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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“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have been very supportive of those of us who have raised the plight of children in care and care leavers. As I think you know, I chair the all-party group on looked-after children and care leavers. It meets about every six weeks, and it invariably books the Boothroyd room because of the high level of interest and the fact that 90 young people, with additional adults in support, travel to its meetings from all over the country. There is invariably standing room only. I have been advised that the room booking for next week’s meeting has been taken by the Liaison Committee. I understand the process by which these things happen, but no other room in the House can accommodate such large numbers. As you know, Mr Speaker, this is an incredibly important area.”
“I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He is talking about the support needed by small business, which, as he said, is vital all year round. Does he agree that the Small Business Saturday team is becoming more of an all-year-round support and is securing support, not least with its bus tour, which has travelled throughout the country for many weeks, to show that support is needed every day of the year, not only on 5 December?”
“To show the cross-party consensus on this issue, may I congratulate Sefton on providing free parking throughout December for the very purpose that the Minister describes?”
“The Minister mentioned the importance of staff training in his initial answer, and I wonder whether he could comment further on the importance of building awareness and understanding among teaching staff, so that children with autism and many other children with poor mental health and other additional needs really get an opportunity to develop and thrive in mainstream schools?”
“I commend my right hon. Friend for the bravery he has shown this morning in his moving description of his own experiences and what happened to his dad. He is asking the Minister a list of things. As he mentioned, I chair the all-party group on foetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Will he include in his list of asks the children of alcoholic mothers who drink during pregnancy? We need the awareness and support that he has been talking about to be applied to that group as well.”
“Let me begin by responding to what was said about the deficit by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk). We should judge the Conservatives by their own record. In 2010, the Chancellor said that he would get rid of the deficit in one term; that target rapidly disappeared. He then said that he would halve the deficit in one term, a plan that was clearly shown to have failed when it was down by only a third at the time of the election. He then moved the target to 2019, and then to 2020. When it suits him, the Chancellor changes his mind and his measure as much as he can on the deficit, so it is clearly not as important as Conservative Members claim.”
“Of course we need to get rid of the deficit so that we can start reducing the debt, but it must be done in a way that is sustainable, and that can only happen if we grow the economy. The Government have presided over the slowest recovery on record. Tax receipts are an indicator of the health and productivity— [Interruption.]”
“Let us not rely on a charter that is economically illiterate and undermines economic success and prosperity.”
“If this Government ran a business, they would not take out a loan to buy a new van or a new piece of machinery. The Government have signed deals with the Chinese Government to build and run our new nuclear industry. They are happy for foreign Governments to invest in this country, but not for our own to do so. That is a strange way to do business, because in the end these sums of money will have to be repaid, it seems, through much higher energy prices paid by those very same people the Government say they worry about in terms of the deficit. This is a Chinese form of private finance initiative by any other name. Let us have a debate about borrowing, the best value for money and the best way of investing in the future of this country.”
“They do not believe in investing for the long term or in following the good practice of businesses in seeking a return on investment in the form of growth and increased tax receipts as the way to higher living standards and deficit reduction. The Government say that they will not borrow money at all and won a vote in this House to confirm their view. The Chancellor used to say that fiscal responsibility charters were the mark of a lack of confidence in a Government’s own policies; not any more, however, because they forced that through the House. The “fiscal irresponsibility charter”, as it is better known, is the equivalent of the Government saying that if they were a householder they would not take out a mortgage to buy a home and they would have to buy a house out of their annual salary.”
“They understand the need to invest in new equipment, property and skills. They develop a business plan. They invest capital and pay it back from the proceeds of growth. Households do something similar, whether through student loans to invest in skills or borrowing money to buy a house; they invest for the future. We take out a mortgage typically over about 25 years and the bank or building society works out whether we can afford the interest payments and the capital repayment over the term of the mortgage. Government should invest in the future, just as business does, and just as homeowners do. The lack of an industrial strategy is clear in how the steel industry has been abandoned. The Government do not seem to believe in having a business plan for the economy at all.”
