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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“It is important that we do a couple of things. It is important that we continue to invest in training those in charge of procurement and commissioning in local authorities. The hon. Gentleman will forgive me for saying that the budget for that would, I am afraid, be cut if we sliced £100 million off the Cabinet Office budget. It is also important for us to introduce a bit of transparency, which is why we have asked the social enterprise sector to rate local authorities. We published those statistics earlier this month. I am pleased to say that eight councils in the top 25 were Labour councils. I am afraid that only one was Conservative, but I know that the hon. Gentleman will be anxious to turn that situation around.”
“First, may I praise my hon. Friend for the charitable work that he does? Organisations such as The Hinge will have an enormous contribution to make over the coming months, and the strength that they could acquire in that time could serve them well in regard to their long-term contribution to the sector and to the communities that they work in. That is exactly why different Departments right across Government are putting in place significant amounts of funding to help the sector over the next two or three years. That funding would be cut if we took the advice of some in the House. Once the money is in place, it is vital that we get rid of any impediments to getting deals done, which is why I am bringing Ministers together to clear those road blocks out of the way much faster.”
“I am very grateful for that example, because I was not aware of the contribution that the livery companies were making to this agenda. The hon. Gentleman underlines my point that we will get through this recession faster, and in a way that protects families and businesses better, if we build our work on strong communities. It is the faith-based organisations, charities, voluntary groups and, I now know, livery companies that are knitting those communities together.”
“We have taken a vital step forward in honouring the gifts, guts and sheer goodness of those men and women from whom we draw so much inspiration today.”
“We have some ideas about what would constitute a fitting award, but we want to hear the views of the families before developing proposals any further. I hope to have the first of those meetings in the next couple of weeks. I hope that all Members will agree that that will mark a clear recognition of those individuals’ bravery, courage and self-sacrifice, and celebrate the outstanding contributions that they made for humanity and the finest traditions of this country. In conclusion, I believe that this has been an extraordinary and, in a way, unique debate. I have not been in this House for long, but in the four and a half years since becoming a Member I have not had the privilege of being involved or associated with so powerful a debate.”
“The Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and I can announce that the Government will create an award of recognition for the extraordinary acts of courage shown by a number of British citizens during the second world war in helping many Jews and other persecuted groups to escape from the evils of the holocaust. I want to discuss the precise dimensions of that award further in meetings with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and other interested parties. I hope to meet the families of the heroes we have discussed, debated and heard so much about this afternoon. I hope that we can proceed in a cross-party way, so I would be grateful for the advice and counsel of Opposition Members and greatly privileged if my hon. Friend joined us in those discussions.”
“Secondly, it might be helpful if I correct a misapprehension that sometimes creeps into debates on the subject, although I am glad to say that we have not heard it this afternoon. Sometimes the idea of honours and gallantry awards are conflated, but it is important to remember that, as the name implies, gallantry awards recognise individuals who have consciously put their lives at risk for the benefit of others, and that, under current procedures, awards are made within just five years of the event concerned. Therefore, we need to find a different way to honour the people we have heard so much about this afternoon. I am pleased to announce that the Government agree that it is entirely appropriate that we should have a national recognition of the holocaust heroes.”
“Let me add two points of clarification to explain why. First, if we take the basic principle that an Order of Knighthood relates to a society of people with the sovereign at its head that is bound together by statutes that define people’s rights and obligations as well as their relationship to the outside world, we can begin to see how my hon. Friend’s suggestion is not precisely the way in which appropriate recognition should be delivered. A dead person can take no place as a member of such a society of the living, and membership of one of the Orders of Chivalry ceases on the death of the appointee. That policy and the associated procedures have been subject to scrutiny several times since what I have outlined was articulated in 1922.”
“We need to find ways of helping teachers to communicate the sheer power of what those extraordinary people did. Talking about what they did will help teachers to communicate the wider argument and message that we can still distil and learn from the holocaust. Let me turn directly to the subject of the early-day motion and the debate that my hon. Friend has initiated this afternoon. We have been following this subject with great attention. The Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and I believe that it is right to recognise the contribution of holocaust heroes. We have had discussions across Government to examine a number of options, and we have concluded that there is a way forward, although I do not think that the precise way that my hon. Friend suggests in his early-day motion is right.”
