Clive Efford
MP for Eltham and Chislehurst · Labour · United Kingdom
“Thank you for allowing me to take part in this statement, Madam Deputy Speaker, given that I was not here at the beginning—I was carrying out my duties elsewhere in the House. I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. What is she likely to do in my part of south-east London for technical and vocational places?”
“I rise to speak to amendment 97 in my name, which would remove clause 10 from the Bill. Clause 10 gives powers to the Secretary of State to vary the proportion of public and private provision of health services if they consider that to do so is in the interests of the health service.”
“Labour’s 2024 plan to make work pay set out a welcome desire to bring more essential services back into public control—something that is welcomed by health workers across the country, because so far the “biggest wave of insourcing in a generation”, as was promised, has felt more like a trickle when it comes to the NHS.”
“The explanatory notes for the Bill say that this new flexibility is necessary “where there may otherwise be a breakdown in provision of a health service.” Can we imagine a situation where the Secretary of State has concerns about a health service and that an approach to assist a local provider would be rebuffed?”
“There are ample powers to enable the Secretary of State to intervene and resolve breakdowns in the provision of a health service. On clause 10, we must balance what it adds in those situations against its potential misuse by an ideologically driven Government that are determined to privatise our NHS.”
“It was a pleasure to join my right hon. Friend at Greenwich council’s development of 435 council properties in my constituency for the launch of the social and affordable housing programme. Some 70,000 homes are planned, and that is welcome and overdue.”
The complete record
Every one of 3,378 lines we hold for Clive Efford, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 10 of 68.
“I will not elaborate on that, because many people have made excellent points on the issue; what I want to mention is that a big proportion of schools’ costs is staffing costs, which makes it difficult to be flexible when school rolls fall. The Government should not ignore that. The other, wider issue for us in London is the cost of housing. Affordable housing that families can live in is being hollowed out in central London. That is an issue not just for school rolls, but for the economy. There are people being priced out of London who are essential for certain types of job. We have to address the issue of creating truly affordable rented social housing back where it used to exist, in places such as Southwark where I used to live.”
“As one of my headteachers, who does not have a falling roll but has financial difficulties over the next three years, wrote to me: “This is mainly due to increased salary and pension contributions of all staff, a significant increase in the number of pupils with complex needs who require additional adult support. We have over 20 children out of 400 who have Education Health Care Plans”. That number is increasing and the needs of those children are becoming more acute. Schools are therefore facing financial difficulties because of factors other than falling rolls. When a school roll falls, it is not necessarily the case that the costs for the school fall, and we need to have some flexibility around that.”
“I understand that the Department is reviewing schemes such as the Harris Academy. School rolls suggest that we have surplus places for the foreseeable future in Greenwich. My council reports a 10% surplus in year 7 places, and London Councils predicts that between now and 2027, demand for those places will go down by another 2.5%. If the Government are minded not to go ahead with that scheme, may I please have a discussion with the Minister about the future of the site? It is a very important one for my constituency. On the issue of school rolls generally, I make the same points as everybody else. Because we fund schools by headcount, the impact of falling school rolls can be considerable; as hon. Members have said, it still costs the same to run the school.”
“It is a pleasure to take part in a debate under your chairmanship again, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) not just on securing this debate, but on her outstanding opening speech. I will start with some local pleading. The Minister may be aware of the Avery Hill site, the former university campus in my constituency that was purchased to build the new Harris Academy school. The Minister’s officials do not need to rush; I am not expecting answers today. [Interruption.] Oh, they came prepared—well done! The Minister will recall—I may have written to him in the past—that my concern is about the provision of places, but the Government decided to go ahead with the scheme. It is now on hold, because we lost the contractor for whatever reason—we need not go into that today.”
“I just want to point out to the Minister that what he is threatening my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough with is a strategic lawsuit against public participation. We have had debates in this Chamber about SLAPPs; in fact, the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), who is sitting next to the Minister, has supported action against them and their use to cover up the Londongrad fraud whereby illegal money has been washed through London banks and financial centres. The Minister should think very carefully before he comes here and threatens people with legal action outside the House to silence democratic debate.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Could you confirm the rules regarding declarations of interest? If a Member has a declaration of interest on the register, should they not refer to it when they stand up and take part in debates in this House?”
