Valerie Vaz
MP for Walsall and Bloxwich · Labour · United Kingdom
“May I ask the Leader of the House if we can have a debate in Government time on the best use of public money? Some £50 million has been allocated for a free school—against Government policy and against the evidence.”
“This House has heard, sadly, the comments that the Minister has made about the Government pressing this case. He will know that it was pressure from this House, and from the families, that caused the release of the other hostages in Iran. Will he undertake, as the hon.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately). I will try to address some of the points she made, but I am bound to mention the recent elections. Engaging in the democratic process is important, but not all areas had elections.”
“Fifty million pounds has been allocated for a free school in my constituency that, on the evidence, is not needed. The National Audit Office has reported falling rolls in primary schools, and that fall in numbers will feed into secondary schools. I was told that the decision about the school was made in 2017.”
“Despite what the evidence shows, there will be building on Reedswood Park, which is not what local people want. It is the same with the Walsall Leather Museum, a beloved local cultural and heritage icon; the deal with the then Conservative-controlled council was a novel and contentious transaction, made against the wishes of visitors, con…”
“We are the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, so it is very important that we all work together. When it comes to climate change policies, we cannot specify a particular area; they are for our whole country, and our whole planet.”
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“The arch-Brexiter Sir Jim Ratcliffe does not care about sovereignty—he is taking his business to Germany. When will the Prime Minister come back to the House and explain exactly what is going on? Can he do that on Monday? Where is the vaccine Minister? I know he was sitting with the Secretary of State for Health at one point, but we have not heard anything from him. The vaccine tsar has resigned. She has appointed her deputy and then given out money to friends of the Government. Nobody has come to the House to tell us what is happening about the roll-out of the vaccine and the criteria that are going to be used. Why is the vaccine Minister so silent? I do not know whether the Leader of the House has seen it, but on Monday the Procedure Committee published its report, “Procedure under coronavirus restrictions”.”
“When I asked the Leader of the House a fortnight ago, he said that he would be announcing the recess in the normal manner, but these are not normal times. We have a confluence of events—covid and Brexit—all coming at the same time. This uncertainty is not good for the House, but it is also not good for businesses. Listen to the Food and Drink Federation’s chief executive, who said at the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee: “How on earth can traders prepare in this environment?” We were promised frictionless trade, but what we got was lorry parks, red tape, forms and a border in the Irish sea. The Government reneged on the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, then on Monday asked the troops to vote for something, only to change their mind on Tuesday.”
“Yes—thank you. I do not think there has ever been a time like this when it comes to the usual courtesies that help the working of this House, respect democracy and respect the Opposition. This is absolutely chaotic: we knew more about the menu for the dinner yesterday than we did about the business of the House for the forthcoming week. I ask the Leader of the House, for the fourth time, when he expects the current parliamentary Session to end and when the House will rise for the Christmas recess. He mentioned the recess Adjournment debate, but that is not the same. This is an incredible discourtesy to the staff of the House, who, as Mr Speaker pointed out, have worked so hard to keep us going. They need to prepare. They need to check on childcare; there are all sorts of arrangements they need to make.”
“But the key thing is that insurers are not even paying out. This is force majeure: this is a pandemic. Could the Secretary of State come and make an announcement on how schools will be supported? I know we had Transport questions earlier, but may I ask the Leader of the House, given that there is going to be a border in the Irish sea, if he will take up the Irish Government’s suggestion that Father Christmas gets a travel corridor and is an essential worker? Finally, let us remember people with disabilities. It is the International Day of People with Disabilities, but every day should be a day of disabilities, as we make this world more accessible for everyone.”
“A Minister in the other place, I think, said that they are not going to do that. It is like telling us all not to eat the sweets while the Government raid the sweetie jar behind our backs. I know that the Secretary of State for Education has already been here, but on Friday he announced special funding for schools for the short-term covid workforce. That was put on the website on Friday, when the House was not sitting. Then there was a written statement on Monday. Could the Secretary of State come back and explain exactly why schools have not been compensated for everything from the time they were allowed to open in September? They have had to pay for heating—they have to keep schools ventilated, as well as keeping up with the heating costs—and PPE, and some of them are putting food bags together for their children.”
“In Walsall, we were in tier 2, infection rates came down, hospital admissions came down, but now we are in tier 3 in with Birmingham. I know that the Leader of the House has got special dispensation for parts of north Somerset to be taken out of tier 3. I think they were linked with Bristol. I believe the Secretary of State for Health has said he is going to look at that on 16 December, so that Somerset is all in one group. How do we do that in Walsall? Can the Government now release all the data modelling of the sectoral impacts and potential job losses as a result of the tier lockdowns? Even Ministers do not know the difference between tiers—I think it is called the Scotch egg test. But surely it cannot be right that details of contracts given under the pandemic will not be allowed to be published.”
