Pamela Nash
MP for Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke · Labour · United Kingdom
“By ending Tory austerity and increasing the settlement to the Scottish Government by nearly £12 billion, this UK Labour Government have provided adequate funding for the SNP to properly resource Scotland’s rural economy.”
“I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman wants to make a political point about the Windsor framework, but does he accept that wide consultation was carried out by the Government in Northern Ireland ahead of these regulations?”
“I share the vision of my hon. Friend, and that is exactly what I for Dalzell in Motherwell. At the moment we have staff who are worried each month about whether they are going to get paid, as they see troubling headlines and hear rumours about their parent company.”
“This legislation is designed for extraordinary situations, so we are going to have to agree to disagree on that point. Motherwell remains the home of steel in Scotland.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his very helpful intervention. For the reasons I have set out, we are getting to the point where we are losing experienced staff and equipment is in danger of going out of date. Time is running out very quickly for Dalzell.”
“I completely agree with my hon. Friend. That is certainly the experience we have had in Motherwell in my constituency, where a questionable buyer for Dalzell has caused many problems. I will go into that later in my speech.”
The complete record
Every one of 539 lines we hold for Pamela Nash, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 7 of 11.
“Apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will not let anyone intervene again. I strongly believe in an NHS free at the point of need. Arrangements are in place for people to pay, when that is required, but we have had no clarity about how the provisions will be policed or expanded. I agree that we need an immigration policy that protects our constituents from increasing global financial pressures, but we do not want them coming up against unintended consequences as a result of measures in the Bill, on which there has been a lack of consultation. I worry about the risk to public and private health. Moreover, this debate has thrown up areas of contention in the referendum debate and problems with having different arrangements in Scotland and England.”
“I welcome the Minister to his new position, but I must say that that answer was rather vague. It has been reported that there are enough one and two-bedroom social housing properties for only 4% of those affected by the bedroom tax. Does the Minister expect the other 96% of those affected to go into private lets? If so, will that not send housing benefit payments shooting upwards, rather than cutting them?”
“The NAO report and the Minister’s answers today have made it clear that freight checks were adversely affected as a result of staff shortages and policy changes. Can he tell us how many illegal migrants have been found on freight this year and in previous years?”
“This morning, a constituent contacted my constituency office threatening to commit suicide because they were so depressed from the effect that welfare reform was having on them. I would like to say that that was a unique incident, but it was not. Will the Prime Minister tell the House what the Government are doing to analyse the effect of welfare reform on the mental health of this country and how he is going to react to it?”
“I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on making a powerful argument on a difficult subject. Michael Douglas, the actor, was given much criticism in the press recently for talking about these difficult issues. I know about this, because I had the HPV vaccine as a 17-year-old, so I am glad the hon. Gentleman has brought the matter to the Floor of the House. I just want to highlight the fact that this is an issue not only for homosexual men in terms of the vast health inequalities they have here in the UK, but for heterosexual men. Although we have a successful HPV vaccination programme for young women, we by no means have the whole herd vaccinated just yet.”
“May I reiterate the point the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made about the need to have conversations with ministerial colleagues in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? As the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) argued powerfully, this is about homosexual men and men who have sex with men, but also about men who have sex with women who have not been vaccinated. It is important to have those conversations with the other nations.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for giving way before he moves on. We are talking about winners and losers. Is it not the case that the average payment that a pensioner will receive per week under the single-tier pension is less than the current average payment?”
“The pensions Minister gave the figure of £4.5 billion to put this group of women born between April ‘51 and ‘53 on equal terms with men. We have been hearing during the debate that this is about winners and losers, but does that not show that women born between ‘51 and ‘53 are losing out to the tune of £4.5 billion?”
“The changes to council tax benefit and the subsequent cuts have come in at the same time as the freezing of child benefit and working tax credit, the linking of benefits to CPI rather than RPI and, of course, the introduction of the bedroom tax. How can the Government justify this multiple attack on low-income working families on the same day as bringing in a tax cut for millionaires?”
