Rachael Maskell
MP for York Central · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“I welcome today’s statement and I welcome the Secretary of State to her place. York hospital was heralded as a cheap build, but we are paying a heavy price today. We know that heat in that hospital will have an impact on clinical outcomes as well as on staffing.”
“The conflict is moving beyond traditional warfare; we are now seeing extensive drone use, mercenaries being brought from Colombia, and the exchange of money too. We also know that Russia has its own interests in weapons and gold. We must look at the minimal interest in Sudan and the developments in Port Sudan at this time.”
“When we think about the fact that 33.7 million of the Sudanese population are in need of humanitarian assistance, 13 million have been displaced, 19.5 million are at levels of food insecurity and need urgent attention, and there are 8 million children who are not in the safety of school every day, getting their education, which will fuel…”
“Will the Minister tell us what progress has been made in that area, how that money has been spent and its impact to date? As we see increasing brutalisation in war, we have to focus even more on how we use international law to hold actors to account, and on the pace of that process, because it takes forever and a day to bring people to ac…”
“In the assault on El Fasher in particular, we saw the systematic raping of women, the burning of people and places, and the escalation in the next chapter of the civil war that has raged since April 2023.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan) on securing such an important debate.”
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“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) for opening the debate in the way that he did, looking at not only his local perspective, but the national perspective of One Public Estate. It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard). I concur with him about the opportunities the regions provide in departmental change and bringing those vital jobs into the region. I look at York and its connectivity: with the upgrade of the east coast main line, it will be just over an hour and a half out of London—and what a fantastic place to live, rather than in the heart of this city, in order to facilitate many of those vital public functions.”
“Is not the problem that local authorities may have their plans—it is absolutely right that they lead—but there is a collision course with the national determination of Departments? That is the piece that needs to be fixed.”
“The other determinant, of course, is finances. Although Government Departments are trying to reap as much resource from the land as they possibly can, and that is why it is being handed over to developers, local authorities are really cash-strapped in how they can develop that land. Will the Minister also look at that collision course, when he goes back to the Department?”
“The point I was making is that Government Departments are taking that resource into their national funds—into their own budgets—as opposed to delivering benefit to local communities. There are, therefore, different interests at play when it comes to the resourcing of developments.”
“Will the Minister update the Committee on what stage we are at in the further talks on regular and special services? When are they expected to conclude, and what changes are needed to maintain those services? Such an agreement is due to cease at the end of this year. Labour is therefore disappointed that at this late stage we are discussing such vital legislation, should the UK leave the European Union. However, we recognise the importance of ensuring that there is a smooth transition and access to cross-border operations for coach and bus passenger services.”
“Are we to expect that other regulations in the transport brief will be brought forward? What risk assessment has the Department for Transport made of the impact of being unprepared for Brexit? The Secretary of State seems to have mismanaged the progress of legislation that will protect the continuity of public transport. I must remind the Minister that this is an area of major concern to the people of Northern Ireland—not least her Government’s confidence and supply partners. The regulations are designed to maintain the status quo on the access rights of bus and coach operators in their international travel operations across the border, and they have come to this Parliament in the absence of a functioning Northern Ireland Assembly. I note the progress that has been made on the Interbus agreement.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Mr Bailey. As we have heard, the regulations will enable existing bus and coach transport to continue to operate should the UK leave the European Union. It is clear that membership of the Community licensing scheme would alleviate the risks to the industry. Will the Minister tell us what progress has been made on being a member of the Community licensing scheme should the UK leave the European Union with a deal or even without a comprehensive deal? The regulations will remove such barriers and bring clarity, so that buses and coaches can operate across the Irish border and onwards with cabotage arrangements. I stress that bringing the regulations to the Committee six weeks after the UK was due to leave the European Union, possibly with no deal in place, is incredibly negligent.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. The HMI Prisons report on the CRC in York highlighted the devastating impact on the morale of probation officers, who do fantastic work, particularly due to the change in culture and excessive workloads. Is that not only completely unacceptable but detrimental to those who depend on the probation service for their rehabilitation?”
