Gareth Thomas
MP for Harrow West · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“Local councils such as Harrow need to invest more in youth facilities that divert young people away from crime. Some of the CCTV projects in my constituency that Harrow council has turned down—in Wealdstone, south Harrow and central Harrow—should get funding.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) on securing the debate and on the way in which he approached the subject. I join him and my hon.”
“I also want to suggest that the Metropolitan police does not get recognition across the whole of the UK for its hugely important work in tackling national and international crime, and that perhaps more recognition of that is required in the funding formula.”
“In particular, in Harrow, we recently saw enforcement teams contracted out to an organisation called Kingdom. The responsibility for that contract was with Harrow council. There was widespread criticism of the way some of the staff employed by Kingdom tried to levy fines on a number of young people in south Harrow, in my constituency.”
“One way we can further support the Metropolitan police is by allowing it to keep more of the proceeds from successful operations, such as recovering stolen funds hidden in bitcoin assets. I congratulate my hon.”
“Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has done a huge amount to try to redirect funding from other parts of his budget to minimise the impact of that cut.”
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“It has too many other things to do, so I wonder whether a separate consumer ombudsman is now needed, with the sole objective of standing up for consumers, with significant information gathering and class action powers. Voters in Harrow decided, sadly, to end my local party’s leadership of Harrow Council. We have some work to do as a local party to understand and, crucially, to face up to why voters collectively made that decision. In time, there will, I am sure, be much for us to be proud of about the council’s actions under Labour control, particularly the response to covid, but we have to confront now the question of whether, despite cuts in Government funding to Harrow Council of more than 90%, better council services could have been provided.”
“The shocking attempt last year to demutualise Liverpool Victoria demonstrated the need for legislative change to strip out the remaining incentives for boards to try to demutualise and to give the consumer-owners of those mutuals more powers, as well as the need to address the capital-raising difficulties that many mutuals have, and which have already been resolved in other countries, such as Australia. In theory, the Financial Conduct Authority is supposed to stand up for consumers. It did not do so during the LV debacle and almost £35 million of owners’ money was wasted as a result. The FCA did not stand up for British Steel pensioners either and it certainly did not during the mutual minibonds scandal. It does not have the resources, and it does not have the appetite clearly, to really stand up for consumers.”
“British banking is dominated by four large banks, which provide 70% of current accounts. Even the most generous think that recent measures to boost competition are having only limited impact. Banks are closing branches fast. Increasingly, it is mutual and co-operative financial services that are having to step in to maintain branches and support the high street. Building societies, credit unions and mutual financial insurers need legislative reform to enable them to get the capital they need to invest in new products, new IT and new markets. One boss of a mutual insurer with experience in other countries described the UK at the moment as a uniquely difficult regulatory environment for that insurer.”
“Even before the current crisis, it was clear big companies dominated the market too much, so new thinking on how to give consumers more agency in energy markets in the long term is essential to shape energy security, shift patterns of ownership and accelerate that switch to lower-carbon, renewable systems. Indeed, where is the serious plan to tackle the climate crisis? If the Government had backed the Opposition’s plans, we could double our onshore wind capacity to power an extra 10 million homes, back tidal power, triple solar power by 2030 and accelerate energy insulation to reduce the bills of working families and pensioners. On financial services, it is there that, in the last 12 months, it is most apparent that Ministers have not shown enough interest in consumers.”
“Why do water companies not have to answer properly to their customers? Complaints are at record levels, yet Ministers continue to give the boards of water companies the benefit of the doubt. Why do not Ministers support the consumers of water companies to co-ordinate properly at each English water company, to elect a representative to the board and to have the right to sign off the board’s accounts, executive remuneration and its investment plans? Why is there not action to stop excessive profits and to stop the diversion of funds that could support investment to pay dividends to shareholders? Similarly, the shocking level of energy bills only underlines the lack of agency that consumers have in energy markets.”
“We should be negotiating a veterinary agreement, and sorting out mutual recognition for the qualifications of our professionals so they can travel and trade with ease across Europe. We should be tackling visa problems for our creative industries, accelerating investment in digital borders and trying to build more productive relationships with our key allies. I wish I was surprised that the Gracious Speech did not give consumers significant new powers to hold the businesses that aspire to serve them to account. Water bills have rocketed since privatisation. Sewage spills, deliberate or not, are at shocking levels, underlining the insufficient levels of investment, while executive pay and profits for the often overseas owners of water companies continue to be too high, and clearly at the expense of treating water users—consumers—properly.”
