Liam Byrne
MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North · Labour · United Kingdom
“The loss of 4,000 jobs at Jaguar Land Rover is a body blow for workers, families and communities across the west midlands, so I commend Richard Parker, the Mayor of the West Midlands, for moving quickly on Monday to put £500,000 on the table to help ensure that everybody gets back to work.”
“I wholeheartedly welcome this well-rounded statement from the Foreign Secretary, and put on record my thanks to the new Prime Minister for the hard yards that I know he has put in over recent days and weeks.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I offer my warmest congratulations to her on her appointment to the role; she will be a brilliant Minister.”
“Let me start with a word of thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), who is not in her place, who said quite rightly that an awful lot has changed since the Bill was first introduced to this House. Indeed, a lot has been revealed over the course of the summer.”
“The effect of new clause 34 would be to ban off-ramping, ban new forms of digital currency transactions and ban memecoins, which are exactly the kind of measures that Ministers now need to bring forward. If we want to take the crypto system out of political finance, this is what we need to do.”
“No doubt we will learn that Mr Cottrell was in fact on the electoral register when that money was passed. No doubt we will discover that his mother, Fiona Cottrell, declared and did not disguise the fact that the money had ultimately come from her son.”
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“What concerns me is where the savings from Remploy will go, and the fact that Access to Work is currently underperforming. That is the point that has been made to me by charity after charity.”
“That is an important commitment, but I am afraid that it will be cold comfort to the workers in Remploy factories where business plans must be submitted by Monday if their future is to be ensured.”
“It is shameful, but I am afraid that it is par for the course. After all, that announcement was smuggled out on a very busy day in the House. I believe that the Minister was forced to come to the House at the end of the business to make a statement that she should have been upfront about making.”
“That was part of a reform programme that included £500 million for modernisation. This is the point. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is missing it. The argument that we are prosecuting this afternoon is not about whether Remploy needs to change. Remploy does need to change, but is now the right time for it do so, given that long-term unemployment is approaching 1 million? Where are the real plans to ensure that these factories have a future?”
“And fifthly, we should review the subsidy per worker offered to Remploy workers, given that it may be different from the subsidy that is available under Work Choice. If the Secretary of State is in any doubt about what these factories do, I will go and do a day’s work in a Remploy factory, and I hope that he will join me. I think that we should invite the Sunday Express as well, for good measure.”
“Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas)—the full 90-day timetable for consultation should be re-started, given that the terms were radically changed halfway through the process. Thirdly—this is relevant to the points that have been made about procurement—may I ask what steps the Secretary of State has taken to draw together local authorities, as well as central Government Departments, to ensure that any extra work that can be put in a Remploy factory is put in a Remploy factory? Surely we should be exhausting all those opportunities before we move on. Fourthly, we should take a more flexible approach to each and every factory. The fact is that some factories will need more support in order to continue, while others will need less.”
“Let me deal with my hon. Friend’s intervention by listing a series of practical measures and steps that I think that the Government could and should now take. First, why do the Government not honour every letter of the Sayce report? Why do they not honour the recommendations of Liz Sayce that factories should have six months in which to develop a business plan and two years before a subsidy is withdrawn, that the viability of Remploy factories should be decided by an independent panel of business and enterprise experts—with trade union involvement—rather than by unilateral action from the DWP, and that expert entrepreneurial and business support should be provided to develop the businesses into independent enterprises? Each of those recommendations needs to be implemented. Secondly—here I come to the point made by my hon.”
“We will campaign for that justice throughout this Parliament and beyond, and I hope that the House will express its support by backing our motion this afternoon.”
“We succeeded because we believed in co-producing policy with disabled people. It is a disgrace that Kaliya Franklin, Sue Marsh and the authors of the Spartacus report had to use freedom of information requests to draw out of the Government that the DWP’s response to the DLA consultation was so misleading. It is also a disgrace that the Government have dropped from their business plan the goal of securing equality for disabled people. They should now set about changing course. They should begin by introducing a combined, cross-governmental assessment of the impact of their reforms. I congratulate Scope on producing a “starter for 10” this week. Labour Members believe that rights should be made a reality for disabled people.”
