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.”
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“I am grateful, Mr Speaker. The Minister said in earlier answers that she wants the renewable energy industry to be sustainable financially and commercially successful, but at the same time the Government have taken the subsidies away at a rate that has damaged the industry, and they have not applied that policy to nuclear. Surely she can see the damage being done and the inconsistency in the Government’s approach.”
“I am shocked that we have not yet heard that the Health Secretary will make a statement to the House. The Leader of the House indicated that he would, but it would not be good enough for him to do that tomorrow, hiding it away on a Friday, when many Members will be back in their constituencies. A statement would give him an opportunity to correct his assertion from the Dispatch Box that patients have to wait more than 14 hours to see a consultant at weekends. That has been disproved. The only people who now believe it are the Government. When are we getting this statement?”
“That is a really important point. Too often, people talk about housing numbers and bandy around the word “affordable” for properties that are by no means affordable for most people in London. Making available 300 acres of land for housing that people from London, particularly those on moderate and low incomes, will not be able to access will contribute nothing to their housing needs.”
“My hon. Friend, like me, heard the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) say that TfL should be able to maximise the income from the sale of this land, but, as she pointed out, where land values are extremely high, that is likely to squeeze out affordable and social housing. TfL is a public body, however, and there is a shortage of public land on which to build social housing, which is why we need properly to scrutinise how this land is used, instead of selling it off to the highest bidder in every case.”
“Has the Prime Minister told the Minister of State the date by which he will make up his mind and tell us which way he will go in this referendum? If we are voting to leave the EU, why has he not set out exactly what we are voting for?”
“On protecting the public, we ought to remember that when we fought in this place to ban hunting with dogs, it was the Tories—not trade unionists—who let the protesters on to the Floor of this House. When Conservative Members talk about freedom of speech, perhaps they should remember some of their own past activities.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The intervention from the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) gives away how the Conservatives are prepared to dance on a pinhead in order to support the Bill. To suggest that an employer would be better off to contract with each employee individually to collect their union dues, rather than to do so collectively through the trade unions, is barmy.”
“One of the first acts of the Conservative-Liberal coalition when it came into power was to scrap the home start scheme which had the aim of keeping us building homes, instead of seeing them stalled because of the lack of backing from the banks. Fewer homes were repossessed during the deepest recession we had had in nearly a century compared with any recession under the Tories.”
“I wait at your pleasure, Mr Speaker. Further to that point of order, may I point out that we have had a general election this year, and that during the campaign the Government were consistently asked whether they had any intention of cutting tax credits? They consistently said that that was not their intention. It is parliamentary convention that the House of Lords does not overturn manifesto commitments, but that measure was not in the Conservative manifesto and there is clear concern in the country about it. It is right that the House of Lords should ask the Government to think again.”
“It is five years since the Government stated that they would make changes on fan ownership. Since then, we have had two Select Committee reports and, after four years of waiting, the Government finally set up the expert working group, the report from which is imminent. Does the Minister agree that it is time for bona fide fan groups to be given the right to elect and remove representatives on club boards and the right to buy shares in their clubs? For too long those with vested interests have been allowed to stand in the way of progress on these issues and we must not miss the opportunity that the expert working group offers us.”
“In their interventions so far, Conservative Members have already conceded the argument. They started by saying that low-paid workers were going to be better off, and that Britain needs a pay rise and will get one. They have conceded that argument, but now it is all about choices and how tough it will be to balance the books. They have lost the argument.”
“People earning more than £2 million a year will be £250,000 a year better off. Come the next general election, they will have gained £1.25 million in tax cuts, but over the same period, a cleaner earning £13,500 will have lost £6,800, a patient transport driver on £17,800 will have lost more than £8,000, and a medical secretary on £22,200 will have lost £9,400. These people are strivers, they are hard workers, yet the Tory party is cutting their incomes. That is the choice people have made.”
“It is clear from what we have heard that the Government Benches are divided. We have heard from some Conservative Members that tax credits have failed—clearly they see this as unfinished business, so people on tax credits ought to fear there is more to come—but we have heard from others who are concerned about their constituents, and I would urge them not to ignore this opportunity to register their opposition to what their Front-Bench team are asking them to do. This is about the choices we make and the priorities we have. We could reverse the inheritance or corporation tax cuts to reduce the impact on people on tax credits, or we could cut the nearly £2 billion that people earning more than £1 million will share in tax cuts. They will be £61,000 a year better off.”
