Rachel Reeves
MP for Leeds West and Pudsey · Labour · United Kingdom
“I thank my hon. Friend for his question and his work on the Treasury Committee. On pensions reform, through the Mansion House accord and Sterling 20, we have got pension funds to commit to investing more in British businesses, both through British venture schemes and in British infrastructure.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her question. As Members will know, this Government are working on plans with our NATO allies for a multilateral defence mechanism. We have already signed a treaty agreement with Finland and the Netherlands, and we are working closely with Scandinavian, Baltic and eastern European countries.”
“At a time of great global uncertainty, it is more important than ever that we deepen ties with our closest allies and biggest trading partners, whose values we share, and whose interests are bound to ours.”
“Today the Government have responded to the covid counter-fraud commissioner’s recommendations in a report that I commissioned, which confirms that the Conservative Government left the door open to more than £10 billion of pandemic fraud.”
“As I just said, the DIP will be published before the summit. It will involve more money spent more effectively, and it will meet the scale of the challenges we face. Frankly, I will take no lectures from the Conservatives, who left our armed forces, in the words of their former Defence Secretary, “hollowed out”.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for bringing the story of Darren and Nicole to this House. I hope that they and their children will benefit from the change I made to the two-child limit for universal credit, as well as from the rolling out of free breakfast clubs to all primary schools, and the introduction of free school meals for all children wh…”
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“Paul Everitt from ADS, the aerospace, defence, security and space business trade body, told us that the withdrawal agreement is “not as good” as the deal we have today and that it “won’t ever be as good as it is today.” Nestlé said that leaving the EU is “like ripping all the wires out of the back of a huge mainframe, and then when you are standing there with all these wires, it will take an awful lot of time to rewire us into a different trading system.” The chair of the American Pharmaceutical Group said, “we are trying to rebuild what we may have taken apart.” Of course, we have also had the news from Jaguar Land Rover, which described a “perfect storm”, of which Brexit is one fierce element, that is now resulting in 4,500 job losses.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). This is not about what happens this evening, because that is a foregone conclusion. This is now about how the Prime Minister responds to the defeat tonight, and where she and the Government take us next. My Select Committee, the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, took evidence on these issues back in November and December. I just want to give Members on all sides of the debate a sense of that evidence and of what businesses said to us.”
“Last week Parliament voted in favour of two amendments tabled from the Back Benches, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). The support for those amendments against the wishes of the Government makes it clear that Parliament does not support leaving the EU without a deal. The Prime Minister said in her statement just now that no deal would mean no implementation period, no security arrangements in place and no certainty for businesses and workers, and would put the future of Northern Ireland at risk. Given how catastrophic the Prime Minister accepts a no-deal Brexit would be, will she now rule it out and instead look to extend article 50 if and when Parliament rejects her deal tomorrow?”
“Like other Members, I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Is she aware that there is a private bailiff trade body called the Civil Enforcement Association? Its code of conduct says that its members should be “professional, ethical…polite, honest and non-threatening”, yet all the examples that my hon. Friend has given are of behaviours that are the exact opposite. In 2016, the Civil Enforcement Association received 255 complaints about its members yet expelled none of them. Is that not a perfect example of why we need better enforcement and regulation of the bailiff industry?”
“The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The Civil Enforcement Association is just a trade body. People have to pay a fee to be a member, but a bailiff does not have to be a member. The answer is to have an independent bailiff regulator capable of banning and prosecuting bailiffs who break the law. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is in the interests of bailiffs who respect the law and their customers, particularly vulnerable ones?”
“Members have already mentioned the letter sent today to the Justice Secretary to ensure that the Government take seriously calls from across the House for an independent regulator. As my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) said, the 2014 reforms have not worked and it is now time for such a regulator. I hope the Government seize this opportunity and take heed of the concerns raised and the examples that Members have given, put in place that independent regulator, and ensure that those struggling with financial difficulties are not exploited in the ways we have heard about.”
“Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), I am not arguing—I do not think any Member of the House would argue this—that creditors are not entitled to pursue their debtors. It would be unfair on those who do pay their debts if others were not encouraged and made to do so. The issue, however, is about obeying the law and exploiting people, especially if they already face financial hardship and are vulnerable. In truth, ballooning household debt means that bailiffs now have more scope to exploit some of the most vulnerable people in our society by refusing to accept affordable payment offers, and by misrepresenting their rights of entry or acting aggressively or unsympathetically on the doorstep. That is the issue we need to focus on, and where we need Government action.”
