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Tag: Miriam Cates

  • Miriam Cates – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Miriam Cates – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Miriam Cates, the Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, in the House of Commons on 20 March 2023.

    I am delighted that the Chancellor has set aside £4 billion to help families with young children. I am less delighted with how he is choosing to spend it. I am referring to the massive expansion of the 30-hour childcare scheme to include babies from the age of nine months. The stated aim of this policy is to get parents back into work and to grow the economy, but unfortunately it will probably fail on both counts. It will not get parents back into work, and the evidence of that comes from the current 30-hour offer for three and four-year-olds, which has had limited success, with only 40% of eligible families using their full entitlement. That is not surprising, because it is not free and it is inflexible, being restricted to only 38 weeks a year and between 9 am and 3 pm—not many jobs fit those requirements.

    Polling shows that a great many parents would understandably prefer to look after their children themselves. A recent IFS study showed that free childcare does not have a significant impact on parents’ childcare and work decisions. If these are the problems with the three to four-year-old offer, they will be even more acute with the nine months to two years offer. We are also forgetting that families in this country keep so little of what they earn that it is often not worth going back to work even if the childcare is cheaper.

    The Treasury and others keep repeating the mantra that British parents face the highest childcare costs in the western world. That is not actually true. The absolute costs of childcare in the UK are similar to those in other countries. The problem is that British families’ childcare costs are a higher proportion of families’ net income than in comparable countries. So the problem is not the childcare costs; it is the low net income. That is the result of taking so much money off parents in tax, in comparison with other countries, combined with meagre child benefits, also in comparison with other countries.

    The root of this problem is our unique individual taxation system, which does not recognise households with children and results in British families paying three, four, five, or even 10 times the amount of tax as families in other countries. It particularly penalises single-earner households or households with a large difference in earnings between the two partners. Under this policy, for example, a mother might return to work because the childcare costs are now reduced. She might earn a £20,000 gross salary, out of which she has to pay taxation, national insurance, pension contributions, student loan repayments and travel costs, while her universal credit and childcare top-ups could be withdrawn. Out of her gross salary of a little under £1,700 a month, she will be lucky to keep £290. That is an effective tax rate of nearly 80%. Some people will return to work for that, but many will not because of what they are losing in time with their children, so I do not expect take-up to be high.

    Will this policy grow the economy? It might increase GDP if more people return to the employment market, but what does it mean in real terms for real people’s lives? Will GDP per capita grow? I think that is highly unlikely, because when mothers return to work it creates more low-paying jobs in childcare and elderly care—important but low-paying jobs—which increases the gender pay gap. This has happened in Denmark, for example, which has three times the gender pay gap that we have here in the UK.

    I do not believe the policy will see mums flooding back to work and I do not think it will grow the economy in meaningful terms, but even if I am wrong, I still believe it is the wrong policy because it is the wrong policy for children. What is best for baby in the early years? The bond between mother and child is probably the strongest human relationship there is. This is not just a soppy feeling; it is a highly evolved survival mechanism, and strong attachment in the early years pays dividends in later life. There are many great people in the childcare sector, but no one replaces mummy.

    It is heartbreaking when mothers feel they have no choice but to leave their babies in childcare from a very young age because of the financial imperative. Yes, there is a cost of living problem, and many women want to work for all sorts of reasons and should absolutely be supported to do so, but the issue for many families is not the cost of childcare per se, any more than it is the cost of food or energy; it is the inability to live on one income when children are young. This is what separates many women from their children: not choice, but tragic necessity.

    The Treasury thinks the answer to our financial challenges is to send more mothers to work. I think the answer is to support all families in the early years to give parents a choice. We have £4 billion for this new policy and £4 billion for existing policies, so why not use this to fund a move to household taxation and to increase child benefits? Why not spend that £6,500 a year per child in a different way, to give parents the choice of how they spend it, perhaps on formal childcare, on informal childcare or on spending fewer hours in the workplace?

    Elite feminism might say that motherhood is drudgery and inferior to paid work outside the home, but that is only true if we believe that status and meaning derive principally from our salary and status in the workplace. “I wish I’d spent more time in the office instead of with my small children”, said no one on their deathbed ever. Those making these policies think of women with high-flying, highly paid careers, and of course those women should be supported to stay in work and maintain their careers, but that is not most women. Most women have jobs, not careers. As Dan Hitchens wrote in UnHerd last week, those advocating for these policies

    “assume that taking your little one to Wriggle and Rhyme at the public library is an unutterable burden, whereas stacking shelves or updating spreadsheets is a liberation of the human spirit.”

