Catherine McKinnell
MP for Newcastle upon Tyne North · Labour · United Kingdom
“The family of a terminally ill constituent contacted me in desperation last month after trying to resolve the pension issues of their family member since January. She died yesterday, with her pension still unresolved. Can the Minister be more specific for that family about what will be done to resolve this issue?”
“As the UK trade envoy to Italy, I thank the Secretary of State for confirming the GCAP funding in his statement. As MP for Newcastle upon Tyne North, I add my voice to those who want to see this as an opportunity to genuinely spread investment and opportunity that will build strength and resilience in our people right across the UK—they a…”
“This report is welcome, but that does not make its existence any less tragic. Far too many mothers and babies have been failed, including mothers like my constituent Amie, who late last year was turned away repeatedly, despite reporting reduced movements. Her baby Seren was born stillborn.”
“Failures to address these issues have significant effects, both on the public finances and on the most vulnerable people in society, and, indeed, they are issues that are often reflected in our constituency mailboxes. I was contacted recently by a young woman who had reported child sexual abuse to the police last year.”
“Her husband was the victim of an assault by the defendant, who had raped his wife. They were forced to wait four hours for the trial to begin. They were eventually told that the defendant would arrive and that the delay to his delivery was causing the delay, but it had a knock-on effect on additional days in court.”
“Friend has said, we need a court estate that is fit for purpose in order to maximise the use of these additional days. I too have visited my local court, in this instance Newcastle Crown court.”
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“I hope the Minister will today give a reassurance that the SFO will be provided with the support and resources it needs over the long term. There is always a question mark hanging over its future and whether it will be absorbed into the NCA. It is important that the SFO is able to concentrate on these very important matters, not the least of which are the issues that the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe raised. Another great weakness in the armoury of our law enforcement agencies is their ability to recover stolen assets or the proceeds of crime. As Transparency International has highlighted, the UK’s asset recovery regime has not been up to the job. It is estimated that £23 billion to £57 billion of dirty money is laundered in the UK each year, given London’s role as a global financial centre, second only to the US.”
“The Prime Minister recently committed to “consider carefully” that proposal when I put it to him during his statement on the Panama papers. It would be helpful if the Minister updated us on whether the Prime Minister has been able to do that as of yet. Ahead of next week’s summit, the Government could also commit to ensuring that our law enforcement agencies across the board have the tools they need to properly tackle the facilitators and enablers of corruption in this country. I have mentioned the SFO. Under the Roskill model, it is charged with investigating and prosecuting the most serious and complex crimes, much of which falls under the umbrella of corruption. That unique model of investigating and prosecuting crime, all under one roof, has proved to be highly effective, yet doubts still linger about the SFO’s future.”
“I strongly urge the Minister, as I did a Treasury Minister two weeks ago, to look closely at part 2 of schedule 17 to the Crime and Courts Act 2013, because it contains an exhaustive list of offences, all of which cause immense harm both abroad and at home—they range from false accounting and forgery to fraudulent trading, bribery and money laundering—to which the Government could easily apply the new offence. That would send a clear message to the rest of the world that criminal corporate behaviour will not be tolerated in the UK and that the full force of our criminal justice system will bear down on corporate wrongdoing wherever it is found. I am sure that the Minister would like to send that message.”
“The SFO secured its first prosecution and conviction for that new “failure to prevent” offence last December, and we understand that more prosecutions are on the way. The Government recognise the effectiveness of the offence, because the Prime Minister recently announced, in the wake of the Panama papers revelations, that he would legislate to create a similar offence in respect of tax evasion, but he needs to go further and apply the new law to all forms of economic crime.”
“To do so, prosecutors have to prove who is the “controlling mind” of the company, with direct knowledge of those acts. Our law enforcement agencies, including the Serious Fraud Office, have raised the issue time and again. The SFO director, David Green, has said: “That is difficult because inevitably the email trail tends to dry up at middle management and evidentially it is hard to prove.” There is a potential solution. The Bribery Act 2010, introduced by the last Labour Government, sets a more reasonable evidential threshold for prosecuting companies where their employees have been involved in acts of bribery. It requires companies to prove that they have taken “adequate” steps within their organisation to prevent employees from committing such acts.”
