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 thank the Secretary of State for the work that has been done in this area, but one concern that has been raised is that, although the penalties in relation to maintaining the records of the person of significant control are relatively high at a maximum of two years’ imprisonment, the sanctions for not providing that information to the public register are relatively low at £250 a day, given, as the Secretary of State has said, the staggeringly high amounts of money that are potentially involved. Has he considered whether the deterrent is sufficient?”
“My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument. Further to the Secretary of State’s response to my inquiry about a constituent who came to me, I just want to clarify that she had already gone to the helpline and been told that she had to go to tribunal, but she did not want to do that because she was frightened of the costs.”
“My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech about the individuals who face those challenges. Is she also aware of constituents like mine who even have trouble accessing housing benefit and other forms of support because their hours fluctuate so much from one week to the next? That makes it very difficult for them to access the state support that should be there for them.”
“Finally, it would be remiss of me not to touch on the proposals in the Bill on pub company regulation, particularly as I am due to meet members of the Tyneside branch of CAMRA at the Millstone pub in South Gosforth on Friday. Many of the issues have been discussed by hon. Members, but Tyneside CAMRA believes that the Government need to go further in protecting community pubs. Its members are particularly disappointed that the Bill does not include market rent only and guest beer options, because it believes that requiring the big pubcos to provide tied licensees with those options would be the simplest means of ensuring fair play. Those options would support not only community pubs, but microbreweries across the country, such as the excellent Big Lamp brewery in Newburn in my constituency.”
“Many people who receive severance payments believe that they are gagged, but in law they are not. There are concerns about blacklisting and job applications. There is no cause of action in law if somebody who has blown the whistle and has been put on a blacklist is not recruited on that basis. There is currently no protection for armed forces and national security whistleblowers who raise concerns about wrongdoing or malpractice. We need greater protection for individuals who seek advice from trade unions. For example, people who raise concerns but do not take the matter forward still need protection under the law. We all welcome greater support for whistleblowers, so I would be interested to hear the Minister’s views on the concerns that have been raised.”
“We want to ensure that there is a legal responsibility for companies to acquire and declare information on the identities of beneficial owners, as well as a legal requirement on beneficial owners to declare to companies that they are the ultimate owner. As I said to the Secretary of State, we want to ensure that there are significant penalties for failure to comply to ensure that everybody complies with the requirements. People must not think that it is worth while ignoring the requirements and they must not get away with doing so. I want briefly to raise the concerns of Public Concern at Work about whistleblowing. The proposals go some way towards addressing those concerns, but do not go far enough. There are still concerns about gagging clauses.”
“That is why the all-party parliamentary group has been lobbying hard and speaking to Ministers about how we can ensure that the public register does the job that it sets out to do. We want to ensure that a number of issues are taken into consideration. We want to ensure that the information on beneficial ownership is available to the public as open data, that it is machine-readable and that it conforms to the Open Knowledge definition. We want to ensure that the information can be verified and that there is sufficient information to distinguish one individual from another. For example, a date of birth might be necessary.”
“That deprives developing countries of much needed tax revenue that could be invested in public services and infrastructure. It is secret company ownership that makes most cases of large-scale corruption, criminal money laundering and terrorist financing possible. A World Bank review of 213 big corruption cases between 1980 and 2010 found that more than 70% of them relied on anonymous shell entities. Many of the company service providers were registered in the UK or in our Crown dependencies and overseas territories. The cost of this activity to developing countries is vast. The best recent estimates suggest that between $21 trillion and $31 trillion in private financial assets is held in tax havens, which is greater than the entire global aid budget.”
“Speaking in my capacity as co-founder and co-chair of the all-party group on anti-corruption, I welcome the proposals in the Bill to create a public register of beneficial owners known as the register of people with significant control. That move will mean that the UK is the first major economy to have a public register providing details of who really owns and controls what are currently anonymous shell companies. That is important because, although businesses play an important role in developing thriving societies around the world, some companies abuse global corporate structures. Secret ownership structures allow wealth to be hidden away. Many companies and individuals avoid or evade tax by keeping their money in a complex network of trusts and shell firms, which are often based in secretive tax havens.”
