Ms Stella Creasy
MP for Walthamstow · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“I thank the Foreign Secretary for his clear-sighted commitment not only to talk about a two-state solution, but to actually try to act to achieve it, as the only foundation of a safe Israel and a free Palestine.”
“Could he reassure the House that we will not acquiesce and bend to such pressure, and that the only action that could ever be acceptable to us to make us contemplate reversing this ban would be a halt on the E1 development and a permanent end to settler violence?”
“I start by paying tribute to the new Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), for all the work she did on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee on these issues. I know that she will do a brilliant job in this role.”
“I do not really understand the technology, but I know that he does, and I understand and share his fear accordingly. We come here today to debate this Bill because we all know that trust is a bygone issue in our politics.”
“We would welcome her having that conversation, which might be more illuminating than whether she is concerned about Zach Goldmsith’s leaflets. I add my support to the amendments tabled by my hon.”
“From today, if we do not take a stand with this Bill to tackle the ways that money has infiltrated our politics, the risk is that they will think we are acting in the interests of our own back pockets.”
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“Let us learn the lesson from those legal loan sharks, the payday lenders—the people who were lending £100 to people who were ending up paying an average of £260 back. They were using payday loans when they were unregulated to pay for their basic living; 53% of them were using them just as people are using credit cards—to pay for groceries and utility bills. They were paying for things that they could not go without. Three in five borrowers on a payday loan said that they could not go without the item for which they had taken out the loan. Let me tell the Minister that when we do act—when we recognise the consequences of leaving a situation to fester, as we did with payday loans—it makes a massive difference.”
“It considers more than half those people to be “potentially vulnerable” because they have few resources to fall back on, even if they are managing to make some repayments. The FCA has also identified that one third of people do not really understand the interest rates that they are paying on their credit cards. Again, it is the point about interest rates and what it will actually cost people to use these cards, even if they are flipping between zero-rate-interest cards. It identified that people who switch are switching because they think that they are getting a better balance offer—crucially, they are not getting out of debt. The point of today’s debate and raising this issue with the Minister is to ask him not to wait until the situation gets worse, because we know the consequences of waiting until it gets worse.”
“The cost of living gets higher and higher. Little wonder that there are 5 million accounts that, with people making just minimum repayments, it is estimated it will take 10 years to pay off the balance. It is no wonder that four in 10 British adults are worried about their credit card debt. They understand that what seemed like the best way to manage their finances has quickly got them into a situation that they cannot get out of. Forty per cent of adults in this country say that they struggle to make it to payday and, of those, 30% say that credit card repayments are causing them the problem. The FCA has identified that; it has identified those people whom it would say are in difficulty because of their credit card debt.”
“Credit card debt is £263 billion—about 15% of total household debt—but it accounts for half of all interest payments made each year. That is the first signal that we need to look more closely at the interest rates on these cards. A whopping £28 billion is repaid each year, which accounts for 41% of all consumer debt, up from 33% in 2008. The average balance of those making just minimum repayments—the zombie debtors, who are paying off the interest but not the capital—is about £5,000; that is what they owe. However, 15% of zombie debtors owe more than £10,000. Crucially, when the FCA looked into this, it found that 20% of the people who ended up paying interest on their credit card did not expect to do so when they took it out. The reason is that life does not always go the way we expect it to. Jobs disappear. Relationships break up.”
“I happily join the hon. Gentleman in supporting Christians Against Poverty, which very kindly came and ran a workshop for activists in my local community not a few weeks ago, to help residents to understand what they should say to somebody who is struggling with debt. People often do not see credit cards as debt because they are just a fact of life. We know that the Financial Conduct Authority will tell the Minister that the market is working well for most, and that people shop around when getting a credit card, are able to compare rates and understand what they are buying. However, the problem comes when we look deeper and see the connection between those who struggle with debt and the nature of the credit cards they have.”