“Exports matter: they are crucial to business growth and to generating tax receipts; they are a factor in our soft power; and they are fundamental for job creation. Indeed, jobs linked to exports pay higher than average wages, so not properly supporting exporters is only going to prolong the cost of living crisis and hold back economic growth. The Conservative party’s failure to take serious steps to address the problems businesses are facing trying to get into European markets will only exacerbate that problem. The Prime Minister thinks it is down to a lack of ambition by exporters. We need as a country to make Brexit work better. We are not going to be rejoining the European Union, but we do need to sort out the problems in the deal that the Prime Minister negotiated with Brussels.”
“Between 2010 and 2020, American exports of goods and services to the rest of the world rose by over 14%. Germany saw growth over the same period of over 13% in its exports. Across the G7, average growth in exports was 10%, yet Britain, under the Conservative party over the same decade, managed growth of just 4%. Even Italy saw faster export growth. Indeed, we saw a decline in exports to the world’s fastest growing economies in the G20 over that period: since 2010, goods exports to G20 countries have gone down 10%. We lost our position as the world’s biggest centre for financial services in 2018 to New York. We missed—even allowing for covid—by a huge margin, George Osborne’s target to treble exports.”
“It is why all public services should be supported to pay a genuine living wage, why sick pay should be extended too and why an employment Bill is needed to rein in the worst employers—for example, to outlaw fire and rehire and to increase the penalties for discrimination against women having a baby. It should have been in the Queen’s Speech. On the economy more generally, energy price hikes, widespread inflation, interest rate rises and growing concerns that the economy is going into recession only underline how badly the economy has been run for the past decade. Indeed, over the last 10 years, Britain’s growth in exports has lagged significantly behind the rest of the G7, yet there is little recognition or action by the Treasury or other key Departments.”
“and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition’s suggestion of a cut in energy bills funded by a windfall tax to help everyone is entirely sensible, and further help for those on average or very low incomes will be critical, too. An increase in social security payments, with an uplift in universal credit, is the obvious way to do that. One particular, but unsurprising disappointment about the Gracious Speech was the absence again of the much-promised employment Bill, leaving far too many vulnerable to bad employers. Making sure those in work are treated fairly, with respect, and have decent incomes is fundamental to the even greater country that Britain can be.”
“Similarly, one small business owner explained to me recently how his energy bill is going up from £1,200 a month now to £2,400 in June. More than 2 million adults have gone without food for a whole day in the past month and 2.5 million children now regularly miss meals or have to have smaller meals. In the 21st century, in one of the richest countries in the world, that is a truly shocking indication of the Government’s failure. A sustained and meaningful plan to tackle immediately the cost of living and food security crises is needed. We should have been told today when an emergency Budget was going to be brought forward to tackle those issues. My right hon.”
“What stands out from the Prime Minister’s speech this afternoon is a complete failure to understand just how poor his Government’s response has been to date to the desperate circumstances of too many of my constituents because of the cost of living crisis, and particularly because of the huge hike in energy bills, which have gone up by at least 70% since 2010. Ministers have been complacent and too slow to act. The average household bill is now about £2,000 a year, and in October it could rise to almost £3,000. Everyone in the country is affected, but for many the huge rise in bills means some devastating and very difficult choices. For those who are the most vulnerable in our country, the choice is: do they feed themselves or do they put the heating on?”
“I very much welcome the remarks of the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) about Bob Blizzard. I had the great privilege of being elected at the same time as him, and as we learned together and with others how this place works—and, indeed, how it perhaps does not work quite so well—I had many conversations with him. I heard of his passing last week from a friend of his in my constituency, and I feel very sad that such a good man and such a great figure in the Labour party has been lost to us.”
