John McDonnell
MP for Hayes and Harlington · Labour · United Kingdom
“It is not a laughing matter—I am sorry for interrupting the flow of the discussion. It would be useful if the review looked at NATS’s long-term investment plans, particularly since its partial privatisation in 2001, which I opposed. I thank the Minister for meeting Unite this morning and thanking the workers, who have worked so hard.”
“On a number of occasions, I have raised the case of Lee Cheuk-yan, who many Labour Members will remember was the general secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions and founder of the Labour party in Hong Kong. He was detained during the democracy movement five years ago.”
“I thank the Minister for his statement. NATS used to be in my constituency and then moved down to Swanwick. Of course, with Heathrow in my constituency, I receive—as I mentioned yesterday—a large amount of correspondence from a whole range of other MPs’ constituents, who think I am responsible for Heathrow airport.”
“I fully agree, and let me also say that wheelchair compensation is significant in this legislation. Most of us have dealt with cases like that. Going back to accountability in the process, a number of different organisations have provided us with notes on the legislation.”
“I apologise to my right hon. Friend; I should have checked this before the debate. The proposed new section 61G refers to priorities and objectives of the Secretary of State, which include a requirement for the Secretary of State to issue a document setting out those priorities and objectives for the CAA.”
“At the moment, when people in my constituency are faced with these problems, they do not know where to go; it is as simple as that. Finally, the debate that we will have on Heathrow expansion and the new policy statement will be interesting, given that we do not know what the flight paths will be. If I was a constituent of my hon.”
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“I have made this point on previous occasions, but I just want to understand the logic of the Government’s position of allowing the ISDS in this particular deal, but trying to avoid it in the free trade agreement with Canada.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. I want to raise the case of two of my friends and colleagues in Hong Kong who have been detained for quite a while now. They are members of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, with whom we have worked over the years in different disputes. The first is the chair, Carol Ng Man-yee, a British Airways cabin crew worker we worked with in major disputes out there who founded the British Airways Hong Kong cabin crew union; the other is Lee Cheuk-yan, the general secretary of the confederation. They are both serving time simply for being trade unionists and representing their members. It is important that we ask the Government to maintain the pressure on the Chinese authorities for their release.”
“I would like the UK Government to raise this issue with the Israeli Government, to work towards an independent investigation and to work with international agencies such as the International Federation of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists to establish the truth and, just as importantly, to establish accountability for the perpetrators of what I believe is a war crime.”
“I urge the UK Government to look at the evidence in front of us about what is happening specifically to journalists in Gaza and to consider whether that is right or acceptable. In the past, they were part and parcel of establishing the very laws that were meant to protect journalists. Figures show that more journalists have died in this conflict than in every conflict since the second world war. For me, that is evidence that the Israel Defence Forces are targeting journalists, so they should be held to account.”
“Thank God for the professionalism and courage of journalists there, as we witness the tragic scenes of human suffering taking place. Over the last few weeks, that human suffering has been best exemplified by what has happened to al-Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael al-Dahdouh. He has lost his wife, three children and his grandson, and his son, who was a journalist, was killed by an Israeli drone two weeks ago. Virtually his whole family has been destroyed. This goes beyond the debate about the abuse of human rights and, as far as I am concerned, well into war crimes taking place. That is specifically because of the protection that there is in international law for journalists to enable them to report from wars.”
“That indicated to many people that, although there exist specific protections in international law for journalists covering wartime disputes, they were being ignored by the Israel Defence Forces at that time. According to the independent Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 83 journalists have been killed since then, during the recent activities of the Israel Defence Forces in Gaza, but others put the figure significantly higher. The International Federation of Journalists—the international trade union grouping for journalists—has called for an independent inquiry into the targeting of journalists by the Israel Defence Forces. There is a view now that the Israeli Government have not just turned a blind eye to this, but that there has been a specific policy of targeting journalists to prevent the truth from coming out of Gaza.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) on securing this debate. I am secretary of the National Union of Journalists parliamentary group, and I want to place on the agenda the way journalists have become targets, particularly in Gaza, although this has been going on for a while. In 2022, I attended the memorial event for Shireen Abu Akleh, a young al-Jazeera journalist. She had a reputation that was respected across the middle east for professional journalistic practice and for her courage. Although Palestinian, she was an American citizen. She was involved in an action covering a raid by the Israeli Defence Forces in Jenin. During that raid, there was no firing of weapons or engagement in the immediate area, according to various investigations that took place, but she was shot with an Israeli bullet.”
