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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“The women I spoke with said, “I am temporarily not working. I want to work again, but I’m not going to leave my home, where I have lived for 32 years.” She was adamant about that and will go to great lengths, possibly getting into debt, to avoid moving. Another opportunity has been missed. The housing benefit disregard in tax credit will be abolished when universal credit comes into place, which means that 100,000 people will see their child care support drop from 96% to 70% of costs. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said from the Front Bench, this Government give with one hand and take with the other. That will have a particular impact in my constituency because of the high private rents.”
“The increase in VAT has had a regressive impact on my poorer constituents. I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) defend the increase. I thought that as a Liberal Democrat he would not defend such a regressive measure. For those people not in work, there is the whammy of the bedroom tax. Last night I met tenants in Haggerston who are very concerned about it. Those who are hit are having to pay £767 a year if they have one so-called spare bedroom, or £1,370 a year if they have two. Many of them will not leave their homes of many years, as one woman told me only last week. They will find the money somewhere or get into debt. The Government are contributing to indebtedness for people who do not have places to move to, even if they wanted to, and they do not have the money out of their benefits.”
“Sadly, although there is much noise and talk about this, there has not been action at the right level. I have mentioned my view that the Government treat this country as two halves: the very wealthy, and then there are my constituents, who work on zero-hours contracts, are in part-time jobs, and are on the minimum wage, which has risen, but it is still tough to live in London on £6.50 an hour. A man came to see me. He was a kitchen porter and, although he was out of work, he was seeking a job. The distances he was being asked to travel to work, plus the extra hours of travel, meant that child care and travel costs made those jobs uneconomical, even though he was living in social housing. Those are real concerns for London, and we need to look at London weighting on some of the issues.”
“The cost of child care in London is a big concern, especially as my constituents increasingly live in expensive private rented accommodation, which squeezes their budget. The cost of living is a big issue. In London, the average cost of a childminder looking after children under two is £5.46 an hour, but in Hackney, it is much more, ranging from £6.50 an hour to £10 or even more. The supply and cost of child care are a real challenge. Providing support for the cost is one thing, but it does not deal with the question of supply. Cross-party work needs to be done on the issue. My party supports the right initiatives on child care, because we support women who want to work and have their children looked after properly, but we need to make sure that there are policies that we can support in the first place.”
“I do not need to be told by the hon. Lady about the leader of my party. He is an enormous champion of women. There are a lot of women, as we can see, in the shadow Cabinet and in his ministerial team. I do not doubt his commitment to women who work, and to women who do not work, in this country. The record of the Labour Government stands for itself. On the issue of women’s employment, many women in work are in part-time jobs or on zero-hours contracts. The women I meet from day to day in my constituency are often keen to work more hours, but they cannot find them. Child care is often part of the problem. The figures from the Family and Childcare Trust show that the average cost of a nursery place for a child under two is £5.60 an hour in London. That is 28% more than the national average.”
“Is not one of the big tragedies resulting from the loss of local newspapers the impact on journalistic training and the quality of scrutiny of our councils? Is the Minister having discussions with colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government about this important matter?”
“Q12. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) agrees with me that the hated bedroom tax is causing misery for those affected. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree with the president of his party or with his friend the Prime Minister?”
“I welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box. It is good to see another woman on the Conservative Front Bench—one who is speaking this time. During the Immigration Bill Committee, the former Immigration Minister, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), promised that there would be a mechanism to enable constituents who were extending their leave to remain to have the right documents in order to prove that to landlords and others, as required under the Bill. Can the Minister give me any update on how long that will take to come into place? If not, perhaps she could write to me.”
“Many businesses in my constituency tell me that their biggest problem is the withdrawal of overdrafts, and they are sometimes offered big and unwanted loans instead. Is the Secretary of State monitoring that trend, to ensure that banks are not fiddling the system to benefit themselves, and to attack small businesses that have cash-flow issues but do not need big loans?”
“T9. Further to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Jim McGovern), a number of my constituents have been on the employment and support programme for two years, or nearly two years, and have had not a sniff of a work opportunity. Do the Government have a solution for how to get people with complex needs into work, because clearly the Work programme is not delivering?”
