Bill Esterson
MP for Sefton Central · Labour · United Kingdom
“As the Prime Minister said on Tuesday, our energy supply and our energy security are not a question of having either oil and gas, or renewables; they are about both. It is a great pity that proper process was not followed in 2022 or 2023. [ Interruption.”
“I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to continuing Britain’s global leadership on climate action, including by going to COP31. I also welcome his focus on breathing space for people and businesses, but, as he said, it will take a lot more than that to deliver the growth and reindustrialisation that he is so committed to.”
“Last week the Committee heard from Claire Dykta, the director of strategy and policy at NESO, who told us: “Operational decisions are taken by authorised, trained personnel only.” Her comments were confirmed by Alastair Martin, the chief strategy officer at Flexitricity, who, in the same session, said: “I do not think the idea that the he…”
“As the Minister has just said, new nuclear is essential for energy security. It is also essential as an alternative career for workers in oil and gas.”
“Paul and Susan Robinson each worked for the Health and Safety Executive for more than 40 years. They have not been able to plan for their retirement since finishing work last year; they have been living off their savings and the small loan that they have had. They are typical of the dozens of constituents who have contacted me.”
“Hudson primary school in my constituency does a brilliant job. It is a family hub, it specialises in support for children with SEND and autism, and it has a nursery, but its building, which is 80 years old, suffers from a high water table that brings damp, mould and structural problems for the building—as does occasional flooding.”
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“Last week, my constituents were given a salutary reminder of the very real threat that we face from the climate and ecological emergency that Parliament declared just 18 months ago: we faced the worst floods—potentially—in living memory, with water levels more than 1 metre higher than ever previously recorded. We were saved because the River Alt burst its banks and demolished an embankment over a 30-mile stretch, bursting into floodplain rather than flooding 500 or so properties in Maghull in my constituency. That is one reason why new clause 9 is so important: it would mean that anyone with duties under the Bill must comply with environmental objectives. We were lucky with the flooding last week but we may not be next time. That is one good example.”
“The Minister said that she has a good relationship with the industry. She can demonstrate that good relationship by supporting amendment 24.”
“Unfortunately, we have already seen standards weakened through the changes to UK REACH, and powers in this Bill will give the Government the opportunity to further reduce them, leaving open the prospect of dumping lower-standard products, undermining the excellence of the industry in this country. Industry here wants no divergence; it wants to solve the problem of the £1 billion cost to access the database that businesses need to be able to continue producing in this country. Unless these problems are resolved, we will see an impact on that £31.4 billion of exports, with companies given no choice but to move their manufacturing capacity to the continent of Europe. There is much at stake here; there is much at stake in maintaining and enhancing those standards for human health, for animal health, for plant life and for British jobs.”
“The industry in this country is worth £31.4 billion in exports and employs 102,000 people in well-paid jobs, and chemicals are in everyday products; in the Liverpool city region they are part of our car manufacturing sector and we have many fine chemical industry companies, including Blends Ltd and Contract Chemicals just a few miles outside my constituency. They want to maintain those high standards and they want to build on them; they want to build on them so that new products and services can be developed, and so that innovation in the recycling of plastics can be enhanced. To deliver on that agenda, they need the support of the Government through this Bill.”
“The film “Dark Waters” shows just what goes wrong, with the disastrous consequences for human life, animal life, plant life and pollution, where there is a lack of regulation in the chemicals industry. Mark Ruffalo brilliantly played the lawyer who took on the might of DuPont and won on behalf of so many who were disadvantaged. Of course, in this country we benefit from the highest chemical standards in the world—the previous regime made sure of that—and the industry rightly wants to maintain those standards and indeed build upon them.”
“What steps her Department has taken to provide financial support to disabled people who are required to shield during the national lockdown.”
