Tag: Speeches

Rachel Maclean – 2020 Statement on Bus Fare Data

Below is the text of the statement made by Rachel Maclean, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

I beg to move,

That the draft Public Service Vehicles (Open Data) (England) Regulations 2020, which were laid before this House on 13 May, be approved.

The draft regulations are being made in order to provide new legislation to require bus operators of local bus services across England outside London, including cross-border services, to openly publish data electronically about their services, including timetables, fares and location data.

This is open data that is published electronically. It is publicly discoverable and can be used by those who wish to do so without restrictions on its use and disclosure. Open data has transformed other sectors—for example, rail—with open data feeding customer-facing apps, such as Trainline and National Rail Enquiries, simplifying journey planning and ticket purchase. Bus open data will allow app developers to create applications, products and services for passengers so that they can plan journeys, find best-value tickets and receive real-time service updates. That is absolutely essential if we are to encourage the travelling public to use their local bus services and make the switch to public transport, which is vital to reducing congestion and improving air quality.

Since 2007, Transport for London has made all its bus and transport network data freely available through the London data store. Currently, more than half of these journeys—51%—are in London, with the remaining 49% across the rest of the country. Apps such as Citymapper and Bus Times are together found to be delivering economic benefits of between £90 million and £130 million a year.

Transport for West Midlands has also invested heavily to improve its public transport data in recent years and is one of the few areas to report year-on-year growth— of 7.8 million journeys—against a continuing backdrop of decline in bus passenger journeys elsewhere. Those statistics show that we can change how buses are perceived and attract new customers.

Currently, Citymapper only operates in Birmingham and London, but we need to enable the provision of such apps and services up and down the country. For example, the rules will mean that any operator of a local bus service across England must publish their timetable, fares and location data to the bus open data service before that service comes into operation. The rules will be enforced by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, which will be able to conduct checks to ensure that the operator is complying.

In domestic law, where a local bus service is being operated across England, operators will be legally required to make the information freely available to comply with the Public Service Vehicles (Open Data) (England) Regulations 2020. Punctuality data will also be legally required and local transport authorities will be legally responsible for maintaining data about bus stops and stations.

It is a civil offence for any operator of a service to be in breach of the requirements in the regulations and the regulations will be commenced in a phased manner, with timetables and stop data requirements being enforceable from 31 December 2020. Basic fares and location data will be enforceable from 7 January 2021, with complex fares being added from 7 January 2023. Breaches of the requirements by operators can be enforced under existing provisions in section 155 of the Transport Act 2000. The draft instrument ensures that those operators who breach the new requirements may be faced with financial penalties or the removal of their licence. The fines can be up to £550, and that sum might be multiplied by the number of vehicles operating under all the PSV operator licences held. The policy area of public service vehicles open data is devolved, but Scotland and Wales are currently preparing equivalent legislation.

In summary, the regulations are essential for ensuring that the operators of local bus services are compelled to make essential information freely available to help passengers plan their journeys. The rules are at the heart of improving the public transport experience, digitally transforming the bus sector and the levelling-up agenda. I am sure that Members share my desire to ensure the rules can be fully enforced as soon as possible. I commend the regulations to the House.

June 22, 2020
Rachael Maskell – 2020 Comments on Covid-19 and the Charity Sector

Below is the text of the comments made by Rachael Maskell, the Shadow Minister the Voluntary Sector and Charities, on 19 June 2020.

The economic challenges of Covid-19 have had a devastating impact on charities. Charities have lost much of their income and half of charity staff have been furloughed. Without further support measures, there may be many more significant redundancies across the sector.

Many people across the country rely on the variety of services and support the charity sector provides. However, while fundraising is limited and without Government intervention, many of these charities will be unable to cope with the increased demand of their services.

This is deeply concerning and Labour is calling on Government to provide the recovery support needed. Not to do so will place enormous pressure on public services and will result in many people in our communities struggling without the vital support and care they need.

June 21, 2020
Pat McFadden – 2020 Speech on Financial Markets after Exiting the European Union

Below is the text of the speech made by Pat McFadden, the Labour MP for Wolverhampton South East, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

Like many who have spoken in the Chamber today, on the fourth anniversary of her death, my thoughts are very much with our former colleague Jo Cox and her family.

