Dame Meg Hillier
MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have huge respect for the Minister, but she has said that she will not take any interventions. She is a very good Minister, and I trust that she will answer in detail the points that have been raised in the House today; having discussions with her and the Government after the debate is too late…”
“My hon. Friend talks about who makes our laws, and she has talked in articles that she has written about the primacy of this place. If the Bill goes forward, is she willing to accept amendments?”
“I welcome my right hon. Friend to her place and thank her for that response, which demonstrates the complications of these schemes. I asked the National Audit Office to look into this, and yesterday the Public Accounts Committee published its report on compensation schemes, suggesting that a central body be established.”
“I am pleased by my right hon. Friend’s answer, but she is in a unique position across Government to ensure that we are protecting not only women, but those who are blind or have visual impairments, who really value this technology.”
“I welcome the Chancellor’s clampdown on speculation and leaks ahead of the Budget; it is certainly an important step he has taken. On the issue of certainty, the National Wealth Fund is a critical investor in crowding in private investment around the UK. I noted that he has changed the remit.”
“Further to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes), it is important that we talk here and that we have diplomacy, but what practical actions are the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence taking to ensure that there is a review of physical defence and security, so that we send a clear message to t…”
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“Nigeria is the largest source country for people trafficked into the UK. Given that there is widespread fear that the girls who were kidnapped a month ago could become victims of trafficking, what special efforts are the Government making to work with and support the Government of Nigeria, and agencies there, to prevent that from happening?”
“The Home Secretary’s comments are very welcome. One of the big issues in my constituency and around the country is not the number of stop-and-searches, but the manner in which officers conduct them. I hope that the training will take into account schemes such as a “changing places” scheme that has been pioneered in Hackney. She has talked about the proposals being taken up voluntarily, and I hear her argument about that being quicker in the short term, but will she tell us how many forces have said that they will sign up?”
“Since funding for lending was introduced, funding for small businesses has actually gone down. Businesses in my constituency tell me that one of the biggest problems is the withdrawal of overdraft facilities by many banks. What is the Minister doing to ensure that such short-term cover is available.”
“In the past month, two women in Hackney have been killed by violent partners, one with her 23-month-old child. Those women had talked to their friends about the risks that they faced. What action is the Minister taking to ensure that funding for organisations such as the Family Rights Group, which is based in Hackney, is not stopped by the Department for Education so that friends and family members, as well as potential victims, have somewhere to go?”
“I, too, have received a letter from No. 10 Downing street this week. What is most alarming is that the information can have come only from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. At the Public Accounts Committee on Monday, the permanent secretary of HMRC acknowledged that it sometimes shares information with other Departments. Will the Leader of the House take more seriously the issue of how No. 10 and the Conservative party can send out letters to people using information from the HMRC database?”
“Both those men have been given a retention package of more than £1 million this year and next year that is not performance-related. I repeat that such gross, over-inflated handouts must stop. There are other costs of this misguided approach to altering the way the Co-op runs itself. The “Have Your Say” consultation with customers cost £1.5 million.”
“There is no place in a consumer-owned co-operative business for unearned executive bonuses, and 100% retention payments should be scrapped. How those payments came to be requested by management, and then approved by the board, must be explained. Equally, no member of the current executive will carry the membership’s confidence if they do not immediately and publicly declare that they will not accept such payments. Alistair Asher, who is now the Co-operative Group’s general counsel, was formerly a partner at Allen & Overy, where he was involved with building society demutualisation. He may have worked on demutualisations in the past, but the Co-op does not want to demutualise. Another member of the team is Nick Folland, the director who deals with communications.”
“Rather than rushing headlong into irreversible changes, however, we and the Co-operative Group’s board should take a breath and calmly reflect on the issues. Eminent as Lord Myners may be, it is not credible to base the Co-operative Group’s future governance on the views of one man. To date, all seven regional boards have now rejected his plan, and the response has to be one of calm reflection and compromise. There are three immediate actions that should be taken to steady the co-operative ship and set a fresh course that will begin to build trust and confidence between the Co-operative Group’s leadership and members. The first is one about which I have received a lot of correspondence from members and customers across the country.”
“There is scant evidence that that has so far been considered important, and the swift decision dramatically to reduce funding for Co-op organisations such as Co-operatives UK will dismay long-standing co-operators further now that the hypocrisy of the executive pay policy has been laid bare. The immediate response to the fresh crisis has been to accelerate the agenda for reforming the Co-operative Group’s structure. That is continuing even following the departure of Lord Myners from the board. No one, active co-operators least of all, doubts that governance changes are needed. Much has been said about the weakness of non-executives, although few have benefited more from that weakness than the current executive team.”
