Tag: 2020

Nick Thomas-Symonds – 2020 Comments on National Police Chiefs’ Statement

Below is the text of the comments made by Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Shadow Home Secretary, on 18 June 2020.

We welcome the fact that the National Police Chiefs’ Council is planning to take action on racial inequalities. It is critical that communities have faith in the police and feel that they serve everybody equally, as well as ensuring police officers from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds consider policing an inclusive service.

There have been huge improvements in policing in recent years, not least following the Macpherson report. However, there is absolutely no room for complacency and, as the Black Lives Matter movement reminds us, we all have a duty to understand what more we can do to tackle racism.

June 19, 2020
Louise Haigh – 2020 Comments on Northern Ireland Roadmap

Below is the text of the comments made by Louise Haigh, the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, on 18 June 2020.

The lack of detail and engagement from senior Ministers on the most significant change to border management in decades is staggering and irresponsible.

There are 28 weeks until the new arrangements come into force in Northern Ireland and businesses simply cannot afford to be left in the dark any longer. It is absurd at this stage that so much remains unknown.

Labour is calling for the Government to publish a clear roadmap for implementation of the Protocol, operational-level detail on the precise checks and requirements that will need to be implemented, and intensive engagement and support for businesses across Northern Ireland. With so little time left, businesses deserve clarity.

June 19, 2020
Rebecca Long-Bailey – 2020 Comments on Lost Teaching Time

Below is the text of the comments made by Rebecca Long-Bailey, the Shadow Education Secretary, on 19 June 2020.

The funding and the principle of a tutoring scheme is certainly a welcome start but it needs to be backed with a detailed national education plan to get children’s education and health back on track.

We want to see all pupils return to school safely as soon as possible and repeat our call on the Government to urgently convene a taskforce across the sector to develop detailed plans in collaboration with trade unions, local authorities, parent’s organisations, scientific and health experts.

The present plans lack detail and appear to be a tiny fraction of the support our pupils need at this critical time. The Government must take its responsibility to support children’s learning and their safe return to school seriously and demonstrate leadership in making this happen.

June 19, 2020
Luke Pollard – 2020 Comments on Government’s Tree Planning Consultation

Below is the text of the comments made by Luke Pollard, the Shadow Environment Secretary, on 19 June 2020.

The Government missed its tree planting target by 71% last year alone so it needs to do much more. Tree planting, habitat protection and promoting biodiversity must be cornerstones of building back better as we emerge from the coronavirus crisis.

This is yet another consultation. But the Government needs to show urgency and ambition to tackle the climate crisis, and ministers need to be honest about how far off target they currently are.

June 19, 2020
Nadia Whittome – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

Below is the text of the speech made by Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

The idea that children should not go hungry is one that most people would consider an issue of basic morality. I am glad that the Government have now conceded that the free school meals scheme should be extended to cover the summer, but given that the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) was still arguing against this only a few hours ago, it is clear that this is not a moral change of heart, but a result of incredible pressure from campaigners such as Marcus Rashford and the Opposition.

I would like to ask the Minister about one aspect of the policy. There are many children in this country who have committed no crime but the crime of being migrants —an accident of geography—and who therefore have no recourse to public funds. These pupils have been temporarily eligible for free school meals during the pandemic; will the Minister commit to ensuring that that continues, not just this summer, but as a permanent change in policy?

It is telling that the Education Secretary should imply that children need access to nutritious, healthy meals only when they are at school. If it is wrong for children to go hungry, it is always wrong for children to go hungry, not just during a global pandemic and not only while they are at school.

Despite the very welcome U-turn, this Government are by no means let off the hook for their shameful and damning record on child poverty and hunger. In the sixth richest country in the world, there is no excuse for letting a single child go to bed hungry. The fact that 1.3 million children are routinely receiving free school meals shows that something is deeply wrong. We are a wealthy country, but that wealth is not fairly distributed; the wealthiest 10% in our country have about 45% of the wealth. That inequality is only increasing; wages for the majority have been stagnant for the past decade, employment is increasingly insecure and precarious, and we have a standard-of-living slide, all while the rich get richer.

