Mr Clive Betts
MP for Sheffield South East · Labour · United Kingdom
“I wholeheartedly welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement, both its content and its tone. I would like to ask about his discussions with our colleagues and allies in other countries who are looking to implement similar sanctions.”
“I offer two congratulations: first, to my right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, the First Secretary, on her well-deserved promotion—I am sure she will do an excellent job. Secondly, I congratulate her and the Prime Minister for their real commitment to devolution, which I have wanted to see for an awfully long time.”
“I apologise for the fact that—as I have explained to you, Madam Deputy Speaker—I will have to leave straight after my question to chair Westminster Hall. I thank my right hon. Friend for doing this very challenging piece of work. I think that the theme of fairness, for the people who need benefits and for taxpayers, is right.”
“On the other hand, so many constituents with really serious conditions get turned down for PIP, and can get it only if they struggle through the appeal system, sometimes without any help at all. So the system is not fair to anyone at present.”
“When the previous Government let the contract, we were in a situation in which procurement could not properly take account of the past record of companies, and I understand that the Government have now changed that.”
“I will dive very deeply into the question, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Chair of the Committee sends his apologies for his absence; he is presently in a Committee meeting.”
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“Those clubs receiving parachute payments have basically 10 times more resources than the clubs getting payments through the solidarity fund from the Premier League. This is a nonsense. We can see the difference now between the championship and the premier league; this year is, I think, the first when all three promoted clubs have been relegated straight back down, and there is a great difference between their points totals and the points total of West Ham, just above them. This is not sustainable—not at that level nor going down the leagues, as clubs simply struggle to survive.”
“Dame Tracey’s recommendation H is clear and is key to the fan-led review: “Fair distributions are vital to the long term health of football. The Premier League should guarantee its support to the pyramid”. That is key. The pyramid is uniquely British. The strength of the pyramid is uniquely British. We therefore need to preserve it, but we need a fairer distribution of resources in order to do that. One change proposed in this Bill is the potential to include parachute payments when the regulator comes to a view on what the distribution should be. Instead of simply ignoring parachute payments—pretending they do not exist, as the previous Bill did—this legislation recognises the problem that currently 92% of the distributed funding for football goes to 25 clubs: the premier league clubs and the clubs receiving parachute payments.”
“The Bill is very much rooted in what Dame Tracey Crouch recommended in the fan-led review. I asked the shadow Secretary of State if he could detail any ways in which this Bill deviated from what Tracey Crouch recommended. He mentioned independence and went on about that for some considerable length of time. No other proposal in the Bill differs from the fan-led review—not a single one. The reality is that the shadow Secretary of State did not even convince himself with his arguments today. There is a phrase that football fans chant—“You don’t know what you’re doing”—and it seemed to apply to his speech today. I am sorry about that because I respect his past contribution to the previous Bill, which is the framework for what is before us now, with one or two improvements.”
“They can be properly consulted about what happens at Hillsborough; currently, there is an engagement panel for fans, but the chairman chooses who goes on it. When people join the engagement panel, they have to sign a document that states that they will not talk about what has been discussed outside the group. What sort of accountability is that? It is nonsense. The Bill will strengthen the hand of fans, so that they can properly engage with a club. I fully support it, and hope that the House overwhelmingly supports it, too.”
“In future, if an owner wants to separate the club and the ground, the regulator can step in to ensure that that is for proper reasons, and done in the proper way. Unfortunately, when ownership of the ground is separate from ownership of the club, there is a challenge. I would like a measure in the Bill that says that in order to get a licence, the owner has to prove that they have not only financial funding but a ground to play on. That should be locked in. Changes and improvements can be made, but the Bill really helps football. It helps fans to ensure that their club is sustainable, and it holds owners to account. It is great that fans will now have a real role and involvement in their club.”
“This Bill compels the regulator to make sure that owners have the funds to sustain their club, and that the sources of those funds are transparent and open for all to see. That is absolutely key, not only for Sheffield Wednesday but for lots of other clubs. Finally, I am concerned that the owner, like owners of other clubs, has separated the ownership of the ground from the ownership of the club, and I hope we can strengthen the Bill on that issue. I do not think that was done for malevolent reasons; it was done to try to get around the financial fair play rules, and to help the club—that was his view. The fact is that the ground and the club are separate. Other clubs have that problem as well.”