“My Big Career is a charity that provides face-to-face careers advice in Hackney schools, and is already making great strides in improving the present position. It has also uncovered the fact that, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), young people are not always pushed enough towards the right vocational training and qualifications. Will the Minister visit Hackney to observe the work that My Big Career is doing in schools, and see for himself the benefit of that face-to-face careers advice?”
“I fear that once again we are kicking an issue into the long grass. Sadly, we have lost the opportunity to relocate to east London now that the Olympic park is soon to reopen. Would not a relocation to somewhere such as, say, Birmingham, in the centre of the country— [ Interruption. ] It could be Birmingham or any other city that Members may wish to suggest. Would that not only speed up the improvement of this place but modernise ways of working and change the culture of this place once and for all?”
“In passing, may I say how good it is to see a bit more diversity on the Government Front Bench? It is just a shame that three of the four Members on the Front Bench not required to be there have silent roles—perhaps it is time the Leader of the House put in a word for their promotion so that they can speak. I am a great champion of university technical colleges—there is one in my constituency—but is it not time we had a debate about the hurdles they face as a result of the age of recruitment being 14 and the sudden speed at which they are being opened? It is time a Minister came to the House to talk in detail about this matter and to answer questions on the roll-out of this policy.”
“Will the Government examine the impact of rents and house prices on the stability of the work force, particularly in the public sector? A 2001 report from the London assembly on housing for key workers, which I chaired, said that there was a crisis in relation to middle management staying in London. Things are even worse now. We shall lose talented public sector professionals who cannot afford to stay. Finally, what discussions are the Treasury having on capitalising the huge housing benefit bill, to use that as a fund to allow councils such as Hackney to build properties for social rent, and to pay off the mortgage over 25 years through the rents? That would be a far more productive use of the huge housing benefit bill than chucking money down the drain and into the hands of private landlords.”
“Mortgage lenders will not lend on, for example, properties above the fifth floor in a block of flats, or those that are concrete system-built. My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) raised the concern about former right-to-buy properties being sold on repeatedly. Again that is an issue in Hackney, partly because someone who has exercised the right to buy on a high-level property cannot then sell on to anyone with a mortgage, which limits their options. That means that more of the non-resident landlords—businesses that do not need a mortgage—take them on. Is the Minister’s Department thinking about supporting models such as Hackney’s letting agency, which is attempting to improve the situation locally? What it is doing is a drop in the ocean, but we hope that it will lead to other things.”
“Are the Government considering vehicles to encourage more long-term professional landlords, who will want to let for a long time, for whom the question of rental income is tied more to an investment vehicle than to personal financial circumstances, so that rents can remain stable, and tenants can sign up knowing that they can stay in the long term, with clear rent limits? I do not mean rent control as suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. There can be problems with that, as there were in New York, where there has been a black market in low-rent properties. What is the Minister doing to persuade mortgage lenders to allow longer-term tenancies in general? Often, that is where the brake is.”
“Interestingly, when Hackney council looked at regulation of landlords, we discovered that we do not have as many rogue landlords as neighbouring boroughs such as Newham; we do not have the “beds in sheds” problem. There are some, but it is not the main problem. For us it is the other issue of overseas individuals that causes many problems. I have questions for the Minister. House prices have gone up, but even with modest borrowing on high-value properties in Hackney, many landlords will not be making a great deal of money. They are tied to certain mortgage commitments; this is because of the army of individuals renting privately in the borough.”
“Some therefore hold on to their property, and that contributes to the army of private landlords. That is one of the reasons why the council in Hackney is setting up a lettings agency of its own—to work with some of those individuals, professionalise them and make an experimental attempt to get longer-term tenancies with reluctant landlords who are nervous about their position. It is crazy when people hold on to assets for the reason I have outlined, rather than just to have a home. That is a challenge. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington summed up very well the challenge posed by overseas landlords. There is a need for disincentives to that approach to housing. We want residents and communities, not absentees.”
“Sorry, I ought to have said this at the beginning: I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Touching on the private rented sector, the army of landlords in Hackney—throughout London, I hear—is largely made up of two groups: overseas investors, who use London property as a cash asset; and private individuals. According to figures from the Residential Landlords Association, 89% of landlords are private individuals. People in Hackney, or elsewhere, sometimes need to relocate outside London. They own a flat or home in Hackney, but the problem is that if they were to sell and move somewhere outside London, but then needed to come back, the difference in property values is so great and so entrenched that there would be no prospect of them returning to the same level of housing.”