“Some have been mentioned already and I do think that the recognition of Palestine is important, because that sends a message to Israel and elsewhere—”
“That leads us to the fact that we here have to accept our responsibility. The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) talked about the House being shamed by the number of deaths—the 25,000 deaths that have taken place. We are shamed by witnessing on our television screens the operations and the amputations of children’s limbs without anaesthetics. We should be shamed, but we should be more shamed by our refusal to act soon enough. I think we were complicit with Biden in basically saying to the Israelis, “You have more time to sort this out with military action, rather than looking at a real strategic plan for the future.” We have a responsibility because of our history over the past century and a half in the region, so we should come forward with our own proposals soon.”
“What they are doing is horrific, it is putting lives at risk and they are undermining their own people, but to say that it is completely unrelated to Gaza is unsustainable. People have said, “Well, maybe it is ‘connected’ to Gaza,” As my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) said, what is happening in Gaza is mobilising the Arab street across the middle east, and understandably so. People are watching the reportage of the human suffering and reacting aghast at what they are seeing on the ground in Gaza. As a result, they are putting pressure on their own regimes, right the way across, for some form of action. It is because both the US and the UK have not taken effective action that desire for action gets distorted in other forms—it is the Houthis’ excuse for their actions.”
“The interim decision will almost certainly attach some conditions to the activities of Israel in particular, and it is important that we debate that in this House. It is also important that we have a decision-making process—a vote—on how we as a country can ensure that such a decision and its conditions are abided by and implemented. My second brief point is that, time and again, the Prime Minister and others have said that there is no link between the Houthis’ actions and what is happening in Gaza. That argument is unsustainable. I agree with everything that has been said, by Members from across the House, about the Houthis—I condemn them outright. The basis of their beliefs, as far as I can see, has to be condemned. Their actions in Yemen and what they are doing at the moment have to be condemned.”
“We should exercise our own judgments, on the basis of our own views and consciences, because no more significant decision can be made than to send someone to where they could lose their life. That is why we should vote on these occasions. I think we will have to have a vote at some stage in the coming period, because I fear that this situation will go on and on. Unrelated to that issue, I wish to make a plea. The International Court of Justice’s interim decision will be coming out soon, perhaps today, as some have said, or on Friday, and when it does come out it is important that we have a debate in this House. That would enable the Government to tell us what they will do in the light of that decision.”
“Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) said, “Yes, look at that, we made a huge mistake.” It was a huge mistake, but the mistake was that it was a whipped vote. I think that had it been an unwhipped vote, we would not have taken that decision. The right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) mentioned Syria. I was here for that vote, when I think we made the right decision, because we could have been getting into another Iraq situation and still be stuck there, with a huge loss of life—a loss of British life, as well as of others. That is why I believe that on these issues we should be able to vote and decide on when to take military action.”
“If we are to take military action, I want to take some responsibility as a Member of this House. I want to be able to go back to my constituents and explain how I have exercised that responsibility, which is why I believe we should have a vote. I was in the Chamber one afternoon when, with even fewer Members present than now, John Reid reported that we were sending troops to Afghanistan. He gave the impression that not a shot would be fired in anger. There was hardly any debate and very little reporting back, but we lost 400 British troops in Afghanistan and tens of thousands of others, and the war went on for more than a decade. I was also here for the vote on Iraq—we did have a vote then. The hon.”
“I fully agree with the last point made by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely). We need those structures. Before you came into the Chamber, Madam Deputy Speaker, we discussed the nature of this debate and whether we should have a vote. We are taking military action in a region that has been described as a tinderbox by virtually every Member who has spoken. There are just over 20 Members present, and I say this with respect and affection, but most of them are the House’s defence nerds. The reason we do not have more Members present is that this is a discussion, not a debate. There is no decision to be made at the end and, as a result, I do not think the House is taking its responsibilities seriously. I think we are on the edge of real danger in this region, and it could spill over and affect the lives of our constituents.”