“That would completely undermine both the competitive and the financial basis of the club. That is not acceptable. The chairman is the only owner and the only director; he does not have a board of directors and has no chief executive. He runs the club from Thailand by remote control, and when he could not pay the bills he said, “Well, my companies are owed money, so I don’t have the money to pay the club’s bills.” We do not know what companies those are in Thailand. As far as we can see, he has no companies that earn money. We suspect that the money comes from the family trust that owns Thai Union Frozen Products, which owns John West and other brands. In other words, he is reliant on his family members to give him the money to pay the players’ wages. That is not sustainable.”
“The other key element is about ownership. We have heard stories about the problems that clubs have had with owners who simply are not fit for purpose, and I have no doubt that we will hear more. I was talking to colleagues in Reading on a Teams call the other day, along with other Sheffield MPs, and we discussed the problems facing Sheffield Wednesday supporters. We should stop clubs having to face such problems in the future. On Sheffield Wednesday, the owner is not a bad man; he has put a lot of money into the club and he has not ripped it off, but he is clearly running out of money to make the club sustainable. He could not pay the players’ wages last month, and he could not pay the tax dues a few weeks ago. Another failure to pay will mean the club is subject to a transfer embargo for three transfer windows.”
“I am sorry, but we must kill this myth that somehow the Bill is going to kill the premier league. It is not. This Bill is designed to sustain the rest of the football pyramid. We should look at the resources the premier league has: it has twice as much money as any other major European league. That is the difference. Taking a proportion of that away to support the rest of the pyramid will not undermine and destroy the premier league. It will help sustain the rest of the pyramid, and that is the message that we need to get across. On the rest of the Bill, the issue of the sustainability of the pyramid is absolutely key, but I am still a bit wary about the rigidity of the backstop powers. There is some room for debate about giving a bit more flexibility to the regulators on that; I hope we can discuss that in Committee.”
“I very much welcome the comments from my right hon. Friend about the need to spend more of our defence funds on buying weapons made in this country. It is a really helpful comment. The other day I was at BAE Systems, which is building a new factory in my constituency to produce artillery weapons, some of which I hope will go to Ukraine. Can my right hon. Friend commit that we will supply those weapons to Ukraine while-ever Ukraine wants them, and we will treat with a degree of scepticism and complete contempt the comments by Putin, trying to manufacture some sort of fake peace to suit his own ends?”
“Friend look into this as a matter of urgency, find out what British Steel has been doing and try to ensure that these important companies—important for not merely British Steel but our whole engineering industry—are paid and able to survive?”
“The Government have my full-hearted support for the action they have taken with regard to Scunthorpe, which is important for not merely Scunthorpe itself and the workers there but the supply chain as well. In that regard, I want to raise an issue of concern that I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will look into. I have had a letter from Ian Walker, who is the chairman of Rotary Engineering, a long-established, highly regarded specialist engineering firm in my constituency. It provided services to British Steel last November, and it is still waiting for payment for those services, despite regular correspondence that has been ignored. If Rotary Engineering is having this difficulty with British Steel, many other small and medium-sized enterprises could as well. Will my hon.”
“I thank all Members for their help in being brief for the last few contributions, but unfortunately we have time only for a final Back-Bench contribution. I call Sir Jeremy Wright.”
“Speeches should be about seven minutes; that is guidance, not an absolute limit. I remind Members not to refer to any cases that are active before the courts, because they are sub judice.”
“I thank everyone for their co-operation. We now move on to the Front-Bench spokespeople, each of whom has, as a guide, around 10 minutes, but we clearly have more time than that if people want to take it.”
“I remind hon. Members that it is up to the Member who is speaking whether they take an intervention. If any Member wants to speak in the debate, they must have got the agreement in advance of the Member in charge and the Minister. They cannot just get up and speak. They must have done that in advance, according to the rules that apply in this debate.”
“Let me try to approach this in another way. It is obvious that Israel has been emboldened by the explicit and implicit support of the US Government for what it is doing—that has been a fundamental change. The US Government have ruled out a two-state solution, as I understand. What has the Minister been doing, or what can he do, to work with our colleagues in the European Union, and with the Arab states, to develop a clear plan for a two-state solution, and a clear timeframe for all countries recognising a Palestinian state?”
“That sort of initiative from the NHS is wrong and we need to correct it.”
“People have so much chemotherapy to go through—probably at least six different sessions, twice a week—and for those sessions they have to go into the day ward. That is all right for some people—my timetable was helpfully rearranged to suit me coming down here and going back—but for many that is not possible, particularly if they have to go to a specialist unit that is many miles away. He has developed an idea for home chemotherapy, which works and is good.”
