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Tag: Kim Johnson

  • Kim Johnson – 2024 Speech on the Economy, Welfare and Public Services

    Kim Johnson – 2024 Speech on the Economy, Welfare and Public Services

    The speech made by Kim Johnson, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, in the House of Commons on 22 July 2024.

    I start by congratulating all those who are making their maiden speeches today, and welcoming them to this place. I also thank my Liverpool Riverside constituents who re-elected me. I give my commitment to continue to be their voice in this place. My constituency is now the most deprived in the country, with 47% of children living in poverty. That is nearly one in every two children, and it is communities such as mine that have faced the sharpest edge of 14 years of austerity and the cost of living crisis. Nationally, 16 million people are now living in poverty; 4 million are children, and 1 million are living in destitution. I am sure everybody in this House would agree that those figures are unacceptable.

    Child poverty is completely avoidable in the sixth richest country in the world. Not tackling it stores up problems for the future, costing our economy £39 billion per year, according to calculations by the Child Poverty Action Group. It is not a question of whether we can afford to adopt vital policies to alleviate child poverty, such as lifting the two-child cap; it is a question of whether we can afford not to. This is the reason I tabled amendment (f) to the King’s Speech, with a focus on debate not division, to push for a clear timetable for scrapping the two-child cap. The End Child Poverty coalition believes this to be the most effective way to immediately lift 300,000 children out of poverty.

    There is support for this position from right across the political spectrum, and it is something that the Labour leadership has indicated that it will do as soon as financially viable, but there are pockets of money that can be found if we look hard enough. Gordon Brown has suggested that between £1.3 billion and £3.3 billion can be found by imposing a reserve requirement on banks similar to those that the European Central Bank and the Swiss banks currently have, and that £700 million can be found by simplifying the gift aid system.

    Economists believe the recent upturn in the economy means that the new Government could begin to consider bringing forward priority policies such as scrapping this cap. Others would argue that progressive taxation should also be strongly considered. The latest Department for Work and Pensions data shows that two thirds of families impacted by the two-child cap have at least one parent in full-time work. The last Labour Government had a big and bold ambition in 1997 to end child poverty within a generation. As a single working mum of twins, I personally benefited from those transformative policies. Without the availability of after-school and holiday provision, I would not have been able to continue working.

    I know we have inherited the worst financial situation since the second world war, and that Labour in government is going to have some very careful choices to make about the path forward. We have a massive mountain to climb, but we were elected with a massive majority. The country has voted for change. Removing the two-child cap would send a powerful message of hope to those who have put their trust in a Labour Government to bring about the change we so desperately need. The one in two children living in poverty in my constituency have known nothing but the tyranny of a Tory Government, hunger and hardship during their short lives. Those children cannot and must not wait any longer to be lifted out of poverty.

    As I mentioned earlier, the purpose of my amendment was to debate this very important issue, not to cause divisions, and there has been lots of debate this week but we need action. This punitive policy needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history, where it belongs, and in its place we need policies to lift 4 million children out of poverty. Let us put these children and our country first. I call on the Chancellor to make some immediate changes here.

  • Kim Johnson – 2023 Statement to the House on her Personal Conduct

    Kim Johnson – 2023 Statement to the House on her Personal Conduct

    The statement made by Kim Johnson, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, in the House of Commons on 1 February 2023.

  • Kim Johnson – 2023 Comments on Israel Being a “Fascist State”

    Kim Johnson – 2023 Comments on Israel Being a “Fascist State”

    The comments made by Kim Johnson, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, in the House of Commons on 1 February 2023.

    Kim Johnson

    Since the election of the fascist Israeli Government in December last year, there has been an increase in human rights violations against Palestinian civilians, including children. Can the Prime Minister tell us how he is challenging what Amnesty and other human rights organisations are referring to as an apartheid state?

    The Prime Minister

    The hon. Lady failed to mention the horrific attacks on civilians inside Israel as well. It is important in this matter to remain calm and urge all sides to strive for peace, and that is very much what I will do as Prime Minister and have done in the conversations that I have had with the Israeli Prime Minister.

  • Kim Johnson – 2022 Speech on the Health and Social Care Levy (Repeal) Bill

    Kim Johnson – 2022 Speech on the Health and Social Care Levy (Repeal) Bill

    The speech made by Kim Johnson, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, in the House of Commons on 11 October 2022.

    I welcome this decision to repeal the regressive hikes to national insurance, which would have seen those least able to pay with the heaviest proportional tax burden to tackle the crisis in social care. This is the right thing to do, but it should never have happened in the first place. Tax rises on the poorest, especially during a cost of living crisis, are cruel and unnecessary.

    We now need urgent reassurances from the Minister that new funding for adult social care will come from progressive taxation and the pockets of those who can most afford it. We must be clear that a U-turn is not a plan; it is the absence of one. We still have no answers from the Government about how they plan to tackle the crisis in adult social care or where the funding will come from, other than to wait until 31 October for the medium-term fiscal plan.

    Twelve years of Tory austerity have already seen £8 billion taken out of the social care system. Now we are facing a winter of hardship driven by the rampant cost of living crisis. Instead of bringing forward measures that will help the poorest and those most in need, the Government are prioritising tax cuts for the rich and public service cuts for the rest of us. They have removed the triple-lock protections on pensions and are refusing to commit to raising benefits in line with inflation. They have made disastrous economic decisions that have crashed the economy and made the cost of living crisis one of the worst among comparable countries.