“Where are the jobs that those people are going to go into? When factories are closing in constituencies where the average number of people chasing each job is twice the national average and the Work programme is failing disabled people, we have a problem that needs to be solved. We need practical steps to manage Remploy’s future. Labour Members feel passionate about this subject. We are proud of the progress that we made for disabled people when we were in government. We appointed the first ever Minister for Disabled People, and we introduced the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Supporting People, the new deal for disabled people, new strategies for disabled children, Valuing People, and the Equality Act. Poverty in disabled households fell by a fifth in the last three years of our Government.”
“How many meetings has the Minister had with central Government Departments and local authorities to try to find new contracts for Remploy factories?”
“The Minister has told the House: “We want to make sure that Remploy factories are successful in the future.” —[ Official Report , 18 July 2011; Vol. 531, c. 599.] What exactly did she mean then?”
“By the end of the Parliament, nearly £3.5 billion will be cut from disability benefit yet only £2.5 billion net is being taken from Britain’s bankers. How can the Minister justify the disgraceful fact that the Government are taking more from disabled people than from bankers? Will she justify it now?”
“The hon. Gentleman is certainly making a case. Will he tell us the cash value of the decline in GDP in the last quarter? How much did it cost our country in lost production?”
“The fault, it now seems, lies with those in the British business community, who just need to be working harder. My advice to them is that they should not take the attack personally. Indeed, they join illustrious company: we have had “the weather”; we have had “the wrong type of snow”; and we have also had the royal wedding. When it comes to their failure, this Government will blame only others.”
“Instead, what we have got is £150 billion of extra borrowing, 1 million young people out of work, fewer hours worked this year than last, and a fall in our national output in the last quarter of £700 million —a development that the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) said was a step in the right direction. This is the first double-dip recession since 1975, the year of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, the story of a bunch of incompetent chancers, supposedly running the country, chasing after something that they had somehow misplaced. What an allegory of this Government’s pursuit of growth! All week we have seen an unedifying witch hunt for the culprits—the people who have somehow misplaced Britain’s growth. This week the Government found someone else.”
“He has U-turned this afternoon on his policy for Europe; he should now U-turn on his policy here in the UK. Instead, what we got was a lot of jokes. Most people in this country now feel that if he focused more on economics and less on jokes, perhaps the country would not be in quite the mess that it is. The customary advice is: “Don’t give up your day job”, although most of us probably feel that the sooner he gives up his day job, the faster Britain will be back on its feet. This is the Chancellor who told us a year ago that he was putting fuel in the tank of the British economy. What has happened? Where has the fuel gone? It has somehow been siphoned off into the jerry cans in the Cabinet Office.”
“It is a privilege to wind up a week of debate and speeches on the Gracious Speech. However, let me start by saying what a disappointment it was to hear not a word of recognition, humility or apology from the Chancellor for a litany of Budgets that have put this country back in recession and given us a Queen’s Speech with nothing to dig us out. We have, however, had something very significant this afternoon. We have had an admission—a confession, in fact—from the Chancellor. He finally forced himself to say it, in response to the intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), although he had to choke it out. He said that austerity is not enough. The Chancellor finally said it. However, confession is not enough; redemption will demand a change of course.”
“Members for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay), for Northampton South (Mr Binley) and for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb). We needed action on infrastructure spending, too—that point was made with great force by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), the hon. Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee), and my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) and for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar). This absence of action is now costing this country a fortune.”
“It is hitting ethnic minorities harder than ever—that was the point made by my hon. Friends the Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for Oldham East and Saddleworth. It is now hitting young people harder—that was the message we heard from hon. Members from all parts of the House, and it was a point made with particular force by my hon. Friends the Members for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) and for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood). That is why what we needed in the last Budget and in the Queen’s Speech was not excuses, but action. We needed action on bank lending—that was the point made by my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) and for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark), and by the hon.”
“This afternoon we heard those stories from all over Britain. The point was made forcefully by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), and it was a story repeated by my hon. Friends the Members for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell), for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) and for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth). We heard in the debate this afternoon that we need growth and demand—a point made by my hon. Friends the Members for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and for East Lothian. We heard how higher unemployment is hitting some communities and some regions harder than ever—that was the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern).”
