clear: they need to put in the extra investment needed to stabilise the care system, introduce free personal care, bring back a cap on care costs, and develop a plan to improve the pay and working conditions of the care workforce. I want to make it clear that Labour will be happy to sit down with Ministers and talk them through our proposals, as the Prime Minister does not appear—at this point in time, at least—to have any plans of his own. I urge hon. Members to vote for our motion tonight to ensure that the Government have to finally meet their pledge to fix social care.

  • Damian Hinds – 2020 Speech on Tax Avoidance and Evasion

    Damian Hinds – 2020 Speech on Tax Avoidance and Evasion

    Below is the text of the speech made by Damian Hinds, the Conservative MP for East Hampshire, in the House of Commons on 25 February 2020.

    This is an important subject for debate this afternoon, first because we need tax receipts to fund our public services and, secondly, because as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) said, people expect to see fairness. They expect to see everyone and every entity shouldering their fair share of the burden. Sadly, there are people who have an interest in trying to get round the system and to cheat the system, and they strive harder and harder every year to do so. We live now in a more complex world and a more complex new economy that is more multinational, more digital, more services-based, and that can create new opportunities for those organisations and people.

    However, the gap is much bigger and older than that. According to HMRC’s own estimates, the biggest part of the tax gap is about individuals and organisations failing to take reasonable care, followed by legal interpretation, illegal tax evasion and then the exploitation of loopholes through avoidance. It is important to note that all economies suffer a tax gap. According to a UN World Institute study in 2017, the world loss from tax avoidance was estimated at $500 billion. That is not the whole tax gap; it is the element that results from avoidance. Proportionally, the countries that suffer most are not wealthy countries such as ours but low income and lower middle income countries. According to analysis by Statista of the total loss, the countries that suffer the biggest loss are the United States, with more than $180 billion; Japan, with somewhere around $50 billion; and France and Germany, with between $15 billion and $20 billion. According to the analysis, the UK was at that time down at somewhere below $2 billion. One can quibble about the detail of the methodology, but it would take a massive error and correction to put the UK close to some of those comparable countries.

    Overall, the UK tax gap is less than 6%, as my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said, and one of the lowest in the world. It is also one of the most accurately measured in the world. Some members of the Opposition Front-Bench team—they have gone now—were muttering earlier, “You’ve been in government for 10 years. What have you been doing?” Well, we have been bringing down the tax gap. If we compare the tax gap in 2005-06 with 2015-16, it has come down from somewhere close to 8% to somewhere under 6%. It is still a big issue to be tackled, and I am pleased and proud that this Government are redoubling their efforts and leading internationally in that regard.

    All countries do some degree of tax competition, either explicitly or implicitly, and our tax regime is one reason why we have attracted many international companies to base themselves here, create jobs and grow our economy. However, I am afraid to say that many companies do try to reduce their tax. Sometimes, they say that they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to do so, but Governments also have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders: our citizens and our taxpayers. We simply cannot have the sort of aggressive tax avoidance that we have seen from some companies, because our public services rely on tax receipts. There will be battles over what constitutes economic activity and over what is a legitimate location for intellectual property, but our argument is simple: “If you benefit from our economy, you must contribute to our economy.”​

    Since 2010, more than 100 measures have been taken on evasion, avoidance and non-compliance. On enforcement, HMRC’s litigation and settlement strategy was refreshed in 2011. The office of the Tax Assurance Commissioner was established in 2012. Now, we are committed to new anti-avoidance measures, including increasing the maximum prison term, a single beefed-up unit in HMRC and a new package of anti-evasion measures.

    Just as important—in fact, it is probably more important —is the work that this country has been doing internationally under Conservative Governments. That started with the 2012 joint statement with France and Germany calling for reform of international tax rules, given that our current system effectively dates back to the 1920s. We used our G8 presidency in 2013 to drive forward the G20 OECD agenda on base erosion and profit shifting—the so-called BEPS project. We were the first country to commit to the country-by-country reporting template and the first to adopt OECD rules to address hybrid mismatch.

    I was proud of the 25% diverted profits tax in 2015, and I am proud now that this Government are pushing ahead with the digital services tax. We have always been clear that we would prefer international agreement, but if that is not possible, we will go it alone. If international progress now makes the digital services tax obsolete, great. That would be the best outcome of all, but if it does not, unless and until that is the case, we are right to proceed.

