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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“As I said in my opening remarks, these are probing amendments. I hope that before we get to Report the Minister might be willing to brief my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South on the progress of the review and where the Government’s initial thinking is on that. That would be helpful and would give confidence to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham that the Opposition, who support my hon. Friend’s work in this area, would not want to delay the Bill further.”
“T6. In its report published today, which was commissioned by the Co-op party, the New Economics Foundation identifies lack of access to finance as a significant inhibitor in the growth of the co-op sector. While I am grateful to the Economic Secretary to the Treasury for his interest in this area, I wonder what steps the Treasury might now take to tackle that problem.”
“I strongly support the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making. Do not the Government figures released last week—an extra 137,000 pupils in England’s schools, but a loss of 5,400 teachers and almost 3,000 teaching assistants—further underline and support his point about the insufficiency of the total quantum going into schools budgets every year?”
“In terms of the additional school funding pressures facing every headteacher and governing body, the average overall in Harrow last year was almost £100,000 per primary school and £238,000 per secondary school, and that urgently needs to be addressed.”
“They have noted, as the heads of primary schools in my constituency have, that they are having to cope with an increase in employers’ contributions, an increase non-teaching pensions, teachers’ pay awards not being fully funded, non-teaching pay awards not being fully funded and the apprenticeship levy. Those pressures amount on average to an extra £54,000 in costs per primary school in Harrow and an extra £159,000 per secondary school. Similarly, schools in Harrow are having to cope with reductions in income from the way in which the minimum funding guarantee works and from reductions in their pupil premium grant. On average, primary schools are losing income. In 2017-18, £37,000 was lost per primary school and every secondary school lost £79,000.”
“The head of Rooks Heath was named not so long ago as the London headteacher of the year and the headteacher at Whitmore has a particularly good reputation, having led the school through a period of refurbishment and redevelopment. Bentley Wood, Park, Canons Salvatorian and Sacred Heart are schools just outside my constituency—not quite as well politically represented as the four I have already named. All have strong reputations, all have effective leadership and all show good academic performance. However, all are crying out for more investment in funding.”
“I am fortunate to represent an area, the London Borough of Harrow, that has been deemed by the Education Policy Institute as offering the best education in terms of the increase in standards from when a child enters school to when they leave. While all the teachers and headteachers in Harrow are delighted with that accolade from the EPI, none would say they have sufficient resources. My local schools work extremely closely together. The headteachers pride themselves on their co-operation and collaborative spirit. It is led in particular by the high schools. In my constituency, Whitmore High School, Nower Hill High, Harrow High and Rooks Heath work particularly closely together. All have very strong academic reputations. In particular, I want to single out the heads of Rooks Heath and Whitmore High School.”
“Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) rightly said, which is that there needs to be more support, investment and pride in the contribution that comprehensive schools make, and more praise for the efforts of local councils to support high attainment and good standards in our schools. The idea that councils and local education authorities were ever a dead hand hindering high standards was always a nonsense and it is particularly a nonsense at the moment, given the huge cuts in funding to local authorities that LEAs have to deal with. I want to make the rest of my remarks unashamedly parochial.”
“I praise his request for the message from this debate to be that we want investment in textbooks not tanks and a 10-year plan for education. It does feel that education is the public service that is not receiving sufficient attention around the Cabinet table in the negotiations with the Treasury. He was too polite to say so, but perhaps I can say that it is a pity the Secretary of State for Education is not here in person to hear the call for a 10-year plan for education. What I am sure he would not want to say at this stage is what my hon.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey). I join him in his praise for teachers not only in his constituency and mine, but across the country. I also join him in his praise for headteachers and the enormous contribution they make to the future of our country. Given that so many areas of our country are finding it difficult to recruit and retain teachers, and many schools are finding it difficult to get a headteacher on the first recruitment exercise, he may well want to reflect on whether his party’s policies are having quite the positive impact he claims. If I may, I would like to go back to the opening remarks by the Chair of the Education Committee, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon).”
“I gently say to the right hon. Gentleman that he is very welcome to come to Harrow, and I would be very happy to organise a roundtable for him with headteachers of primary schools and secondary schools, because the experience that he describes is not the one that they have to face on a daily basis in managing their funding needs. He is sitting next to his colleague, the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills, who I was glad to meet to discuss the funding needs of a sixth-form college that faces significant additional financial pressures. More funding needs to be put into the school education system. Harrow needs it and every other school needs it—”
“Much as I would be delighted to invite the hon. Gentleman to join the Minister for School Standards in visiting Harrow, I hope that in the light of what Madam Deputy Speaker said, he will forgive me for not allowing him to intervene. Finally, there needs to be a 10-year funding plan and crucially, more investment next year in funding for schools across England and particularly, if the House will forgive me, in Harrow.”