“Quality is to follow. On outcomes, which are the most important thing that we look at, will the Secretary of State explain why Askham Grange prison, which has the best outcomes in the country and the lowest reoffending rates and which is, I must say, in the public sector, is constantly under threat of closure? If we are looking at the evidence, surely the Government should keep the prison open.”
“The Secretary of State has boasted about the amount of money that is going into the NHS, but the Government have transferred public health services to local authorities, whose funding is being slashed, and as a result funding for those services is also being cut. Can the Secretary of State say how much of that NHS money will support the role of local authorities in delivering the public health agenda?”
“I ask the Minister whether the Government will look again to ensure that there is a comprehensive screening programme for people across the country, so that they can check in at the key point and transition phases in their lives to ensure their mental and physical wellbeing is reinstated. Local authorities being able to cut these services is of serious detriment.”
“We also see the impact it has on the criminal justice system, with 75% of arrests involving alcohol. Alcohol is the influencing factor in a third of crimes. So investing in public health saves not only NHS spend, but wider service spend. Of course alcohol has an impact on the safeguarding of young people. In York it also has an impact on domestic violence. Yet York has 799 premises that sell alcohol. We know there is cost, risk and devastation, and we know there is an impact on wider public services, families and wider society. We therefore need a more comprehensive approach and properly funded public health services.”
“On substance misuse, I must thank my friend Councillor Michael Pavlovic, whose forensic scrutiny of drug and alcohol service funding highlighted the serious £550,000 cut over a five-year period when usage was at a crisis. Shockingly, the drug death figures for York are the worst not only in Yorkshire, but in the whole country. The Government have not been taking a public health approach to substance misuse and it is vital that that now moves into a public health arena. We have also seen alcohol being used hazardously in York, with 7% of my constituents—15,000 people—doing so. Some 10% of accident and emergency admissions were alcohol-related in 2014, and in December last year it was found that 33% of admissions to York Teaching Hospital involved people who were using alcohol. Of course, that leads to premature death.”
“To date, there is no clear vision of how public health will be funded as we move past the comprehensive spending review. The clock is ticking and plans need to be made now. In York, the health inequality is eight years between Clifton, the poorest area of my city, and the richest area. The council has slashed long-term contraception services, which has meant a rise in the number of unwanted pregnancies. Health checks have been cut, although they are a major intervention in prevention. We have also had smoking cessation services ceased; in 2010, we had 1,948 people using the smoking cessation service, whereas last year we had just 92.”
“Half a million pounds is proposed to be slashed from York’s public health spending, which will have an impact on the services to be delivered. Public health is about the long term, and the disadvantage for local authorities is that, with their strained budgets, they are having to focus on the emergencies today. Of course, local authorities have no levers over the NHS, which ultimately picks up the tab for the failure to deliver a public health agenda. Controls over the system is not in the right place. Of course, the advantage of moving public health back out of health and into local authorities is that it impacts on education, the environment, the economy, housing and the wider community. We are deeply worried about the ending of public health grants.”
“It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), who brings her health expertise to this debate. The discord between the Government’s narrative and reality could not be more stark. The long understood centrality of public health to addressing health inequalities was ably brought to the fore by Michael Marmot’s report a decade ago that highlighted the social determiners of poor health. We therefore cannot just look at health in this debate; we have to look at the wider impact of health across our society. Of course the Government’s 10-year plan and long-term approach are welcome, but the reality is that there are serious funding cuts to the delivery of public health by local authorities.”
“According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1.9 million pensioners now live in poverty, which is a complete disgrace. Given that 46,000 pensioners died prematurely last year, why has the winter fuel allowance not been increased for more than a decade?”