“This market is mutating, but it is still firmly focused on exploiting communities such as mine, exploiting people in financial difficulty, exploiting people who have few options. If the FCA feels too timid to be able to act, then just as we did before, let us give it muscle. Let us bring in a cap on the cost of credit cards, just as we did with payday lending, and recognise legal loan sharking in this country for what it is. I look forward to what the Minister has to say.”
“We can count on the fact that the economic situation will still be uncertain for people, that there will still be precarious work as the new norm, that people will not be able to plan. We can count on the fact that the cost of living is still going to go up—that if we want to put food on the table, keep a roof over our head and put petrol in our cars to get to work, it is going to get more expensive. We can count on divorce, house moving and redundancy still being facts of life. And yes, we can count on the fact that some parts of these markets work well, but not enough of them do, so I am asking the Minister to learn from history. Do not wait until millions more British people are stuck in spirals of debt with credit cards. Do not think that credit cards are acceptable and high-cost credit and payday lending are things of the past.”
“All the FCA’s remedies at the moment require people to have the cash to be able to act—to be able to make quicker repayments and to be able to pay back earlier—when actually what we are seeing is a nation that does not have spare cash in its pocket, let alone when facing economic shocks. These companies are entering into voluntary agreements with the Financial Conduct Authority. We are not learning the lessons of asking legal loan sharks, like turkeys, not to speak in favour of Christmas. These companies are making millions of pounds from pushing people into debt in exactly the same way as the Wongas of this world did, yet still the FCA is standing by. There are things that we can count on in the coming months.”
“Yes, the FCA conducted a market study, and yes, parts of the market are working well for some consumers. Therefore, if we act where the market is not working well for the other consumers, we can stop these problems before they get worse. I do not understand how the FCA can justify not bringing the same lessons that we have learned from payday lending, about not asking people to pay back in interest double what they have borrowed, to the credit card companies, even though we recognise that that is wrong in the payday loan industry—but that is what has happened.”
“If someone borrows £1,000 from that company and makes the minimum payments, they will have paid £480 within one year, £680 within 18 months, £800 within two years and £1,000 in interest by 28 months. Those figures reflect exactly the sort of lending and patterns of repayment and costs of interest that we recognised were wrong for payday lenders, yet now that is happening in the credit card industry. There is a simple principle at issue here. We recognised that it was wrong to ask people to pay back more than they had borrowed; up to 100% was a fair amount of interest to be charging. Why have we intervened and said that that was wrong in the payday lending industry, but are letting it happen with credit cards? That is exactly what is happening: people are paying back in interest double what they have borrowed.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for pointing out the research that I am quoting and the paper that I have read. This is my concern. Having read exactly what the Financial Conduct Authority is doing, I think that it is missing a trick, and I am appealing to Ministers to intervene. Let me explain why. We can look at companies such as Vanquis, which offers people £1,000 straight off—no credit checks, no questions asked. It is owned by Provident, which is a high-cost-credit legal loan shark. It targets people with the blithe claim that as long as they can afford the minimum repayment every week, they can rebuild their credit. Alternatively, we can look at the aqua credit card, with an interest rate, superficially, of 3.9%.”
“The Minister mentions that the FCA consulted on persistent debt. The FCA defines persistent debt as paying 100% in interest and charges on top of the principal repaid over an 18-month period. Given the evidence that that is exactly what people are doing on these credit cards, and the fact that we intervened and capped the cost of credit through payday loans when we saw that, will the Minister explain why it is acceptable not to do that for credit cards when it is okay to do it for payday loans?”
“The Minister has not answered my question. With the greatest respect to the Minister, I asked him a very specific question about the disparity between it being unacceptable for people with payday loans to pay double in interest what they had taken out, and those 5 million people who are stuck in 10 years-worth or more of credit card debt continuing to pay those rates. I would like his specific answer on that unacceptability.”