    There is important work on avoidance, evasion and non-compliance, but what we cannot do, as we sometimes hear from Opposition Members, is to pretend and mislead people that overcoming this kind of cheating and making the system work better will solve all our fiscal challenges. The same goes for pretending that it is possible for just about anything to be paid for by “the rich” and “corporations”. In the end, all taxes are taxes on individuals. On company taxes—corporation tax is part of a suite of taxes alongside VAT, national insurance and business rates—it is right to offer companies an attractive rates of corporation tax that reward investment and job creation, but they must invest in their people’s skills, which is why we have the apprenticeship levy. We must also ensure that people are paid properly, and that is why we have the national living wage.

    I commend the Government for their world-leading work. There is always more to be done, but I will vote against this misleading motion.

  • Alison Thewliss – 2020 Speech on Tax Avoidance and Evasion

    Below is the text of the speech made by Alison Thewliss, the SNP MP for Glasgow Central, in the House of Commons on 25 February 2020.

    The tax system in the UK is hugely complex. Every Finance Bill that comes along adds layers of complexity, leaving a taxation system that is unwieldy and difficult to understand, and even more difficult for the Government and HMRC to control. It leaves loopholes that incentivise tax avoidance and evasion. My SNP colleagues and I have long argued for a root-and-branch review of the entire system, and I am grateful for the opportunity to repeat those calls today.

    The Scottish National party will continue to lead the fight against tax avoidance and evasion at Westminster. In the last Parliament, we were proud to secure the House’s support for a Finance Bill amendment seeking a review of the impact of UK tax avoidance measures. We forced the UK Government to accept the need to tackle the abuse of Scottish limited partnerships as money-laundering vehicles, and supported cross-party efforts by the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and her colleagues to drag the UK Government into the 21st century by adopting Magnitsky powers to sanction overseas officials guilty of human rights violations.

    The SNP has just won a landslide of Scottish seats on a manifesto demanding tougher action on tax avoidance, including a review of the closure of HMRC offices in Scotland and across the UK; immediate action, including reform of Companies House, to uncover the beneficial ownership of SLPs and other companies and trusts; measures to improve the transparency of tax paid by international companies to ensure that they make a proportionate contribution to tax revenues; multilateral efforts to address tax challenges resulting from the digitisation of the economy; further action by the UK Government to tackle international tax avoidance; the full implementation of the fifth money laundering directive; a fit-for-purpose online retailer tax; a review of the tax rules governing intermediaries—known as the IR35 tax rules—and problems with implementation of the loan charge; and a comprehensive inquiry into the digitisation of tax, to uncover the reasons for HMRC and UK Government delays which mean that we still do not have the 21st-century tax payments system that could help to tackle avoidance and evasion.

    We have heard a great many well-meaning arguments from the official Opposition this afternoon, but, unfortunately, this is a situation to which Labour ​contributed when it was in power. Instead of simplifying the tax system, it introduced policies such as the IR35 tax rules, which have made staffing extremely difficult for the NHS and other public sector organisations.

    While some very welcome action has been taken, no UK Government have yet created a comprehensive anti-avoidance rule. Legislation has come to shut down loopholes as quickly they have appeared, and then, as night follows day, new schemes have emerged to circumvent the law. We saw then, as we do now, plenty of tinkering at the edges of the system but no meaningful action to align taxes for different kinds of workers. Successive Chancellors have passed up opportunities for radical reform, and have simply added layers of bureaucracy and complexities to the existing system. There are now ample places in which those who do not want to contribute can hide within the system.

    Last year, Tax Justice UK published a report on the worrying scale of loopholes in, for example, inheritance tax. On the basis of HMRC figures, it states that the vast majority of those tax breaks go to properties worth more than over £1 million; and that is over and above the usual inheritance tax allowance. Instead of benefiting small farms or family businesses, the tax breaks constitute a massive tax giveaway to those who are already very wealthy. The report’s findings only highlight what we know to be true: that this UK Tory Government have ensured that the rich get richer, while at the same time the poorest people in society have experienced real cuts in their incomes, and are less likely to benefit from policies such as the increase in the income tax threshold.