“Q6. Thames Water and other water companies have profit margins close to 20%, paying out a huge £1.4 billion annually often to overseas owners that could be used to cut bills and accelerate repairs. Given that only Welsh Water, a mutual, makes no such payments, when might the Prime Minister get behind the efforts to double the size of the mutual and co-operative contribution to our economy?”
“Those extra officers might have been able to stop the recent stabbing that I specifically referred to and other incidents of violent crime that are worrying my constituents.”
“My constituents are genuinely concerned that our police officers will be squeezed out of Harrow to serve the constituents of Barnet and Brent, which also have significant crime problems, particularly with burglary and gang-related crime. I continue to seek assurances from Ministers, as well as from local police representatives and the Mayor, that the interests of Harrow will not be forgotten. I wonder aloud whether the time we are taking today, and the time taken by civil servants and others who have contributed to the process that has led up to this Committee’s deliberations, might have been better spent lobbying the Treasury and the Home Secretary to release more money for the Metropolitan police in London, so that my constituents could be reassured by having more uniformed police officers on the beat.”
“By the end of this year, fewer than 100 uniformed police officers will be stationed in my borough. That is a source of considerable concern to my constituents at a time when violent crime is increasing significantly in London as a whole and in Harrow in particular. In Harrow, the custody suite where CID officers would expect to be based—they would presumably be the main people taking advantage of the new codes of practice—has been closed. Instead, anyone interviewed in relation to crime in Harrow will now be interviewed in Colindale or Wembley police stations. The tri-borough merger that has been forced on the Mayor of London by the shortage of resources for the Metropolitan police is of huge concern to my constituents. We are, or were until recently, the safest of the three boroughs of Barnet, Brent and Harrow.”
“I take this opportunity to raise that specific concern with the Minister because of the distress that my constituent and his parents have undergone. Journalists from the particular news outlets were at the front door of the victim’s home. Other family members were contacted in an effort to find out the young man’s name. I hope that the order we are discussing will cover that particular situation. If not, would the Minister be willing to investigate the issue and write to me? The more general point I wanted to raise was similar to a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln raised from the Front Bench. To make the best and most effective use of the new codes of practice, one clearly needs to make the resources available to the police. In my constituency, we have lost more than 373 uniformed police officers since 2010.”
“Children up to the age of 16 are covered and cannot, when they are the victims, be named in media reports, but there is a bit of a legal loophole once someone hits the age of 17, so he could be named. Section 9 of the Independent Press Standards Organisation’s editors’ code states: “Particular regard should be paid to the potentially vulnerable position of children under the age of 18 who witness, or are victims of, crime. This should not restrict the right to report legal proceedings.” No legal proceeding has yet begun. If a particular media outlet has signed up to IPSO, it presumably would not or should not have reported my constituent’s name. I suspect that those media organisations that named him have not signed up to IPSO.”
“I rise to ask a specific question of the Minister and to make a general point. As I understand it from the Minister’s opening submission and from a briefing I have received, one of the revisions to Police and Criminal Evidence Act code C amends previous provisions to ensure that 17-year- olds are treated as children for all purposes under the Act. Does the amended provision specifically cover reporting by various media organisations on individuals who are involved in or the victim of a crime? I ask that in the context of a 17-year-old in my constituency who was stabbed recently. It was very serious; he had to be taken to the hospital. His parents, having to deal with that particular trauma, also saw him named in the media, because he was older than 16.”
“I am sure the whole House will want to echo the Prime Minister’s comments about the Grenfell tragedy 12 months ago. My constituents certainly will want me to echo her good wishes to the England football team. Last year, the top five co-operatives in our country paid more than four times the corporation tax of Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Starbucks and E.ON. I am sure the Prime Minister will want to praise the patriotism of those who have signed up to the Fair Tax Mark campaign. Might this not be an opportunity to encourage the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Treasury to take a more proactive and supportive interest in the growth of co-operative and mutual businesses?”
“I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) for accepting this intervention before you got up to make your own. Is my hon. Friend aware of the Centre for Policy Studies—not a natural ally for him, perhaps—and its recent report in which it alluded to fundamental problems with rail competition and the declining market interest in bidding for rail franchises? Would he therefore take this opportunity to commend to the Secretary of State the recent Co-operative party report setting out a new approach to public ownership of the railways?”