“I hope the Government will now come forward with a more constructive plan, and let us vote on it.”
“If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I am going to try to keep within the time if I can. Recognition of Palestine will send a message to Israel that it has to come to terms with that reality at some stage. I know people have said that we have to get rid of Hamas, but, as soon as we can secure peace, Palestinians should be given the opportunity to vote for their leadership and be allowed to exercise democracy. I think people will be surprised at how the Palestinians will vote; I think they will vote for peace and for those who advocate peace. That might give us the opportunity to consolidate the Palestinian people, who have been so divided by Israel between the west bank and Gaza. We need to think creatively, for example like that, before we blunder even further.”
“At the moment, we see Houthi attacks continuing, the Popular Mobilisation Units attacking US bases in Syria, and Hezbollah in a low-level war with Israel in Lebanon. Yesterday in Gaza 24 members of the Israeli military were killed, and 24,000 Palestinians have died— [Interruption . ] It is now 25,000, we are told. This morning we heard how a doctor is amputating children’s limbs in Gaza without anaesthetics. Does the Prime Minister not realise that, without an immediate ceasefire, any hope of a strategy succeeding will fail, and that the Netanyahu Cabinet has now become an obstacle to peace, rather than a partner in peace?”
“That is why we will greatly miss him, exactly as the leader of the party has said. The foundations that we lay in the future will be based upon the principles that he advocated and convinced so many people of.”
“I was in the Shadow Cabinet with Tony. Some colleagues may remember that there was not an awful lot of fight for jobs in the Shadow Cabinet; fending off the monthly coup took a bit of our time. The reason he came in was his loyalty to the cause and his loyalty to the party. Whoever was leader, he was loyal and he did his job. We appointed him shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, because I do not know anyone else who could get that lot talking to one another in the same room in that way. That is why we loved and respected him—because he was part of us, he was part of our movement: a trade unionist, a socialist, a parliamentarian of the highest degree. He knew how this place worked and he was able to use that, just as he did for the party, for the best of causes and the best of objectives.”
“What Tony became was the bridge between the trade union movement and the then Labour leadership, and that held together our relationship with the movement overall. Then there was the plot to make him chair of the PLP, to oust Ann Clwyd, as Members may recall. It was a Brownite plot—and a prominent Brownite, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown), is sitting beside me—but it was also a good cause. Tony saw that the leader dominated the PLP, and that there needed to be a political balance that reflected all the different views. A large number of people would not have voted against the Iraq war if it had not been for Tony. He led by example on every occasion, on a very principled basis. If he were here today talking about Palestine, he would be leading for the Palestinian people.”
“Let me explain to our friends opposite that the reason so many of us loved and respected Tony was that, for us, he was one of the finest socialists and trade unionists that we had ever met. If he were here, however, I think he would be asking why we are not celebrating one of his greatest attributes. Tony was possibly the best political plotter any of us have ever come across. He was always plotting for a cause, and it was usually the right cause. I remember the plot that made him the chair of the trade union group in Parliament. At that time the Labour leadership were perhaps not as amicable as they are now. It was said that they always looked on the trade unionists as the uninvited uncle at the wedding who turned up every now and again.”
“I declare an interest as well, as I am a Riverford customer. The hon. Gentleman mentions the recent impact of external events, but does he recall that the adjudicator’s code was tested before these events, particularly with regard to below-cost selling and marketing in the baking sector, which had its ramifications for farmers as well? Although there were interventions by the ombudsperson at that time, the code was nevertheless found wanting in that instance, as evidenced by the submission made by the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union to the EFRA Committee last year.”
“So the finance measures were thrown into the wash-up procedure, which, as Members will know, means political parties sitting down to decide what measures are urgent and must be passed. It was agreed that the Finance Bill would go through in a single day, and as a result of that, this measure was introduced. I should like the Public Accounts Committee and others to look at how that process worked and how it did not work. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden made an extremely valid point, which we made about every Finance Bill, or Budget Bill, that came forward. When the Government introduced the “no amendment to law” procedure, that tied the hands of the House when it came to what it could open up, what debates it could have and what amendments it could table. That was introduced by—”
“However, a culture of secrecy and protectionism has developed in HMRC, and we need to understand that if we are to tackle this properly as an institutional failing. Secondly, we need to look at the role that the House played. I have been going back to the year 2017, and trying to remember what was happening in the House at that time. Some Members will recall that there was not a normal process for the Finance Bill, because the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who was then the Prime Minister, having assured us all that there would not be a general election—I think she assured us of that five times in the House—went for a walk in Wales, came back, and declared an election.”