“I am taking my time, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Prime Minister and others were asked specifically, “Will you cut tax credits?”, and the answer was no.”
“Even the increase in the national minimum wage—it is not a national living wage, it is a Tory living wage—will be wiped out for those on it by the cut to tax credits. I say to those who are upset about these proposals: it is not good enough just to have a chat in private with the Chancellor or the Prime Minister. This is where they represent their constituents—here in the House of Commons—and if they do not agree with what their Front-Bench team are telling them to do, they should join us in the Lobby tonight to vote against what the Government are doing to people on tax credits.”
“Absolutely. If I were to accuse people of lying, Mr Deputy Speaker, you would rightly rule me out of order, but the people out there will have to make up their own minds. When the Justice Secretary went on to Martha Kearney’s programme, he was specifically asked what the Government would do on tax credits, and he said, “No, we’re going to freeze them for two years.” I do not know what the definition of a lie is, but I know that people outside the House will make up their own minds—although we cannot use that language in here. We know the Conservatives have lost the argument. This started at the autumn statement when the Chancellor said, “Britain deserves a pay increase, and Britain is going to get a pay increase”, but Government Members did not know when they cheered him that he was going to cut tax credits and make people worse off.”
“The Chancellor said that Britain deserved a pay increase and Britain was going to get a pay increase. The Tories over there cheered him to the rafters when he increased the national minimum wage, but we now know from a document produced by the House of Commons Library—I have a copy here—that the changes in tax credits will more than wipe out the increase in the national minimum wage. At the same time, the Tories are cutting taxes for millionaires. It is an absolute disgrace.”
“Here are some working people: a cleaner with one child will be £31.72 a week worse off. An assistant cook will be £32.49 a week worse off, a teaching assistant £32.49 and a health care assistant £35.36—”
“Conservative Members cheered the Chancellor to the rafters. Did they understand that the overall package would result in the poorest workers among us having their incomes cut? The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions punched the air. Did he not understand that the overall package would result in a cut in the incomes of people on the national minimum wage? Was he being mean or is he just too stupid to be doing his job? The Chancellor said in his 2010 Budget: “I am not going to hide hard choices from the British people or bury them in the small print of the Budget documents. The British public are going to hear them straight from me”. —[ Official Report , 22 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 167.] What happened in the latest Budget then? The Conservatives say that theirs is the party of working people.”
“What a mean confidence trick the Chancellor carried out in the Budget. Some 3,600 households in my constituency will be affected, including 6,600 children. The Chancellor said: “Britain deserves a pay rise and Britain is getting a pay rise.” —[ Official Report , 8 July 2015; Vol. 598, c. 337.] He also said that those on the national minimum wage can expect a cash increase and full-time workers can expect their incomes to go up by £5,000 a year. But we now know that the whole package is far from compensated for by the increase in the national minimum wage. People on the national minimum wage will not just be worse off next year, but the year after that, the year after that and the year after that—every year until 2021. The Library’s document tells us that on average they will worse off by £8,945 over the next five years.”
“Let the Tories vote for this change tonight. People will not forget that. We will remember that the Tories voted to reduce incomes for families with children. They trooped through the Lobby, claiming to be the party of the workers but voting to reduce their incomes. People will not forget that.”
“No, I have heard the hon. Gentleman so many times. He has to stop reading out the Whips’ handouts: it does not add to the debate. A nurse with three children will be worse off by £35.91—from the party that claims to be the party of the workers. I have a whole list of worker after worker, all of them worse off as a result of the changes to tax credits. Conservative Members may have been convinced by the Chancellor that he will make some changes. We have heard them argue that this change is necessary and that we have to make it. Perhaps they think that they have been given a promise that something will be done and some changes made for the people on this list, but I am sick and tired of hearing Tories tell us that we have to make changes. The changes will not hit them: they will hit the poorest income earners in their constituencies.”