“The economy was recovering strongly in 2010 as a result of the stimulus injected by that Government, but it came to a juddering halt with the emergency Budget of June 2010, when investment in capital infrastructure projects was stopped. In 2010, other countries continued their stimulus package for far longer, and businesses, jobs and the wider economies of those countries saw the benefits. So what should happen now? Let us look at what businesses say. They say that they want to see investment in infrastructure, energy, transport, broadband and, especially, skills. They say that they need those skills so that they can grow and pay good wages. That is what the CBI says, it is what the EEF says, and it is what the Federation of Small Businesses says. When businesses want to grow, they invest.”
“The fact that the current Chancellor supported Labour spending plans before the crisis says what needs to be said about the claims that have been made ever since. Conservative Members know that the crisis was a financial one, not a Government one. They also know that the Chancellor was calling for less regulation of the banks, not more, in the run-up to that same crisis. The fact is that in 2010 we had half the level of unemployment, half the number of home repossessions, and half the number of business bankruptcies that we saw during the Tory recessions of the 1980s and 1990s, precisely because the Labour Government intervened to support and protect people, businesses and jobs.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I was saying, the Government have presided over the slowest recovery on record. Tax receipts are an indicator of the health and productivity of the economy, and they fell as a result of the financial crisis. In the United States, Germany, France and Canada, they had returned to pre-crisis levels by 2013, while in the United Kingdom they remained 15% below those levels. Meanwhile, the Tories have claimed that the financial crisis was the result of public spending—the result of recruiting nurses and doctors, and building new schools and hospitals. In fact, spending in this country was below the average among similar advanced western economies. The crisis was caused by an actual financial crisis, not by Government spending.”
“The all-party group on foetal alcohol spectrum disorders took evidence last week about the link between alcohol consumed by mothers during pregnancy and the growing incidence of learning disability and autism. In Canada, this has been widely known for many years, and the Canadian Government at national and federal levels have invested heavily in raising awareness. When can we expect the same in this country?”
“Only 3% of dairy suppliers supply direct to supermarkets, so there is a special case to be made. There is also a special case to be made for supporting the dairy industry in the longer term. In fact, the Secretary of State spoke in January of doing all that she could to ensure resilience in the dairy sector. If only the same vote of confidence and support had been given to the steel industry, I am sure that steelworkers would feel much better. [ Interruption. ] The Minister waves me away with that dismissive air she does so badly.”
“If producers are unable to stay in business due to unfair business practices by major retailers, main suppliers or both, we may lose good producers. If we lose good producers of quality goods, consumers will ultimately lose out. The Chair of the Select Committee made the point that we have some of the finest food and standards in the world, and we want to retain those, but if our short-term actions threaten them, consumers will lose out in the end, which is no good to anyone. If the actions of retailers lead through the supply chain to that end, retailers will lose choice as well, thus losing out themselves. It is in nobody’s interest for such things not to be sorted out. I will not go into the issue of dairy pricing in too much depth, other than to say that it is a particularly important issue.”
“She has also made it clear that she cannot possibly cover the 300,000 suppliers in the supply chain, unless of course the scale of operations is dramatically altered, as is being demanded in this debate. The Government said in their response to the previous Government’s consultation that they wanted to act in consumers’ long-term interest. I am sure that all of us agree with that now, when the adjudicator has been in post for some years, but the reality is that a system where there is quarterly reporting to the stock market and a very short-term approach, and where management are judged on short-term results, either quarterly or annually, leads to actions that can have drastic effects on suppliers throughout the supply chain. Short-term actions can also have long-term consequences.”
“Will she comment on the adjudicator’s inability to investigate where there is a possibility that a complainant’s identity might become known to the retailer, and how she might improve how that aspect of the adjudicator’s role is carried out? The way the adjudicator is set up acknowledges that particular problem without solving it. According to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, there are 7,000 direct suppliers, all of which are covered by the adjudicator, and a further 300,000-plus indirect suppliers, which are not. That issue has arisen again and again in this debate, and Members want it to be addressed, as those smaller suppliers are excluded from the remit of the Groceries Code Adjudicator. The adjudicator has made it clear that she has a small office and spends much of her time explaining what she can and cannot do.”