“UK households owe an average of just over £15,000 in unsecured lending from credit card firms, banks and other household debt, and unsecured debt is now the highest it has ever been—indeed, it is higher than before the financial crisis. It is not a sound basis on which to build our future economic prosperity if more of our wages go towards servicing debt than spending on our basic needs. It is therefore not surprising in such an environment that more people are racking up debt and struggling to pay household bills, council tax and some of the other debts we are discussing. It is also not surprising that into such an environment step those rogue bailiffs who exploit people who are already struggling with debt, and who are vulnerable or in precarious circumstances. Like the hon.”
“It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Evans, and I wish to make a few brief points in this important debate—there have already been many valuable contributions from across the House. The debate should be seen in the wider context of growing household debt. The rise of rogue bailiffs speaks to a wider malaise in our economy. People face a range of challenges, including insecure work and zero-hours contracts, stagnant wages, benefit cuts and access to affordable credit, which all put pressure on household finances. It is no surprise that the No. l money concern for people seeking help from Citizens Advice is household debt.”
“25. Only days after the Secretary of State published his response to the Taylor review, Uber was once again found by the courts to be denying basic rights to its workers. When will the Government bring forward legislation to clarify workers’ status so that they do not have to go through the courts and tribunals system to get the rights to which they are entitled?”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for for tabling this amendment, which is so important. The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee has taken evidence from a number of businesses in the past few weeks, including Nestlé, Toyota and Airbus. Each one of them, and many others too, have said that the most dangerous thing would be to leave the European Union without a deal, which would have catastrophic impacts on their businesses and on the people who work for them. For that reason alone, anything that we can do to avoid a hard Brexit and going on to WTO rules, as some Members suggest, is the most important thing. This amendment at least helps to provide some safeguards to stop that from happening.”
“The no-deal planning is clearly a total shambles. It has included giving a contract to run ferries to a firm that does not have any ferries. When the Government lose the vote on their deal next week, as they surely will, will the Secretary of State really contemplate risking leaving the EU without a deal—knowing all the chaos that that would create—rather than extending article 50 or, indeed, going back to the people and asking them whether they would rather remain in the EU or accept the half-baked deal that the Government have agreed?”
“I welcome the Government’s call for evidence. Since it was launched, the Minister has said that a small number of bailiffs are breaking the law. The truth is that a YouGov poll shows that a third of people contacted by bailiffs in the past year have experienced law breaking, so this is much more than a small problem. Will the Government therefore change the language and see where the evidence takes them, rather than concluding that a minority of bailiffs are behaving in this way?”
“Will the Secretary of State tell us how many more cases need to be won against employers like Uber, Hermes and Addison Lee before the Government act, name and shame and properly punish these businesses that wrongly classify their workers as self-employed and deny them the rights to which they are entitled?”
“The Select Committees on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and on Work and Pensions concluded that workers frequently rely on employment tribunals to enforce their rights and recommended punitive fines on employers for breaches of law. The Government are increasing the potential payouts for those who get to tribunal, which I warmly welcome, but they are refusing to reduce tribunal fees. Will the Secretary of State pledge to look at that again? Will the Government listen to Sir David Metcalf, the director of labour market enforcement, who said today that he is disappointed that the Government have rejected his recommendation of greater penalties for non-compliance in paying the minimum wage?”
“The contempt with which this Government hold Parliament seems to know no bounds. The answers of the Minister today suggest that it is either their way or the highway. That is not good enough. Parliament’s voice must be heard on this issue. Apart from the Minister’s word, what actual consequences are there if the Government do not bring a vote to the House of Commons by 21 January? There seem to be no consequences for holding Parliament in contempt, nor for pulling the vote that should have taken place today, so what will the consequences be if the Government do not bring a vote to the House before 21 January?”
“Following on from the question from the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening), can the Leader of the House be clear? The right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) proposed an amendment, which was passed by this House, that meant that the motion under the withdrawal Act would be amendable. When they bring back the business motion, whenever that is, will the Government ensure that the amendment is incorporated into that business motion so that it is amendable by the House?”
“Many refugees are fleeing religious persecution. The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that Christians in the middle east are on the brink of extinction, facing the worst crisis since the 13th century in the birthplace of Christianity. What are the Government doing to support Christians in the middle east and to grant asylum to those who are fleeing that persecution?”
“As the Prime Minister knows, this year is the 10th anniversary of the Climate Change Act 2008. I welcome what she has said about providing a leadership role at the UN climate summit next year, but our own country is not on track to meet the fourth and fifth carbon budgets, so what are we going to do to provide real leadership on these issues at the G20 and to get back on track to meet those important carbon budgets?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Have you been made aware of why the Chancellor is unable to respond to the urgent question? This is an incredibly important issue about the future of our country. He has found plenty of time to visit the television and radio studios this morning. He should be in this Chamber right now.”