“I shall talk about the future of the Co-operative Group. I am proud to be a Labour and Co-operative MP. We have seen a lot of turmoil in the Co-operative Group recently, and the resignation of former chief executive Euan Sutherland, following the revelation of the scale and nature of his total remuneration package, carries a stark warning to the remaining Co-operative Group leadership, who must now reflect carefully on what that means for the future. Lord Myners resigned overnight, although I understand his review of the Co-operative Group and its management continues. The new leadership came in without experience of the co-operative or mutual sector, and must understand the importance of maintaining strong relationships with the rest of the co-operative movement.”
“Without an active and successful Co-op Group, our economy will lose a richness of choice and be the poorer for it. Members and customers up and down the country have been in touch with me to say that they are concerned about “our Co-op”. The management need to understand that feeling. They must listen to members. The Co-op is not just a brand; it is about mutual benefit and the sharing of profits among members. In my view, the Co-op is worth fighting for.”
“Confidence among member owners will simply not return without the trust that that would bring. The individual must understand the Co-op Group and be able to work across its diverse range of businesses. We would do well to remember that the most successful CEO of recent years was Graham Melmoth. He was not a trader, but managed a team of skilled executives who ran the individual businesses while he oversaw the corporate strategy and provided leadership in line with the Co-op’s core principles. Such an approach would ensure that there was appropriate expertise in each division, while militating against the excessive micro-management of recent years. The next few weeks will bring new challenges for the Co-operative Group. It will succeed through this period only if all its members and managers pull in the same direction and co-operate.”
“The best way to do that would be to establish a panel that can provide advice and support as the group goes through its reform process. Ideally, it would be chaired by someone like the former chief executive officer Sir Graham Melmoth or the former chairman Keith Darwin who have the credibility, experience and ability to provide candid advice to help steer the group to the next phase in its co-operative future. Thirdly, an interim chief executive should be appointed who has mutual sector experience. The next chief executive will be perhaps the most critical person in the Co-op Group’s 170-year history. It is important that the recent errors are not repeated. It is critical that the new chief executive officer has a track record in the mutual sector.”
“Up and down the country, co-operatives embrace people of all parties. The Co-op party has a sister arrangement with the Labour party, but that is not the thrust of my comments. I am talking about the Co-operative Group, which is ratcheting up costs at a high rate. The Kelly review is costing £2,000 a day and the current total is £3.5 million. Millions of pounds have been spent on a new office next to the stock exchange, despite the Co-op Group having a brand new head office in Manchester. Secondly, an eminent co-operators group should be established to advise and support Lord Myners in the valuable work that still needs to be carried out. The current leadership of the Co-op Group should reconnect with the wider co-operative movement.”
“I am not knocking grandparents, who obviously play a valuable role in many cases, but there are studies that clearly show that grandparent care does not necessarily mean a higher level of early-years education for children, and that care in a formalised or trained setting can be better for child development.”
“I will come to the issue of older children, but whether it is after-school care or pre-school care, flexibility is the key. I concur with the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), although not completely—she decided to rubbish the Labour Government’s achievements, and I will make no apology for what Labour achieved through Sure Start, with a massive increase in the quality and availability of child care and reductions in cost in many places. As she, I and other Members recognise, flexibility is vital, because people, particularly in London, do not work nine-to-five as much as is often believed.”
“Governments of all parties often talk about the difference between child care and early years education, and we have heard a little of that divide in this debate. However, I am sure that all of us who have had experience of the matter would like to see the two combined in most cases. When Governments talk about early years education, which is inevitably expensive, they mean providing 15 or 25 hours a week, not the number of hours that would be needed for somebody to work full time. I recognise that that is unaffordable at the moment, although I have ambitions on the matter—I do not speak for my Front-Bench colleagues, but I have aspirations for what they will achieve in time. Child care needs to be different for different children.”
“This is such an important issue that I hope we do not end up with a false party political divide. The new clause is a sensible and proportionate measure that we should all support, because it would not tie anyone to anything much. It simply suggests that we should assess the impact of changes to the tax and tax credits system, to ensure that we all work together to make the system fairer, simpler and more cost-effective for parents and better for children. The issue of child care is about both supporting supply and ensuring that it is affordable for the user, and both parts of that need to be simple. We have seen problems in the system, because without subsidy at the supply end there is a disincentive to provide supply. I have suggestions about how we might address that through the tax system, which I will come on to later.”
“Women who play their equal role in society and in the work force are more satisfied, better role models and better parents as a result, if we make things as stress free as possible, which is about providing flexibility.”
