Mr Toby Perkins
MP for Chesterfield · Labour · United Kingdom
“The hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller) is absolutely right to say that what is behind this is the deep unpopularity of President Milei; it is not anything actually that the UK has done.”
“In Chesterfield, there will be unmitigated despair at the statement we have heard today from my right hon. Friend. For the authorities for which she is doing a review—the 14 that thought they had got their decision in July—could she clarify the basis of that review?”
“It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Member for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay) on securing this debate.”
“The report spells out the link between degradation overseas and the impact here. The assessment lays out the consequences: food insecurity, economic insecurity, increased migration and refugees, increased interstate competition, conflict and geopolitical instability, all of which will threaten us here at home.”
“The Government are right to take their time and make sure that they get this right—we saw what happened when the previous Government did not do the work that was needed. This is a delicately balanced decision.”
“Thirdly, will the Minister consider bringing forward the fourth national adaptation programme? NAP3, published by the previous Government in 2023, was deemed ineffective by the Climate Change Committee. NAP4 is not due until 2028, but can we afford to wait two more years before we have an adequate plan?”
The complete record
Every one of 3,898 lines we hold for Mr Toby Perkins, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 37 of 78.
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I apologise for interrupting my hon. Friend, but I note that there is not a single Member of Parliament on the Government Benches. I just wondered whether the fire alarm had gone off and none of us on the Labour Benches had heard it.”
“I have huge respect for the right hon. Gentleman’s knowledge in this area, but he is talking about overall local government spending cuts and he was, of course, a part of the first five years of this Government. The greatest austerity and local government cuts were made under a Liberal Democrat and Tory coalition, so does he regret his part in the huge cuts made to local government between 2010 and 2015?”
“I met the managing director of One to One, a company in my constituency that provides excellent care services to many local authorities, who told me about the knock-on consequences and the impact that local authority funding cuts are having on its ability to get paid. The company is often owed tens of thousands of pounds by local authorities that are struggling to manage their administration. The industry is in crisis and local government is in crisis. The Government have two choices: they either step up to the mark and convince us that they are serious about the social care funding crisis, or they continue in the way they are going, in which case everyone will realise that this is something that lands at their door.”
“When care services are not available, people turn up in A&E. Some 20% of the people in A&E should be in a hospital bed but cannot get admitted. At the same time, 20% of hospital beds are filled by people who cannot get out because there is no care package waiting for them. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) spoke about the impact of cuts to children’s social care falling on children with special needs and on schools. Things like the failure to diagnose autism have a knock-on impact right across the school and other areas. All these services are connected; we cannot look at social care and local government finances in isolation.”
“It means local authorities saying that they will not pay for travelling time, and that responsibility falling back on to the companies. The courts have recently decided that those who provide sleepovers should be paid the national minimum wage. Many care companies did not previously pay it. I support that decision, but the corollary must be the Government’s recognition that while local authorities were previously tendering on the basis that those who slept on the job could be paid on a different basis, it has now been retrospectively decided that authorities must pay private providers. Money must now come from central Government to fund that, because businesses will continue to go bust and the services on which people rely will continue to be diminished. All the cuts to care have consequences.”
“The Government need to understand that given the scale of cuts that we have seen over the last nine years, with a single year’s uplift and the ring-fencing of the small amount of £2.5 billion—it is not actually a small amount, but it is inadequate in comparison with the cuts of previous years—they cannot, as the Minister did earlier, wash their hands of the fact that the industry is in crisis and businesses are going bust. That means 15-minute appointments. It means dementia patients seeing a different carer every day, although consistency of care is so important. It means a decline in the service that they receive. It means families seeing that their relatives are deeply troubled by the inconsistency of the services that they are receiving.”
“I know that they are among the most dedicated and professional of people, often working in incredibly difficult circumstances for an absolute pittance. I know that whether they wear a uniform with a local authority badge on it or work for a private company, they have a real commitment to the people for whom they provide care. However, we are seeing an industry in crisis. More than 100 care homes have gone bust in the last two years or so, and dozens of domestic care providers are going bust as well. In 2018 Allied Healthcare, the company for which I used to work, was days away from bankruptcy. Every time a care home goes bust, the onus falls on the local authority again.”