“The adjudicator says that she believes that being in post has on its own acted as a deterrent, and that the existence of the office has alone made a difference. However, many suppliers still say that they are unfairly treated by large retailers. We have heard about anonymous complaints and suppliers’ concerns about retribution if they are identified. Again, the Chair of the Select Committee made the strong point that it is all too easy to identify who a complainant might be. The adjudicator has said that a lack of trust is a barrier to suppliers who might have complaints. Suppliers all want the ability to raise concerns free from the fear of reprisals. I am sure that the Minister would agree that minimising the danger of retaliation by retailers is essential if the adjudicator is to be effective.”
“To gain market share, the supermarkets loss-lead milk, bread and other products and they have promotions on many individual lines. When retailers cut prices, the question can arise of who pays and what the knock-on effect will be—a point made well by the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish). Retailing runs on tight margins, so the pressure to cut costs in the supply chain is understandable. Ensuring that such pressure does not unfairly affect suppliers is a key responsibility of the adjudicator. There is a voluntary code of conduct in the dairy industry, and the Competition and Markets Authority also has responsibility to help smaller suppliers. To be fair, since the Groceries Code Adjudicator was set up the number of suppliers saying that they have problems with retailers has fallen.”
“The Labour Government launched a consultation in February 2010, and the coalition Government responded by announcing plans for an adjudicator to enforce the groceries supply code of practice. Many people raised concerns at the time about the watering-down of the role from the recommended ombudsman to an adjudicator, and those comments have been echoed by a number of Members today. It is perhaps no surprise that we have returned to that point because, as the hon. Gentleman said, an adjudicator working three days a week with a team of five will struggle to look after 300,000-plus suppliers in the retail supply chain. The expectations go way beyond the adjudicator’s ability to deliver. Major retailers operate in a competitive market.”
“I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) on securing this debate, which has been remarkable because we have had unanimity across multiple parties. I am fascinated to hear how the Minister will deal with the overwhelming demand for improvement in the remit of the Groceries Code Adjudicator that has been clearly expressed by all Members who have spoken today. I can only agree with many of their comments. The Groceries Code Adjudicator was set up by Act of Parliament in 2013 following complaints by suppliers, smaller retailers and commentators about unfairness in retailing. A code of practice was introduced in 2001 and in 2008 the then Competition Commission recommended the creation of a statutory body to oversee and enforce a strengthened code.”
“I am sure that the Minister will have a response. What is needed in the sector is a level playing field that benefits consumers, suppliers and retailers in the long term. The Minister should ensure that the adjudicator and others, including Ministers, intervene in the short term to ensure long-term success. The adjudicator review is due in March. I hope, as I am sure do all Members who have spoken, that when the review is concluded, changes will be made that address the concerns raised here and by those in the supply chain on behalf of business and consumers. I look forward to hearing her response.”
“The Minister’s so-called consultation scrapped the promised parallel rent assessment, so I am pleased to hear that she has put that back in. Will she do the same with all the provisions that were offered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe in the other House on 28 January and make sure that the vast majority of pub tenants are offered a fair deal when it comes to the market rent-only option? If she does not, she will be acting in bad faith and she will have betrayed the trust of thousands of pub tenants up and down the country.”
“The Aintree ratepayers association and neighbourhood watch is a non-party political organisation and wrote to me to say: “It is, in our view, ‘criminal’ that such significant deep-rooted budget reductions are being considered, it demonstrates what value the Government places upon community safety and cohesion and totally sends out the ‘wrong message’ to those who do not want to abide by the mores of civilised society.” I could not have put it better myself.”
“Businesses can employ ex-offenders only if those ex-offenders have the skills that businesses need. Will the Minister therefore ensure that the shortage of staff in prisons—the shortage appears to be making it more difficult for prisoners to take part in education—is addressed as quickly as possible, which must happen if the scheme is to be successful?”
“The Minister seems to have forgotten that not only are people under the age of 25 losing their tax credits, but they will not receive the higher minimum wage when it is introduced next year. Does not the tax credit cut mean that the Tories really are not the party for workers, and does that not apply doubly to young people?”