“The subsidy is tapered, depending on the family income—in this country, it would need to be done sensibly through the tax and tax credit systems—which means that three quarters, 76%, of Danish women are working. That is a huge improvement on the number of women working in the UK. I will touch on the points made by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) on women wanting to stay at home, but we need women to be economically active. This is not just about child care, but about giving women their rightful place in the work force. Hearteningly, women outnumber men in the Chamber at the moment. I applaud my male colleagues of all parties for being here, because this is not just a women’s issue.”
“I know that, because I am a working mother of three, and I am lucky to be well paid enough to buy in that flexibility. For anyone who does not have a salary as generous as mine, buying in that flexibility is very difficult. Nationally, we know that 70% of working parents do not work nine-to-five Monday to Friday, and in London, because of the journey times, doing a full day’s work means long and expensive child care, if parents can get it. We have the most expensive system in the world. The review proposed in new clause 1 could consider examples from around the world. In Denmark, a day care Act means that local councils provide child care for all between 8 am to 5 pm, with parents and the Government—this is where new clause 1 would come in—contributing to the cost. Child care is free for families on the lowest incomes.”
“I know a number of people on low incomes who have a simple approach to the tax system and who will find the proposal complicated. They will not benefit to the same extent because of the amount of child care that many of them will access because of their working hours. I represent one of the youngest parliamentary seats in the UK. More than a fifth of residents are under 16 and more than a third, about 34%, are under 24, so child care is a big concern. I am stopped on the streets of Hackney South and Shoreditch by mums, childminders and others who want to raise that concern. When I ask any working parent what the toughest part is, they say that it is sorting out the child care, which is a logistical challenge as well as a financial challenge.”
“Member for South Northamptonshire said, would need the flexibility of having someone come to their home, or a very flexible childminder. That might be manageable for a child under two, but things get much more complicated with children above that age who are looked after outside the home. Just over a year ago, I called for child care to become a top priority, and it is heartening that we are having more debates on the issue, but talking about it does not mean that the Government are getting it right with the offer of so-called tax-free child care. I will not repeat the arguments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North, but the Government’s offer depends on how much people spend, and it is complicated for people to understand.”
“The Resolution Foundation found that one in five mothers who were already employed would like to take on an extra 10 hours’ work a week on average but could not do so because they would need the commensurate extra child care—not just 10 hours extra but enough child care to allow them to travel to and from work. A parent in London buying 50 hours of child care a week for a child under two would face an average annual bill of nearly £14,000, if they can find a child care setting that opens during the hours that they need to work. In the current climate, in which people are expected to work longer and harder for their money, 50 hours of child care is the bare minimum. Anyone who is not working regular hours, as the hon.”
“Such things can be disincentives for accessing child care and ensuring that people get the right support, particularly mothers who are going back to work. I am a London Member, and the new clause would particularly benefit people in London, because child care costs in London are inevitably higher. The costs of premises are higher. Although there is a minimum wage, child carers are rightly paid more, and in London their wages will be higher than in other parts of the country. Research by child care site Findababysitter.com found that a quarter of parents in London who were not in work were prevented from getting a job because of high child care costs.”
“The key point is that we can have Government initiative after Government initiative, but parents want the system to be kept simple. They want to know what money they have to play with and where they can spend it, which means that both the supplier and the purchaser of a service, in this case the parent, can understand the system. We need cross-party agreement so that we have a system that sticks and is not tinkered with time after time so that people do not have to work out, “Does that apply to me? My child is going to be that age on that date, so does it apply to them? Oh, they have missed that cut off by one day, so that whole term will be more expensive than it will be for the neighbouring child, who got in by one day.” There are all sorts of silly little bits of the system that make it complicated for people to understand.”
“The London assembly Labour group carried out a study on the London cost of living, and it found that flexibility in child care was particularly important in London, where there are long commute times and variable hours. One of the benefits of the child care voucher system, which is not universal, is that where it has been taken up it has provided a good deal of flexibility for parents to buy into properly qualified, registered child care. Again, the study proposed by the new clause could investigate how to support quality through a tax voucher system. Of course, we have seen a reduction in tax credits, although I welcome and support what my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) said about the U-turn on universal credit paying 85% of child care costs.”
“There is cross-party support for all of that, because I agree that Sure Start was a revolution in early years support. I felt that it should continue so that there was Sure Start at the ages of five and 11. We would stray off the debate if I got into that territory, but my constituency still has 37% of children living in poverty and it is a young constituency. Families of all backgrounds have used Sure Start, learned from each other and got support. Whatever their background, people have challenges with their children at an early stage, and children really have got a sure start. Titles of Government initiatives often become glib, but Sure Start meant something to me and to many of my constituents.”
