Below is the text of the Twitter comments made by Guy Verhofstadt, the Brexit Co-ordinator for the European Parliament, on 28 August 2019.
“Taking back control” has never looked so sinister. As a fellow parliamentarian, my solidarity with those fighting for their voices to be heard.
Suppressing debate on profound choices is unlikely to help deliver a stable future EU – UK relationship.
Below is the text of the statement made by Jo Swinson, the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, on 28 August 2019.
I’ve written to the Queen to express my concern at Boris Johnson’s anti-democratic plan to shut down Parliament, and to request an urgent meeting.
This is a crucial time in our country’s history, and yet our Prime Minister is arrogantly attempting to force through a No Deal Brexit against the democratic will. He is outrageously stifling the voices of both the people and their representatives.
It is appalling that the Prime Minister has forced opposition leaders into taking this action. However, we must take all measures necessary to avoid a disastrous No Deal Brexit, for which there is no mandate.
Below is the text of the comments made by Sue Hayman, the Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on 28 August 2019.
Consulting with members and animal rights organisations means that our policies are not campaigns of the month like the Tories, but thought through and comprehensive measures that will bring Britain’s animal welfare policy into the 21st century.
This suite of policies on animal welfare seeks to build upon the long standing leadership of the Labour Party on the issue of animal welfare. From bringing forward the landmark Hunting Act to protecting the treatment of domestic animals under the Animal Welfare Act, Labour has always placed the welfare of animals high on the policy agenda.
Labour will ensure that we have a comprehensive legislative agenda in place to make sure that the UK has animal rights protections equal to or better than anywhere in the world.
Below is the text of the statement made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, on 28 August 2019.
I am appalled at the recklessness of Johnson’s government, which talks about sovereignty and yet is seeking to suspend parliament to avoid scrutiny of its plans for a reckless No Deal Brexit. This is an outrage and a threat to our democracy.
That is why Labour has been working across Parliament to hold this reckless government to account, and prevent a disastrous No Deal which parliament has already ruled out. If Johnson has confidence in his plans he should put them to the people in a general election or public vote.
Below is the text of the speech made by Stephen Barclay, the Secretary of State for Leaving the European Union, in Paris, France on 28 August 2019.
After all, I am here because I want to be absolutely clear about the UK’s position at such a critical time, and would not want anything to be lost in translation.
In recent years some have tried to frame the UK/ France relationship in purely Brexit terms.
Yet the reality is that our historic, cultural, geographic and indeed economic ties are far too deep and broad to be defined by any one event.
After all, and as M Roux de Bezieux I’m sure will happily testify, even after Brexit the Six Nations rugby tournament will still emerge next Winter.
We work together to defend our values and our way of life as Permanent Members of the UN Security Council and leading lights in NATO.
Our Armed Forces work closely together helping to secure peace around the world.
In the Sahel British helicopters are helping French soldiers to carry the fight to extremists.
While closer to home millions of UK nationals have just enjoyed summer holidays in France and vice versa.
Indeed our shared lives will be reflected in the loan of the Bayeux Tapestry to the UK in the coming years, more than 900 years after it was created.
And indeed in the past two weeks and the past week alone our Prime Minister has visited France twice to meet with President Macron – including at the successful G7 – and I extend the congratulations of the British Government to France for a successful G7.
They were both clear in being united on a number of vital issues, such as climate change and the environment, both as stout defenders of the historic Paris Climate Change Agreement signed in this very city in 2016.
Our economic relationship is also vital to the prosperity of both our countries.
Since we voted to leave the EU in 2016 our bilateral trade has in fact increased by 12 per cent.
In total, bilateral trade was around €90bn in 2017, and the UK continues to be the number one destination for foreign investment in Europe and number three in the world.
In fact, since 2013, UK startups have raised more from US and Asian investors than most of Europe combined, and in the first half of this year, the UK received $3.5bn from US and Asian investors, compared to $0.9bn for Germany, $0.5bn for France and $2.9bn for the rest of Europe.
And indeed UK and French companies continue to work closely together – in fact I used to work for a French company – Axa, the very same company as did my French counterpart, your Secretary of State Amelie de Montchalin also worked for, whom I met earlier today.
The UK and France have a mutually beneficial partnership – one that has seen Alstom unveiling the design of its new zero-emission, hydrogen train, which will be re-engineered in Widnes, while Airbus which employs 14,000 people in the UK across 25 sites with more than 4000 UK companies in its supply chain.
And, of course, UK companies have a substantial presence here.
A British multinational contract foodservice Compas employs 14,000 people in its supply chains in France and serves over 210 million meals a year through its restaurants and in schools and hospitals.
And indeed as the PM pointed out last week – the sleek French TGV trains, on which many will have travelled this summer, run on tracks made by British Steel in Scunthorpe.
Our shared economic future is best served through a deal as the UK leaves the European Union – which we are committed to doing on the 31st October.
It is not just because the backstop has been rejected three times by the UK Parliament that we seek its removal.
As the Prime Minister made clear in his letter to Donald Tusk, and in their subsequent meeting, Parliament will not allow the people of Northern Ireland to be subject to an indefinite period of continued alignment.
It would mean Northern Irish voters – UK citizens – being governed by rules in which they have no say.
And since we can only leave the backstop by the agreement with the EU, once it is triggered we could be locked in it forever, something that the UK Attorney General has made clear and which indeed makes it harder to leave the backstop than it does indeed the EU itself.
But the backstop is not the entire Northern Ireland Protocol – it is just the relevant articles relating to alignment.
The Northern Ireland Protocol also covers the benefits of the Single Electricity Market. It covers North-South cooperation, the Common Travel Area.
None of these require continued regulatory alignment.
So the issues remaining before us are narrower than is often portrayed.
Yet the EU is seeking through the backstop a 100 per cent all-weather guarantee on the future economic partnership before we have even started those negotiations, and with insufficient time to conclude those negotiations because of the way the Article 50 talks were structured.
The backstop has also been universally rejected by one of the two key communities in Northern Ireland, which means it is an unstable basis for power sharing in Northern Ireland.
There is ample room – indeed there is a shared responsibility for all – to seek a solution that can enjoy genuine cross-party consent.
We understand the need to protect the integrity of the Single Market.
But it is our firm view that Irish border issues should be dealt with in the talks on the future agreement between the UK and the EU, where they should always have been, and we’re ready to negotiate in good faith on that basis.
We will do so with a cast-iron commitment to upholding the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement and preventing a hard border on the island of Ireland.
And do not, please, misunderstand that commitment.
Together with our friends in Ireland no one is more aware of the need to maintain peace and freedom on the island of Ireland than the UK.