“I can understand a wish to reduce staffing, but there are better ways of doing it, and for a while the way in which it was done at HMRC was fairly brutal. That resulted in redundancy schemes whereby a whole wave, a generation, of expertise was lost, and it had an effect on the culture of HMRC. According to my understanding, HMRC looked for short cuts and a way of meeting the demand for it to tackle tax avoidance and evasion and the tax gap, and I think that this was one of the short cuts that it invented. In latter days, there would probably have been wiser heads in HMRC itself to suggest that this was not the route to go down because it would bring about more problems than solutions.”
“What I say now is not in mitigation of HMRC’s role, but an attempt to gain some element of understanding of what has been going on there. HMRC is, rightly, under pressure from all of us, on both sides of the House, to tackle tax avoidance and evasion. Some of us have led campaigns over the last 20 years or so to try to get HMRC to work on that effectively, and I pay tribute to the Government for putting it under pressure to tackle the tax gap. They were the first Government to identify a tax gap of £38 billion, or whatever the amount is; I disagree with the figure, but at least we have a target to aim for. However, at the same time, over those 20 years, both parties have excelled in a Dutch auction to establish the extent to which HMRC’s staff levels can be cut.”
“I think it should come not from from other taxpayers, but from a levy on those who promoted the schemes, and perhaps some elements of the finance and accountancy sector that were involved up to their necks, to be frank. That is my first point. I also think that we need to review our own role in this, and in what has happened over time. I agree with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) that not only should the Procedure Committee examine the House’s role, but the Public Accounts Committee should look into how we have arrived at current situation. Let me give two examples of the background to all this. HMRC has come in for considerable criticism today, and I agree with much of it.”
“Many of them did approach HMRC and they did try to negotiate deals, but there was no element of clemency and no understanding of the individual plight of those people. As a result, many of our constituents suffered badly. I just want to move on and try to get some resolution. I hope that we and the Government can agree today on review. That review should be immediate and time-limited in months, not years. It should be truly independent, with its independence assured by the victims. It should propose a specific range of resolutions, which will have to include some element of compensation for what people have suffered. The review should look at where the compensation should come from.”
“Let me read the ministerial response that was given then, because I think we should learn from it. The then Economic Secretary said: “Although…I have tremendous sympathy for those facing large tax bills, it is unfair to let people get away with not paying the tax they owe. There is support for people who have used the schemes and now find themselves in difficult situations, which require those affected to approach HMRC and bring the matter to a close.” —[ Official Report, 20 November 2018; Vol. 649, c. 295WH.] That was the ministerial response. I do not think we can tolerate a similar ministerial response today, because that led to immense human suffering, including, as some have said, some people losing their lives.”
“Like everyone else in the Chamber today, I have constituents who have been affected in a way that is incredibly distressing, so I understand completely the howls of outrage sounding across the House today. I want to deal with process, though. Some hon. Members here took part in the debate in 2018. I would like people to read the speech made in that debate by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown). I was the shadow Chancellor then, and she was in my shadow Treasury team. Speaking from the Opposition Front Bench, she set out exactly case after case, as hon. Members have done today, but there was one additional case we drew on which has not been mentioned today—a case in which, because of cuts to local councils and elsewhere, staff had been laid off and then rehired on this basis by public bodies, which was particularly shocking.”
“When I look back, I think that the implications should have been drawn to the attention of the whole House. The impression given was that this would be focused on a small number of “hard case” tax avoiders or evaders, and their scheme promoters.”
“Yes, by Lord Hammond. I think it was almost unprecedented. As I say, it tied the hands of the House, even when it came to further investigating issues relating to the Budget and Finance Bills. I also think that we need to look at the process whereby Ministers and Opposition are able to question impact assessments and how they are developed, as well as the independence of those assessments. I still find it problematic that impact assessments are prepared largely by the Department and the ministerial team that are promoting the legislation involved, rather than its being done independently. Had there been an independent impact assessment in this case, and time for a proper debate and for amendment as well, the House would probably not have agreed to take this course.”