As we heard from the Minister’s opening statement, these statutory instruments are quite technical in nature. I would like to thank him for his welcome, and to thank him and his officials for providing some briefing on their meaning and effect. Overall, these instruments seek to replicate at national level the regulatory regime for financial services to which we currently subscribe—and which in many cases the UK designed—at EU level. Until the end of the transition period, we will of course continue to follow the EU’s regulatory rulebook. This is about what will happen in January if, as the Government confirmed last week, the end of this year marks the end of the transition period.

As the Minister outlined, the regulations cover areas such as money laundering, supervision, central counterparties, the cross-border distribution of funds and the desire to maintain the pre-Brexit relationship between the UK and Gibraltar on financial services. In most of these cases, they are taking the supervision of the rules governing these areas from EU bodies and transferring them to either the Treasury, the Bank of England or the Financial Conduct Authority.

On the detail, I have a few questions I would like to put to the Minister. On the money laundering provisions, why is the current duty to co-operate with supervisors in other countries being removed and replaced with the weaker power to co-operate if we so choose? In what circumstances would we not want to co-operate to tackle money laundering, which can fund everything from international terrorism to the drugs trade? On cross-border distribution of funds, can the Minister confirm that these statutory instruments enshrine the loss of passporting rights for our financial services that will result from the Government’s decision to withdraw from the single market as well as from the EU itself? On equivalence determinations, can he confirm that, although these SIs create a regime for the UK to make decisions on the regulatory regime in other countries, as yet we have no guarantee that our own regulatory regime will be regarded as equivalent by the rest of the EU?

We can only hope that this exercise in taking back control is a little more convincing than last week’s decision on border checks from the Cabinet Office. After having four years to prepare, the Government dropped their plans for border checks on goods because we simply could not implement them, even though our own goods will be subject to border checks when we export them overseas.

Paragraph 36 of the political declaration, on which the current negotiation is based, states that the UK should have concluded its equivalence assessments by the end of this month. If we are only now legislating to take the powers to do that, can that exercise possibly be completed in just two weeks’ time?

Taken together, these changes and others in similar statutory instruments represent a significant increase in the functions and power of the Treasury, the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority. What accountability arrangements will there be for those bodies in the exercise of their new powers? Alongside the transfer of functions, accountability must surely be enhanced if claims of restoring parliamentary sovereignty are to mean anything in reality.

More broadly, there is an obvious contradiction at the heart of all this. These regulations are intended to ensure continuity for UK financial services at the end of the transition period, yet the Government’s stated intention for withdrawal is to erect new trade barriers between our financial services and the rest of the EU, so even as we replicate at UK level the EU regulations that we played such a big part in designing, we are pursuing a course that will be incapable of replicating the market access that we have at the moment.

That is not my judgment; it is the stated aim of Government policy. It is the equivalent of one of the shops reopening this week and putting lots of new stock in its window but telling a substantial proportion of its previous customers that they are no longer welcome to shop in the store. For all the debate there has been about Brexit, its impact on services has not been debated nearly as much as it should have been.

We are not dealing here with just-in-time supply chains and trucks on ferries; we are dealing with regulations and rules. We are taking the area that makes up 80% of our economy and, in the case of financial services, a sector in which we trade at a substantial surplus with other countries, and inserting new barriers between us and our nearest customers. The fact that the sector is resigned to that and has established alternative bases in Dublin, Luxembourg or wherever does not change the reality of it.

We do not intend to divide the House on these measures, because regulatory continuity is better than not having a regime in place at all, but no amount of duplication can avoid the basic fact that although we can replicate the rules, we cannot replicate the market access to which these rules apply at the moment and for which they were designed in the first place.

June 21, 2020
John Glen – 2020 Statement on Financial Markets after Exiting the European Union

Below is the text of the statement made by John Glen, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

I welcome my opposite number, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), to his place. He has a distinguished history of public service and I look forward to a constructive dialogue with him today and on future occasions.

As the House will be aware, the Treasury has been undertaking a significant programme of financial services legislation since 2018, introducing almost 60 statutory instruments under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. It has been an enormous privilege for me to do the vast majority of those measures. These SIs were made prior to exit day—31 January 2020—and covered all essential legislative changes needed to ensure a coherent and functioning financial services regime at the point of exit, had the UK not entered a transition period.

The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 received Royal Assent in January this year. The 2020 Act contains a general rule that delays those parts of the SIs that would have come into force immediately before, on or after exit day, so that they instead come into force by reference to the end of the transition period, which we leave at the end of this year. Over the course of this year the Treasury will therefore, where necessary, continue to use powers under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, as amended by the 2020 Act, to prepare for 1 January 2021. This will involve the Treasury bringing forward a small number of SIs that, in particular, will ensure that recently applicable EU legislation will operate effectively in the UK at the end of the transition period. The SIs before the House today are two such instruments. The approach taken in these SIs is aligned with the general approach established by the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018, providing continuity by retaining existing legislation at the end of the transition period but amending where necessary to ensure effectiveness in the UK-only context.

