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Tag: Barry Gardiner

  • Barry Gardiner – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Barry Gardiner – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Gardiner on 2014-04-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when the Government’s report into the condition of all flood defence assets following the winter floods will be published; and if he will make a statement.

    Dan Rogerson

    The Government’s report into the condition of flood defence assets will be published when the results of the national assessment have been analysed by the Environment Agency. This is currently expected to be May.

  • Barry Gardiner – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Barry Gardiner – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Gardiner on 2014-04-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when the Government response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s Eleventh Report, on Plastic Bags, HC 861 will be completed and sent to the Committee.

    Dan Rogerson

    The Government is considering the Committee’s recommendations and will respond as soon as details have been finalised.

  • Barry Gardiner – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Barry Gardiner – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Gardiner on 2014-04-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the Met Office report, Too Hot, Too Cold, Too Wet, Too Dry: Drivers and impacts of seasonal weather in the UK; and if he will make a statement.

    Dan Rogerson

    Both of these reports make a valuable contribution to our understanding of the impacts of climate change. We are considering them with keen interest and will take full account of them when we publish the UK’s next Climate Change Risk Assessment, which in turn will inform the next National Adaptation Programme report.

  • Barry Gardiner – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Barry Gardiner – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Gardiner on 2014-04-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, by what date each of the 40 air quality zones with exceedances of nitrogen dioxide limit values in 2010 will achieve compliance with 2010 nitrogen dioxide limit values.

    Dan Rogerson

    Meeting EU standards for nitrogen dioxide remains a challenge for many large urban areas in the UK and across Europe. In 2011 Defra submitted estimates of the year each part of the UK would meet these standards to the European Commission. The assumptions behind our projections are regularly reviewed to reflect new understanding and we expect to have new projections available later this year.

  • Barry Gardiner – 2022 Speech on the Energy Prices Bill

    Barry Gardiner – 2022 Speech on the Energy Prices Bill

    The speech made by Barry Gardiner, the Labour MP for Brent North, in the House of Commons on 17 October 2022.

    If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck; and if it looks like a tax and takes money like a tax, it is a tax.

    This Bill introduces another windfall tax, not on the oil and gas producers but on the renewables producers. It is in the form of a cap on the revenues that renewable and nuclear companies can make. The electricity price is set on the basis of the wholesale gas price, and when the gas price went up companies saw an increase in the price they were paid for the electricity that they produced, although they did not have to pay the increased gas prices to produce it. When the Minister for Climate, the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), told the Select Committee the other day that this was not a windfall tax, his official tried to persuade us that it was simply a reframing of the regulations, but in fact the Government are trying to force those companies into a retrospective contract for difference, and they should be honest about it.

    But look who benefits! The Government continue to allow the oil and gas companies to make excess profits from the global crisis, and also give them a way to claw back the windfall tax under the investment allowance scheme by claiming as a tax break 91p in every pound they invest in more production in the North sea. The Minister must explain why the Government are compensating these companies for the windfall tax, and also why the renewables companies—which are the ones we really need to incentivise to invest in more capacity—are being hit by this revenue cap, while not being given a similar investment allowance.

    Before the temporary windfall tax the UK levied the lowest tax take from its oil and gas producers anywhere in the world, and even with the temporary windfall tax it still taxes a full 6% below the global average. If the UK taxed these companies even at the global average, it would recover an extra £13.4 billion for the Exchequer each year. The Committee on Climate Change wrote to the previous Chancellor—when he was the previous Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy but one—saying that he should support a tighter limit on production with stringent tests and a presumption against exploration. He took no notice, and the measures in this Bill are the consequences of the Government’s now being forced to protect consumers and business from their past failure to invest in renewables.

    Last year, energy prices meant that an average family was paying £1,100. After the windfall tax and the unfunded borrowing, that will now be limited to an average of £2,500. The cost would, for the two years, be £31 billion, but given the statement from—

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)

    Order.

  • Barry Gardiner – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II

    Barry Gardiner – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II

    The tribute made by Barry Gardiner, the Labour MP for Brent North, in the House of Commons on 9 September 2022.