“One of the most extraordinary things about those who survived is that they often returned home to lives and communities from which they received no reward or recognition. Even though their stories are today such an extraordinary source of inspiration to us, many of those people did not consider that they had actually done anything out of the ordinary. Surely, such people should be considered one of the proudest aspects of Britain’s war effort during the second world war, and that is why we should be honouring them today. Another reason for doing so, which was alluded to by the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd), is that honouring those people will help us to teach the lessons of the holocaust when, during the next 20 years, it goes from living history to just history.”
“She hid a Jewish child for, I think, between two and a half and three years. In much of occupied Europe at that time, there was a short supply of food, fuel, and medicines, and the very act of taking somebody in and sheltering them was difficult not just because of the persecution taking place, but because of having to share scarce resources. June Ravenhall took additional risks because I understand that the Jewish child that she sheltered had tuberculosis. We could also dwell on the other extraordinary stories that we have heard about from right hon. and hon. Members: for example, the stories of Frank Foley, Albert Bedane, Randolph Churchill, Ida and Louise Cook, Charles Coward, Sofka Skipworth and, of course, Princess Alice of Greece.”
“The case for that has not been put better than by the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) and my hon. Friend. Although the holocaust teaches us about the depths to which man can sink, it also contains some of the best stories of the human spirit. In the midst of such a great crime, a small number of very brave people chose not to stand by, but to act, despite the fact that the consequence for sheltering, aiding or helping Jews to escape was severe. We have heard the extraordinary story of Jane Haining, who was a missionary working in an orphanage in Hungary and who refused to leave the little Jewish children who were in her care. As a result, she was sent to Auschwitz, where she died. We have also heard about the example of June Ravenhall, who was an English woman living in the Netherlands.”
“Members have mentioned that yesterday the Prime Minister was at Auschwitz where he said that the UK will permanently support the maintenance and retention of the memorial there. This year, the Government have granted more than £750,000 to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, which organises a national Holocaust memorial day. The Government have made more than £1.5 million available to the Holocaust Educational Trust to support its work in raising awareness among younger people of the true horrors of the holocaust. One of the most powerful features of this debate is the personal experiences of right hon. and hon. Members, who not only visited Auschwitz, but had the experience of sharing that education with younger constituents. Why should we go a stage further and honour heroes of the holocaust?”
“I remember learning and reading about the holocaust in my brief history lessons, but it was not until I took myself off with a rucksack to the middle east at the age of 19 that my education about the holocaust really began. Like many hon. Members, I can still see the images of what I saw at Yad Vashem in my mind this afternoon, and I can still vividly—all too vividly—remember how I felt walking through that avenue, which celebrates the extraordinary courage of many people who did so much to help to rescue Jews during the holocaust. That is why, during the past 10 or 11 years, it is right that the Government—and we as a country—have done more to remember the holocaust and to bring its relevance into the modern currency of politics and civil society. Hon.”
“What more can I add to what has been said about the holocaust in the debate? Not very much. The population of Jews in pre-war Europe was 9 million and, during the war, 6 million were systematically murdered, along with many others. The Chief Rabbi once said that the deeper one looks into the holocaust, the more one runs the risk of entering a black hole of despair. Yet the holocaust still has much to teach us today in Britain about not just the depths of depravity to which man can sink, but the way in which society, politics, Governments and civil society can miss the warning signs of prejudice and racism. Unfortunately, those lessons are still enormously relevant to Britain today. Yet when I think about my education, I simply do not believe that the holocaust was a focus and feature of it in the way that it could have been.”
“Better still, he has helped other hon. Members to work with their local media, so that some of these stories come to the attention of a much wider audience. I hope that he will persist with such work. I pay my own tribute to the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust. The extraordinary work and research that it has done have represented the treasured and sometimes difficult memories of the families involved with enormous dignity. The trust has represented, articulated and celebrated those memories with great effectiveness, and by alighting on the inspirational idea of heroes of the holocaust, it has done an incredible job of telling people in modern Britain about the relevance of remembering such terrible experiences. The staff and trustees of the trust should be very proud of what they have achieved in Parliament this afternoon.”
“I want to start by congratulating all right hon. and hon. Members here this afternoon on what has been an extraordinary debate, which has represented what is best about this House. Before I reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown), Mr. Benton, I hope that you will permit me to say a word or two in his praise. Not only has he shown leadership on this subject, but he has shown leadership in a way that has brought it to national attention, including the attention of Ministers, the Government and this House. My hon. Friend has long taken a personal interest in this subject, and we have corresponded on the matter—sometimes not to his satisfaction—during the past weeks and months. He is the co-author of early-day motion 1175, and he has also worked enormously effectively with his local media.”