I turn to the draft Over the Counter Derivatives, Central Counterparties and Trade Repositories (Amendment, etc., and Transitional Provision) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020. From now on, I will refer to this instrument as the OTC SI. In preparation for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU on 31 January 2020, Parliament approved several EU exit instruments to ensure that the European market infrastructure regulation would continue to operate effectively in the UK at the point of exit. EMIR was updated on 1 January this year by a regulation known as EMIR 2.2, which now applies in the UK. The OTC SI that we are discussing today address deficiencies in the UK’s post-transition framework arising as a result of that update.

EMIR is Europe’s response to the G20 Pittsburgh commitment in 2009 to regulate over-the-counter derivative markets in the aftermath of the last financial crisis. EMIR mandates the use of central counterparties, known as CCPs, to manage risk between users of derivative products. EMIR has been effective in increasing the safety and transparency of derivative markets, thereby reducing the associated risks that users may face, and UK CCPs play an essential role in reducing systemic risk and ensuring the efficient functioning of global financial markets.

EMIR 2.2 introduced an updated third country or non-EU CCP supervision framework, including an updated recognition regime. This means that EU authorities can have greater oversight over third country CCPs that are systemically important to the EU. Perhaps the most substantial update in EMIR 2.2 is the ability for the European Securities and Markets Authority to tier third country CCPs according to their systemic importance to the EU as part of the recognition process. ESMA will now take on certain supervisory responsibilities for systemic third country CCPs known as tier 2 CCPs.

This OTC SI updates the UK’s recognition framework in line with EMIR 2.2 by transferring ESMA’s new powers to the Bank of England after we leave the transition period. That includes the ability to tier non-UK CCPs as part of the recognition process, and to supervise non-UK CCPs that are systemically important to the UK. The Bank of England has already been given the power to recognise non-UK CCPs wishing to operate in the UK in an earlier SI under the EU (Withdrawal) Act. EMIR 2.2 also empowers the Commission to adopt delegated Acts setting out the details of how the framework will function in practice. This includes how tiering and deference to the rules of home authorities referred to as “comparable compliance” will function. This instrument transfers the power to establish these frameworks to the Bank of England.

Since the Bank already has responsibility for safeguarding financial stability in general, and managing systemic risk in CCPs in particular, this is an appropriate conferral of functions as it allows the Bank to manage the systemic risk posed by some non-UK CCPs in a way that is appropriate for the UK. The statutory instrument therefore transfers the remaining Commission functions—including the power to deploy the so-called location policy—to Her Majesty’s Treasury.

Under EMIR 2.2, ESMA can recommend to the Commission that a third-country CCP that is felt to be substantially systemically important should lose permission to offer some services to EU clearing members, unless those services are offered from inside the EU. This is referred to as the location policy, the inclusion of which in EMIR 2.2 the UK did not support because of concerns that it could lead to market fragmentation and reduce the benefits provided by the global nature of clearing. However, the powers in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 under which we introduced the SI extend only to the addressing of deficiencies arising from withdrawal. During the passage of that legislation, commitments were made that the powers would not be used to make significant policy changes, so I am not going to deviate from that.

The OTC SI transfers the powers to use the location policy to the Treasury, subject to advice from the Bank of England and appropriate procedural safeguards and transitional provisions. I assure the House that because of the very different nature of the UK’s clearing markets, it is hard to foresee circumstances in which the Bank would appropriate the use of that tool in practice. EMIR 2.2 also makes changes to internally used supervisory and co-operation mechanisms but, as the UK is no longer part of the EU, those provisions are removed by the SI.

Finally, the OTC SI updates the recognition powers set out in the temporary recognition regime, which was established by a previous SI to enable non-UK CCPs to continue their activities in the UK after exit day, while their recognition applications are assessed. This SI updates the recognition requirements in line with the new EMIR 2.2 provisions. The Treasury has worked closely with the Bank of England to prepare the instrument and has also engaged with the financial services industry, as we have done throughout. The draft legislation has been publicly available on the legislation.gov.uk website since 24 February, and the instrument was laid before Parliament on 25 March.

