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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“I want apprenticeships for young people, and it is this Government who are not delivering them. That is why, all over the country, we now see long-term youth unemployment rocketing up. Some 233 Members of this House now represent constituencies where long-term youth unemployment has risen by over 100% this year. Overall, long-term youth unemployment is up by 64% since the start of the year. All over Britain, scars that we thought were gone for ever are reappearing, and not just in Labour constituencies, but in places such as North Dorset, Aylesbury and Stevenage. Some 238 of us now speak for constituencies where, since the election, youth unemployment is up by 20%.”
“In a moment. The bad news is that business is saying that it will get worse before it gets better. In October, BBC Radio 1 surveyed the business community. It found that two thirds of firms surveyed said that the situation would get worse for young workers before it got better. Half said that the Government should do more to train young workers. That is surely a sentiment that the hon. Lady will agree with.”
“Good people who are doing the right thing and who are trying to get on and go up in life are being squeezed to pay the bill for people who have been put out of work by this Government.”
“Is the hon. Lady seriously denying that a crisis in youth unemployment is unfolding now? [ Interruption. ] I am glad that she says from a sedentary position that she agrees that there is a crisis, because the question now is what we do about it. That is the answer we want from the Government. Before I set out what the Opposition believe is the right next step, let us remind ourselves who is paying the bill for this failure. Since the Government came to office, the benefits bill alone is projected to rise by more than £12 billion, which is £500 for every house in this country. To pay that bill for the new workless, the Government are having to squeeze working people through cuts to child care and tax credits, and the acceleration of the rise in the state pension age.”
“Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling); and 8,500 in my home region, the west midlands. That is the kind of action that the Secretary of State should propose.”
“The scale of the imminent bank bonus round is already in the news. I see that there is a bonus pot of £500 million at Royal Bank of Scotland—shareholder: Her Majesty’s Government. Here is a sentiment with which most hon. Members can agree. Lord Oakeshott, the former Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson said: “I don’t want my taxes going to pay for hundreds of RBS investment bankers taking home millions in bonuses as their profits tumble.” Many hon. Members would agree with that. The Opposition advice is simple: let us have a fair and sensible tax on bankers’ bonuses. That could create a fund of £2 billion, which we believe could help to get 800,000 back to work, including 11,500 jobs here in London; 5,000 in the south-east, the region of the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon.”
“No. I could speak about this all afternoon, but I know that many hon. Members want to speak, so let me draw my remarks to a close by outlining what the Opposition believe should be done. The Opposition believe that the starting point should be a new tax on bank bonuses. That is what this country is crying out for. There are only a few weeks left before the Chancellor’s autumn statement. The Secretary of State is not here but I hope he reads Hansard . Let me give him some advice about what he should negotiate for. He should be putting on the table the five-point plan that my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor has set out before the House. Let us set out what that plan means for young people in this country. Many people in this country deserve a tax cut, but our country’s bankers are not among them.”
“I will give way in a moment. Let me tell the Minister this: that policy would be popular. Over the summer, I asked my constituents whether the bankers ought to share their blessings a little more generously and whether they should do more to help get young people back to work—97% of them said yes. That policy would be popular, so why is the Minister not proposing it?”
“When the TUC, the CBI, the Prince’s Trust and the Work Foundation are telling the Government to change course, surely it is time for them to act. Before the Minister for Universities and Science, the right hon. Member for Havant (Mr Willetts), was encumbered with the cares of office, he wrote a book about the baby boomers. In the introduction, he writes that “the charge is that the boomers have been guilty of a monumental failure to protect the interests of future generations”. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who is not here today, is—believe me—a baby boomer. If he does not change course, and fast, he will stand before the House guilty as charged.”
“If the Minister wants a full breakdown of the costs, I will be happy to provide it for him; and if he wants me to support him in his negotiations with the Chancellor, I will be right by his side. With that policy should come an acceleration of investment in capital infrastructure, as the CBI calls for today; a temporary cut in VAT to help families up and down the country; a one-year cut in VAT on home improvements; and a tax break for small firms that take on extra workers, especially young people, as proposed by the Federation of Small Businesses. The whole country knows that this Government are failing our young people. This year, our country has seen one of the fastest ever increases in long-term youth unemployment.”