“I will not give way, because there are so many points to respond to. We know that this recession was not made by British business. It is not down to the weather, the snow or the royal wedding; it is down to the failed policy of this Government. Despite the good news we had on unemployment this week—there was a glimmer of hope—Britain’s jobs crisis has now gone on for too long. We now have more people working part time or becoming self-employed, because they will do anything to make ends meet. Long-term unemployment is surging towards the 1 million mark, the number of people out of work for two years is up to 500,000, 100,000 more people are signing on than last year, redundancies are up by 50,000, and vacancies are down by more than 10,000. Families all over Britain are facing a disaster, because of the failed policies of this Government.”
“Worst of all—worse than anything I have heard over the past few months—are the reported comments that he made to Remploy workers. Apparently he told them that they “are not doing any work at all. Just making cups of coffee.” That is not compassionate conservatism; it is the conservatism of contempt. The Secretary of State should apologise to those workers this afternoon. When he should have been launching a war on poverty, he has launched a war on decency. This Government have no idea how these young people, these parents, these working mothers and these workers with disabilities are now living. They are failing on jobs, they are failing on growth, and they are out of touch, out of their depth and out of steam. We need a change of direction and Labour’s amendment today offers that. I commend it to the House.”
“Look at what the proposals mean for workers with disabilities. Some 11 million people in this country have disabilities. Disability Rights UK says that 25,000 people with disabilities have had to give up work this year because their support and help are being cut away from them. This Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is now administering reform of the incapacity benefit system with all the finesse of border control at Heathrow airport. It is now taking people up to 11 months to get a hearing and then, when they reach that tribunal, half the decisions are being overturned. That is not a result that he can be proud of. Worst of all is the treatment being handed out to workers at Remploy. These are workers indirectly employed by the Secretary of State himself.”
“No wonder 32,000 women have already had to give up work this year because they cannot afford the child care. We should look at what this Budget means for working parents—a point made with some eloquence by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury and by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). Such is the incompetence and such is the incoherence that families in this country are now better off on benefits than they are in a job—what a catastrophic failure of policy and what a catastrophic failure by this Chancellor. Look at what these proposals mean for savers—people doing the right thing. Alongside the granny tax, the Government tried to sneak out in the Budget small print another £900 cut for pensioners by getting rid of the savings credit.”
“It is no wonder the people all across Britain are saying that this Prime Minister and this Chancellor have no idea how ordinary people live. The Prime Minister is riding on horses with editors of newspapers who are charged with perverting the course of justice while our young people cannot even afford a bus fare to college. We heard this afternoon just how much that bill has now become in a powerful speech from my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband). We heard that youth unemployment will cost our country £30 billion over the years to come. When are this Government going to heed that lesson? When will they look at the hit now being taken by working parents, who are struggling with child care? These parents are now losing £500 this year.”
“The hon. Gentleman speaks for a party that has now put up borrowing by £150 billion more than projected. Does he know why? It is in large part because the benefits bill is not being capped by this Government—the benefits bill is going through the roof. It is set to be £25 billion higher than was projected by the end of this Parliament, with the cost of unemployment benefit set to be up by £5 billion and the cost of housing benefit set to be up by £6 billion by the end of this Parliament. I really do not know how he has the temerity to say what he has just said, given that it is his Government who are putting up debt. The problem is that this Government have not learned the lesson that the way to bring the benefits bill down is by getting people into jobs—that is where this Government are failing.”
“May I associate myself with the words of tribute to Lord Ashley, who was a formidable champion of the people whom we came into politics to serve? He will be sorely missed in both Houses, but his inspiration will live on. Two years before the election, the Prime Minister gave the pensioners’ pledge: “The Government I lead will make sure that older and retired people are treated with dignity and given the quality of life they deserve.” Will the Secretary of State therefore confirm, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said, that pensioners will be £315 a year worse off, thanks to the granny tax?”
