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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“I rise to raise two concerns. The first is about the ending of the operating grant for Transport for London, which is already beginning to have a significant impact on upgrades to the network, not least to the Jubilee line, and increases the prospect of the extension of the night tube to the Metropolitan line being much further delayed than originally planned. Given that last time the Conservatives were fully in charge of transport in London my constituents saw a 60% increase in the cost of commuting into central London, it seems particularly unfair that, just as a Labour Mayor takes over in London, a second whammy should hit funding for Transport for London. The bulk of my remarks will focus on a much less high profile part of the transport sector that does not see significant funding in the estimates, although it does see some funding.”
“Harrow Community Transport serves my constituents and is very worried about whether it will be able to survive if more of its drivers are required to undergo expensive and lengthy training of the sort that commercial bus and coach companies have to provide.”
“It involves community bus services and covers minibus travel for groups of people such as the elderly or others who struggle to get out and about on their own, where they are taken on shopping trips and such like. I understand that just one small group of commercial bus operators, led by one individual, which wants to cherry-pick community transport contracts provided by local authorities and the NHS, and which does not put anything back into the local area, has somehow managed to persuade Ministers that new rules are needed to interpret EU regulations affecting the drivers and licensing of community transport. I urge Ministers to rethink their support for this group of individuals and to reassert the importance of community transport.”
“Many of the people who use community transport are among the most vulnerable in our communities, so the Government’s announcement that they were seeking to change the regulation under which the sector has been operating was met with shock, and it has placed many services under direct threat. Indeed, Enfield Community Transport has closed, partly as a result of the uncertainty arising from the Government’s announcement. I hope it is not too late for Ministers to find a way to back off from the drastic changes they are proposing. What does community transport cover? It covers door-to-door transport, ranging from the relatively informal lift giving by volunteer car drivers to more organised schemes such as a Dial-a-Ride or Dial-a-Bus for people with disabilities and mobility difficulties.”
“I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention. If the Minister is not willing to listen to me and to Opposition Members who share these deep worries about the impact on community transport, I hope he will listen to the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). I hope the Minister will also pay further attention to the Transport Committee, which did an excellent piece of work on this sector. Community transport is too often overlooked. It provides vital connections within urban and rural communities. Tens of thousands of people across the UK are reliant on community transport services for some of the most socially necessary journeys that have to be made.”
“It employs 12 full-time and part-time drivers, six passenger assistants, and has more than 40 volunteer drivers and a small admin team. It provides a community car service and a wayfarers’ club, which helps to provide access to places of interest for those living alone or in sheltered housing. I underline the point that those who run Harrow Community Transport, and have done so with great pride for a long time, remain profoundly disturbed by Ministers’ proposals. It is on that, in particular, that I seek clarity from the Minister today.”
“If the November letter is symbolic of a Government wanting to sort out the problems in a positive way to ensure that community transport can survive and prosper, I of course welcome that. My sense is that the Transport Committee was not wholly convinced of that and of whether Ministers had yet got that fully correct. Perhaps the Committee will be able to haul the relevant Minister before it again to seek further clarification on that, or perhaps the Minister here today will be able to provide further reassurance. Harrow Community Transport has been in operation for more than 40 years in one guise or another, and as a stand-alone charity and social enterprise since 1980. It has a fleet of 14 minibuses and wheelchair-accessible cars, carrying more than 30,000 passengers annually.”
“Does my hon. Friend also think it is regrettable that the Department for Transport has blocked London from accessing the new national clean air fund, given the scale of problems that diesel is causing, particularly in central and outer London?”
“Does the Minister accept that there is a risk that the FCA has been captured by some of the bigger financial interests, and that additional legal protection is therefore required to rebalance how it operates to properly protect the consumer interest?”
“I commend the Minister for pressing Andrew Bailey, because the FCA under his leadership has a reputation of having become a bit pedestrian. However, I do not see why there is a clash between adding the new clause, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington proposes, and cracking on with the consultation exercise that the Minister just described. Surely they gel nicely.”