In summary, the OTC SI is necessary to ensure that existing EMIR legislation will continue to function effectively in the UK from the end of the transition period, following the updates made in EMIR 2.2. In particular, it will ensure that the UK has the tools necessary to manage the financial stability risks posed by some of the largest non-UK CCPs.

Let me turn my attention towards the second of tonight’s SIs, the Financial Services (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020. Although this SI makes amendments to approximately 20 pieces of legislation, the number and nature of the amendments are modest and minor. They act to preserve the effect of recent changes to EU legislation in the UK, and in doing so limit any impact on business that would otherwise arise at the end of the transition period.

Primarily, this SI fixes deficiencies in recently applicable EU legislation, which is congruous with the Treasury’s approach to previous financial services EU exit instruments and the approach required by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. It also revokes pieces of retained EU law and UK domestic law that it would not be appropriate to keep on the statute book at the end of the transition period.

This SI contains a small number of minor clarifications and corrections to previous financial services EU exit instruments. The House will be aware of the unprecedented scale of the legislative programme that the Treasury has undertaken, which has been carried out with rigorous checking procedures. However, errors are unfortunately made on occasion, and when they arise it is important that they are corrected as soon as possible. This has happened previously, and I will continue to be completely transparent when such shortcomings become apparent.

I note that this SI also includes provisions initially included in the Cross-Border Distribution of Funds, Proxy Advisors, Prospectus and Gibraltar (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid using the made affirmative procedure in October 2019, when at the time it was necessary to ensure that the SI was in place prior to the previous exit date of 31 October. That SI subsequently ceased to have effect, but it is important that those provisions, which include amendments to the UK’s prospectus regime to ensure it remains operational in a wholly domestic context, are in force before the end of the transition period. Those provisions have therefore been included in this IS.

I would like to say a few words on the amendments that this SI makes to a previous EU exit instrument, the Equivalence Determinations for Financial Services and Miscellaneous Provisions (Amendment etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which I shall now refer to as the equivalence SI. The equivalence SI allows the Treasury to make equivalence directions for EEA states during the transition period for specified provisions. Today’s SI adds additional equivalence regimes to the scope of the power for the Treasury to make equivalence directions for EEA states during the transition period. This is through the inclusion of provisions relating to central securities depositories, which are entities that hold financial instruments and trade repositories that collect and maintain records of derivative trades.

This SI also amends the existing drafting on the length of the direction power to tie it to the end of the transition period. This will enable Ministers to make directions during the transition period to come into force at the end of the transition period, granting equivalence to the EEA for those regimes. Finally, this SI clarifies that the Treasury can impose limitations on the application of state-level equivalence decisions in granting equivalence to the EEA—for example, in response to EU conditions placed on the UK. As with the OTC SI, the Treasury has been working closely with the financial services regulators in the drafting of this instrument and has engaged with the financial services industry.

In conclusion, the Government believe that these instruments are necessary to ensure that the UK has a coherent and functioning financial services regulatory regime at the end of this year when we leave the transition period, and I hope that the House will join me in supporting them. I commend the regulations the House.

June 21, 2020
Helen Hayes – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

Below is the text of the speech made by Helen Hayes, the Labour MP for Dulwich and West Norwood, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

I pay tribute to Marcus Rashford this afternoon. It is not easy to speak about difficult personal experiences, but by doing so in such a powerful way, he helped to force the Government to act to stop 1.3 million children in England who are eligible for free school meals going hungry over the summer holidays. I also pay tribute to my local councils—Lambeth and Southwark councils—and to the many community organisations that have been working so hard since March to address food insecurity during the pandemic. They show the commitment, care and compassion in our local communities of which I could not be more proud.

While the Government’s U-turn is welcome, we should not be having this debate today, because coronavirus or not, no child should ever go hungry in the UK. Parents do not want to have to rely on a voucher scheme. They want the dignity and freedom to buy healthy, fresh food to nourish their children. Shamefully, childhood hunger and food insecurity are a huge problem in the UK, exacerbated by coronavirus, but a reality for many families, even without the pandemic. It is hard to understand the mindset of a Prime Minister who does not appear to see this as a top priority and who has to be pushed reluctantly into minimal action.

The voucher scheme is welcome and essential, but it is not a solution to food poverty. It is not reaching the thousands of families who fall just outside the income threshold for free school meals, or those who will not claim because of the stigma. We know that many of these families are also on low incomes, with precarious work, facing high housing costs and forced to rely on a social security system that prefers punishment over support.