“Residents in Master Gunner Place in my constituency are still paying for a waking watch, despite a new fire alarm being introduced. These properties were built with major defects by Countryside Properties, and they are now owned by Samnas. I want to know what the Minister is going to do to take these people to task, because they are costing my constituents a lot of money, which should have been resolved before.”
“Can the Home Secretary confirm that her own Department estimates that the measures within the Illegal Migration Bill could cost the taxpayer up to £6 billion?”
“The Government seeking a judicial review on their own inquiry that they set up under the relevant legislation is not a good look. Did they give consideration to what would arise if the judicial review was successful and hobbled the ability of the chair of the inquiry to access all the information that she considers relevant? Would her position be untenable?”
“The Government have clearly lost control of all aspects of immigration and migration. Labour voted against the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the Illegal Migration Bill because we said that they would not work, and the figures show that they have not worked. Will the Minister explain why fewer than 1% of the people who arrived on small boats last year have had their asylum claims determined, and why the figure is so low?”
“The Leader of the House is aware of the cuts to my local train services, which I have raised at business questions on a couple of occasions. The trains that the Government have left us with are old and cost a lot to run. Many do not have lavatories on them. They are very much in need of replacing. Can we have a debate in Government time to all raise our concerns about the condition of our rolling stock and our local rail services, and to plead for improvements and upgrades?”
“This is not just about a speeding fine; this is about the integrity of the Home Secretary and how she behaved to officials when she received that fine. Did the Cabinet Office inform the Prime Minister about the emails sent to the propriety and ethics team regarding the request for a private speeding course?”
“It is estimated that just one in five child victims report to the police, but in my experience in local government, young people who were disclosing that they were being abused needed an independent advocate and an independent voice to go to, so that they would be listened to and treated with sympathy. It is not necessarily reporting to the police that is required, so what can the Home Secretary say about what she is doing to open up those avenues, so that people can report with confidence that they will be listened to?”
“Many are clamouring for the rights for deep-sea mining to extract critical minerals, but we know little about the seabed and the knock-on effects there could be on the environment and ecology of the deep sea and the wider oceans. Will the Minister continue to support a moratorium on deep-sea mining through the International Seabed Authority until we have a better understanding of those environmental impacts?”
“They have been wrecking tourism in coastal areas and seaside towns, and stopping people from swimming in our rivers—that is totally intolerable. And now they are telling us that, to put all of it right, they will charge us £10 billion. When will we get a statement on that?”
“I am amazed that we are not having a statement from the Environment Secretary today, given the announcement from the water companies. They issued an apology for their appalling performance, discharging sewage into our rivers and coastal areas, but alongside that apology they announced that water bill payers will have to fork out £10 billion to put all of that right. Imagine if a garbage disposal company decided that it was cheap and quick to dump rubbish in our town centres, disrupting all of those businesses, or if local authorities chose to dump it in swimming pools because that was cheap for them, disrupting people who want to take their families swimming? That is exactly what the water companies have been doing.”
“Q8. In 2011, the first year that the Tories came into government, 61,000 people received emergency food parcels from food banks. In 2022-23, that figure had gone up to nearly 3 million—1 million of them children. It has gone up every year that the Conservatives have been in power, bar one. Is that a record that the Deputy Prime Minister proudly defends?”
“Getting back to SLAPPs, they are, as the Secretary of State has accepted, closing down public debate and public exposure of corruption. They are also being used against people who work for the enforcement agencies, such as the Serious Fraud Office, where individuals have been targeted. The Secretary of State has said that he intends to legislate, but can he tell us when he is likely to do that, because the Government have been making these noises for a very long time and what we need is action?”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. Does the Minister feel that civil service impartiality was compromised in any way by having to deal with the fast track for covid contracts, or by the way in which the Government responded to the accusations of lockdown parties in No. 10 Downing Street?”
“A month ago, the Minister came to the House and told us that he was dealing with the contaminated blood report “at pace”. A month later, he has just repeated that phrase. Can he say what “at pace” means and when he will tell us the timescale?”
“There is only one reason the Secretary of State is here: because she was brought here by an urgent question. The idea she is open to scrutiny is for the birds. There is also only one reason she tried to avoid it: because her Back Benchers are so angry. She has managed to divide her party again over the issue of Europe. This change is not taking back sovereignty to this Parliament, which those in favour of Brexit spoke about; it is a power grab by the Executive, allowing them to make decisions on 4,000 pieces of legislation. What will she do to ensure that her proposal has proper scrutiny through Committees and on the Floor of the House?”