“My Department is in constant contact with the sector to monitor the effects of the downturn. That is why we are determined to invest £500 million to support the sector over this comprehensive spending review period, and why we committed £42 million in extra targeted help in January.”
“That is why the Department of Health has asked Futurebuilders to manage £100 million-worth of investment in social enterprises over the next couple of years.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work that he does representing and speaking up for hospices in his constituency. The third sector and charities such as those that he alludes to go into the downturn in stronger health than ever before, because we have doubled public income to the third sector from £5.5 billion to £11 billion. We are determined to do more. That is why we are spending £500 million over the comprehensive spending review period, and why we are determined to bring forward reviews and reform of Gift Aid. [Official Report, 2 April 2009, Vol. 490, c. 10MC.] The tax system is now worth £4 billion to charities. Where there are opportunities for us to bring public services, charities and voluntary groups closer together, and to use that strategy to strengthen charities, we will do that.”
“As ever, I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s advice. I will put immediate thought into how such a memo could be drafted and propagated—perhaps through The Mail on Sunday.”
“I am sad to hear about the lack of support that my hon. Friend’s local authority is showing to the third sector. Local authorities are vital partners in ensuring that the civic strength of this country becomes greater still over the years to come. We are collecting information right the way across the country about how well local councils are supporting, or in my hon. Friend’s case not supporting, their local charities and voluntary groups, and we will publish those data over the next couple of months.”
“That is why the modernisation fund, which I am glad to be able to tell the House opens for business today, will provide £16.5 million not just to organisations seeking to merge and grow stronger, but to those that seek advice on how to collaborate more effectively in order to do the job that they are so passionate about.”
“I will do my best. [Official Report, 2 April 2009, Vol. 490, c. 10MC.] The hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) is right. Very often it is smaller organisations that make the biggest difference to their communities. That is why we wanted to step up the amount of funding that goes through grassroots grants. In the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, I understand that there are about nine organisations which receive about £27,000-worth of grassroots grants. Often those small amounts of money will make the world of difference, as he knows. When the Charity Commission recently asked the question of the sector—however we choose to define the sector—84 per cent. of respondents said that they were more interested in collaboration in the months to come.”
“Volunteering organisations in particular have enormous potential to help people get back to work. We are absolutely determined that long-term unemployment, which so scarred this country during the 1980s, will not be an outcome of this recession. That is why the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions have set out clear plans to make sure that, after six months, people are given extra training, the opportunity to get extra help to get back to work, or the opportunity to start volunteering in their local communities. That is why the third sector action plan, which we published in January, provided for about £10 million to create about 40,000 volunteering opportunities, to make sure that there is no return to long-term unemployment in this country.”
“Absolutely. We are trying to strengthen the sector over the years to come; that is why we have provided for such a unique and unprecedented amount of money to go to the sector in the months to come. It is important that we strengthen the role of charities and voluntary groups in delivering public services and helping to deliver public services. That is why Futurebuilders is providing so much money to help exactly with that task, why the Department of Health is investing £100 million to help social enterprises step up to provide public services and why the Department for Children, Schools and Families is also providing £100 million to help. This is already a cross-Government effort.”
“I will, of course, have those conversations on my hon. Friend’s behalf. It is important that we do not just talk about how we can strengthen the role of charities and other groups in delivering international aid, but that we back that with concrete plans to increase funding. That is why so many on the Labour Benches are proud of our commitment to increase overseas aid, despite the difficulties that our economy faces.”
“I am grateful for that advice. I understand that Brian Moore in The Daily Telegraph has been leading a campaign on that exact issue, for which I commend him. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are determined to make sure that there is specific, targeted, focused help for organisations that are facing new pressures, such as a decline in income and a step up in demand for their services. That is why we put £42 million of help on the table in January. Where there are additional pressures and Government action could help, we will, of course, have those conversations with my colleagues across Government.”
“The Government do not believe in cutting back during a downturn. That is why public net investment will rise from £30 billion in 2007 to £40 billion in 2009-10. It is why, in the Cabinet Office, we are providing extra funding to support charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises and the communities that they help.”