“We worry that self-audit, self-determination of training and competency, and self-assessment of physical and mental ability could lead to some organisations cutting corners on safety. According to proposed schedule 11, the issue will be dealt with through data collection rather than an inspection process, but that is a retrospective approach—it is not proactive—to ensuring the safest regime possible. It is disappointing that the Government do not want to advance rail safety and are complacent on the issue. They are not ensuring that we produce best practice, not just in the UK but across the EU.”
“The organisation must then ensure that appropriate levels of resourcing to fulfil the task are made available. It must determine its own approach to risk assessment and deal with the consequences of that. It must determine that the calibration of testing equipment is accurate and that software is maintained and staff appropriately trained. It is responsible for the decisions it makes and the components required. That cannot be in the interest of safety, as best practice should be the determinant. The monitoring function should be independent, but it will be internalised within the management structure. We therefore argue that it must also be subject to external audit or moderation. We must not just depend on an internal process to ensure that standards are maintained and that information is drawn out of any inspection and shared.”
“Despite the Government’s commitment to advance safety, it is disappointing that there is not a commitment in these regulations to map across the long-term progress of safety frameworks with the EU, and thus to maximise the opportunity for advancing safety. Proposed schedule 10 to the Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006 refers to outsourcing the maintenance function, or parts of it, but not the management of maintenance. The Labour party believes that the fragmentation of outsourcing across the rail service creates risk, and therefore we cannot support that approach. Part 4 of that schedule determines how maintenance will be managed. Our first concern is that it enables each managing entity to establish its own plan and procedures, in line with an organisation’s own approach to safety targets.”
“For instance, part A safety certificates issued by EEA member states will continue to be recognised as valid. The 2019 directive calls for a unified approach in establishing a baseline across the EU for certifications, methods of monitoring, risk evaluation and assessment, and maintenance of standards and targets. Clearly, leaving the EU without a deal would be disastrous for such matters, so it is essential that we maintain cross-border arrangements to ensure that certification and breaches, not least in the maintenance of standards, are handled by the relevant authority. Furthermore, the UK should continue to work with EU countries to maximise safety opportunities, the sharing of data, the raising of standards and the tightening of regimes across the network in the UK and Northern Ireland.”
“In the light that we recognise the continuum of service across the border in Ireland, north and south, and on the channel route, will the Minister explain how she will maintain a continuous process of safety across the border? That seems particularly important, as a number of operators cross the borders between the UK and EU, including Eurostar, GB Railfreight, DB Cargo and Northern Ireland Railways. If an incident occurred on a cross-border service, that would have implications for the jurisdictions either side of the border. How would it be dealt with? Although contingency measures extend to nine months after the UK leaves the EU without a deal, should that scenario arise, what would happen after that time period? I note that the regulations seek to recognise the specific issues that arise as a result of cross-border services.”
“How does the Minister believe that it will enhance the UK’s safety record on our railways? Although we can be pleased with the progress made on rail safety, the UK cannot be complacent—that is an important point to stress—and if there are no enhancements to be made, we should be worried. Clearly, in leaving the EU there will be the disadvantage of not engaging with joint EU learning on improving rail safety. For me, the loss of co-operation on such matters and the sharing of data, intelligence and accountability is one of the greatest detriments of leaving the EU, not least when it comes to improving safety opportunities.”
“That is not good enough, particularly as we are debating cross-border rail safety. We believe that the watering down of reporting makes it harder for the EU and the UK to advance rail safety. It is when we co-operate that we are safest. We have no issue with part 4 of the regulations, on the changes made to the term “interoperable cross-border rail services”. I move now to the two statutory instruments on health and safety, and I will discuss the regulations for Northern Ireland and for the wider UK together. The regulations bring technical corrections to various regulations from 2006. They also address 2019 changes that are due to be brought in by member states, with effect from next month, with an extension of up to a year to do so. What work has already commenced in the UK on the rail safety directive?”