“We have rightly concentrated on the costs of LPG and heating oil for heating homes, but many of my off-grid constituents, like my hon. Friend’s, depend on electricity to heat their homes. I would like to highlight the benefits of “Switch Together” campaigns to communities that are wholly dependent on electricity, because, although we want to get them on-grid as soon as possible, this helps them in the meantime.”
“Before the hon. Gentleman moves too far on from capital spending, will he say why his party in Scotland is imposing even more draconian cuts on local government than the parties in government here, cutting public sector construction projects in Scotland and contributing to the 40,000 construction jobs lost in Scotland since his party took power?”
“The hon. Gentleman says that my party is guilty of wishful thinking. At the moment, there is no growth in this country; we had 63 quarters of consecutive growth. How can he possibly compare the two?”
“My hon. Friend may know that we had a similar problem in my area, north Lanarkshire, with our Tata Steel site and public sector projects, so the steel was bought from abroad.”
“For example, my local council—Labour-run North Lanarkshire—is working to help to create private sector jobs through its youth investment programme, which helps small businesses by paying 50% of the cost of employing a young person for the first year. It also has programmes helping older workers to return to work. I hope that the Government might go away and look at that example—I am happy to provide more information on it—to see how simple, practical support is making a difference to help small and medium-sized businesses and create employment just where it is needed. To conclude, yesterday’s Budget offered none of the helpful measures that I and my constituents were hoping for. We need a change of course to bring growth back into our economy. If this Chancellor will not change course, the next Labour Government will.”
“Every £1 spent on housing generates £3 in the wider economy. It is a no-brainer. Every new home creates two jobs in the construction sector and four in the supply chain. When construction makes up a third of the businesses in my constituency and around one in 10 jobs, hon. Members can see why I was hoping that capital spending in Scotland would be a bit higher than was announced yesterday. The Scottish Government could also do a bit more with the money they already have. Some 40,000 construction jobs have vanished in Scotland since the Scottish National party came to power, and in December more than 14,000 construction workers were still on the dole. There are things the Government could be doing.”
“My local authority of North Lanarkshire council has 5,500 tenants who will be affected by it, but at the last count it had just 26 one-bedroom properties available to rent. With those figures, where are those 5,500 people supposed to go? There is nowhere for them to go; they simply face a painful benefit cut. This is an attack on our most vulnerable and on many who are struggling with bills every month and with under-employment, and it is resulting in millions of pounds being taken out of my local economy. If the Government really want to solve the problem, one of the things they should do is build more houses. That would go a lot further to support growth than the bedroom tax or the mortgage guarantee that was announced yesterday, which is already falling apart at the seams. In Scotland, housing makes up 40% of the construction sector.”
“He rents a modest two-bedroom home to allow his child to visit him at the weekends, but owing to his current situation he is now dependent on housing benefit and has the choice either of not having his child stay overnight in their own bedroom or being forced to move away from the area in which, like me, he has lived his whole life. How many Government Members truly understand the problems he is facing? When they talk about tough choices, I doubt that any of them ever have to make the decisions that he has to make, choosing between seeing his child and paying the rent. The case of my constituent is not an isolated one. The National Housing Federation has said that 2,000 people in my constituency are losing out from the bedroom tax.”
“Just a few days ago, a constituent I went to school with contacted me. He wanted to tell me how much the Government’s policies were affecting him. He served his country in the Army, before returning home and working as a security guard on a construction site. Like many of those in the industry, however, he now finds himself unemployed. Not only does my constituent have to worry about finding a job in an economy facing the increasing likelihood of a triple-dip recession, but he will now be hit by the bedroom tax.”
“According to the stats, the number of people who have been unemployed for more than a year is up by 52% and the number of young people who have been unemployed for 12 months has risen by 116% in the past year alone. That is not acceptable. Youth unemployment in Scotland is one third higher now than it was in May 2010, with 38,000 young people claiming jobseeker’s allowance in Scotland—more than the entire population of Airdrie. How can it be acceptable that such a large number of young people are blocked from achieving their dreams and aspirations after two years of austerity measures? The Chancellor called this Budget the aspiration Budget, but not one word of it spoke to young people. These are not faceless statistics; I am speaking about my constituents and people I have grown up with and known my whole life.”