“At March 2013, for example—nearly a year ago—the average terraced house in Hackney was worth more than £500,000 and the average flat £363,000. As colleagues have said, even someone on the generous salary of an MP could not buy a flat in my constituency or neighbouring ones. There is a real challenge and issue there. The depletion of affordable housing to rent is not an answer to the problem. The extension of the right to buy, which may appeal to some in the Conservative party, does not solve any problems for my constituents. I am delighted that Hackney is building some new social rented homes, but that remains a drop in the ocean. I ask the Minister what the Department is doing to allow more money for that to happen.”
“I pay tribute to the organisation Digs and to Hackney council, which are looking at how there can be better rights for private renters, but there are systemic problems, which I want to bring to the Minister’s attention. The right to buy has been mentioned, but in Hackney last year the number of right-to-buy purchases doubled as a result of Government policy from 35 to 70. As my hon. Friends have said, the price of housing is now so high that even with discounts and so on from the Government, there is not much opportunity to buy. There is a huge gulf between someone who rents in the social sector, or indeed in the private rented sector now, and the opportunity to buy, because house prices are so high.”
“Thank you, Mr Howarth; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. In Hackney, the borough that I represent along with my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), a little more than half of residents live in social housing, but I will not talk about that today. I associate myself, however, with the comments made and the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry). One of the increasing challenges in my constituency has been the growth in the private rented sector. Throughout Hackney, owner-occupation is 23%, and the private rented sector is more than 26% of households, so more people rent privately than become home owners.”
“My hon. Friend may be too young to remember this, but when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), was Housing Minister he said that “housing benefit will take the strain.” It would be useful to hear this Minister’s view on housing benefit now that the problem has escalated.”
“Q13. Overseas students who are offered places at top British universities get extra coaching in English and maths, but hard-working Hackney students from poor backgrounds with top A-level predictions are not even offered a place if they have a grade C in maths. That is not fair and does not help social mobility. What is the Prime Minister going to do to support hard-working Hackney students?”
“There has been talk of a debate on infrastructure, but is it not time for a debate on the proper roll-out of broadband? Swathes of the country are having problems, despite billions of pounds of public money, and even in Shoreditch we have problems with connectivity, speeds and not-spots. Is it not time for the Government to hold a debate to consider how to embrace new technology and find better ways of using Government money to support infrastructure for a modern country?”
“I appeal to the Minister to be fair-minded and generous, to follow the lead of his Cabinet colleague and to take a different approach. One alternative to a smoothing budget might be a flat-rate reduction across 16-to-18 funding, which would halve the effect on London colleges and be a fairer spread, allowing colleges to plan better. We recognise the challenge in funding, but this way is the wrong way.”
“If a child is 18 years old on 1 or 2 September—old for their cohort, but within the normal cohort—will their funding be cut? I imagine not, but it would be good if he were explicit about it. I also point out that as others have said, this debate is well attended for Westminster Hall. MPs from around the country and from all parties have come. We are not bleating; we are raising a serious concern. I know that the Minister is a thoughtful man, so I am sure that he is listening, but I am sure that he will also listen to the Secretary of State for Education who, when challenged by the Chair of the Select Committee on Education to push for even a one-year intervention to smooth things over, said: “Let me have a look at that. It is a very fair-minded and generous suggestion”.”
“Colleges plan their academic studies ahead. Suddenly shifting course at such short notice is challenging. They will have made commitments to teachers and lecturers and tried to secure students through recruitment routes. Although they can often adapt at short notice, it is ridiculous and not very sensible for a major education sector—one that is within the Minister’s purview—to have to cobble things together in that way. It is not as though it were a great surprise that the Government are trying to manage the budget in this way and by taking such measures, so a little bit of forethought would have been a good thing. By hitting colleges as it does, the measure goes against the policy intent and last year’s moves to equalise school and college funding. Can the Minister clarify one particular point?”