“May I push the Minister a little harder? I could understand it if he was arguing that there should be a change to the proposal made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington, saying that regulations should be brought forward to give Government the chance to bring in a duty of care once the consultation had taken place. Instead, he seems to be saying, “Let’s not bother putting anything in the Bill that gives us the power to bring that in later. Let’s just wait and see—mañana!—when the FCA can be bothered to get round to the consultation exercise. Then we might look at bringing forward primary legislation.” My worry is that an opportunity for primary legislation will not come around again. I therefore press him to see whether he could be a little more sympathetic to the case my hon. Friend will advance.”
“Nationwide is not a bank; it is a building society, with a very different tradition to the corporate interests of the big banks. I make that as an aside. Although I am not normally a fan of secondary legislation as opposed to primary legislation, I wanted to press the Minister: will he consider the broader point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington—that there might be a case, surely, for the Minister to consider bringing forward on Report the scope for secondary legislation to bring in such a duty of care once the FCA, when it can be bothered, finally produces its consultation document?”
“Therefore, one cannot track exactly where the most indebted parts of the country are. I raise that concern because a number of years ago I had the opportunity to visit the estate of Thamesmead, which straddles the boroughs of Bexley and Greenwich. Thamesmead is an estate of about 55,000 houses, but it had no bank branch at all. As a result, the only lenders available were payday lenders and other high-cost providers of credit.”
“I have concerns about clause 30. If the Bill is put on the statute book as drafted, with the current commencement provisions in clause 30, the new financial guidance body might not be as effective as we would all have hoped. Ministers might want to address these concerns and reflect on whether the commencement provisions are still appropriate. The first concern is whether the financial guidance body has access to sufficient data to help guide it on the allocation of the debt advice funding that will continue to be available as a result of the levy on banks. Unlike in the United States, we do not have in law a comprehensive requirement that banks and other lenders have to provide clear datasets to Government and regulators on where, and at what level, debt is being incurred.”
“Clearly, we want to ensure that there is still access to credit, but we want it to be affordable. The third and final reason why I gently suggest Ministers should not rush to commence the Bill is that I believe they should check whether some of the worst, highest cost lenders, such as BrightHouse, pay an appropriate levy, under the provisions of previous Bills, to fund debt advice. It certainly seems to me—”
“One of the great contrasts between this country and our great ally, the United States of America, is that there is provision in American law for banks, building societies and other lenders to have to report to bodies what they are lending and at what rate. Such a provision would allow the new financial guidance body to work out which areas might need a higher level of debt advice funding. The second reason why I gently suggest that we should not rush to commence the Bill is that I believe the Minister should reflect—I gently press him to do so—on whether credit unions, which are a key tool for tackling the level of indebtedness in this country, have all the powers they need to support the new financial guidance body to take the necessary action to bring indebtedness down.”
“I am grateful for your guidance, Mr Rosindell. I am concerned that we should not rush to commence the legislation until we have had an assurance that the new financial guidance body will have accurate data about which parts of the country have the highest levels of debt and the highest levels of cost. I am seeking to use this debate on clause 30 stand part to ask Ministers what confidence they have that the new body will be able, without further legal changes, to know where the most highly indebted parts of the country are, and therefore where the most debt advice funding should be allocated.”
“I am extremely grateful to you, Mr Rosindell, because you made your intervention just as I was drawing my remarks to an end. Given your great act of charity, I have made the three points I wanted to make, and I now look to the Minister to address my concerns.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for his generous response. Perhaps he would be willing to look kindly on a letter setting out some of the concerns about the dataset that is currently provided. I gently suggest that Ministers might engage with UK Finance to encourage the release of further data to help make that a more useful exercise.”
“Is there not a concern that, having given consent to be phoned once, an individual might then be subject to a series of unwanted phone calls? One could imagine a situation in which an initial call is wanted by one of our constituents, but a company takes advantage of the permission to make a series of unwarranted further calls by arguing that it has the legal power to do so. What would happen in that situation?”