“It is difficult to know where to begin, but let me say that my constituent went to prison as a result of this scandal, as the Minister knows. Let us just consider the very idea that these people should be rewarding themselves with bonuses for co-operating with this inquiry and then letting the Minister know on 6 May, the day of the coronation. It does not take us long to work what was going on there; they were trying to hide this bad news. I know that the Minister takes this matter very seriously, and we have commended him for his actions on it on many occasions, but he really has to make sure that these bonuses do not stand. He has to question Mr Tom Cooper about when he knew about these bonuses and why did he not tell the Minister much sooner that they were going to be paid.”
“I pay tribute to all those who have campaigned tirelessly on this issue, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant). In order for the guidelines to be embedded in grassroots sport, the issue needs to be taken seriously at elite level, as that has an enormous influence on what happens in grassroots sport. Will the Minister say whether he is satisfied with how the governing bodies of elite sports, such as rugby union, rugby league and football, are treating the issue? What are the Government doing to ensure that they take the guidelines on board?”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker— [ Interruption. ] I will pop round with a cup of tea later, Mr Speaker. Over the years, many hundreds of thousands of children up and down the country have learned to swim in their local swimming pool, and the clubs that provide those facilities are quite often very grassroots and local. However, our local swimming baths are under threat. The energy they consume is enormous and they are extremely expensive to run. The £63 million announced in the Budget is welcome, but we have yet to see the detail of how that money will be rolled out. Can the Minister tell us when it will be rolled out and when we will know the criteria?”
“The additional voter processing will place more requirements on staff at polling stations. Has that resulted in any problems for local authorities in recruiting polling station staff?”
“The Minister has said that people who are turned away at the desk by a qualified voting agent will have that fact recorded. However, if we are looking to understand what is going on as a result of the requirement for ID when voting, surely those people who are turned away by a meeter or greeter at the door must also be recorded, and it is important that the people doing that meeting and greeting are properly trained to do it? Will the Minister go away and give some thought to that point, which she has completely ignored? It will obfuscate any attempt to understand what is going on if people are being turned away at the door and not recorded.”
“I welcome today’s White Paper, but may I ask a question on the statutory levy? It is all well and good imposing a statutory levy, and I welcome that, but how that money is used is vital and has to be independent of the industry. The researchers must have free and open access to the data, and they have to be free to choose what research they undertake. Those in the gambling industry should not have any sway over what is researched and what is not.”
“The Immigration Minister said at the Dispatch Box that the Government inherited a backlog of 460,000 asylum claims from the last Labour Government. Using figures supplied to him by the Immigration Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) has been able to demonstrate that the figure is fewer than 19,000. Should the Immigration Minister not come back to the Dispatch Box, as required by the ministerial code, to correct the record? What can the Leader of the House do to ensure that the record is corrected, either today or as soon as we return after the weekend?”
“Is it not time that they started to listen to our communities, put the police back in local neighbourhood policing and adopted Labour’s policy of putting 13,000 officers on our streets?”
“If the media are good enough for the Secretary of State to talk to, I do not understand why she is not here to make this statement and answer questions. The Government did not just let 20,000 police officers wither; it was a stated intention by the Conservatives to cut 20,000 posts from the police. They were warned that we would lose experienced police officers, with a knock-on effect on charges and criminal conviction rates. Recorded knife crime is now up 70%, and 90% of crimes go unsolved. Sexual crimes are at a record high. Since 2015, we have seen 10,000 officers cut from our neighbourhood policing. That was all on the Tories’ watch—13 years of mismanagement of our police and criminal justice system.”
“We have had 13 years of Conservative government. There are record numbers of patients on waiting lists, record numbers of vacancies in the NHS, and a crisis of vacancies in social care. As for emergency care, the Government cannot meet their 18-minute target for category 2 ambulance responses. If the Conservatives were really concerned about the NHS, would we not be in a better position than this after 13 years?”
“We had the fast track for covid contracts, where people did not have to be a Conservative party member or donor—but it didn’t half help—to get a contract. We have had Ministers having to resign over various misconducts. We have had gaps in their declarations of interest, and now we have this investigation into the Prime Minister. That is a fact: that is happening. Does the Minister not think it is time that we had an independent ethics investigator who could look into these matters? Regardless of who is in government, the public’s view is that these things bring down our politics. Should we not all work together to clean it up and make sure that there is an independent investigator with power to independently investigate?”