Even though they may be fed this summer, we will still have approximately one third of children living in poverty. The Government typically respond to this by saying that the best route out of poverty is through work, but that is simply a meaningless platitude in light of the fact that most children who live in poverty have at least one parent in work.

The Conservative party is the party of the food bank and zero-hour contracts. The Living Wage Foundation calculates the real living wage—not the Government’s made up living wage—based on what people need to get by. It is set at £9.30 per hour outside London and that means that anyone paid below that is on a poverty wage.

June 19, 2020
Apsana Begum – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

Below is the text of the speech made by Apsana Begum, the Labour MP for Poplar and Limehouse, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

I add my comments to those that have already been made in the House today regarding the reports of the Government’s U-turn, and also pay tribute to Marcus Rashford and his powerful testimony of his own experiences of free school meals growing up in a single-parent household. All of this comes after so much campaigning and arguing for something so simple: making sure that children who need food get it. All of this also comes after years of austerity, which has had a devastating impact on ethnic minorities, with around 45% of black, Asian and ethnic minority children now living in poverty.

It is imperative that we join up the dots. The Public Health England report into the disproportionate impact of the covid-19 crisis on certain groups, which has finally been published, recognises that factors such as racism and social inequality may have contributed to increased risks of those in BAME communities catching and dying from the virus. In truth, it has been clear to anyone who has wanted to know that systemic economic inequalities mean that ethnic minority communities are at higher risk of being in poverty and so are particularly disadvantaged by the health crisis that we have endured.

It has now been weeks since the part-censored review, reluctantly commissioned by the Government, finally officially identified major inequalities, including the alarming statistic that Bangladeshi people face around twice the risk of death. Many of us are very concerned that it has taken months for the Government formally to recognise what has been widely noted and commented on and that action still has not been taken, yet decisions and policies are still going ahead without a clear and transparent examination on how they will affect particular groups and without confirmation that the situation for BAME people will not be made worse.

I was astonished to learn that a full regulatory impact assessment had not been prepared for yesterday’s statutory instrument on health regulations, the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020. This is basic stuff. Let me be clear: this is not about what is technically correct according to bureaucratic rules; it is about what is morally just and correct. This is not about the game of power, but rather it is a question of justice.

Will the Secretary of State clarify what assessment his Department has made of the impact of the original decision not to roll out the national voucher scheme over the summer on black, Asian and minority ethnic children and their families and those with other protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010? Will the Government commit to taking on the message that people across the world are crying out for those in power to understand, which is that, if black lives matter, every policy should be assessed before it is taken forward on how it will impact on different groups. This should be a meaningful and comprehensive process, and it should be made public.

June 19, 2020
Nick Smith – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

Below is the text of the speech made by Nick Smith, the Labour MP for Blaenau Gwent, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

I wholeheartedly support the Labour motion and I am glad that the Government now recognise the strength of our case. It is important at this time that children who need help will be fed over the summer.

Let me illustrate my point by referring to a crisis that my sisters and I experienced when we were young. We were children in a single-parent home in the south Wales valleys. We benefited from free school meals and clothing grants through our early years. At those times, those meals were a godsend. When I was 14, our mum had a terrible mental health episode. She moved away and left me and my two younger sisters to fend for ourselves for a few weeks, then my dad came back from being a seafarer to look after us. Mum did leave us with a £10 note, which was a big help, but she was in a terrible state. It was the start of ongoing very poor health for her, and she was to die at 42 years of age.

I vividly remember the day after my mum left. I worked as a paper boy and there was a muesli promotion in one of the women’s magazines, so we had packets of muesli for breakfast for the next few days. Over those few weeks alone, we three kids pulled together, relatives stepped in and we managed until my dad came back. At school, we had free school meals. Those meals kept us going. Of course, it was a very unusual situation, but so is a global pandemic: people are having to feed their families while earning 80% of their normal wages; and people on sick pay are having to survive on £95 a week. This summer, too many families will find themselves in poverty and some will have to deal with a crisis. They may need that school-meal lifeline.