“I apologise for intervening again, but I am thinking of an elderly constituent. One hears of scams and constituents being taken advantage of. How do we protect the individual who genuinely wants information and perhaps gives permission once, but then, perhaps because of their age or infirmity or whatever, they start to get taken advantage of? How do we prevent that?”
“Given the significant rise in household debt and the fear that payday lenders will seek to take advantage of that situation, is not this the right time to seek a significant expansion of credit unions across the UK? What might the Minister do to facilitate such an expansion?”
“Two thousand workers in BT call centres, some of whom handle 999 calls, are paid up to £500 less per month than permanent staff because BT uses the loophole known as the Swedish derogation under agency workers regulations. Taylor recommended its abolition; when will the Minister get on with it?”
“The Minister will have seen independent research by the Education Policy Institute showing that Harrow is the best place to send children to school, so perhaps he will come to my borough to see what is working in terms of literacy and numeracy. If he does, he will meet headteachers who are very concerned about cuts to their budgets as a result of a lack of sufficient funding from the Government. What is he going to do about that?”
“My hon. Friend asks a very pertinent question. In my constituency, Persimmon, which must be one of the worst developers in Britain, is treating my constituents with almost complete contempt. Those constituents are particularly worried about the lack of resources going to the local council from Persimmon to tackle the big problems with local infrastructure that will result from extra people using the roads and needing schools and hospitals.”
“Will the Minister assure the Committee that this is not him going soft on developers and that he will ensure that bad developers, as Persimmon clearly is in this particular case in my constituency, can be brought to book by local councils? Will he show some sympathy to my constituents who face this terrible situation?”
“Residents are worried that there are not sufficient tools available to the Government and, crucially, to local councils, to hold big developers such as Persimmon to account. I use the example of the situation I am having to deal with in my constituency, where Persimmon, backed up by lawyers, is saying to local residents that they are going to have to move their boundary fences to accommodate larger gardens for the new homes that Persimmon wants to build. Persimmon appears also to have exploited the Government’s lending guarantee scheme of late to force people to buy a leasehold on some properties, only not to offer a leasehold in other ways.”
“I want to ask the Minister a simple question. Is he going soft on developers? I ask that in the context—as my intervention on my hon. Friend on the Front Bench indicated—of the deep concern in my constituency about a development on the former Kodak site, where Persimmon has been leading the development of a large number of houses. Having put in a planning application some time ago, which secured the support of the local council, and which local residents had broadly come to terms with, Persimmon has taken the opportunity effectively to bully the council into agreeing to higher density on the site and is not treating local residents, whose property its site borders, with anything like the respect one would have hoped for from a major company.”
“Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to praise the work of the International Organization for Migration, a key UN agency leading the effort to provide solutions to the refugee crisis? Will she also take this opportunity to urge the Government, and particularly the Department for International Development, to increase funding for that key UN agency?”
“One graphic reminder of the global refugee crisis is the plight of refugees, particularly unaccompanied minors, in Calais. Will the Foreign Office Minister encourage the Home Office to deal more quickly with cases such as that of the 14-year-old brother of one of my constituents, who is still waiting for the Home Office to respond to his application to come and rejoin his brother, my constituent, under the Dublin III convention? If I write to the Minister, will he take up the case with the Home Office for me?”
“One of the best ways to provide more affordable homes to rent in rural and, indeed, urban areas is through the provision of more co-operative housing. What further co-operative housing initiatives are the Minister and his Department thinking of pursuing?”
“Further to the question asked by the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) about the rise in household debt, does the Secretary of State accept that there is a particular problem with household debt generated by high-cost credit lenders, such as BrightHouse? Under clause 10, the Financial Conduct Authority can levy to cover the costs of the new single financial guidance body. Can she reassure me that high-cost credit companies such as BrightHouse will be covered by such a levy, and will she tell the House what this body will do to encourage the take-up and awareness of the products offered by credit unions—a far lower cost of debt provision?”