“It is disadvantaged students who need a second chance sometimes, as highlighted by the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), or who often just choose a different path of study that does not fit within the traditional tramlines for 16 to 18-year-olds. In further education environments, particularly Hackney community college, classes are very mixed, so it is not abnormal for 17 and 18-year-olds and much older pupils to be there. Sometimes students in a class range from mid-teens to late adulthood, as the painter and decorator to whom I talked last week highlighted, so 18-year-olds will often be in a class among other people. I said that I would discuss the manner of the announcement. It was made very late, at the end of last year, with little, if any, discussion and no time for colleges to prepare.”
“Only last week I visited the college, meeting three students who had had difficulty achieving at GCSE level but had found at the college—one was becoming a chef, one went into painting and decorating and another was on a fashion course—vocations that worked for them and gave them the opportunity to achieve and secure jobs. However, they were over 18. Areas with high numbers of black and minority ethnic pupils and disadvantaged students are particularly hit, which is a double whammy for Hackney South and Shoreditch and other disadvantaged areas. I take the Government at their word about their desire for greater social mobility—I represent an area where that is an important issue—yet I say to the Minister that I cannot see how the measure will help social mobility.”
“I quote from the impact assessment: “Fewer than one in five of 16 to 18-year-olds funded by the EFA are aged 18 at the start of the academic year, although clearly this will vary by institution”, which is one way of glossing over the issue. As has been highlighted, the measure clearly hits vocational students much worse than academic students, due to the need to stay longer on vocational courses. Critically, it hits London worse than other regions, including Hackney community college in my constituency, which has imaginatively gone with the flow of many funding changes over the years but is once again being penalised for doing excellent work with 18-year-olds.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) on securing this important debate and other colleagues for laying out some of the challenges. I will make my comments brief. There are two issues here: the cut itself, and the unfairness of it—not just the £700 per student, but the impact on individual institutions and the manner of its introduction, which has not been particularly mentioned and which I will discuss in a moment. The Government’s own impact assessments says that the measure will hit further education colleges disproportionately, much worse than schools.”
“One of the ways that the Treasury can help small businesses is by giving them a better chance of winning Government contracts. What is the Chancellor doing to use his Department’s clout across Whitehall to ensure that those contracts are not just snaffled up by the big guys?”
“Two able pupils at a Hackney secondary school in one of the most deprived parts of my constituency have been offered a place at a good university on condition that they secure two As and a B in their A-levels. The university is willing to negotiate on those grades, but will not discuss their C grades in GCSE maths: they will need B grades. If they were foreign students, they would be given coaching by the university. Will the Minister meet me, and some of the people in Hackney who are concerned about the matter, to discuss how we can tackle it and ensure that there is proper social mobility in this country?”
“20. I draw the attention of hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Private rents in my constituency are now so high that constituents are coming to my surgery afraid to take on private tenancies for fear that on an average wage they are unable to afford them, which they certainly are. When will the Minister wake up, smell the coffee and get a house building programme in place? Does he not agree that that would reduce private rents?”
“17. The Minister talks complacently about improvements in A and E consultants, but in Queen’s hospital in Romford only seven of the 19 posts have permanent A and E medical doctors in post. Surely he is fiddling while Rome is burning. People are not getting the service they need, while he is spending a fortune on locums.”
“My hon. Friend is no doubt aware of the fiasco of the IT service for interpreters in courts, which, dare I say it—ironically—is another Ministry of Justice success story. Does that not underline her point?”
“The heads of some of the big private sector providers recently appeared before the Public Accounts Committee. They expressed a wish for more openness, and some of them told us that they were being constrained in that regard by their contracts with the Government rather than by their own desires.”
“However, the scale of this outsourcing, particularly when it is being done in such a hurry, poses a real risk. I believe that it will reduce standards. People will be taken on by large companies that have no track record in probation, and will be paid at much lower levels, as probation assistants, rather than full-blown and experienced probation officers. I call it probation-lite. Those people will be making very important decisions. They will decide, for instance, whether someone is a high-risk offender who needs to be transferred to a probation officer. There is a risk there.”
“I rise to support new clauses 1 and 4. I will not repeat the excellent arguments that my hon. Friends have made, but I am concerned about the impact that this big and sudden change to the probation service will have in my community and on offender rehabilitation, both of which are central to the aims of the Bill, which is why elements of it enjoy cross-party support. I am not opposed to having specialist providers in the probation service. For example, there is a high incidence of mental health problems in my constituency, and in Hackney as a whole, and many of the people affected, if they get caught up in the criminal justice system, would benefit from more specialised services, so I am not opposed to the private sector or voluntary bodies coming in to provide certain aspects of probation.”