“Will the Minister just remind the House what level youth unemployment stands at today? Will he confirm that it is the highest figure on record?”
“Can the right hon. Gentleman just remind the House by how much the Government have had to revise upwards their borrowing forecast over the past few months?”
“If the right hon. Gentleman believes the future jobs fund was too expensive, is he by implication saying that he is prepared to see youth unemployment go up, because that is what has happened since the election, after which he abolished the programmes? Is he saying that youth unemployment is basically a price worth paying?”
“I should love to do so, and when I do I shall ask EOS for its performance statistics, because I understand that the Minister has banned their publication. If he is so confident about the performance of the Work programme, he should tell the House what it is delivering.”
“I am following the hon. Gentleman’s argument with care. Will he tell the House how he thinks the programme is going in his constituency, because long-term youth unemployment is up by 100%?”
“I am genuinely grateful for the tone that the Minister is trying to strike, but does he understand the signal that it sends, in a debate on youth unemployment, when the Department for Work and Pensions Minister cannot be bothered to turn up for more than half the debate and the Secretary of State is nowhere to be seen?”
“Youth unemployment is now the highest it has ever been. Does the Secretary of State agree with the Chancellor that Britain is now “a safe haven”?”
“Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady) who was trying to bring down the Government over Europe but the Secretary of State himself, the commander-in-chief of the Maastricht rebels. Instead of today’s debate, on which the Prime Minister has wasted so much time, should we not be having a debate about how we put a proper tax on bankers’ bonuses to get 100,000 young people back to work?”
“Since this Government have taken office, they have closed the future jobs fund and shut down the flexible new deal, and replaced them with a youth work scheme that costs less than the Department spends on stationery and guarantees interviews, not jobs, and with a Work programme that turns out on closer inspection to be all programme and no work. Meanwhile, youth unemployment is going through the roof. I looked for the Department’s flagship youth unemployment policy on its website this morning, and what does it say? “Page not found. The page you are looking for may have been removed or moved to the National Archives.” So much for the priority that the Government gave to youth employment. The last time unemployment was this high, it was not the hon.”
“On 11 July the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), confirmed that his Secretary of State had seen analysis by the Department for Communities and Local Government suggesting that his benefit cap could make 40,000 people homeless, and actually cost more than it saved. I do not mind who answers this question, but will someone please confirm whether the Minister himself also saw that analysis?”
“This was a piece of analysis with enormous implications for the way in which the policy was implemented. This piece of work was so important that it was sent to the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Secretary of State. What was it that was so important about that analysis that it was not given to the Minister actually putting the legislation through this House? Will he now ensure that the analysis is produced before the House of Lords reaches the relevant debate?”
“In addition, the Secretary of State has signed an impact assessment which makes no mention of the DCLG’s concerns. He said that his picture was “a fair and reasonable view of the expected costs, benefits and impact of the policy”, even though it does not contain the warning that was issued to the heart of government. My question is, therefore, very simple: how do we in this House bring Ministers to account for who knew what and when, and why did they not disclose crucial, material information to this House?”
“Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) replied by saying “I have no clear evidence that further information is available” –– [ Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 17 May 2011; c. 985.] beyond the impact assessment. Yesterday, we learned that the DCLG had, in fact, written to the Prime Minister’s office, ahead of a meeting of the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, to say that, yes, the DCLG’s assumptions were that homelessness would rise by 20,000 and the policy would cost more than it saved. It seems inconceivable that this cast list and the hon. Member for Cardiff Central all knew about this and the Department for Work and Pensions Ministers did not.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Both you and “Erskine May” have made it very clear that, by a resolution of this House, Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament, refusing to provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest. Nineteen days ago, this House completed debate on the Welfare Reform Bill, including a measure to place a cap on benefits. During the debate, on 17 May, the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) said that she had “heard” that Department for Communities and Local Government estimates forecast a rise in homelessness of 20,000 if the measure was introduced and that the policy would cost more than it saved. The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon.”