“There are 2.2 million people who are having to shield. Many disabled people cannot work from home and do not qualify for furlough, and sick pay is only £95.85, which does not even come close to the definition of doing what it takes to look after people, which the Prime Minister tried to use on Thursday. May I push the Minister not to give the same tired answer about what he has done for other people but to answer the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) has just asked? When are the Government going to give support to disabled people so that they can be protected and stay at home?”
“The chief executive of City & Guilds, Kirstie Donnelly, says that it is a disappointment that today’s statement focuses on existing announcements, instead of a clear vision for how we can collectively reimagine further education for the future. She also says that the Government should devolve power to the regions. In the Liverpool city region, we are ready to deliver the skills needed for the recovery from the pandemic. Will the Education Secretary make at least one new announcement today, and commit to giving the authority and resources needed to the regions to develop the technical learning that is needed for the recovery and the future?”
“Not enough vets to inspect Scottish fish, not enough customs agents to process border forms and not enough time for exporters to adopt new rules of origin—it is no good the Secretary of State saying that the delays are temporary or promising compensation with money that has been already allocated to modernise the fishing industry, as the Prime Minister did yesterday. The Government have failed to prepare for the new arrangements at the border, so is it any wonder that a company such as John Ross Jr says that the Government have thrown them in the sea “without a life jacket”?”
“The shortage of vets to inspect fish, the lack of customs agents to process border forms and there not being enough time for businesses to adapt to new rules of origin are, I would suggest, a lot more than “teething problems”. The Secretary of State might want to rethink his analysis there, but what the fishing communities up and down our country want to know is when he will fix the problems caused by the Government’s failure to prepare for the new border arrangements.”
“Infection rates in Sefton have more than doubled in the last week, and hospital admissions are up by 50%. Those people who have been excluded from financial support so far want to reduce infection levels and hospital admissions by staying at home, protecting the NHS and saving lives—they want to play their part too, but they need the Chancellor’s help to do so. What is his objection to using the £2 billion that the large retailers have returned in unused business rate relief to enable the many freelancers, self-employed people, people who run small firms and people who changed jobs at the wrong time to play their part in the national interest while we wait for the vaccine to be rolled out?”
“Ofqual suggests that as many as 1.78 million children do not have access to a computer. What the Education Secretary has announced today is just a 10% reduction in those numbers by the end of next week, which will still leave 1.6 million children unable to access a computer. Bridging the digital divide is essential, so when will those 1.6 million children receive their laptops, and when will he address the situation of the 900,000 children who do not have data access?”
“That must be fixed; to get the health benefits of the lockdown right, the financial side must be fixed at the same time. It is therefore right that the expectations of the large retailers in returning £2 billion in unneeded business rates relief are that that money is used to support those who have so far gone without. The Chancellor should come here, and tell the House and those excluded people that that money will be used to support them through the coming weeks—and, if necessary, months. He should be providing greater business support for those areas where business has had to go without for longer because lockdown came earlier and deeper, and he must put these things right soon. If we do not do so, the ongoing crisis will be worse in the long run, the cost will be greater and those people who have gone without will continue to suffer.”
“They all have a contribution to make as the economy eventually recovers, and the stronger and healthier their finances are now, the better placed they and many other businesses will be to play their part when the time comes. There are also health consequences. One characteristic of this crisis has been that people have not been able to afford to self-isolate—individual low-paid workers and the 3 million excluded people—because they have not had the support, whether that is sick pay for people who are employed, or a lack of access to furlough, to the self-employed scheme or often even to universal credit. People have not been able to afford to self-isolate when they have been contacted, and that is a big part of the reason that less than 20% of people who were supposed to self-isolate have so far done so.”
“I want us to learn from what has happened since March, rather than saying no, because if this lockdown is to be effective, we have to look at the gaps that have not been plugged so far. I want to talk particularly about the up to 3 million self-employed people: freelancers, people who run their own businesses and people who changed jobs at the wrong time who have had little or no financial support. It has been a burning injustice since March that they have gone without, and it continues to be. The Chancellor should be coming to the House of Commons to describe how he is going to support these people who have been left behind. It is not fair to them and it is an injustice, but it is damaging economically too.”