“As a result, more children were given a better start in life.”
“Welcome though any support is, however, the Bill still falls far short of the mark when it comes to making up the ground that has been lost under this Conservative-led Government in regard to meeting and furthering those goals. Since 2010, all parents have seen reduced support, fewer child care places and spiralling child care costs. We know that families up and down the country are struggling with this. Investing in early years and focusing support on those families that needed help the most are among the greatest legacies of the last Labour Government, and those principles are now universally accepted by all parties of government. Under Labour, parents benefited from a range of policies and investments that helped more parents, but particularly single mothers, into work and lifted more children out of poverty.”
“I want to begin by saying that the Opposition welcome any new investment in child care and any extra support for the millions of hard-pressed people—parents and families—up and down the country who are battling to juggle their work and family lives. We are the party that, in government, set the precedent for investing in early years and supporting the families that needed help the most and, as a result, tackling disadvantage and improving the life chances of children. Of course, those are aims and priorities that all political parties now accept, thanks to the progress that was made in that area under the last Labour Government.”
“Those policies and changes were aimed at giving every child the best possible start in life but, perhaps more importantly, they lifted 1 million children out of relative poverty and more than 2 million children out of absolute poverty.”
“When we look back on Labour’s record in government, we are proud of the introduction of the Sure Start local programmes and the subsequent huge expansion of Sure Start centres up and down the country. We are proud of the free part-time nursery education that we introduced for all three and four-year-olds. We are proud of the more affordable and higher-quality child care that we brought in through the employer-supported child care voucher scheme, and of the child care tax credits and the introduction of the early years curriculum. We are also proud of the increased financial support for families with children, including the introduction of tax credits and the increases in child benefit and maternity pay and grants.”
“No, I do not accept that. It is tempting for Government Members to quibble about measures and markers, and I know that a lot of time has been spent arguing about how to measure child poverty instead of recognising the desperate increase in it. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has projected that there will be 1 million more children in poverty by 2015 than there were in 2010. Government Members need to be careful when obsessing and arguing about those measurements while ignoring the reality, which is that hundreds of thousands more children are now living in homes that their parents cannot afford to heat, and struggling in households where their parents cannot afford to put food on the table and are using food banks.”
“One consequence is that progress on reducing child poverty has stalled.”
“It added: “We will help families with all the pressures they face: the lack of time, money worries, the impact of work, concerns about schools and crime, preventing unhealthy influences, poor housing.” Let us not forget the Liberal Democrats—I am pleased that one of them is here today. Their 2010 manifesto claimed: “Liberal Democrats believe every family should get the support it needs to thrive, from help with childcare through to better support for carers and elderly parents. Liberal Democrats will improve life for your family.” Have those promises been translated into reality? We know that parents are facing a child care crunch because child care costs have spiralled, the number of places has fallen and the support that families receive from the Government has been slashed.”
“As UNICEF pointed out when it compared child poverty levels internationally in 2010, “without UK Government intervention in the form of cash transfers, tax credits and services for children and families, the UK would see a child poverty rate three times higher than its current levels.” Government Members seem to be quite vexed about this issue, but I think that that is because they have a shameful record. Unfortunately, the story under this Government has been very different from that under the Labour Government. That is the case despite the promise in the Conservative manifesto in 2010 to “make Britain the most family-friendly country in Europe”.”
“I genuinely do not understand the hon. Lady’s intervention. Obviously, we recognise that there are measurements of child poverty. The point I was making was— [ Interruption. ] No, I did not say that I did not recognise measurements of child poverty; we introduced them. What I find unacceptable is that the Government quibble and argue about how to measure child poverty rather than taking the necessary action to deal with a problem that is staring them in the face—namely, an increasing number of children in poverty. As the IFS concluded in 2011, the reduction in child poverty during the first two terms of the Labour Government was “by far the largest and most sustained since” figures began in 1961.”
“We all want to see more child care places. We recognise not only that there is a challenge in meeting the costs of child care, but that we need to do something on the supply side if we are to see the costs come under control. That is why I will set out exactly how Labour has proposed to deal with that issue. Although we support the measures that are being proposed, despite having quite a number of questions to raise about them, we suggest that there are actions that the Government could take today on the supply side to increase the number of child care places that are available, which has been falling.”
