Pat McFadden
MP for Wolverhampton South East · Labour · United Kingdom
“In his review Alan Milburn considered that issue and said that, “the UK’s NEET crisis is much more long-term and deep-seated than any decisions taken in the last few years.” As I said earlier, 400,000 more people are in work this year than last year, and the number of young people in employment is up since the election.”
“Since our last DWP questions, both Alan Milburn and the Pensions Commission have published their respective interim reports on young people and on the current state of saving for retirement. I look forward to receiving their final reports later in the year.”
“As Alan Milburn pointed out in his recent report, the UK’s NEET crisis is much more long-term and deep-seated than any decisions taken in the last few years. There are 400,000 more people in work than last year. The number of young people in employment is up by 74,000 since the election.”
“I thank the right hon. Gentleman and send him commiserations for whatever has left him reliant on his crutches today. I am happy to congratulate the businesses he mentioned in his constituency. He raises a serious point: it is important not only to come up with the right policy, but to make it simple for businesses to use.”
“My hon. Friend is right, and I thank Cardiff football club for being a partner. We are supporting nearly 1 million young people and creating up to half a million opportunities for jobs and training.”
“We are making strong progress on expanding youth hubs, with around 130 already in operation across Great Britain. In March, I announced the locations that we want to open in this year, and I have just announced a further 180 locations for the following two years.”
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“Are there any circumstances in which the Prime Minister would support the extension of either the article 50 period or the transition period?”
“Fourteen thousand jobs directly affected; over 100,000 in the supply chain, including in our crucial aerospace cluster in Wolverhampton. What does the Secretary of State think is in the minds of leading Brexiteers when they hear warnings like this, which are anything but ridiculous? Does he think that they take them to the heart, or do they in the end believe that this is a price worth paying, because the overall imperative of controlling immigration comes before any economic or employment consideration?”
“On Friday, I met Councillor Hazel Malcolm, Wolverhampton’s cabinet member for public health. We discussed this challenge for the city, where, unfortunately and sadly, the child obesity problem is often worst in the lowest income wards. The Minister has mentioned the Daily Mile a few times during this statement. What can he do to make this more than something there are warm words about and to roll it out in schools so that children get the benefit?”
“It is important to be honest about where public spending is coming from. Can the Secretary of State confirm that the Government’s own estimates, released in part by the Brexit Select Committee, show that far from there being a Brexit dividend, the plan that they are set to follow is scheduled to increase public borrowing by £55 billion a year by the end of the forecast period, meaning that this spending will have to be funded in spite of Brexit, not because of it?”
“Business is getting more nervous as it watches the Government negotiating more with themselves than with the European Union. Can the Minister confirm that it is Government policy to ensure that there are no new impediments to trade for our world-leading service industries, such as financial services, education, the creative industries and others?”
“The bottom line is that any serious Government party or any Opposition party that aspires to government must care as much about the creation of wealth as about its fair distribution. That is why these questions are so central.”
“In modern trade, we need to do more than just get rid of tariffs; we need to ensure that multinational supply chains and crucial manufacturing industries—including the automotive and aerospace industries that are so crucial to the west midlands—are not affected by other, non-tariff barriers. Crucially, 80% of our economy is accounted for by services—we are a country whose economy is dominated by services—and those are governed by common rules and regulations, not by tariffs. In the west midlands alone, service industries account for £93 billion a year of GDP and 74% of our local economy. In the north-west, services account for 75% of the economy and £125 billion. When it comes to trade, we sell over £100 billion of services to the EU every year at a surplus. It is essential to have an agreement that covers both manufacturing and services.”
“I want to speak to Lords amendment 51 and the amendment to it tabled by those on my own Front Bench. These amendments focus on our future trading and economic relationships, and our aims on this side of the House are clear. We want to secure frictionless trade with the EU, and we do not want to see new barriers or a race to the bottom on workers’ rights, environmental standards or consumer rights, and nor do we want a hard border in Northern Ireland. How can we achieve those aims? My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) has already said that we are committed to a customs union but, as he also said, a customs union on its own will not achieve those aims.”
“If Members are against the EEA, they should be against it because of content, but they should not be against it due to spurious arguments about having to choose between the customs union and the EEA. That is not the case. The situation in Northern Ireland cannot be dealt with purely by being in a customs union, because it requires regulatory convergence on goods and services that are exported. That fact is clear to our sister party, the Social Democratic and Labour party—sadly it is no longer represented in this House—which wrote to us last night with a heartfelt plea to keep the EEA option available and to vote in favour of Lords amendment 51.”