“The Minister boasts of a settlement given to local government. Northamptonshire’s accounts show that in the next five years it will owe £240 million to private finance initiative schemes, of which £77 million is interest alone, paid to shareholders. Does he therefore agree that it is time for a windfall tax on the excessive profits of these companies, so that we can put the money where it is needed—in our public services, not in the pockets of these legal loan sharks?”
“May I join the Minister in calling out controlling and misogynistic language—trying to shout women down in public life? We must learn the lesson that the suffragettes taught all of us: it is deeds, not words, that we are here to give. Will she join those of us calling out the Sierra Leonean politicians using female genital mutilation as an election pledge and standing with the women whose voices can no longer be heard, such as Michelle Samaraweera, whose rapist and murderer still sits free in India despite the Government asking for his extradition eight years ago? Madeleine Albright told us that there was a special place in hell for women who do not help other women. Let us use our platform to speak for women who cannot yet speak out and show the difference it makes.”
“Although all of us understand the desire not to prejudice any possible action by the victims, a letter from the Secretary of State’s predecessor on 8 January—it is a public letter open to MPs—states that the victims were not contacted until October, having last had contact in 2009. He knows the concern that it is not just about updating victims, but about involving them in Parole Board decisions. Can he give an assurance that the involvement and participation of victims will be looked at and that he will publish the date in October when contact was made with the Warboys’s victims so that we can understand the process used?”
“The accounts show that in the last four years, on the PFI contracts alone, Carillion was part of deals that have made nearly £1 billion in profit directly from the public purse. It is now clear that the notion, which all Governments have dealt with, that PFI is a good way to transfer risk to the private sector is a myth. Will the Government finally bring in a windfall tax to claw back the money so desperately needed for our public services from these companies? Or is it simply that they broke it but we will always end up fixing it?”
“I join others in welcoming the new Secretary of State. I appreciate that today is only his first or second day in office, but as he goes through his brief he will realise that, thanks to the agreement between the Secretary of State and the BBC, he has the power to give a direction to the BBC about equality of opportunity. Will he use that power to ensure that every member of staff at the BBC—male or female—is able to exercise freedom of expression at work, and protect their right to speak out as the best way to get transparency?”
“If he is not satisfied, as it seems that many of these victims were not told how they could have their say, will he use his powers to instigate a judicial review of the decision?”
“I welcome the Lord Chancellor to his new job. He may be aware that on Friday, a cross-party group of 58 MPs wrote to his predecessor, to express our concerns not so much about transparency in decision making but about the right of victims to be heard by the Parole Board and for their information to influence decisions. His successor wrote back to us, stating that the victim support people had tried to make contact in October, for a hearing in November, with people with whom they had not had contact since 2009. Will the Lord Chancellor, in his review, look explicitly, not at the transparency of how decisions were made, but at how victims’ voices were heard as part of that process?”
“Further to the answer that the Home Secretary gave to the hon. Member from Sussex— [ Interruption. ] The hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield); I do apologise. Lewes is close to Sussex, I am sure. I want to clarify a point with the Home Secretary. We would not find it acceptable to deny someone access to loo roll, so why do we think it is acceptable to deny someone access to tampons? She has said that she is committed to putting these matters on to a statutory footing. Does that include amending code C of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and meeting the Independent Custody Visitors Association which has been working on this issue?”
“The Minister asks us to judge Mr Young by what he does. As one of the many women who have had personal, repeated and recent experiences of his ability to lose friends and alienate people, I say to the Minister that an undergraduate student would know that it is not evidence enough of a change in behaviour for someone simply—when they have been caught out—to say sorry. Every educationist would say to the Minister that rewarding bad behaviour, as he is, sends a terrible message to our universities about the standards we accept. What more does Mr Young have to say before the Minister realises that he deserves to stay on Twitter, not in teaching?”