“I do not recognise what the hon. Lady is saying. If she is saying that that is happening in her area, I would be interested to see the data to back that up. We know that 35,000 fewer child care places are available and that prices are rising. Parents out there are struggling with the cost of child care—indeed, the Government accept that it is a challenge for many households up and down the country—and I think that they would find it deeply disconcerting to hear an hon. Member suggest that prices are falling and that everything is fine. Government Members seem to be very detached from the reality that families are facing up and down the country.”
“The reality and experience of households and families up and down the country is that Labour has a proud record of supporting families with children to get into work and with the costs associated with child care, and of ensuring there are enough child care places—certainly not the reduction of 35,000 places that we have seen since the Government took office.”
“Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is reading that argument from a Whip’s handout, although I know it is one that Government Members like to quote. The Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years, which I would trust more than I would trust the hon. Gentleman on this subject, has commented specifically on that issue, stating that that statistic has often been quoted in the past few months but it is not one that it recognises. The association does not recognise the statistics that the Government are trying to use to establish the case that Labour let the country down on child care.”
“We need to make progress on that so that parents who want to work can do so and so that child care is affordable.”
“Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will look again at his House of Commons Library note and explain in his contribution why we have seen 3,000 fewer childminder places since the Government took office. Overall, there is a worrying trend of reducing child care places and rising child care prices, and he will understand that basic economics mean that households up and down the country are struggling to deal with the cost of child care. Many households—particularly women—are making the choice to stay at home because it is simply unaffordable to go out to work. The Minister spoke passionately about the increasing number of women in work, but she will acknowledge that there is a lot more work to do on that and we still fall behind on maternal employment in OECD comparisons.”
“It is hardly surprising that the Family and Childcare Trust has calculated that families are paying more on average for part-time child care than they spend on their mortgage, with some handing over a staggering £7,500 a year more for child care for two children—around 4.7% more than the average mortgage bill.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for her clarification, but we know that over the course of this Parliament we have seen a reduction in the number of child care places and an increase in the price of child care. Part-time nursery prices have risen five times faster than pay, and in the past four years alone in my region in the north-east prices have risen by a staggering 50% for households that are already struggling to make ends meet. The average bill for a part-time nursery place of 25 hours a week has gone up to £107, and the average weekly cost of a full-time place has risen to £200 or more.”
“Worst of all, a forecast by the Institute for Fiscal Studies indicates that while Ministers and, clearly, their Back Benchers squabble over how to adequately define child poverty, which seems to be a distraction from their failure to deal with it, almost 1 million more children will be living in poverty in 2020.”
“We must not forget that the true impact of this coalition Government’s failure is felt not just by parents, but by their children. The latest HBAI figures show that the progress Labour made in lifting more than 1 million children out of poverty has ground to a halt. Equally worrying, the number of children living in what is deemed to be material deprivation is on the rise, with 300,000 more children living in families that cannot afford to keep their house warm, 400,000 more children living in families that cannot afford to make savings of £10 a month, and half a million or more families unable to afford to replace broken electrical goods.”
“These figures only reflect tax and benefit changes, and the impact of wages falling relative to prices has left working people on average £600 a year worse off since 2010. Even more worrying is that new research published last week by the Resolution Foundation suggests that the official statistics may well have underestimated the fall in living standards, because they take no account of the wages of the self-employed. The fall in wages could be between 20% and 30% greater than originally thought. As we know, this could prove particularly relevant to women’s experiences, because according to the Office for National Statistics, women have made up more than half of the growth in the number of self-employed since 2008.”
“New analysis of the households below average income statistics published earlier this month shows that under this Government it is families with children who have seen the biggest falls in their income, relative to those without children. Since 2009-10, a couple with two children aged five and 14 are on average £2,132 a year worse off in real terms. In contrast, a couple with no children are £1,404 a year worse off. A single person with two children aged five and 14 is on average £1,664 worse off, compared with a single person with no children, who is £936 a year worse off. We know that everybody is worse off, but families with children in particular are bearing the brunt.”