“The Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca, of recent Panama papers fame, worked with almost 2,000 professional enablers in the UK—accountants, estate agents and lawyers—to set up companies, foundations and trusts, all or some of which could potentially have been used to launder money or facilitate illicit financial flows. The UK was the second most popular place for Mossack Fonseca to operate in. I do not think that is an achievement of which the Prime Minister is particularly proud. Many factors are involved, but one key issue in the UK is the law on corporate criminal liability. Under UK law, it is extremely difficult to hold a company criminally liable for the actions of its employees in terms of corrupt acts or any similar offence.”
“The UK can lead by example in other areas, but what more can we do here at home on enforcement? The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) asked whether our enforcement agencies do enough. My key question is: do they have the right resources and legislative framework to do all they can to stamp down on corruption? One of the first issues I want to raise is how we hold companies criminally liable for actions of their employees that facilitate corruption, tax evasion, money laundering and fraud. I have spoken about that previously. I have pressed various Ministers and the Prime Minister on the issue because, astonishingly, the UK remains one of the most popular places for the facilitation of all forms of corruption.”
“Since 2004, over £180 million of property in the UK has been brought under criminal investigation as the suspected proceeds of corruption; over 36,000 properties are held by offshore companies based in tax havens—a point made by my right hon. Friend—and in 2011 alone, £3.8 billion of UK property was bought by companies registered in the British Virgin Islands. If we hope to see progress at an international level, we must lead by example. The Prime Minister has rightly given a commitment on public registers of beneficial ownership, and I hope we see that come to full fruition. It is critical that the Prime Minister turns this leadership into action and that we ensure the British overseas territories and Crown dependencies come on board with their own public registers—a point made by the hon. Member for Amber Valley.”
“Gentleman that we are not here to criticise the Government, because we welcome the summit and the efforts made in that regard. However, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) powerfully made clear, if we are going to call on the rest of the world to take action, we must get our own house in order. Last summer, the Prime Minister said in Singapore: “I’m determined that the UK must not become a safe haven for corrupt money from around the world...there is no place for dirty money in Britain”. However, Transparency International said in its report, “Corruption on Your Doorstep”, that there is still a place for dirty money in the UK.”
“As chair and co-founder of the all-party corruption group, chair of the parliamentary friends of CAFOD group, and a long-standing advocate for anti-corruption efforts, may I say that it is a pleasure to speak in today’s debate? I congratulate the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) on securing it. It is important and timely. Hon. Members have made important speeches and I look forward to the Minister’s response to the questions that have been raised. As we have heard, the forthcoming anti-corruption summit presents a unique opportunity for world leaders, business and civil society to come together and advance the international transparency and the anti-corruption agenda in a way that we have not seen for years. I agree with the hon.”
“Okay. The Government need to do more and ensure that the public have access to the registers. We saw the power of public light falling on the Panama papers and we need to ensure that the public have the same right of access to the ownership registers. The summit is an extraordinary opportunity for the UK to press ahead with the anti-corruption agenda. There is much to do, including here at home, and we do not want this to be a missed opportunity, so I hope the Minister will provide reassurance this morning that it will not be.”
“I commend the hon. Gentleman on leading this debate. He gave the very powerful constituency example of Harmonie-Rose. We heard evidence from the parents of Faye Burdett, who made it very clear how fast the disease can strike, and how vital it is that meningitis is treated as quickly as possible to minimise damage. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, as we heard in evidence, children under the age of five have difficulty communicating the symptoms that they are experiencing, and that is one of the factors that should be taken into account very carefully when considering extending the vaccination programme to those in that age group? They cannot communicate, which delays the delivery of the medical treatment that they so vitally need.”
“This is an opportune moment to highlight one of the other points that came out of the evidence we took in Committee: while vaccination is vital, public awareness is a huge concern for everyone. It is not only parents who need the best possible awareness of the symptoms; medical staff need it, too. Perhaps that awareness is not high enough. It would be good to hear from the Minister what the Government will do to ensure that public awareness and awareness among medical personnel is the best it can be, to ensure that the disease can be treated as quickly as possible.”
