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Tag: 2020

  • Alison Thewliss – 2020 Speech in Response to Chancellor’s Economic Statement

    Alison Thewliss – 2020 Speech in Response to Chancellor’s Economic Statement

    Below is the text of the speech made by Alison Thewliss, the SNP MP for Glasgow Central, in the House of Commons on 8 July 2020.

    I would usually start by thanking the Chancellor for advance sight of his statement, but today I think I might ask for a fresh printer cartridge for the heavily redacted copy, which was effectively useless, that was sent to spokespeople ahead of his statement.

    Countries around the world have supported their people in this crisis, and the only UK exceptionalism is in being among the countries where the most people have died. The Chancellor has spent big over the past few months and comes with more proposals today. We support measures such as the job support schemes and encourage the Chancellor to be more ambitious and think to the future in his stimulus plans; we want a comprehensive plan to support the economy, protect jobs and incomes, and build a greener, fairer society.

    We have looked to the ambitious stimulus packages of our European neighbours and urge the Chancellor to look at a package of investment with no less than £80 billion of new money, equating to approximately 4% of UK GDP, the equivalent investment to that being made by Germany. That would allow for the level of investment needed to secure jobs not just now, but for the future, because we know that Brexit is coming over the horizon.

    The Scottish Parliament currently has a very restricted ability to borrow, under a fiscal framework that was not designed with covid-19 in mind. Kate Forbes, Rebecca Evans and Conor Murphy, the Finance Ministers of all three devolved institutions, have come together to seek urgent devolution of the financial powers in these unprecedented times and to be able to have the flexibility to switch from capital to revenue spending. The Scottish Parliament must have the full range of powers to deliver a tailored response and secure a strong recovery for Scotland, otherwise necessary spending on coronavirus ​will mean cuts elsewhere and fixed budgets. And will the Chancellor be clear on what these proposals today mean for the block grant adjustment?

    The National Institute of Economic and Social Research has said today that UK GDP could be cut by 2.5% if the Chancellor goes ahead and withdraws the job support schemes prematurely. Roz Foyer, general secretary of the Scottish TUC, has called for the continuation of the scheme, noting that hospitality, tourism, aviation, and oil and gas are in particular need of extended support—and there was not a word about oil and gas in the Chancellor’s statement.

    Those shielding and with caring responsibilities will also need ongoing support. Coronavirus is not going away, and there is a real risk that with future outbreaks, such as happened in Leicester, the support will not be there when it is needed. I hear what the Chancellor says about encouraging people back to work and about a bonus for employers who do, but for many people it will not be safe to go back to work. At the start of this crisis my inbox was full of correspondence from people worried about the safety of their workplaces, and people should not be forced to go back if it is not safe for them to do so.

    Recent Treasury Committee reports and work by Excluded UK highlight the substantial gaps in the coronavirus job retention scheme and the self-employment income support scheme, with between 1 million and 3 million people left with no support whatsoever. People were furious at the suggestion by the Chancellor yesterday that they have had support; they asked me to assure him again today that they have not. The SNP believes that the Chancellor must fill these gaps and extend the furlough and self-employment income support schemes for as long as each of the four nations require that, so that no one is left behind.

    A report by the Social Mobility Commission last week warned that UK child poverty is projected to increase to 5.2 million by 2022, with covid-19 adding to this problem. Now is the time to strengthen measures to reverse rising child poverty, including a £20 per week increase in the child element of universal credit and child tax credits. That will help families put food on the table and clothes on children’s backs at a time when many are struggling. These parents are not eating out. Some of these parents are barely eating at all.

    The Tories must also scrap the callous two-child cap, re-establish child poverty targets, introduce a real living wage for all ages and roll out an emergency basic payment plan to protect families. We want to see investment in a national debt plan to support businesses, families and individuals who have been struggling. While I am glad to hear that the Chancellor wants to re-employ jobcentre staff, will he reopen the many jobcentres he closed in Glasgow?

    We support a temporary reduction in VAT, and we are glad to see the Chancellor coming forward with plans—we have been calling for this since March. He mentioned cinemas. Will live events also see a VAT reduction in their ticket sales? Gigs and theatres would benefit hugely from being able to offer that. All this sits alongside a 2p cut we are calling for to employers’ national insurance contributions, to protect jobs and reduce the cost of hiring staff.​

    Our bright, talented young people are worth so much more than 25 hours a week on minimum wage, rather than a real living wage, with age discrimination baked in. For many of those young people, it will not be so much a kick-start as a kick in the teeth to be told to go to work for so little money. Those aged between 16 and 24 have bills to pay too, and they deserve fair pay for their work. I note that the Chancellor cited the higher band of pay for a 24-year-old, not the £6.45 an hour for younger people or the £4.55 that 16 and 17-year-olds get—an absolute pittance. There should be a real living wage for all.

    If, as has been trailed, this plan is tied to universal credit, can the Chancellor confirm whether sanctions will be applied to those who do not take it up? What will happen to those shielding or with caring responsibilities? What will happen to those not currently on universal credit—will it be open to them? What commitment will he require from employers not to fire older, more expensive staff in favour of people on this scheme? What will happen after six months? What is open to older people to help them continue in employment? Many young people are already employed in sectors where jobs are disappearing right now. Many are already on furlough. Would it not be less disruptive to maintain that link with employers, rather than make them start over?

    The voucher scheme that the Chancellor proposes for green plans is, relatively speaking, tinkering when we look at the comprehensive work that the KfW Development Bank in Germany has done to change the whole conversation around green investment. We want to put significant and sustained investment in the future at the heart of these plans and to ensure that Scotland has the widest possible range of powers to tackle covid-19. Only by doing that can we avoid the worst of this storm and protect both businesses and the health and wellbeing of our people.

  • Anneliese Dodds – 2020 Speech in Response to Chancellor’s Economic Statement

    Anneliese Dodds – 2020 Speech in Response to Chancellor’s Economic Statement

    Below is the text of the speech made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons on 8 July 2020.

    Our country has been through a great deal over these past few months. Hundreds of thousands have wrestled with this terrible disease. For many months, people have had to go without being able to embrace their loved ones or even to say goodbye. Tens of thousands have died. Our NHS, social care and other workers had made extraordinary sacrifices. We owe them so much.

    The Government have had to take big decisions, too—we acknowledge that—but today should have been the day when our Government chose to build a bridge between what has been done so far and what needs to be done to get our economy moving again. It should have been the day when the millions of British people worried about their jobs and future prospects had a load taken off their shoulders. It should have been the day when we got the UK economy firing again. Today, Britain should have had a back-to-work Budget; but instead we got this summer statement, with many of the big decisions put off until later, as those on the Government Benches know full well.

    Labour is a constructive Opposition during this time of crisis. We will not criticise for criticism’s sake. But when the Government fall short we will speak up, and the blunt truth is that we have one of the highest death rates in the world and among the deepest economic damage in the industrialised world from coronavirus. So the very first thing the Chancellor must do is prevent additional economic damage due to the slow public health response of his Government.​
    As we have seen throughout this crisis, the failure to match soaring rhetoric with meaningful action has consequences for people across our country. Despite all their talk, the Government have failed to create a fully functioning test, track and isolate system. That has damaged public confidence and, in turn, harmed consumer demand. Despite all their talk, the Government have failed to produce a clear system for local lockdowns. The lack of timely information sharing has led, as we all know, to the imposition of an additional wide-scale lockdown in Leicester.

    The Government’s contracts with outsourcing firms amount to almost £3 billion, but we still have not got test, track and isolate working properly in the UK, as it is in many other countries, and the Government still have not got a grip on the low value and limited scope of sick pay, risking people’s ability to self-isolate. Fear is corrosive. Fear is hurting our economy. The Government have got to get this right.

    Of course, we welcome the Government’s announcement today of targeted VAT cuts on hospitality and tourism and of vouchers to be used in restaurants. Local businesses desperately need that support, and so many low and middle-income people in particular really need help right now. That is why we have repeatedly called for social security to better meet their needs and prevent people risking losing their homes. If delivered properly, these measures should help.

    But the Chancellor himself said, when interviewed on “The Andrew Marr Show”, that the best the Government can do to boost demand is to give consumers and workers the confidence and psychological security that they can go out to work, to shop and to socialise in safety. So please, Chancellor, work with your colleagues so our public health response catches up with that operating in other countries. The Prime Minister asked, what have I been doing about that? My party has been repeatedly suggesting solutions to the public health problems facing our country, and we need to adopt them in the UK before this crisis becomes even more severe.