“I agree. It is irresponsible to exclude options—that is what I am saying. The second big objection to the EEA agreement is that there is a customs border between Norway and Sweden, but that exists because those nations have chosen not to be in a customs union. It is our policy to be in a customs union. It is not a matter of irreversible legal necessity; it is a matter of choice. Michel Barnier said just two months ago: “It was the UK’s decision to leave the EU, but it is not obliged to leave the single market and the customs union because it is leaving the EU.” As my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) said, Michel Barnier confirmed yesterday that it is open to us to be in both the EEA and the customs union.”
“I cannot give way anymore because so many Members want to speak. I know that there is a great deal of working-class disaffection behind the Brexit vote, and that people want action on migration and free movement. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras read out a list of things we can address, and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke about others in his speech last week. There are things that we can do, and we need to address working-class discontent, but we do not take the first step in doing so by voting for a path of making our country poorer, and of not generating the wealth required for the public services, regeneration, housing, and the better chance in life that our working-class communities need.”
“The international rules-based order of which the Prime Minister speaks is under attack from the rise of nationalism in various parts of the world. What does she think about its strength when the President of the United States can call for the readmission of Russia to the G8 just weeks after Russia has used a nerve agent to try to kill people on the streets of the United Kingdom? Even if we do not have the United States as a partner in this endeavour, will she commit the UK Government to working as closely as possible with other like-minded allies to uphold that order?”
“My hon. Friend is making an important point about multinational supply chains and how it is important not to have delays, paperwork or checks in the middle of that operation. Does she agree that this is about not just customs, but common standards and rules? Anyone in this House, on any side, who thinks that this is just about customs and not about the adherence to common standards and rules is kidding themselves.”
“Israel has a right both to exist and to defend itself, and there is little doubt that Hamas has been involved in organising, encouraging and exploiting confrontation in Gaza, but it cannot be right to use live ammunition to kill more than 50 protesters and to injure many others. Does the Minister of State agree that those actions will not only cause dismay to Israel’s many friends in this country and around the world, but breed further resentment and hatred in the families of those killed who are grieving today? We should not overestimate the UK’s influence in these events, but will the Government at least use their voice to encourage conciliation and dialogue, and to avoid a repeat of the recent appalling events?”
“She was thankful for the era that she lived through—the modernising movement for progressive change and social justice of which she was such a vital and brilliant part. At a time when there is so much that divides the country, and when demonisation of others is all too readily reached for and transmitted in the world of politics, we should remember that Tessa Jowell represented the opposite of all that. Let us give thanks and remember her not only for the wonderful things that she did, but for the way that she did them, and for the many lives that she changed for the better along the way.”
“Her love and empathy were there for the families of the victims of terrorism on 9/11 and in the 7/7 London underground bombings. There was Tessa, full of love and the desire to help—the human embodiment of the total antithesis of the hatred that had caused those people their grief. And in her final illness, she was determined not to go quietly into that good night. She fought for better treatment for cancer sufferers and for international collaboration on how to treat the disease, and—as the Secretary of State can testify—used all her firmness and charm to ensure that Ministers backed their words of support with the very welcome new resources announced for cancer research today. She was both proud of what she had achieved and immensely grateful for having had the opportunity to achieve it.”
“Her mission was not to preserve Britain or seek illusory solace in nostalgia but to change it for the better—and always, always in a progressive direction. For her, Sure Start—the mission to give every child from whatever background the best possible start in life—was not just a Government programme but a symbol of what she believed the United Kingdom should stand for. For the London Olympics, she not only played a vital role in winning the bid but helped to shape the character of what, for many of us, was the greatest moment of Britishness and the coming together of the country in our lifetimes. She understood more than anyone that how we hosted the games was as important as what happened in the competition itself. She gave us our golden summer. She gave the country our united golden moment.”
“Tessa Jowell was both a very special person and a very special politician, and the qualities of one reinforced the brilliance of the other. She was the best friend that anyone could wish for: loyal, true, uplifting and empathetic. There are many people in this House and outside it who, when they found themselves at a low ebb, would know that Tessa was there for them, holding out love and support: never your judge and jury, always your friend and shelter in a storm. She was quite simply full of love—full of love for her family, her friends, and the causes she believed in. She loved London, our great capital city. She loved it for its openness, its diversity, its endless opportunities, and its focus on tomorrow rather than yesterday. As a politician, she was a change-maker, a moderniser.”