“However people vote, they expect the Government to put our national interest first. The deal on which we will vote in 13 days’ time clearly does not do that, and we are now confronted with circumstances in which the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are expecting us to vote for a deal that they know—and we all know—means that our economy will grow more slowly, and we will have a smaller economy with fewer jobs and less investment. No one voted for that in the referendum in June 2016, so can the Minister understand why so few MPs are going to vote for this deal in 13 days’ time?”
“One of the problems that the Prime Minister has had to grapple with over the past two years is that those who campaigned to leave the European Union had no blueprint for what they would do if they won the referendum, but the Government are now repeating that mistake. Will the Prime Minister tell the House what plans are being put in place if, as it now seems likely, the Government lose the vote on 12 December? What preparations are being put in place for either extending article 50 or for a people’s vote to put this question to the country?”
“Following on from the question from my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Ruth George), last week yet another employment tribunal found in favour of workers getting the minimum wage and other workplace rights—in this instance, at Addison Lee—but too many firms continue to label workers as self-employed when they are not. When will the Government finally bring forward this long overdue legislation and—as the Taylor review, the GMB union and the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee have argued—ensure that all workers are paid the minimum wage?”
“Will the Secretary of State confirm that people who are currently in receipt of final salary pension schemes at JPI Media, to which they have now been transferred from Johnston Press, may indeed lose out to the tune of thousands of pounds because of these changes?”
“I refer to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. May I pick up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), who asked what will happen to people who are currently in receipt of pensions? I do not think it is correct to say, as the Secretary of State has said, that their pensions will not be affected, because they will be uprated in line with consumer prices index inflation rather than retail prices index inflation for years to come. If someone expects to carry on taking a pension for 20 years, they will lose out on thousands of pounds if their pension is uprated at this lower rate.”
“When I recently visited a Leeds Women’s Aid hostel, which does fantastic work throughout my city, it raised the problems experienced by women in low-paid work in accessing emergency accommodation. What support can the Government give to ensure that women feel confident enough to leave violent relationships and seek support?”
“The Prime Minister insists that this deal is in the national interest, but specifically on the economy, the agreement will ensure that we have no say in the rules that govern how we trade, it does not include services as part of free and frictionless trade, and it offers only the illusion of future trade deals. Given all this, does the Treasury believe that we will grow faster and create more jobs under the negotiated agreement or under our current relationship with the European Union?”
“Following on from the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) about the experience of her constituent, 2.2 million people contacted by a bailiff in the past two years have experienced the bailiff pushing the legal limits—my hon. Friend’s constituent experienced that—including forced entry into a home, removing goods needed for work and refusing a reasonable payment plan. The 2014 reforms clearly are not working. Does the Minister not agree that it is time to have an independent bailiff regulator to get a grip on these abuses of justice?”
“We are now entirely reliant on foreign investment to support new nuclear build in our country. If businesses abandon their plans, as Toshiba has done, that will affect the generation of new electricity supply and the costs borne ultimately by consumers. What is the Government’s alternative plan if foreign investors do not support the new nuclear build we need in the UK?”
“Street homelessness is a growing problem in my city of Leeds, reflecting inadequate social housing and mental health provision, and cuts to benefits. Big Change Leeds, launched last month, is bringing together everyone trying to help those who are street homeless in our city by giving their time or money. Will the Government welcome this initiative, but more importantly, will they commit their support by giving Leeds City Council the money it needs to address this growing problem in our city?”
“He said in this afternoon’s statement that he is putting money aside if the economy needs additional support, paving the way for a spring Budget and preparing for every eventuality. The Office for Budget Responsibility has revised down net exports next year and says that it is difficult to make any economic forecasts at all because of the huge uncertainty. Nobody voted for this mess. That is why we should now go back to the country with a people’s vote.”
“Although it is worth £400 million, page 234 of the OBR’s Blue Book says that the uncertainty associated with achieving that figure is very high. Indeed, the Chancellor has announced only a consultation. Where is the urgency? Where is the action? Frankly, when we consider the profits of those huge companies, £400 million is hardly very much. Finally, hanging over this Budget is Brexit. Yesterday the Chancellor failed to answer the most basic of questions: will the public finances and our people be better or worse off with a Chequers deal than what we have at the moment? He could not or would not answer, because it is increasingly clear that the Government’s botched negotiations will leave us all worse off. As for a no-deal Brexit, the Chancellor said it would mean having to rip up this Budget and start again.”