“I have been asking the Minister for many months now about the impact of the 13th directive and the ability of other countries, once we are outside the EU, to vary their own VAT requirements. How can he be so confident that by next January he will be able to implement a system that looks at import and export tariffs, given that it will still be dependent on all 27 countries determining their VAT relationship with us? Does he have an agreement with them for that deadline?”
“I join others in commending the Leader of the House for the work that has been done so far, but I recognise that the journey is not over, because we all have some way to go before we can actually practise what we are preaching in this House. On that point, I ask the Leader of the House to clarify something. She said in her statement that “further work needs to be carried out to ensure sanctions are appropriate, fair and enforceable”. Will she confirm that recall is on the table as an option and also that there is clarity on whether Members who may be found to have behaved inappropriately will receive severance payments?”
“23. If we are talking about concerned professionals and outcomes, can we add headteachers and teachers into the mix? One from my area has written to me about a child whom she referred to CAMHS last summer term only to be told that they were 63rd on the list and faced a 14-month wait for help. That is much longer than the month-long waiting time target that the Government have set. With a shortage of child psychologists, just how are the Government going to keep kids in my constituency safe?”
“Residents in Walthamstow are deeply perturbed following a rise in violent gang and drug-related crime, and the evidence from the Met commissioner herself that London is losing 3,000 police officers in the coming years. No mobile app is going to address that. It is individuals, not iPads, that people want to see on their streets. Can the Minister confirm that he will make available to the Met the money needed to keep those 3,000 police officers, or is “flat real” a crime against the English language?”
“I rise to make my case to the five Conservative MPs on the Government Benches today. Inequality is an incredibly expensive business for everyone. I am pleased to see five fellow feminists sitting among the many of us on these Benches—”
“They do not want to do the maths because the figures tell the ugly truth about the inequality we have in Britain and its stubborn supporters, who unfortunately sit on the Government Benches. Jane Addams said: “Social advance depends as much upon the process through which it is secured as upon the result itself.” We cannot take the journey to a more prosperous, more successful and more egalitarian Britain if we do not know the direction of travel. The numbers will give us the direction of travel, but it is the political will that will give us the way forward. Ministers should not dismiss this case as special pleading but should look at the economic argument for why tackling gender inequality matters and vote accordingly today to put Britain on a better path, because everyone will be richer for it.”
“Getting this right and having that information would help us to make better decisions and would help us to understand why it will take us 100 years from today to have parity, so that women who are still struggling with unequal pay—including women in the communities of the Members to whom I have referred—can have some confidence that they may still live to see that wonderful day when everyone in this society is treated equally and so that people from ethnic minority backgrounds and disabled people living in poverty, and a poverty that is getting worse, can have some confidence that the Government are not ignoring them but understand where the challenges are and are considering a Budget that will do something about it. Frankly, when we see the analyses that are being done, we know why the Government oppose new clauses 6 and 7.”
“Even if the Minister were to quibble about calculating the figures across households, we could certainly see the impact we are having on some of the most vulnerable people in our society. The reason why we have called it “lady data” is to try to help Ministers understand what they are missing and why it matters, but in truth this is everyone’s data.”
“Crucially, it is a duty that, once a problem has been identified, the Government have to act, and not having the resources is no excuse for not acting. The arguments Ministers are making against calculating the figures are not just about the practicalities, but they are completely surmountable. As the Women’s Budget Group, the Fawcett Society and the Institute for Fiscal Studies have shown, it is perfectly possible to make these calculations, and it is worth doing because it would help the Government to make better decisions. That it is possible to do it both for individuals and for households is important because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) said, single parents, who tend to be women, are disproportionately hit by these changes.”
“It helps us to challenge everyone to do more to unlock the potential of every member of our society by reducing barriers and breaking down the discrimination that means, 40-plus years on, we still do not have equal pay. If the Government themselves are not upholding their duties, what hope do we have in asking other organisations to do so? It is important to recognise that the legal duty is not passive. It is a duty not just to manage inequality but to do something about it. It is a duty to know the numbers before we make a decision so that we do not make things worse, as this Budget clearly does, and it is an ongoing duty that cannot be delegated. Ministers cannot leave it to a civil servant in the back office; they have to take direct responsibility.”