“My hon. Friend should also be aware that many walk-in centres have closed. In my constituency, the superb Alexandra Avenue centre has had a 20,000 cap imposed on the number of patients it can see. This service is run by popular GPs, but it faces the risk of being outsourced, to a Virgin healthcare or someone else. It originally served 40,000 patients, and many of my constituents are genuinely worried for its future.”
“Nigh on three weeks ago, two teenagers in my constituency were shot at and seriously injured. I do not doubt the commitment of Cressida Dick and the Metropolitan police to finding the perpetrators of that shocking incident, but my constituents and I worry about the decline in the visibility of the police presence on our streets in Harrow. I therefore take this opportunity to underline to the Minister the profound concern, particularly from London MPs, across party, as well as from others, about the lack of sufficient resources for the Metropolitan police. I urge him to do whatever he can to lobby the Chancellor for further funding for the Met.”
“I very much agree with my hon. Friend and commend her comments. Does she think that now is the moment for the Government to give enthusiastic backing to the SheDecides movement that has emerged since the decision by the American President, Donald Trump, to reimpose the global gag rule? In the light of her comments about anti-abortion campaigners coming together, that would be a powerful signal of Britain’s opposition to that movement.”
“I do not think that anybody on the Opposition side questions the investment that the Government are making through the Department for International Development—I welcome that. The concern is that the Government have not had the courage to stand up to the American President over his reintroduction of the global gag rule and to show solidarity with all the other countries that have challenged him and are seeking to galvanise even greater investment in access to reproductive services, to plug the gap that the American decision on the global gag rule has left.”
“Given the well known but now even better publicised problems with the rail franchising model, might this not be the moment for the Secretary of State to review the Co-op party’s recent proposals for rail reform, including a series of new mutual, not-for-profit train operating companies that are able to operate in the private sector, but are publicly owned, and able to attract significant private investment?”
“Will the Minister for sixth-form colleges be willing to meet me to discuss some of the financial and capital needs facing Britain’s best sixth-form college, St Dominic’s in my constituency?”
“Gareth Thomas accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 6 July, and to be printed (Bill 208 ).”
“Whatever we think of Brexit—whether we voted remain or leave; whether we think we will get a good deal or a bad deal—we can all surely agree that it is a huge deal. That means that it is much too important to be left to the 650 of us here is Westminster to decide on our own. The 65 million people of this great country deserve to have their voices heard on the Brexit deal as well. That is why I support a people’s vote on the terms of Brexit, and that is what I will be campaigning on over the coming months. That is also why I urge the House to support the Bill. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That Gareth Thomas, Stephen Timms, Dr Rupa Huq, Andy Slaughter, Stephen Doughty, Anna Turley, Susan Elan Jones, Tom Brake, Jonathan Edwards, Caroline Lucas, Daniel Zeichner and Paul Flynn present the Bill.”
“This is the greatest country in the world, and I want it to be greater still. The Brexit deal is bigger than any piece of legislation, more significant than any budget, and will have more impact than any current Government Minister on the future of our country. On something as big as the Brexit deal, why should it be only us, here in this House, who get to decide what is good enough? Why cannot my neighbours—the people in my community who shop in the supermarkets that I use, and who walk the same streets as I do—have a vote on the deal, too? Why am I set to be the only person living in Harrow who will get a say on whether the Brexit deal is any good? Why will people in Belfast, Shropshire, Lincoln, Stirling or Aberystwyth not get a vote on the deal that will have such a big impact on their lives and those of their children?”
“The Prime Minister has said emphatically that the country will have full details about the deal that has been negotiated before we leave the European Union, and I take her at her word. We already know the details of the divorce deal and the transition. We know some key parts of the deal that the Government are negotiating—notably that they want to leave the customs union and the single market. The Government decided that only after the referendum was held; it was not on the ballot paper. If, despite what the Prime Minister has promised, the Government try to fob the country off with only vague plans about leaving—if much of our future relationship remains unclear—it will be even more important to have a people’s vote, because of the danger that we will be charging off into the unknown.”
“It is now clear that it is Ministers, and not the European Union, holding back our fishermen from expanding their operations. As a former trade Minister, I know that many of the much-heralded new trade deals that Ministers want to negotiate will involve significant immigration to the UK—a truth that Ministers have been reluctant to explain. It is already clear that when big trading nations like the US sit down to negotiate with us on our own, they will expect us to lower the environmental, health and safety standards that we have in the UK. Chlorinated chicken would be just the start; of course, it is well known that private American healthcare chains have ambitions to be allowed to expand into our NHS.”