    I appreciate that the new Chancellor has not yet had time to outline his plans, and I hope that he will take a different approach. However, the accounts of his professional background by the shadow Chancellor and in this week’s Private Eye lead me to hae ma doots. Extremely worrying noises have been coming from the Government in respect of the post-Brexit regulatory landscape. Already this year we have seen the UK inch closer to the world’s top 10 countries for financial secrecy, rolling back progress made in previous years on increasing transparency. We have all heard talk of a ”Singapore-on-Thames” approach to the City of London. That would be bad news globally, but also for the people who live here.

    With a Tory Government full of Thatcherites, who have no interest in creating a level playing field on tax with the EU, there is a real risk that the Prime Minister has set the UK on a race to the bottom on tax avoidance. Just weeks after the UK left the EU, the European Union has added a British overseas territory, the Cayman Islands, to a list of tax havens. Markus Ferber, of the group of the European People’s party (Christian Democrats), has said:

    “The UK would be well advised to take note that EU finance ministers put a British overseas territory on the blacklist of tax havens.

    This sends a clear signal that the idea of turning the UK into a tax haven will not be acceptable to the EU.”

    The Minister who will wind up the debate should explain exactly what he is doing to address that blacklisting as a matter of urgency.

    There are already significant holes in the system preventing dirty money from being moved around. My former colleague Roger Mullin and I have spoken on numerous occasions in this place about the problems ​surrounding Scottish limited partnerships, which still freely allow people to hide and move dirty money between countries.

    Hannah Bardell

    Scottish limited partnerships have a real human impact. Is my hon. Friend aware that money is being laundered from, for instance, Moldova through SLPs? That is having a hugely detrimental impact. One human rights defender whom I know from Moldova has been driven out of her own country, and is having to live elsewhere.

    We must bear in mind that human impact, but we must also bear in mind the reputational impact on Scotland. Scotland wants no part of schemes of this kind, and the UK Government should clean up their act.

    Alison Thewliss

    I totally agree with my hon. Friend. Anyone who thinks that moving money around in this way is consequence-free should look very carefully at what actually happens to the proceeds of these funds when they are moved around.

    SLPs have their own separate legal personality, which means that a firm can contract and own assets without lifting the veil to see who is really buying them. In 2016 the UK Government obliged SLPs to register a person of significant control, but there is virtually no enforcement and virtually no consequences for people who fail to register companies in the proper way. Last time I checked, thousands of partnerships had failed to register a person of significant control. I should be interested to learn from the Government how many fines have been recovered, and the value of those fines.

    This scandal is still having an impact, despite legislation being in place. The dogged investigative journalist David Leask revealed in January that SLPs had been implicated in the payment of mercenaries in a private air war in Libya. If the United Nations is taking an interest in the abuse of SLPs, this UK Government should be taking action urgently. A quick Google search reveals umpteen companies advertising their services in setting up SLPs from abroad and extolling the virtues of this tax-free, opaque way of conducting nefarious business. There is no comeback for firms protecting those who will not register a person of significant control, and no comeback for the perpetrators either. It is well known that SLPs are being used for criminal activity and have been linked to international scandals, not least the Azerbaijani laundromat, in which £2.9 billion was laundered through four UK companies, which were able to file paperwork disguising their true ownership without any flags being raised.

    At the heart of this is the gaping chasm in our regulatory system that is Companies House. Companies House is obliged only to register companies, not to carry out any verification or due diligence. This must change urgently, because it undermines the credibility of the UK. It is farcical that the only person convicted for filing false information has been a whistleblower, Kevin Brewer, who did it to highlight the nonsense of the registration process. I ask the Minister: what has changed since that prosecution? Why will the Government not reform a system that is open to such flagrant abuses? If I want to do my tax return online or get a passport, I would require to use the UK Government’s Verify scheme. If I want to set up a company, I can do so online for £12 with absolutely no checks. Why do the ​UK Government insist that people pay so much for driving licences, passports or UKVI applications but so little to set up a company, especially when those companies can go on to facilitate tax avoidance and evasion? It is high time the Tories sat up and took stock of the scale and extent of the tax avoidance and criminal activity linked to the lack of proper checks by Companies House and the abuse of SLPs. Only by doing so can they put forward a practical and effective solution that will adequately tackle the problem.

    HMRC highlighted a loss in 2016-17 of between £1 billion and £1.5 billion on digital sales through VAT fraud. I note that the Association of Accounting Technicians has called for online platforms to be made liable for the collection and remittance of VAT. That money is going uncollected. We know where the goods are going—they are going into people’s houses and through retailers—so there is a digital chain there that we can follow. The UK Government should deal with this VAT avoidance.