For years we have invested too much in it and care too much about it to see anything to put it at risk.
And indeed under no scenario will we erect the barriers at the border that would jeopardise its future.
The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement directly impacts UK sovereignty. It has been supported by successive UK Governments of different political parties, and it is a firm commitment of this Prime Minister.
Too often the integrity of the single market is presented as a concern about the Good Friday Agreement, as if these two issues are the same.
In fact, the single market is clearly the priority for the EU, meaning that it is the EU that will insist on putting up a hard border in the event of a no deal.
This is something that everyone wants to avoid and the UK has guaranteed it will never do, even in the event of no deal.
Likewise the UK is often asked for more detail on its proposals.
Yet if the test is one of 100% certainty, all-weather, all-of-life insurance, then creative and flexible solutions will always be quickly shot down.
Progress requires creativity and flexibility on both sides – including in the application of single market rules.
We recognise the concern about the risk of a backdoor to the single market, but we need to deal with it in a different way, one which reflects the value of democracy that we share.
For when politicians ask the people to make a choice, it is the responsibility of the elected representatives to deliver on that choice.
It is not, as the PM has said, for politicians to choose which votes they want to act upon and those they would prefer to ignore.
The UK wants to use the Implementation Period to put in place alternative arrangements.
Now the EU says on one hand it wants to look for “creative and flexible solutions on the border in Northern Ireland” – the very words used by the European Council in its own guidelines, yet at the same time refuses to progress work on alternative arrangements until the Withdrawal Agreement has been ratified.
Likewise it is quick to dismiss the use of technology as ‘magical thinking’, while recognising such technology is part of the alternative arrangements which indeed it has agreed to progress.
The EU has used creativity and flexibility in the past, look at the arrangements in Switzerland, look at the arrangements when Germany reunified with the West.
So let’s look at this issue afresh as partners.
For if not and we move to a no deal exit, people will question in the future why there was such a lack of flexibility, and indeed why, in the pursuit of a 100 per cent guarantee of no risk on the Irish border at the end of 2020, we made real this risk in November.
But if a compromise cannot be found then we have been clear that we are leaving whatever the circumstances on 31st October.
People voted for Brexit and it is important to our democracy that we deliver it.
We have stepped up our preparations in the UK significantly under the new Government.
And we have also guaranteed the rights of the approximately 300,000 French nationals and indeed all EU nationals living in the UK.
These people make an immense contribution to UK national life and to our economy, which is why we have established a scheme to enable them to stay that is unprecedented in its ease of use.
It is free and more than one million people have already registered for settled status.
Of course, I welcome the moves that the French government has taken to protect the rights of UK citizens living here, and I acknowledge that these steps are required because of the decision we have taken in the UK to leave the EU.
But I call on the French government and others in the EU to match our offer and to provide certainty for UK nationals living here in France.
EU leaders repeatedly tell me how important Citizens’ Rights is to them, but not only has the Commission refused to agree a specific deal on Citizens’ Rights – as requested by all political parties in the UK – the offer here in France falls short of what we have set out in the UK in several respects including the criteria for registering residency, health insurance requirements, the rights of frontier workers.
For example, here in France UK Nationals must apply for a residence permit within six months of exit day.
And we would call on the French Government to extend that period, particularly as French citizens in the UK have until the end of 2020 to apply for the EU Settlement Scheme.
And while we in the UK have waived the fee for EU citizens to register, the cost of the residence permit in France is €119.
Another area where we have concerns is healthcare.
We spend ten times more on healthcare in the EU than the EU spends in the UK.
And for UK nationals in France there is a shortage of information about the proposed future arrangements, while French citizens in the UK by exit day can be absolutely certain that they will have access to the NHS in the same way that they always have.
France will also require many British nationals already here to have health insurance and show that they have sufficient money to support themselves before they will be granted residency rights, a requirement the UK has not imposed on EU nationals.
For business visitors we are also clear that absolutely nothing will change for short trips to the UK from Europe, their ability to continue to travel to the UK to make their invaluable contribution to our economy which must continue as it has done for years.
The need for our wealth creators to move freely between our territories is well understood on both sides, and that is something the Commission agrees with us on also.
That freedom goes not only for passengers but also for imports and exports.
And while we are absolutely focused on securing a deal, alongside these discussions we must also now progress talks on the mitigations necessary for any no deal that may arise.
Take fishing for example, in the event of a no deal exit access to UK waters falls entirely within the UK’s control.
That, of course, has a potential impact on the French fishing industry.
Of the 250,000 tonnes of fish processed in Boulogne, the majority comes from UK waters and of the fish landed by French vessels, 40 per cent of it comes from UK waters.
At the same time, about 80,000 tonnes of our own salmon, scallops and other seafood products end up on the French table each year – you are a significant export market for us.
The exceptional fluidity of the cross-Channel trade routes supports the fishing industry, just as it does the car industry with its “just in time” supply chains.
That fluidity sees more than 1,100 trucks cross seamlessly into the UK from the Continent each day laden with car parts.
There are, of course, other changes that will arise from a no deal.
For example, Geographical Indicators. It’s worth recognising that there are over 3,000 products registered with GIs in the EU but only 88 are from the UK.
Or in agriculture where, according to France’s biggest farming union, French wine and spirits producers would be materially impacted. They’re set to have a €1.3bn annual surplus in trade with the UK.
Or France’s dairy industry which – according to the French Chambers of Agriculture – has an annual surplus in exports to the UK of €700-800m.
And let’s not forget the fantastic educational exchanges enjoyed by students across Europe, which French students in the UK take advantage of every year.
Today we spend millions of pounds subsidising the up-front costs of those tuition fees, and indeed, allowing EU nationals access to support for undergraduate courses in England starting in the 20/21 academic year is estimated to cost us around half a billion pounds for that year alone.
Monsieur President these are just some of the areas that it is our job – as politicians and business leaders – not just to protect but allow to flourish.
Our new partnership must be built on the intimate understanding that it is founded on one that has existed for hundreds of years.
France and the UK are two of the world’s oldest and greatest democracies.
Yes we have always been global and outward looking. Champions of democracy, free trade, the rule of law and defending those who cannot defend themselves.
But there is something deeper, an emotional connection, that binds us – and will always bind us – together as nations.
We are inextricably linked through our shared values and our love of each other’s cultures.
So I conclude by reaffirming that I, the Prime Minister, the British Government are aiming for a deal.
We will be ready for no deal if it happens, but from the meetings I have had here this morning and those in Denmark, Finland and Sweden last week, one thing is absolutely clear.
Businesses across Europe want an end to the uncertainty and have the confidence to take advantage of the huge opportunities that trading with the UK presents.