“It is alarming that we can no longer keep track of the figures on the Government website. In addition to all that, parents have seen the Conservative Government give a £3 billion tax cut to the top 1% of earners, more than three quarters of whom are men. At the same time, parents have seen cuts of £15 billion. Support to families to balance their work and family life, such as tax credits, child benefit, maternity grant allowances and statutory maternity pay, has been reduced. The reductions to tax credits alone have meant that some families have lost up to £1,560 a year, while the House of Commons Library estimates that families with newborn children could be up to £1,725 worse off over the initial two years.”
“Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), admitting last November that 38,000 of the 20% most disadvantaged two-year-olds—38,000 out of 130,000—did not have the places to which they were entitled. In May 2014, she updated the House on progress, with 10% of the most disadvantaged two-year-olds still without places. Perhaps most worrying of all is that there are 536 fewer Sure Start children’s centres than there were in 2010—an average loss of three a week. That is the figure we have, but the Minister removed the online database last autumn. Perhaps she will comment on this. I would have thought that, given her professed interest in supporting families and dealing with these issues, there would be a desire to continue to monitor the number of child care and Sure Start places available.”
“The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. We need reassurance from the Government that they have considered the data from experiences in other parts of the globe. Examples show that dealing only with the demand side, supporting parents with child care costs, simply increases the price of child care for families rather than bringing it down. Ultimately, that costs parents and the Government more, because they end up forking out more for a smaller number of child care places. There seems to be a huge debate about the figures, but official figures show 35,000 fewer child care places across the country. In my region of the north-east alone, we have lost more than 5,000 places. Even the coalition’s flagship offer for two-year-olds, which is due to be extended in October, has floundered, with the child care Minister, the hon.”
“The hon. Gentleman seems to have gone off the subject of child poverty, which is what we were dealing with. Going back to childminders, there was some movement in respect of the database of those registered when the Ofsted registration system came into place. If he is suggesting that he does not support Ofsted registration, I would be interested to hear more of his views.”
“We know that many women, for example, are subject to zero-hours contracts, which can make it very difficult to plan for child care and the costs and availability of child care, when they might not know what hours they will be working from one week to the next. I hope that the Minister will take all those issues into account, particularly in respect of supporting families, which could be dependent on the interaction between the implementation of this policy and universal credit.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which brings us back to the issue of child poverty and the importance of child care in supporting families and particularly children in getting out of that situation. She raises an important point, and I shall be coming on to ask some questions about the Bill’s implementation in that regard. Contrary to the impression given by the Minister, there is still a lack of clarity about who will and will not benefit from the changes. I shall reflect only momentarily, Madam Deputy Speaker, on the wider point that my hon. Friend raises. Our very flexible labour market can make it difficult for many parents to manage their child care arrangements.”
“As their own child poverty adviser Alan Milburn said recently, “The Government’s approach falls far short of what is needed to reduce, let alone end, child poverty in our country.””
“I think that the hon. Lady is straying somewhat from the subject of the debate, but I also think that a number of the workers who were involved in Thursday’s strikes were among the very lowest paid, who we know need this child care support and who are struggling to make ends meet. That was one of the motivating factors in the action that they took last week. I therefore do not think that the hon. Lady’s point was entirely irrelevant, but let me now return to the issue that is under discussion, which is child poverty. There is concern about the fact that much of the progress that has been made has been either halted or, even worse, reversed by the Government’s policies over the last four to five years. The Government are absolutely on track to miss spectacularly their statutory obligations in terms of eradicating child poverty.”
“However, as we know, this additional support does not do nearly enough to make up some of the ground that has been lost over the past four years. For a number of reasons, there is doubt about how effective it will be even when it arrives, in about a year’s time, and about how much better off families will be. The bottom line is this: the Bill confirms that there will be no help for parents who are facing a child care crunch until after the next election, which means that there will be virtually no help with child care for an entire Parliament under the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.”