    It is fundamentally un-Conservative to spend £4 billion separating parents from their babies in the pursuit of marginal gains to GDP. We offer tax breaks and incentives to reduce costs for companies investing in the economy. Why not offer the same to families nurturing the source of our future economic success? I commend the amount of money being spent on the early years, but please can it be used to offer parents a choice and babies the best start in life?

  • Miriam Cates – 2023 Parliamentary Question on Political Impartiality Guidance for Schools

    Miriam Cates – 2023 Parliamentary Question on Political Impartiality Guidance for Schools

    The parliamentary question asked by Miriam Cates, the Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, in the House of Commons on 16 January 2023.

    Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)

    What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of political impartiality guidance for schools.

    The Minister of State, Department for Education (Nick Gibb)

    The law is clear that schools must prohibit the promotion of partisan political views and take steps to ensure the balanced presentation of opposing views on political issues when they are taught. Guidance to schools on political impartiality was published in February 2022. It summarises the legal position and states that clear and proportionate steps should be taken to ensure that those legal duties are met.

    Miriam Cates

    You do not have to be a historian, Mr Speaker, to understand the dangers of indoctrinating children, yet YouGov polling for Policy Exchange shows that the majority of UK children are being taught political ideology as fact in school. That includes gender ideology that children can be born in the wrong body and men can have babies; critical race theories that race is a social construct; or sex positivity, such as in the document I have here that instructs teachers of children with learning disabilities to simulate sexual arousal on anatomically correct dolls while playing sexy music in class. These are not isolated incidents but are endemic in our schools. The guidance is not working. What does the Minister intend to do about it?

    Nick Gibb

    The guidance on political impartiality makes it very clear that when teaching about sensitive political issues relating to discrimination teachers should be mindful of avoiding the promotion of partisan views or presenting contested theories as fact. Schools need to ensure that any resources used in the classroom, particularly those produced by an external organisation, are age-appropriate, suitable and politically impartial. Schools should consult parents and share lesson materials when parents ask to see them.

  • Miriam Cates – 2023 Parliamentary Question on Empowering Local Communities

    Miriam Cates – 2023 Parliamentary Question on Empowering Local Communities

    The parliamentary question asked by Miriam Cates, the Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, in the House of Commons on 9 January 2023.

    Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)

    What steps his Department is taking to empower local communities.

    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Dehenna Davison)

    The Government are of course committed to seeing more empowered and accountable local leadership, and we believe that devolution is the key to ensuring that that happens. Alongside the existing nine devolution deals already in place, last year the Government announced deals with six new areas, which will provide them with over £4 billion to help drive growth and innovation, and to help them respond to the challenges and needs in their areas.

    Miriam Cates

    The town deal initiative has been very successful in empowering communities by enabling local people to decide for themselves how regeneration money will be spent. We are delighted in Stocksbridge to have had final sign-off on our town deal, which is £24 million of Government investment that is going to transform our high street, improve transport and enable people of all ages to flourish in our town. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that the towns fund initiative should be a blueprint for future levelling-up projects, and will she honour Stocksbridge—I believe it is not very far at all from where she grew up—with a visit to see this community power in action?

    Dehenna Davison

    Well, I cannot possibly say no now, as a proud south Yorkshire lass, can I? My hon. Friend is a fantastic champion for Stocksbridge, and I congratulate her and the Stocksbridge board on securing £24.1 million to respond directly to the needs of the town. The town deal model is indeed a strong one, and I can assure her that responding to the views of local communities and stakeholders, including the local MP, will continue to be at the core of our approach to levelling up.

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    I thank the Minister for her answer. What assessment has the hon. Lady made of the implications for her policies of the UK100 “Local Net Zero Delivery Progress Report” on local powers, which are critical for that very progress to actually happen?

    Dehenna Davison

    I thank the hon. Member for his question. Our net zero strategy sets out our commitments to enable local areas to deliver net zero and recognises that local authorities can and do play an essential role in delivering on our climate action. The UK100 “Local Net Zero Delivery Progress Report” forms part of a growing body of evidence that reviews what is going on with net zero.

  • Miriam Cates – 2022 Speech on Levelling Up Rural Britain

    Miriam Cates – 2022 Speech on Levelling Up Rural Britain

    The speech made by Miriam Cates, the Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, in the House of Commons on 9 November 2022.

    On the Conservative Benches at least, there has been some competition over who has the biggest constituency. I cannot compete on size, but I believe that I have the most beautiful constituency. From the rugged splendour of the Midhope Moors, to the picturesque village of Cawthorne, the classical setting of Wentworth castle and the stunning landscapes of the Derwent valley, my Penistone and Stocksbridge constituency is a wonderful place in which to live.