The Government have a choice: they can keep lurching forward with disorganisation and wrong-headedness, forced to do the right thing only by intense pressure from our communities; or they can start to engage and plan now for a coronavirus recovery that builds back better, addressing structural inequality, low pay, insecure work, the high cost and insecurity of private renting and the ability of our councils to deliver the public services that we all rely on, and they could make sure that no child in the UK ever has to go to bed hungry again.

June 21, 2020
Rachel Hopkins – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

Below is the text of the speech made by Rachel Hopkins, the Labour MP for Luton South, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

The reliance of many children on free school meals is, sadly, not a new thing, but this is the reality for the 3,231 children across my Luton South constituency. Similarly, holiday hunger is a sustained and severe problem at the heart of many of our communities, and both have been exacerbated by this unprecedented public health crisis. I am glad that, after sustained pressure from Marcus Rashford and the Labour party’s Holidays Without Hunger campaign, the Government have decided to U-turn, do the right thing and extend the free school meal voucher scheme over the summer holidays.

Research by End Child Poverty shows that, before the coronavirus crisis, 46% of children in Luton South were living in relative poverty. As I have said before in this House, many are living in families struggling with in-work poverty due to low pay, insecure work and zero-hours contracts. I am very concerned that the financial hardship inflicted by the coronavirus crisis will cause this figure to increase. If the Government had not conceded to public pressure and extended the free school meal voucher scheme, they would have neglected their responsibility to vulnerable children.

Free school meals provide a staple diet and the nutrition that facilitates a child’s development. Neglecting a child’s development needs can have a tremendous impact on their mental and physical health. In the longer term, adverse childhood experiences—for example, a sustained inability to meet a child’s basic needs, such as being fed—can lead, through no fault of their own, to negative outcomes such as low educational and employment achievements and mental health problems. Today’s U-turn is welcome, and I urge the Government to go further to end child poverty.

June 21, 2020
Kevan Jones – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

Below is the text of the speech made by Kevan Jones, the Labour MP for North Durham, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

On 27 March, at the daily press conference, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said that the coronavirus “does not discriminate”. We know that is not true, with 88% higher mortality rates in deprived communities, and we all see and know in our own constituencies the economic effects that this virus is having in more deprived areas. In my own constituency, 1,570 people have joined the claimant count since March, and that will increase. Their families are made up of hard-working, dedicated individuals who through no fault of their own have found themselves and will find themselves struggling. The hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) is not here, but I am sorry, the state does need to intervene in these situations, because these people pay their tax and are proud individuals, and they need our support now.

Listening to Conservative Members today, it is as though an amendment was not on the Order Paper saying that they were going to oppose free school meals over the summer, but it is there. As I challenged the hon. Member for Watford (Dean Russell), if it had been there tonight and things had not changed, they would all have trooped through the Lobby and voted against giving our children free school meals during the summer holidays. In 2020 in the sixth richest country in the world, if we cannot afford to support and feed children, there is something terribly wrong. That is not the society I came into politics to see. It is one that I and, I know, others on the Labour Benches will continue to fight, and we will fight against the injustice that this Government seem to be completely deaf to.

June 21, 2020
Yvette Cooper – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

Below is the text of the speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

We remember Jo Cox today. She would have been speaking with great passion in this debate.

Since the coronavirus crisis began, St Mary’s in Pontefract has delivered food parcels to help nearly 250 children. Thank you to David Jones, Denise Pallett and all the volunteers. In Castleford, we have been delivering food parcels and kids activity packs, with great leadership from Kath Scott and Saney Ncube. We have talked to families where children are making do with snacks for lunch—something sweet and cheap to eat, because there is no food in the house. Paul Green and the volunteers at Kellingley club have been doing an amazing job supporting families in Knottingley. In Normanton, Michelle Newton, Ash Samuels and the Well Project have been helping families across the town.

Our councillors and volunteers are the best of Britain, and part of the proud tradition in our towns of people rallying round when things are tough. It has also been the best of Britain that we have seen in this phenomenal personal campaign from Marcus Rashford, but also from hundreds of thousands of people across the country joining the campaign to end holiday hunger. Today’s U-turn from the Government is welcome, but we need action all of the time to stop child hunger and poverty, not just when there is a big campaign.

Under the last Labour Government, in the run-up to every Budget—every Budget—we had a big debate on what should be done that year to tackle child poverty and to make progress. We tried to make that pressure permanent 10 years ago by bringing in the Child Poverty Act 2010, which at that time had cross-party support, to keep the pressure up to end child poverty. However, that has been ditched by the Government, and instead we have seen things such as the two-child limit or the five-week wait for universal credit brought in that have caused so much damage. I would urge them to join in that cross-party spirit again to end child hunger and to end child poverty. It is morally wrong that, in the 21st century, any children should go hungry.