“I do not want to find that more people have suffered and, worryingly, that more people may not be with us as a result of this because they have taken their own lives. There is an element of urgency about rectifying this issue, and doing it with compassion and, in many instances, with clemency. That will enable us to focus properly on tackling tax avoidance and evasion, and also the institutional arrangements that exist to enable that to happen. We need to have a thorough debate in the House about our regulatory mechanisms, especially with regard to the accountancy and finance sector.”
“The point I am making is about enabling us to do that. I hope that some of the lessons being learned are learned not just by the whole House but by the Government as well, whichever party is in power. As soon as we introduce measures to fetter the role of individual Members of the House or the House as a whole, we open up the opportunity for mistakes to be made, because policies are not tested effectively in democratic debate in this Chamber. I welcome the fact that reviews are to happen, but believe they should happen as a matter of urgency, if for no other reason than because I do not want to be here again in a few years’ time—we are now in 2024, and I do not want to be here again in 2026, 2027 or 2028—and find that we are in the same situation as we were in 2019.”
“I appreciate why the Prime Minister is trying not to link this to Gaza, but the reality is that the longer the Gaza war goes on, the greater the instability in the middle east. It is nearly 100 days since he gave his first statement after the terrible, horrendous actions by Hamas. He justified the actions this week with regard to the protection of marine rights. In those 100 days, 7,000 Palestinian children have been killed. What effective action is he taking to protect the right to life of Palestinian children and to prevent what is, in reality, the indiscriminate killing of Palestinian children by the Israel Defence Forces?”
“That has to be looked at, and it will undoubtedly come back as an issue—not, I hope, as an issue for industrial action, but as an issue for proper negotiation. How is the Minister going to respond to all the issues we have raised? Today we will agree that there should be a review. Unfortunately, the review that took place and the plan put forward by the Government have not worked and have not embedded confidence in the minds of others. I would therefore welcome the Minister’s view on how such a review should take place. I also say to those on my own Front Bench that this issue has to be addressed when we go into government—I hope, in the coming months—and that will require resources.”
“A staggering 96% of local authorities that report recruitment and retention issues say that those difficulties affected outcomes for children and young people requiring support. The inability to get a plan as a result of the long waiting times for educational psychologist assessments is almost the foundation stone of the current failure of the system. I have to say that the recent pay deal has not helped at all. This year, for the first time in its history, the Association of Educational Psychologists took industrial action because it was desperate on the issue of pay. It has just had a settlement, which it has reluctantly accepted, but the argument coming back from the association is that it does not think the settlement will do anything for retention or future recruitment.”
“Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) said, due to the lack of access to local authority educational psychologists, too many parents are having to raise the funds themselves to bring in a private educational psychologist, which of course then advantages them over others. The figures that the Department for Education has published regarding educational psychologist recruitment state that 88% of local authorities are reporting difficulty in recruitment; 48% are citing pay as a reason; one third are reporting difficulties with the retention of educational psychologists; and 69% are not confident that they will be able to meet the demand for educational psychologist services.”
“The f40 group’s figures are incontestable, and that lack of investment is reported right across the country. The motion we are debating calls for a review of SEND funding; I am interested to hear from the Minister how that review will take place if the House passes the motion, because it is urgently needed. To turn back to the issue of educational psychologists, I want to cite the Government’s own stats. The educational psychologist route into the plan is so key to ensuring that parents have confidence that there is something they can build on at least, and they use those plans effectively in their negotiations with their local authorities to get the resources they need. As the right hon.”
“I do not want to repeat what has been said before, but I am afraid this does come down to money—it is about finances. As we have heard from other Members, people have failed to get access from the very earliest stages, and if my constituency is anything like others, the closure of the Sure Start centres has had an impact. The development of family hubs may be a bit of a solution, but as the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) outlined at the very beginning —as always, I congratulate him on securing this debate—the gap in overall local government expenditure is huge, and it is cumulative over a number of years. I welcome the additional money that the Government have provided in recent years, but the lack of investment has built up over a long time.”