“Even if we are concerned that men have received a windfall from Budgets for several years, it is simply not good enough for Ministers to try to tell us that women are being compensated through public services, because they cannot provide the analysis to show us that either case is true. Indeed, when we look at the impact of public service cuts—surprise, surprise—women, ethnic minorities and the disabled tend to be disproportionately hit again. As I said at the start, it is also a matter of following our own laws. The public sector equality duty came into force in this country in 2011. It is a legal requirement, and it has driven some of these difficult conversations, whether in the Bank of England or in the BBC.”
“I am sure that the Minister, with his feminist soul, wants to make good decisions, but those assessments claim that there is little or no impact. Indeed, we do not even have TINs for all the policies that we know have a differential impact such as excise duty rates or fuel duty giveaways, because we live in an unequal society. The lack of data also means that Ministers simply cannot come to the Dispatch Box and tell us that any concerns we may have about the differential impact of individual tax and benefit changes can be offset by the impact of other policies. If we do not know the impact of one policy, how can it be said that that can be offset by another?”
“Having the data and then looking at what is being done with tax and benefit policies will help us to understand just how much further this Budget is moving the goalposts for women and ethnic minorities. This applies to other policies, too. Corporation tax changes disproportionately benefit men, because we still do not have parity in the boardroom, in enterprise or in the number of women shareholders. The lack of data also leads to bad decision making. As my colleagues have already set out, this Government have not done any equality impact assessments to understand just how far the goalposts are moving in getting to this House’s shared aim of an equal society. Tax information and information notes dismiss the issue and do not help Ministers to make good decisions.”
“If the Government want to tackle inequality, they need to know that data also tells us that this Budget, and the Budgets of previous years, are causing more problems. I do not doubt the sincerity of the five Conservative Members here or that they do want to tackle inequality in our society, but when I look at this Budget I do doubt whether they are going to be able to do that. This Budget will hit women 10 times as hard as it will hit men—13 times for women from an ethnic minority background. Going back to the equal pay issue, 43% of people in society do not earn enough to benefit from raising the personal income tax threshold, and 66% are women. We have unequal pay in our society, so 73% of the people who will benefit from changing the higher rate threshold will be male.”
“Only 36% of women in the constituencies of the Conservative male Members here will be getting their full state pension. When those women come to see those Members about the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign, they are coming because they have been living with poverty for decades. They are asking for help to make things right, because they do not want to be dependent on the state. They want a level playing field, but historical inequality in our society has held them back, and it is holding us back now. Having the data helps us to understand where that is happening and why. It would show us whether Government policies—individual Budgets—are going to make it easier to tackle that inequality, so that fewer women will come to constituency surgeries asking for a referral to a food bank, or whether they will make things worse.”
“It makes us ask why, after the Equal Pay Act was passed in 1970, we still do not have equal pay in this country. I was born after that Act came into effect, but if the current policy continues, I will be dead before we have parity. That harms us all, because the 14% pay gap between men and women is not stagnating, but growing. There will be women in our constituencies who are missing out on equal pay because we are not acting as a country. Having this kind of data helps us to ask why that is and whether Government policy is helping to minimise the gap or exacerbate it. This is not just about gender. The gap is much worse for women from ethic minority communities. The pay gap is 26% for Pakistani and Bangladeshi women and 24% for black African women. This is also not just about ethnicity, because the same applies for disability and age.”
“The economy has been struggling with a productivity problem for decades, and there is nothing stronger or faster that we could do to address that than to ensure that everybody in our society is able to realise their potential, but we should do more to help women in particular. We need to tackle the barriers and the discrimination they face that means they do not have that level playing field. Indeed, studies show the strong correlation between diversity and economic growth, so those who think that this is special pleading do not understand the maths behind the case Labour is making today. I would argue that the reason why they do not understand the maths is that we do not do the calculations, which is why it is so important to get the data. Data is a good thing. It leads to difficult conversations.”