“The unemployed claimant rate in my constituency stands at 8.4%. That is not only higher than rates in the rest of Scotland and the UK, but much higher than when Labour left office. The same applies to the employment count across Scotland. Today, there are 145,000 jobseeker’s allowance claimants in Scotland—the same as the population of Dundee. This dole queue of people would reach from Edinburgh to Glasgow. The claimant count in my constituency is now three times what it is in the Chancellor’s constituency. In 2007, two people were going for every vacancy, but now 12 people are chasing every job. Long-term unemployment is also an issue in my constituency.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood). Interestingly, he used the analogy of walking out of the bad weather. The Chancellor used exactly the same analogy on Radio 4 this morning, but he blamed the economic weather for everything that was going wrong with the Government’s economic policy. I am grateful for the opportunity to put forward my constituents’ deep concerns about the Budget. A Budget should speak to the entire country, but when the Chancellor delivered his statement yesterday, he spoke not for one nation, but for individuals, such as the millionaires who will benefit from his top-rate tax cut in just a few days. Today, I shall focus on the impact that the Budget will have on my constituents and the effects that his economic policies have had in Airdrie and Shotts.”
“T3. The village of Salsburgh in my constituency is not on the gas distribution network, which means that the inhabitants have to spend more money on electric and oil heating systems. That situation is replicated throughout the country. What are the Government going to do to tackle the issue?”
“I have to say that I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), for a change, because I do not feel sorry for the Minister. I think that he would do well to remember that his Government have been in power for three years. Perhaps if he spent less time attacking the Labour party and more time formulating policy, he would not be in the mess he is in this morning. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), the Minister said—I think that he had better listen to this question—that the Government had not previously proposed a policy of banning the sale of alcohol below the cost of duty and VAT, but that was certainly my impression of their policy. Is he now saying that was never the Government’s policy and that it is not being considered in the consultation?”
“Following the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), when I speak to small businesses, they tell me not just that they do not have enough money to take on apprentices— [Interruption.] I will continue when the Minister is listening. The small businesses that I speak to tell me that not only do they not have enough financial support to take on apprentices but that the money they receive covers only a small percentage of the actual costs. Will the Government’s proposals tackle this?”
“Is the hon. Gentleman saying that it is the position of the SNP that it would remove nuclear weapons within days rather than decades if Scotland left the UK?”
“The UK Government asserted only quite recently that they would not conduct those negotiations. Did the Scottish Government request talks before that?”
“The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time. I am a proud member of the Scottish Affairs Committee. There is an SNP member, but, unfortunately, she has not taken her seat for quite some time. Why is she still missing in action? If he is concerned that the Committee is made up only of members of Unionist parties, he might like to take her seat.”
“That would not be in the interests of the people of Scotland or of the United Kingdom. May I just add, Mr Rosindell, that I hope you will forgive me for making a sharp exit, as I have the Adjournment debate in the main Chamber this evening? Missing one Adjournment debate in a year might be seen as an unfortunate error, but missing two would be seen as careless.”
“Does the Minister have any evidence for the Scottish Government having asked NATO about the possibility of a separate Scotland joining? When countries should be pulling together to face the new challenges of a fast-changing world, the SNP logic is to break up Britain and to gamble with Scotland and the UK’s security and their membership of NATO. We need the SNP to be open and honest about the defence of Scotland if it breaks away from the rest of the UK. The SNP needs to acknowledge the facts and choose evidence over ideology, as the Scottish people have the right to make an informed decision in 2014. They need to know that, while other countries are queuing up to join NATO, the only mainstream party in the UK that wants to risk losing membership of the alliance is the SNP.”