“Councils often involve the private sector because they are trying to save money, and they recognise that the terms and conditions on which local authority staff will work will be more generous than those in the private sector. That is one of the knock-on consequences of the overall spending pressure on councils. The relationship between councils and their providers is very important. Far too often, councils outsource responsibility for these services, signing up to contracts that anyone who studies them must know are unsustainable. They must have some responsibility for the decisions that they make. As one who has worked with carers, I take my hat off to those who work in the care industry.”
“I am very proud of the record that I will be going out to defend. I want to say something about social care, because I know a great deal about it. I spent a very tough year of my career as care manager of a private provider of domiciliary care for Sheffield City Council. One aspect of social care that is missing from the whole debate is the fact that it is set up as an industry rather than a service. The vast majority of domestic care providers are private sector businesses, and the vast majority of care homes are run by the private sector. The No. 1 priority of the private sector is to make a profit, and we should not be surprised that if we involve private sector companies in care homes, they will try to make a profit out of them. That, ultimately, is what companies exist for.”
“There was an excellent remembrance display to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1914-18 conflict, featuring poppy cascades not just from the town hall but from a variety of retail units. The council has recognised that it is sometimes necessary for local authorities to invest in order to save money and to be innovative if people are to be proud of them, but at the same time it has managed to maintain the lowest level of council tax in Derbyshire. We know that Labour councils cost you less. The average cost per household in Labour council areas is £351 less than the average in Tory areas. The authorities that have been most likely to go bust are Tory authorities in, for instance, Northamptonshire and Surrey. Not only does Labour run its councils better than the Tories, but its councils cost less and innovate more.”
“It invested in a new leisure centre and found that the amount by which it had to subsidise it fell from £1.5 million—the figure in every year under the Liberal Democrats—to only £300,000 a year, as more people were using it because it had better facilities. Similarly, the council invested in our cultural facilities, meaning the theatre and concert venue saw a 60% reduction in the amount by which it had to be subsidised, since it was getting more punters through the door because it had better facilities. We have fewer empty shop units than most other local authority areas of a similar sort. The council has done very innovative things, such as bringing a big wheel into the centre of Chesterfield, which massively increased the number of people visiting the town centre, and it has an innovative record on tackling homelessness.”
“I have referred previously to the fact that Chesterfield has had a 43.2% cut, whereas the Secretary of State’s local authority has had a cut of just 12%. The right hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne) spoke up for that, saying the problem with the Labour Government was that they sent all the money to the poor areas. I am proud that a Labour Government made those decisions and recognised the role that local authorities can play in supporting the most deprived in our society. As I said, I have been in Chesterfield talking about the local elections. I am proud of the record of the local authority in Chesterfield. It has recognised that in a time of austerity and unfair cuts from central Government it has had to make innovative choices to enable us to provide better services that cost less.”
“It has been utter cowardice for the Government to say, “There are going to be huge cuts, but we’re not going to decide where they’ll fall, because we’re going to pass on that decision to local authority leaders. It will be for them to decide whether to shut a library, close a park or stop investing in roads. We’re going to outsource the pain”. I think of the many people who first became councillors after the 2015 elections, or even the 2013 elections. They were so excited to be councillors, but at their very first council meeting they were faced with the decision of what to shut. That has been the reality for many local authorities. It is absolutely right that the motion tabled by my hon. Friends should focus on that unfairness.”
“It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who, as we all know, has great knowledge in this area. I am pleased he acknowledged in response to my intervention that the Government the Liberal Democrats were part of got the balance wrong in local government funding. I am very conscious of that fact, having spent a lot of time talking about local government elections in the last week or so back in Chesterfield, where it is hard to find a Liberal Democrat who will own up to the Government their party was a part of. They seem to have disowned their record entirely. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) made the point that in this time of austerity the worst hit area of government has been local government.”
“T10. I welcome what the Chancellor said to my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) a few minutes ago about investigations into the promoters of some of the disguised remuneration schemes, but that will not do many of the victims much good. A business in Chesterfield is facing bankruptcy because of the charge. How might his review actually help the people who have wrongly taken advantage of this advice?”
“14. What assessment he has made of the effect on UK manufacturing of the UK leaving the EU without mutual recognition of regulatory standards in that sector.”