That is best served with a deal.
A deal which honours the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement but without the backstop as the UK Parliament has made clear.
That is what our Government seeks, and Mr President, with good will on all sides it is what we can deliver.
Thank you
Below is the text of the speech made by John Butcher, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, in the House of Commons on 13 March 1986.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer) for bringing this subject to the attention of the House. Many of my colleagues have observed his healthy fixation with this matter. He is motivated purely by a desire to help Europe produce a truly common market against which our industrial companies can make their marketing plans and, we hope, go on to achieve success on a world scale having taken advantage of that large and burgeoning market.
My hon. Friend has asked two key questions—does Europe face an industrial problem and, if so, what can Governments do to tackle it, acting together in the European Community? In other words, do we need a European industrial policy and, if so, what sort of policy should it be?
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that there is a problem—a problem for Europe as a whole as well as for us in Britain. It is a problem of competitiveness: the global competitiveness of some sectors of European industry. It is manifest in the painful process of adjustment that has been necessary in our industrial structures, which is not yet complete. It is manifest equally in Europe’s relative weakness compared to the United States and Japan. Success is crucial in the new technologies if we are to create the wealth and jobs that our societies need.
The symptoms are well known. The European Community’s share of export markets in some fast-growing sectors has declined. Between 1973 and 1983, for example, the European Commission has estimated that the Community’s share of export markets in electrical and electronic products declined by just under 2 per cent., while the United States and Japanese shares in the same sectors increased.
Import penetration in similar sectors has increased faster in the Community market than in the markets of its major competitors. In information technology and electronics, for example, it has been estimated that penetration rates between 1973 and 1982 rose from 10 per cent. to 17 per cent. in the EEC; from around 6 per cent. to around 10 per cent. in the United States; and from around 4 per cent. to around 5 per cent. in Japan. Europe has been less successful than either the United States or Japan in creating new jobs. Since 1972, an additional 19 million jobs have been created in the United States and 5 million in Japan. In Europe as a whole, with a much larger overall population, employment levels have remained virtually static.
What, then, can Governments usefully do to strengthen Europe’s industrial capability? Two strategies are sometimes suggested which would clearly not help—indeed, they would make matters worse. One is a strategy of generalised protection: Fortress Europe. The other is a strategy of generalised state subsidy and state intervention. Both would be costly to consumers and taxpayers. Both would be anti-competitive, distort the market and blunt the edge of the primary stimulus to commercial success. For these reasons, neither strategy would ultimately work.
As I see it, an effective European industrial policy must have three basic objectives. First, it must open up the internal Community market, making a reality of the single, integrated market envisaged in the treaty of Rome. It must improve the climate for enterprise in Europe, not least by tackling regulatory burdens on business. It must encourage closer market-led collaboration between European businesses, above all in advanced technology.
The first of those objectives is fundamental. The sheer size of their home markets and the economies of scale that they afford offer American and Japanese industry a major competitive advantage. The creation of a similarly integrated domestic market for European business is perhaps the most important single step we can take to strengthen Europe’s industrial performance.
The goal is a genuine European market of 320 million customers, matching the 230 million customers in the domestic market of the United States and the 120 million in the domestic market of Japan. The European Community has been working towards this goal for nearly 30 years. It still eludes us. True, tariff barriers and quotas have been effectively eliminated in intra-Community trade. But the free movement of goods throughout the Community is still obstructed by “non-tariff’ barriers, such as frontier formalities and differing national product standards.
Similarly, the growth of a free and competitive market for services, particularly in sectors such as financial services and transport, which provide essential service infrastructure for manufacturing, is blocked by a range of restrictions in many member states. The efficient functioning of the European market as a whole is distorted by the protective use of public purchasing and other public sector aids. There is a new determination in Europe to tackle these problems.
Last June, the European Council at Milan endorsed the broad thrust of an important White Paper from the Commission that set out a detailed plan for action required to complete the internal Community market by 1992.
Mr. Speaker, it may be because of the early hour, but it is interesting to note that in the copy of my speech, the word “internal” looks disconcertingly like the word “infernal”. It may be something to do with the typewriter.
The United Kingdom and the Netherlands, as the two countries occupying the Community presidency this year, have produced jointly the action programme targeting more than 100 issues for decision by the end of 1986. It will be a central aim of our presidency, in the second half of the year, to maintain maximum impetus behind that programme.
A second aim of European industrial policy should be to improve the framework within which industry operates. That is partly a matter of action at national level on a wide variety of fronts. We in Britain are increasingly aware of the need to promote more positive attitudes to industry and to wealth creation; to make our education system more responsive to industrial needs; and to cut the burden of regulation on business. They are priority concerns for many of our Community partners, too.
The third objective that I identified was to promote European business collaboration in advanced technology. In telecommunications, for example, about 15 European companies are competing for a share of the European market—as compared with the four or five giant American firms which dominate the United States market. The pattern is much the same in other growth sectors. Collaboration within an increasingly integrated European market is inevitable if a competitive European presence in those sectors is to survive.
Collaboration in research and development—spreading risks, spreading costs and exploiting the strength of pooled resources—is one major way forward. The Community has developed some important support schemes to encourage collaborative R and D at the so-called ”pre-competitive” stage. The ESPRIT programme, for example, which is focused on information technology and complementing our Alvey programme, is starting to gather pace. We have the BRITIE programme for industrial technology, and RACE for broad-band communications.
Such programmes reflect a welcome shift of emphasis in Community-funded research. They are directly relevant to industrial needs. They use Community money—public money—to stimulate spending by business. In discussions which are starting in Brussels on a new framework programme for Community R and D in the five years 1987–91 we are determined to encourage this trend towards market-oriented, cost-effective effort.
But action at Community level is not the end of the story. Industrial collaboration in Europe can often usefully extend beyond the 12 member states. The aim must be to develop specific products or services which will be competitive on world markets. Both those elements are central to the EUREKA initiative. EUREKA is giving major impetus to European collaboration in new technology. Eighteen European countries are involved. More than 20 collaborative projects are already at an advanced stage, and British firms are participating in six of them. They are actively pursuing proposals in many other areas. We are currently hosting and chairing the EUREKA discussions. It is fair to say that our thinking has made a major contribution to the shape of the initiative, following its successful launch by President Mitterrand last year.
EUREKA is not, and could not sensibly become, a new financing mechanism. Finance for EUREKA projects is a matter for the participating firms, with support where appropriate from their national Governments under national schemes. I should add in this connection that British firms participating in worthwhile EUREKA projects can qualify for assistance under our existing R and D support schemes.