“This is what happens when we have a national debate and a Government mentality that always sees migration in negative terms as something to be feared and resisted. Any Government have the right to take measures against illegal immigration, but the point is that the Windrush generation were not illegal. They came here legally, they worked here legally and they have stayed here legally. What more can the Home Secretary do not only to address the legitimate grievances of the Windrush generation, but to prevent this from being repeated with legal migration from elsewhere, be it the sub-continent or the European Union?”
“I very much welcome the fact that the Government are committed to the industrial strategy. When I was a Minister in the Secretary of State’s Department some years ago, we rebooted and renewed the belief in an industrial strategy in the wake of the financial crisis. I am glad that it has survived and that there has been a lot of continuity through the years of the coalition Government to his tenure. This is a welcome move away from the laissez-faire approach that we had in the 1980s, but it will only work if it is bought into by others beyond his Department. Given that many other countries are trying to do similar things, is he confident that he has the commitment right across the Government and the scale of resources and buy-in necessary from the Treasury and others to make this a success?”
“This debate is heavily coloured by the vote that took place in this House in 2013 against the use of military action, after the Syrian regime had used chemical weapons at that time. Can the Prime Minister tell the House how many times the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons against its own people since we took that vote and since Russia promised to oversee the elimination of the Syrian chemical weapons programme?”
“While talking about Northern Ireland, the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes), made the significant statement that the report by Mr Lars Karlsson did not meet the Government’s test of there being no physical border infrastructure. Will the Secretary of State repeat that statement and say that, in his view, the report does not meet that test?”
“Responding with strength and resolve when your country is under threat is an essential component of political leadership. There is a Labour tradition that understands that, and it has been understood by Prime Ministers of all parties who have stood at that Dispatch Box. That means when chemical weapons are used, we need more than words, but deeds. May I ask the Prime Minister what more she can do to enhance our solidarity with our allies, particularly at a time when nationalist forces are trying to drive wedges between democratic countries, with some of those forces backed and supported by the Russians themselves?”
“I thank the Prime Minister for coming to the House with this very important, but sadly not surprising conclusion today. She is going to make a further statement on Wednesday, but can I ask her to say a bit more about the possible responses and to ensure, at a time when voices and forces are trying to erode confidence in open democratic societies, that those responses will place us firmly and foursquare behind the solidarity and security of the west?”
“On Friday and today, the Prime Minister said that our access to one another’s markets would be less than it is now. This is the public burial of the claim made by her Brexit Secretary a year ago in this House that the Government’s aim was to secure the “exact same benefits” as we now enjoy. The Prime Minister has admitted to the country that there is an economic cost to Brexit, so will she now tell us what is that economic cost, when the public will be told about it, and who will pay it?”
“Why does the Minister for the Cabinet Office think that the Foreign Secretary wrote this letter? Was it because he did not know that the Government had committed in paragraph 49 of the December agreement to “its guarantee of avoiding a hard border” or was it because any commitment can be set aside in the service of the cause that the Foreign Secretary really cares about: the furtherance of his own career? Or was it something more sinister than Boris’s self-love, which is that faced with the incompatibility of red lines around the customs union and the single market and the commitment to no hard border, there is a concerted ideological attack on that commitment and, indeed, on the Good Friday agreement itself?”
“It is good that the UN Security Council has passed a resolution, but why should President Assad fear the Security Council? What will it do to enforce the resolution?”
“That gap in knowledge could result in a loss of tens of thousands of pounds—the difference between what someone would have got under voluntary redundancy and the bare statutory minimum they are now entitled to if they lose their job.”
“Many of them would have had access to the various voluntary redundancy schemes that the company put forward in the 18 months or so running up to its collapse. That raises a moral dilemma. Workers who had 20 or 30 years of service would have got quite generous voluntary redundancy payments had they pursued that option in the run-up to the company’s collapse. Therefore, the first question is: what was the gap in knowledge between the workers who were simply doing their jobs—perhaps thinking that there might be another couple of rounds of voluntary redundancy, so there was no urgency —and those at the top of the company, desperate to keep the company afloat? What did those at the top know about the prospects for the company’s collapse, compared with the workers, who perhaps did not?”
“Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) just said, many aspects of Carillion’s collapse are the subject of the inquiries by the Work and Pensions Committee and the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, including how the company got itself into such financial trouble, why so many big contracts went wrong at the same time and why the company kept paying out dividends while the pension deficit built up, among many other questions. Today, we focus on one in particular: Carillion and its staff. At the time of Carillion’s collapse, the company employed roughly 20,000 people in the United Kingdom and a similar number abroad, with 450 employed in its Wolverhampton headquarters. Since then, more than 1,000 of those workers have lost their jobs.”