“The Leader of the House did not answer the question earlier about what the permanent secretary at the Department for Education said this morning. In case he has missed it, I will read it out to him. She said: “There are conversations going on about exactly how parents and pupils will go back at the beginning of January, but I am afraid I cannot speak to the Committee about that this morning.” Parents, children and school staff all need to know now what the arrangements are, so can the Education Secretary give a statement to MPs in the House today to clear up this latest confusion and mess?”
“When emissions from the production of imports and from sea and air transport are included—minus those from exports—the UK has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 0.6% a year, not the 1.5% that the Government quote for territorial emissions alone. This country depends on imports, including the emissions that they produce. Ministers can kid themselves all they like, but is it not the case that unless the UK cuts the emissions that we are responsible for around the world, we are not going to make the contribution that we need to in order to deal with the climate emergency?”
“Many freelancers and self-employed people have had little or no financial support. They do not qualify for furlough, for the self-employment scheme or for business grants. With billions of pounds being returned in tax relief for business rates by the major retailers, why are Ministers not using that money, as the retailers are suggesting, to support those hundreds of thousands of people who have had little or no financial support so far?”
“SSE Audio employed 196 people in the supply chain of the events industry until March; 75 of those have already been made redundant. Last year it paid £2.45 million to freelancers as well. Its freelancers are among the excluded group who have had no financial support, the business did not qualify for the cultural recovery fund, 99% of which has gone to venues, not suppliers, and unless the furlough scheme is extended in January it will have to make the rest of its workforce redundant. Is it not the case that suppliers such as SEE Audio and its freelancers are essential to the recovery of this brilliant sector of our economy?”
“Last October, in preparation for a possible no deal, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster told us that stockpiles had been built up of essential medicines, including asthma inhalers, antibiotics, paracetamol and ibuprofen. That was just as well, given that they were needed in the coronavirus pandemic. Have stockpiles of those things been returned to the levels they were at in October 2019?”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing the debate. PPE Medpro was incorporated on 12 May and was awarded a contract for £122 million for single-use disposable medical robes, which it was going to import. The contract was not advertised, but the company had a link to a Conservative peer. By contrast, my constituents who own Florence Roby spent months trying to get a contract for multi-use medical robes, which can be used up to 100 times. They were given the run-around and, after months, they had to give up and lay off staff. Is that contrast not a perfect example of everything that the National Audit Office highlights as being wrong with procurement in this crisis? This is a missed opportunity to have environmentally sustainable production and value for money, with reusable, not single-use, equipment.”
“This is a missed opportunity to support the local economy and workers. Instead, we have imports, not local jobs, and opportunism, with the use of fast-track access to the Government party.”
“Does the Minister regret the fact that the Government abolished the expert trade advisory groups, which were set up to advise the Government on customs and continuity in trade, and were disbanded in July because some of the members refused to sign non-disclosure agreements? Would it not have made more sense to keep the trade advisory groups going to help to avoid the disruption we have been hearing about at the ports and the delays in essential food and manufacturing parts that are being widely reported today?”
“The start of vaccinations is excellent news, and it is excellent news for my constituents that Aintree Hospital is one of the first in the country for the roll-out. The Health Secretary rightly said, “Let’s not blow it.” We still need to fix the gaps in contact tracing and in financial support for those who need to self-isolate. Only 11% of people are being contacted, according to the figures that I am getting, and we still need to learn from contact tracing in east Asia. Will he put resources into local public health teams, which are much better placed to fill those gaps, so that contact tracing plays its part while we wait for the roll-out of the vaccine across the country?”