“I thank the Minister for that clarification, particularly the first point, which is indeed good news. I was not a member of the Public Bill Committee and so might have missed some changes that have been made.”
“Yes, but I will just finish responding to the Minister’s intervention. On the Minister’s second point, I hear what he says, but there is always a risk that someone might be miscategorised and dealt with by an employee who is of a lower grade. The Minister says that they will be qualified, but they will be of a lower grade than fully qualified probation officers, and that decision might need to be made in the other direction. Perhaps he can reassure us on that point when he responds.”
“If this is to go ahead, I urge the Minister to tell us how the Government plan to audit the impact and the delivery of the service.”
“The Cabinet Office is pushing hard to see that procurement is done in a different way that allows smaller companies a bite of the Government contract cherry and to stop the big companies being able to snaffle public money without being held properly to account. This is an opportunity for the Minister to consider, even at this late stage, allowing something in the contract to ensure that the big companies are required to work effectively with the small companies and not, as many of them do, to dodge their responsibilities later by saying, “Actually, we can’t quite deliver what we promised, so we’ll do it differently, but we’ve taken it all on.” That is often how they get around that. That will need constant monitoring and an audit of what happens with the contract.”
“New clause 4 is important—I will not repeat all the arguments Members have made—because we need proper scrutiny. If we look at reoffending as a whole, we see that there are other ways of looking at it, for example by looking at mental health support or the Work programme. We know that offenders who come out of prison with a job are less likely to reoffend, but does the Work programme, which is provided by another Government Department, go into prisons to ensure that offenders have jobs for when they leave? Perhaps we should be challenging them to step up to the mark and provide job opportunities as a major plank of what we all want to see: less reoffending, particularly by offenders given short-term sentences. In summary, the Public Accounts Committee has seen far too many poorly managed large Government contracts.”
“That is particularly true in mental health, one of the local concerns in my constituency. There is an important concern about local accountability. I am a great supporter of extending freedom of information in the first instance, even with limitations, to private sector companies that deliver public contracts paid for by the taxpayer. It should be the tax pound that determines whether there is freedom of information, not the nature of the delivery body. Most parties in the House support some degree of contracting out, but we need to ensure that transparency is built in. Companies have told the Public Accounts Committee that they are in favour of a much greater degree of transparency, so perhaps the Minister will take this opportunity to challenge them to stand up for what they say and make that part of the bidding process.”
“I have dealt with the Minister on constituency matters and know him to be assiduous, and I am sure that he will bear that point in mind, but I think that it is worth reiterating that it is a very serious matter. Companies should not be bidding for huge contracts in areas where they have no experience because that fragments the service. Fragmentation can be good where there is specialism, where there are smaller contracts, perhaps run by specialist voluntary sector groups, or indeed by private companies if they have the necessary level of expertise, but they have to work together. We are in danger of seeing another approach whereby the MOJ and the Government put out big contracts and the smaller specialist providers simply do not get a look in. They might get the odd crumb from the big contractors’ table, but they will be squeezed out.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. I am also worried about some of the companies that might come into this. I serve on the Public Accounts Committee, and I challenged the big public sector providers that appeared before us recently on whether they would bid for contracts in areas where they had no experience. They all denied that they would, but we have seen, in the Public Accounts Committee, in other Committees and on the Floor of the House, example after example of companies that bid for contracts because they are good at bidding but that do not actually have a background in delivering the relevant service. They then have to backfill by recruiting people to take on those jobs.”
“Friend the Member for Barnsley Central and other members—I welcome the Government’s review, which is to be led by the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart)—want to ensure that these problems are nipped in the bud in the case of other veterans.”
“Ten years ago, he began to receive support and counselling for the experiences that he had had in the 1940s. One of my main reasons for adding my name to the new clauses is that I remember speaking to Harold and being very impressed by him, and impressed by the service that the Australians provide their armed forces. They recognised that, even so many years later, Harold still needed support. Harold has no criminal record. He has been an upstanding member of his community throughout his life, both in the armed forces and since. However, if people like Harold are still facing problems, that explains a great deal about why ex-members of the armed forces form such a large proportion of the prison population, and why my hon.”