    Local governments are being forced to make further crippling cuts, as well as find extra money for energy costs and inflation to maintain their public services. We know that adult social care provision will suffer. Liverpool has lost £465 million of our budget since the start of austerity, which is more than two thirds of our overall budget since 2010. Liverpool, like other cities, has a growing elderly population with increasing complex needs, including dementia.

    We urgently need a big injection of funding to councils’ care budgets alongside a social care workforce strategy to meet rising demands. We are facing unprecedented staff shortages in the health and social care sectors, with more than 165,000 vacancies and a massive staff turnover of 30% a year. In Liverpool, 15% of our social care workers are employed on zero-hours contracts and we have a vacancy rate of over 10%. Without action, the consequences will be devastating. We must be absolutely clear: a shortage of staff costs lives. It is as simple as that.

    We are about to face a second round of Tory austerity, with £43 billion to be slashed from public services that have already been decimated during 12 years of Tory Government. Instead of more cuts, we need a serious injection of cash into adult social care and a plan to bring those services back in-house to end the rampant profiteering of companies backed by private equity funds, which sucks public money out of the system and out of services and straight into tax havens in the Cayman Islands to be hoarded by the super-rich. Decent pay, terms and conditions for undervalued employees must take centre stage of any serious plans to tackle the deep-rooted structural issues in the social care sector along with a long-term workforce strategy and improved quality and standards of care.

    The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has committed to maintaining the same levels of funding on health and social care despite today’s cancellation of the levy. However, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are crowing about this reversal to national insurance contributions as a key victory in their tax-cutting agenda, which will see £43 billion slashed from public services. Will the Minister confirm whether the Government will commit to spending the same planned £12.4 billion a year over the next three years that would have been raised by this levy? A simple yes or no answer would be great, thank you.

  • Kim Johnson – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    Kim Johnson – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    The speech made by Kim Johnson, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, in the House of Commons on 17 May 2022.

    Chronic Tory under-investment in our public services and our communities means that we have barely begun to recover from the last recession, and we are standing on the brink of another. With inflation now predicted to exceed 10%, the combination of soaring food and fuel prices, inflation and low pay is driving millions into poverty, hardship and hunger. For my constituents in Liverpool, Riverside and across the country, the Queen’s Speech provides little hope or comfort, especially for those experiencing extreme poverty: pensioners forced to spend the day on buses just to keep warm; children going to school hungry; and private renters terrified they are not going to be able to keep a roof over their heads. Household finances are at breaking point, with bad bosses driving down wages and working conditions, driving in-work poverty through the roof.

    Meanwhile the richest 1%, the wealthy individuals, corporations and the energy giants are reporting eye-watering record profits. The boss of Shell received a £1.1 million pay rise, while the Governor of the Bank of England is telling workers not to ask their employers for a pay rise; this is the height of hypocrisy. No matter what pathetic and insulting excuses this Government give for the last 12 years of failures to support struggling families—telling poor people to take cooking lessons, get a better-paid job, or shop for bargain brands—this poverty is a political choice. This Government have chosen not to support those most in need, forcing working people into food banks and into an impossible choice between heating and eating, while the profits of the wealthiest go through the roof.

    The stark reality is that this is a class war. Nowhere is that more devastating than in the soaring rates of child poverty. In Liverpool, Riverside, the equivalent of 10 children in a class of 30 are already living in poverty, and a record-breaking two thirds of them are living in working families. That is why I have tabled an amendment to the Queen’s Speech that includes measures to address sky-rocketing levels of child poverty. These are clear, simple actions that prove the cost of living crisis is not inevitable; it is a political choice. We need action, and we need it now, with the introduction of a windfall tax, the minimum wage being set at £15 an hour, and by reinstating and extending the £20 uplift to universal credit and all benefits.

    Instead of levelling up, the Tories are doing what they do best: levelling down. The worst of the cost of living crisis is yet to come, which is why I urge all across the House to support the amendment.

  • Kim Johnson – 2020 Speech on the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

    Kim Johnson – 2020 Speech on the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

    Below is the text of the speech made by Kim Johnson, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, in the House of Commons on 2 June 2020.

    I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important Bill. However, I believe that basing the review on the number of registered electors as of 1 December 2020 will not provide an accurate or up-to-date picture of our current electorate and will have huge implications for cities such as mine with universities. The 1 December 2020 register is the enumeration date for the review, meaning that the size of the electorate on 1 December will be used throughout the new boundary review as the officially recognised size of the current electorate. I believe that that will cause many issues, as the electoral register is likely to be severely impacted by the current crisis. The coronavirus is likely to have a significant effect on the annual canvass, meaning that the registers will be less accurate and complete than other recent registers.

    The constituency that I represent—Liverpool, Riverside —has an electorate of almost 73,500 and three universities, with an estimated 70,000 students living in the city. The data proposed is two decades old, but it is estimated that the electorate has increased by at least 2 million since the last boundary changes. There are also widespread concerns that, due to the coronavirus, many students ​will not return to their universities by December 2020, meaning that thousands of students from across the country will not be registered to vote. This will significantly skew the electoral size of university towns, where the student population is dense. As a result, constituency boundaries will not reflect the true size or make-up of the constituency under normal circumstances.

    To conclude, I urge the Government to consider using the December 2019 electoral register as the enumeration date for the review. This would capture a highly representative snapshot of the electorate in the run-up to the 2019 general election. That date would also prevent any delay to the review, thereby allowing new boundaries to be in place for the next general election.