    Now the Government must act not just to deal with unemployment as a symptom, but also with its cause. Research reported this week in the “Telegraph” indicates that British workers have already been the biggest casualty in the global jobs cuts. It showed that while jobs markets in many other countries have already fully recovered, in Britain it could take comparatively much, much longer for vacancy levels to return to normal. The levels of unemployment that this country saw in the past were not just an economic waste; they ruined lives. We are seeing the same impacts again—the same devastated high streets and communities robbed of their pride and purpose.

    Of course the re-employment bonus announced by the Chancellor is necessary, not least because his Government refused to put conditions on the use of those funds related to employment. But, first, how can he ensure that that money will not just go to those employers who were already planning to bring people back into work and, secondly, what will he do for those firms that lack the cash flow to be able to operate even with that bonus? Related to that, the Chancellor still needs to abandon his one-size-fits-all approach to ​withdrawing the job retention and self-employed schemes. No one is saying that those schemes should stay as they are indefinitely; the Opposition have never said that, but we have said that the money spent on the job retention scheme must not serve merely to postpone unemployment. The scheme must live up to its name, supporting employment in industries that are viable in the long term. We also need a strategy for the scheme to become more flexible so that it can support those businesses forced to close again because of additional localised lockdowns. There is still time to avoid additional floods of redundancy notices. It is the Government’s duty to help Britain through this and stop employment reaching mass levels again.

    We need action to ensure the support needed for key sectors of our economy—for our small and medium-sized enterprises and our manufacturers. While we of course welcome the long-overdue arts and culture package, we still have not heard the Government’s plans for other sectors. Many of us expected to hear them today, but we have not. The Project Birch process has been slow, tortuous and opaque. Large parts of industrial Britain need help to get through this—to keep their employees in jobs and keep their suppliers in jobs. Meanwhile, it appears that there will be no solutions for SMEs who cannot take on additional debt until the autumn. This risks many SMEs going to the wall.

    Until now, the Chancellor has described a targeted, sectoral approach as the Treasury “picking winners”, but the necessary public health measures have created losers. As the Chancellor himself said just now, the Government required many businesses to shut down to prevent the spread of this disease. Supporting businesses that are viable in the long run but currently starved of cash flow is not a matter of “picking winners”: it is about protecting our country’s economic capacity for the future. Failure to do so—to make the job retention and self-employed schemes more targeted and focused and to support viable businesses—is driving up unemployment in this country. The claimant count is on course to top 3 million people in June—the highest number since the previous record in 1986. This is the Chancellor’s record, and one that cannot and must not be worsened.

    Where unemployment arises as a symptom of economic damage, more must be done to help. Labour repeatedly called for the Government to match the ambitions of Labour’s future jobs fund and Welsh Labour’s Jobs Growth Wales programme, and finally the Government have come forward with a scheme apparently modelled on them—the kick-start scheme. The Conservatives cancelled the future jobs fund, of course, and it has taken almost 10 years for them to catch up. As with their belated adoption of our call for “jobs, jobs, jobs”, perhaps this gives a new meaning to the phrase “Project Speed”. We now need to make sure that the kick-start scheme provides genuinely additional opportunities for young unemployed people. The Government must also recognise the specific challenges faced by older jobseekers, many of whom are becoming unemployed for the first time, and those based in especially hard-hit places. Reimposing sanctions now is punitive and counter- productive when jobseekers need support.

    We must be ambitious for the future of our country’s economy. Our ambition should not just be to build our way out of this but to do so in a greener and cleaner way. For this, we need more than the reheated announcements ​by the Prime Minister last week. Of course the investment announced was welcome, not least because much of it was already committed to by the Government. However, core elements are missing. For example, £50 million to support retrofitting in social homes is just a seventh of what the Conservatives said they would be spending every year. The muddled confusions over stamp duty over the past 48 hours reflect a broader lack of strategy when it comes to house building, particularly for genuinely affordable and social homes. Overall, the UK’s green investment package barely touches the sides of other countries’ commitments. Even with what was announced today, it only equates to just over the value of Germany’s investment in one green technology alone—hydrogen. The Committee on Climate Change has indicated how far behind the UK is in the race to decarbonise. Failure to heed its recommendations is not only damaging to our planet, but it also cuts us out of leading the development of the key technologies of the future. The Conservatives are still refusing to impose conditions on investment to ensure that it contributes to the goal of net zero and that it supports local jobs, uses local firms, leads to sustainable skilled employment in local areas and prevents the use of tax havens and other forms of asset stripping.

    If the Chancellor really wants to “build back better”, he must prevent a rerun of the past. From 2010 onwards, we have seen how families’ resilience has been eroded. We entered this crisis with a quarter of families lacking even £100 in savings. In a typical classroom of 30, nine children are growing up in poverty, and our economy is the most regionally unequal in Europe. Our local authorities continue to be cut to the bone, with many standing on the brink of bankruptcy as we speak, and rather than the promise that our NHS and social care services would get whatever they needed this winter—to weather a potential second wave—those words were conspicuously absent from the Chancellor’s speech just now.

    Politicians in this House have gone out on our doorsteps to clap key workers, while the lowest paid have struggled to keep a roof over their heads. We must have a new settlement for the future: an end to poverty pay for our social care workers and those who clean our hospitals and deliver our groceries. We want a recognition of the value of the work of those who have been taken for granted for far too long.

    There were some initial press reports that the Government were due to announce generalised tax increases or cuts to services this autumn, which were contradicted by the Prime Minister, who rejected whatever had apparently been briefed out by the Treasury—that has happened quite a few times. I say to the Government that, if they do increase taxes during the recovery and cut back on the public services that we all rely on, it will damage demand and inhibit our recovery. Labour is not calling for tax rises. We are calling for growth.

    The Tory manifesto committed to no rises in income tax, national insurance or VAT, and therefore it is for the Conservatives to set out how any additional spending will be paid for. It is the Chancellor’s job to ensure that the economy bounces back from this crisis, so that there is money in the coffers to protect the public finances.

    Last week, the Chancellor’s colleague, the Prime Minister, tried to claim the mantle of FDR—as we all know. Perhaps now we know why he went for Roosevelt. It is because this week the Prime Minister blamed carers for the failings in the system that his Government had ​underfunded for the past decades. Now we know why he went for Roosevelt. It is because the last thing that his Government would have wanted was the sign on the desk of Harry Truman, the successor to Roosevelt, which said, “The buck stops here.” If this Government had a sign, it would probably say, “The buck stops anywhere but here”. But they cannot escape their responsibilities: to govern is to choose. It is to choose to finally sort out test, track and isolate, to prevent unnecessary additional unemployment and to build the green jobs of the future. This is a moment when our country needs its Government to help Britain through.

  • Rishi Sunak – 2020 Economic Update Statement

    Rishi Sunak – 2020 Economic Update Statement

    Below is the text of the statement made by Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons on 8 July 2020.

    I stood here in March saying I knew people were worried, and I know they are worried still. We have taken decisive action to protect our economy, but people are anxious about losing their job and about unemployment rising. We are not just going to accept that. People need to know that we will do all we can to give everyone the opportunity of good and secure work. People need to know that although hardship lies ahead, no one will be left without hope. So today, we act with a plan for jobs. Our plan has a clear goal: to protect, support and create jobs. It will give businesses the confidence to retain and hire, to create jobs in every part of our country, to give young people a better start and to give people everywhere the opportunity of a fresh start. Where problems emerge, we will confront them. Where support is justified, we will provide it. Where challenges arise, we will overcome them. We entered this crisis unencumbered by dogma and we continue in that spirit, driven always by the simple desire to do what is right.

    Before I turn to our plan for jobs, let me first outline the nature of the challenge. Our economic response to coronavirus is moving through three phases. In the first phase, beginning in March, the Government announced social distancing measures and ordered businesses to close, halting the spread of the disease. We put in place one of the largest and most comprehensive economic responses in the world. Our £160 billion plan protects people’s jobs, incomes and businesses. We supported more than 11 million people and jobs through the job retention and self-employment schemes, alongside billions of pounds for the most vulnerable. We supported over 1 million businesses to protect jobs through tax cuts, tax deferrals, direct cash grants and over 1 million Government-backed loans. And we supported public services, with new funding for the NHS, schools, public transport and local authorities. In total, we have now provided £49 billion to support public services since this crisis began.

    Analysis I am publishing today shows our interventions significantly protected people’s incomes, with the least well off in society supported the most, and this crisis has highlighted the special bond which holds our country together. Millions of people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been protected by the UK Government’s economic interventions, and they will be supported by today’s plan for jobs. No nationalist can ignore the undeniable truth: this help has only been possible because we are a United Kingdom.