“Will the vaccines tsar now be accountable to the Minister and will the Minister be accountable to us? Could the Minister make a statement next week, so we know exactly where we are on the roll-out of the vaccine? Yesterday, the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisations published its criteria. Care UK has asked that unpaid carers be vaccinated immediately, and I do not know what the process is for feeding that into the Committee. Black and minority ethnic communities have also been hard hit by the virus, and we should look at that, as well as multi-generational households. The Government seemed to be fighting the rebellion this week rather than the virus, and almost 3 million people, despite the spending review, have been excluded from Government support. People are confused.”
“The approval of the vaccine has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, so I hope the Leader of the House will take back his tweet. It is great that the vaccine has been authorised and will be rolled out next week, and I want to pay tribute to all the scientists, the lab technicians and the volunteers who stuck their arms out to keep us safe. It is a reminder that certain things know no boundaries and that people can work together for the common good of humanity. I always think that the Opposition are very constructive, so I am pleased that the Government have taken up the suggestion of a Minister for vaccines. What I am concerned about is that he is doing two jobs. We had a Minister for snow, although I do not think many people will remember that, and a Minister for floods, and they just did that one job.”
“I thank the Leader of the House for the business, but it is dummy business, because there is a dummy Bill next week I checked in the Vote Office this morning, and I checked online, and it has not even been published. So could the Leader of the House try again when he responds? It is not actually a real Bill. There is a very important day, 16 December, when the EU votes on a final deal. It is also the day that we come out of tiers. I just wonder if 17 December is an appropriate day for the House to be pencilled in to rise. They are two important debates. Could the Leader of the House say exactly when the House is likely to rise? We would like to know because we need to plan. If we are going into the following week, it is important for us to know that. We have had a dummy Bill, but we have also had fake news.”
“I understand that he is popping up in an office near you, Mr Speaker—literally near you. Kylie has been released. Daren Nair of Amnesty International thanked the Australian Parliament and our Parliament for making sure that Kylie’s name was never forgotten, and we want to do the same for Nazanin, Anoosheh, and of course Luke Symons. We want them home before Christmas. Finally, we remember Bruce Boynton of Boynton v. Virginia, one of the first Freedom Riders. May he rest in peace.”
“What about the Secretary of State who gave a job to his friend, who was first unpaid—an unpaid lobbyist—then became a non-exec director, paid with public money, and then received an access all areas pass from another Minister? Could we have an urgent statement? I know the Leader of the House does not like to have people who are overqualified for jobs if they have been members of the Labour party, but having someone who is a friend, who does not go through normal employment practices, is not right. Parliament Week has been a great success. David Clark and the team have undertaken 8,700 activities and reached over 980,000 people. All of them have done a fantastic job explaining our democracy. On behalf of everyone, I thank David Clark and wish him well in his new post.”
“Could we have an urgent statement from the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to continue these discussions, so that we do not lose those vital jobs? This is not a party of law and order; this is not a Government of law and order. On Tuesday, the Secretary of State for Education was found to have acted unlawfully in watering down safeguards for protecting children. He excluded the Children’s Commissioner, among others, from his decision making, and 65 separate legal protections were watered down. Can we have an urgent statement? The Equality and Human Rights Commission found on Wednesday that the hostile environment referred to by the shadow Lord Chancellor breached equalities law.”
“Better still, why do the Government not just give the money to the local authorities on proper criteria, as they have done for years? Those authorities are all in deficit; they have all been struggling. Even better, give the money to key workers. Public sector workers have had a slap in the face in not getting an increase in their salaries, which is just levelling up after 10 years of Tory austerity. Under the spending review, the Chancellor has set out funds to support getting people back to work—the Restart scheme. On Tuesday, there was a joint press release with Ministers and Scottish Ministers saying that a really important company, Burntisland, is going to lose highly skilled, specialist jobs that are here in Scotland. Hundreds of employees do not know whether they have a job or not.”
“I am sure the Leader of the House will know—I know the Government have issues with the Electoral Commission, an independent body—that the shadow Minister for voter engagement and young people, my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), has asked the Electoral Commission about the misuse of public funds in relation to ads in targeted seats just before the election, with majorities of less than 5,000. Votes were told, “You’re going to get £25 million of investment in your town.” If this is going to continue, will the Leader of the House ensure that proper criteria are published? We need to know which Department will be responsible for it, because there are three involved—the Treasury, Transport, and Housing, Communities and Local Government.”