“We must get developers to get on and build homes, but does the Minister accept that in a local authority area with sufficient land for building housing it would be inappropriate for a planning authority or the Planning Inspectorate to approve the building of houses on sports grounds when there is a need for them and users who want to keep them open as sports grounds?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Since reference has been made to the funding of political parties, should Government Members who have a shareholding in a hedge fund or a company that has supplied resources to the Conservative party also make a declaration?”
“I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer, but children growing up in households where the parents are on the national minimum wage will see their household income cut next year by up to a maximum of £1,426. He punched the air when the announcement was made in the House in the Budget in July. Was he being incompetent or just callous when he did that? What is he going to do to deal with this cut in household incomes?”
“Actually, Labour’s plan at the last election was to cut business rates for small businesses. The Chancellor neglected to mention business rates in the Budget, so can the Minister tell us how the review is going and give us a guarantee that it will not result in an increase in business rates?”
“Does the Minister share my concern about the standards in these free schools? Is he concerned that they might not actually provide the improvement in the quality of education that the Government claim, and can he point to any evidence that free schools have improved the standard of education in any areas where they have opened?”
“I am sure the Secretary of State will welcome the figures from the international passenger survey published last month, which showed that the number of overseas visitors to the UK is up 3% for the first four months. However, does he share my concern, and that of the tourism industry, that the figures show that expenditure is down 7% so far this year? If this trend continues to the end of the year, total revenue could be down by £1.53 billion compared with 2014, potentially putting 28,000 jobs at risk. Given those concerns, is it not time for the Government to put together a national strategy for tourism?”
“When they came to power, however, the last Government removed all the stimulus from the economy, much of which involved housing. In spite of the depth of the downturn, we had managed to keep the number of repossessions resulting from the downturn lower than in the 1992 recession. We also created the home start scheme to support and keep going construction schemes that were faltering because the banks were not providing credit—we supported the supply of housing—but the last Government scrapped those schemes. Incidentally, the last Government also scrapped the biggest council house building programme in 20 years. We can calculate the savings that that programme made to housing benefit. The Conservatives will claim credit for building more council housing than the last Labour Government—”
“If we invest in social housing at 50% or lower of market rents, the taxpayer actually saves money. We can chart the ballooning of the housing benefit budget right back to Sir George Young. When he was Housing Minister he said let housing benefit take the strain. Since then, we have seen a mushrooming in the cost to the taxpayer of paying for people to live in private rented accommodation. At the time of the 2010 election, economic growth was 1.7%, owing largely to the action of the Labour Government to address the deficit and economic downturn that resulted from the international banking crisis—I wish they had had so much power that they could have created an international banking crisis, because then we might have changed much more, other than what we did do, such as introducing the national minimum wage.”
“I am concerned that what we are seeing, much as the Chancellor tried to portray this as a one nation Budget, is a division opening up between those who have property and those who do not. That causes me a great deal of concern. There was very little, in what the Chancellor said, for the next generation. I am living in a house that, in the past 14 years, has more than doubled in value. I have not earned any of that money. Housing costs are leaving the next generation behind. What chances are we creating for the next generation? My right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) spoke very early in the debate. He undertook an excellent piece of work, which I encouraged the Labour Front-Bench team to adopt before the general election, outlining the “benefits to bricks” argument.”
“The Tories fought against it tooth and nail, yet here we are with the Tories claiming to be the guardians and supporters of the national minimum wage. How right can we be? We were told that it was going to cost jobs and wreck the economy. None of that came about and the Chancellor is now increasing it substantially, which I welcome. I will come back to that. My concern about the Budget, and the reason I wanted to speak today, relates to the proposed changes to welfare, particularly in relation to housing and the benefit cap. They will have a major impact because of the cost of housing in London. Only a few days ago, it was announced that there should be a higher income cap for people in social housing, who would then be forced to pay a market rent.”
“I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Philip Boswell) and for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), who made their maiden speeches earlier this afternoon. I hope that they enjoy their time here representing their constituents. The Budget was heralded as the first blue Budget for 18 years, but it certainly was not worth waiting for. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), I heard echoes of previous Tory Budgets under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, particularly in relation to housing and the social rented sector. There was a certain irony in the big crescendo being about the national minimum wage. Those of us who were here in the first Labour Parliament will remember that we had to sit all night to force through the national minimum wage.”