“I take this opportunity to wish Her Majesty the Queen a very happy birthday, and all the great people of England a very happy St George’s day at the weekend. With the Chancellor’s having accepted a report from the Office for Budget Responsibility confirming an ongoing 15% hit to British exports to Europe, and given, as my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) alluded to, the continuing extra red tape, customs checks and costs that businesses here face thanks to the Prime Minister’s poor trade deal with Europe, when will the Secretary of State publish a plan to put right some of that damage, to help British business and to make Brexit work better?”
“The Department’s own research shows that export-related jobs pay higher than average, so the hit to our European exports, which the Secretary of State seems so complacent about, will prolong the cost of living crisis. It also underlines that since 2010 British exports have significantly underperformed compared with the rest of the G7, notably the United States and Germany. Businesses tell us that other countries have more ambitious export support programmes, while the Prime Minister blames our exporters for a lack of “energy and ambition”. Where does the Secretary of State think the blame lies?”
“My constituent Huw Davies is struggling to regain control of a home that he has owned for many years and is wondering when there will be tougher action to prevent lasting powers of attorney from being taken out fraudulently. Will Ministers set out what they are doing to toughen up the law and to toughen up the enforcement activity in respect of lasting powers of attorney?”
“Businesses in the steel industry are more likely to be able to support the kickstart scheme if the Government manage to get Donald Trump’s unfair tariffs of 25% on British steel exports lifted, as the Japanese and the EU have already achieved. Has the Chancellor spoken to the Chief Secretary about this issue, and if not why not?”
“Survey after survey of business owners report unnecessary hassle and difficulty in exporting to European markets, with extra red tape, checks and delays too often the norm. As no one in the Government is getting a grip on this, why does the Secretary of State not get herself down to Dover to understand directly what needs doing to ease the very real difficulties that British businesses face?”
“In October 2020 the Department for International Trade said that, within five months, up to 77 extra British food and drink products would get protected status in Japan, thanks to the UK-Japan trade deal, highlighting Carmarthen ham, Shetland wool, Yorkshire rhubarb and Lakeland Herdwick lamb among the products that would benefit. Can the Minister confirm that, despite all the time that has passed, during which 56 new EU products have been recognised in Japan, fewer than half the UK products we were promised have even reached the consultation stage, including none of the specific products I mentioned?”
“I very much welcome the Minister’s remarks and those of the shadow Defence Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey). The Minister has rightly made much of the need to maintain the unity of the western alliance, but can I ask him what efforts have been made to reach out beyond that alliance, in particular to China, to try to discourage China from offering any active or indeed implicit support for what Putin has done?”
“Given that India has a population of almost 1.4 billion people and a growing middle class, a trade deal would increase British business access to a huge consumer base and, according to the CBI, potentially boost wages in the UK by some £3 billion by 2035. Got right, an ambitious free trade agreement could bolster bilateral economic growth and, given India’s regional significance, boost growth and trade with its near neighbours, too. An agreement that sees the removal of key duties and tariffs is particularly important. As the hon. Member for Glasgow East stressed, exports of Scottish whisky and of cars, which face duties of 150% and 125% respectively, are important.”
“Member for Wyre Forest asked, what extra support is being provided to firms that have the potential to export to India but are not yet doing so. If France, Germany, Italy and the EU more generally can all perform better without an FTA in terms of growth in their exports to India, Ministers need to be doing more to help British exporters. How many trade missions are planned to India in the next 12 months? Are extra staff going to be deployed to support export growth in India? How are Ministers going to improve the online help to businesses that want to export to India? I am told that it is weaker than that of our rivals. India is one of the world’s largest and fastest growing economies, and it is set to become the world’s third biggest economy by 2050.”
“It is no surprise that as far back as 2018, the Indian Government, through the High Commission here, were asking when Ministers were going to get their act together on trade with India. Action by the previous Prime Minister on visas, of the sort alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall, or the failure to support India’s call for a temporary trade-related intellectual property rights waiver, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport underlined, only add to the concern about whether Ministers are genuinely serious about engaging properly with their counterparts in India. To complement free trade agreement discussions, a strategy to boost exports to India is now needed. That can be built on if and when any agreement with India is achieved. I hope the Minister will be able to explain, as the hon.”