“We have come across some wonderful young people who have achieved so much despite the disadvantages they have had, and some incredibly dedicated staff—true professionals doing the best they can—but also a large number of tragedies related to the struggles those young people face, particularly to get the assessment and support they need. Members may remember that last September a report was released regarding the increase in the number of complaints from parents to the local government ombudsman. There was a 60% increase in the number of complaints upheld by the ombudsman from parents who were failing to get access to the services they desperately needed. As the right hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen said, most of those complaints were about access to the assessment to get the plan itself in place.”
“All Members present have experiences of their own constituencies. I was the chair of governors of a specialist school; like the right hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Sir Jake Berry), I brought together local organisations and parents over time. I declare an interest: my wife, Dr Cynthia Pinto, is an educational psychologist. She chairs the British Psychological Society’s education and child psychology division, which is in conference at the moment. I will circulate a couple of pages from a briefing that has been sent to me that contains some of the discussions that are taking place at that conference. All the experiences we are reporting in this House are very similar.”
“Whenever the Minister goes into budget negotiations for her field again, she will have cross-party support for securing additional resources for the HSE. The current denial of those resources means that inspection and intervention processes are not working as effectively as they should to prevent actions that put people’s livelihoods in danger as a result of back injuries. One problem is that small companies are infrequently inspected these days, which means that incidents are arising where companies are ignoring basic guidelines set out by the HSE. With regard to incidence, my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West has set out the scale of the problems. I want to congratulate Versus Arthritis, which works so hard. We are all drawing on the briefing we received from the organisation.”
“Through airport campaigns, which involved Unite, GMB, the Public and Commercial Services Union and other unions coming together, we found that we needed engagement with the HSE at the earliest stage. We need guidance in place that can be applied so that the employers recognise their responsibilities and the trade unions representing their members can enforce the guidance through negotiation and, if necessary, through various forms of industrial action if individual employers are not adhering to those guidelines. This is not in any way an attack on the Government or anything like that, but I want to flag up the resourcing of HSE, which my hon. Friend raised. There is an issue here that has to be addressed. I know that individual Ministers have to fight their corner with the Treasury for resources in their patch.”
“We went through all those allegations of people fraudulently going sick, but when we did the investigations, working with the employer and the trade unions, we discovered the scale of the back injuries over almost a generation, along with the consequences. The lesson we learned is that, through joint campaigning with the employer, the trade unions and local health bodies, we were able to introduce practices that minimised the damage that was being done to these individual workers, even though the problem continues. For large employers, it is easier. The epidemic of back injuries in my constituency at the moment is among smaller employers, whose actions are often on the margins of legality and they fail to take reasonable care of their employees.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on putting this issue on the agenda. I want to go through the experience of my constituency and set out what has led me to the debate. At Heathrow airport, which is in my constituency, there was almost an epidemic of back injuries among baggage handlers. Some Members may recall, when they went through the airport over the years, that there were different campaigns about the weight of the baggage. Although mechanisation was introduced, the work nevertheless involves physical exercise, so we had an epidemic of people who were going sick as a result of back pain.”
“I want to continue in the same spirit as the hon. Member for Gedling (Tom Randall). It is entertaining and sometimes enjoyable to have debates in which we just kick the Government and other political parties, but Westminster Hall debates are often a way to share information about our own experience of policy development and our constituents with the hope that the noise we make is listened to by the Minister and their advisers. We often find that there are shared issues that we can all learn from. As the hon. Gentleman said, in the past there was almost a stigma around MSK conditions. Back pain was seen as an easy excuse to pull a sickie, when actually it is incredibly significant for individuals’ lives and, as the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) said, for the economy overall.”
“In my constituency, I am hoping that we can overcome the issues of access to proper advice and to health treatment, and do much more on the preventive side, because many of my constituents are disabled for life as a result of past practices.”
“Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made a point about small businesses. The Federation of Small Businesses has really been helpful on a whole range of these issues, not only about how it can advise its members on best practice, but also reporting back on what it feels are impediments to getting people back into work, and the support needed for small businesses to make reasonable adjustments for people suffering from these conditions. There is a desperate need to move forward. I welcome what additional money there is, but it will not be used effectively unless there is proper engagement with all concerned with the experience that we have had over the last generation.”