“The hon. Lady is making an important point. My understanding—I would be grateful if the Minister would clarify this in her response—is that in calculating the cost-effectiveness of the meningitis B vaccination, the JCVI has not fully considered the potential outcome for those children who contract meningitis but survive and the long-term costs for them and their families for the rest of their lives. Such costs are often borne by the state, so, along with the factors that the hon. Lady is outlining, there are other financial costs that have perhaps not been considered fully.”
“The vast majority of children entering the care system have experienced abuse and neglect and are particularly vulnerable in regard to their mental health needs. Will the Minister accept the concerns expressed by the NSPCC, which I share, that if the Department does not commit to counting and tracking abused and neglected children, those children will continue to be at risk of falling through the cracks and not receiving the mental health support that they need to rebuild their lives?”
“I thank the hon. Lady for bringing forward this very important debate. She is making a powerful speech. Every year, Members of this House sign the holocaust book of commitment, making the pledge that that terrible genocide will never be forgotten. I have personally signed a pledge that I will never walk on by. Does she agree that today we have the opportunity to make sure that none of us walks on by as we see this terrible genocide unfold?”
“That model, which already applies to the offence of bribery, will apply to tax evasion under the Government’s proposals. Why stop at tax evasion? Why not extend the provision to cover failure to prevent other crimes, such as fraud or money laundering, as promised in the Conservative party’s 2015 manifesto? The director of the Serious Fraud Office has suggested that that is a workable solution. Back in 2013, he highlighted the benefits: “Such an approach would merely add a criminal sanction to existing obligations; it would assist in the reform of poor corporate culture which contributed to the crash; it would underpin the recovery by encouraging clean and stable markets; it would increase investor confidence, assist in more rapid prosecutions and dovetail well with deferred prosecution agreements.””
“As the Prime Minister announced on Monday—indeed, he had announced it previously, but no follow-up action has been taken as yet—the Government intend to legislate so that corporates can be held criminally liable for failing to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion. That is an acceptance that the current corporate liability framework, which applies to all economic crimes, does not work. The Government propose to do that by creating an offence modelled on section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010, introduced by the last Labour Government, that holds a company liable if it fails to take “adequate steps” to prevent bribery by its employees. In other words, it puts the onus on companies to ensure that proper compliance procedures are in place and holds them criminally liable if they do not do so.”
“As he pointed out in an interview with the Evening Standard in January, the identification principle “is difficult because inevitably the email trail tends to dry up at middle management and evidentially it is hard to prove.” I put that point to the Prime Minister on Monday, and I was glad to hear him commit to going away and looking at the proposals. I hope that Ministers are listening carefully to this debate and that those at the Ministry of Justice in particular will report back to him as a matter of urgency. The proposal is to extend the application of the section 7 offence—which I will explain—not only to tax evasion, but to all economic crime. This is the nub of the issue.”
“The grounds stated by the Minister who gave that answer were that “there is little evidence of economic crime going unpunished.” That was, frankly, a ridiculous assertion, and I hope that the Panama papers have finally put that notion to bed. It is clearly unacceptable that, here in the UK, prosecutors of economic crime—tax evasion, corruption and fraud—are effectively operating with one hand tied behind their backs. Indeed, David Green, the director of the Serious Fraud Office—the law enforcement agency tasked with prosecuting the most serious and complex economic crimes—has been clear for some time about the inadequacy of our law.”
“In an increasingly globalised world where multinational organisations, which have very complicated structures and management arrangements, are the norm, that sets an extremely high bar for prosecutors to cross. By contrast, in the US a company can be held vicariously liable in criminal law for the actions of its employees undertaken in the course of their employment. The Government seemed to acknowledge that inadequacy in UK law and included proposals in their 2015 manifesto to introduce corporate criminal liability for economic offences. Yet by September 2015 those proposals were quietly dropped, a fact that came to light only in response to a written parliamentary answer.”
“It is essential to deal properly not only with aggressive tax avoidance that Parliament never intended to be pursued, but with tax evasion and other criminal activity, such as fraud and corruption. Too often, both issues go hand in hand. In his statement on the Panama papers on Monday, the Prime Minister acknowledged: “Under current legislation it is difficult to prosecute a company that assists with tax evasion”. —[ Official Report , 11 April 2016; Vol. 608, c. 26.] He is absolutely correct. In fact, the challenge is understated, and I will briefly explain why. At present, under UK law, in order to hold a company criminally liable, prosecutors must identify an individual sufficiently senior within the organisation—usually at board level—as its “controlling mind” with knowledge of the offence.”