“That was not really much to do with my question, which was about regulatory standards. Weightron Bilanciai, a Chesterfield-based industrial weighing machine manufacturer, had to spend around £50,000 to have all its products re-certified in the Netherlands, because they will no longer be certified and recognised for sale in the EU after we leave. Are the costs paid by UK manufacturing and the impact on British businesses the most serious example of the Government’s failure to come up with a trade deal?”
“I share my right hon. Friend’s frustration that there was no time for more scrutiny, but would it not have come better from someone who had not just voted against an amendment that would have allowed us to discuss the matter again on Monday?”
“My hon. Friend is making an important point about capital expenditure. The previous Labour Government had a Building Colleges for the Future programme, which was cancelled in austerity times. Now, many college estates simply cannot keep pace, including in Chesterfield.”
“T5. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The Foreign Secretary has spoken about the pernicious role of the Iranian Government in various disputes around the middle east, not least in support of the Houthis in Yemen. What more can he tell us about what Britain is doing alongside his counterparts around the world to put serious pressure on the Iranians, not only on human rights abuses in their own country but on the appalling role they play right across the middle east?”
“I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. He is absolutely right about rural pubs. However, the importance of the last pub on the council estates in many of our towns is often overlooked. The last pub has closed on many of those estates, and that has a huge impact on the facilities available for people to get together. Although I entirely support what he says about rural pubs, let us make sure that we do not forget the issue with regards to council estates.”
“We think of The Rovers Return or the Queen Vic, which are the hub of their communities. When people visit our country, the first thing they want to do is visit the local and have a pint of British ale. We cannot overestimate the incredibly important role that pubs play in our social fabric.”
“It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main), who called at the end of her speech for more to be done to support our pubs—the theme of this entire debate. Pubs are absolutely crucial to our communities and certainly to my constituency. Chesterfield has 105 pubs, and 1,419 people there rely on beer and pubs for their employment. In Chesterfield alone, £15 million goes into the local economy through wages paid to people who work in our pubs. Alongside the economic value that pubs provide—we have talked about the huge tax contribution that they make—pubs also make an incredibly important social contribution. As we have heard from other hon. Members, when a pub closes on an estate there is no longer a focal point for the community. What is the first thing that comes to mind when we think about soap operas?”
“I would love the Government to put less focus on reducing corporation tax at the expense of business rates. Corporation tax is businesses paying tax on profits that they have made, whereas business rates are a tax on owning a property. At a time when pubs and so many retail units are closing, the taxation policy achieves the opposite of what the Government intend. If I had more time, I would talk about the pubs code, and I look forward to the review that the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst), is undertaking. Pubs are crucial to our communities, and I am delighted that this debate has taken place. May we all continue to trumpet that crucial role.”
“It was an event in which we came together and celebrated the role that pubs play in our communities. There are always claims that if the Government only taxed businesses less, the pubs would do better. As a former shadow Business Minister I recognise the extent to which such calls are heard. The Government were elected in 2015 on a manifesto that promised a fundamental review of business rates. I appreciate that that commitment disappeared from the 2017 manifesto, but the Government have not considered themselves to be held to many items in that manifesto. The system of business rates disincentivises investment, whether in pubs, manufacturing or retail. When people make their premises better they pay a higher tax bill, which flies in the face of the sort of investment that we all want to see.”
“When a pub closes in an area with a huge number of pubs, the impact may not be the same, but when there is only one pub in an area, it is incredibly important, and we feel strongly about that. Some 243 people in Chesterfield signed the “Long Live the Local” petition. Here in Parliament, we recognise how important pubs are. The hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) who started the debate, is chair of the all-party parliamentary beer group. I am chair of the all-party parliamentary pubs group. This year, we held the first ever parliamentary pub of the year competition. I was delighted that so many MPs entered. There was a fantastic array of entries. My own entry, the Chesterfield Arms in Chesterfield, was a finalist, but was ultimately defeated by the Four Elms pub in Cardiff, Central.”
“I certainly feel strongly that the owner or landlord of a pub is its custodian for the local community. Pubs valued by a community have often been lost as a result of the irresponsibility or inadequacy of the people who have run them. When pubs close, that has a huge impact on the local community. Sometimes, we have got too bogged down with the numbers; where pubs close is also important. We have heard about the importance of rural pubs, and I mentioned previously the importance of pubs on the local estate. The Brampton Mile is a famous area in Chesterfield with 17 pubs within a single mile. Some have attempted to visit them all in a single night—I cannot entirely remember how it ended, but it started well.”