“The very welcome creation of the National Training Academy for Rail will help to plug some of the skills shortage, which is behind many of the delays to electrification, but does the Minister share my concern that the proposed 40% cut to the budget of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will undermine the academy’s ability to deliver on the skills shortages?”
“T7. Many of my constituents rely on the No. 44 bus to get to Southport hospital, but the service has been axed as a result of cuts by the Secretary of State’s Department. He talked earlier about the opportunity of having directly elected mayors, but is it not the case that if the cuts continue, the additional powers will be meaningless and of no help to my constituents or to anybody else?”
“I was going to make that very point. My hon. Friend makes a powerful speech about the tremendous legacy of Harold Wilson for this country and for Opposition Members. Harold Wilson, when he was first elected, represented Ormskirk, as my hon. Friend mentioned. Much of that constituency is now in my own constituency, and people in that area are extremely proud of the legacy that Harold gave to us. The parallel with today is striking. Does my hon. Friend agree that we have much to learn from Harold Wilson about the need to develop our skills base in this country, not least the management skills he just mentioned?”
“Carers save the taxpayer a great deal of money, as well as often being the best option for the children they are looking after, so in addition to the publication by local authorities of their practice, will the Minister ensure that those local authorities have the resources they need to support kinship carers, both to save the taxpayer money and to do what is right for the carers and the children in the short as well as longer term?”
“Tourism is worth £3.8 billion and 49,000 jobs to the Liverpool city region. Attractions include the Gormley statues on Crosby beach in my constituency, which I hope the Secretary of State will visit, if he has not already done so. However, those who go to the VisitEngland website would be forgiven for thinking that everything is about London; apart from the odd reference, there is nothing about the rest of the country. Will he address that point and ensure that Government investment and support goes to the tourism industry across the country?”
“Some 23% of the adult prison population were in care as children and many of them have poor mental health. Will the Minister ensure that mental health services are in place for children in care to make the greatest contribution possible to improving their life chances, and not least to ensure we reduce the numbers ending up in prison?”
“My hon. Friend makes a good point about the importance of protecting specialist services. My wife and I took advantage of one such excellent adoption agency when we adopted our children, so I speak from personal experience. What concerns me slightly is that if we wait for a report to see what has happened, it could be too late. How quickly does he envisage these proposals being implemented? How early would he want the report to be produced, so that it was not too late to protect the high-quality services to which he rightly refers?”
“I am glad my hon. Friend has raised that point, and I saw the Minister nodding earlier. I have had cases drawn to my attention of kinship carers taking advantage of respite care using foster care, only to say, because of financial hardship, that they are not taking the children back into their family. Does this not highlight how important it is that the Minister address these issues of funding and support, and that adoption is not the only form of permanence addressed in the Bill?”
“At risk of drawing too much on my own experience, my hon. Friend has sadly described some of the things that my wife and I have come across, as I know have many other adoptive parents, foster carers and kinship carers. My hon. Friend started to talk about mental health services. Will he join me in making a plea to the Government to make a dramatic effort to improve the quality of mental health services for children and adolescents? The investment and the effort must be made to recruit and train the dedicated staff who are needed. Adoptive parents and foster carers cannot on their own give children—who, as my hon. Friend says, are often damaged—the support and care that they require for their psychological development and other needs.”
“Not the least of the issues that the Minister should address is the desperate need for an improvement in child and adolescent mental health services, which the Leader of the Opposition raised at Prime Minister’s Question Time. CAMHS provides vital services. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak that the psychological needs of children entering the care system should be assessed and supported every bit as much as their physical needs. I was heartened by what the Prime Minister said today about the importance of addressing people’s mental health needs as much as their physical needs, and I hope that that will be the Government’s direction of travel in health policy generally.”