“More importantly, on joining NATO a separate Scotland might be obliged to sign up to everything that NATO requires of its members, including allowing nuclear weapons in their waters, and article 5 of the treaty, which states that an attack on one member of the alliance is an attack on all members and will be acted on, and not only with UN sanctions as the SNP put forward in its defence document. It is not possible only to pursue a pick-and-mix approach, as the SNP regularly asserts. Regardless of that, I have seen no evidence that the SNP has discussed the options with NATO. Has the Minister had any discussions with NATO about the possibilities of a separate Scotland joining? What effect on Scotland and the UK’s membership would there be if an SNP Government in a separate Scotland disarmed the UK of its nuclear capability?”
“An SNP alternative for a separate Scotland might be to follow Belarus and Kazakhstan into the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, which includes countries that formerly had nuclear weapons on their soil. Frankly, a separate Scotland is more likely to be granted membership of the CSTO than of NATO. NATO would not let in a country that had removed nuclear weapons quickly, causing not only Scotland but the entire UK not to have a nuclear deterrent and reducing the nuclear deterrent capability of NATO as a whole. No countries in NATO have got rid of their nuclear weapons.”
“The SNP has quoted Norway as a country with an anti-nuclear stance that is still a member of NATO, but forgets that the country was a founding member of NATO. It also chooses to ignore the fact that Norway has mandatory military service. Denmark, too, is often quoted, but again the SNP ignores its historical relationship with NATO as a founding member and the fact that the country supports the holding of nuclear weapons through membership. I have not yet heard exactly how the SNP has come to the position of wanting the protection of nuclear weapons while not being willing to have them in its own backyard. There is no precedent for a country that has kicked out a nuclear deterrent to join NATO. Canada and Greece were mentioned, but they were opposed to US weapons on their soil, and the two positions are simply not comparable.”
“The SNP wants to send Scotland’s nuclear deterrent a few hundred miles down the road so that it can say that it opposes nuclear weapons, because it believes that to be popular. The policy might help the SNP to win the vote in 2014. Clearly, the goal is never what is the best policy for Scotland but what will help win the referendum. NATO is clear about its position on nuclear weapons. Its strategic concept states: “As long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance.” The SNP has been arguing the point. It wants to join the club but it has been arguing against the rules before even being granted membership. The SNP likes to have a grand, international, catch-all comparison in its desperate attempts to justify its assertions. None of us has yet forgotten the arc of prosperity, which has already been mentioned today.”
“The reason for the length of that queue is obvious: we are proud of being part of NATO, and membership is not only a hoop to be jumped through. NATO membership has allowed us, as a small country, to contribute to preventing the slaughter of Muslims in Kosovo and Bosnia, to protecting women and children in Afghanistan from the Taliban and to securing our safety in the UK. NATO has played a vital role in humanitarian relief, helping after the Pakistan earthquake and Hurricane Katrina. It is vital for us to be part of NATO and to contribute adequately to the alliance. It is important to show that not only Scotland but Britain and Europe are part of NATO. It exists for a reason. Simply put, we might not be having this debate today were we not a member of NATO.”
“It almost goes without saying that the first responsibility of any Government is the defence of their nation. That, however, does not seem to be a priority for the SNP Government in Edinburgh, nor does the entire A4 page on defence policy published last year inspire any confidence that defence is a top priority among their aspirations for a separate Scotland. Their only priority seems to be to win a referendum in 2014. That is why they ditched a long-held opposition to NATO. The SNP held a view for 60 years, but dropped it at one meeting in a desperate attempt to fool public opinion, which has consistently shown popular support for Scotland’s membership of NATO. The organisation was born at the end of the second world war and the start of the cold war, and many countries around the world are still queuing up for membership.”
“The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) hoped that another member of the Scottish Affairs Committee would speak, because he had asked why our report made it clear that it would be possible to remove nuclear weapons from Scotland in only days. To be clear, the report stated that removing them was possible, but that it would be at the expense of the entire UK not having a nuclear deterrent and of damaging the NATO deterrent. A lot of the issues in the report have been covered in the debate today, so I will restrict my comments in the little time we have left to the effect on our international relationships and in particular our membership of NATO. I am disappointed at the lack of clarity from the SNP Members present today about how Trident would be removed and the effect that that would have.”