    Rural life has many advantages. It retains a sense of community that is often absent in big cities, and a connection with the physical realm—the seasons, the nature, the weather—that remind us of important realities and natural limits that can sometimes be forgotten in an increasingly virtual world. However, for many people, rural life is not an idyllic existence. My constituents share many of the challenges of urban areas, such as the rising cost of living and access to affordable family housing, but we also face some unique disadvantages that highlight the pressing need to include rural Britain in the levelling-up agenda. To state the obvious, and as other Members have said, the lower population density of rural places means that service models that work in urban areas are much less viable in our communities. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) put this eloquently. The metrics that are used to describe the viability of urban services just do not work in rural areas; they have to have special cases.

    I want to speak particularly about bus services, which over recent months have declined significantly in my constituency. Residents of Stocksbridge, Grenoside, Chapeltown, High Green, Ecclesfield, Wharncliffe Side, Oughtibridge and other villages have seen services reduced or even disappearing altogether, cutting people off from jobs, education, training, healthcare and leisure.

    The impact on everyday life cannot be overstated. The old are left stranded at bus stops, the young arrive late for school and workers are forced to pay for taxis to get to work. Local employers offering good jobs have told me of their difficulty in recruiting because their premises are no longer served by bus. The vision of levelling up is to spread opportunity evenly around the country, but it really does not matter how much opportunity there is if people cannot get to it.

    What has gone wrong in South Yorkshire, particularly rural South Yorkshire, and how can we fix it? Services were struggling even before covid, but the post-pandemic environment has been a perfect storm for rural bus services in South Yorkshire. From my meetings with Stagecoach and First Bus, it is clear that patronage has fallen sharply at the same time as fuel costs have increased.

    I was pleased to be successful over the summer in persuading the Government to release a third round of the covid bus recovery grant. But, crucially, the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority’s bus service improvement plan bid failed completely, which resulted in our region’s receiving not a single penny while neighbouring authorities in Manchester, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire received tens of millions of pounds.

    I am grateful to the Bus Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), for meeting me this morning to discuss the issue, but I urge the Minister responding to this debate, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), to press this matter with his Government colleagues. My constituents pay the same taxes as everybody else. It is not their fault that our combined authority’s bid did not meet an acceptable standard.

    Things may look bleak, but I believe there are some glimmers of hope. We have had local successes with the new No. 25 and No. 26 routes around Penistone and a new service connecting Northern College with Barnsley. Those services have reconnected isolated villages and are based on an innovative small bus model pioneered by the excellent South Pennine Community Transport.

    In Stocksbridge and Deepcar, we have plans to use our towns fund to commission new buses to help residents to travel around our towns—for anyone who has not been there, Stocksbridge is incredibly steep and people absolutely need a bus to get back up the hill. We are also progressing with plans to restore a passenger rail service along the Upper Don valley and we have a levelling-up fund bid to improve the Penistone line.

    However, we need to accept that a one-size-fits-all approach to public transport just does not work. Rural services will never be as profitable as urban routes, but, if they are designed sensibly around what communities actually want, if they are regular and reliable with easy-to-understand timetables, they can be self-sustaining, as we have seen with our new routes. Ultimately, levelling up rural transport requires a localism agenda, putting commissioning in the hands of local people—our town, parish and local councils—and with a funding model that recognises the unique challenges of rural life.

  • Miriam Cates – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

    Miriam Cates – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

    The speech made by Miriam Cates, the Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2022.

    May I begin by saying that my colleagues on the Government Benches look very much alive to me?

    Looking back over the last two and a half years, I think we can say with confidence that the Government have done a lot of things well. We left the EU when so many said that that was not possible. Our covid response has been one of the best in the world. The furlough scheme, delivered at extraordinary speed, prevented the horror of mass unemployment. Early decisions taken on vaccine procurement saved countless lives, and enabled the UK to leave lockdown sooner than almost any comparable nation. On Ukraine, this Government and our Prime Minister have led from the front, not only in terms of sanctions but in providing military and moral support.

    In my constituency, the Government are delivering on our manifesto promises to level up. The towns fund will see £24 million invested in Stocksbridge and Deepcar. Government grants have rescued cultural assets such as the Paramount cinema. A new “fibre in the water” project in Penistone offers the possibility of rolling out high-speed broadband to rural homes. The Prime Minister’s personal intervention on behalf of the steel industry, in particular to keep the steel safeguards, has been a boost for local industry and an important demonstration of this Government’s commitment to areas that were once the powerhouse of this country, and can be again.

    No Administration is perfect, and ours has made its fair share of mistakes, but this Government have done many things, nationally and locally, to inspire confidence. Of course, I speak in the context of huge uncertainty at the heart of Government. The Prime Minister has resigned—I have lost track of who has not resigned—and we are in the middle of the process of choosing a new leader. The events of the last six months will be chewed over relentlessly in the coming years, but let us not forget that, despite the Prime Minister’s mistakes and misjudgments, 14 million people voted for our party under his leadership, securing the biggest Conservative majority for three decades. Unlike so many other politicians, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) has the ability to inspire, to uplift, and to connect with those who feel that the British establishment does not represent them, their communities or their values.