“We had the report set out by Sir Brian Langstaff, which says how the compensation should be delivered and the framework for delivering it. The Minister said that the Government are considering this recent report “at pace”. He also said that he wants to come back and update the House. If we are moving at pace and we have all the detail in place that we need, when will he come back to the House?”
“I welcome the consultation. Let us hope it leads to urgent action. The Minister bandied around some figures to try to paint a rosy picture of crime rates, but what he failed to mention is that knife-enabled rape cases are at a record high and that, since 2015, knife-enabled crime is up 70%. I wonder if he thinks that has been assisted and aided by the fact that the Conservatives cut 21,000 police officers in that time, and whether that contributed to those rising figures? He says he may be crowing about the number of police officers next week, but where will they be allocated and will they be back on our streets in community policing, which the Conservatives decimated?”
“The Minister has told us that newly arrived migrants are going to be taken to this new form of accommodation, so they will be competing for places with the people he wants to move out of hotels. It seems to me that he is planning for the failure of his attempts to stop the boats through the Illegal Immigration Bill, because he is increasing capacity with the spaces that he is planning. Can he tell us how many more people he is planning to accommodate, in addition to those who are already accommodated by the Home Office?”
“My constituent’s wife is trapped in Afghanistan. She applied for a visa to come as a spouse. It took eight months to get a decision, but the application was turned down because there was a discrepancy of 33p a month in his salary with what he had put in the original application. The way the Government are treating people from Afghanistan is a disgrace. We need to ensure that people are treated fairly and that their applications are looked at. When there is a genuine application, as there is in this case, the Government should make the right decision.”
“The Chancellor of the Exchequer may be trying to convince us that he has the economy, and inflation along with it, under control, but food prices show us what is happening to the lives of people in our constituencies. The price of full-fat milk has increased by 42%, the price of low-fat milk by 34%, the price of eggs by 32%, and the price of bread by 21%. These are staple foods that people have to buy. Why is the UK so far out of step with other countries, with such huge food price inflation?”
“In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), the Leader of the House said that we can expect the impact assessment for the Illegal Migration Bill to be published shortly, but the Bill is to be debated at the beginning of next week. The Government assured us that the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 would reduce the number of small boat crossings, but we have already seen record levels in January and February 2023. The Government have completely failed. If they have not done proper calculations to produce an impact assessment, how can they make assertions about the effectiveness of the Bill we are debating on Monday and Tuesday?”
“My constituent served a prison sentence as a result of a prosecution by the Post Office. His conviction was subsequently overturned on the recommendation of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, but because he pleaded guilty on the advice of the National Federation of SubPostmasters, the Post Office is saying that his case is not a malicious prosecution, and therefore he is not included in the scheme and is not to be compensated. It is only offering him what it would cost the Post Office to defend his case if he were to take it to court. Can the Minister say whether my constituent will be included in the schemes he has outlined today?”
“So what is the Home Secretary going to do, not just with the Met—do not blame the Mayor—but about our national police force to ensure that a proper disciplinary process is in place that allows the good people to do their jobs properly?”
“One of the first things I did as a newly elected MP in 1997 was call for an independent inquiry into the investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. That became the Macpherson report of 1999, and it is a sad indictment that we are back here again with the Metropolitan police being called institutionally racist. People such as Carrick and Couzens are the tip of the iceberg. In order for them to get away with what they got away with, hundreds of other officers have had to turn a blind eye. That is an indictment of the culture that exists within the Metropolitan police and other police forces, and those who want to do the right thing are held back because there is not a disciplinary process to deal with the people who do bad things.”
“It is five years since the newly refurbished London Bridge opened; apart from teething problems at the start, it ran relatively smoothly until the Government-imposed timetable changes came in in December. Since then, we have seen several very dangerous situations occur at London Bridge. At a stakeholder meeting a couple of weeks ago, Southeastern stated that one of the problems is that it has to make £10 million-worth of savings, imposed by the Government. The Secretary of State may not be a portly controller, but he is the controller none the less. Is it not the tinkering of this Government that is leading to a chaotic railway service, whether on Southeastern or Avanti?”
“The Labour party supports reform of non-dom status, which would raise £3.2 billion. There is money in the system that we can use to resolve many of the problems we face with the crisis in our public services. It is a travesty that, given the strikes we are facing and the crisis in the national health service, there was nothing about that in the Chancellor’s statement yesterday. It is time for a new form of government. It is time for a Government who will tackle inequality and create a fairer taxation system that will benefit the whole country, not leave people to sink or swim. We need an active Government who will be on people’s side, intervene when necessary and do what is necessary to create a fairer and more equitable society.”