“May I say how much I agree with what my hon. Friend said, particularly at the end of his speech? I want to see better outcomes for adopted children and I hope the provisions in the Bill will help to achieve that—it is important to say that. As we discussed in Committee, the overall approach to permanence in improving the life outcomes of children, whether they are adopted or in other forms of permanence, must be addressed. I share my hon. Friend’s desire to see the Minister back at the Dispatch Box as soon as possible, proposing improvements in permanence in foster care, kinship care, special guardianship arrangements and residential children’s care, which, as the Education Committee pointed out in its report last Session, has been a cause of particular concern.”
“However, a danger arises from the fact that adoption has been given so much prominence in this Bill—it is the only form of permanence addressed in the Bill. This concern is reinforced by steps such as the closure of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering and the loss of jobs in the sector, as well as the hard times faced by the voluntary agencies and by local authorities due to the financial constraints they face. We run the risk of moving in the wrong direction and jeopardising having the support in place through a well-trained workforce, and having the right numbers of adopters and foster carers coming forward to look after children who end up in care and who need the stability and long-term support that should be available to them.”
“I hope that, as a result of the Bill, the shortage of adoptive parents and the difficulty of recruiting them will be addressed. Perhaps that could be included in the report to which the amendment refers. Perhaps the report could include information about how well the agencies that are envisaged are doing in recruiting in general terms, and also about what has happened to children who have been to some of the specialist smaller agencies that were mentioned by my hon. Friend. It is evident that unless prospective adopters come forward, very little can be done about adoption, and I hope that that will be one of the outcomes of the Government’s proposals. Approaches such as concurrent planning and fostering to adopt have succeeded in improving outcomes for children who end up in the care system.”
“That is an important point. The delay in a child’s being placed permanently, whether through fostering, adoption or any other form of permanence, can certainly contribute to psychological damage, which can be characterised as neglect or in other ways. An improvement in the speed of decision making is essential. We debated that in some detail in Committee. One cause for concern is the problem of delays in the court system, and in the making of decisions on whether or not children should stay with their birth families. I think that professionals, along with the courts, should decide as quickly as possible whether children should stay with their birth families or move into other forms of permanence. The children’s long-term needs must always take priority.”
“The Minister mentioned the pupil premium plus. I commend him for that, because it has been a very successful initiative in schools, providing support for individual children in care and for former children in care—so adopted children qualify, too. To come back to the point I was making, the problem has been that we do not have the mental health professionals and qualified child psychologists to do the work that is needed in the timely fashion or to the level that is needed—that goes back to the point made by the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland). That is why we need to recruit and train the qualified professionals in those sectors, so that we can make the most of that investment.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. One of the issues that I have raised is the evidence of the prevalence of foetal alcohol spectrum disorders and the very high numbers of looked-after children and adopted children who appear to have that condition. Will he ensure that awareness and support for those caring for those children is part of what he has been talking about?”
“We have a shortage of technical skills, not least in engineering and construction. According to employers, the Government’s focus on the number of apprenticeships amounts to little more than a re-badging of existing in-work training courses. When will the Government take the necessary action to deliver the high skills that are needed to boost productivity, growth and living standards in this country?”
“On that point, the Institute for Fiscal Studies figures that were given to the Treasury Committee show that the average gain is only £200 for the 8.4 million working age households who are estimated to lose £750 through this measure. Does that not show that the Conservatives’ claim of being the party of working people is a complete fraud?”
“Is the hon. Gentleman familiar with what the International Monetary Fund has said about the benefits of collective bargaining when it comes to economic success and prosperity? The Government are clearly either unaware of the IMF’s support for strong trade unions or not interested in having strong trade unions.”
“In the previous Parliament a number of Ministers accepted evidence from the Education Committee that a better measure than free school meals might be parental attainment, when trying to support disadvantaged children. Will the Secretary of State look at that measure and see if it is a better way of targeting resources at those children who most need the support of Government?”
“I wonder whether, like me, my hon. Friend has heard the Minister more than once today use the phrase “academies and schools”, which suggests that he does not regard academies as schools. Does my hon. Friend agree that if I were a parent—in fact, I am a parent—”
“I am extremely concerned to hear that one of my children goes to something that the Minister of State does not regard as a school. What does that say about his attitude and the Government’s education policies?”