“At Carillion and elsewhere we have also seen auditors in a cosy cartel, failing to do a decent job while executives make reckless decisions over their companies’ futures and the futures of people who work for them. Government and regulators must do more. The Chancellor could have used today’s Budget to cancel the further cut in corporation tax from 19% to 17%—which will cost £6 billion and overwhelmingly helps bigger businesses—and instead use the money to support smaller businesses and our struggling high streets, which the Government say are the priority. But today’s announced changes to business rates, while welcome, are worth just a quarter of the additional cut to corporation tax, at £1.5 billion. Again we see the Government’s priority: a tax cut for big businesses while others have to struggle. We see the same with the digital tax.”
“He has enjoyed a huge bonus on the back of that, while very few people benefited with more affordable homes. If the Prime Minister had fulfilled her promise to put workers on the boards of our businesses, I am sure that such an outrageous pay packet would not have been awarded, but workers on boards is just another broken promise from this Government. It would now take a worker on the average wage 167 years to earn what a FTSE 100 CEO earns in just one—austerity for some, and largesse and riches for others. Austerity is well and truly over in the boardroom. What a contrast with the lives and experiences of the vast majority of our constituents.”
“The Chancellor has said today that he is ending PFI and PF2, but when Carillion collapsed the Government had a choice: to take its contracts back in-house or farm them out to other PFI contractors. They chose the latter, embracing PFI rather than bringing those contracts back in-house, which we know will deliver better value for money and better public services. Meanwhile, we have seen the new head of Royal Mail given a £5.8 million golden hello to take the job of chief executive, while not paying a penny of tax in the UK—another example of botched Tory and Liberal Democrat privatisation. We have also seen the Persimmon CEO take home £35 million last year, while the firm does not even guarantee all its workforce a living wage. The chief executive of Persimmon was one of the few beneficiaries of the Government’s Help to Buy scheme.”
“The Chancellor said it was to pay for those extra little things, but our children, the next generation, were offered very little extra indeed in his speech this afternoon. I want to say something about business taxation. The experience of families on low and middle incomes jars with what is happening in some parts of our corporate sector and with some of the evidence that we have taken on the Select Committee on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, some of it jointly with the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) chairs. People are angry, and rightly so when, 10 years after the financial crisis, they see corporate bosses engaging in the sort of malpractice and incompetence that characterised the management of Carillion, BHS and, most recently, Patisserie Valerie.”
“The Institute for Fiscal Studies forecast that a further 1 million children will fall into poverty in the next five years, taking the number of children in poverty to a record high of over 5 million, including 7,000 children in my constituency of Leeds West. While we are talking of the next generation, today’s announcement of £400 million for schools, although welcome, is less than what the Chancellor announced to fix potholes. Although we all agree that potholes are an issue in all our communities, I think that we would probably all agree that the education and future of our children are more important. The numbers equate to £10,000 for a primary school and £50,000 for a secondary school, which works out as £24 to £48 per child per year—50p or £1 a week, or about 20p a day per child.”
“It is somewhat ironic that the Chancellor tells us today that he is introducing a scheme to help people struggling with problem debt—although this scheme is worth only £5 million and is for one year only—but it has not occurred to him or the Prime Minister why people are struggling with debt in the first place. They are struggling with debt because of the ongoing austerity, because wages are not keeping up with the rising cost of living, because they are working in the gig economy or on zero-hours contracts, and because they work in the public sector and have not had a pay rise for almost a decade. It is also worth reflecting that 60% of families in poverty today are in work. They are working hard, often in more than one job or in the precarious gig economy. They are working for their poverty and their children’s poverty too.”
“The Budget today neither ends austerity nor shows that our economy is on a strong and resilient footing. On page 7 of the OBR document, our growth trajectory is referred to as “unspectacular”. Even by 2023, eight years after the last Chancellor, George Osborne, said that the budget deficit would be eliminated, we still have a budget deficit. In my short time this afternoon, I will just look at some of the detail on family finances and business taxation and, finally, at Brexit. The £1.7 billion announced for universal credit work allowances by the Chancellor this afternoon is welcome, but it falls short of the £3 billion that is necessary to ensure that no one is worse off under universal credit and it only undoes one half of the cuts made by George Osborne to universal credit just two years ago.”
“Will the Minister join me in encouraging all of us in this House, and all of us in all of our constituencies, to live our lives a little more like Jo Cox lived hers, by putting other people first and by always thinking about what we can do? Whether it is people in our friendship groups, our families or our communities, we should have one conversation at a time to try to reach out and help those who are struggling with loneliness. If we do that, we will all help to secure Jo’s legacy and help to build a world that is a little less lonely.”