    Four months on, as we carefully reopen our economy, we are entering the second phase of our economic response. Despite the extraordinary support we have already provided, we face profound economic challenges. World economic activity has slowed, with the International Monetary Fund expecting the deepest global recession since records began. Household consumption—the biggest component of our economy—has fallen steeply. Businesses have stopped trading and stopped hiring. Taken together, in just two months our economy contracted by 25%, the same amount that it grew by in the previous 18 years. And the independent Office for Budget Responsibility and Bank of England are both projecting significant ​job losses, the most urgent challenge we now face. I want every person in this House and in the country to know that I will never accept unemployment as an unavoidable outcome. We have not done everything we have so far just to step back now and say, “Job done.” In truth, the job has only just begun.

    If the first phase of our economic response was about protection and the second phase—the phase we are addressing today—is about jobs, there will come a third phase, where we will rebuild. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has set out our vision to level up, unite the country, spread opportunity, and repair and heal the wounds exposed through this crisis. I can tell the House that we will produce a Budget and spending review in the autumn.

    And we will deal, too, with the challenges facing our public finances. Over the medium term, we must, and we will, put our public finances back on a sustainable footing. In other words, our plan for jobs will not be the last action, but is merely the next, in our fight to recover and rebuild after coronavirus.

    Let me now turn to the detail of our plan for jobs. Central to our economic response has been the jobs retention scheme. Furlough has been a lifeline for millions, supporting people and businesses to protect jobs, but it cannot, and should not, go on forever. I know that when furlough ends it will be a difficult moment. I am also sure that if I say the scheme must end in October, critics will say it should end in November. If I say it should end in November, critics will just say December. But the truth is, calling for endless extensions to the furlough is just as irresponsible as it would have been, back in June, to end the scheme overnight.

    We have to be honest: leaving the furlough scheme open forever gives people false hope that it will always be possible to return to the jobs they had before. The longer people are on furlough, the more likely it is that their skills will fade, and they will find it harder to get new opportunities. It is in no one’s long-term interests for the scheme to continue forever, least of all those trapped in a job that can exist only because of Government subsidy. So the furlough will wind down, flexibly and gradually, supporting businesses and people through to October.

    While we cannot protect every job, one of the most important things we can do to prevent unemployment is to get as many people as possible from furlough back to their jobs. So, today, we are introducing a new policy to reward and incentivise employers who successfully bring furloughed staff back—a new jobs retention bonus.

    If you are an employer and you bring back someone who was furloughed, and you continuously employ them through to January, we will pay you a £1,000 bonus per employee. It is vital that people are not just returning for the sake of it; they need to be doing decent work. For businesses to get the bonus, the employee must be paid at least £520, on average, in each month from November to January, the equivalent of the lower earnings limit in national insurance.

    The House should understand the significance of this policy. We will pay the bonus for all furloughed employees. So if employers bring back all 9 million people who have been furloughed, that would be a £9 billion policy to retain people in work. Our message to business is clear: if you stand by your workers, we will stand by you.​

    The furlough was the right policy to support people through the first phase of this crisis, but now, in this new phase, we need to evolve our approach. Today, I want to set out for the House a new three-point plan for jobs. We need to: first, support people to find jobs; secondly, create jobs; and, thirdly, protect jobs.

    Let me start with supporting jobs, in particular the help we want to provide for those who will be hardest hit by this crisis: younger people. Over 700,000 people are leaving education this year. Many more are just starting out in their careers. Coronavirus has hit them hard—under-25s are two and a half times as likely to work in a sector that has been closed.

    We cannot lose that generation, so today I am announcing the kick-start scheme, a new programme to give hundreds of thousands of young people in every region and every nation of Britain the best possible chance of getting on and getting a job. The kick-start scheme will pay employers directly to create new jobs for any 16 to 24-year-old at risk of long-term unemployment. These will be new jobs, with the funding conditional on the firm proving that the jobs are additional. These will be decent jobs, with a minimum of 25 hours per week paid at least the national minimum wage, and they will be good-quality jobs, with employers providing kick-starters with training and support to find a permanent job.

    If employers meet those conditions, we will pay young people’s wages for six months, plus an amount to cover overheads. That means, for a 24-year-old the grant will be around £6,500. Employers can apply to be part of the scheme from next month, with the first kick-starters in their new jobs this autumn. I urge every employer, big or small, national or local, to hire as many kick-starters as possible. Today, I am making available an initial £2 billion, enough to fund hundreds of thousands of jobs, and I commit: there will be no cap on the number of places available.

    We can do more for young people. Traineeships are a proven scheme to get young people ready for work, and we know they work, so for the first time ever we will pay employers £1,000 to take on new trainees, with triple the number of places. What is more, to help 18 to 19-year-olds leaving school or college to find work in high-demand sectors, such as engineering, construction and social care, we will provide £100 million to create more places on level 2 and 3 courses.

    The evidence says that careers advice works, too, so we will fund it, with enough new careers advisers to support over a quarter of a million more people. We will also expand our universal skills offer. Sector-based work academies provide training, work placements and a guaranteed job interview in high-demand sectors, and the evidence shows they work, so we will expand them, by tripling the number of places.

    We know that apprenticeships work, too, with 91% of apprentices staying in work or doing further training afterwards, so for the next six months we will pay employers to create new apprenticeships. We will pay businesses to hire young apprentices, with a new payment of £2,000 per apprentice, and introduce a brand new bonus for businesses to hire apprentices aged 25 and over, with a payment of £1,500. I thank my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary for his support and commitment in developing these measures.​

    We know that the longer someone is out of work, the harder it is for them to return. Millions of people are moving on to universal credit and need urgent support to get back to work, so we are doubling the number of work coaches in jobcentres, increasing the flexible support fund, extending the rapid response service, expanding the work and health programme, and developing a new scheme to support the long-term unemployed. The academic and economic evidence tells us these are among the most effective things we can do.

    For that reason, I am investing an extra £1.2 billion in the Department for Work and Pensions to support millions of people back to work, and I am grateful for everything my right hon. Friend the Work and Pensions Secretary and her incredible team have done. I am talking about £1 billion of support for the unemployed, more money for skills, traineeships, apprenticeships, and a new, good-quality job for hundreds of thousands of new kick-starters. That is the first part of our plan for jobs.

    The second part of our plan is to support job creation, and that begins with historic investment in infrastructure to create jobs in every region and nation of the UK. At the Budget, I announced £88 billion of capital funding this year, and last week the Prime Minister announced our plans to accelerate £5 billion of additional investment projects. We are doubling down on our ambition to level up, with better roads, better schools, better hospitals and better high streets, creating jobs in all four corners of the country.

    As well as investing in infrastructure, we want to create green jobs. This will be a green recovery, with concern for our environment at its heart, and as part of that, I am announcing today a new £2 billion green homes grant. From September, homeowners and landlords will be able to apply for vouchers to make their homes more energy efficient and create local jobs. The grants will cover at least two thirds of the cost—up to £5,000 per household—and for low-income households we will go even further, with vouchers covering the full cost, up to £10,000.

    On top of the £2 billion voucher scheme, I am releasing £1 billion of funding to improve the energy efficiency of public sector buildings, alongside a £50 million fund to pilot the right approach to decarbonise social housing. Taken together, we expect these measures to make more than 650,000 homes more energy efficient; to save households up to £300 a year on their bills; to cut carbon by more than half a megatonne per year—equivalent to taking 270,000 cars off the road; and, most importantly right now, to support around 140,000 green jobs. A £3 billion green jobs plan to save money, cut carbon and create jobs.

    One of the most important sectors for job creation is housing. The construction sector adds £39 billion a year to the UK economy. House building alone supports nearly three quarters of a million jobs, with millions more relying on the availability of housing to find work. But property transactions fell by 50% in May. House prices have fallen for the first time in eight years and uncertainty abounds in the market—a market we need to be thriving. We need people feeling confident—confident to buy, sell, renovate, move and improve. That will drive growth. That will create jobs. So to catalyse the housing market and boost confidence, I have decided today to cut stamp duty.​

    Right now, there is no stamp duty on transactions below £125,000. Today, I am increasing the threshold to half a million pounds. This will be a temporary cut running until 31 March next year, and, as is always the case, these changes to stamp duty will take effect immediately. The average stamp duty bill will fall by £4,500 and nearly nine out of 10 people buying a main home this year will pay no stamp duty at all. Stamp duty cuts, a £5,000 green homes grant and tens of billions of pounds of new capital projects—we are creating jobs: the second part of our plan for jobs.