    This morning I was walking to the station at Wembley Central and an Afghan lady stopped me. Her language was, let us say, not much better than my Pashto, but through her accent I heard her say, “You are MP, yes?” I said that I was and asked if I could help her in any way. She shook her head and left me confused, because I thought I heard her say, “I at Green party, sorry”, and then she moved on. It took me a few moments to work out what she was actually saying. She wasn’t making a statement about her political affiliation, but saying that she had been at the Queen’s party, one of the glorious street parties that we held in Brent for the platinum jubilee. And in that simple word, “sorry”, she wanted to convey her condolences and share her own sorrow at the death of the late Her Majesty the Queen.

    In Brent we like to claim that we are the most diverse place in the world. That may even be true. We speak more than 160 languages around the dinner tables, and we have welcomed generations of immigrants, people who came to build a better life for their children, and asylum seekers like that lady from Afghanistan. She spoke for every one of my constituents in Brent when she said, “I at Queen’s party, sorry.”

    Every year for more than 40 years, my family has had a ritual. No matter whether the turkey is ready or not, Christmas dinner has to be finished in time to watch the Queen’s Christmas message at 3. I hope it does not seem disrespectful, but we used to grade them. Was it as good as last year? Would she focus on something new this time? Would there be mention of charities and visits to communities celebrating significant anniversaries or suffering from disasters? But two things were constant: the Commonwealth and her own deep, very personal faith in Jesus Christ, which was the guiding principle of her life.

    Many have spoken of her life as a pattern of duty and service, and it was. But the virtues which, in my view, her life so manifestly displayed are what Christians call the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance. As St Paul says,

    “against such there is no law.”

    Integrity is not a very fashionable thing in the public sphere these days, but her life was one of real integrity. We thank God that she brought all those virtues together in her life. It was a life that was selfless; it was a life that was whole. And now it is complete. May her soul rest in peace, and may God save the King.

  • Barry Gardiner – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

    Barry Gardiner – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

    The speech made by Barry Gardiner, the Labour MP for Brent North, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2022.

    Former Conservative Cabinet colleagues are publicly accusing each other of economic incompetence, of negligence in preventing fraud and even of being a Liberal Democrat, yet after defenestrating their party leader because they had no confidence in him, Conservative Members have decided to leave the man in place as Prime Minister of this Government. As a result, the public have no confidence in them. That is clear because the Government refuse to call a general election, as they have no confidence that they would win it.

    The 6.6 million people waiting for treatment in the NHS have no confidence in this Government. The parents of the 350,000 children on that waiting list have no confidence in them. The 50,000 imaginary nurses currently housed in the 40 presumably non-existent hospitals have no confidence in them either. The taxpayers paying the highest level of tax for 70 years and facing the highest inflation in 40 years have no confidence that this Government have the ability to tackle the record £2 trillion of debt, the highest peacetime debt the UK has ever seen.

    The victims of crime who have watched crime rise by 18% while prosecutions fall have no confidence in this Government. The people awaiting their passports because of the chaos in the Home Office have no confidence that they will be able to travel abroad for either business or a family holiday. The refugees who have a well-founded fear of persecution in Syria or Afghanistan have no confidence that they will not be deported to a country where they have no family and no connection. Women and girls have no confidence that this Government, with their inability to properly tackle sexual predation in their own ranks, will deal with the violence against them. Minority communities who experience racial profiling and have been outraged as police shared racist photos among themselves have no confidence that this Government will press for real reform.

    The families and friends of the 72 who died in Grenfell Tower have no confidence that, five years on, this Government have acted to make others safe. The 2 million families depending on food banks to feed their children have no confidence that this Government understand what it means to see their children go to bed hungry. The 5.5 million public sector workers whose real-terms wages have stagnated and declined in the past 12 years have no confidence that they can continue to pay their rent, with 9% inflation eroding their pay still further. A blind eye has been turned to jobs for sexual favours, to ministerial bullying, to crony contracts and to wine time Fridays—although people did ask “WTF?”—yet this Prime Minister wants to stay on as caretaker. Ponder that word. Is there any word in the entire English language that describes this Prime Minister less than “caretaker”? He is a reckless narcissist, and nobody inside or outside this Chamber should have confidence in his Government.

  • Barry Gardiner – 2022 Speech on Employment Agencies and Trade Unions

    Barry Gardiner – 2022 Speech on Employment Agencies and Trade Unions

    The speech made by Barry Gardiner, the Labour MP for Brent North, in the House of Commons on 11 July 2022.