“How will that enable A-level students to compete fairly for university places, and will it be fair to GCSE students? Those are the questions for the Minister and Secretary of State. I am incredibly proud of Alex for launching his petition. He has done a terrific job in highlighting this issue and he deserves enormous credit. We should encourage our young people to do as he has done. I hope that his getting 169,000 people to join him in signing the petition is the kind of impetus the Minister needs to take the action that all our children and young people need to have a fair crack this year.”
“Given the reform, we know it will be difficult to deliver the kind of classroom assessment that the current Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster put through when he was Education Secretary, whereas it is possible in Wales. There are alternatives to exams, and the Government will have to come up with an alternative, just in case the infection rate increases and we are not able to see a fair system for exams. We have not heard that so far, and we have yet to see exactly how they propose to make exams work. Unless they do—this is a point that was made to me by Alex—we will have a real imbalance between the nations of the United Kingdom, whereby children in England will face real unfairness and inequality. They will face a system whereby grades are being awarded in Scotland and Wales on a different basis.”
“For students taking eight or nine GCSEs, that will be a drop in the ocean. I am afraid that having advance notice or support in the exam hall will not make the slightest difference. If a student taking an exam does not understand the topic, it does not matter how much notice they get or how much help they get in the exam hall—they will not be able to answer the questions. I am afraid that setting up a working group, which was the big reveal from the Government, really does not go far enough at this stage. The Government have to answer quickly some serious questions about how this will all work, how the catch-up will be possible and how it will be possible for all children and young people to have a fair chance at their exams in the summer. The Government need to have a plan B in place.”
“Much of that still applies, if not the point about whether exams should go ahead, because there has been a serious gap between those children and young people who have had very good access, like Alex, and those in the north-west who have had to go home and self-isolate on up to five different occasions since just September. It is hard to see how those children and young people will catch up. The Government announced the national tutoring programme, but the hon. Member pointed out that that funding is over two years, not one, and it is being introduced very late. There are questions about why it took so long, and about where the tutors will come from. How much support will be available? One headteacher in my constituency said that, as far as she can tell, it will be 15 hours for one subject only.”
“He was demonstrating his solidarity with many of his friends—people who live in the same street as him—who are not in such a fortunate position as he has been: he is one of only five students in his school who have not had to self-isolate at any time since going back in September. Many others are not as fortunate, and many go to other schools where it has been much harder. As the hon. Gentleman said, children have not had the online support, and they have not had the in-school support either. That is the context in which Alex launched the petition. Because of the missed hours between 23 March and the end of the summer term last year, he did not see how it was possible for the exams to take place this year.”
“Sadly, too many teachers and other school staff have died. I wanted to take part in this debate because of my constituent, Alex D’Arcy. The hon. Gentleman mentioned him. He lives just around the corner from me, and I have known him on and off since he was about eight. I did not know that he had started the petition in August; I had absolutely no involvement whatsoever in encouraging him to do it, but I am thrilled that he did. When I spoke to him last week, he had not realised how quickly the petition had grown. He had not looked at it for several months, and suddenly 169,000 people had signed it.”
“I am really pleased that we are having this debate, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) for introducing the petitions so well. This is a really difficult time for all students and their parents, just as it is for everybody else. We know of the uncertainty and damage that will be done if the right provision is not available. I agree with the hon. Member that it is absolutely right that schools stay open. I point out that all schools, or nearly all schools, have been open all the way through since 23 March for the children of essential workers and for many other children from disadvantaged backgrounds. We should all pay tribute to staff, who have worked incredibly hard, have been on the frontline, are essential workers and have often been infected with covid.”
“Did they not know that one of the key elements of negotiation is to understand what the negotiating partner will ask for? Is it any surprise that they have asked for level playing field protections, given the breach of faith and the breaking of international law?”