EUREKA offers two important advantages to industry. First, it will wire British and other European firms into a Europe-wide network for the exchange of information on new collaborative proposals and opportunities. Secondly, and even more important, it will provide a framework in which business and Governments can identify, and put new momentum behind, concrete action in the Community and elsewhere, to open the European market for the benefit of the projects concerned. There could be action, for example, to generate new European technical standards or to liberalise public sector purchasing.
I have outlined what, as we see it, is a co-ordinated European industrial policy and what it can sensibly seek to achieve. I hope that my hon. Friend agrees that no industrial policy vacuum in Europe is crying out to be filled. The reality, rather, is that the Community as a whole is already acting in the areas I have described to strengthen Europe’s industrial base. Progress in those areas is essential for the health and competitiveness of industry in Britain and in other member states. We are throwing our full weight behind the initiatives in hand.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West for bringing this matter to the attention of the House. I noted his endorsement of the need for what he called a Minister responsible for co-ordinating procurement and industrial policies generally, and his suggestion that full weight be given to the European alternative. No doubt those words, which are now on the record, will be noted in the appropriate quarter. In the interests of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike), who, with great professionalism, has decided to launch his debate at 7.34 am, and those of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, the best thing that I can do now is to thank my hon. Friend once again and to wish you, Mr. Speaker, a very good morning.
Below is the text of the speech made by Anthony Meyer, the then Conservative MP for Clwyd North West, in the House of Commons on 13 March 1986.
The subject I want to raise is the need for greater industrial co-operation in Europe. By Europe, I do not specifically and solely mean the European community, and when I talk of industrial co-operation I am not solely referring to ordinary industry; I wish to include the defence industries.
It is a subject to which I propose to return on future occasions because I believe that, if we can inaugurate more far-reaching and more constructive co-operation between the European countries in this field, we can go some way towards tackling the unemployment problem, which must be a matter of concern to every one of us.
Across the European Community, unemployment in the 12 member states is more than 14 million. While much of this unemployment may appear to be structural and as a result of technological change, and some of it may appear to be the result of temporary economic conditions, the fact is that, during the period that this is happening in the European Community, in the United States there has been a startling success in the creation of fresh employment so that unemployment levels in the United States remain at an acceptable level; and in what are undoubtedly our most dangerous competitors, that is to say, the industrialised countries of the Pacific basin, unemployment is at a very low level.
The inference is clear, that Europe is not taking advantage of the assets it possesses in order to strengthen its industrial base and to reduce its unemployment. It is, of course, generally known that the European Community is a long way from being even the common market, which is the most basic of its aims, further still from being any kind of an economic unit which would enable the member states composing it to take full advantage of it as a means of securing employment.
One of the points I will be urging on the Government is that they should live up to their own professions in this matter and that they really should give overriding priority to the completion of the internal market by sweeping away the barriers to trade, and particularly to trade in invisibles, which still exist.
Generally when Members of Parliament say that they conjure up a vision of obstructive Italian frontier officials, French customs arrangements at Poitiers for the import of Japanese goods and German obstructionism in the market of insurance. But there is a very large beam in our own eyes in the habits and mentalities of HM Customs and Excise which regards itself in many respects as being almost above the law. Anyone who has attempted to import anything through any of our ports will not, I think, rush to the conclusion that our customs is much more attractive in these matters than those of other countries.
I do not think that Customs is coming under a great deal of pressure from the Government to be any more easy going in these matters. Of course, we bring forward the arguments about the needs to control drugs and to control rabies, and both are perfectly valid arguments. None the less, it is difficult to avoid the suspicion that these are being used in many cases as a pretext for slowing up the inflow of goods. What is sauce for the goose has to be sauce for the gander, and if we want our goods to flow freely into Europe we must allow European goods to flow equally freely into us. The Channel Tunnel will be a step in the right direction, provided that other obstacles are not put in the way of the operation of this tunnel.
However, that is not my main point. Sweeping away obstacles to internal trade will undoubtedly assist in the development of a single market. A single market of 273 million customers must be a very powerful home base for any industry. But there is rather more to what I want to say than that. We have witnessed over a very long time span—in Britain’s case probably since about 1870—the gradual and seemingly inexorable loss of industrial supremacy.
In the 19th century the United Kingdom was the workshop of the world. Anybody abroad would buy almost anything that was made in Britain, precisely because it was made in Britain. That position has been eroded over the years. Two world wars have wrought their toll. We have gradually seen what were once undisputed British industrial supremacies disappear down the plug hole. What happened to the great British motor cycle industry which at one stage was almost the sole motor cycle industry in the world? Little by little we have seen such industries disappear.
We are at a particularly dramatic moment in this process of disappearance, with the future of British Leyland very much on our minds. I do not intend to say very much about British Leyland, because there has been a debate on that subject. However, when it became apparent that British Leyland would have great difficulty in surviving as a mass car producer because it is very much smaller that any of its competitors two possibilities opened up for it. One was that it should be taken over by General Motors. The other possibility—the one that is being very much trumpeted by my hon. Friends with constituencies in the Midlands and by the Opposition—was that there should be a purely British rescue operation. Neither of these possibilities meets the bill. I accept that the American takeover makes some kind of economic sense, but an American takeover would represent a very large step towards the abandonment of a true, native-based industry. The British solution would lead us back, I fear, to the time when British Leyland was a permanent pensioner of the British state.
It is probably too late now for the third and, to my mind, the right alternative. Before we ever got to where we are, there ought to have been in existence the possibility of a partnership between British Leyland and one of the European manufacturers. It need not necessarily have been one of the EEC manufacturers. It could have been Volvo. That would have complemented BL’s capacities in such a way as to produce a viable firm that would have been multi-centred and whose ownership would have been basically European. If British Leyland had joined up with one of the German or Italian manufacturers, it might have contained a very large American element. I am not arguing in favour of a policy that would try to shut out the Americans. However, I am arguing that we should seek to have a policy that includes, wherever appropriate, a very substantial European element.
The same set of arguments apply to Westland. My right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) made a valiant and ultimately unsuccessful effort to mount a European rescue effort for Westland. Once again it was too late, not due to any culpability of Her Majesty’s Government but largely because such “rescue” as loomed up over the horizon from Europe looked more like an attempt by the European manufacturers to snuff out Westland as a possible competitor. The faults are not on our side alone. But when we add them all together we get a failure both by Her Majesty’s Government and by the Governments of the European countries to make any use of the Community as an institution to exert its influence as a powerful trading bloc to sustain its own industry.
The argument will present itself in another particularly acute form over the future of the European airbus family of aircraft. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for the City of Chester (Mr. P. Morrison) is not answering the debate, because he has a particular interest in the project. The airbus has been a tremendous success technically. Of course, it is far too soon to prophesy whether the Government, or those who put their money into the project, will make a profit.