“The Minister is right that the small business brewing relief is an example of Government forgoing a bit of tax and a huge industry flowering on the back of that. Might he take note of that example for some of his other decisions?”
“If Scottish Office Ministers invested in access to the internet, they would discover that there are no elite-level events in Scotland, which is why many people feel that the Lawn Tennis Association is failing to take the opportunity to build on the legacy of Andy Murray’s success. Will the Secretary of State meet representatives of the LTA and the Scottish Government to see what more can be done to ensure that this huge opportunity is not missed once and for all?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The hon. Gentleman has been on his feet for five minutes, but he has not yet had an opportunity to tell us why we should vote for his motion. Would you encourage him to tell us about motion (O), rather than what is wrong with all the other motions?”
“It is patently obvious that the Government are not remotely prepared for us to leave without a deal, and at the same time we have a Government who are ploughing on with a plan that has been twice rejected, refusing to bring votes and refusing to stick to commitments they have made to this House. If the chief executive of a major FTSE 500 company or a hospital were to run a major project in anything like as shambolic a way as this every single Member of Parliament would be demanding they resign; why doesn’t the Prime Minister resign?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Anyone who heard the urgent question from the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) and all those who responded to it will know how there are many Members who absolutely love and indulge themselves in long discussions about arcane matters of European legislation and its different articles and who spend far less time worrying about the disastrous potential consequences of their actions. Are you aware of whether there are any plans for grief counselling for those Members? In the event that we leave the European Union, those Members would no longer spend many long hours talking about these things and they would have to spend some time concentrating on the poverty in their constituencies.”
“In terms of what people were expecting during the referendum, the Minister will be aware that the Vote Leave campaign made it clear that leaving the EU would be “a careful change” and that we would not leave until our future relationship was resolved. Even now, the Vote Leave website says: “There is no need to rush. We must take our time and get it right.” Did not people who voted leave absolutely understand that we would take our time to get it right before we made any rash decisions?”
“I will be able to go to my constituents and say, “If only the Government would back Labour’s deal, we would be able to leave the European Union on 29 March, as we have said all along.” It is important that that message gets across, because there are people on the Government Benches who suggest that the only way to fulfil the referendum result is to vote for the Government’s deal. We all know that there are other ways we could leave the European Union, if only the Government supported the Labour party deal.”
“As for what my constituents ask for, it seems that Labour’s deal fulfils the vote that 60% of Chesterfield constituents cast. It would enable us to continue trading with the customs union, but it would also ensure that we were not a part of the single market and we were able to have control on immigration. We all know that that was so powerful; it was the issue of immigration that enabled what had been previously a minority concern—the European Union—to become so powerful; the campaign was run on the issue. Despite the fact that I hugely regret the fact that we are leaving the European Union, I will vote for Brexit and I will do so by voting for Labour’s deal. When I vote for Labour’s deal, I will be voting for something that would enable us to leave on 29 March.”
“Friend the Member for Bury North (James Frith) said just a few minutes ago, the Prime Minister put in charge of these negotiations the very people who had promised us how easy this was going to be. Of course, they entirely failed to deliver on the referendum result and on what they had promised in the campaign. I will support this motion to have a delay, but it occurs to me that Vote Leave said throughout the campaign that this would be “a careful change”, that there would be time for it to be made and we would not be leaving the EU until our future relationship was resolved. I am now confused as to why they seem to be in such a rush for us to leave, given that it is so clear that we have not got a deal on which we can agree.”
“I was struck, as I reflected on the huge frustration my constituents feel with the way this process is going, by the speech by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), who is not in his place. He described our Government as a “laughing stock”—a laughing stock in Europe and in this country. I think about why that is. I think it is because of the path that he and his colleagues have taken this Government down. They have absolutely held this Government to ransom. Having argued for a long, long time for things that we all knew were not going to be achievable, they won the referendum and are now blaming the Government for failing to achieve them. As my hon.”