“That, understandably, makes people angry, and the Government must take genuine steps to level the playing field and regain the public’s trust. One of the assertions that has been made in representations to me is that the solutions to the problem are easy. Although I do not necessarily subscribe to that view, I do think that there are a few relatively simple steps that the Government could take to make a significant difference. Those steps would bring about much greater transparency about the ownership of individual and company assets and wealth, and enable a very clear view of who the beneficiaries are of investments and funds, whether they are held here in the UK or in offshore trusts and accounts.”
“As the co-founder and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption, I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to today’s debate. The issues under discussion are, rightly, very high on the public agenda, and a great number of my constituents have contacted me to share their concerns. They, like many others, have a strong sense of both the real and the perceived injustice in our system, whereby the vast majority of people in this country play by the same rules and have very little choice about the contribution they make to the public purse. This is not about envy or anger at wealth, whether it be earned or inherited; it is about the fact that those at the top end of the income scale seem to play by an entirely different set of rules.”
“Ahead of next month’s anti-corruption summit the Government should send out to the rest of the world the clearest of messages that the UK is serious about tackling economic crime in all of its forms, and its facilitation. I urge the Government to take the opportunity to take this important step to arm our law enforcement agencies and courts with the ability properly to hold companies to account.”
“It sets out a useful list of offences, covering all manner of fraudulent and corrupt offences—from false accounting and forgery, to fraudulent trading, bribery and money laundering—that the Government’s proposed new offence could equally apply to. The work is all done. The ducks are lined up; the Government just need to implement the change. The revelations in the Panama papers represent a pivotal moment that the Government must not squander. The Panama papers have not just highlighted issues relating to tax evasion and, indeed, avoidance, but raised even greater questions about illicit financial flows, laundered money and the proceeds of crime, and about how companies exploit tax havens and secretive jurisdictions to facilitate that.”
“Absolutely. My hon. Friend raises a very important point. The banks in America have paid significant fines as a result of their behaviour ahead of the crash, but it has been significantly more difficult to ensure that justice is done here. That is the very reason why the issue needs to be addressed. The solution is very simple and workable. The Government already intend to legislate on tax evasion, so it would simply be a case of expanding the number of offences to which the legislation applies. I strongly urge the Government to look closely at part 2 of schedule 17 to the Crime and Courts Act 2013.”
“It is little wonder that SCHOOLS NorthEast has said that schools across the region “face an uphill battle with nearly 9 in 10…Head Teachers reporting issues with recruiting staff in the past year.” Teachers feel overworked and underappreciated. Instead of dealing with those crucial issues, the Government are focusing on a top-down forced reorganisation that will see 20,000 schools come under their direct control. The Department for Education cannot even file its own accounts to Parliament on time, so can it really cope with that additional workload? It is presiding over a total fiasco with the new key stage 1 and 2 tests, with information about delivery given very late to teachers. Finally, at a time when we are reading that many schools in poor areas are now “running on empty”, who is going to pay for all this?”
“The White Paper states that local authorities will retain a role in “Ensuring every child has a school place…including that there are sufficient school, special school and alternative provision places to meet demand.” But the Local Government Association has highlighted that “Under these new plans, councils will remain legally responsible for making sure that all children have a school place, but it is wrong that neither they nor the Government will have any powers to force local schools to expand if they don’t want to.” As for other pressing issues, the Education Secretary should turn her attention to teachers’ increasing workloads and the recruitment crisis.”
“Next week, parents across the country will find out whether their child has a school place in September, through an admissions process that is increasingly difficult for local authorities to manage. Councils such as Newcastle find themselves in the impossible position of being unable to consider establishing new community schools to cope with existing demand while being legally responsible for ensuring places. Demand is only going to increase given the increase in house building expected during the next few years, with 21,000 new homes across Newcastle by 2030. I genuinely want to understand this, and so would like an explanation of how local authorities are going to ensure that there is new school capacity at the right time in the right places under the current proposals. Any enlightenment from the Minister would be welcome.”