We have the siren voice of that once sensible publication, The Economist, urging strongly that the British aircraft industry should surrender without a fight to the Americans and that we should allow all major civil aircraft to be built in the United States, leaving it to Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas to fight it out between them. That is a craven act of folly when the possibility exists of maintaining a capacity in Europe to produce not just an aircraft but a whole family of aircraft capable of meeting the demands of the world market at almost every level. I earnestly pray that the Government will listen not to The Economist but to those Ministers, of whom I am sure my hon. Friend is one, who will urge the vital importance of maintaining a capacity for the construction of civil aircraft in Europe. Here at least is one industry in which we for the moment are not faced with knock-out competition from the Pacific basin and where we should be unwise in the extreme to surrender all our advantage.
That leads me to public procurement, which involves not only Governments but also governmental agencies. One sometimes has the impression that European airlines in all too many cases deliberately operate a “buy American” policy. If the airlines operated a European preference when they make purchases of civil aircraft, that might in itself suffice to sustain a European civil aircraft manufacturing capacity.
The record on public procurement is frighteningly dismal. In 1982, the last year for which figures are available, in all its public purchasing the United Kingdom spent no less than 98·3 per cent. of Government cash on equipment made within our own borders. That left 1·7 per cent. with which to encourage joint ventures overseas. Though a dismal record, it is better than the Germans, who left not 1·7 but 0·3 per cent. for joint ventures; or the French, who left the enormous total of 0·09 per cent., or the Italians, who left nil per cent. of public expenditure to be spent outside their own borders.
This reflects the enormous public political pressure in favour of a buy native policy, and one need sit in this House for only a few hours to hear it, and understandable it is. Obviously, every hon. Member will urge as strongly as possible the arguments in favour of spending public money in his constituency. I remember fighting hard for the retention, for example, of steel-making at Shotton. From a constituency point of view, that was an unanswerable case. Nevertheless, there was a national case which required that steel-making capacity should be concentrated in those areas where there was a natural case for having steel-making, and Shotton was not one of them. I was, rightly, overruled in that instance.
When we talk about the car, helicopter or machine tool industries, two sets of arguments operate at a political level. There is a powerful economic argument which says, “Let us go for the most immediately profitable solution which will bring the best return to the shareholders and give the workers in the industry the best guarantee of maintaining their jobs.” That argument often operates in favour of an American, Japanese or even an Arab takeover.
The other argument, deployed by Back Benchers on both sides of the House, says, “The best way to do it is to use public money to maintain a buy British policy, a subsidy, a purely British solution.” There will always be those who will argue for a national solution for whatever industry comes into the public domain of discussion.
What never operates is pressure to say, “Let us look for a solution which takes advantage of our membership of the European Community” or, at a lower level, “which takes advantage of our proximity to Europe—be it Switzerland or Sweden—which will enable us to construct an alternative future for this industry or firm and which may, in the short run, not offer the same advantages to the shareholders.”
It may not even offer the same security of employment to its workers, but it may offer long-term possibilities for industry and for the future of employment in Britain. That may not be available through a purely British solution entailing a permanent subsidy, or through an American solution involving a total takeover, with the risk that, when the chill winds blow, the Americans will close down their out-stations, as it were, and concentrate production at home—after all, they are subject to the same pressures—to safeguard jobs in their country.
There are no democratic pressures on the Government to exploit to the full our membership of the European Community to ensure the prosperity of British firms and safeguard British jobs. The pressures are all against such solutions. It is for the Government to see matters as a whole and to make the maximum use of our membership of the Community to achieve our objectives.
There should be much faster progress of the consolidation of the internal market. A substantial step forward could be achieved by stabilising the exchange rate through the exchange rate mechanism of the European monetary system. All of these matters are major policy decisions which can be achieved only in concert with our European allies. I know how difficult that is until we have a much improved decision-making process in the EC, which means moving away from the veto, but I shall not go into that.
There should be a Minister responsible for coordinating procurement and industrial policies to ensure that, whenever a controversial decision comes up, full weight is given to the European alternative. Several Departments are involved in that. The Department of Trade and Industry is one and the Ministry of Defence is another. Perhaps I should have enlarged on what is happening in the arms industry. Each country, by drawing a narrow specification of its requirements, has made it virtually impossible to achieve European co-operation. The result is that, one after another, we are equipping ourselves with expensive weapons which are unsuitable for use by our allies. This is a NATO matter—the NATO group in Europe is not maximising the opportunities. The Department of Transport has a critical role to play, and the Treasury is also involved in matters such as I have mentioned.
If, in Cabinet, there was a Minister who could say, “Wait a minute. There may be a better but not so immediately attractive European alternative” we could achieve much more in the Community and in the European part of NATO to sustain jobs and preserve industries which otherwise face a pretty grim future.
Below is the text of the speech made by Peter Pike, the then Labour MP for Burnley, in the House of Commons on 13 March 1986.
I intend to change slightly the content of my speech because of the time of the morning; I wish to give the Minister an opportunity to reply to the debate. Although I had intended to refer in some detail to other parts, I shall restrict my comments to my own constituency and to my own area of the Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale district health authority; concentrating on the problems of hospital closures and reductions in the ambulance service caused by Health Service cuts in that area. This, of course, does not mean that I have failed to recognise that these problems affect the whole country, as all parts have been forced to cut services because of Government restrictions of the finance available for the Health Service.
In my own constituency it was recently announced that two hospitals are to close, Marsden hospital and Bank Hall hospital. It was originally envisaged that the role of both these hospitals would change because of developments taking place at Burnley general hospital. When the 10-year plan for the district health authority was introduced, I welcomed the developments that were taking place at Burnley general hospital and never for one moment imagined that the two hospitals which are due to close would keep their current format.
Having said that, however, until it can be shown that in the area that I represent and in the country as a whole we have eliminated the long lists of people waiting for medical and surgical treatment, and have provided all the necessary geriatric accommodation, I cannot support the closure of a single hospital, and I think that the step that we are taking is a retrograde one. This is especially so in an area like mine, based on the two traditional industries of coalmining, now completely gone, and textiles, both of which give rise to health problems for those working in them, particularly chest problems. Many have underestimated the effect of cotton dust in the air and of the artificially damp atmosphere that was created for the benefit of the cotton rather than that of the people working in the industry. So we have many people with chest problems, and a corresponding need for accommodation and facilities to deal with them. In addition, areas such as north-east Lancashire and Burnley, in particular, have a growing number of elderly people; we certainly need much more geriatric accommodation.