“If Jo were still here today, she would have been a Member of Parliament for almost three and a half years. She was in this House for just one year, but in that short space of time she achieved more than most of us could hope to achieve in a lifetime. Tackling loneliness is part of Jo’s legacy, and it is a tribute to her approach to politics and her approach to life, which is that we have more in common than that which divides us. I am proud to have played a small part in taking forward Jo’s work on this very important issue, but I want to build on what other Members have said this afternoon. The good thing about loneliness is that it is something we can all do something about, one conversation at a time.”
“With four Members of the House on maternity leave at the moment, this issue is particularly poignant, and I fear that many of those people will have lost faith in the system as it currently exists. When I was on maternity leave with my first child, the campaigning group 38 Degrees contacted my constituents criticising me for not attending a vote, but at least I knew that I was paired and that it was cancelled out. The right hon. Gentleman says that we will be discussing proxy voting in greater detail in the autumn, and that is welcome. However, when does he expect reform to take place to allow proxy voting, as recommended by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), so that it actually happens and we are not reliant on this informal system?”
“One in six workers in our economy is now self-employed. Some are bogusly self-employed—not entitled to the basic protections that we should all expect when we go out to work every day. Matthew Taylor’s review into good work was published more than a year ago. When are the Government going to respond and bring forward legislation to end this abuse?”
“What assurances did President Trump give the Prime Minister that he would raise with President Putin the poisoning of the Skripals and the murder of Dawn Sturgess on British soil? It is unacceptable that Russia has put lives at risk, with poisonous substances being left to kill innocent people on the streets of our country. If President Trump is our ally, he will raise this. Will he?”
“Carillion was effectively borrowing from its suppliers, propping up its balance sheets again without a care for the state of the balance sheets of the thousands of businesses relying on it and doing its work.”
“When the code was launched in 2013, Carillion was already known to Government as being poor payers, but the National Audit Office report into the company showed that in signing it up to support the policy the Government seemed to turn a blind-eye to Carillion’s failure to meet its duties to suppliers. We heard on our Committee from the Federation of Small Businesses that some businesses were waiting more than 120 days for payment and Carillion had become notorious as late payers. Carillion managed to use this to its advantage, arranging an early payment facility with the banks, meaning suppliers could receive payments earlier than Carillion’s 120-day terms but they would have to face a cut in what they were owed in order to do so.”
“Despite the growing pensions deficit, there is one area where directors felt able to spend money, and that was on growing salaries for the leaders of the business. Its remuneration committee increased payouts on the basis of industry averages, rather than the performance of the business Carillion. A responsible business would see payment by results, not payment by averages. When Carillion’s directors needed to prop up their balance sheets, they did so by putting pressure on the suppliers. Carillion was, ironically, a signatory to the Government’s prompt payment code, promising suppliers they would be paid within 60 days.”
“Those notional values of each acquisition, totalling almost £1.5 billion, were allowed to sit on the balance sheet for year after year, without any link to reality and the real value. When the company collapsed, the goodwill was wiped out, too, showing its true value—a value of zero. Carillion’s board needed healthy balance sheets to continue its dividend policy of increasing its payout to shareholders, but the truth is that it paid those dividends regardless of whether it had the cash flow required for them. Right up to the spring of 2017, it was promoting its growing payout with little challenge—no challenge—from directors as to whether the money might have been better spent supporting the pension fund, for example, or any part of the failing business.”
“However, the collapse of Carillion has meant that our Committees have been able to see the board papers and minutes from company meetings, many of which we have published. Looking inside the company, we have seen a business that acquired other businesses, and relied on unrecoverable “goodwill” to prop up its balance sheet; a company that kept increasing senior salaries and bonuses, and ensured that a dividend was paid regardless of its own health; a company that was paying suppliers late, and bidding for contracts that it could not afford to deliver on time or on budget. Carillion’s largest acquisitions—of companies such as Mowlem, Alfred McAlpine and Eaga—allowed it to put “goodwill” on its balance sheet.”
“Despite its catastrophic failure, the Carillion directors, when they sat in front of our Committee, continually claimed that the business was sound, even after it had gone into liquidation, and that only a handful of contracts had brought it down. They even said that everything was fine until just a few months before the collapse. As late as the day before Carillion went into liquidation, the directors thought that they could avert the collapse. They seemed to have a sense of entitlement, and a belief that the Government would step in and bail out their failed business. In their evidence to us, they blamed everyone but themselves. They blamed the Bank of England, the Canadian construction market, Carillion’s suppliers, and professional designers of concrete beams.”