    The final part of our plan will protect jobs that already exist by helping some of our highest-employing but hardest-hit sectors: hospitality and tourism. Our economy relies on consumption, especially social consumption: the pubs, cafés, restaurants, hotels and B&Bs that bring life to our villages, towns and cities. Taken together, these sectors employ over 2 million people—disproportionately younger, women and people from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. Many rural and coastal communities rely on these industries. Some 80% of hospitality firms temporarily stopped trading in April and 1.4 million workers have been furloughed—the highest proportions of any sector. So the best jobs programme we can do is to restart these sectors and get our pubs, restaurants, cafés and B&Bs bustling again.

    I know people are cautious about going out, but we would not have lifted the restrictions if we did not think we could do so safely. I have seen in the last few weeks how hard businesses are working to make their premises safe, and if we follow the guidance and respect what they ask us to do, we can all enjoy summer safely. In turn, we need to give these businesses the confidence to know that if they open up, invest in making their premises safe and protect jobs, demand will be there—and be there quickly. So today, I am announcing two new measures to get these sectors moving and protect jobs.

    First, at the moment, VAT on hospitality and tourism is charged at 20%, so I have decided, for the next six months, to cut VAT on food, accommodation and attractions. Eat-in or hot takeaway food from restaurants, cafés and pubs; accommodation in hotels, B&Bs, campsites and caravan sites; attractions like cinemas, theme parks and zoos—all these and more will see VAT reduced, from next Wednesday until 12 January, from 20% to 5%. This is a £4 billion catalyst for the hospitality and tourism sectors, benefiting over 150,000 businesses and consumers everywhere—all helping to protect 2.4 million jobs.

    But we will go further. The final measure I am announcing today has never been tried in the UK before. This moment is unique. We need to be creative. So, to get customers back into restaurants, cafés and pubs and protect the 1.8 million people who work in them, I can announce today that, for the month of August, we will give everyone in the country an eat-out-to-help-out discount. Meals eaten at any participating business, Monday to Wednesday, will be 50% off, up to a maximum discount of £10 per head for everyone, including children. Businesses will need to register and can do so through a simple website, open next Monday. Each week in August, businesses can then claim the money back, with the funds in their bank account within five working days. Some 1.8 million people work in this industry. They need our support, and with this ​measure, we can all eat out to help out. A VAT cut to 5% and a first-of-its-kind Government-backed discount for all—that is the third part of our plan for jobs.

    A £1,000 jobs retention bonus; new, high-quality jobs for hundreds of thousands of young kick-starters; £1 billion to double the number of work coaches and support the unemployed; more apprenticeships, more traineeships and more skills funding; billions of pounds for new job creation projects across the country; a £3 billion plan to support 140,000 green jobs; and, in this vital period, as we get going again, VAT cut, stamp duty cut and meals out cut—all part of our plan for jobs worth up to £30 billion.

    Governments, much less people, rarely get to choose the moments that define them. What choice there is comes in how we respond. For me, this has never just been a question of economics, but of values. I believe in the nobility of work. I believe in the inspiring power of opportunity. I believe in the British people’s fortitude and endurance. And it is that value, endurance, more than any other that we need to embody now—a patience to live with the uncertainty of the moment and to find that new balance between safety and normality. We will not be defined by this crisis but by our response to it. It is an unambiguous choice to make this moment meaningful for our country in a way that transcends the frustration and loss of recent months. It is a plan to turn our national recovery into millions of stories of personal renewal. It is our plan for jobs, and I commend it to this House.

  • Liz Truss – 2020 Statement on Export Licences to Saudi Arabia

    Liz Truss – 2020 Statement on Export Licences to Saudi Arabia

    Below is the text of the statement made by Liz Truss, the Secretary of State for International Trade, on 7 July 2020.

    I want to update the House on the steps that have been taken to comply with the judgment of the Court of Appeal of 20 June 2019 regarding licences for military exports to Saudi Arabia for possible use in the conflict in Yemen.

    The legal proceedings concerned the decisions of the then Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills of 9 December 2015:

    Not to suspend extant export licences for the sale or transfer of arms and military equipment to Saudi Arabia for possible use in the conflict in Yemen; and

    To continue to grant further such licences.

    The legal proceedings concerned Criterion 2c of the Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria—which requires the Government to assess Saudi Arabia’s attitude towards relevant principles of international law and provides that the Government will not grant a licence if there is a clear risk that the items might be used in the commission of a serious violation of international humanitarian law (IHL).​

    The Divisional Court found in favour of the Government in its judgment of July 2017, noting that we applied a rigorous and robust, multi-layered process of analysis to making our licensing decisions. Our approach has focused on a predictive evaluation of risk as to the attitude and future conduct of the Saudi-led coalition, recognising the inherent difficulties of seeking to reach findings on IHL for specific incidents where we do not have access to complete information. Even so, this analysis has always incorporated a detailed and careful review of past allegations of incidents of concern. This included analysis, to the extent possible, of whether there were patterns of concern, in particular arising from trends in the number of allegations of civilian casualties and of damage to key civilian infrastructure. The Court of Appeal broadly endorsed this decision-making process.

    The principal issue in the Court of Appeal was whether this analysis needed to go further. In the Court’s judgment, the question of whether there was an historic pattern of breaches of IHL was a question which required to be faced. Even if it could not be answered with reasonable confidence for every incident, at least the attempt had to be made. It was because we had not reached findings on whether specific incidents constituted breaches of IHL as part of our assessment of clear risk, under Criterion 2c, that the Court of Appeal concluded that our decision-making process was irrational and therefore unlawful.

    To address the Court of Appeal’s judgment, we have developed a revised methodology in respect of all allegations which it is assessed are likely to have occurred and to have been caused by fixed-wing aircraft, reflecting the factual circumstances that the court proceedings concerned. Each of those allegations has been subject to detailed analysis by reference to the relevant principles of IHL and in the light of all the information and intelligence available. An evaluation has then been made, in respect of each incident, whether it is possible that it constitutes a breach of IHL or whether it is unlikely that it represents a breach. For a number of incidents, as envisaged by the Court of Appeal, there is insufficient information to make this evaluation. Where an incident is assessed as being a “possible” breach, it is regarded—for the purposes of the Criterion 2c analysis—as if it were a breach of IHL. By setting the threshold as “possible” the IHL analysis has captured the widest range of relevant potential IHL breaches, to provide a base from which to assess the prospective risk for Criterion 2c.

    The IHL analysis has now been applied to all credible incidents of concern of which we are aware. Some of these incidents have been assessed as “possible” violations of IHL. These have therefore been factored into the overall Criterion 2c analysis on the basis that they are violations of IHL.

    We have sought to determine whether these “violations” are indicative of:

    any patterns of non-compliance;

    a lack of commitment on the part of Saudi Arabia to comply with IHL; and or

    a lack of capacity or systemic weaknesses which might give rise to a clear risk of IHL breaches.

    We have similarly looked for patterns and trends across the incidents which have been assessed as being unlikely to be breaches of IHL and those for which there is insufficient information to make an assessment.​

    This analysis has not revealed any such patterns, trends or systemic weaknesses. It is noted, in particular, that the incidents which have been assessed to be possible violations of IHL occurred at different times, in different circumstances and for different reasons. The conclusion is that these are isolated incidents.

    I want to emphasise that the IHL analysis is just one part of the Criterion 2c assessment. In retaking these decisions, I have taken into account the full range of information available to the Government. In the light of all that information and analysis, I have concluded that, notwithstanding the isolated incidents which have been factored into the analysis as historic violations of IHL, Saudi Arabia has a genuine intent and the capacity to comply with IHL.

    On that basis, I have assessed that there is not a clear risk that the export of arms and military equipment to Saudi Arabia might be used in the commission of a serious violation of IHL.

    Having now re-taken the decisions that were the subject of judicial review on the correct legal basis, as required by the Order of the Court of Appeal of 20 June, it follows that the undertaking that my predecessor gave to the Court—that we would not grant any new licences for the export of arms or military equipment to Saudi ​Arabia for possible use in Yemen—falls away. The broader commitment that was given to Parliament, relating to licences for Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners, also no longer applies.

    The Government will now begin the process of clearing the backlog of licence applications for Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners that has built up since 20 June last year. Each application will, of course, be carefully assessed against the Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria and a licence would not be granted if to do so would be a breach of the Criteria. It may take some months to clear this backlog.