My message is simple. The Government told us at the start of the pandemic that no one would be left behind. We should stand up for children who, through no fault of their own, need our support. I am glad that the Labour motion will now receive all-party support tonight. And finally, I say well done to Marcus Rashford.

June 19, 2020
Alison McGovern – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

Below is the text of the speech made by Alison McGovern, the Labour MP for Wirral South, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

I rise on the fourth anniversary of the death of my friend Jo Cox. We remember her every day.

I want to thank England’s—[Interruption.] Go on then, Mike—Man United’s Marcus Rashford. We are all grateful to him. I thank the Secretary of State for answering his call, which will undoubtedly make a difference, although I suspect he is now having a word with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care for taking a pop at our footballers at the beginning of the covid crisis, which has now come home to roost.

Holiday hunger is not a singular or new problem. It has its roots in insufficient family incomes, the cause of which is labour market fragility, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) spoke about. We know that the problems in the job market are about to get much worse. Added to that are rising prices in crucial areas such as childcare and the harm to the power of the welfare state in this country, which will be my focus in the minute I have remaining.

The Conservatives have been in charge for 10 years. They have had enough time to show us their priorities, and here is what those priorities have been. The shutting of Sure Start, the end of the child trust fund and the cancellation of the health in pregnancy grant foreshadowed George Osborne’s £12 billion of welfare cuts. The Conservatives ripped the Child Poverty Act 2010 from the statute book, they introduced the two-child policy, which sent a message to children in families of three or four kids that the state does not care, and they introduced the benefits freeze, which sent the same message to families of all sizes. Child benefit has been cut by £350 per year for a family of two kids, and the local housing allowance has simply failed to keep up with rents. The Conservatives demonstrated their priorities by forcing people off tax credits on to universal credit even if that made them worse off. All of that was on top of low wage growth, which is compounded for many—particularly for single parents—by their inability to work ever more hours. For families in this country, there simply are not enough hours in the day.

Those are the choices that have been made. Holiday hunger is simply the consequence of all that. It is the consequence of the Government picking holes in the blanket of the welfare state for 10 years. Each and every one of those policy choices has had consequences, and here we are. At the end of the day, this is about putting money in people’s pockets or not. My party has lost four elections in the past 10 years, and that is on us. Meanwhile, four Conservative Chancellors have put 600,000 children in this country into poverty, and that is on them.

June 19, 2020
Diana Johnson – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

Below is the text of the speech made by Diana Johnson, the Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull North, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

The reason the Government are in such a mess on this issue is that they did not put together a strategic plan for education and children at the start of covid-19 in the way that they did for the economy. I recognise the work that they have done on that with furloughing and so on.

I congratulate Marcus Rashford and all those who have campaigned for many years to make sure that during school holidays, children can receive food if they need it. It is rather sad that it has taken the covid pandemic to force the Government to acknowledge that holiday hunger has existed for many years. People such as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on school food, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), and campaigners such as Lindsay Graham have been talking about it for many years. It is also worth the House knowing that in the 1960s and 1970s, provision was made during holidays for children who were on free school meals, so the idea that it has never happened before is not correct.

I care deeply about this issue. Some 24% of children in Hull are on free school meals, against a national average of 15%. In my constituency, at least one in three children live in poverty, with 3,600 children on free school meals. In previous years, under previous Labour Administrations, Hull City Council introduced free school meals for all children in primary and special schools because it recognised that for children to do well academically, they need to have good nutrition. I pay tribute to it for that work.

I also remind the House that in 2009, I was an Education Minister in the last Labour Government. One thing that we did then was to introduce universal free school meal pilots in Durham and Newham. Sadly, when the coalition Government came in, they scrapped those pilots, but they showed a clear link. We all want to see our children do well and grow up healthy with a good education.