“I am grateful to the Secretary of State. He seems to be making a speech about last night’s debate rather than today’s. The debate that we are having today is about no deal. Can the Secretary of State imagine being the Prime Minister—I am sure he spends a lot of time imagining that—and coming to the House for a vote of this importance, and the Government’s not having an opinion on whether their own members should vote for or against it?”
“There is much that the hon. and learned Lady is saying about this deal that I agree with, but I think she slightly over-eggs the point when it comes to the issue of Scotland and what Scotland wanted. She said that 62% of Scottish people voted against, but that is not in fact true. The turnout in Scotland was lower than that of any English region, and in actual fact only 41% of people voting in Scotland voted to remain, which was largely because the SNP made so little effort to get people to go and vote.”
“The Minister’s rhetoric bears no relation to what we are seeing in our schools, where vocational education opportunities are shrinking all the time, and the Government’s sense of direction seems to be narrowing our young people’s curriculum. When will the statements that the Minister makes at the Dispatch Box start to have even the slightest relevance to what people are experiencing on the ground?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This Friday I will attend the funeral of Charles Smith MBE. When he died at the age of 98 he had been a member of the Labour party for 84 years, which I believe made him the most long-standing member of the party. In paying tribute to him, may I ask for your guidance, Mr Speaker, on how I might use this opportunity to encourage everyone in Parliament to celebrate all those people who have given long service to our political parties, to recognise that the vast majority of them do so in order to support their communities and the country, and to recognise that our political parties are broadly a force for good and we should welcome their membership?”
“The dozens of people involved in the recent violence at Haydock Park racecourse faced ejection from the course rather than arrest. It seems that the bar for getting arrested is very different for someone involved in football-related violence than for someone involved in loftier pursuits such as horse-racing. Will the Home Secretary tell us what he is doing to ensure that violent crime is treated equally, no matter who the perpetrators are?”
“I am grateful for the Minister’s reassurance. As regulations change in the EU after we have left, will we keep pace with those regulations or will we have to change our regulations off our own bat, alongside whatever the EU does?”
“T7. A huge number of GP surgeries are struggling to recruit, and meanwhile lots of locums are making a lot more money being locums than working on permanent GP contracts. Will the Secretary of State consider offering his state-backed indemnity to those who commit to being on a permanent contract with a GP surgery?”
“Many people may see it as an incompetent accident that the Government continually fail to hit their supposed targets on Army recruitment, but is it not the truth that this is a Government without any sort of strategic vision for what they want our Army to do in 2019, and that their failure to get Army numbers up saves budget for the parts of the MOD that they do have a plan for?”
“I entirely support what the Minister says about our recognition of those who support members of our armed forces; the armed forces community is very important. I know the Minister has that community very much in his heart and has their best interests in his mind, and he will be as concerned as I am that satisfaction with pay and pension benefits is the lowest ever recorded. What is being done in armed forces legislation and in the policies of the Government to try to increase morale and satisfaction among the people the Minister paid such warm tribute to?”
“It is the first time I have ever been positively encouraged to intervene—it could catch on. I share the Minister’s views about the wider issues alongside pay. One of the other issues raised with me by members of the armed forces community is the sense of strategic vision on what the Army is for now. I challenged the Minister on this in Defence questions an hour or two ago and he said that there was a strong strategic vision for the Army in 2019. Can he tell us a bit more about what that is, because it is not entirely understood by some people who serve?”
“I am very grateful to the Minister for allowing me to intervene again. I just want to take him back to the comments he was making a moment ago about cyber-warfare and hybrid warfare. Does he consider cyber-warfare to be warfare? If so, who are we at war with?”
“I rise to support the motion, as my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) did. While this is a motion that many might have expected was limited in scope and was likely to be passed without much comment, the Minister, of whom I am a big admirer in the job he does, has broadened its scope and other Members have taken him up on the challenge he posed. He made a remarkable speech; I cannot think of many times where a Minister has stood at the Dispatch Box and been so implicitly critical of the Government they speak on behalf of. I entirely support his call for greater investment in our armed forces and will expand on some of the arguments he made about our investment in equipment.”
“Either way, it is a commitment that is not being met. I entirely support the motion, but I also share many of the concerns that have been raised today. I absolutely pledge my support to the Minister in his campaign to persuade the Treasury to give our armed forces the support that they need and deserve.”