A big campaign is already being mounted by the borough council, the Labour party and the trades council, to fight to save the hospitals and to provide the Health Service facilities that we believe the people of our towns are entitled to. We shall be supporting the prospective candidates in Pendle, Sylvia Renilson, and in Rossendale, Janet Anderson, and the many people who are fighting to preserve the hospitals due for closure, and opposing the cut-backs in the hospital services in their areas. Indeed, the Pendle borough council, which has no overall political control—Labour controls the largest party but does not have overall control—is mounting a massive campaign with all-party support to save the Hartley hospital. When I am arguing for the two hospitals in Burnley—Marsden and Bank Hall—I am not arguing for them at the expense of either Pendle or Rossendale. I would not wish to see Marsden or Bank Hall saved at the cost of losing one in Pendle or Rossendale.
The Minister should look at the medical report of the district medical officer, Dr. Grime, which shows clearly that there is a great demand for more resources for the Health Service, rather than less, in north-east Lancashire in the Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale health authority.
The closures are clearly being made to save money—£1·5 million. But when I returned to my constituency yesterday, I was informed that at the meeting of the district health authority, held only the previous night, cuts of a further £1 million had been requested and further drastic action had to be considered.
It must be said that even moderate people on that committee—Mr. Ashworth, who is a registrar at the county court—were talking of allowing the Government to call in the commissioners to do the dirty work because enough was enough and further cuts could not be countenanced.
Even Muriel Jobling, the chairman of the district health authority, because she has tried to resist some of the proposals—and I do not know her political party—and has not toed the Government line, has had it suggested to her by the chairman of the regional health authority that she might say that she did not want to seek another term as chairman of the district health authority. She did not choose to do that and so she has been told that she is not being reappointed. Yet she has fought to try to preserve the Health Service for the community. The protest of people from all political parties and all parts of the Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale district health authority has shown the amazed outrage at the decision that she should not be reappointed.
The second aspect of the debate is the restriction of ambulance services and the cutting of that service within Lancashire. That is causing people throughout Lancashire grave concern. Indeed the Burnley Express and News and in particular the Lancashire Evening Telegraph have run a big campaign attacking the new proposals and policy changes that were introduced on 6 January when a quota system was introduced to try to avoid an overspend.
A letter from the Lancashire family practitioner committee dated 4 February to the regional general manager of the North-Western regional health authority said that it had considered a report at its committee meeting on 29 January on the current situation in the Lancashire ambulance service. The letter went on to express the concern of general practitioners at the effects of the introduction on 6 January, without prior notice, of a quota system for outpatients as a result of an anticipated overspend of £250,000 in the current financial year by the Preston health authority, the managing body for ambulances for the seven Lancashire districts. Preston health authority has, on a number of occasions, sought additional resources from the regional health authority to offset the continued effects of repeated efficiency savings and cost improvement programmes. The Lancashire family practitioner committee registered its gravest concern at the present situation and rejected completely the interim solutions which had been introduced. It called on the regional health authority to provide further resources to cover the projected overspending until the results of the review of Lancashire ambulance services, which has been commissioned by the regional health authority, are available. Similar views have been expressed by Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale community health council. It wrote to Preston district health authority on 11 February and sent a copy to the hon. Members representing the three constituencies within its area. It expressed concern at the authority’s failure to consult the community health council regarding what it viewed as a “substantial variation in service” and concern at the distress caused to patients by this action. The letter said:
“my members are amazed to have read a statement in the press from yourself and officers that as a consequence of reducing the workload in regard to transporting out-patients to hospital by some 35 per cent., some inconvenience will be caused to patients.”
That view was being expressed to the chairman of the Preston district health authority.
The letter attaches a schedule of cases where seriously ill patients have failed to keep their out-patient appointments. It is a long list and it is being added to all the time. It gives an example of a 43-year-old lady who was thought by her general practitioner to have suffered a stroke. She was refused an ambulance by control staff because the daily quota had been reached, despite the fact that she needed to attend the hospital x-ray department for a brain scan. It was eventually discovered that the lady had a brain tumour. I can give many examples, but time is short. It is a nonsense to run an ambulance service on a quota system which says that if the quota is used up during the first three days of the week no ambulances will be available on the next two days. As I have said, I have a long list and if the Minister wishes to look at it I will provide him with a copy.
The change has also resulted in wasting the time of professional Health Service personnel, particularly physiotherapists. It has increased the work load for hospital administrators, who are now continually having to change patients’ appointments because the quota system means that patients cannot attend on the date or time for which the appointment was originally made. Disruption has been caused to the work of outpatient clinics.
Ambulance men allege that the time and capacity of ambulances has been wasted because they do not always carry a full load and additional spaces have been available. There was a manpower shortage in 1984 and at that time transport was hired and hospital car volunteer drivers were used, mainly for day care cases, at a cost of £300,000.
Finally, because I want to allow time for the Minister to reply, I want to deal with the important aspect of people who have had their training blocked and are not being allowed to do emergency work or anything else, or complete their training in the ambulance service. That is a matter of great concern. As I understand it, the reason for that is to save money. Once people are fully trained they will have to be paid slightly more. I know that the National Union of Public Employees is taking legal advice on that and is fighting on behalf of its members and is trying to ensure that they are able to provide the services necessary for running outpatient and emergency services.
It has to be said that emergency services have now been so cut to the bone that in times of major emergency, or two incidents happening at the same time during certain stages of the night, ambulances would not be able to provide the much-needed service to the people of North-east Lancashire. These issues, at this early hour of the morning, are crucial to the people of north-east Lancashire, Burnley and Lancashire as a whole. I believe that the cases I have illustrated are examples of what is going on, not only in my part of the country but throughout the length and breadth of this country because of the cuts being imposed by the Government.
Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour MP for Islington North, in the House of Commons on 13 March 1986.
It is interesting that today we are having a number of debates on the National Health Service. That reflects the great public disquiet about its administration and the appallingly low levels of pay. I wish to draw attention to that issue.
First, I say with pride, not by way of apology, that I am sponsored by the National Union of Public Employees, and it is right and proper that that should be on the record. I was formerly a full-time official of that union, working in the NHS, and at one stage I was a member of an area health authority, so I have some experience of NHS matters.
There is grave disquiet within the NHS about the way in which staff are treated. During the past five years NHS workers have suffered from the threat of privatisation, which essentially means that many ancillary staff are being asked to offer their job on an annual or biennial basis to the lowest bidder, as a series of contract cleaning and catering companies line up to take the pickings from the NHS. That has resulted in job losses and a reduction in the real wage levels of many workers, and has created a climate of fear and intimidation. I hope that the Minister will try to understand what it is like to be a hospital cleaner, knowing that one’s job is with a contract cleaning company, whose bid the following year may not be successful, and that a new contractor may pay even lower wages or not offer one a job. A series of hired hands are moved from one contract cleaning company to another.