I have several questions for the Government. I want to make sure that my local authority gets its fair share of money. When will the allocations be made? Will the schools that found the Edenred system difficult to deal with be reimbursed for the work that they are doing to support children and families? Will the support continue indefinitely now that we recognise that holiday hunger exists? Finally, why has Hull never received a penny from the Government’s £9 million scheme for holiday activities, even though it has applied and is the fourth most disadvantaged area in the country? Some £999,000 has gone to Suffolk and £766,000 to Hampshire, but in Yorkshire and the Humber only Leeds has received any money at all.

June 19, 2020
Sally-Ann Hart – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

Below is the text of the speech made by Sally-Ann Hart, the Conservative MP for Hastings and Rye, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

First, may I join colleagues across the House in paying my respects to Jo Cox? I was not fortunate enough to serve in the House while she was a Member, but her reputation and causes live on in this place and she is hugely missed by Members on both sides of the House.

I am extremely fortunate to be a Member representing the beautiful constituency of Hastings and Rye. From our stunning coastline to our historic castle, world-class engineering companies to renowned pubs and restaurants, we have so much to be proud of, but we are also a constituency blighted by poverty and deprivation—ills in our communities that have plagued families for generations. I was elected on a promise to support the most vulnerable in our communities and ensure, as the Prime Minister has said many times, that we level up the area, so that all can benefit from the opportunities of the future. It is because I am acutely aware of these levels of deprivation, which I see every week in Hastings and Rye, that this debate is so important to me.

I am unashamedly committed to the Conservative ideas of a small state, individual responsibility and upholding the value in the institution of family. Yet, at a time of economic and health crises, I see that the most deprived are being punished disproportionately with worse health outcomes, suffering more from the closure of schools and being dependent on institutions like our food banks and charities. So there is clearly a role in these unprecedented times for the state to intervene.

We must recognise that the argument for free school meals to be available during school holidays is not new. A 2016 survey by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers found that children from disadvantaged backgrounds were returning to school after the summer holidays less than healthy because they had gone without food. To assume, though, that people who are less well off will not or cannot feed their children is, I am sure, somewhat insulting to disadvantaged families. In fact, during the coronavirus, many families have not accessed free school meals or the voucher scheme, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley), who has left the Chamber, highlighted, we must not shy away from the fact that, unfortunately, some parents just do not or cannot prioritise their children’s needs over their own. We must turbo-charge our efforts to look at the underlying causes of the neglect of some children by their parents, tackling the root cause rather than just allowing the Government to step in and do the easiest thing—throw money at the problem.

This Conservative Government, under our Prime Minister, have committed to combat poverty by improving education, jobs and our economy by levelling up. As I said, as a Conservative I believe in a small state, which protects individual freedoms and allows people to take responsibility for themselves and their families. Small government may sound uncaring, but it is not. A big state is much more callous, as it engenders dependency and therefore ultimately lacks accountability to the electorate. We cannot let the state take over a parent’s job—a parent’s most basic responsibility to feed and keep their children safe. It cannot be right that Government usurp the domain of the family and the most basic role of parenting. We cannot excuse people from the basic responsibility to their children; it is fundamental to being a good parent. We cannot have a culture that encourages the Government to take over the most basic roles of parenting, and we cannot have a culture where parents expect the Government to feed their children so that they can have money for other things. We cannot take away a parent’s opportunity to take responsibility for themselves and their family.

As Conservatives, we have a good track record in government of supporting the most vulnerable through access to work, increasing the tax threshold, free school meals, the living wage and providing more free childcare. We have shown through other policies that we are committed to helping the most vulnerable. We will get our economy back on track following coronavirus and make it strong again, creating more, higher-paid jobs. The values that I spoke of earlier—individual responsibility, a small state—

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)

Order. I am afraid the hon. Lady has come to the end of her time.

June 19, 2020