“As a member of the Education Committee, I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute this afternoon. As a member of the Petitions Committee, I am aware of the significant public interest in this issue, with petitions about it that have more than 150,000 signatures. But most importantly, as a constituency MP and a parent of primary-age children, I am in a state of real disbelief at the frankly ludicrous proposal to force all schools to go down the academy route by 2020. I know my view is shared by many constituents, parents, teachers and support staff across Newcastle upon Tyne North. As with so many of this Government’s policies, it is entirely unclear what problem this policy is intended to fix. It is an absolute distraction from many of the real issues that the Education Secretary should be dealing with urgently.”
“This is such an important debate, and it is really important that we air all of these issues. It is about the simple things in many cases, but it spreads across a wide network. One of the respite centre residents of Dementia Care—an excellent charity in my constituency—was recently admitted to hospital for a routine procedure but was not released from hospital until 3 am, which threw their entire programme for the next day. More carers were needed to get them back into a routine. Simple things make a huge difference to such people and those who care for them.”
“I apologise for interrupting the Minister’s flow, because he is making a very important speech. I have listened carefully to the debate, which I commend the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) for securing. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), the shadow Secretary of State, that because of what the Minister is saying, the Government should be very clear that that is their aim. I still do not understand why they have not explicitly stated it in their information. I hope he is coming to that point.”
“The Prime Minister acknowledged in his statement that under current legislation it is difficult to prosecute companies that assist with tax evasion, and I and many others—including the right hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier)—would add fraud and corruption to that list. The Government promised in their manifesto to extend the new corporate offence to deal with all economic crime, not just tax evasion. Will the Prime Minister commit today to reviewing urgently the current position, and to extend the offence of tax evasion to incorporate fraud and corruption?”
“The shadow Chancellor is right to say he does not agree with the former Secretary of State’s policies. Indeed, even with the U-turn on PIP disabled people are still left distressed by the reforms that will still be going through. Will he join me in urging the Chancellor and the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to look again at this very flawed process?”
“A mere six months ago, the Prime Minister told his party conference that he would govern according to “one nation, modern, compassionate” Conservatism. This is the same Prime Minister who last week cheered on a Budget that cut capital gains tax, raised the threshold for the 40p rate, further cut corporation tax, and would see the poorest losing about £1,500 a year in the next few years while some of the richest gain £200. To top it off, the Chancellor pledged to slash disability benefits by up to £1.3 billion a year, which the OBR estimated would lead to some 370,000 disabled people losing an average of £3,500 a year.”
“We learned many things from last week’s Budget, and we have learned perhaps even more from the fallout since. However, the overriding message we seem to be getting is that, six years into his job, the Chancellor cannot keep a promise and does not seem to learn from his past shambolic Budget mistakes. He promised to balance the books by last year, to get debt falling as a percentage of GDP each year and to keep welfare spending within his welfare cap, but on virtually all of his own fiscal targets, as the independent Office for Budget Responsibility confirmed last week, he has failed to deliver. Of course, this Government’s shortcomings go much further than the Chancellor’s own meaningless targets.”
“Last week’s Budget confirmed that, far from handing control to local communities, the Government are about to embark on the greatest ever centralisation of our schools system, which will see an end to the role, now a century old, of democratically accountable local authorities as the stewards of our children’s education. My Front-Bench colleagues have already highlighted the glaring black hole in the finances of this plan—£560 million—which raises questions about the extent to which the schools budget will be raided to make up the shortfall.”
“Constituents continue to get in touch with me following my recent question to the Prime Minister because they have been told that they are no longer eligible for a Motability vehicle despite its clearly being the only means by which they can leave the house, or indeed get to work. The new PIP assessment is fundamentally flawed. I strongly urge the Work and Pensions Secretary and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to revisit this issue with fresh eyes and look at reforming the current PIP changes before they embark on any further welfare reform. Despite the Chancellor’s so-called “revolution in the way we govern England”, with the pledge last May to give local areas greater control over local transport, housing, skills and healthcare, it appears that he does not place the same faith in local communities when it comes to our schools.”
“I do not understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. He is digressing on details of capital gains tax when the point I am clearly making is about the context in which the cut has been made, where the burden of this Budget very much falls on the poorest and the most vulnerable in our society. If that is compassionate Conservatism, bring the nasty party back! I am pleased and relieved that the Government have backed down on this issue within less than a week. However, I am angry that those people who rely on the personal independence payment, including 1,100 people in Newcastle upon Tyne North, have endured days and weeks of huge anxiety about how they would cope if this level of support was cut. It is unforgivable. I remain equally concerned about how the existing reforms to PIP are quite clearly failing disabled people.”