“Member for Wyre Forest, who is no longer in his place, made a pointed intervention on the hon. Member for Harrow East about the Tradeshow Access Programme, no doubt with that in mind. Figures from the House of Commons Library demonstrate that British exports to India dropped by 3% in the years between 2010 and 2019. Canada saw a 62% increase in trade with India over that time, and the French saw a 58% increase over the same period. Every other country in the G7 saw faster growth in their trade with India. There was also an average increase in trade with India across the European Union, without the EU-India free trade agreement having been made. Even Italy performed better than the UK. After that decade of disappointment, it is high time that Ministers gave Indian markets some serious attention.”
“Given that Ministers have negotiated a trade agreement with Japan that, according to the Government’s own figures, is set to benefit their exporters four times more than ours; that provisions on labour and human rights have been dropped from many of the roll-over deals—a point made by the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry)—and that a deal with Australia is set to deliver a £100 million hit to British farmers, fishing and food firms, Ministers should not be surprised by the growing scepticism about whether they will be able to put together a genuinely exciting free trade deal with India. I am afraid that the story of the last 10 years of Britain’s trade with India has been underwhelming. The hon.”
“Given how underwhelming the Government’s record on trade has been of late, the signing of a comprehensive free trade agreement with India that could unlock significant export opportunities for British businesses and help to create significant numbers of new jobs in the UK would be very welcome. However, very few in the business community seem to have much confidence in the Government being able to negotiate any time soon the comprehensive free trade agreement that the Prime Minister has promised us all. There are increasing whispers that Ministers are focusing only on what would be billed as an interim agreement. I hope that turns out not to be true, but that apparent loss of nerve and ambition would be disappointing.”
“Members for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes), for Glasgow East (David Linden) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) will serve to jog the Minister’s memory about the need to improve scrutiny arrangements for the trade deals that this country begins to enter into. In particular, I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Harrow East underlined the need to maintain environmental, animal welfare, food and safety standards, and to ensure that there is no retreat on protecting the national health service. At the outset, let me state clearly that the official Opposition welcome and support the opening of free trade agreement negotiations with India.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I find myself in the most uncomfortable position of having to praise my neighbour, the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), for his speech; for the first time in a long time, I agreed with more than 50% of what he said. The hon. Gentleman and the Backbench Business Committee have done the House a service in giving us the opportunity to begin scrutiny of a trade agreement. I hope that the contributions by the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), my hon. Friends the Members for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) and for Stockport (Navendu Mishra), and the hon.”
“The Secretary of State confirmed that nothing is off the table, and a multiplicity of sources confirm India’s continuing interest, and indeed priority, in a substantial easing of visa restrictions into the UK.”
“An FTA should include reaffirming commitments to implement the WTO’s trade facilitation agreement, to ensure that there are commitments on the timely release of goods and express shipments, and a mutual recognition of authorised economic operator schemes. On the point of mutual recognition, a comprehensive and ambitious FTA, of the type promised by the Prime Minister, should also include progress on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications and more robust regulatory dialogues. Trade agreements are not a zero-sum game; there are trade-offs. One reason why better scrutiny of trade deals is needed is to ensure that there is proper debate about those trade-offs and the context of trade deals being done—a point underlined by the hon. Member for Strangford. One obvious issue in that regard concerns visas.”
“Figures suggest that Britain exported about £3.8 billion of services to India, with financial services making up less than 10% of that total. An ambitious agreement on services could support and complement India’s economic development. Indeed, given the UK’s strong comparative advantage in high-value services such as digital finance, a deal that does not support real growth in services exports would be very disappointing. Again, on tech, the UK and India are among the world’s leaders in the development of new technologies. An FTA could help to develop business co-operation in advanced research and manufacturing capacity, in green energy capacity in particular, as well as in artificial intelligence. For many small businesses, improving customs arrangements to reduce bureaucratic delays and red tape is key.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is why we need to ensure that there is no weakening of standards as Ministers, perhaps desperate to make up for the shortfalls in the trade and co-operation agreement with the EU, seek to rush to agree trade deals with other countries. Ministers ought to be able to make fast progress on Scottish whisky tariffs. The Government of India are keen to tackle smuggling, counterfeiting and the loss of tax revenue, so the UK Government are pushing at an open door regarding Scotch whisky tariffs. The financial sector is emerging as a vibrant and dynamic area of growth in the Indian economy, but India ranks only 30th as an export destination for UK financial services.”