“Even the Government agree that Brexit will damage the economy: their own leaked impact analysis shows that we will be worse off under every possible Brexit deal. On immigration, fishing and new trade deals, we were told a series of statements that, two years on, are looking distinctly threadbare. On immigration, how are the Government going to secure access to the single market without accepting freedom of movement? Why would the European Union sign off a trade deal that does not include the right for EU nationals to come back and forth? There has been not a single sign that EU Ministers are willing to shift on this issue or—tellingly—that the Government really, deep down, want them to. There are various measures that the Government could bring in now, but strikingly they have chosen not to ensure that free movement is not a free for all.”
“With negotiations obviously not going well and the Cabinet not able to agree among itself, even on future customs arrangements and what to do about the Northern Ireland border, it is more and more likely that the Government will present us with a poor deal. In those circumstances, why should our country—our fellow citizens—have to accept it without having had any chance to influence the hard Brexit that the Government look like they are going to deliver? We have gone from being the fastest-growing economy in the G7 to the slowest. Indeed, according to the Bank of England, Brexit has cost us more than £200 million a week in lost growth. The pound has plummeted, investment is down, inflation is higher and wages have stagnated—and we have not even left yet.”
“The 2016 referendum determined that Britain should negotiate the country’s departure from the European Union, and I have always respected that decision—I voted for article 50 to be triggered—but the terms on which we leave and on Britain’s future relationship with the European Union were never clearly defined or put to the public in 2016. New facts about Brexit have emerged that could never have been known at the time of the referendum. We now know that the promises made about Brexit—such as £350 million a week extra for the NHS and a deal with the exact same benefits—will not be kept. Who knew that Brexit negotiators would be willing to hand over £40 billion to leave the European Union, and for a much worse relationship?”
“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide that any Withdrawal Agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union shall not have effect without a vote by the electorate of the United Kingdom and Gibraltar to that effect; to make arrangements for the holding of such a public vote; and for connected purposes. There should be a democratic public vote on whether to accept the deal that the Government achieve to leave the European Union. A people’s vote would allow the public, rather than just us in the House of Commons, to make the final decision about whether to accept the Brexit deal.”
“I draw to my hon. Friend’s attention the comments of Miss Burdett from Rayners Lane in my constituency, who notes that online rates for energy bills are often cheaper than the standard rate, potentially leaving elderly and vulnerable people who cannot go online for whatever reason at a significant disadvantage compared with the rest of us. Would my hon. Friend’s amendments help people such as Miss Burdett, in the situation that I have described?”
“The Financial Conduct Authority does not always get a good press, but it has been very supportive of that work, and I hope the Minister will encourage the FCA and Co-ops UK to continue to champion that new potential source of capital for many co-operatives. The chief executive of Co-ops UK, Ed Mayo, deserves praise for his skill in getting this work so far down the road. Other parts of the co-operatives and mutuals sector of our economy—notably building societies, friendly societies and mutual insurers—have been subject to legislative changes permitting them to raise much larger amounts of additional capital. These reforms are yet to apply to the co-operative world.”
“Lottery money is currently being used by Co-ops UK’s community share unit to support community shares offers, but more could be done if the Government renewed their previous interest in this area. It would be good for Ministers to explore what else they can do to encourage the further expansion of community shares. More recently, Co-ops UK, working with retail co-op societies, has begun to explore whether fixed-term withdrawable share capital could be developed, allowing more established societies to raise patient and engaged equity finance from members and non-member investors, up to a £100,000 maximum individual shareholding limit.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered capital needs of co-operatives. It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. It is a particular delight to be able to talk co-operatives with the Treasury Minister twice in two days. For those of us who want the co-operative and mutual sector of our economy to double in size, fixing the difficulties that co-operatives have in accessing the capital they need to expand is critical. Co-operatives UK, the co-operative movement’s trade body, has done an excellent job in recent years of championing community shares as one way for local co-operatives to raise significant but comparatively small amounts of capital to grow.”
“In short, legislation is needed to fix this problem—legislation that protects that unique governance model of co-operatives, but allows them to issue permanent investment shares. Such shares could allow consumer co-ops to grow by acquisition and by developing new business offers for their customer members. Football supporter-owned clubs could fund the development of new stadium facilities, grow their businesses, serve their communities and consolidate their income streams. Co-operative-owned energy generators could attract long-term investment to build even more energy infrastructure of the sort we need in this country. A lack of capital limits a co-operative’s growth and ability to develop new services. The growth rate of that co-operative is constrained by its relative inability to add significant capital through retained earnings.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. If he can use his not inconsiderable influence on the Minister to support what I will say, we might be able to accelerate the addressing of some of the problems co-ops face in investing in social housing. Unless co-operatives can raise additional capital, they cannot expand or develop to their true potential. At worst, they are at risk of demutualisation, as I will set out. Co-operatives do not issue shares in the same way as investor-owned companies—to do so would mean demutualising—so bigger co-operatives can face considerable difficulties raising additional capital at the level they need. Their growth inevitably is limited and their ability to compete on equal terms is reduced.”