“Is not one problem that risks inhibiting the success of the new single financial guidance body the fact that we do not know where the highest levels of problem debt are in this country? Might it not be sensible to take the opportunity in Committee or on Report to consider the example of an American piece of legislation, the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires all lenders to publish anonymised details of the debts taken out with them so that community organisations and debt advice bodies can know where to target their expertise and help?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again. I am fortunate enough to chair the Co-operative party, and one thing we are keen to encourage is the take-up of the services offered by financial co-operatives, such as credit unions. Would she be sympathetic to an amendment on Report from Co-op MPs urging the single financial guidance body actively to promote credit union services across the country?”
“Given the recent terrorist attacks in this country and the fact that senior officers say that more funding is needed for community policing to help to tackle the risk of more terrorist attacks, will the Financial Secretary tell the House why there was no additional funding for policing in the Budget?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way to me a second time. May I just remind him of the Competition and Markets Authority investigation into banking, which noted the lack of competition in banking and highlighted the lack of innovation and the fact that the big five banks control 85% of the retail banking market and make excess profits? Might keeping the bank levy at its current rate not be compensation to the consumer and the taxpayer for those excess profits?”
“I know that my hon. Friend is a proud Liverpudlian, but on his point about children’s services, may I tell him—Londoners will agree—that over two thirds of London councils are reporting a huge increase in demand for very expensive placements? I hope he agrees that it would be good to hear from the Exchequer Secretary, when he winds up the debate, how the Government will help local authorities—particularly those in London, but also others across the country—to deal with that huge increase in the pressure on children’s services.”
“Too often there are simply not incentives for a business to invest in its staff, and if there is no guarantee of work tomorrow there is not enough incentive, or indeed time, for staff to go the extra mile for the business they are with.”
“To be fair, the Government at least acknowledge that there is a problem, but their solutions largely ignore, first, how to motivate employees, who are fundamental to productivity improvement, and, secondly, the growing concentration of power in key markets in the hands of a small number of very big companies, which stifles the innovation that is fundamental to productivity improvement. Let me give some context for those two broad points. The average UK worker has not had a real-terms pay rise since 2006. Zero-hours contracts and bogus, Uber-style self-employment are creating an economy in which work is transient and precarious.”
“I also want to make a brief point about credit unions and, finally, press for further measures in the Bill to fund more investment in public services, not least policing. The OBR’s devastating indictment of seven years of underinvestment and austerity and the prospect of many more such years to come was the real headline of the Budget. Productivity gains across all parts of the UK would mean higher wages and higher living standards, so if the OBR is right and productivity is to remain stagnant, the personal finances of too many people in our country will remain grim for the foreseeable future. We are already more than 15% less productive than the rest of the G7, Greece is the only developed country where real pay has fallen further, and the UK has now slumped to fifth in the G7 table for productivity.”
“It was interesting to listen to the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant), not least because of his reference to that great Scot and great Brit Sir Alexander Fleming. If I remember rightly, he did his pioneering work on penicillin at what is now St Mary’s hospital in London. I raise that point to gently chide the hon. Gentleman about the funding crisis in the national health service, particularly in London, which has led Lord Kerslake, following a distinguished career in public service, to resign from his position chairing a key NHS trust. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) for his speech, but I want to make two different, broad points about the productivity challenge facing our country, and to propose some additional solutions that I hope the House will consider incorporating in the Bill.”
“The recent terrorist incidents, which the whole House is familiar with, and the concerns of senior police officers that more resources need to be put into community policing—to ensure, among other things, that intelligence can be obtained about future attacks—should surely have prompted the Treasury to make additional funding available for policing.”
“If the Treasury were minded to take such action, that would bring UK credit union legislation into line with best practice in America, Canada and Australia. As the balance within the financial markets shifts farther and farther away from unsecured personal loans and cash savings, credit unions need the freedom to be able to rework their offer, and, as I understand it, legislation would be necessary to enable that to happen. I therefore encourage the Minister and his colleagues to consider that question sympathetically. Lastly, I want to raise the issue of funding for public services. Sadly, there was no mention in the Budget of extra resources for policing. In my London borough, we have seen a reduction of 170 police officers since 2010.”