“Oh God; it’ll be a good one, I know. I admit that we did not build enough houses. I was here, firmly on the Back Benches, when we were in government, and the lack of house building, particularly social rented housing, was one of the big issues that I argued for, but right at the end we did invest a lot of money in building social housing, and the last Government scrapped it. The only social housing they have built and claimed credit for in the past five years was funded by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne when he was Housing Minister. I know that because I was his Parliamentary Private Secretary.”
“I want to turn to the national minimum wage. Based on what I heard from the Chancellor, I think that he has redefined the living wage and claimed it for himself. He has put the minimum wage up to £9, when the living wage is actually £9.15 and £7.85 outside London, not £7.20. Therefore, he has rewritten the living wage to start with, but also the living wage is calculated by including the rate of tax credits, which have just been massively reduced, so if I am not wrong, it will not be a living wage and we have had a little con trick. It was the big end for the Chancellor—“We’ve got a new living wage”—but we have not got a new living wage; we have got a Tory living wage. Again, it will impact on those with high housing costs, particularly in London.”
“Even in my constituency—which is an inner-London constituency, albeit towards the outer part of that area, so we do not have the sort of high-value properties we see in places such as Camden, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith and Fulham—there will still be high-value houses that must be sold. That will reduce the availability of affordable rented accommodation for people in London. What will happen to those communities? Where will those people go? Where are the opportunities for the next generation? What this Budget is doing is removing whole sections of our communities that perform lower-paid jobs and live in social rented accommodation in large parts of London. Those communities are just being wiped out, and this Budget has moved that forwards in ways that Margaret Thatcher could not even dream about.”
“I will look carefully at the impact assessment that the Government produce to show us that it is justifiable in London—we are going to see a proposal for a £23,000 benefit cap in London. I want to see how that will impact on people in central London, because we are seeing a combination of the cap and the highest-value social housing having to be sold off, as my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) said. We are seeing housing association properties forced to be sold off, and we know that for every 10 houses that are sold, we get only one house to replace them—that is the woefully inadequate record that we have seen in the past. The expensive houses are going to be in central London. They are the ones that are going to be sold.”
“Two thirds of home buyers now use the bank of mum and dad. They are getting support from the baby boomer generation—I am one of them: those born between 1946 and 1964. Our generation are sitting on the best pensions any generation has had, the windfall from our house prices and the greatest ever increase in the quality of life—and what has the Budget done? It has protected pensions for that group, who are already wealthy, and allowed them even greater opportunities to pass on their housing to their children, further opening up the divide between those who have houses and those who do not. That is completely and utterly unfair. Let me turn to the benefit cap. I do not support reducing the benefit cap from £26,000.”
“That is absolutely right; it gets the supply side going as well. The OBR figures in this booklet show that house prices are due to rise by 34.1% by 2021, so a considerable increase in house prices is still being predicted, but people’s ability to buy housing will only fall further behind. The Resolution Foundation states that 2.2 million households on medium incomes spend one third or more of their disposable income on housing, leaving an average of about £135 a week for other things. If they even attempt to buy their own home, they do not have enough income. The National Housing Federation’s report, “Broken Market, Broken Dreams”, states that the average first-time buyer needs a £30,000 deposit—10 times the amount needed in the 1980s—and to borrow 3.7 times their annual income now compared with just 1.7 times their income in 1979.”
“What we are saying therefore is that families with children in a capital as wealthy as London should have that much income to provide for them and to live on. This Budget is not fair; it is completely unfair. It is very divisive between those who have and those who have not, in terms of property. As for the increase in the minimum wage, welcome though it is, it is not a living wage, and we must continue to campaign for an improvement in that regard.”
“Other benefits such as tax credits are taken into consideration in calculating the minimum wage. That is how we arrive at the living wage, so we cannot cut tax credits and, using the previous living wage, say that it is the living wage. It has to be completely recalculated. Back in 2012, the London School of Economics did a study of the impact of the £26,000 benefit cap and concluded that, after all other bills were paid, households with children in some of the less desirable parts of London would be left to bring them up on 62p a day. I read an article the other day about Ban Ki-moon launching the new millennium development goals. He said that expenditure of $1.25 a day is not enough and that the target should be increased. Sixty-two pence a day is about half that.”