    After 2016, the reputation of Parliament suffered, as ordinary people looked on while “the establishment”—as they saw it—sought to overturn the biggest popular mandate of all time. My concern is that when a coalition of the media, the Opposition and, sadly, some within our party work relentlessly—and, now, ultimately successfully—to destabilise a Prime Minister with such an extraordinary democratic mandate, we may once more be accused of trying to thwart the democratic will of the people.

    As we on these Benches are engaged in the process of choosing our next leader, let us consider this. No one is without fault. No one is without a past. No one who has the skills, experience and charisma to lead our great nation will never make a mistake. No one has never lied. We have been told that the Prime Minister had to go because of his lack of integrity and a tendency to change his mind. The previous Prime Minister had to go because she had too much integrity and refused to change her mind. Perhaps, like Goldilocks, we will now find our “just right”. But our party is a broad church, and we have a broad range of candidates vying to lead it. Whoever wins, we must unite behind his or her leadership, and stand firm against attempts to throw us off course. Perhaps the question is not “Who is ready to lead?”, but “Are we ready to be led?”

    So yes, Madam Deputy Speaker, I do have confidence in this Government. I have confidence in the British people who put this Government in place, and I wish the new Prime Minister—

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)

    Order. The hon. Lady’s time is up. I call Hannah Bardell.

  • Miriam Cates – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    Miriam Cates – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    The speech made by Miriam Cates, the Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, in the House of Commons on 17 May 2022.

    Prices have indeed soared in recent months, driven by a number of global factors such as covid and the war in Ukraine. Millions of people are finding it harder to make ends meet. So far, the Government have provided £22 billion of support, including the council tax rebate, a cut to fuel duty and the household support fund, but the heartbreaking stories we have heard in this debate, for example those shared by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), show that we need to do more. In particular, I think we should urgently review universal credit rates. However, we must also be mindful of the inflationary pressures of pumping more borrowed money into the economy and the long-term debt implications for our children and grandchildren.

    I welcome the Bills announced in the Queen’s Speech to tackle the cost of living in the long term by addressing some of the structural issues that have caused prices to rise and wages to stagnate. I welcome the energy security Bill, which will secure our energy supply; I welcome the Schools Bill and the higher education Bill, which will drive up standards and offer a lifetime loan entitlement so that people can upskill at any point in their lives. We should also reconsider whether some of the £11 billion a year cost of higher education should be redirected to vocational and technical education to meet skills demands.

    I welcome the procurement Bill and the Brexit freedoms Bill. We must make sure that this legislation provides opportunities for British industry, especially the UK steel industry, to win public sector contracts.

    I support many of the planning reforms laid out in the levelling up Bill, but we must build far more homes so as to have an impact on prices. We should focus on developing whole new towns, and build hundreds of thousands of social houses, restoring the hope of having a decent home to young people.

    The Bills laid out in the Queen’s Speech will do much to tackle the cost of living in the long term, growing the economy and tackling rising prices, but the elephant in the room is taxation. The biggest cost in many people’s lives now is the state, with taxation levels at a 70-year high. Many Conservative Members, and our constituents, are deeply uncomfortable with this level of taxation. However, not so long ago, when the welfare state was born, life expectancy was 65, people started work at 15, and few lived long into retirement, while the state was not required to pay for childcare or adult social care because women and the wider community provided it unpaid. Now, longer life expectancy, many years spent in education and retirement, and ever better healthcare have increased, probably permanently, the cost of the state.

    So what can be done? We might not be able to reduce the overall tax burden significantly, although economic growth, improving our health and strengthening our social fabric will help, but we can reform our taxation system to share the burden more fairly. Our system of individual income taxation takes no account of how many people each income supports, so a single person earning the average salary of £30,000 a year is obviously better off than a single-earner family of four where the earning parent’s wage is also £30,000. The single person has only themselves to support, yet the family have to feed, clothe and heat four people, but both pay more or less the same amount of tax. This individualistic approach to taxation means that to have the same standard of living as a single person on a wage of £30,000, a family of four must earn £74,500—an unachievable figure for many. That makes us an outlier. Many other countries, such as France, Germany and the US, take into account the number of people an income supports. Our system makes it very hard for families to work their way out of poverty, discourages family stability, and fails to recognise the important contribution that parents make to society.

    I welcome the Bills introduced in the Queen’s Speech, which will tackle the cost of living in the long term, but we must be realistic about taxation—yes, reducing it where possible, but prioritising reforms that tackle generational inequalities and put children first.