“That divergence creates a differentiation between the ability of transport workers to cross the border in Ireland and their ability to cross the channel. Although it is highly unlikely that the same drivers would interchange between the channel and Northern Ireland border routes, it is worth highlighting the divergence in approach in the UK, east and west. The regulations also impact on the ability to share data on train driver licences and certificates with the safety authorities. That is important in maintaining a safe rail service. That shared intelligence is part of the public standards we would expect to be monitored across border. The Labour party believes that issues appertaining to safety should be shared. In future, should the regulations be passed, the sharing of information within the wider EEA will be discretionary.”
“There is a question whether, without a deal on 30 March this year, trains would simply have had to stop at the border due to train drivers having licences with no stated recognition outside of the UK—hence the regulations being brought forward as a matter of emergency. Does the Minister agree that it is regrettable that the regulations have come to Committee so late? The regulations will differentiate Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK. Although licences from the EU will continue to be recognised indefinitely in Northern Ireland, elsewhere in the UK they will only be recognised for a period of two years or until they expire, if that is sooner, as highlighted in the explanatory memorandum.”
“Surely they should have noted the importance of the management of the rail system and the fact that it is essential to the flow of passengers and goods across the border, and how vital it is to establish frictionless arrangements. When it comes to infrastructure, management and access, the provisions of licences and certificates for train drivers, and the issue of working time regulations on what are considered cross-border working arrangements, those are of high importance for the Government, as they are the people of Northern Ireland. After all, the EU has already agreed temporary reciprocal arrangements. Given that rail safety is such a critical issue for the public, the issuing and recognition of existing licences is important.”
“Thank you, Ms Buck, for chairing the Committee. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I rise to speak to regulations appertaining to exiting the European Union, including two sets relating to Northern Ireland, more than a month after the UK was due to leave the EU. Part 1 of each set of regulations states that they are to come into force on exit day. Why are we still debating them now, so late, when the event in question would have taken place five weeks ago? Perhaps I may turn first to the Railways (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2019. When transportation across the borders of Ireland, north and south, has been at the heart of much debate, why have the Government sat on the regulations?”
“I thank the Minister for responding to my questions. Could she confirm that the Government do not intend to diverge from the standards set across the European Union, particularly in the light of the 2019 directive and the regulations that could result from it?”
“As well as looking at best practice in the NHS, it is vital that we look at best practice in social care. Given that 70,000 people with dementia were admitted to hospital unnecessarily with falls, dehydration and infections just last year, how is the Secretary of State going to put a laser-beam focus on standards in social care?”
“My question relates to fair and consistent treatment of bidders. Given that the Department has confirmed that all three bidders for the East Midlands franchise were non-compliant, why were only Stagecoach and Arriva disqualified from the competition?”
“Well, that is certainly not what the Secretary of State’s Department is saying. He withheld sensitive market information between 1 and 9 April when disqualifying Stagecoach from the South Eastern and West Coast Partnership competitions, thus demonstrating that his interference further discredits the franchising process. Have any of the bidders for the other rail franchise competitions submitted non-compliant bids, and have they been disqualified? If so, why has the information not been made public?”
“The Government’s response to plastic use has been woeful, with a 4% increase in plastic use just last year. There is now more plastic in our oceans than fish. In the light of this environmental calamity, will the Government make a new commitment to ensure that only organic-based packaging material is in place, with no more plastics by 2025?”
“20. When it comes to neurodiversity, some children in York are waiting two years for their diagnosis. The special educational needs and disabilities budget is overspent by £1.3 million and school cuts have been exacerbated, leaving parents and teachers seriously under-resourced to support their child, psychologically, socially and educationally, so how will the Secretary of State use the comprehensive spending review to ensure that all schools are fully funded to meet the needs of those children?”
“Why is the Minister proceeding before a full business case, the skills capability and the real cost have received further scrutiny in the light of evidence that these measures have changed? What discussions has she had with the National Audit Office and the Transport Committee over the widely held concerns expressed over HS2 costs and environmental impact? Does the Minister believe, as has been argued by the Tory leader of Buckinghamshire County Council, that ultra-fast broadband replaces ultra-fast rail? That certainly shows a lack of understanding in the Minister’s party of the transport and economic needs of the north. Finally, will the Minister revisit the route plans to ensure that connectivity opportunities are maximised by this project?”