“It states that “the broadcasting hub on the Estate had been substantially improved and augmented”— that means made better and bigger— “with additional offsite capacity.” The House staff think that this can be done. Why do the Government and the Leader of the House not think so? Let us turn to the spending review. The Chancellor has made available £4 billion of a levelling-up fund. It is a bit like a gameshow now, pitting one community against another—“I’m a levelling-up project, gimme the money!” Last week, I raised the NAO report and the possible misuse of public money whereby one Minister gives money to another Minister in the constituency.”
“Could the Leader of the House set out what plans the Government have for re-establishing that Department in are form or another, or maybe keeping the Select Committee as it is, given that it needs to look at overseas development aid? I hope that the Leader of the House will bring back the motion on virtual participation. We all want a much longer debate than we had on Tuesday. Let us remember: it is the Government who prevented participation of our colleagues, pitting one colleague against another through a restrictive and discriminatory definition. It is that stubbornness that is preventing our colleagues from taking part. Let me quote something that I did not have time to quote on Tuesday.”
“May I thank the Leader of the House for the business and ask again about the end of the Session? Obviously, that is not going to be in November. I can only assume it will be May, but it would be helpful to know, particularly as we would quite like another Opposition day. I think ours was taken away last time. May I ask for a statement, again, on the progress of the EU talks from the Prime Minister? I think he has stopped shielding, or hiding from the ERG or CRG or whichever group we have now. We may be in lockdown, but we are not in a Government news lockdown. The Department for International Development has been abolished and we know that it has gone into the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. I know that it is unusual to take points of order before statements, but this is a matter of extreme importance. At 11.14 am, it was announced that people could find out which tier they were in via a journalist, rather than the statement to the House. I know that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is standing outside the Chamber. This is an appalling way to treat Parliament. Could I have your advice on whether that was an appropriate thing to do? The website has crashed because everybody is on it. There is no point in our being in the Chamber, where we should hear the announcement first—we might as well be sitting remotely, which the Leader of the House is not allowing. Could I have your advice on whether this was an appropriate way to deal with important information about the tiers?”
“Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) would be a matter for the panel. That is a policy issue, rather than a judicial issue, and the panel is there to look at cases, rather than to decide on policy.”
“I thank the Leader of the House for moving the motion, and I agree with the majority of his remarks. I draw Members’ attention to the report, which was published on 19 November 2020 on behalf of the House of Commons Commission. It lays out the exact process that the Leader of the House described. My right hon. Friends the Members for North Durham (Mr Jones) and for Warley (John Spellar) made important points. Mr Speaker has said that he would look at this issue, because otherwise we are just getting the usual suspects. For instance, given Black Lives Matter, putting adverts in a slightly different place might be a good idea, and then we would get a broad range of people applying. We thank all those who applied for these posts for agreeing to serve. I am not sure that the issue raised by the right hon.”
“I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments. She leads me to go on to say that Alison Stanley did a brilliant six-month review, and the concern is that not all her recommendations have been implemented. She is looking at the governance of who is responsible—who is the named person—for this whole process. The important part of the process is that it should be transparent and not secretive. I am aware of a number of cases that come through where perhaps the procedure is not fair on both sides—to the respondent and the claimant—but, again, that is a matter for Alison Stanley to look at in her 18-month review. As the Leader of the House said, it is a very simple survey, which can be found online, and it is open until 4 December.”
“Member for South Northamptonshire and I, among others on the working panel—that we would have two separate helplines. I know that there is one helpline for both, but I am reassured that the person answering the phone does have expertise and will have expertise on serious sexual harassment cases. We do not want people to have to repeat their stories over and over again before they are dealt with. As well as Valuing Others training, I know that the House is looking at unconscious bias training, which I hope will be rolled out, and I will just say that Her Majesty’s Opposition’s shadow Cabinet have all been through the unconscious bias training. Other than that, Her Majesty’s Opposition support the motion.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that intervention. I agree with him, and I hope that anybody who has an interest will look at it. That is why the survey is so important. I know that Alison Stanley is open to speaking to people as well, and I am sure that she will take that on board. I am pleased that a lot of hon. Members and House staff have taken up the Valuing Others training; many people on the estate have taken it up. It is so important that they do that, because people can then see the difference between what is a management issue and what is bullying and harassment. Certainly, I was concerned to start with because, as you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, many of the cases that came through at the start were about serious sexual harassment. I think initially, we decided—the right hon.”