“On digitalisation, the example of fax machines is of course legendary, but the other week I had to change a hospital appointment a couple of times—the service was really helpful in changing it—and I got not merely three emails and three texts but three letters with a first-class stamp on them, all for one appointment. That is a complete waste of money. I have talked to the hospital in Sheffield, which is bringing in new IT systems to cover the whole of the hospital operation, but that does not link into the GP systems. It is just nonsense that in this day and age we have that sort of unjoined-up thinking. I will raise a couple of other issues. The consultant who has been treating me for the last seven years—successfully at this stage—for my myeloma has got an idea.”
“There is a proposal around—and I say “around” because the NHS does not tend to act quickly—a diagnostic centre at Crystal Peaks in my constituency. The south-east of Sheffield is a long way from the two teaching hospitals, so to put services such as MRI scans, ultrasound scans, X-rays and CT scans there and to have GPs working with consultants who come to see patients in their clinics in the community would save money and provide a better patient service. But that seems to get locked up in discussions about NHS financing and commissioning, and who gets paid what to see who and when. We have got to unravel that and recognise that services can be made to improve significantly.”
“Member was absolutely right on moving towards community services, which is about not just getting people out of hospital but stopping them going into hospital in the first place. That certainly could be done. GPs hold 90% of appointments and get 10% of the funding. That is clearly wrong; we have got to switch that. On social care, about eight years ago the Health and Social Care Committee and the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee produced a joint report to which 22 Members of Parliament signed up, but we are still here talking about the funding. Louise Casey is a great appointment as she has a great “get up and go” attitude, but I am sure she could be asked to get up and go a bit before 2028, because that is a long time to wait for any response. We should be looking a lot more at moving services out of hospitals.”
“We have a service where trusts and others can run up deficits and seemingly there is no consequence. Unlike local government, which has to balance the books or go to the Government for approval to capitalise losses, that does not happen in the NHS. We have the problem in South Yorkshire that Doncaster hospital runs at a loss every year—I am not blaming the hospital, because it has an old building that needs massive refurbishment, or probably complete rebuilding, and it has not had the resources—and those losses go into the wider ICB system and put pressure on other hospitals and trusts not to distribute any surplus they might make to community services in Sheffield but to fund others’ losses. That is no way to incentivise a proper financial arrangement. The hon.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown). Although we sit on opposite sides in the Chamber, we now spend most of our time in this place on the same side of the table in the Committee. I congratulate him on his appointment and the work he is doing as Chair. The clear remit from the Secretary of State is to move to prevention, community care and digital services; that is how it is laid down. When we had the officials from the Department and NHS England before the Committee, we said that we thought they were complacent about the NHS’s finances. I thought that there was no sense of purpose or long-term strategy to deliver on the Secretary of State’s objectives; that was the worrying thing. Let us look at the immediate problems.”
“Public health in Sheffield does an absolutely great job, working with NHS Sheffield Place. It has done some really good work in deprived communities to increase and improve community care in the north of Sheffield. That is the sort of initiative we ought to pursue, and we should give the ICB the wherewithal to support and engage with that. Finally, we ought to build equality of treatment into our aspirations. In Sheffield, from one end of the city to another, life expectancy changes by 10 years. That is simply not acceptable. However, for child vaccinations, GPs get paid by the number of vaccinations they do, so those GPs with the easy patients to reach—probably those in the wealthier areas—get a lot more money for doing vaccinations than those struggling to engage with deprived communities.”
“Absolutely. Obviously, it is done with a clinician’s approval and with the patient’s agreement. The idea has been around for two years now, but again it is lost in the labyrinth of NHS discussions, boards and committees. Come on—let us do it now. It is a good idea, which is actually cheaper and benefits the patient. Why cannot these ideas be got up and moving much more quickly? I absolutely agree with the comments made by the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee on public health. It is like an afterthought. The grant for public health comes out at least two, three or four months after the main grants for the NHS and local Government—it is like the money down the back of the sofa that the Treasury finds at the last minute—and over the years it has been cut significantly in real terms.”
“Perhaps I will ask the shadow Minister an easier question, then. She has just rejected the pay deals that this Government have agreed to give a proper reward to our nurses and doctors. By how much does she think that pay deal should be reduced to bring it in line with her policy? If she is opposed to the deal that has been agreed, she must have an alternative in mind.”
“Last week, the Government produced new guidance about building on green-belt sites, particularly the golden rules about having sufficient infrastructure in place for health, education and transport. At the request of the Planning Inspectorate, Sheffield now has to provide sites in the green belt to hit its housing targets. Will the Secretary of State make arrangements for the Housing Minister to meet the leader of the council and local MPs to discuss how those arrangements can be delivered, and liaise with her colleagues in other Departments to ensure that: the resources are available to enable that to happen?”