“This is why pensioners on the doorstep are so cross—they know that they have been hoodwinked by the Government. This measure was dressed up in the Budget as a simplification. I think the Secretary of State detains his barbers for about as long as I do. Does he go along and ask for his hair to be “simplified”? I do not think so. A cut is a cut. On top of granny tax 1, we now learn of granny tax 2. Will the Minister admit that from 2014 pensioners will face a further cut of £900, and apologise for trying to keep it secret?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This has been an important day, and we have just had an excellent debate. It is therefore disappointing that the Department for Work and Pensions chose this occasion to release, after the Prime Minister sat down, an announcement stating that two thirds of Remploy factories in this country will now close. That is a matter of great concern to Members on both sides of the House. Have you, Sir, received any request for an oral statement on this subject, and if not how may we now bring Ministers to this House to account for that callous decision?”
“I want to bring the House’s attention back to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey). She has exposed an important truth: a couple on the minimum wage were £3,000 better off in work under Labour but after the changes that will be made in April they will be £700 better off on benefits. Will the Secretary of State tell us how many people he expects to give up work because they will no longer be better off in a job?”
“Let me give the Secretary of State a simple lesson in economics: the more people who are in work, the more tax comes into the Treasury; the more people who are on the dole, the more we pay out in welfare payments. That is why welfare payments are going through the roof. The Work programme is in chaos, the Minister for the Armed Forces is saying that there is a crisis in the funding model, and now we find out that people will be better off on benefits than in work. Will the Secretary of State promise us that in the Budget he will fix the situation whereby it no longer pays to go out and get a job?”
“The Minister has sketched out for the House a number of important concessions for groups that will be adversely affected by this policy. When does he expect guidance on how discretionary housing payments will actually work to be available for review by Members of this House?”
“I want to try to follow the Minister’s logic a step further. Is he going on to propose that British citizens who have retired abroad—for example, to Spain—will not be able to receive their pensions in the years to come? Is that the logical extension of his argument?”
“I rise to speak in favour of the amendment in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I shall state at the outset that we wish to seek a Division on that amendment, and I am disappointed that the Government have tried to invoke financial privilege to defend against a vote on our amendment in the House of Lords, where they know very well that they will once again be defeated. I am, however, grateful that the Minister has incorporated half of our amendment, by ensuring that there will be a grace period of nine months, but I want to set out the dangerous flaws that have now been exposed in the “one cap fits all” approach and also set out what I think would be a better approach.”
“Of course. The Labour party advanced the position in our amendment not, as the Minister said in a slip of the tongue, 10 years ago but well over one year ago. It was advanced by my predecessor and the Leader of the Opposition. During the passage of the Bill, we have talked extensively about the risks— [Interruption.] The Secretary of State might like to listen to the answer. We have given the Government ample opportunity to put in place safeguards against the dangers of their having to spend a lot of money patching up what is being done this afternoon. In the absence of those safeguards, I want to propose to him a better approach.”
“In a moment. I will give way to him as often as he wants. We have set out a clear alternative approach. The Government have today burned one third of the savings that they proposed for this measure because they got the policy wrong. Today, by conceding a nine-month grace period, they have incorporated part of our amendment, but now I want to show the Secretary of State a better way of instituting a principle on which I think we both agree.”
“I spent much of this morning perusing the helpful Conservative party briefing on the Bill—I am sure that Government Members have a copy—page 2 of which contains a useful summary explaining how I, the shadow Business Secretary, the shadow work Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have set out clearly their support, in principle, for the Bill. However, we want to give the Government the chance to institute important safeguards—for example, not allowing the cap to kick in if someone has not been offered the chance to work and instituting new safeguards for homelessness, on which they have had to spend a lot of money today. The Government have not listened to any of that, and now they have had to come back to the House accepting half of Labour’s amendment and spending a huge amount of money, thus burning many of their savings.”
“Together with the national minimum wage, it ensured that people were better off in work. It was wise, therefore, for the Government to accept the principle of tax credits in their proposed changes to universal credit. That, too, is a principle that we support, and it is why we are in favour of a benefit cap, but we would like one that does not backfire and one that works in practice. That is what our amendment sets out.”