“It is also good for Governments to follow their own policies. We have a public sector equality duty in this country, but the fact that the Government are not following it themselves makes it much harder for them to force other people to do so. Ultimately, we are here today to make the case that Britain will be better when we know more about the conditions that we face and about what impact policies are having. Let me start with that cold, hard economic argument, because I am sure that the Minister, who once proclaimed his feminist credentials, already knows this, but I am not sure whether it has yet been put on the record. Bridging the gender gap would generate £150 billion in GDP by 2025.”
“Goodness! The Minister says eight, but I can assure him that we have a good many more than eight feminists in total on this side of the House if he would ever like to test us. Our policies and our manifesto certainly speak to that fact. The case that I want to make to the five men on the Tory Benches, given that gender inequality and equality impact assessments can sometimes be seen as special-interest issues, is that everything we are doing today is in everyone’s interest. Inequality costs us all dear. It holds everybody back in our society. Indeed, feminism is not about women; it is about the fact that power is unequally balanced in society so that 51% of those in our communities miss out on achieving their potential. That is what is behind new clauses 6 and 7. Good data help to drive good decisions.”
“If that is the aim, what data are the Government collecting to be sure that they are achieving it and to find out whether there are any variations? That is what we are talking about. The issue is not the policy, but whether it is having an impact and whether we can understand that impact. Does the hon. Gentleman understand that?”
“The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time. I think he may have missed one of the points that we are making. For example, when the Government raise the tax threshold, 66% of the people who do not benefit—because they do not earn enough—are women. Seventy three per cent. of the people who benefit from a rise in the higher income rate threshold are men. What he is talking about and what we are talking about are two different things. We are talking about the differential impact of policy, and asking the Government to do the sums that are currently being done in the charitable sector, so that we can make better policy. Surely he wants those sorts of policies to have an equal benefit, but at the moment they do not, because we do not have equal pay.”
“I have a very simple question for the hon. Gentleman, although I appreciate that he is getting some assistance from the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng): can he produce the data to prove that men and women will benefit equally from the changes to corporation tax?”
“Obviously, having had two women Prime Ministers, that is quite enough women earning a serious level of income—the 33 million other women in this country do not deserve equal care and attention. This data would help us to find out just how much inequality there is and what we could do about it. Does my hon. Friend agree that facts should override fiction?”
“My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Whether Members on either side of the House agree with the policies, having good data to enable us to understand their impact helps us to make or dispute an argument. I am struggling to understand why any MP would be against having the facts about the impact of policy, which is all that the new clauses will do. If we had that information, Government Members could confidently tell us what great proposals they are making to improve the country’s prosperity, rather than using anecdotes—or two women.”
“I thank the Minister for giving way and I am listening to the case he is making. If he is so confident that the Government’s policies promote equality, why is he against having an independent Office for Budget Responsibility equality impact assessment to tell us all the good news?”
“It is extraordinary that the Minister does not understand the concept of doing both individual and household analyses, or indeed behavioural alongside static analyses. There are many different ways the Government could be doing equality impact assessments. The problem is that they are not doing any.”
“My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful case. Is she as worried as I am to read that only a third of women who need a place in a refuge get one? The changes she talks about could make that situation even worse. Does she agree that that is an untenable situation?”
“It may disturb the hon. Gentleman to know that I have signed his new clause, and I agree very much with him and the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) on this issue. This weekend, I was in Calais, where a 10-year-old is sleeping rough because we do not have the systems in place under the legislation to be able to assess his right to be in the UK. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that what is so important about the amendments to protect the Dublin process is not just its principles, but its practice and what happens if and when we leave the European Union?”