“I hope that the Minister is able to answer some of the points I have raised, particularly about how many people are still paying maintenance assessed under the 1993 scheme. Why exactly have all those people never been switched over to the 2003 scheme? What are the Government going to do to stop this situation continuing and to compensate those who have suffered as a result? How long will it be before those assessed before March 2003 are moved on to the latest scheme? If the 1993 scheme was found to be unfair, why did the Government continue to use it for another 10 years?”
“Since then, he has chosen to pay what he would pay if assessed under the 2003 scheme. I appreciate that this is a small and specific example of a mistake, but how can my constituent—or, for that matter, anyone—have faith in the CSA’s ability to run such an important system when it gets simple facts wrong in respect of a serious complaint by a Member of Parliament leading to months of correspondence between myself and the organisation? In conclusion, the system was changed in 2003 because the previous one was not working—it was not fit for purpose and it was unfair. The figures I have cited this evening are not just figures on a balance sheet, and cannot be put down simply to bad luck if a person was assessed under the 1993 scheme. Successive Governments have had a decade to fix this, and lives have been ruined in the meantime.”
“If the administrative, managerial and IT problems did not exist at the CSA, we would have had a single system many years ago. Yes, within such a system, there could be some winners and losers, but the important point would be that everyone would be assessed under the same rules. I appreciate that that is what the new system coming into play is planning to do but, as I said earlier, people will have to wait a long time before they go on to it, which is not good enough. The most recent correspondence I received from the CSA about this case was from a complaints senior review manager and it is littered with serious errors about the basic facts of the case, including the accusation that Mr Russell has been paying only £350 a month since April 2002, when in fact he paid the full assessed amount up to June 2012.”
“That was a replacement improved scheme, and it was never designed to be run long term alongside the previous scheme. By definition, as a replacement scheme it was introduced as it was thought to be fairer. I find the Government’s argument somewhat bizarre—namely, that for every loser as a result of the two-track approach to CSA there is a corresponding winner—as if someone gaining from an unfair system somehow compensates those who lose out. In my opinion, this argument about swings and roundabouts to support an indefensible two-track system is not worthy of the Department or the Minister. If the IT problems of the CSA did not exist, would they continue to run two systems on the basis that, on average, one person’s loss is another person’s gain? Of course not.”
“For example, the Minister stated in a letter to me that: “For every parent who believes they will gain under the 2003 scheme, there is a parent who may lose out. While in most 1993 scheme cases one of the two parents would prefer to move onto the 2003 scheme for financial reasons it would not be fair or practical to transfer a case for this reason.” That argument was reiterated by Andrew Jackson, a CSA senior client service manager, in a letter to me stating that “for every parent who may believe they will gain under the new rules, there is a parent who may lose out.” Surely what they should be arguing is that all parents, and all children for that matter, should be treated equally. The 1993 scheme was deemed unfit, and a new scheme was therefore put in place.”
“Reassessment is made regularly in a whole range of changes of circumstances, including parents getting married or moving jobs. I am still not clear about the obstacle to reassessing a person’s case on a different scheme when many changes of circumstances result in a recalculation anyway. I cannot help but guess that cost might be a factor. I would appreciate it if the Minister could provide an estimate of the administrative cost of moving an individual from the 1993 scheme to the 2003 scheme. In terms of the differences between the two schemes, I find it unacceptable that, in the case of Mr Russell, I have recently received correspondence from CSA officials and from the Minister indicating that, in the view of the Government, it is simply a matter of moving between two equal but different systems.”
“My understanding is that it is impossible to change from the 1993 scheme to the 2003 scheme, or indeed to the new scheme, unless the paying parent has another child or the receiving parent has another child with another non-resident parent who they are claiming maintenance from. I would appreciate clarification from the Minister on whether that is correct. I see him nodding. In that case, I want to ask him why that is the case. The CSA’s own documentation says that that is the case so that all children in linked cases are assessed under the same scheme. I presume that that is to make it fairer for all concerned. I would argue that, to ensure the system is fair, surely all cases in the UK should be assessed under exactly the same scheme.”