“Last Monday, the Secretary of State had to slap down his colleague the noble Lord Freud on whether there should be a cap on benefits; on Wednesday, we had the spectacle of the Prime Minister not knowing the consequences of his own Welfare Reform Bill; and today the Secretary of State has come to the Dispatch Box when this morning’s newspapers are full of stories of how his Bill might be shredded, not in this House but in the very Treasury that pushed him out to walk this plank in the first place. It is U-turns, confusion and blunder, and the poor Secretary of State is forced to sit there in the middle as the House of Commons’s very own Captain Chaos.”
“That is why we lifted 1 million pensioners out of poverty; why we lifted gross income for our pensioners by more than 40%; why we ensured that no pensioner must live on less than £130 a week; why we introduced the winter fuel allowance, free off-peak travel on buses and free TV licences; and why we increased tax thresholds to ensure that 60% of pensioners now pay no tax. We are proud of our record. It is now set out in the Government’s own figures that pensioner poverty in this country is at its lowest level for 30 years. In dealing with such long-term issues, the House could legitimately have hoped that the Government would have built on those changes in a careful and consensual way. Instead, they have built nothing but confusion.”
“The debate is extremely important and I am glad that the Secretary of State approached his remarks with such care. It is an important debate because our treatment of older people in our country is one of the most important ways in which we judge the health of a society. Those people have made our country what it is today, and, in their retirement, we respect and honour a lifetime’s work. Frankly, when we came to power in 1997, too few of our older citizens enjoyed either that honour or that respect. Nearly 30% of our pensioners were forced to live in poverty. The state pension had declined from 20% to just 14% of average male earnings. That is why we set about changing that picture with such speed, passion and determination.”
“That takes me to the most audacious broken promise of the lot—the proposal to single out a group of 500,000 of our fellow citizens, all of them women, and say to them, “You know your plans for the future? Well, you can put them in the bin.” The Secretary of State might think it a relatively small and trivial number, but the Opposition do not.”
“These may well be exactly the people who should be automatically enrolled.” Yet the House has been presented today with proposals that could exclude more than 1 million people. We think, therefore, that the earnings threshold should be looked at again. And if that idea was not bad enough, the idea of a three-month waiting period makes it worse and in itself could mean 500,000 fewer people enrolling automatically in a pension scheme. The loss to them could be £150 million in employer pension contributions. Put those two things together and the average man or woman could lose nearly three years of pension saving—a 7% reduction in an individual’s fund. I am afraid that we simply cannot support that measure.”
“The first reason is that the salary at which someone is automatically enrolled will be raised from £5,000 to nearly £7,500. The impact of that will hit 600,000 people—they will be much less likely to opt in to long-term savings. If the Government raise that threshold in line with the coalition’s ambition to increase the income tax threshold to £10,000, nearly 1 million people will be excluded, three quarters of whom will be women. Their loss, potentially, is £40 million of employer pension contributions. The Government are proceeding in full knowledge of that. There is no defence of ignorance. Their review states: “Many or most very low earners are women, who live in households with others with higher earnings and/or receive working tax credits.”
“In fact, 7 million could be under-saving for their retirements. Bringing those people into a pension system and creating a national pension scheme into which they might opt could lead to a step-change in savings in this country. The previous Government were very careful to build that consensus, which we did patiently, beginning with the noble Lord Turner’s commission. I am grateful that the Government have not junked that proposal, but it is deeply regrettable that they are increasing the salary threshold to entitle an individual to auto-enrolment. It is also regrettable that they are introducing a three-month waiting period before people opt in. I understand the trade-offs that the Secretary of State is trying to make, but frankly, he has made the wrong call. Why?”