“One of the criteria that the Opposition will use to judge the Secretary of State’s negotiating skills is the extent to which the deal boosts development, improves equality of opportunity, and tackles poverty. Just as we believe that every community in the UK should benefit from the trade deals that Britain signs, every community in India should benefit from a UK-India free trade agreement. That is why we want to see chapters on labour and human rights—important points underlined in interventions from the hon. Members for Strangford and for West Dunbartonshire. We welcome the opening of negotiations, but we will monitor their progress very carefully.”
“The hon. Gentleman asks an important question. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall underlined the concern we heard from many sources about the more illiberal regime on visas that was introduced by the previous Prime Minister. It is worth asking the Minister if he plans to allow, as under the Australia deal, a significant increase in access to the UK for Indian nationals. What will Britain’s ask be in return, regarding easier movement between the UK and India for UK professionals? What is the Minister planning for ceramics? That is a key industry, which is hugely important in many specific parts of the UK, such as that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South, and which is facing ever-growing competition from India. To what extent is the Minister factoring into the negotiations the needs of the ceramics industry?”
“Why does the Secretary of State think that the Conservative chair of the Local Government Association, James Jamieson, has criticised the settlement for not including sufficient funding to tackle the considerable additional pressures on local services, particularly with respect to vulnerable adults and children?”
“The pandemic has had the same devastating impact on the finances of TfL as it did on privatised rail companies, yet those failing privatised rail companies were bailed out straightaway and without any strings attached. Despite the Mayor’s doing the right thing to protect Londoners during the pandemic, the Transport Secretary is still refusing to fund TfL properly, offering only another sticking-plaster deal. As I understand it, the Transport Secretary is refusing to meet the Mayor to discuss those issues.”
“Harrow councillors, those from my party and those in the opposition ranks, who challenge them, are remarkably dedicated given that most are paid very little and have to manage their responsibilities alongside other jobs. I want Harrow to be an even better place to live, and first of all that requires the Government to invest more in the ambitions of local people by supporting Harrow Council more than they have to date. I also want to mention London and how the Mayor of London is being pressured into raising council tax to protect vital travel concessions for young people and the over-60s and to provide further funding for policing. Indeed, I understand that the Secretary of State for Transport personally told the Mayor that council tax had to go up.”
“That is all positive and the council is trying to increase support to the victims of domestic violence and to young carers, as well as to improve street cleaning and to increase enforcement activity and investment in local parks. However, it is not able to increase support or invest at the level that it and local residents would want because of the financial challenges that I have set out. Councils are far from universally popular, as I have said. They can seem too remote and their services can be frustrating to access, but in my experience in Harrow there are proud and committed staff in every part of the council who are determined to do what they can to make Harrow an even better place to live.”
“In Harrow there has been a significantly higher than average rate of infection compared with the rest of London, yet Harrow has received one of the lowest allocations of emergency funding of all London boroughs. In 2019-20, Harrow’s core spending power per head was estimated to be £170 lower than the London average and £75 lower than the England average. The fair funding review that has been promised needs to tackle that disparity. Despite the considerable financial challenges the council has faced, it has succeeded in securing the future of vital community assets. The future of Harrow Arts Centre is now secure, investment in the Sir Roger Bannister athletics stadium has been achieved and the Harrow Museum has a new funding future.”
“It has been able to make savings and efficiencies of some £98 million over that time, but it has had to reduce services and consistently to increase council tax in line with the Government’s expectations. Despite all those steps, every year it remains a huge challenge to balance the council’s budget. Harrow has a good track record of financial management. It has strong collection rates and has not reported a revenue budget overspend for many years. It has not had to use its small reserves to prop up its budget. It is a remarkable tribute to officers and councillors in Harrow that they have such a good record of financial management, but of course in the past two years in particular they have done all that while managing the disproportionate impact of covid on the borough. Of course, the pandemic has affected every part of the UK.”
“Harrow remains one of the lowest-funded councils both in London and nationally. We are fortunately well led by Councillor Graham Henson, we have strong officers and, certainly over the last four years, we have had very strong finance leads in Natasha Proctor and Councillor Adam Swersky. However, over the last 10 years, the main source of funding from central Government to Harrow—the revenue support grant—has reduced by 97% to just £1.6 million, a reduction of over £50 million for Harrow. There are other grants, but they are ringfenced to a large extent. To maintain balanced budgets, the council has had to find £150 million of savings as well as ways to raise new income, and has had to decide between making cuts to services or raising council tax.”