“Finally, in addition to the fact that apprenticeships were not mentioned in the Chancellor’s Budget even though we were promised that they would be, another glaring omission was the lack of any announcement about how the Government intend to protect our regional airports from the impact of devolving air passenger duty to Scotland. That is crucial to Newcastle airport, which supports 12,000 jobs in the region, and through which £300 million of goods are exported every year. All talk of a northern powerhouse will be completely undermined if the Chancellor fails to deal with the issue urgently.”
“As a result of the coalition’s national planning policy framework, some 21,000 new homes are expected to be built in Newcastle by 2030, a large proportion of which will be in my constituency. That will require new school capacity, but who will be the guiding mind that will match and create that new school capacity in an area that will be controlled by Whitehall? Newcastle City Council already finds itself in the impossible position of being unable to establish new community schools to cope with existing demand. How on earth will it be able to deliver the right school places across Newcastle upon Tyne North when every school is accountable to the Secretary of State?”
“There are signs that it is already struggling with its current workload of 4,000 schools. As the Education Committee, of which I am a member, recently uncovered, the Department could not even deliver its annual accounts to Parliament in time and required a statutory extension, and there remains doubt as to when it will ever be able to present them. This mass rush to conversion will only add to the current mess. We need only look at the fiasco of the free schools application process, where there is no clear rhyme or reason to the Department’s decisions to authorise new schools. We see a Department in disarray. Of particular concern for my constituents is how the forced academisation process will fit alongside the large-scale programme of house building that is planned for our area.”
“I appreciate my hon. Friend’s point. It is not just local academies that are in trouble—there are some much bigger and more serious questions that we need to raise. First, why are the Government doing this? There is no proof whatsoever that academies per se raise educational standards. It is a distraction that schools now need to focus on this rather than on their educational attainment. Secondly, how will the Government enable the local political leadership to drive up standards and work together, as happened so effectively with the London Challenge, if the power and decision making is so centralised in Whitehall? Is the Department for Education even fit for purpose to deal with over 20,000 schools across the country—about 3,400 secondaries and almost 17,000 primaries?”
“Q4. In 1949, aged 11 months, my constituent William Bradney was diagnosed with polio. He has worked from the age of 15 and he continues to work at 67. However, following a clearly flawed personal independence payment assessment, he is set to lose his Motability car—potentially within three weeks. He says that will leave him unable to leave the house and unable to work. Will the Prime Minister urgently review my constituent’s case and the cases of the 14,000 disabled people who have lost this essential lifeline?”
“My intervention very much complements that of the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens). One of the big concerns about the change, which I am sure my hon. Friend shares, is that the consultation was so inadequate. The Government have also failed to undertake any public sector equality duty review, as required under the Equality Act 2010. The changes could therefore have many unintended consequences, but the Government are not taking the time to explore them.”
“My hon. Friend briefly mentioned the dates of the consultation—between July and August. Does it not occur to him that if the Government were genuinely keen to hear back from people potentially affected by, or interested in, this change, they would not have introduced the consultation for such a short time over the summer holidays?”
“My hon. Friend’s argument is powerful, and I am genuinely at a loss as to why the Government do not take heed of it. The proposal will not only cost individuals in the long term; it is also a betrayal of trust and will only benefit, to a small degree, the company involved. It will not actually benefit the Government, so I do not understand why they do not take action to right what is clearly a wrong.”
“If the Government fail to take heed of this issue and that of the pensions of women who were born in the 1950s, I think that the mantra for the 2020 election will be, “You cannot trust the Tories on pensions.””
“My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech and I congratulate her on securing an important debate. I would hate to pre-empt her, but while she is setting out clear examples of where the figures in the north-east are higher than in the rest of the country, I want to say that one of the most shocking things is this: the Government’s own figures show that councils’ spending power per household between 2010 and 2020 will fall by the highest amount in the north-east—by £465.51 per head, compared with £154.07 in the south-east. My hon. Friend is setting out the picture of why the north-east requires additional spending and those figures stand in stark contrast.”