“My hon. Friend will also know that my constituency, Birmingham, Hodge Hill, is home to LDV, which is pioneering new products in the electric vehicles market. She can rest assured that that is a mission to which I am also passionately committed.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why, in contrast to the early 1980s, when public net investment fell in real terms from about £16 billion to just £11 billion, we will take precisely the opposite course of action. One cannot cut one’s way out of a recession; one can only grow one’s way out of a recession. That is why this Government are committed to increasing investment, strengthening public services and doing everything possible to help those coming out of work. We do not believe that unemployment is a price worth paying, unlike the Conservative party.”
“It is vital that public sector pay is constrained. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has pioneered three-year pay deals, and why it is particularly important that those leaders at the top of public life show an example. The Prime Minister announced yesterday that for the senior civil service and the judiciary we will not accept the recommendations of the Senior Salaries Review Body and we will abate increases this year to 1.5 per cent. It is important for Ministers, in particular, to show restraint, which is why Ministers will not be taking a pay rise either in their ministerial pay or in their pay as Members of this House.”
“I associate myself strongly with the words of the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan), who has spoken for all of us. The social enterprise sector goes into 2009 with unprecedented strength, but we believe that it could be stronger still. That is why we are ensuring that social enterprises have access to the help that my noble Friend Lord Mandelson is providing for the business community, and why social enterprises will benefit from the help for the third sector that was announced by the Prime Minister a week or two ago. It is also why I have set an objective for our policy of growing the social enterprise work force by 25,000 over the next couple of years.”
“It is also why the Department for Children, Schools and Families will route money through social enterprises into organisations working with young people, and why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has announced her intention to set up an organisation to champion the social enterprise agenda. We believe that social enterprises can grow, but not on their own. The Government must do their bit to help.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for the work that he does to champion this agenda. The number of those in the social enterprise work force has grown by some 25 per cent. over the past 10 years, and that has not happened by accident. It has happened because we have doubled the public income going into the third sector—into social enterprises, voluntary groups and charities—up to £11 billion over the past 10 or 11 years. If we want to grow the social enterprise work force still further over the years to come, however, we shall have to back that commitment with investment, rather than cuts. That is why we are providing £250 million-worth of investment through Futurebuilders, and why the Department of Health will provide £100 million-worth of investment funding through its social enterprise fund.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right that community interest companies are a very effective way of getting social enterprise work up and running in communities up and down the country. They are quick and easy to set up and inexpensive, because standard memorandums are available. The legislation that underpins community interest companies was brought into effect in 2005. Already there are about 2,500 of them up and down the country. Three years into the policy, it is a good time to see whether we can make it easier still to set up such companies, so my noble Friend Lord Mandelson will shortly commence a review of the regulations to consider whether the caps on equity and dividends are right. We can then guarantee that we are making it as easy as possible to get these companies set up. We will do everything that we can to promote them.”
“There can be challenges of co-ordination between public agencies, but there can also be such challenges between social enterprises and other voluntary groups. That is partly the inspiration for the £16 million of funding that we announced in our third sector action plan a week or two ago, which will make it easier for charities and voluntary sector organisations to get the advice that they need in order to come together. May I say, though, that it is important for local authorities to play their part. A survey a week or two ago provided quite a lot of feedback about the track record of different authorities and how well they are doing to support social enterprises. One of the conclusions was that local authorities in some parts of the country could do a great deal more. I am sure that that is a shared political agenda between us.”
“I will of course look at that and see what more can be done to help. We are very clear that the support provided to the business community should be available and must help social enterprises, just like any other business. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would agree that it would therefore be a backward step to shut down RDAs, which are, of course, at the sharp end of delivering much of this help. I know that he, too, will welcome the commitment made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to give social enterprises the right to bid where they show that they can deliver back-to-work programmes more effectively than the Government. That is surely the right thing for us to be doing.”
“That sounds like yet another example of where a social enterprise in one of our constituencies is making a real difference not only to the wider delivery of public policy, but to a large number of young people. We have to ensure that right across Government there is a shared commitment to increasing the number of people who work in the social enterprise sector. Crucially, however, we have to back that commitment to increase the sector’s work force by 25,000 not with cuts but with real investment—investment that is routed through to social entrepreneurs right across Government.”