“Not every grandparent wants to take on child care. I meet grandparents, and those whose own parents are caring for their children, who say that they do not necessarily want to take on child care but feel they should to support their child. Many of those grandparents are young and give up work to look after their grandchildren. That is fine if it is a matter of choice, but it is a real issue if they feel they have to step in because of the lack of availability and options. There is a danger of creating generational issues. For every individual who wants to work but cannot, we reduce the tax take. We need to bear that in mind.”
“The Institute for Public Policy Research has done a big bit of work on child care. It has found that directly funding child care facilities, which happens in other European countries, can function better for parents and be more cost-effective, because there is a guarantee of a place. We have to monitor and ensure that the money is not wasted, but it would mean certainty for the supplier, which means certainty for the parent trying to buy. I want to pick up on some of the comments made by other hon. Members. The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate talked about the importance of informal child care and I think we would all agree with that. Any parent will use informal child care at some point, whether for an evening out or as part of a longer-term arrangement with grandparents. Let us be honest, though.”
“Speaking as a member of the Public Accounts Committee, we would clearly need to monitor that to ensure that it was not abused, but the brilliant brains in the Treasury, including the Minister’s, could probably work through such a system. We need to push private and public sector providers to extend the hours available to parents, particularly late in the evening and weekends. That could happen through a tax incentive or a tax break system. There are an awful lot of opportunities. The Minister is nodding. I am sure that she, as a working mum, will recognise the challenges and needs. I commend to colleagues the London cost of living report by the London assembly Labour group. Although it is a Labour report, it can be read by other parties. I read it as a cross-party report.”
“As I have said, child care costs in London are higher than in the rest of the country. I will not go into the details but, for instance, a nursery place for an under two is £140 a week typically in London compared with a UK average of £109. I know many people who pay a lot more than that. There is an idea that people have choice, but it is not often the case. Many parents take the option of what is available at the time, which is why we need to provide incentives at the supply end. I have a couple of suggestions that the study proposed in new clause 1 could consider. It could examine the idea of a London weighting in universal credit for the provision of child care. It could also consider more family-friendly approaches by employers. Practices such as working from home arrangements and on-site nurseries could be fuelled by tax breaks.”
“In Hackney South and Shoreditch, women’s average earnings are higher than men’s, which shows what could be achieved if that was applied across the workplace. A decent universal system of child care will pay for itself in the long run. More parents working and paying taxes, and not claiming tax credits and benefits, more than pay for the state’s investment. I do not speak for my party on this, but I hope that those who do take that mantle and look towards the overall goal of a universal free child care system that will pay for itself. That is an aim we need to work towards. If the Government agree to new clause 1, we will be set on a cross-party basis along that route. It would not solve the problem overnight or mean that things will be easy, but it would mean that we can look closely at the options.”
“I will come to that point in a moment. I am saying not that women who want to stay at home and who can afford to do so should not make that choice, but that it is important that women have the choice to work and to be economically active and play their full role in society in that way. Even women who stay at home to look after their children for a period of their child’s early years may well need or want to work at a later stage. That choice is therefore important whatever stage we are talking about. We should not conflate being at home with a very young child under five with being at home all the time. Under the hon. Lady’s Government’s benefits system, parents have to work or they will seriously lose money, and their children will be pushed into greater poverty.”
“I just want to go back to the point about au pairs and others. Will the hon. Lady acknowledge that with the cost of housing and the overcrowding in many cases in London, the idea of someone living in your home is not an option, which is why the formal setting is particularly important in a city such as London?”
“I thank the hon. Lady for being so generous with her time. Childminders have told me that their main fear is that childminder agencies could replicate the private sector company model for older people’s domiciliary care, creaming off a profit from childminders’ salaries and not delivering a good service. The hon. Lady has described an entirely different model. Does she have any inside information about what will be announced?”
“The flexibility of provision is as important as the flexibility of payment. It is no good talking about flexibility if the child care provider does not provide it or does not provide the number of hours and length of day needed, whether long or short. What are the Government planning to do about that?”
“What I meant was that the review would not require the Government to act on its findings. However, it would give us all a basis on which to argue about what was best for local people and, I hope, reach consensus. It would not stop the Government doing what they were already doing, but it could open up other opportunities.”
“In my constituency, the Chesham Arms was listed as an asset of community value, but the owner tried to convert it into offices, just as my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) has described. When is the Department going to make sure that its policies do not clash in that ridiculous way to undermine what was a good policy on assets of community value?”
“Earlier the children Minister talked about the increase in places at school nurseries. Is she aware of the challenge that faces many working parents who cannot secure more than the 15 hours a week they are guaranteed and cannot buy extra hours in a school nursery, which reduces the choices for working parents?”