    Finally, as indicated in the statement made to the House on 20 June 2019, we sought permission to appeal to the Supreme Court against the Court of Appeal’s judgment. Permission was granted by the Court of Appeal on 9 July 2019. In light of the revised methodology which I have just described, I will now be taking steps to withdraw this appeal. I want to update the House on the steps that have been taken to comply with the judgment of the Court of Appeal of 20 June 2019 regarding licences for military exports to Saudi Arabia for possible use in the conflict in Yemen.

  • Michael Gove – 2020 Statement on UK-EU Future Relationship Negotiations

    Michael Gove – 2020 Statement on UK-EU Future Relationship Negotiations

    Below is the text of the statement made by Michael Gove, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in the House of Commons on 7 July 2020.

    The Government have made a commitment to update Parliament on the progress of our future relationship negotiations with the EU. This statement provides an update on the intensified talks process as agreed at the high level meeting between the Prime Minister and the three presidents on the EU side on 15 June. The timetable for this process was published on 12 June as an addendum to the terms of reference on the UK-EU future relationship negotiations.

    Intensified talks took place in Brussels between 29 June and 2 July in a restricted format and led by the UK chief negotiator David Frost. The talks covered: trade in goods; trade in services and investment and other issues; fisheries; horizontal arrangements and governance; level playing field for open and fair competition; criminal law and judicial co-operation; mobility, social security, thematic co-operation; energy and transport; and participation in Union programmes.

    These talks were comprehensive and useful. However, they have underlined the significant differences that still remain between us on a number of important issues. Further discussions will take place later this week in London. The UK remains committed to working hard to find an early understanding on the principles underlying an agreement out of the intensified talks process during July, as agreed at the high level meeting on 15 June.

  • Amanda Solloway – 2020 Statement on Intellectual Property

    Amanda Solloway – 2020 Statement on Intellectual Property

    Below is the text of the statement made by Amanda Solloway, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in the House of Commons on 7 July 2020.

    Our industrial strategy sets out the Government’s vision for making the UK the most innovative country in the world. The UK starts from a position of strength and is already ranked in the top five of the global innovation index and top 10 by the World Bank as the best place to start and grow a business. But the global landscape is changing and we must continue to invest in research and development. The industrial strategy has set an ambition to raise total research and development to 2.4% of GDP by 2027, helping businesses access the right funds and equip them to face the opportunities and challenges presented by new technologies and new ways of doing business.

    Intellectual property (IP) plays a crucial role in innovation and touches everything that makes modern life more enjoyable, easier, safer and prosperous. It provides inventors, creators and entrepreneurs with the confidence to invest knowing that they will reap the benefits of their investments. UK investment in IP rights reached almost £64 billion in 2016 and studies have shown that industries that rely on IP have accounted for over a quarter of UK employment and almost half of GDP. Our IP system matters. It creates jobs and economic growth and is helping to propel Britain to the forefront of innovation.

    The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) corporate plan 2020-21 explains how through its stewardship of the IP system, it will help the UK to be the most innovative and creative country in the world. It will do this through delivering excellent IP services, creating a world leading IP environment and attracting and retaining the best people by making the IPO a brilliant place to work.

    The UK already has one of the best IP regimes in the world, consistently ranked as one of the top regimes in indices such as those from the US Chamber of Commerce International IP Index, and during 2020-21, the IPO will continue to contribute to building a business environment that makes the UK the best place in the world to start and run a business.

    As an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the IPO has set targets which are agreed by Ministers and laid before Parliament. I am glad that today I can inform the House that for 2020-21 the IPO’s targets are:

    Deliver excellent customer service with our average overall customer satisfaction at least 85%.

    Deliver our services efficiently through continuously improving our systems, processes and ways of working to make things better for our customers and our people, reduce costs and improve the value for money we provide. Our target is to achieve efficiencies worth at least 3.5% of our core operating costs.

    We will have created equivalent UK rights from existing EU trade marks and designs to the UK register on 31 December 2020.​

    We want to ensure that the UK’s IP framework incentivises the development and adoption of AI technologies, supporting the Government’s ambition of putting the UK at the forefront of the AI and data revolution. We will do this by developing our understanding of how AI impacts the IP framework through launching a call for views and publishing our response so as to provide the clarity our customers need to confidently invest in AI.

    It is important to note that our plan and our targets were developed prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus (covid-19) epidemic. At present our targets are unchanged but we will review this as the impact of the virus becomes clearer. We have the ability to adapt our finance and resource models according to emerging trends and we will do so. We will also work with BEIS and our other partner organisations to review our priorities regularly, ensuring we support wider Government responses to the economic impact of the virus and seek to focus our efforts and resources where they will have the most significant impact driving the UK innovation and creative economy.

  • Edward Argar – 2020 Speech on Orthopaedic Services at Ipswich Hospital

    Edward Argar – 2020 Speech on Orthopaedic Services at Ipswich Hospital

    Below is the text of the speech made by Edward Argar, the Minister for Health, in the House of Commons on 7 July 2020.

    I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) for securing a debate on the important topic of orthopaedic services at Ipswich Hospital. His commitment to his constituency is commendable and well known. He raised this issue with me when we met very recently, and in his recent letter. I pay tribute to the persistence that he has shown in ensuring that his constituents’ voices are heard on this topic, as on all others.

    If I recall correctly, when my hon. Friend last spoke in the House on this matter and I responded, he secured my commitment to visit, which I had the pleasure of doing, with him, in February, and it was a visit that I greatly enjoyed. He is undoubtedly a strong voice for his constituents. Of course, when circumstances allow it, I will be very happy to visit Ipswich once again. I also had the opportunity, that same day, to visit Colchester with my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), who is a similarly strong voice for the interests of his constituents, his local hospital and the needs of his county, and I pay tribute to him.

    James Cartlidge

    Many of my constituents use both Ipswich Hospital and Colchester Hospital, and I pay tribute to their staff for the incredible effort they have ​put in throughout the pandemic to look after my constituents, and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich, to ensure that we get through this keeping our NHS intact. We should be proud of that.

    Edward Argar

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend, whom I have known for many years. As ever, he puts his finger on exactly the right point. I join with him in paying tribute to all the staff at Ipswich Hospital, Colchester Hospital and across our NHS for the amazing work they do day in, day out, particularly at this time.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich set out his case very clearly. I would say that his hospital has no greater friend than him. I reassure him that there is no question of Ipswich Hospital continuing to be anything other than the first-class hospital it is today. He highlighted in outline a little of the background on this issue. In 2015, Suffolk and North East Essex sustainability and transformation partnership concluded that change in the organisation of services was needed, particularly in orthopaedic planned surgery. Since then, East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust has been developing a proposal for an orthopaedic elective surgery centre. As he touched on, the proposal outlines that the centre would see a roughly £35 million investment in orthopaedic surgery services for the population, offering at least 48 new beds and up to six state-of-the-art ultra-clean operating theatres, providing additional capacity for emergency patients across the area. The NHS in Suffolk and Essex ran a consultation, between 11 February and 1 April 2020, on the specifics of the proposal to create an elective orthopaedic care centre in Colchester, but, as I have set out, those plans have been in genesis for many years and have been extensively and widely consulted on.

    I note the points raised by my hon. Friend in his speech and, indeed, those raised in his letter to the chief officer of Ipswich and East Suffolk clinical commissioning group recently. I encourage the clinical commissioning group to take that letter seriously and to respond fully to my hon. Friend, as part of the local accountability which is so important to all our public services. Let me be clear—I will emphasise this again later—that this is a process and a proposal that is rightly driven by the NHS at a local level in his and my hon. Friends’ constituencies. He is right to commend the performance of Ipswich hospital over recent years. I appreciate that he wants to ensure that for his constituents, and, indeed, for all those who use the hospital, the reconfiguration does not in any way diminish the achievement of his hospital and its staff, or have any impact on its other services.

    My hon. Friend will appreciate that in winter the number of emergency admissions is much higher than it is during the summer. One aspect of this consultation is that it seeks to address planning for that by enabling more beds across the hospitals to be used to meet that demand. I would not seek, and nor should I seek, to prejudge the decision that will be reached next week by the CCG on this matter—it is rightly its decision—but I will set out its rationale in putting the proposals forward. It states that, in practice, if the orthopaedic centre were built at Colchester, it would release 24 in-patient beds at Ipswich, where they are indeed needed. The new orthopaedic centre would be adjacent to the main Colchester Hospital, but away from the emergency department.​

    I greatly appreciate the insight my hon. Friend has shared from his constituents in Ipswich, who are thankful for the brilliant surgeries they have been able to access in the NHS. Indeed, that was something he highlighted again when I went to wonderful Ipswich with him. When the CCG considers this matter, I would of course expect it very carefully and respectfully to reflect on the points that he and his constituents have made. The proposals reflect the importance of the surgeries. I hope he and his constituents will welcome the fact that the proposals will not remove access to orthopaedic services at Ipswich Hospital. Of nearly 46,000 in-patient day cases and out-patient appointments completed for orthopaedic patients at Ipswich last year, only about 3% would move to the new centre at Colchester under what the trust is proposing. In its proposal, the trust sets out that day surgery, including shoulder and elbow joint replacements, would remain at Ipswich Hospital, as would services for emergency patients, such as joint replacement after a hip fracture.