“What are we being asked to do by the Government this evening? We are being asked to break international law, albeit in a “limited and specific” way. It is still breaking international law. It tears up a deal that was negotiated by this Prime Minister, put to the people of this country by this Prime Minister and voted on by every single Member of the governing party earlier this year. It is not just about breaking international law; it is a breach of trust with the same partners with whom we are now 24 days away from ending a transition period and with whom we desperately need to conclude a deal. Did not those Government Members who are sitting laughing at the prospect of no deal and its effect on the jobs and prosperity of their constituents anticipate the European Union’s reaction to the Government’s proposal to breach international law?”
“We will be in no position to lecture anyone on the world stage if we go ahead and break international law. Our credibility will be shot. How will investors be able to trust that their investment will be safe in this country if we are prepared to tear these things up so readily? Who will trust our word? Who will believe anything we say? Who overseas will believe in this country? Our people deserve better than this. For the sake of the jobs and livelihoods of the people I represent and the people that those on the Government Benches represent, I say to the Government: do not allow no deal to happen. If they fail, the British people will remember who was responsible and they will blame the Prime Minister. They will hold him responsible and they will hold Conservative Members responsible, too.”
“No deal will be disastrous. It will be disastrous for those workers in the car industry, whom the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Gary Sambrook) mentioned. It will be disastrous for livelihoods and for national security as well. It will be disastrous for security in Northern Ireland if the Good Friday agreement is upended, and it will be disastrous for the prospects of future trade agreements. In the United States, President-elect Biden has already made clear what it would mean to him if the Good Friday agreement is threatened by this Bill. As for our reputation and authority on the world stage, prior to this debate we had an urgent question on Hong Kong. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) mentioned those countries mentioned by Lord Howard.”
“That is exactly right, and it was the right hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) who pointed out to Government Members that they all voted for the withdrawal agreement that they now want to abandon. Most people believed the Prime Minister’s guarantee—that he had an oven-ready deal for them—when they voted for him in last year’s general election. This is not about ignorance or dishonesty, as the right hon. Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) would have us believe; it is about the shameful abandonment of the trust of the people of this country. If no deal is the consequence, people will remember the promise made by Conservative Members when they were elected last year on the back of the Prime Minister’s promise. They must move on from this. They have 24 days left and the clock is ticking.”
“The regulations will only work if they are supported by a proper test, trace, isolate and support regime. That must see the financial support I have mentioned, but it must also end the delays in getting the contacts from the centralised call centres to local government and feeding them back in, because at the moment that communication problem is causing delays. It is still one of the contributory factors to 500,000 people a month not being contacted. If these problems are not addressed, I am afraid we still face the bleakest of midwinters.”
“Where are the military personnel to deliver this, whether it is called mass testing or community testing, elsewhere? That mass testing has only been in the city of Liverpool, not in the other five boroughs. My constituents have been able to access it when they have gone into Liverpool, but not in our own borough. The experience in the poorest areas has been that the lack of financial support has stopped people self-isolating because they have not been able to. The Government must address that if they want people to be able to self- isolate. The same is true of people who are self-employed, freelancers or people who run their own firms who have run out of money and have not had support since March. This must be addressed if we are to get through to the vaccine, which is really what these regulations are about—giving us a way forward.”
“I start by saying thank you to my constituents and the people of the city region for their hard work, their solidarity and the way they have come together to reduce the infection rate; thank you to the NHS staff in our hospitals in particular, who have reduced the number of people in hospitals with covid illness; and thank you to our council staff and to the military for administering the mass testing pilots and, in the case of the council staff, for taking on some of the responsibility for contact tracing too. As I have said, the experience leaves clues about what has not worked as well. Mass testing is not the whole answer by any means. It is part of the reason we are now in tier 2 instead of tier 3, as is the fact that we went into tier 3 so early, but it has taken 2,000 military personnel to administer mass testing.”
“I am very pleased that my constituents in Sefton Central are now in tier 2, because they were in the old tier 3. What I want to say today is that the experience of my constituents, who live in one of the six boroughs of the Liverpool city region that are in that position, leaves clues about what has worked and what has been missing.”