    I also ask for an update on the registration of overseas entities Bill, on whose pre-legislative joint scrutiny Committee I sat. Property is yet another way in which money can be hidden and taxes avoided, and that Bill will be a vital tool to clamp down on the flow of dirty money. The Committee also noted the abuse of trusts—as we close one loophole, another opens—and the Government must look into that as well. Trusts are being used as a means of hiding the true ownership of property and companies.

    Hannah Bardell

    My hon. Friend mentions the Bill on whose Committee we both sat. She led, admirably, for the SNP on that Committee. Does she recall that it was not until the attack on UK soil, in Salisbury, that the Government really sat up and took notice of the genuine issues that were raised in the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill? It should not take an attack on UK soil for the Government to act on these issues.

    Alison Thewliss

    My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The change of tone during passage of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill was palpable. It really does say something that the Government only really took the issue of dirty money seriously when it arrived on their own doorstep. We cannot wait for that to happen again; we must take action now.

    Another area where the UK Government are taking entirely counterintuitive action is in closing local HMRC offices. My hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) had an Adjournment debate in January on the closure of the Cumbernauld office, and I know that other colleagues share those concerns about the imminent closure of offices in Aberdeen, Bathgate, Livingston and other locations. While I have something of an interest, as the local Member for the proposed Glasgow regional centre, I cannot see the logic in cutting staff numbers and losing not only jobs in communities but the important local knowledge that can be brought to bear. My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) mentioned that a House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report last year criticised the Government’s lack of robust business planning ahead of the decision to base local HMRC offices in “expensive” cities. It is a colossal waste of public money to move offices into city centre locations where the rents will be significantly higher and the benefits will not be seen.

    ​Hannah Bardell

    On the matter of the movement of offices, another important issue is accessibility. A number of members of the union who have spent time in that new, expensive office in Edinburgh have said that the accessibility for people with disabilities is very poor. I wrote to the Government about this before the election last year but I got a very poor response. Does my hon. Friend agree that these new, expensive offices should at the very least be accessible, and that they should not have been moved in the first place?

    Alison Thewliss

    I agree. There is a strong argument that the value of the local offices in communities such as Livingston and Cumbernauld is significant. It is much easier for people to get to work there rather than commuting, which of course adds to the environmental damage. It is much better to have a shorter commute to work. The PCS union has also criticised the move and called into question HMRC’s rationale, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), who may have more to say on these things later.

    All of this comes at a time when the head of HMRC says that the authority may need to hire an extra 5,000 staff to deal with the logjam at the border because of Brexit. This is a time of growing complexity, and investment in staff and expertise is crucial. Without that expertise, the UK Government are leaving themselves open to a further loss of tax revenue and further potential evasion and avoidance as we head into Brexit.

    It is only right that people should pay the taxes that they owe, but HMRC’s botched implementation of the loan charge is nothing short of a disgrace, leaving many people facing the prospect of bankruptcy. The UK Government must, of course, pursue vigorously the organisations that have facilitated those loans, and they must work constructively with those who are seeking a responsible and reasonable repayment plan—one that recoups the unpaid tax while avoiding the unacceptable risk of bankruptcy and homelessness. If HMRC cannot deliver that, an independent arbitration mechanism should be used.

    This is not some kind of academic argument. This issue has implications for the real world, for the money available to our public services and for the growing gap between rich and poor. The shadow Chancellor set out the limitations of HMRC’s estimate of the tax gap at some £35 billion. There is a real implication here for all our constituencies when we see cuts coming down the line. Paying tax is a duty. It is the price of a fair society, not a burden to be avoided. Those who seek to avoid and evade their responsibilities, and those who facilitate their behaviour, need a strong message from the UK Government. The Government must explain why they are failing to stop the siphoning away of money that could be paying to educate children and care for the elderly. The SNP is committed to clamping down on tax avoidance and evasion, but we do not yet have the full economic levers to do so as they are still held by the Treasury and HMRC. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) has pointed out on many occasions that small countries are much better and more efficient at gathering tax, so I suggest that if the UK Government will not act, they should devolve the powers to Scotland and let us get on with the job of building a fairer society.