“Indeed, the next sub-heading in my speech is “The Bill”, so thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. My point was that child poverty was the issue—the issue in front of us—with which I was dealing before I took a number of interventions. That issue is very pertinent, because we know that the provision of affordable child care is one of the key measures that will help children to be lifted out of poverty. We know that enabling parents to go to work and to be in stable, secure employment is the primary way of enabling them to bring their families out of poverty. Let me reiterate—in the context of today’s debate and the Bill—that we support any Government action that will help families who are struggling with the child care crunch.”
“That is the basis of the questions that I now wish to put to the Minister.”
“Of course child care costs will rise with inflation, but we have seen a spiralling increase. Child care costs have risen much faster than wages, and the increase has been much faster than previous increases in terms of the natural economic cycle. When I talk about lost ground, I am talking about the support that is available to families across the board, which we know has been reduced on a range of fronts—not to mention the reduction in the working tax credits and child care tax credits that are available to working parents. I think that, in introducing the Bill, the Government have recognised that they have a problem, namely that there is not enough support out there for working families. We need to ensure that this Government support, although welcome, goes further. We need to ensure that it goes far enough, and is implemented properly.”
“As far as I can tell, however, Ministers have never properly explained what that crucial difference is, because clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill define qualifying child care based on two criteria—first, whether the child care is provided by a registered and accredited provider, and, secondly, where one of the main reasons for the child care is to enable parents to go to work—but that does not explain why 1.9 million families are eligible, yet only 1.25 million such families have eligible child care costs. In fact, as far as I can tell, the Bill does not specifically refer to qualifying child care costs anywhere. I see the Minister shaking her head and I am sure she would like to clarify this point.”
“Even when the help arrives, it is unclear who exactly will benefit from this scheme, and even then it is unclear how much better off some people will be and many might legitimately ask whether they will actually be better off. In the Government’s original consultation last August, they estimated that 2.5 million working families would be eligible for support under this scheme, but in their revised consultation, set out in the subsequent consultation response in March, that number was reduced to 1.9 million families, and therefore around 2.6 million children. However, the Government estimate that only two thirds of those 1.9 million working families—so, about 1.25 million—will have qualifying child care costs.”
“My hon. Friend makes a powerful and important point, and I think we should celebrate on a cross-party basis the fact that we now have consensus that the Government need to take on board this issue and that addressing it can improve the life chances of families, in particular children. That is a huge credit to the last Labour Government who pushed this issue forward and raised it up in terms of political acceptance and cross-party agreement and as an issue that Government cannot simply turn their back on. None the less we have seen soaring costs, falling numbers of places and cuts in tax credits for thousands of families and, as a result, in 2015 families will be worse off than they were in 2010.”
“I thank the Minister for that clarification, but I am surprised she thinks it is acceptable that on the day we are debating this Bill on Second Reading we should be able to debate these regulations that have only been published today. I am also very surprised by the comments she makes about the timetable. The Government have obviously had to re-consult on this issue so they are far behind their original timetable anyway, so I am not—”
“In a moment I will. First, I will finish what I am saying, which is that this is far too little, too late, and no child care support is available from this Government for this entire Parliament, but I would be happy for the Minister to correct me on that.”
“It would appear from her responses that the Department is simply not aware of what proportion of families paying for child care will benefit from the Bill, how it will benefit different income groups proportionally, and what the average top-up will be per child once the scheme is up and running. It is hard to believe that the Treasury is not in possession of such data. Surely it is fundamental to understanding what the Bill’s impact might be on the Exchequer, and on children and families. The only indication that we have about how the Bill will impact on different income groups is from work undertaken by the Resolution Foundation, which suggests that the scheme could be skewed towards higher earnings, which might go some way to explain why the Minister has been so unforthcoming with responses to the various questions put.”
“I was referring to the Government’s original timetable that they are already behind on, but I appreciate that it is intended this offer will be implemented in autumn 2015, as she says. We hope that that will be the case. However I do have a number of questions about the implementation. Unfortunately, Ministers have repeatedly refused to set out the specifics of who will be better off and by how much, or whether people will be better off as a result of these measures. I have tabled a series of written parliamentary questions to try to gain clarity on those points, but disappointingly, although not surprisingly, the answers from the Financial Secretary have not been helpful in the slightest. In many cases, the right hon. Lady has simply failed to answer the questions.”