“I welcome what appears to be a shared commitment. I do not consider that weaning social enterprises off public support should be an objective of public policy, because I think that public support is an important part of the mix, but I also think that it should be accompanied by increased help from the private sector. We now have the requisite legislation in place, but the conversations with banks are more complicated this year than they were last year, because there is a wider agenda for Government to advance. Regulations are now being discussed with the banks, however, and I hope that substantive progress will be made in getting the social investment bank up and running this year.”
“We continue to be open to any ideas that we think would help create a flourishing social enterprise sector, but that policy ambition must be backed by investment. I do not agree with the notion that we should somehow cut the Cabinet Office budget by £100 million, because that would close down 400,000 volunteering opportunities and about 2,500 small local charities across the country which rely on our support. As I have said, we have a complicated argument and a complicated agenda to present to the banks this year, but I am determined to ensure that our conversations about the creation of a social investment bank do not get lost in that wider set of ambitions.”
“We think that many of the 25,000 jobs that we want to be created in the social enterprise sector will come through spinning out the work of public servants from the public sector, but if that work is to be conducted effectively in the future, it is clearly vital for the terms and conditions enjoyed by staff working in the public sector to be preserved. My noble Friend Lord Darzai undertook a great deal of pioneering work, ensuring, for example, that NHS staff who wanted to take spin-outs could carry with them important benefits such as pension rights. Protection of that kind will be vital if we are to make this transition effective and good for all.”
“The Government have been in constant dialogue with the third sector about the impact of the downturn. We will shortly publish an assessment of the effects on the third sector and the action that the Government will soon take to support the sector through the downturn. I can confirm that the package announced by my noble Friend Lord Mandelson will be open to third sector businesses.”
“The House should be clear that the third sector enters this downturn with unprecedented strength because the Government have doubled public income to the sector, taking it from about £5 billion to about £11 billion today. Tax relief alone is now worth £3 billion. In all my conversations on the National Economic Council and elsewhere, I have ensured that third sector interests are represented. That is why the package announced by Lord Mandelson today is open to third sector businesses. In this debate, it is important that we talk about investing in the third sector, rather than cutting. I, for one, was unhappy to see proposals from the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), who says that he wants to cut 1 per cent. from the Cabinet Office budget—”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the pre-Budget report confirmed spending totalling nearly £500 million—on top of the £11 billion or so that now goes into the sector—over the next couple of years to help third sector organisations, which are on the front line in helping many communities through the downturn. My hon. Friend will want to know that if we cut £100 million from that budget, we would be cancelling grants for more than 2,000 small local charities, and about 400,000 volunteering opportunities. That is why we will not propose that course of action.”
“The hon. Gentleman is right to say that tax breaks are now a vital part of the income of third sector organisations. We are very proud of the fact that gift aid has increased from £385 million a year to almost £900 million a year. The pre-Budget report that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor published last year set out a range of new measures that we will investigate to ensure that tax reform in future years helps the third sector in the way that it could. We will continue at every opportunity to promote to individuals the benefits of gift aid because it is now such an important part of third sector income.”
“My hon. Friend raises an important point. The third sector is experiencing different effects and we will take into account the different views when the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan), publishes our third sector action plan. We are grateful for about 80 detailed and helpful representations from the sector, and we will reflect on that advice before we publish our action plan in the coming weeks.”
“Quite significant arrangements were in place to help make sure that transitional benefits were in place to protect gift aid contributions to the third sector, the voluntary sector and the charitable sector over the period in which different tax rates come into effect. On nomenclature, I will constantly seek to profit from the hon. Gentleman’s advice.”
“My hon. Friend underlines the fact that now is the time for sustained investment in the third sector. Different parts of the third sector, the voluntary sector and the charitable sector are experiencing different pressures every day. Many are experiencing an increase in requests for services, and others are confronting challenges in new patterns of voluntary giving. It is surely right to continue to invest in the third sector, the voluntary sector and the charitable sector so that they help us come through the downturn faster and stronger. That is why we will not seek to cut 1 per cent. from the Cabinet Office budget over the next couple of years, as that would weaken the sector, not strengthen it.”
“Let me be clear about what the action plan will not contain. It will not contain any proposals to cut 1 per cent. from the third sector budget in the Cabinet Office. Let me remind the House that that would mean cancelling grants to more than 2,000 small local charities across the country and cancelling about 400,000 volunteering opportunities. When the third sector action plan is published, it will contain proposals to strengthen charities, voluntary organisations and third sector organisations because they are on the front line in helping many people and many communities get through the downturn in good shape.”