“Perhaps the hon. Lady would like to reflect on why, just over 12 months ago, the Government whom she is so proud to support set out a policy in direct contradiction to the one proposed in the Bill. I look forward to seeing which way she votes and how she justifies that to her constituents. This afternoon, we must try to bring some order to that confusion, and establish which clauses we agree on, and which clauses the Government—and, I might say, the Treasury—need to rethink. The Secretary of State began with automatic entitlement, on which there is a measure of agreement—it is a rock that we should hang on to in that regard. The proposal for automatic enrolment of workers into workplace pensions is to be retained, which is important, because as a country, we under-save for pensions.”
“Just last summer, the Pensions Minister boasted of reforms in the system that he said included “those who the system has always missed out such as women and the lower paid.” In his own Department’s review, he said that he wanted to look at the “particular challenge” for “women pensioners. A group I have long worked for, and who are so often the poor relations in regard to pensions.” I will let the House draw its own conclusions. One moment the Pensions Minister is offering to protect women pensioners, the next he is presenting proposals that will punish half a million women with a bill for up to £16,000.”
“956.] Yet buried in the fine print, we learnt the truth—not the Pensions Minister, the Secretary of State or the Chancellor could bring themselves to that Dispatch Box and actually tell people straight that that policy set out in the coalition agreement was absolutely worthless. The truth was set out in the depths of the spending review, page 69 of which read: “The State Pension Age will then increase to 66 for both men and women from December 2018 to April 2020.” That is a promise well and truly broken. At least when the Lib Dems changed their minds about increasing tuition fees, they could pretend that they were just making things up to get elected, but this was a promise they made and broke in government.”
“Page 26 reads: “We will phase out the default retirement age and hold a review to set the date at which the state pension age starts to rise to 66, although it will not be sooner than 2016 for men and 2020 for women.” For good measure, the Pensions Minister got to his feet a month or so later and said that the Government were committed to any change not being sooner than 2020 for women. Then, 118 days later, the Chancellor arrives on the scene. He stands at the Dispatch Box and says that “the state pension age for men and women will reach 66 by 2020.” —[ Official Report , 20 October 2010; Vol. 516, c.”
“I will in a moment. This unfolding chaos has been impressive even for a Government who have presided over U-turns on forests, sentencing reform and the reorganisation of the NHS, because we thought we knew where we were. The coalition Government made a wise move in appointing the Pensions Minister to his brief—he is a man who knows a thing or two about pensions. Indeed, in one of his first major speeches, he told his audience: “I have become known as something of a bore at pensions conferences.” We have no problem with that. Then we had the coalition agreement. I do not know whether anyone remembers the coalition agreement—it was important once.”
“Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that he has seen the costings given in the parliamentary answer provided by the Pensions Minister on 9 March 2011?”
“The Minister gave an interesting answer, because those costings say that if, for example, we increased the retirement age to 67 by 2035—that is, if we accelerated the reform by one year—that would save £6.9 billion. However, if the retirement age was increased to 67 by 2034, by accelerating the increase by two years, that would save £13.7 billion. Therefore, the question for us this afternoon is: how much will be saved by accelerating the reform for those women who are now having to retire later, and who therefore confront trying to find all that money magically, in the space of just four or five years? Has that been traded off against other options, such as introducing advances in the retirement age later on? That is the question that we have to get to the bottom of in this Second Reading debate.”
“I will give way in a moment. Let us hear what the impact of the Government’s proposals will be, because the Secretary of State rather glided over this point. Some half a million women will receive their state pension at least 12 months later than they had previously been advised, with 300,000 women—those born between December 1953 and October 1954—experiencing a delay of one and a half years. For 33,000 women—those born between 6 March and 5 April 1954—that period increases to two years. For them, the loss in state pension will be around £10,000. For those on full pension credit, the loss will be closer to £15,000. Those women, with five years’ notice of the timetable change, have almost no time to prepare for their income loss.”
“In a moment. We are talking about women in the age group that was asked by a Conservative Government in 1995 to set in train the equalisation of the state pension, a reform that we accepted, because it came with time to plan. However, that cannot be said of today’s proposal. This morning, Age UK warned that “a sizeable minority are not even aware of the 1995 changes with nearly a fifth expecting to receive their State Pension at the age of 60.” The Secretary of State’s proposals will now make that worse.”