“Who is walking around in the background? Have you got the right background? Are you dressed properly? We would rather be here, of course we would, but we cannot be.”
“That is absolutely right. The Prime Minister did say “work from home wherever possible.” —[ Official Report , 23 November 2020; Vol. 684, c. 601.] We can work from home, we have worked from home as Members of Parliament, and other Members of Parliament want to continue to work from home, and that is being denied. We are exposing hon. Members’ families and the hon. Members themselves, who are travelling backwards and forwards. I take umbrage slightly with the Leader of the House. He thinks that if we are doing something remotely, we are not working. I have talked to many hon. Members. Zoom is horrible—whatever anyone says, it is awful. You have to concentrate, you have to stare—it is absolutely terrible. What makes people really nervous about the whole thing is worrying about being late—suppose you have not logged in on time?”
“That was a point of clarification. Perhaps we can include those in the procedure in future. Let me deal with the point made by the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey). The point is that hon. Members cannot take part in the most important part of what we do, which is debate. We are excluding a whole group of hon. Members from taking part in a debate, and to take part in a debate is what they want. The fact is that we had this process and we had this procedure and it worked.”
“One of the broadcasters said to me, “Please say that we are now doing seven to eight hours of virtual proceedings in the House of Lords and they are able to have two Chambers—they are able to have two sets of proceedings going on at the same time.” We have a huge amount of talent, not just in the House, but in the country. We can use that talent to ensure that we here in this Parliament, every single person, no matter what happens, can take part. People will have seen the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), but there are others who perhaps do not want to ask questions and state what their medical conditions are, but who also want to take part. We all have a responsibility to our constituents because we were elected. This is a democracy and we want to take part in every single aspect of our work, and we can.”
“My hon. Friend is right, and that is the point that I was about to come on to. As I started to say, we were the first Parliament to become a virtual Parliament and we were the envy of the world. Other Parliaments have tried to do what we are doing now and what we did previously and what we are sort of on the way to doing. But I think we are doing a great discourtesy to the people who have worked so hard to get us to this stage. Yes, the Leader of the House will say that we broke down; that the House of Lords broke down. They are able to participate in every aspect of their work virtually. They broke down only once in 62 votes. We had a failure at the card reader, too. I do not think that we broke down whenever we had debates and people took part. The point is that the broadcasters have worked so hard to get us to this place.”
“I agree. We did have the good and we did have the perfect, and for some reason we cannot have that any more—although we might because the amendment may be passed. The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), who is not in his place at the minute, said that it is the Opposition, but it is not—this is cross-party. If he looks at the amendment, he will see that it is signed by the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) and that the Procedure Committee has agreed—all sides, all parties.”
“It is world beating, but we do not use the term in the same way as they use it, because all their world-beating test and trace and everything else do not appear to be world beating.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Obviously, I have not put the policy through, so I cannot answer his point, but it is about asking a medical practitioner to say that someone is clinically vulnerable. Let us go back to the broadcasting and how brilliant it is.”
“The plea that we all make is that they want to do so on an equal basis, without having to tell anyone that they are incapacitated in some way, or that they are shielding other people in their family in some way.”
“They do, but we do not necessarily like them—especially when they break down and we are not linking in the right place. The point about broadcasting is important because we have got to the stage where, on Zoom, people can put their hands up, so that could be a form of intervention. People have been able to undertake debates—I think this was mentioned at business questions—and, in some European Parliaments, they have been able to take interventions. If that is the key thing that is stopping the Leader of the House from going to the next stage—making that giant leap—let me say that interventions can be done. However, we know that hon and right hon. Members can take part in debate, because we did it before.”
“Absolutely every single hon. Member or right hon. Member is opening mail, or checking their WhatsApp. They are working. We are all working. We have a completely different job, and it is right that we do that. When people contact us in the workplace when they want reasonable adjustments, that is our job. People contact us because sometimes employers are unreasonable. Sometimes people and institutions are unreasonable. People contact us to write those letters for them to make sure that they can get their work done.”
“I would say: do not look them too closely in the face. We have to be 2 metres apart because that is what the Government guidance say. But the hon. Member is back to the same old thing. We are doing our work. I do not know, but I hope not a single hon. Member does a face-to-face surgery. I started my telephone surgeries in March because I knew this was coming up; we had heard about the pandemic from China in December. So I think it is important, if the Government are going to give out guidance— [Laughter.] I do not think it is very funny when we are talking about people dying of covid and, if you are too close to them, they could pick it up— [ Interruption .] Let me carry on. So it is back to the same old thing. We are working. We are just working in a different way. I do not know any hon. Member who is not working 24/7.”