“He said: “I have been looking to purchase my first home. I am 35, and in full time work since I left university in 2001. I have worked hard my whole life but I still require assistance from my parents to purchase my first home.” In some ways, Tommy is one of the lucky ones. Although he has not found a home, he has parents who may be able to provide him with some help. Many of my constituents are not in that situation.”
“There are now more private renters than home owners. However, both private renting and ownership are out of the reach of people who live in social housing, and the waiting list for social housing is immense. This Government treat the country as two halves. Over the past six months, a home owner in Hackney will have seen property prices increase by 3.58%. Someone could earn £15,060 in six months on an average property. The average price of a property in Hackney is now more than half a million pounds—£554,306. A flat would cost £347,000. Someone owning a property could earn £45,000 in a year—nearly double the national average wage. It is fine for those people who own properties, but for those who do not, ownership is a long-distant dream. Let me quote from a letter from my constituent, Tommy.”
“Years ago, when I was a councillor in Upper Holloway in Islington, I had to fight over the then Royal Northern hospital site to ensure that it was sold to improve housing in the area. Most of the housing there ended up being privately owned because of that very Treasury rule. Some 20 years later, we still have that same rule. The Budget provided a great opportunity for the Chancellor to allow land to be sold at slightly lower than market rates so that more affordable homes could be built, thus improving public health and the general and economic well-being of people in my constituency. The St Leonard’s hospital site in my constituency is a worry as it is now owned by NHS Property Services and will have to be sold—if it is sold—for the highest rate. Support for affordable housing in areas such as mine is very important.”
“The Budget mentioned two of the biggest issues in my constituency, which are housing and child care. However, the Help to Buy provisions solve the problems for only some people, but not for those who rent. That is a real issue in my constituency, and I will touch on it in a minute. On child care, another initiative has been announced, but the practicalities of it have not been addressed. We still have a Government who are looking to threaten the quality of child care, which, for parents in my constituency, is a real concern. One of the key things that is missing from the Budget statement today is a Treasury commitment to freeing up public land for housing. Under Treasury rules, public land needs to be sold at the highest price.”
“The tax break is welcome for those it helps, but there is confusion about how it will work. It is really important in child care policy that these things are simple, clear and do not change too often, as that makes it confusing for parents to navigate their way through.”
“Completed homes were just over 8,000, so we are a long way short of the target for the new homes that need to be built, and certainly for those that are genuinely affordable. I commend to the House the Co-Operative Housing Tenure Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds). It is a great shame that the Chancellor did not take the opportunity to look at co-operative solutions that enable people to be much more in control of their own destiny. I mentioned at the outset that child care is a huge issue in my constituency. I represent a very young borough, and parents want quality. It is a great shame that the Government took a “pile them high, teach them cheap” approach, although that was eventually dropped after their surprise at the backlash from parents.”
“I completely support that. Only last night, I was talking to tenants in Haggerston about rent a room and the ability to take in a lodger. They worried about getting into tax and so on, and they were worried about the threshold. That is exactly the concern. In my constituency, someone could legitimately rent out a room in their home for £200 or even £250 a week, so they would quickly reach the threshold. That is a real issue: it is one small way in which we could help some people to find a home, but it does not solve the major problem. New home starts in the UK have gone down by 10% from February 2013 to just under 9,500, according to figures from the National House Building Council.”
“It really is an important provision for many people, so it is good that that wrong has now been righted.”
“The stamp duty increase for companies purchasing properties worth over £500,000 might do something to stop overseas purchasers. The changes for air ambulance services will be of great benefit not only to my constituents—the Royal London hospital is just on the edge of my constituency—but to many people up and down the country. Finally, I am delighted that my constituents of Caribbean origin will now see a fairer deal on air passenger duty. It is about time that the people who broke their backs for Britain when they arrived in the ’50s and ’60s got a fair deal. It is an injustice that has now been righted. I also welcome the bingo tax changes. I support my local Mecca bingo hall, where I have called out the numbers, to my embarrassment and that of regular bingo-goers.”
“There are some things in the Budget that I welcome, such as the export loan changes, which will help many of the businesses in my constituency, particularly in Shoreditch. However, there was no move to make banks more locally accountable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) highlighted. Although more data are now published on where banks lend, there could have been an opportunity for the Chancellor to look at a US-style community reinvestment Act. I hope that the Government will still consider that. The tax avoidance measures, following up on the work of the Public Accounts Committee, are also very welcome. I hope that they will do something to stop big companies trying to dodge their bill to the British taxpayer.”