    As I just mentioned, my hon. Friend described the life-changing impact such surgeries have had on constituents who have been treated at his hospital. This proposal, as the trust sets out, seeks to achieve shorter waiting times for surgery and shorter stays in hospital, so that patients can seek the comfort of home more quickly, and to minimise the risk of cancellation of surgery, as the proposed centre will be built safely away from the emergency department and the knock-on impacts that a busy emergency department can have. It also seeks to achieve improved clinical outcomes in terms of reliability from the standardisation of care and provide training, education and research opportunities for clinicians. The trust maintains that it is on that clinical basis that it is putting forward the proposals, which, it states, seek to support the excellent performance of hospitals in the area by organising services in a sensible way so that necessary elective operations can take place while the system supports patients admitted in an emergency.

    My hon. Friend also mentioned the merger of Ipswich and Colchester in June 2018. At the time, NHS England outlined several service improvements that the merger would bring about. As well as improvements in various services from paediatrics to emergency ambulatory care, the enlarged organisation would also have an expanded catchment area, leading to improved opportunities for training, providing a more attractive option for clinicians, resolving a number of historical recruitment and retention issues at both trusts and improving finances. It is important, however, as my hon. Friend alluded to, that the trust is held to account for those promises and that it ensures, by the merger, that both hospitals continue to improve.

    I briefly touched on the consultation earlier in my remarks, and my hon. Friend raised several points about the process. He is absolutely right to say that important decisions are made with the best interests of patients from across the area in mind, and that the views of local clinicians should not be diminished. There has been much lengthy consultation. As well as the formal process, my hon. Friend highlights the petition, which has been signed by many of his constituents and, I suspect, more widely. It is absolutely right that everyone has their say, and I commend him for what he is doing to ensure that they have their say. Again, such views should be considered with respect and care when decisions are reached.​

    My hon. Friend also rightly raised the issue of patients and transport, and that they must be supported to travel should the plans go ahead. He has raised the need for a comprehensive plan, both locally and with Ministers, to ensure that all patients can be supported to access the right care. Access to the current patient transport scheme will, the trust states, be available for those unable to make the journey themselves. Under the proposals, pre-surgery and post-surgery appointments would still take place at the patient’s normal point of care at Ipswich or Colchester. Indeed, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for fighting his constituents’ corner, should the decision not turn out the way he wishes, and for playing an important part in highlighting that issue as well. The only change for patients would be the actual site travelled to for the planned surgical procedure, which would involve a lengthy stay of three days in hospital. I have also been reassured that local partners completely recognise that, alongside these provisions, additional support will be needed for some patients and, should the proposal be approved, further work is already under way to address that.

    Being conscious of the time, I reassure my hon. Friend that the Department of Health and Social Care recognises how important these decisions are and recognises ​that the right accountability, consultations and people must be included in the process of discussing proposals to change services. This is, of course, not a decision for me or, indeed, for the Secretary of State. The next step, as my hon. Friend said, is the final decision, which will be made locally by the CCG on 14 July, but the proposal is not to downgrade or diminish Ipswich, but to promote an alternative way of delivering clinical services. I have no doubt that the CCG will have heard my hon. Friend’s case today, as will his constituents, in whose interests he has spoken so eloquently. I again encourage the CCG to ensure that it carefully considers his words and the representations in making its decision.

    I conclude by thanking my hon. Friend and congratulate him on securing this debate. I also thank those other Members who have intervened. My hon. Friend has set out his case powerfully and his constituents are lucky to have him as their Member of Parliament.

  • Tom Hunt – 2020 Speech on Orthopaedic Services at Ipswich Hospital

    Tom Hunt – 2020 Speech on Orthopaedic Services at Ipswich Hospital

    Below is the text of the speech made by Tom Hunt, the Conservative MP for Ipswich, in the House of Commons on 7 July 2020.

    I thank the Minister for being here to respond to this much-needed debate. It is needed because on 14 July, the Ipswich and East Suffolk and North East Essex clinical commissioning groups will make a decision on plans to remove elective orthopaedic surgery from Ipswich Hospital and transfer it down the A12 to a new centre in Colchester, away from the people who rely on it. If the plans were to go ahead, they would represent a downgrade to Ipswich Hospital and make it the only hospital in the east of England that I am aware of not to offer a full complement of orthopaedic services. Despite that, the CCGs’ papers for the 14 July meeting will recommend that the plans be approved.

    In many ways, it is disappointing that this debate is needed in the first place. Public opposition to the plans is overwhelming. I will come to the important reasons why later, but first I want to make the House aware of the scale of the opposition to the plans. An online petition to protect orthopaedic services at Ipswich Hospital established by the Orwell Ahead campaign group currently has more than 8,700 signatures, despite having been up for only a few days. I have already shared the petition with the Minister, but I want him to be aware of how many more people have added their names to it since we last spoke.

    As well as the number of signatures, I am sure that the Minister and others who have studied the petition will not have failed to notice that it refers to a joint quote from me and the Labour leader of Ipswich Borough Council, Councillor David Ellesmere. Anyone who follows day-to-day politics in Ipswich will know that Councillor Ellesmere and I do not always see eye to eye, but on this issue we are united as the principal national and local representatives of our town. The quote in the petition comes from one of two joint letters about these proposals that we have sent to the chief officer of the Ipswich and East Suffolk clinical commissioning group. Combined, those letters, which detail our cross-party opposition to the plans, stretch to more than nine pages. However, that is by no means the extent of the opposition that has been expressed.

    The 12-week consultation on the plans, which ran between February and April, found that almost two thirds of respondents were opposed to the new centre in Colchester. That is despite the fact that the consultation took on board the views of people in Colchester as well as people in Ipswich. Had the consultation taken place just in Ipswich, that number undoubtedly would have been far higher.

    Over the last few weeks, that has been reflected in my inbox. I have received hundreds of letters, emails and other messages from constituents about this issue and not one has expressed support for the plans. They include not only former patients who have told me they would not be walking today were it not for the first-rate orthopaedic care currently provided at Ipswich Hospital, but hospital workers, and elderly and vulnerable people who are worried about the prospect of having to travel to Colchester in future.​

    When the chief executive of the hospitals trust asked me to pass on the correspondence that I have received from constituents so he could address their concerns, I did. I sent over a dossier that was 20 pages long, yet this still only represented a fraction of the correspondence that I have received. It also excluded many people who have contacted me from further afield in Suffolk, who are among the 390,000 people who depend upon the services provided by Ipswich Hospital. Many of them share my constituents’ concerns, and some patients to the north of Ipswich face even longer and more difficult trips to Colchester than patients in Ipswich.

    It is clear now that the only way for the concerns of my constituents and others to be addressed is for these plans to be reviewed. Of course, my overwhelming preference is for new plans to be drawn up and for the approximately £44 million that is currently earmarked for a new centre to be invested in both Ipswich and Colchester hospitals. I know that many of the people from across the political spectrum who signed the petition and who have written to me are also tuning into BBC Parliament this evening and are watching what is said here very closely.

    I think it is only right to use this opportunity to refute the claim made jointly by the chief executive of the hospitals trust and the chief officer of the clinical commissioning group that the public’s petition is causing unnecessary concern and fear. Leaving aside the substance of those remarks for one second, I point out that this is not the first time that the chief executive of the hospitals trust and the chief officer of the CCG have written a joint letter or made closely aligned statements. Given that the chief officer of the CCG will be at the heart of the decision-making process on this issue, it is questionable why he is already so firmly in line with the trust on its plans. This adds to the widely shared sense that, for all intents and purposes, this decision has already been made, and that the decision-making process has been compromised. I hope that Ministers will consider that very carefully when looking at this issue and at how these plans are being pushed through against the wishes of my constituents.

    I think it is clear to almost everyone, except senior NHS management locally, that it is not the public petition that is causing concerns, but the plans themselves. It is the local NHS management who have failed to make the case for these proposals. They are the ones who have failed to take the public with them on this journey. Unfortunately, these latest remarks by the chief executive and the chief officer are just more evidence of that same senior management failing to listen to the public. However, the public’s concerns deserve to be heard and that is why I will set them out very clearly now.