“That is a really important intervention. Perhaps the hon. Members would go to their public sector workers, look them in the eye and say, “Sorry, we couldn’t find any money for you to have a pay rise, but we”— [ Interruption .] Well, I think it was an important intervention. Let us go back to the broadcasters.”
“I really do not know what the hon. Gentleman is talking about. All I heard was people sniggering in the back. I heard people— [ Interruption .] Oh my goodness, Madam Deputy Speaker.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can I just say this? When I was talking about the difficulties that our hon. Friends and right hon. Friends have taking part in debate, I heard some sniggering from the Back Benches. Normally, I would just ignore it, but this is such an important debate, and I did not know what it was about.”
“Joke? I was talking about broadcasting. We were talking about the public sector workers who are not going to get a pay rise, apparently, but maybe the Chancellor will change his mind when he has heard this debate. But let us go back to exactly what is happening here with this motion. It is discriminatory. How can we possibly carry on in this way with two tiers of hon. Members? It is not fair, it is not right and it is not the way that we do things here. We need to treat every single Member equally. There is absolutely no justification.”
“The hon. Member is absolutely right. When the Government want EVEL, they have it; when they do not want it, they do not have it, even though SNP Members have made the arguments frequently. We are now getting to the point where this is discriminatory.”
“It is doubly hard for everyone not being able to take part in what we do in this House, which is to debate legislation. To debate—that is what the Leader of the House has said we should do, but hon. Members cannot take part.”
“Yes. Hon. Members will also be familiar with the emails that we all get about particular pieces of legislation when they pass through the House. Whether it is here, in Westminster Hall or on petitions, Members cannot say how they voted or why they voted in a certain way, or talk about what the policy is. I do not know what hon. Members who cannot take part in debates say to their constituents; maybe I need to ask an hon. Member who is not here and cannot take part.”
“Why can he not take part in the debate without having to expose whichever person it is, who he would expose to the disease if he came here physically? That is the point, and that is why I say that this is a cross-party matter. It has nothing to do with politics or with anyone here. The only politics is that the Government seem hellbent on ensuring that people cannot take part in debates.”
“Yes, with the greatest respect, I think that the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood. He will know that unless a Member certifies that they are clinically vulnerable, they will not be able to take part in a debate under virtual proceedings. That is where the difficulty lies, because there will be two different sets of hon. Members: those who will have to certify and those who cannot certify. For example, let us take the hon. Gentleman’s colleague, the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay, who has co-signed the amendment. It is not he who is clinically vulnerable; it is possibly another person who is, and he wants to protect them. Therefore, he cannot take part in the debate, and he should be able to.”
“I think it has gone out of the window with this motion; my right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is not just about privacy for hon. Members—apparently we can take it because we have thick skins, although I am not sure that we all do; some of us have thin skins. It is about protecting the families, who do not necessarily ask to be exposed in this way. They are not the ones who are tweeting or who are on Facebook. We are exposing them. I know of many such cases. A friend in the SNP is protecting members of her family, and she has said so publicly, but why should she be prevented from participating?”
“My hon. Friend is right, and that is why we have these debates. He is absolutely right—I am sure they will come to that in the end, but hopefully not. Let us return to the discriminatory nature of this motion.”
“That is extremely contradictory. As a result of the Prime Minister being exposed to sniffles and coughs, he shielded and was given the ability to do his work in a different way. That is all that right hon. and hon. Members are asking for. Let me give two examples of people who are very vociferous and active, including in the Chamber. My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) is an amazing Member of Parliament, but she is finding that she has not got a voice any more. My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) constantly badgers the Leader of the House during business questions, but he is now not able to do that. The Chair of the Education Committee, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) loves coming into the Chamber—I have seen him—but he is not able to.”
“No, I was not suggesting that at all, but as hon. Members know, no matter what happens, things get out. I gave the example of pregnant women or mothers who were not on the voting record because they were not here. That has now all changed, and that is what it took, which is why this debate is so important. We have stopped saying that people must be in the Chamber and voting, hence proxy voting, but it took the Procedure Committee and many debates to bring that about. That is why we are saying that we must treat people equally so that people outside cannot see any difference and everybody can take part in every piece of work done by the House.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was about to finish. I ask hon. Members to read the amendment carefully. It simply says, “with a public health reason”, which is a wide definition.”
“The amendment states clearly “a public health reason” and no other reason. All Members would be treated equally and everyone could take part in the important debates that we will have on legislation on Europe. We were all elected on 12 December as equal Members of Parliament. I hope hon. Members will support the amendment and ensure that everybody can take part in debates.”