“That sounds fair, but unfortunately there appears to be a nine-year gap between when the decision was first taken under the previous Government and its being implemented by this Government, and 2017 is the date when all cases are planned to have been moved over. That means that cases such as that of my constituent will have to continue under the current arrangements unless there is some other reason to convert the case. That would normally apply if a parent on the pre-2003 system made a new application to the CSA in relation to a second child, in what is known as a linked case.”
“It is unfair to the non-resident parent who pays double the amount, and it is unfair to the children and parents who receive less under the same scheme. I would appreciate hearing from the Minister how many non-resident parents are still paying maintenance calculated under the 1993 scheme, and how many of those parents are paying more than they would be paying if they had been assessed under the 2003 scheme. The Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 made provision for a new system of child support to replace both the existing systems and to end the twin-track approach. Subsequently, it was decided that cases would not be transferred after all from the pre-2003 caseload to the post-2003 system as planned. Instead, all cases would eventually move over to the new system, once it was up and running.”
“As a result, Mr Russell started to accrue arrears, and only two weeks ago, his wages were arrested. For the past few months, I have been acting in support of Mr Russell’s case, the essence of which is that there is a gross inequity between his position and that of someone in identical circumstances who just happened to be introduced into the CSA scheme a few months after he was. To be clear, a non-resident parent like Mr Russell with children of the same age living with a parent with an identical financial situation to that of Mr Russell’s ex-wife, and with the same salary and financial commitments as Mr Russell, could pay much less child maintenance if they had been assessed post-March 2003. I do not see how the Minister or anyone else can argue that that is a fair system.”
“He was told at that point that his monthly payment would be £511 for only one child. He challenged that figure, as it was only £74 less than he was paying for two children. As a result, a new assessment was made, still under the 1993 scheme, which concluded that he was in fact due to pay £618 a month—more than he was previously paying for both children. At that point Mr Russell decided he had to take a stand on this inequity, as he felt—indeed, he has been advised—that he should be on the 2003 scheme, under which he would be paying almost half that amount. In fact, he could no longer afford to pay that much money and felt that he should not have to. At that point he took the decision to pay the sum of £350 a month, which was what he calculated he would be paying if he had been assessed under the 2003 scheme.”
“When Doug Smith departed the CSA, not long after he wrote that letter, he declared: “I and the senior management team have done a good job over the last year to mask the worst impact of this IT system from the people who really count in this, who are our clients.” Lord Kirkwood, then Chair of this House’s Select Committee on Work and Pensions, disagreed, saying of the CSA’s problems: “This is not just about computers. It is a systemic, chronic failure of management right across the totality of the agency.” For eight years Mr Russell paid the amount agreed with the CSA under the 1993 scheme. His expectation that he would be transferred to the new scheme was never met. In 2012, Mr Russell’s daughter celebrated her 19th birthday, which under the CSA’s rules meant that his maintenance payment for his children needed to be recalculated.”
“The reasons given for the failure of the administration of the 1993 scheme centred on an over-complicated calculations process, an inadequate enforcement procedure and multiple IT failures. The 2003 scheme was sadly also plagued by IT problems. I understand that one issue for the new system was that cases from the old scheme could not be transferred to the new scheme’s simpler assessment process. That resulted in the CSA being left to administer two different systems concurrently, in a twin-track process.”
“In spring 2003, Mr Russell received a letter from Doug Smith, the chief executive of the Child Support Agency, informing him of the new assessment scheme—I expect it was sent to many people in his position. The letter stated: “The introduction of the new scheme will be a complex task, which must be planned and handled very carefully. When the Government is sure that the changes are working well for new applications, I will write to you again. I will then explain when your child support maintenance will change and what this means for you.” It is clear that Mr Russell and the others who received these letters were continually reassured by the CSA that their cases would eventually be transferred to the new scheme, but that never transpired.”