“Those products could come on the market, having had several failures and one pass. Will my right hon. Friend pick up a cross-party recommendation made by the Select Committee in the last Parliament—the recommendation that the results of every test done on a construction product be made public, whether the result was failure or a pass, so that we can all see the real strength of products, and whether they are fit for purpose, before they are put on buildings?”
“Our thoughts today are obviously with the Grenfell survivors, and the family and friends of those who died. I thank my right hon. Friend for her comprehensive response to the inquiry report. I think I agree with everything she said, but I seek one point of clarification, and there is one area in which I will push her to go a little further, if I may. First, as my right hon. Friend said, it is really important that we respect and value social housing tenants and treat them equally. Will she give social housing tenants access to the building safety fund on equal terms with private leaseholders? Secondly, the testing of products by construction manufacturers has been a disgrace for many years. They have gone from one testing house to another until they have found one that passes their products.”
“May I follow up on two issues? First, following the comments made by the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, while devolution arrangements are being put in place, there is still pressure on councils to deliver existing services. Will the Secretary of State look at some additional short-term funding to help council officials with that process? Secondly, in the longer term, we will need a lot of very good councillors to deliver the new authorities. Will she look once again at reinstating the right of councillors to become part of the local government pension scheme, so that people who often give up financially in order to be councillors do not have to do so in the long term, with reduced pensions?”
“Worse still, perhaps, the police told me that immediately after the attack, there was a video on social media of Harvey receiving CPR in the school. I found that absolutely appalling. When South Yorkshire police approached social media—I understand that Meta was the platform—and asked them to take the video down, their answer was that because there was no violence in the video, it was not their policy to take it down. What can the Minister and his colleagues do to get the social media companies to behave responsibly in a situation such as this? Imagine how Harvey’s family and friends must feel seeing that video online.”
“I thank the Minister for his statement, and particularly for the intention to review and reform Prevent. May I ask him to look at the role of social media, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Tulip Siddiq) did earlier, but to do so in the context of the tragic killing of Harvey Willgoose at All Saints Catholic high school in Sheffield on Monday? My sympathies go out to Harvey’s family, his friends and those at the school, particularly those who witnessed this tragic and awful incident at first hand. South Yorkshire police have told me that after the incident, many comments and speculations about what had happened appeared online—some downright misleading, while some, as in the Southport case, could have prejudiced a future inquiry and future trial. The social media companies have a responsibility in this regard.”
“My hon. Friend has done an excellent job on behalf of local government with this settlement, in very difficult circumstances, and I think the sector recognises that. However, I have one caveat. In response to the questions about council tax, he said that there would not be unanimity, but I think there will be a great deal of consensus that if the former Secretary of State, Michael Gove, thinks the system is regressive, it is probably very regressive. I hope my hon. Friend is keeping his mind open—I think he did leave the door a little ajar—about the fact that at some point we will have to have a review of a system that is based on valuations that are more than 30 years old. This is simply not sustainable for the long term.”
“Can the shadow Secretary of State just explain his comments? I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) that the hon. Gentleman one of the more reasonable Members on the Conservative Benches. He said that the Government are switching money away from a needs-based formula to one based on deprivation. Is not deprivation very clear evidence of needs in the community? What is the difference?”
“My hon. Friend raises an important point on local housing allowance. When we considered that issue in the Public Accounts Committee, it was pretty obvious that officials had not done any proper assessment of the impact that freezing the allowance would have on homelessness. Something ought to be done. If the Government take the major step of freezing an important allowance, they ought to know what impact that will have on other services.”
“On these occasions, I always sit and wait for the Lib Dems to accept some responsibility for the financial mess they created in local government. There was a 50% cut in grants to local government during the 14 years, and the biggest part of that cut came during the coalition Government. Is it not time that the hon. Member stood up on behalf of his party and apologised for his role in austerity, which created this crisis?”
“From next year at least, can we get the public health grant at the same time as the local government grant? Finally, I echo the comments about the hard work of local government staff and councillors in particular. Many councillors lose money, and there is a real challenge about getting younger people to become councillors. I asked the Secretary of State earlier about that, but she did not respond directly to my question. When will the Government look at reinstating the right for councillors to join the local government pension scheme? For many younger councillors, that is a real difficulty. They come in, they lose money, but they also lose their pension in the longer term, too.”