“My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, because I think that that was news to the House. We would certainly expect that legal guidance to be published before we get to the Minister’s winding-up speech. That guidance is a material point in a debate that is important to many people, as well as many right hon. and hon. Members, because this Bill has such a poor effect on women in this country—the people we represent.”
“In two minutes. Michelle Mitchell, the charity director of Age UK, has said that “it’s difficult to see how women can plan properly when the government keeps moving the state pension age goalposts”. The director general of Saga has said that “to make just one cohort of women bear all the brunt of this in the very short-term will undermine the concept of planning for retirement over the long-term and cause real distress to the responsible women who have made careful financial retirement plans.” Can hon. Members tell me how this can possibly be justified?”
“Of course. The hon. Lady makes an extremely fair point, and that is why, after the Turner commission met and the Pensions Act 2007 went through this House, a clear timetable was set for how the state pension age should increase. [ Interruption. ] The Secretary of State is muttering from a sedentary position about how the longevity assumptions have now been increased. That is perfectly fair, and we should have a national debate about how the state pension age should be brought forward; indeed, the Pensions Minister has issued a consultation. It is just a shame that it closes on Friday, after this debate is concluded.”
“That was in our manifesto, and that is what we would have done if and when we were returned to office. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman cannot make up fantasy numbers comparing the reality—”
“Let us take the hon. Gentleman’s second point first. I understand that the proposal for a flat-rate pension is included in a Green Paper. It is therefore an early statement of the direction of Government policy. Given what the Government have managed to do to commitments in their coalition agreement, I am not sure how much water that proposal holds. The hon. Gentleman’s first point was more interesting, because he was comparing the benefit for someone on a pension under the lock introduced by the Government with a pension that is linked to prices. Going into the election, no party proposed to keep the pension linked to prices, so his calculation is purely fanciful. Indeed, the Pensions Commission said that we should re-link pensions to earnings in 2012.”
“I am glad to hear that correction about Baroness Thatcher. I think that the hon. Gentleman would also accept his Government’s own figures, which show that pensioner poverty is now at its lowest level for 30 years. I am sure that he would accept that pensioner incomes increased faster than gross domestic product and faster than earnings over the past 13 years. That is why we are proud of our record of delivering on pensions.”
“I do not know how much attention the hon. Gentleman has been paying to this debate, but we championed this issue before it came to the House of Lords and as it went through the other place. We will champion it through the House of Commons as well, until this bad Bill has been thrown out.”
“The Chief Secretary does not believe in it; the Pensions Minister does not believe in it; half of the Liberal Democrat Members do not believe in it; the Tory Whips do not believe in it. What on earth are we doing going into the Division Lobbies to vote to punish half a million women through a Bill that no one believes in? Will the hon. Gentleman answer that question now?”
“We are being asked to do this when it is perfectly clear that the Government no longer believe in the Bill. We are privy to reports in the newspapers that the Government might be working on another U-turn. I am not sure whether it is Conservative or Liberal Democrat Members who are behind it, although I know who will claim the credit. The Secretary of State told the Financial Times today that there are “issues and concerns” that need sorting out, while senior Ministers, says the Daily Mail , “are telling the Chancellor he must think again.” The Secretary of State, it says, is “sympathetic”. I have to ask, then: why are we voting on a Bill that the Government do not believe in?”
“Alongside it, I found another rather apposite quote: “It is typical of Tory policy to hit the poorest the hardest.” That is still there on his website. This is the Pensions Minister who said: “As ever when it comes to pensions, it is as if women are an afterthought. That is clearly not the way in which to change state pension ages.” —[ Official Report, 9 March 2010; Vol. 507, c. 33WH.] That was not on his website. That is what he said in the House of Commons in March last year. Tonight, we have the chance to help the Pensions Minister stand by his words and his record. I think that we should help him with his honour. This is a Second Reading debate. We are supposed to be debating the principles of the Bill and we are then asked to vote on those principles.”