“No one is going to up their family and their children’s future because they would pay 1% tax on their wealth above £10 million. We could equalise capital gains with income tax rates. There is cross-party support for this measure, which could raise £15.2 billion. It is not a radical suggestion, because it is what Nigel Lawson did back in the 1970s. I welcome the fact that the Government are offering tax relief for investment in R&D, because that could reward people who pay their tax in that way. It is not fair that people who pay rent to somebody who has bought properties pay national insurance contributions on their wages, but the person they pay rent to does not pay national insurance contributions on the income from that rent. We should look at expanding the range of national insurance to make the system fair.”
“Wealth inequality in this country has grown under the Conservatives, and a failure to tax the assets of the super-rich is leading to widening inequality. The more wealth someone accumulates, the less tax they pay. The Government should be looking at how we tax wealth and tackle that growing inequality. Since the banking crash in 2007-08, it has become easier to borrow money, which has meant that the wealthiest people have been able to buy assets, and we do not tax those assets. I would like to see a discussion about a tax on wealth above £10 million. A 1% tax on that wealth would raise £11 billion. I have spoken to many people who are in that tax bracket, and they say that a 1% tax on their wealth at that level would not cause them to take flight and go abroad—they would not notice it.”
“The Resolution Foundation’s “Stagnation nation” report, published late last year, shows that in each decade since the 1970s, average household incomes rose by 33% until 2007, but since the Tories took power, weak productivity growth has fed directly into flatlining wages and sluggish income growth, with real wage growth falling below zero in the 2010s. The Government’s own figures show that incomes have grown by an average of 9% since 2008—0.7% a year—having grown by an average of 2.2% in each of the previous 20 years. Their excuse is to blame everyone else, but everyone else internationally has been through the same shocks as us. How do the Tories explain the fact that average household incomes in the UK are 16% lower than in Germany and 9% lower than in France, having been higher than both in 2007?”
“Yet next month the tax thresholds will be frozen. For a basic rate taxpayer, that is £500 a year, for a higher rate taxpayer, that is £1,000, but in this Budget it is somehow justifiable to make that tax cut to the richest 1%. It is just not fair. In the past decade, we have seen the Conservatives stand by while a disproportionate share of national income has gone to the wealthiest. The OBR has confirmed that the cost of living crisis means that living standards will fall by 5.7% over the next two years. Average real-terms household incomes are at a 50-year low due to a decade of consistent low growth.”
“We have had 13 years of cuts to our public services, leaving them in a parlous state, and we went into covid with record numbers on NHS waiting lists—2.5 million people. We now have an estimated 7 million people waiting for hospital appointments. According to a Nuffield Trust report published last year, our NHS is short of 12,000 doctors and 50,000 nurses and midwives, and we will need over 500,000 more NHS and care workers by 2030. Where was anything in the Budget to deal with that crisis? Oh, we did have one thing; we had a tax cut for the wealthiest 1% to keep doctors in the NHS. Only the Tories could turn a crisis in the NHS into an excuse to cut taxes for the wealthiest 1% in this country. Someone with a £2 million pension pot will get a tax saving of £275,000. How is that justifiable?”
“When I looked at the clock as the Chancellor finished speaking yesterday, I was shocked that his speech had been only an hour. The speech was well padded out. I thought at one stage that he was going to tell us how much the Government planned to spend on paper clips in the next year. He started by announcing that we were not going into a recession, expecting praise for not taking us into a recession that the Conservatives had brought us to the brink of in the first place. It was a bit like an arsonist asking to be thanked, having set light to your house, for then ringing the police. Average energy bills have doubled in the past 18 months, the average mortgage is up by £2,000, and household incomes are lower in real terms than 13 years ago. Those are the worst figures since records began.”
“The BBC prepared a statement to be read out on “Question Time” last week in the event that the assault by Stanley Johnson on his wife was raised by one of the panellists. That statement said that Stanley Johnson had not commented but that a friend had said that the incident did take place “but it was a one-off”. The BBC had time to consider that statement; it was a pre-prepared statement put in front of the chair of the panel. What on earth was in their heads when they agreed that? Who benefited most from it—was it the Conservative party or those women who have suffered domestic violence?”