“We have been told clearly by the Treasury that from next year, Departments must not spend money allocated for capital projects on revenue. The way that local Government has had to be bailed out in the past few years is by capitalising revenue expenditure. What happens if the Treasury locks down that activity? Has any thought been given to that? It clearly needs some thinking about. The Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) mentioned public health. Why is the grant late once again? I accept that is probably not the Minister’s responsibility, but he referred to prevention being important, and it is, and that is exactly what public health is about.”
“If we are going to get that settlement right for the three years, we have got to address children’s social care, SEND provision, homelessness and the fight for temporary accommodation between different Government Departments, which drives costs up. Those issues need resolution. We also need a resolution to adult social care, although I understand that may not come until a couple of years afterwards. If we can at least sort the other issues out, it will be a significant step forward. I will raise three other issues briefly, because I appreciate the shortage of time. I can see the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) on the Opposition Benches, and he will probably recognise this point.”
“There are some challenges and issues in the settlement. It is not 100%, but it is an awful lot better than where we have been previously, and that is what we must remember. I am sure the Minister recognises that this is the easy year. We come to the real challenges next year with the longer-term settlement. A three-year settlement is absolutely right. Fair funding will be looked at, and that is absolutely right. It cannot carry on. The previous Government were going to do a fair funding deal 10 years ago, but they never got around to implementing it. Clearly that review is needed; it is just a question now of getting on and doing it. We recognise that is a massive challenge.”
“In this settlement, Sheffield council has received £16.5 million from the recovery grant, which is right. We have lost out in so many settlements, because we are a deprived community, and deprived communities had the biggest cuts of all during the years of austerity. That is the reality. Some 60% of our properties are in band A. Putting council tax up does not bring in the same amounts of money as it does in more affluent areas, and it is right that the Government have recognised that. We have an increase in the grants for social care and homelessness provision, and that is welcome, though I have to add a caveat. The council is saying to me that those grants still do not cover the increased costs it is facing in those two areas. Indeed, the national insurance increase has not been totally compensated for by Government.”
“I am pleased to say that this is one of the first occasions for many years when in speaking in this debate, I do not have to stand up and say how badly Sheffield is being treated, because we have got a fair settlement for the first time in 14 years. Sheffield is a well-run council, and I congratulate Councillor Tom Hunt, the leader of the council, and Kate Josephs, who is the chief exec. We are not at a financial cliff edge. This settlement will not resolve all the problems and difficulties that the council has, but it does mean that the cliff edge is a bit further away, and the council has a bit of room to look at and take serious decisions about resource allocation and trying to continue with—and in some cases hopefully improve—some of the services.”
“I do. I welcome arrangements being put in place for the police to give more protection to councillors in that space. Recognising the financial strains, particularly for younger councillors, does not take a lot of money. I ask the Minister to allow that to happen. I forgot at the beginning to declare my interest as vice-president of the Local Government Association. I am sure that it is pleased with the settlement. The Minister recognises the challenges that have been outlined—they are to be faced in future years, but I thank him for this settlement today.”
“14. If she will take steps to support social housing providers to fund houses made available under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.”
“I know that my hon. Friend is committed to increasing the provision of social housing. In the past few years, most social housing has been provided through section 106 agreements. According to the National Housing Federation, thousands of houses around the country are available but cannot be purchased under section 106 agreements because registered social landlords simply do not have the resources. I am sure that he is aware of that problem, but does he have any plans to deal with it and bring those houses, which are badly needed, back into use?”
“That is not, strictly speaking, a point of order for the Chair, but it is relevant to the debate, so I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising it and putting it on the record.”
“I want to return to the issue of the recognition of an independent Palestinian state. As I understand it, the Government’s position is that Israel has no veto on the creation of a Palestinian state. The Minister just said in response to a previous question that recognition has to come through diplomatic efforts. Do those diplomatic efforts have to involve Israel? If so, and Israel refuses to co-operate in them, does that not effectively give Israel a veto over the creation of a Palestinian state?”
“In 2014-15, the then Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee did a report on CSE in Rotherham. That report drew heavily on the evidence from Alexis Jay’s first report, which was on the problems in Rotherham, the failings of the police, the failings of the council and the failings of Ofsted. What that surely shows is that a local authority-commissioned inquiry, which is what Alexis Jay’s first inquiry was, can get to the bottom of these problems, expose the failings and lead to improvements at local level. Surely Oldham council can do exactly the same.”
“Secondly, can he confirm that the local audit office will be a stand-alone body that looks at public sector audit, not an add-on to the audit, reporting and governance authority—a previous proposal—which was basically to be a private sector body that looked at local government as an afterthought?”