    The removal of elective orthopaedic surgery would mean that patients in Ipswich have to travel further for their surgery. There must not be an assumption that everyone will have loved ones who can take them to Colchester and back or that they will be able to take public transport, especially after just having had a hip or knee replacement. Constituents have also told me that it would be harder for them to visit their loved ones who have undergone surgery in Colchester to give them crucial comfort and support.

    ​Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)

    I feel for my hon. Friend’s constituents who potentially have to make that extra journey. In my constituency, I am very fortunate that the Airedale General Hospital provides orthopaedic surgery to constituents on a local basis. Does he agree that the right thing to do is to provide that local service so that his constituents in Ipswich can benefit?

    Tom Hunt

    I agree with my hon. Friend. There is a national challenge when it comes to tackling waiting lists for hip and knee replacements. There is not one hospital across the country that does not have to meet that challenge, but in meeting that challenge, we need to keep services as local as possible for the people who depend on them. That is what I am arguing for this evening.

    So far, neither the hospital trust nor the CCG has presented sufficient detail about how vulnerable patients will be supported in making the journey to Colchester, and the reassurances we have received about joint working and engagement with the public just do not cut it. There is major concern among my constituents about the plans, and it is no surprise that people do not support them while this crucial element is not in place.

    Secondly, Ipswich Hospital is currently ranked in the top 10% in the country for both hip and knee replacements, and I would like to thank all the surgeons and staff who work in the orthopaedic services. There are real concerns that the fine quality of care currently available to patients in Ipswich will be diminished when combined with the practice in Colchester. Many of my constituents are currently going through an anxious wait for hip and knee replacements during covid-19, but the knowledge that they will receive first-class surgery at their town’s local hospital provides a great deal of reassurance. Under these plans, however, the surgery would certainly not be at their local hospital, and there are fears that the standard of care could be lower too.

    James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend and neighbour for giving way. It was great to campaign with him in the election; I knew that he would be a doughty fighter for his constituents, and he is showing that tonight. Does he agree that, however we configure services, the priority must be the people he is talking about who are waiting for elective surgery that has been cancelled or shifted back many months because of covid, and we need to focus on bearing down on that backlog?

    Tom Hunt

    I thank my hon. Friend. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore), I am not blind to the fact that covid-19 is putting huge pressure on the NHS and hospitals up and down the country, including Ipswich Hospital, where the frontline staff have gone above and beyond to serve my constituents. We need to deal with these waiting times, but we need to do so in a way that keeps services closer to people. That is very important.

    Under the current proposals, most of the surgeons in Ipswich Hospital’s orthopaedic team would split their time between Ipswich Hospital and the new centre in Colchester. In many cases, this would mean that the surgeon who operates on a patient in Colchester one day will not be there to make crucial check-ups on their patient in recovery over the following days. Only the operating surgeon is best placed to see how their patient is responding to the surgery that they carried out. These ​personal check-ups are also an important source of confidence for patients. This important aspect of high-quality care would largely be lost under the current plans. Questions have also been left unanswered about the impact of the plans on the highly rated emergency orthopaedic practice, which would remain at Ipswich Hospital, with doctors and resources diverted elsewhere.

    This all feeds into a third main concern, which is about the wider effect of these plans on the reputation and standing of Ipswich Hospital. Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Peterborough City Hospital, Hinchingbrooke Hospital, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Colchester Hospital, West Suffolk Hospital and James Paget University Hospital are all general hospitals in the east of England that provide elective orthopaedic surgery. Under the current plans, Ipswich Hospital would become the only hospital of its size in the eastern region not to provide a full complement of orthopaedic services. In fact, James Paget University Hospital in Yarmouth serves a population under half the size of Ipswich Hospital.

    The question is, why should Ipswich Hospital be stripped of its first-class elective orthopaedic surgery and placed in such an unusual position? More and more people in Ipswich are beginning to answer that question by looking at whether the merger of Ipswich and Colchester Hospitals has been beneficial to Ipswich Hospital and whether the promises that were made about both hospitals improving together have been kept.

    In fact, there are significant doubts that the hospitals trust fully explored the options that would allow both Ipswich and Colchester Hospitals to improve their orthopaedic care together, without one hospital losing core services. My understanding is that a full assessment was not made of repurposing space at Ipswich Hospital, to open up room for two additional operating theatres, and the borough council’s two alternative proposals to the Colchester centre were essentially dismissed out of hand.

    The hospitals trust has insisted, the whole way through, that the Colchester centre is the only way to create enough capacity to cut waiting times and cancellations to planned surgery. I have spoken to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about what we have to do on that across the country.

    I ask what justifies these sweeping plans, for many, including within the hospital itself, have doubts that the plans are even justified on their own terms. The proponents of the plans have highlighted that five new operating theatres for hip and knee replacements would be added, and that these would simply replace five existing operating theatres currently in use at Ipswich and Colchester. Cutting waiting times and delays is undoubtedly an important aim, and I am sure, as I said, that there is no hospital in the country where the pressure on waiting lists for hip and knee replacements has not increased due to covid-19. As I mentioned, these plans would largely replicate existing services, at great financial expense and at the unquantifiable cost of moving them further from where people live. It is therefore disappointing that some in north Essex—some of my colleagues in north Essex—cannot see how important it is that both Ipswich and Colchester improve together side by side.

    The last major concern I want to mention is that key voices within Ipswich Hospital have been muffled on this issue. The chief executive of the hospitals trust has claimed that the plans are clinically led and that only three out of 27 consultants are opposed to them, but it ​is my belief that the cards have been stacked in favour of this position. I understand that the 27 consultants he refers to include spinal surgeons as well as surgeons in Colchester. He has also assumed that surgeons who have not directly expressed their opposition to the plans must be in favour of them. Following the private conversations I have had with senior representatives at the hospital who have approached me, I understand that nine out of 12 surgeons at Ipswich Hospital who deliver non-spinal elective and emergency orthopaedic care do not support the proposals, but, understandably, many of them do not want to put their career at risk by speaking out publicly. However, two surgeons did speak out publicly during one of the consultation events, which turned out to be the only one where the audio recording of a public meeting was not uploaded online. It was eventually put online only when the surgeons themselves pointed this out.

    To summarise, the plans are incredibly unpopular in Ipswich. The concerns for patients within Ipswich Hospital’s core service are real, and the decision-making process seems to be nothing more than a rubber-stamping exercise to push through the plans against the wishes of my constituents. When I stood for election and won the great honour of being elected as the Member of Parliament for Ipswich, I said to my constituents that I would fight for them with everything that I have. I love my constituency and I love my constituents, and I know how important the hospital is for them.

    That is why it is really important for us to be here today. We do need to deal with the waiting lists, and we do need to make sure that people do not wait in pain for hip and knee replacements, but we need to do so in a way that keeps services closer to people. The merger needs to be about Ipswich and Colchester hospitals thriving together side by side, and I will work with my colleagues across the region to make sure that that is the case. At this late stage, I ask the Minister to look into the matter, reflect upon it, and meet me to discuss my concerns before the decision on 14 July.

  • Edward Timpson – 2020 Speech on the Retirement Age of Magistrates

    Edward Timpson – 2020 Speech on the Retirement Age of Magistrates

    Below is the text of the speech made by Edward Timpson, the Conservative MP for Eddisbury, in the House of Commons on 7 July 2020.

    I beg to move,

    That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend section 13 of the Courts Act 2003 to change the retirement age for magistrates from 70 to 75; and for connected purposes.

    Magistrates, or justices of the peace, are ordinary people hearing cases in court in their community, and have been a fundamental feature of our judicial system since 1361. They continue to be chosen from people of good character, commitment, social awareness and reliability—those who can communicate effectively and are capable of making sound choices when sitting in judgment on their peers.

    I had the pleasure of appearing in front of many magistrates while practising on the then Chester and north Wales circuit as a criminal and family barrister in the late ’90s and the noughties. My rose-tinted spectacles remind me that, more often than not, my clients got the rub of the legal green, but I also had to accept that I and the bench did not always have a meeting of minds—in other words, I lost.

    The one constant, however, was the selfless and enduring dedication on display by so many of our fellow citizens to the fair and equitable dispensing of justice. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of them, particularly those who have contacted me about this Bill and shared with me their experiences, for their public service. I should add that their overall number includes at least 10 fellow current Members of Parliament.