“The hon. Gentleman just cannot get away with what he said. That money was left over from the Labour Government. The house building programme that we started was scrapped by the Conservative Government when they took office. More houses could have been built if they had not done that.”
“Today we take a step towards putting fans on club boards, but in time it will be the FA board and the boards of UEFA and FIFA. It is time to trust the people who make the game special—the fans, who will be there long after the owners have moved on. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That Clive Efford, Mr Gordon Marsden, Ian Lavery, Barbara Keeley, Daniel Zeichner, Matthew Pennycook, Jenny Chapman, Bill Esterson, Vicky Foxcroft, Anna Turley, Andy Slaughter and Jim Shannon present the Bill. Clive Efford accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 December and to be printed (Bill 50).”
“Football fans create the atmosphere in the grounds and make our leagues so exciting to watch, which in turn makes money from the sale of the TV rights, yet on issues such as ticket prices, club names, sponsorship deals, stadium naming rights, club colours and moving clubs, they are too often an afterthought. Our football clubs are not simply businesses. They exist because generation after generation of people from the communities in which they are situated have sustained their clubs through thick and thin. I do not present the Bill as a solution to all the problems, but giving fans a voice is a stepping stone to more accountability in the game. Fans are not the solution to every problem, but they can and will be the eyes and ears of an early warning system for emerging problems.”
“They are the ones represented on the Government’s expert working group, whom the FA consult and who step in when an irresponsible owner has destroyed their club. We need only to think of Hereford, which has been resurrected by fans, of Portsmouth and Swansea, and the remarkable story of AFC Wimbledon. They all have one thing in common: football fans have had to step in and save their local club when the owners have destroyed it. As football fans, our passion for our clubs is lifelong. We do not change our clubs like we change the supermarket in which we shop. We have seen how the game has become increasingly remote from the people who make it what it is today.”
“Finally, in order to take up these powers, a club’s fans must organise themselves into a single representative body. I would suggest the model of an industrial and provident society, but I appreciate that fans will want to be consulted on the best way forward. I will undertake to do that. There is no escaping the fact that there will be a requirement on fans to act collectively to set up a single democratic and accountable body for the election and scrutiny of board representatives and the management of shares. The Bill will set out what constitutes a viable fan body for this purpose. We have talked around this issue for too long. Some have said that the people in the fan groups are not representative of ordinary fans, but they are the ones who helped me to consult the members of the fan trusts and fan clubs.”
“The fans’ right to buy will not stop any transaction being completed and anyone purchasing shares will know that fans have the right to buy up to 10% of the shares purchased for up to 240 days after the transaction is completed. These will be bought at the average price paid by the buyer for the relevant securities in the year preceding the change of control. This automatic option will be capped once the fans have acquired 10% of club shares, but that would not prevent fans from buying more shares if they wanted. In addition, fans will be given the right to elect and remove two representatives on the boards of clubs or 25% of the board membership, whichever is the greater number. Fan reps will have to undergo training to understand the sensitivities of their role as board members.”
“I am certain that the Government will say in response to my Bill that we should wait for the working group’s recommendations, but it took three years for the Government to set up the group and they did so knowing that there was no chance that they would have to respond to its conclusions before the general election. Until I am convinced that the Government intend to act, I shall proceed with my Bill. The Bill seeks to do three things. The first is to give fans the power to buy up to 10% of shares that are offered for sale when there is a change of ownership, which is recognised as being when 30% of the shares are up for sale.”
“There is a strong case for such legislative proposals to be formally considered in pre-legislative scrutiny.” On the issue of fan ownership, in the same response to the Select Committee, the Government said: “The Government will consider bringing together an informal expert group to report on the degree to which there are other issues that create genuine barriers and to provide recommendations for practical action.” That was in October 2011 and it was not until October 2014, six months before the general election, that the Government set up the expert working group.”
“If that does not happen the Government will introduce a legal requirement on the Football Association to implement the appropriate governance clauses by the swiftest possible means. To do that the Government will seek to secure, using all available channels, appropriate legislation as soon as Parliamentary time allows.”