June 20, 2020
Olivia Blake – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

Below is the text of the speech made by Olivia Blake, the Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

I would like to take a moment to remember Jo Cox, a fellow Yorkshirewoman. She was such an inspiration and stood up against inequality and the loneliness that often accompanies it.

I welcome the Government U-turn on free school meals over the summer. I pay tribute to Marcus Rashford for his leadership over the past few days. Perhaps Government Members could take some lessons from that.

Since the onset of the covid-19 crisis, 1.5 million people have reported going a whole day without food. The use of food banks has soared. Mutual aid groups, food banks and campaigners in my constituency have struggled to provide the food that the people of Sheffield need. Their work and the work of others is heartening, but it is also a travesty that in the sixth richest country in the world it falls to volunteers and the charity sector to ensure that no one is going hungry.

Over the past few years in Sheffield, we have seen a growth in activities for young people that now must involve the provision of food, whether they are holiday hunger projects or term-time clubs. Children are struggling to get the nutrition they need and rely on such projects, as well as free school meals. The demand is high and it is growing. Communities have identified the need, but it is clear that they do not have the resources to prevent hunger in their neighbourhoods. They cannot solve the structural issues of inequality, low pay, insufficient social security, and rising costs in housing, energy and the basics. Solving that requires action and intervention from this place.

The pandemic has not created this crisis, but it has shone a light on the weaknesses that already exist. According the Trussell Trust’s “State of Hunger” report, 8% to 10% of households in recent years have experienced food insecurity, leading to 1.5 million units of emergency food parcels—

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)

Order. [time for speech ran out]

June 20, 2020
Daniel Zeichner – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

Below is the text of the speech made by Daniel Zeichner, the Labour MP for Cambridge, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

For some, the free school meal voucher roll-out scheme has been nothing short of a disaster, and I know of 16 schools in my constituency that have reported problems with the system managed by the private company, Edenred. At a time when they had enough on their plate, head teachers were literally pulling their hair out. School after school told me that the system had crashed, with error messages appearing, some parents receiving vouchers but not others, and the impossibility of having a conversation with Edenred. At the height of the problems, staff at the North Cambridge academy were getting up at 6 o’clock in the morning to try to log on before the system was overwhelmed. At that point, they had been waiting two weeks for vouchers. If it takes the intervention of the local MP to make something happen, something has gone wrong.

To add insult to injury, the vouchers do not work in many city shops. My local food hub told me of the despair of a mum of four children from Chesterton. She put credit on her phone to receive the vouchers, then asked a friend to print them, as she does not have a printer at home. She then walked to her local shop with her children in tow, shopped, queued, and finally reached the checkout, only to be told that the national vouchers were not redeemable in the Co-op. She was inconsolable. All the food had to be put back; she had no way of paying for it. Think how that must feel.

Why not use non-Edenred schemes? After all, stores such as the Co-op have alternative food voucher schemes ready to go. Schools are nervous, especially after Government encouragement to use Edenred meant that schools dumped better functioning schemes for the Government’s preferred provider. There needs to be clarity about the financial support schools will receive if they choose not to use Edenred.

The Government need to stop penalising well-managed schools. Some do have cash in the bank and in their reserves, but it is for a purpose—investing in buildings and books and computers. The Government guidance that schools with a budget surplus in the current financial year cannot reclaim the cost of providing vouchers needs to be rethought.

Some will say that Cambridge is prosperous and, in many ways, it is, but even before the covid crisis, 1,741 children were already eligible for free school meals and that figure is going up. Since April, an additional 265 children have joined their ranks.

We are fortunate to have the Food Poverty Alliance in Cambridge, backed with funding from the Labour city council. Volunteers cook and deliver meals, including to 70 families, at the kitchens at Cambridge Regional College. They cooked 2,000 meals last week. While we are talking football, although Cambridge United has sadly been forced off the pitch, their “Here for U’s” scheme was enough to get me cheering again and I understand that their bread and butter pudding has been a particular hit.

The Government’s U-turn is welcome, but until we get through this crisis, have a real living wage and job security, there will continue to be need. At one time, we had a Government who sought to Make Poverty History. Now we have a Government who all too often seem indifferent to growing hunger. At least they have been shamed into doing one thing right today.

June 20, 2020