“With sub-prime lending on the rise, and with the UK having the largest and fastest-growing consumer credit market in Europe—mostly, sadly, in high-cost options—it is difficult to understand why Ministers and regulators alike do so little to champion responsible finance operators such as community banks and credit unions. On the point about credit unions, I welcome the limited moves in the Budget to help credit unions to expand, but I wonder why Ministers are not considering a wider package of reforms of the objectives and powers of credit unions, to allow for more innovation in services and in particular to enable them to provide a full retail banking offer, including in areas such as insurance and secured car lending. Why is there not more help for credit unions to market their low-cost credit offer to ordinary working people?”
“I therefore gently ask Ministers why they are committed to a long-term future for RBS as just another private sector bank. Why not turn it into a mutual, or a new building society, to challenge what would then be just four privately owned plc-style businesses? Why are we not learning from the USA and Germany in encouraging more regional, mutually owned savings and investment banks that are focused on driving long-term investment—perhaps the patient capital that the hon. Member for North West Hampshire referred to—rather than on short-term dividends for shareholders, which are then used to justify ever-higher levels of executive pay?”
“I draw the Committee’s attention to the case of the consumers taking action against Bovis Homes for shoddy building work, which has recently attracted some media attention; they are having to crowdfund the funding for court action. If there was a strong consumer ombudsman, those people who have moved into Bovis homes that are badly in need of further work would not be having to raise their own funds; instead, they could have turned to that ombudsman to take their case forward. The truth is that markets need robust competition, and big plc businesses need strong challenges from other types of business. When 85% of all current accounts are held in just five big banks, of course it is no surprise that the regulator should find that there is not enough innovation in the retail banking sector.”
“In many industries there are, in theory, ombudsman services, able to support consumers to seek redress from large businesses offering poor customer service. In practice, such ombudsman services often have limited powers and limited ability to enforce any redress they suggest. What is needed now is a proper champion for consumers, with the teeth to hold businesses to account. A consumer ombudsman with class-action powers and the information-gathering ability to match has always been opposed by big business groups in this country, but it is needed to help the consumer stand up to powerful big businesses when their concerns are ignored.”
“The Social Market Foundation is not necessarily a think-tank that we on these Benches would reach for first when it publishes a report, but it has recently produced an interesting interim report on the lack of competition in key markets. The Innogy/SSE merger is just the latest example in the energy sector of the trend towards even more uncompetitive markets. If it goes ahead, it will lead to two big firms dominating the energy market. It should be blocked by the competition authorities, and it would be good to see Ministers encouraging that to happen. We also need a new generation of energy co-operatives, mutuals and municipal businesses encouraged to put consumers in the driving seat in the energy market, holding real economic power in that market, and keeping the profit from the generation of energy in local communities.”
“Gentleman also touched on that point extremely well. Ministers must also overhaul the regulation of markets and recognise that key markets have become too uncompetitive and, in a number of cases, oligopolistic. This Bill could have begun the process of changing that. Let me give two examples. Banking and energy have both had highly critical regulator investigations, noting the lack of innovation and the excess profits in crucial consumer markets. Where is the commitment to create diverse and vibrant markets in those areas, with the plc model no longer favoured over other business forms such as building societies, mutuals and co-operatives? I suspect that regulators know that there simply is not the political will on the Treasury Bench to confront the Institute of Directors’ insistence that big plc businesses know best.”
“Gentleman asked, why are there no further tax incentives to encourage genuine employee share ownership? The Government should revisit the idea of compulsory employee representatives on company boards, mirroring the success of Germany and Sweden, where employees have sat on boards for decades. Given that the idea was in the Prime Minister’s personal manifesto when she ran for leader of the Conservative party and that a significant number of Conservative MPs backed that manifesto, and given that we on the Opposition Benches support employee representation on boards, I suggest that there is a majority in the House willing to vote for such a measure if only the Government could find the courage to act. Why not, at the very least, have more favourable tax treatment for firms that are employee-owned? The hon.”