    The Government seem to think that most workers are unskilled or uncertified, but agency workers are simply not there with the relevant skills and certification to perform their work in a way that is safe. I began today at the St Monica Trust, at two sites just outside Bristol, to speak to workers there who have withdrawn their labour because of the appalling offer they have been given of being fired and rehired unless they accept lower wages and terms and conditions. They were earning, on average, between £16,000 and £17,000 a year—about what a Secretary of State’s severance pay is—and they made it clear to me that their main worry and their main reason for going on strike was not actually for their own sake. They were concerned for the welfare of the residents of the residential homes and the retirement village.

    I want to ask the Minister tonight whether she will please report the St Monica Trust to the Health and Safety Executive and ensure that a positive inspection is carried out there, because the workers out on the picket line were very concerned about the safety of employing unskilled workers who do not understand the residents and are not able to care for them in the way that they have all the way through covid. They were there on Christmas day and all the time when relatives could not visit; they treated them as their family. The agency workers cannot do that.

    I want to make a couple of other brief points. Agency workers are generally paid significantly more than permanent staff, and that reflects the intermittent nature of their work. However, the employer, by paying agency rates to strike breakers in a dispute, actually makes the union’s case for it, because it shows that the employer actually can pay higher rates for the job. How very foolish of them.

    Finally, I want to ask whether the Minister might, in her summing up, explain whether the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has replied to the letter written at the end of June by Hays, Adecco, Randstad and Manpower, in conjunction with the TUC, in which they said:

    “We can only see these proposals inflaming strikes—not ending them”.

    It seems to me that, when we have the employers of the agencies themselves saying that this is a bad thing to do, the Government should listen.

  • Barry Gardiner – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Barry Gardiner – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    The speech made by Barry Gardiner, the Labour MP for Brent North, in the House of Commons on 21 October 2020.

    This debate is about priorities and it is about shame—the shame that, in the fifth richest country in the world, 30% of our children, which is 4.2 million of them, are living in poverty by the Government’s official statistics. Before the summer, Marcus Rashford publicly shamed the Government and won free school meals over the holidays. He spoke from the heart about his experience as a child when he was dependent on food banks.

    The Prime Minister now says that it is not the role of schools to provide food during the holidays. Child hunger may not be a priority for him, but it is a priority for the headteachers of my schools in Brent who have ​emailed me in the past 24 hours with their heartfelt experiences. Perhaps they will shame the Prime Minister once again.

    Rebecca Curtis, principal of ARK Elvin Academy, said:

    “In Lockdown we had children calling the school explaining they were hungry and asking what we could do—as soon as we were able to issue the FSM vouchers we were flooded with thanks from our children and their parents. The situation with unemployment in Brent is clearly so much worse now so we are really concerned about how we can support our pupils through the half term and the Christmas holidays”.

    James Simmons, the head of Oliver Goldsmith Primary School, observed:

    “Families with multiple children were able to purchase food in bigger quantities to take advantage of offers. With stress for families trying to feed children greatly reduced, they described the access to FSM as a lifeline.”

    Mrs Mistry at Sudbury Primary School said that she

    “strongly believes that FSM should be provided,”

    but cautioned that,

    “The government needs to implement a scheme that is easily manageable by schools”.

    Karen Giles, the head at Barham Primary School, made the point that,

    “Many families have had their income cut by two thirds or more and many children are going hungry. Schools need Free School Meals to be directly funded and the criteria for eligibility should be less stringent.”

    Mr Farrington, the head of the Village School, warned:

    “There is very limited provision for pupils with disabilities over the holidays and we fear many won’t receive adequate food and support. We are also aware that parents, carers and families are putting themselves in more debt and that providing for their children has had a large impact on the mental health of our families.”

    Finally, Raphael Moss, the head of Elsley Primary School, wrote that the:

    “government paying for FSM during holidays should be an absolute minimum. What is really needed is to widen the eligibility for children whose families are in receipt of Universal Credit as Marcus Rashford is campaigning for. At Elsley we had to set up a food bank to support some of our families. I cannot believe that as a Head teacher in London in 2020 I am overseeing a food bank to ensure that our children don’t go hungry. It is truly unbelievable.”

    Well, it is truly unbelievable, but the Government have the opportunity to put it right.

    It is not just about extending the voucher scheme, however. Today, five senior children’s charities published an analysis showing that even before coronavirus, local authorities were struggling to fund the need for children’s services. They say:

    “Those in the most deprived communities have suffered the greatest reductions in spending power. Funding for services for the 20% most deprived Local Authorities has fallen more than twice as fast as for the least”.