“The Italian method of creating staff buy-outs is essentially a negotiated conversion and business restructuring mechanism, with a unique set of supportive policies and a financing structure facilitated by a collaborative approach between staff, the co-op sector and the Government. Some resources are provided by the Italian state Treasury. Again, I do not expect the Minister to commit to this measure today, but in due course it would be good to hear his reflections on that example. Perhaps on another occasion it would be good hear what further steps the Minister will take to try to encourage the expansion of the credit union sector, where capital remains a significant issue. The lack of resources for marketing is probably one of the biggest things holding back that sector’s development.”
“Perhaps the best example of this is the so-called Marcora law from Italy, where conversions take place as negotiated employee buy-outs between workers, the exiting owners, the co-operative sector, the nearby local authorities, and bankruptcy courts. Under a legal framework—the Marcora law—an infrastructure of support has been created to assist the worker buy-out of firms. State funding that would otherwise be spent on unemployment benefits is used to finance the new co-operatives. It has been remarkably efficient for the Italian taxpayer. It is estimated that that investment has safeguarded nearly 14,000 jobs in 270 businesses and generated an economic return for the Italian state of almost seven times the capital invested.”
“Although I appreciate he has committed to meet me on another issue, perhaps he will be willing to meet me with Mutuo, the think-tank in the co-operative world, which has been developing this instrument, and which supported Lord Naseby when he introduced similar measures in 2015 which, as I said, are currently held up as a result of the unfortunate attitude of HMRC. Another new type of raising capital that I want to put on the table comes from Italy. Worker co-operatives can play a significant part in rejuvenating firms that would otherwise close in places where there is a supportive policy and business infrastructure to facilitate that. It can act as an essential component of a progressive employment policy.”
“An appropriate and sustainable basis of funding is a prerequisite for any business if it is to start up and survive, and the requirements for funding are likely to change or evolve over the life of the business. The restrictions in relation to the funding of co-operatives, which are created by legislation, are therefore fundamental to the future use of the co-operative form, and to the future viability of co-operatives. I do not expect the Minister to give a guarantee of support today for the new form of investment capital for co-operatives, but I hope he will take time to reflect.”
“While the co-operative carried on trading, members therefore had no expectation of any entitlement to more than the repayment of their original capital. Their real interest was in the continuity of the existence of their society, providing goods and services to meet their needs. As a direct result of that approach to funding and ownership, any undistributed surplus was retained as reserves and shown as such in the accounts, and although such reserves constituted members’ funds for accounting purposes while the society remained a going concern, they did not belong in a traditional ownership sense to the members. They were more like assets currently being held by the body of members, almost as trustees for the purposes of the society.”
“Co-op societies, like building societies, were historically funded by their member customers, who were required to subscribe a minimum amount of share capital in order to be afforded full membership rights. That might be built up over a period of time, including by leaving undrawn dividends. Subject to the minimum capital requirements, therefore, members were permitted to withdraw funds from their account, and share capital was typically withdrawable. One of the consequences of that was that members’ share capital remained static in value. Although it was risk capital in the sense that it could be lost on insolvency in paying debts owed to creditors, it did not give members an undivided share in the value of the underlying business.”
“The Government supported legislation for mutual insurers and friendly societies to issue deferred shares in 2015, although I note that the restrictive position of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has prevented its full implementation and the relevant orders from being laid before the House. It would be good hear whether the Minister can unlock that particular blockage. The mechanisms for funding co-operatives are more restricted than those for companies. It is not possible for co-operatives to have equity share capital, as understood in the company law context, because equity ownership is incompatible with the co-operative principles and would therefore be prima facie unregistrable. It is also not possible for societies for the benefit of the community because distributions of income and capital are not permitted.”
“Without access to new capital, however, organic growth has remained a difficult challenge. In staying true to their business purpose, customer mutuals are therefore limited by their options to access capital for growth. Some external capital instruments do exist in mutuals. In building societies, more than a billion pounds of deferred shares have been issued. Nationwide building society and Cambridge building society have issued core capital deferred shares. That new capital instrument is designed for mutual building societies and enables them to raise common equity tier 1 capital to supplement retained earnings and diversify their capital base.”