“We will seek a vote on Labour’s amendment on Labour’s benefit cap, and we are disappointed that the Government are trying to invoke financial privilege to prevent us from having that vote again in the House of Lords, where the Government know they will lose. It is important to start by debating a principle on which both sides agree—the principle that people should be better off in work. Back in 1971, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) pointed out the dangers of the poverty trap and the possibility of changes in the tax and benefits system resulting in people not being better off in work. Frankly, little progress was made in tackling that problem during the 1980s and the 1990s, which was why the institution of tax credits under Labour was such an important part of our welfare reform.”
“The principle on which we both agree and which we have advanced reforms to put in place is this: people should be better off in work than on benefits. That is why we are so frustrated with the Government’s failure to get people back to work. Five people are now chasing every job. That is the situation with which we now contend in many of our constituencies. In my constituency, 33 people are chasing every job. That is frustrating for those who believe that people should be better off in work than on benefits. That is why we are so disappointed with the performance of the Work programme.”
“I will come to the localisation of the benefit system, which, as the hon. Gentleman will know, we have had for 70 years in this country, when I set out how I believe our proposal can work in practice.”
“Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) confirms exactly what is going on.”
“Let us take the cost side first. In this debate, we are in the happy position of not simply having to rely on costing an assertion made by Opposition Members. We are very grateful that we have got the analysis that was presented by our good friend, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. In a blunt warning—not to just anybody, but to the Prime Minister’s Office—the principal private secretary in the Department for Communities and Local Government said: “we think it is likely that the policy as it stands will generate a net cost”, and that was before the Government burnt all the money that they have sent up in smoke just this afternoon. A cursory glance at some of the scenarios that we will see in, for example, the constituency of the hon.”
“My hon. Friend did an extraordinary job of deconstructing the Bill as it went through Committee, and she is an acknowledged expert on this subject. Her point is absolutely right. The Minister was not able to confirm that somebody on £35,000 could receive, for example, housing benefit. I am reliably informed that that is, in fact, the case. Because the Government have not thought this measure through, we are now confronted with the extraordinary spectacle of a cap that appears to cost more than it saves. As was pointed out by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who is not in his place now, in some parts of the country that will not send the signal that people are better off in work than on benefits. Only the Government could have introduced a proposal that is, frankly, that much of a dog’s breakfast.”
“In a moment. We are grateful to the Children’s Society for telling us that about half the families who will be affected by the current “one cap fits all” proposal will be families with five children, and on the basis of the first impact assessment—I think—the Children’s Society calculated that about 21,000 families would be affected.”
“I am afraid that it is therefore rather ludicrous to suggest that there will not be widespread homelessness as a result of the “one cap fits all” approach, and if anyone wanted any proof of that, the Minister has just given it by telling us that he has had to burn a third of the savings that he proposes to make in sorting the problem out.”
“I will give way in a moment. Let us just see what that scenario looks like in London. The House of Commons Library tells us that a family in that situation will be taking a hundred quid in jobseeker’s allowance, £74 in child benefit, £255 in child tax credit, £32 in council tax benefit and—because of the high levels of rents in London—£350 in housing benefit. Under the cap, a family in that position will lose about £243. There is no way on earth that their rent will fall by that amount. Even out of London, a family in that situation will face losing £87 a week, and there is no way that their rent will fall by that amount either. Those families—some 21,000 of them—will be made homeless. Coincidentally, that is exactly the figure in the analysis produced by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.”
“My hon. Friend has highlighted a problem with which we are confronted in London and elsewhere. It was remarkable that the Minister managed to get through his speech this afternoon without making any reference to the latest DCLG estimates for how much rents in London and elsewhere are going to rise. According to some analyses that I have seen, they could rise by something like 41% over the next few years. Nowhere is that corrected or remedied in the Government’s proposals. One Department is simply not talking to the other.”
“The hon. Gentleman is making the point that we tried to make in our amendment—namely, that a “one cap fits all” proposal does not look as though it is going to work. We have heard the Minister’s reassurances this afternoon that certain families will be referred into the Work programme, but I am afraid that the Work programme is failing. The off-flow rate—the rate at which people flow off benefits and into work—in the last quarter of last year was the lowest since 1998. People are not getting back into work, because the Government’s back-to-work programmes are failing. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what he is going to do about that problem.”