Other groups and grades feel equally worried. It started with cleaners, moved to catering staff, and may move to building staff, the various maintenance and gardening grades and right up the scale. The NHS has a major function to play, and we could and should be proud of it. It is no way to treat employees every year to offer their jobs for sale to contractors. If it can be done for cleaners and catering grades, clearly it can be done for many other grades. A number of technical and professional grades already feel the cold wind of privatisation.
Late last year, as in the previous year, the Department of Health and Social Security produced a glossy book called:
“The Health Service in England”.
It is designed to make us believe that the NHS is doing particularly well. Table 19 on page 43 deals with Health Service employed staff by main staff group for England, and shows that nursing and midwifery staff increased from 351,000 to 397,000—an increase of 13·2 per cent.—and lists other grades showing increases in staffing levels.
I am particularly interested in the treatment of ancillary staff. Their numbers have decreased from 172,200 to 152,200, which is an 11·6 per cent. reduction over six years. That reduction appears to be continuing. The ancillary grades are not only the lowest paid in the National Health Service but are suffering the largest number of job losses.
On page 46, appendix C shows Health Service expenditure on staffing, goods and services broken down into salaries and wages and supply and maintenance. Within the section on salaries and wages is shown the proportion of total wage expenditure that goes on nurses and midwives—44·5 per cent.—and on ancillary staff—15·3 per cent.—medical and dental 13·7 per cent. and so on. However at the end as a tiny footnote there is “Chairmen’s remuneration 0·03 per cent.” There are not many chairmen in the health authorities, but together they managed to collect £1·7 million in chairmen’s remuneration. When one compares that with the average wages of an ancillary worker one begins to understand the issues I am concerned with. At one end of the scale in the National Health Service we have the doctors’ remuneration at £21,000 a year. However, they are in dispute, as consultants get far more than that. There is also the absolute scandal and disgrace of the ludicrous merit award system, which operates for consultants. Essentially, consultants nominate each other for merit awards, it is done in secret, and the public pick up the bill without having any say in the levels of merits awards that are made to those people. I believe that the last figure quoted was something like £20 million being handed out to themselves in merit awards.
I am not saying that the doctors, consultants or surgeons do not do a valuable job. One could not run a health service without them. However, I am sure that most of those people would agree, that neither can one run a health service without cleaners, caterers and portering staff. It is a team approach that is adopted in the hospitals and I wish that the Government would understand that with regard to pay. My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) spoke in the previous debate about job losses and cuts within the National Health Service. He mentioned the temporary closure of St. Thomas’s hospital and the threat to Westminster hospital. Yesterday there was an announcement in a local paper of job losses at St. Nicholas’s hospital in south-east London.
The closure of the Dreadnought seamen’s hospital resulted in yesterday’s strike of cross-channel operators because they are not prepared to see their hospital close. That is the degree of the frustration and anger that exists among the supporters of the National Health Service, never mind those who are within the Health Service.
I wish to put specific questions to the Government regarding pay. The pay for nurses and midwives has been in the public eye recently and is a matter of public concern. The cause of the concern is the pay gap between nurses and other grades and the way the award was funded. Health Service workers are not prepared to go on being told that they can agree a pay level—an agreed national level—through negotiations and then be told by the Government that the Government are not prepared to pay that award in its entirety, instead passing part of the cost of the award over to the local district health authority.
That is specifically intended to create an atmosphere wherein, if the health workers accept lower wage rates, there will be more money spent on patient care. We know that this is not the case. It is a cynical manipulation of the way that negotiations should be conducted within the National Health Service.
I wish to quote from the evidence submitted by my union, the National Union of Public Employees, in its pay review body document 1986 for nurses, midwives, and health visitors.
“There is still a large pay gap. When we compare current pay levels with the levels established in 1974 by Halsbury and in 1980 by Clegg, and take into account movements in prices and earnings since those dates, we find that a large pay gap amounting to nearly 20% of current salaries exists. It is important to emphasise that the comparison with pay levels set by Halsbury and Clegg is not intended to be purely mechanical. Our point is that on each occasion when an independent review has taken place of nurses’ pay in relation to the pay of comparable outside occupations, a substantial increase in nurses’ pay has been recommended to bring it into line. We believe that this is strong evidence that a similar independent study carried out today, making similar comparisons, would establish that a substantial increase is needed across the board in order to restore fair pay for nurses. In short, a big gap remains, and a substantial across the board increase is needed to fill it.”
Later in the evidence of the staff side to the nurses and midwives Whitley council, it says:
“The Review Body must now be aware of the grave concern and anger within the profession which was caused by the Government’s decisions relating to the funding and staging of the 1985 award, although the tone of the Government’s written evidence gave some indication of the cynical and intransigent view it held with regard to funding the award of an independent Review Body. It will be recalled that having acknowledged that the paybill for nurses and PAMs in 1983–84 was some 36 per cent. of health authorities’ total costs, the Government subsequently stated that pay costs in excess of those allowed for in the public expenditure programme would not be funded.
The Government’s written evidence concluded that ‘the higher pay settlements turn out to be, the less service development will be possible overall’ (para C10). On its own admission this position represented a significant departure from previous years when the level of financial provision has been reviewed in the light of Review Body recommendations and the Government’s decisions on them”.
On nurses’ pay and prices, it goes on to say:
“the current (April 1985) value of the Staff Nurses’ pay remains significantly below its real 1975 value. By April, 1986, even with the second, delayed, stage of the 1985 award taken into account (February 1986), the increase in Staff Nurses’ pay since 1975 will have been insufficient to accommodate the effect of inflation, let alone facilitate the rise in living standards which has been the experience of the majority of employees over the period.”
That is the cry of health workers over the past 15 years or longer at the way that they have continually been left behind other grades, industries and professions.
It is not only the nurses and the ancillary grades that are concerned, but the doctors, who have seen over the years their 1981 review body decision reduced from 9 per cent. to 6 per cent. and in 1984 and 1985 the fourth and fifth rejections of pay review body recommendations. There is anger across the Health Service about pay levels.
Ancillary workers in the Health Service have suffered the largest cut and received the lowest pay, and are very much at the bottom of the pile in the hospital, but no hospital could operate without catering workers, cleaners and porters, all those who do the dirty, filthy unclean jobs that nobody else wants to do. They deserve a substantial increase in their basic levels of pay. There is no reason why people have to live on the poverty wages that they are getting.