“Ms McDonagh, it is traditional at the start of these debates to say what a pleasure it is to serve under the Chair, and today it is really true. I begin by congratulating my parliamentary neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Eleanor Smith), on securing the debate and by thanking the Minister for his close engagement in this issue in recent weeks, since the company went into liquidation. As the hon.”
“My hon. Friend makes a good point. The first thing I will raise is the question of redundancy and the payments available to those 1,000 or so people who have lost their jobs, but the second issue is about the workers who are left. Carillion was, of course, a complex web of contracts, covering sectors as diverse as the Ministry of Defence, construction, prisons, school maintenance, cleaning and a whole number of other things. The official receiver is now going through those contracts and looking for alternative suppliers to take them over. The central question before us in this debate is on what terms those will be taken over, and what the pay levels and conditions will be for the workers who find themselves transferred.”
“That is the point I stress today. I think we all understand that, sadly, in a case of insolvency there may be some job losses; part of the reason why, legally speaking, TUPE does not apply in situations of an insolvency is that there will be job losses. The question to the Minister is a slightly different one. Even if we understand that there are job losses, can the Government and the official receiver not insist that, when we are talking about not job losses but employment being rolled over from Carillion to an alternative supplier, on this occasion, given the public interest, the existing terms and conditions should apply as though under TUPE? That would be reasonable, fair to those workers and fair in terms of the public interest. On this occasion, it is the right thing to do.”
“But the point being made in this case is that such a complex web of contracts is involved and there is such a significant public interest: if there is a proliferation of new suppliers, there is a strong case that TUPE should apply, at least where employment is rolled over. Given Carillion’s collapse into liquidation, it is hard to say that it was earning very heavy margins on the contracts in the first place. The Minister for the Cabinet Office seemed to agree with that point when he told the House, shortly after the company’s collapse, that the official receiver was “looking at…whether it can offer arrangements whereby workers are no worse off than they were under the terms of their Carillion employment.” —[ Official Report , 24 January 2018; Vol. 635, c. 347.] I agree with what the Minister for the Cabinet Office said on that occasion.”
“I quite agree; that is a concern. Of course, the context is that a company went into financial collapse while running those public sector contracts, so it hardly looks as though it was making a big killing out of them—frankly, if it was, it would not have gone bust. The margins were already thin, and the public sector has proven itself over the years to be more adept at driving narrow margins. My concern is that somebody who takes over will drive that down further in precisely the way that the hon. Gentleman said and that the people who will pay the price will be workers, some of whom are on quite low pay to begin with. The legal position is that TUPE does not normally apply in an insolvency; I think hon. Members here understand that.”
“When it came to the divorce bill, after a lot of huffing and puffing and wasted time the Government simply signed on the dotted line. What will be different in the transition period we are negotiating compared with the EU guidelines issued this week?”
“I have huge respect for the right hon. Lady on this issue. Does she agree that we would not be hearing any of this stuff about the reports being negotiation-sensitive if the Government could lay their hands on a single report that said there would be economic benefits to Brexit, rather than economic costs?”
“It is about keeping the Tory party together and, in particular, it is about appeasing the right wing of the Tory party. I cannot think of anything that downgrades the national interest more than that.”
“Those of us who want to see the information do not want to see it because we are necessarily saying that the forecasts are correct to every decimal point. That is not really why Ministers do not want to publish the forecasts or do not want us to see them. The exam question for them is not the economic consequences of Brexit but how to keep the right wing of the Conservative party happy. The right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who is no longer in her place, told us the other day that there are 35 “hard Brexiteers”. The reason why the Government rubbish the economics is that, for them, it is not about the economics. My plea is for honesty and for Ministers to say, and to admit, that they actually do not care, first and foremost, about the economics of Brexit. This is about putting politics above the economics.”
“This is not just a conventional political argument; it is an attempt to downgrade the role of representative democracy. The irony is not hard to see, because the real danger to the national interest comes not from asking questions about the economics of Brexit but from pursuing a policy that we know will make the country poorer than it otherwise would have been, in order to satisfy the nationalist ideology driving the project. It comes from putting the appeasement of a faction within a political party above the leadership task of securing the greatest prosperity for the greatest number of people. The Government are governed not by the analysis but by those political imperatives, which is the real point.”