    My borough of Brent has lost £174 million since 2010.

    A recent National Audit Office report on bounce back loans found that, to support business, the Government underwrote more than £36 billion of loans in the full knowledge and acceptance that between 30% and 60% of that would have to be written off as unrepayable or even fraudulent. That is between £11 billion and £20 billion of public money wasted, yet the Government baulk at ​spending another £10 million—million—on our children. This is about priorities and it is about shame. If those are the Minister’s priorities, he should be ashamed.

  • Barry Gardiner – 2020 Speech on the Trade Bill

    Barry Gardiner – 2020 Speech on the Trade Bill

    Below is the text of the speech made by Barry Gardiner, the Labour MP for Brent North, in the House of Commons on 20 May 2020.

    The Trade Bill is a bad Bill. It is bad because it fails to establish a proper framework whereby Parliament can scrutinise, ratify and implement all future international trade treaties; because it creates one of the weakest trade remedy authorities in the world, and because it pretends that it is necessary to roll over our existing agreements with third countries through the EU. So necessary is the measure that the Minister will have great difficulty when summing up in explaining how the Government have managed to roll over the majority of them before the Bill has passed into law. This is legislative prestidigitation of the highest order. The Government say that they need the Bill to do what they proudly boast they have already succeeded in doing without it. The truth is that the Bill is about the Government’s abrogating to themselves all future power in relation to trade agreements, freed from the inconvenient scrutiny of Parliament.

    The procedure for ratifying international agreements is set out in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010—CRAGA. It stipulates that any treaty need only be laid before Parliament for 21 sitting days. If there is no vote against it during that period, it passes into law. But the Government decide Parliament’s business and can simply arrange that no vote takes place. When CRAGA was introduced, a huge number of democratic scrutiny processes were in place through the European Union. There was the European Council’s negotiation mandate and formal consultation procedures. The Committee on International Trade—the INTA Committee —scrutinised treaties before passing them to the European Parliament to vote on. Treaties then came to the European Scrutiny Committee in the Commons for further examination before the CRAGA process ratified them. Under the Bill, all that is left is the rubber stamp of CRAGA. All other layers are gone. The Bill should try to replace those layers. It cannot be right that there is no democratic oversight whatsoever of trade agreements.

    Members of Parliament may disagree about whether an agreement will benefit jobs or adequately protect standards, but they should have at least the right to debate those matters and hold the Government to account. The Bill denies us that right. This is not Parliament taking back control, but Government snatching it from Parliament. That is why I believe the Bill is dangerous.

    Let me remind Conservative Members of what they claimed to be fighting for at the last general election. They said that sovereignty meant not accepting the rulings of supranational courts such as the European Court of Justice. Do they therefore agree with us that the use of investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms in future trade agreements should be ruled out in any form? They give higher rights to foreign investors than to our own domestic companies, allowing them to sue our Government in private courts for policy decisions that have an impact on their potential profits. So much for gaining freedom from a supranational court.​

    Conservative Members said that Britain had to be free to chart its own future in the world. Do they therefore agree that negative lists of services should be banned? It is impossible to specify in a list a service that has not yet been invented. The negative list process would stop the UK Government making a decision about how such services should be provided in future. So much for making our own way in the world.

    Conservative Members said that they would safeguard our domestic environmental protections, food safety regulations and animal welfare laws, but simply keeping our regulations for our farmers here does not protect them in a free trade agreement. Allowing the importation of goods produced elsewhere to lower standards will undermine our producers and lead to a race to the bottom—so much for safeguarding our food and welfare standards.

    The Government said they would not sell off the NHS, and of course they cannot. The NHS is not an entity that can be sold, but free trade agreements can contain an innocuous-sounding provision about the restructuring of pharmaceutical pricing models. That is the way to undermine the health service—by downgrading our bulk purchasing power against big pharma companies. So much for the NHS being “safe” in their hands.

    Finally, does it follow that if this Bill is enacted, by necessity we will end up with all these measures? No, it does not. It does mean, however, that if they exist in any proposed FDA, Parliament will have no means of stopping that. This debate is about more than trade; it is about the balance of power between Parliament and the Executive. It is about the sovereignty of Parliament—something that every Tory who will vote for this obnoxious Bill swore in their manifesto to defend.