“Those cuts in funding have coincided with growing pressures on council-run services through bigger populations; the increasing numbers of the elderly, vulnerable adults and young people needing vital care and support; and, in London in particular, the rising number of homeless families. All of that has helped to squeeze the discretionary funding that councils have to spend on enforcement action against antisocial behaviour and rogue developments, as well as on street cleaning, services such as libraries, and supporting local charities, all of which have together impacted slowly but steadily on the quality of life in our towns and district centres. Across London, since 2010, councils have seen a 25% reduction in funding, even though there are 1 million more Londoners.”
“Those funding cuts have made it easier for developers to do what they want where they want, and the 600-plus changes to planning law that Ministers have brought in have certainly helped in that regard. The funding cuts have made it harder to strengthen community-run services, and they have put pressure on councils to sell community assets and slowed down investment in crucial local services. The National Audit Office has charted how the spending power of local councils, funded by central Government, has fallen in real terms by more than 50% in the last 10 years.”
“Too many in our communities up and down the country feel that they are not able to influence the future of the area in which they live, and that they have too little control over how their area looks, how it changes and the services they can access. If we are to help constituents shape the areas they live in and drive improvements in the services they depend on, then one—not the only one, but a crucial one—of the essential routes to doing that is to empower local councils. That means tackling the legacy of the active neglect of local councils which, I am afraid to say, has characterised the Treasury and much of the Department in recent years. A number of bodies over recent years have published studies that paint an all-too-similar and familiar picture of declining support from central Government to local councils.”
“Member was right about special educational needs and the need to provide more dedicated funding, particularly to London authorities as virtually every London borough is facing huge additional pressures in that area. Local councils are fundamental to the quality of the places where we live. They are not always universally loved, but they are essential for keeping our communities safe and our streets clean. They help create the environment in which we all want to live—for example, through the planning decisions they take—and they drive opportunities for young and old to access high-quality education, the arts, sports and leisure. Yet, tragically, they have been neglected for a decade under the Conservative party.”
“Sadly, we remain one of the most centralised nations, certainly in Europe, in the way we approach local services. Like him, I would strongly support the Secretary of State’s taking up the challenge of negotiating with the Chancellor of the Exchequer for more fiscal devolution for local government. Nowhere is the argument for such fiscal and financial devolution more pertinent than in the scandalous treatment of Transport for London, with the Secretary of State for Transport demanding that the Mayor of London put up council tax to pay for concessionary fares for the elderly and the young—of which more anon, if I may. I also thought the hon.”
“This has been a really interesting debate. I want to pick up a few points made by hon. Members. In particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) gently—and rightly—chastised the Government for not offering a multi-year agreement for local government and asked what has happened to business rates reform. He and my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Sir George Howarth) rightly made afresh the point about the need for a fair funding review to focus genuinely on need and poverty if the Government’s levelling-up agenda is to have any substance. If I may, I will also praise the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) and his point about fiscal and financial devolution for local government.”
“With all due respect to the hon. Gentleman, I do not think it will help the people of West Dorset or the rest of the UK in general if we leave London with a poor transport service. Just as I would like to see his community getting better support from the Secretary of State, I hope he might have the grace to recognise that Harrow and London in general also need to be properly supported as we come out of the pandemic.”
“Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) on the Front Bench rightly said at the outset, the Conservative party had not allowed so much money to be wasted on fraud, corruption and personal protective equipment that could not be used, there would be money to invest in more policing in local councils such as Dorset and, crucially, Harrow, and to invest in better services for local people in my borough and beyond.”
“My right hon. Friend makes an important point. I do not know whether the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) has been challenging the Government in that regard—I think I heard a bit of gentle criticism, but perhaps he needs to make some more pointed remarks to the Secretary of State in private. We are in the midst of a cost of living crisis, and Government Ministers are demanding further council tax rises to fund local councils, the police and transport for the elderly and the young in Harrow. That is yet another financial blow to hard-hit families. If, as my hon.”