    However, the constant reliable recruitment and retention of our magistracy across England and Wales is under serious strain. The number of magistrates has decreased dramatically over the last decade or so, from about 30,000 to less than 13,000, with the number actually sitting thought to be substantially lower. That has had a profound impact on the case backlog, which is now up to nearly half a million in the magistrates courts; on delays, and even on the way justice is delivered. For example, during 2017-18 there were benches of just two magistrates, including for some trials, in nearly 40,000 court sessions—15% of the total. Inevitably, the covid-19 pandemic has both exacerbated the problem and catalysed the urgency of action, with recruitment and training on hold.

    To illustrate this at a more local level, Paul Brearley JP, chairman of the Greater Manchester branch of the Magistrates Association, provided me with details of how the current chronic shortage of magistrates is affecting what is the largest single bench in England and Wales. At its creation in 2014, the bench size was approximately 1,100. As of 24 June this year, the number stood at 792.

    From this figure should be deducted 188 justices who are currently on covid-19-related leave of absence and 47 justices appointed but not yet sworn in, leaving just over 550, or about half of the original number, in active service. During the pandemic, no more justices have been appointed, despite the fact that the retirements have continued—15 since lockdown.​

    Sadly, it is the same story across the country, as other examples I have received from the chairs of the West Yorkshire, north-west Wales and Herefordshire benches bear testament, with the latter seeing a fall from 127 magistrates in 2008 to only 47 in 2020, nine of whom are due to retire in the next 18 months. As we emerge from lockdown, the pressure on our court system has never been greater, and with more police officers on our streets and additional resources for the Crown Prosecution Service, we can expect even more cases, requiring even more capacity.

    The measures introduced by the Ministry of Justice to tackle the considerable and escalating delays are welcome, including extending court hours and widening the use of technology where appropriate. Yet much of this will still rely on the human resources— otherwise known as people—working in our courts to meet ever-growing demand. That is irrefutable proof that we desperately need more magistrates as quickly as possible. Any judicial restoration also needs to ensure that it delivers as great a diversity as possible, especially regarding age, ethnicity and social status. As the former chair of the Magistrates Association, Malcolm Richardson, has said:

    “The magistracy must reflect the community it serves if courts are to be perceived to be procedurally fair, command public confidence and help civic engagement.”

    To that end, I was pleased to hear the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), who is sitting on the Front Bench, tell the House only last week that the magistrates recruitment and attraction steering group held its first meeting in February, with a particular focus on increasing diversity, regardless of age.

    Despite such laudable and important efforts, recruitment will not, of itself, fix the problem, because the fact remains that nearly 7,500 magistrates—more than half of all current magistrates—will reach the age of 70 in the next decade, and, under current legislation, will be forced to retire. Losing these magistrates at 70 is a triple whammy. First, they are often the most experienced. Secondly, they represent a high proportion of presiding justices—those in the court chairs—in this group. Thirdly, they are likely to be retired from work and so more able to accept extra sittings, including at short notice. Paulette Huntington JP, chair of the West Yorkshire branch, tells me that her magistrates who have retired at age 70 generally tend to be high sitters as they have more time to give, with many clocking up between 50 and 100 sittings per year, and some even more than that due to the volume of work—well over the minimum 26 required. In contrast, it is proving difficult to entice those with work and family commitments to the bench, with fewer employers seemingly content or in a position to sanction regular absences.​

    While every effort should continue to be made to boost recruitment, simply replacing retiring magistrates would be a significant challenge, and given current shortages would not, in itself, be sufficient. Indeed, this year the number of magistrates recruited is expected to be less than the number who retire, partly due to the need for rigorous selection, mentoring and support of newly appointed magistrates. It is worth noting, too, that these difficulties apply to all jurisdictions—adult, youth, and family. The senior judiciary, including the Lord Chief Justice, the senior presiding judge and the president of the family division, are all aware of the seriousness of the situation, as are, I know, the Minister and the Lord Chancellor.

    It need not be this way. Jurors are now selected up to the age of 75, doubtless to enable justice to be delivered by people with wide experience of life. You may also have noticed, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the head of the Supreme Court is aged 75 and the almost 73-year-old Roy Hodgson seems to be doing a reasonable job at Crystal Palace. So why should magistrates be deemed incompetent simply because they have hit an arbitrary age?

    There are other sound, compelling reasons to apply such logic. First, people live longer. The current retirement age of 70 was set in 1968, when life expectancy was just 72, and it is now nearly 81. Secondly, people work longer. Thirdly, people retire later. As they say, 70 is the new 50. To ensure ongoing competency beyond 70, the recognised and recently updated system for appraisal of all magistrates and retained registrates would need to be extended, but this should not be a block to progress. As John Bache JP, chairman of the Magistrates Association, told me:

    “We are rapidly heading for the perfect storm in the magistrates court. The backlog is increasing while the number of magistrates continues to fall, yet we are discarding those magistrates most able and willing to address this crisis”.

    I know that my hon. Friend the Minister, on behalf of the Government, is very sympathetic to these arguments and is keen to make progress sooner rather than later, so I urge the Secretary of State, the Lord Chancellor, for whom I have the utmost respect, to grasp this nettle now and give the magistracy the opportunity through this Bill, especially at this vital time of greatest need, to do what it has done for over 650 years, and deliver timely, fair justice for the communities it serves.

  • Caroline Dinenage – 2020 Statement on Arts, Culture and Heritage Support

    Caroline Dinenage – 2020 Statement on Arts, Culture and Heritage Support

    Below is the text of the statement made by Caroline Dinenage, the Minister for Digital and Culture, in the House of Commons on 7 July 2020.

    The UK’s arts and cultural heritage are not just beloved in the UK, but are the envy of the rest of the world. Our theatres, live music venues, museums and galleries are incredibly valuable to our economy, bringing in £32.3 billion in 2018 and employing approximately 680,000 people. However, they are much more than that: they are the lynchpins of their local communities, entertaining, enlightening and educating us, and bringing us together through shared experiences.

    The coronavirus pandemic dealt those sectors a body blow, forcing thousands of institutions to close their doors. The Government have already provided substantial financial assistance to see them through the crisis, including loans, business rate holidays and the self-employed and furloughing schemes. Together, those schemes have provided hundreds of millions of pounds of support, saving livelihoods, beloved organisations and institutions. Of course, we have been working extremely closely with the sector and medical experts to try to get things back up and running as soon as it is safe to do so.

    Our battle against coronavirus is not over. With social distancing still in place and crowded venues not possible for the foreseeable future, it was clear that the cultural sector desperately needed help to weather the ongoing storm. The Government have provided it this week, with an unprecedented £1.57 billion rescue package for museums, galleries, theatres, independent cinemas, heritage sites and music venues across the country in the form of emergency grants and loans. It is the single largest one-off investment in UK culture and proof of our commitment to protecting the sectors that do so much to enrich all our lives. It has widely been recognised as exceeding expectations and DDCMS Ministers would like to put on record our thanks to the many people who have worked so incredibly hard on this behind the scenes over the weeks.

    The funding will support the country’s long-standing and rightly famous cultural institutions such as the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Ironbridge Gorge Museum, the Mary Rose Trust, which I visited yesterday, and the National Theatre, but it will also support lesser known but equally cherished cultural and heritage institutions and organisations in regions up and down the country—places that have been cultural anchors for their communities for years. That will include theatres, live music venues and museums, but it will not just be about cultural spaces, as it will include dance companies, orchestras and touring arts groups that do not have their own venues but that still play a key role in our cultural life and, of course, still need support. By protecting these organisations as well, the funding will help to support those working across the cultural sector.

    The package will also see £120 million invested in rebuilding, upgrading and starting new construction work across our cultural infrastructure as part of our ​wider effort to build, build, build after coronavirus. This will help to revitalise historic buildings across the country, creating jobs and protecting livelihoods all across our regions. Another £100 million will be allocated to arm’s length bodies such as the British Library, the British Museum and the British Film Institute. An extra £188 million will be given to the devolved Administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, as the Government support our whole Union; our cultural strength is stronger as a family of four.

    The broader package comes on top of the announcement made last week by the Arts Council to reopen its project grants competition and make an additional £39 million of funding available to support creativity—in particular from freelancers, creative practitioners and independent organisations.

    We all want to see full audiences back in our venues and institutions, enjoying the very best of British culture as soon as possible. We will keep our foot very firmly on the pedal, and are finalising guidance for a phased return of the performing arts sectors as we speak. This package allows us to protect some of our precious cultural assets during an uncertain time ahead. It will help thousands of organisations to make it through this crisis and out the other side for future generations to enjoy. I ask the House to join the arts sector in welcoming this massive rescue package. It is a lifeline to help the sector weather this storm and bounce back even stronger.