“Those sectors and those parts of the country collectively employ millions of people and generate billions in tax receipts for our public services. If the lower growth depicted in the documents transpired, we would have lower incomes and a lower standard of living than would otherwise be the case. How should we react to this? My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) is correct. If the Government had a forecast showing economic benefits from Brexit, we would not hear these arguments about negotiation sensitivity. It has been said far too much that those who ask questions are somehow undermining the national interest. Ministers are trying to create a world in which they are the sole owners of information, and in which the public and Parliament are allowed to see that information only when Ministers decide.”
“The first thing that we can learn from this saga is that winging it has become a point of principle for those in charge. I do not know whether we reached this point through carelessness, a tendency to busk or something worse, but the way that things have been handled has been extremely corrosive of trust in the Government and has left people asking not only about what is known, but what is being hidden. The documents say that in every scenario modelled, the country will be poorer than it would otherwise be, with the effect being felt most keenly in sectors such as chemicals, clothing, manufacturing, food and drink, cars and retail, and felt most deeply in the west midlands, the north-east and Northern Ireland.”
“I want to make a few points about the politics of all this and what that says about our politics. I do not need to go over the pantomime of the Government saying that there were economic assessments in excruciating detail, then that there were none at all, and then that there were two lever arch files. That has all been well documented. We then saw this week’s report, and what has the response been? Yesterday, the Minister turned up at the Dispatch Box to rubbish the Government’s own document and to attack the civil service and the Bank of England in tones more hostile than I have ever heard a Minister use. He capped it all by telling us that discussing such things was really not in the national interest and that it would undermine our negotiating position.”
“Ministers keep using the excuse that it is in the national interest to withhold information about the economic impact of Brexit—that is on the days when they admit such information exists. I will tell them what is really not patriotic: pursuing a policy that will make our country poorer than it would otherwise be, in order to satisfy right-wing, nationalist ideology. So will the Minister desist from saying that it is in the national interest to withhold this information, given that the only interest it serves is that of Tory Ministers embarrassed by its contents?”
“The system is in fundamental need of review. My constituent Martin Wright suffered a terrible life-changing accident at work several years ago. Despite that, he has been reassessed three times in three years and has now had his payments reduced. We will take Martin’s case to appeal, and I have to tell the Minister that every single case from my constituency office that we have taken to appeal in the past year has been overturned. Does that not show that this system is broken, inhumane at times, and in urgent need of fundamental change?”
“We want answers to those questions, if not today then certainly in the Select Committee inquiries that follow.”
“Was it a loan, or was it the underwriting of activities in case cash-flow projections did not materialise? How did the Government take the decision to refuse these requests? Which Ministers were involved, and what was the process for ultimately saying no? Crucially, when the decision to refuse was taken, was any comparison made between the likely cost to the public purse of keeping the company going and the cost of turning down the request for financial help and seeing the company collapse? Much has been said about the wrongness of using public money to bail out companies. Company failure is, of course, an inescapable feature of any market economy, but in this case the taxpayer was not free to walk away, as we have seen and as has been confirmed. The taxpayer is paying the costs of liquidation.”
“There are other critical questions about pensions, subcontractors and those who were charged with the stewardship of the company, but in the two minutes I have left I want to concentrate on the collapse itself. Court documents filed by the chief executive last week show that Carillion was engaged in a desperate effort to keep open lines of credit with its banks. From the outside, it is of course difficult to judge whether those efforts may have borne fruit or whether they were always a lost cause. In any case, the liquidation has decided the outcome. However, those discussions involved not just Carillion and the banks; the Government were involved, too. What exactly did Carillion ask the Government for in the days running up to liquidation? In what form was that help asked?”
“Carillion’s problems have been well trailed: major construction projects running over budget and leaving the company with losses; a huge pension deficit; and work done overseas for which it has not been paid. All that ultimately led to the company’s creditors losing confidence and its collapse into liquidation. As has been said, the corporate headquarters is in Wolverhampton, where it employs some 450 people. What reassurance can the Minister give to the staff at the HQ, who have been described as the nerve centre of the company? I understand the implications of an insolvency, but an assurance that they will be employed until the end of the month is not good enough when there is only one week of the month left. The staff need more than that.”
“Is there not a fundamental inconsistency here? The Government’s reason for not including the charter is that those rights are covered in domestic law, so it would not add anything, but they propose to include thousands of other directives and rules, many of which we would also be unlikely to change in domestic law. The very same argument could be applied to those thousands of other rules that the Bill goes out of its way to incorporate. The Government say, “We do not want to change the labour laws; we do not want to change the environmental rules; we do not want to change the consumer rights.” However, they apply a different logic to the charter. Why does my hon. Friend think that is?”