I have before me the payslip of a woman in my constituency, Mrs. Gertie Turner, who is employed at the Whittington hospital at Archway. For 23 years and three months she has worked in the Health Service. Until 1977 she worked in the laundry as a press hand, until that department was closed, and since then, she has worked in the linen room. She has the important job of ensuring that the linen is distributed and is available for all the beds, as patients come and go. She has to ensure that the linen is there on time.
I am sure that every hon. Member will agree that such people are the backbone of the Health Service. Mrs. Turner’s basic pay is £80.10. She gets a bonus of £17.06 and a London weighting of £13.50. Her weekly pay and allowances total £110.66. After stoppages, she takes home £67.34 for a full week’s hard, responsible service. This is a disgraceful figure for somebody who has put in so much work for the Health Service in such a responsible way.
I turn to the claim that has been put forward on behalf of Gertie Turner and thousands of other people like her in the National Health Service. The 1986 trade union claim for ancillary staff council employees includes:
“1. A substantial flat rate wage increase, as a major step towards the target of two thirds of national average earnings.
2. A revision of the grading structure on equal value principles.
3. A substantial increase in shift and related payments.
4. A reduction in the working week to 35 hours.
5. An increase in annual leave and a change in the calculation of leave from a retrospective to a current basis.
6. A change in the public holidays agreement to provide entitlement for part-time workers whose work on fixed days currently excludes them from most public holidays.
7. The right of access to arbitration.”
When I talk about poverty levels of wages and poverty pay in the National Health Service, there is plenty of evidence to support what I am saying. The TUC definition of low pay, two thirds of average male earnings, is £109.06 in 1985 and 117.78 in the current year. The Low Pay Unit has slightly different figures of £115.20 and £124.41. The Council of Europe’s decency threshold, 68 per cent. of the average of men and women, shows a figure of £116.28 and £125.58. The supplementary benefit levels for a family with two children would be £123.61. By all those criteria, people like Gertie Turner are well within the current poverty pay levels.
I quote next from the document which was put forward by all the trade unions on the ancillary staffs council, trade union side, at page 7:
“In April 1985 the difference between the average weekly earnings of male NHS ancillary workers and male manual workers throughout the economy was £40.10. The gap with average male earnings was nearly £70 per week. The equivalent earnings gap for women was £96.84 Ten years ago, the earnings gap with male manual workers was £4.90. Nearly 50 per cent. of male ancillary staff earn as little as the lowest 10 per cent. of all manual workers throughout the economy.”.
The booklet goes on to demonstrate that the problem is even more serious for women full-time ancillary staff. Despite equal pay legislation over the years, it is quite clear to me that women workers in the National Health Service get significantly less on average than their male counterparts.
When a comparison is made of the earnings of female and male full-time ancillary staff as a proportion of all male manual earnings between 1970 and 1985, it is found that there are certain high points. There was a high point in 1971 when women earned 55 per cent. of the male average and men earned just under 90 per cent. There were then the low points which led to the 1973 dispute. After that there was the award which took men to 90 per cent. and women to just under 70 per cent. of earnings. Then there was the low point which led to the 1979 industrial dispute. Following that there was the Clegg award that took women up to about 65 per cent. and men up to about 85 per cent.
The current position, from graphs provided not by trade union sources but by the Government’s new earnings survey, is that at present NHS women workers are well below 60 per cent. of male manual earnings and men are just under 80 per cent. of that figure.
Frequently employees in the National Health Service have had their wages compared with those in local government. The gap now exists on every grade between workers in the local authorities who are not overpaid by any means. Under the local authority manual workers’ agreement a cook would get £92.40 a week. A National Health Service ancillary cook on grade 6 would get £82.92 a week. At the other end of the scale, a local authority dining room assistant or kitchen assistant—that would be somebody working in the school meals service or in a municipal canteen—would get £83.20 a week. A NHS ancillary worker—canteen, grade 1, domestic—would get £72.53 a week.
Therefore, NHS workers are not happy The Government must tell us what their policy is towards low paid workers in the NHS. And what is their policy on pay generally in the NHS? When the awards are agreed this year for all grades in the NHS, will the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State undertake that those pay awards will be paid for out of national funds and not by local health authorities being forced either to lay off staff, close hospitals, close wards temporarily, or to lock up wards to subsidise the Government’s expenditure in other areas? Will the Government give an undertaking that no longer will health workers, who maintain the health of this nation and who work so hard, for so long and for so little, have to suffer the indignity of poverty wages? I find it ironic that so many Department of Health and Social Security employers are forced at the end of each week to go to another arm of the DHSS to register for the various benefits to which they are entitled because of the poverty wages that they are given in the first place by their main employer, the DHSS.
Below is the text of the statement made by Andrea Leadsom, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in the Scunthorpe Telegraph on 22 August 2019.
The UK has been producing world-class steel since the 19th Century – it is a key part of our national heritage. From Scunthorpe to Sheffield, steel remains vital to our country’s manufacturing reputation.
That is why the decision by the Official Receiver to progress an offer on the sale of British Steel is a positive step towards a secure future for the company.
In my first week as Business Secretary, I visited the vast and impressive steelworks at Scunthorpe, seeing the dedication of British Steel’s workforce first-hand. It has clearly been a worrying and difficult time, and I was struck by the unwavering commitment to securing a future for the company. Their tenacity, hard work and dedication has helped ensure operations continue, orders are met, and production not only maintained but increased since the company entered insolvency. Reaching this milestone is due in no small part to the sheer commitment of British Steel’s employees to the company they feel so passionately about.
British Steel plays a central role in the lives of communities across Scunthorpe, Skinningrove and on Teesside. I know and have heard first-hand what a devastating blow it would be if steelmaking were to end there. That is why our dedicated Support Group includes local MPs, local leaders and unions, as well as the company itself and its suppliers. Working constructively together has been a key factor in helping secure bids – and I also want to pay tribute to my predecessor Greg Clark, a driving force in this process.
The government and everyone involved have left no stone unturned in their efforts to support a sale for the whole company, and as many will know, the preferred buyer of British Steel was confirmed last week by the Official Receiver as Ataer Holding.
Ataer are not new to steel: they are the largest shareholder in Erdermir, Turkey’s largest flat steel producer – whom in the first 3 months of this year alone produced 2.4 million tonnes of steel and a profit of $186 million. When it comes to British Steel, Ataer have publicly stated that if this process is successful, their priority will be to increase production capacity and invest in clean steel production.
The Official Receiver will now be focusing on finalising the sale. This process should be completed over the coming weeks and though there is much more work still to do, there is now cause for optimism.
We will continue to work with all parties to ensure we do everything possible to secure a future for this business. Our aim is simple: to give British Steel every opportunity to realise its full potential.