“Yesterday, the Chancellor told me that the Government grants to councils to use to support their local economies could be used “as they see fit”, but that was not true, because many freelancers and self-employed people do not qualify for schemes such as the one announced by the Liverpool City Region Mayor, Steve Rotheram. These people do not qualify for the national schemes, they do not qualify for the local schemes, and they do not quality for universal credit either. So will the Leader of the House confirm that the Chancellor was wrong yesterday? Will the Leader of the House admit that it is time the Government stepped up and dealt with the burning injustice facing so many of our working people who have been left behind in this crisis?”
“The Chancellor said that my hon. Friends were wrong about the number of working people excluded from financial support. It is the freelancers and the self-employed who have not had any support who think that he is wrong. In the Liverpool city region, the Mayor, Steve Rotheram, has found a package to support some of the people who have been excluded. When will the Chancellor step up, support Steve Rotheram, Andy Burnham and the other Labour leaders in local government, and put a support package together? He has to admit that these people have not qualified for furlough, self-employed support or business grants, and most of them are not eligible for universal credit. When is he going to end this burning injustice?”
“The Prime Minister said that he plans to extend mass testing. Some 2,000 military personnel were needed to deliver mass testing in Liverpool, and they were not able to extend it to the rest of the five boroughs in the city region. They are now due to return to other duties. Meanwhile, other public sector workers are flat out on the crisis already, so what is the plan for rolling out mass testing? Would it not be better to concentrate on getting contact tracing right?”
“The Government say that they want to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, but some of its members allow growth hormones, genetically modified food in animal foodstuffs and insanitary conditions for animals. The CPTPP is already in operation, of course, and trade is permitted between its members on the basis of lower animal welfare and food production standards. How does the Minister plan to renegotiate the CPTPP to exclude the lower animal welfare and food production standards it contains, given that existing members of CPTPP say that they will not allow new members to change the agreement?”
“Officials advised the Secretary of State to choose “relatively few” low- priority towns. My constituents in Crosby accept that Crosby did not qualify because it was just outside the top 100. What they do not understand is why Southport—456 the on the list—qualified and met the criteria that the Secretary of State described earlier. Will he confirm once and for all that the only politicisation on view today is the allocation of the towns fund to Tory key seats such as Southport?”
“Many of my constituents have taken part in the Liverpool mass testing pilots, but they need to know that the tests being used are accurate. Reports in The Times that suggest very high levels of both false positives and false negatives are deeply worrying, so can the Secretary of State tell us what steps he is taking to ensure that the tests being used in the mass testing are indeed accurate?”
“They are concerned about what that market access means in practice.”
“Those US healthcare companies have a responsibility to maximise shareholder wealth—as do all companies, of course—so they are only doing what they must do, and that means looking further afield. It means looking with great interest at the national health service. We know that they do that, did it and will continue to do it—for the next few days anyway, with the support of the Trump Administration. Yes, it is welcome news that we have President-elect Biden, hopefully, to take over—court cases notwithstanding —on 20 January, but this petition was signed when President Trump was in office and the petitioners had no way of knowing whether that would change. The petitioners are concerned about the US objectives published in March. They are concerned about the market access being requested by US negotiators for pharmaceuticals.”
“The concerns raised by the petitioners would be relatively easily dealt with were the Minister, in a few minutes’ time, to commit not just to what he has said before about the NHS being off the table, but to putting protections in the Trade Bill—to passing in the House of Lords the amendments that were turned down in this place and retaining them when the Bill comes back here in the next few days or weeks. That would be the simplest way of dealing with what the petitioners are asking for. The petitioners are concerned about the American healthcare system, the size and scale of the industry in America, the fact that it accounts for one in eight jobs in the United States, its importance to the US economy and its importance to shareholders.”
“It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) on introducing the petition to us. I also thank my hon. Friends for their excellent speeches. We heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley), for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) and for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins). The petition is about omitting the NHS from future trade deals with the US.”