“It is not the concept of the project that is wrong, as urgent capacity is needed to secure a significant modal shift from cars and HGVs to passenger and freight lines, but the governance of HS2 must be overhauled and fully integrated into the network enhancements programme. Labour aspires to high speed rail, which has to have a focus on interconnectivity to facilitate investment and economic growth in the northern cities and to compete with the internal flight market, thus becoming a sustainable alternative. However, the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) is right to scrutinise the Secretary of State’s handling of the project.”
“The last three years of political turbulence should have taught the Government that politics has to change. The diktats from Westminster must be replaced by co-production with communities, listening to what they are saying. It is unbelievable that, yet again, the Secretary of State has failed to make it to the Dispatch Box. Week by week, we hear of the spiralling costs of HS2, and in a week when Labour is declaring a national climate emergency, it is clear that the full carbon and environmental cost of HS2 will be deeply damaging across Buckinghamshire, not least to the irreplaceable Chilterns, if the connectivity, route and infrastructure are not refocused.”
“My hon. Friend is making an incredibly pertinent speech. Does he not agree that it is completely perverse that public health budgets in York under the Tory-Liberal Democrat council have been slashed, when the NHS 10-year plan says we have to invest in public health?”
“One area in which the Secretary of State and the Government have failed to invest since 2010 is staff. The Government may offer warm words, but a 21% real-terms pay decrease for some of the worst paid workers is completely unacceptable. How is the Secretary of State going to address that issue?”
“We only need look back 100 years, when Seebohm Rowntree carried out his studies of poverty in our city. We will also do that, should we get elected in May, and look at the real deprivation that exists in our city. The Rowntree family then built jobs and housing, put in education and pension systems, promoted the leisure and pleasure that people should enjoy in their everyday lives, and rebuilt York out of the slums. That is what Labour will do again, should we be given the opportunity on 2 May. We will not only analyse what has gone wrong—it is there for everyone to see—but give people the security they deserve and hope for their future so that they can join us on the journey to build a compassionate, humane city.”
“Those sites have been handed over to developers who, quite frankly, just want to make money; they do not want to invest in people. Our city is crying out for a change in approach. It looks shabby and dirty. Waste is not being addressed and recycling rates are falling. The issues that people care about in our communities are not being addressed. The Labour party, however, is ambitious. We will put in place a transport commission to address air pollution, which is taking 150 lives a year in our city. We will make it a carbon-neutral city by 2030, which is more ambitious by far than this Government. We will ensure that we invest in green spaces, because that is a more holistic approach and better for people’s health. We will make those connections and join the dots. Why do that in York?”
“What is happening on the ground in local authority areas is completely unacceptable. It is the responsibility of Government to wake up to the reality. I do not want to hear platitudes; I want to see action. York is the most inequitable city outside of London; the inequality and life expectancy there show that there is failure in the system. It may work for some, but it certainly is not working for the many. Labour’s vision for our city is very different. We want investment in people. We want to give them back their voice so that they can build their future. That is what we will do, should we come to power on 2 May. People have exploited our city. The post office, Bootham Park Hospital and the barracks have been sold, but the money has not come back into our city.”
“I have to say that Labour’s vision in York is very different from that of the current administration, which has just let the market move in. Profit-obsessed developers are now building luxury apartments all over our city, which, quite frankly, people in York cannot afford. We are one of the lowest-wage economies in the north: wages fell in York by £66 last year, and pay is £80 a week lower than the national average. We are a post-industrial city and we are struggling, yet people are exploiting our city. Just two weeks ago, the council agreed plans to put up 2,000 luxury flats in the middle of our city when we have a housing crisis. Eleven people died on our streets last year, and we have families—whole families—in cramped, one-bedroom box rooms, and they are damp as well.”
“The prioritisation placed on the most vulnerable people in our society is wrong, and we have got to see change. If we are talking about wider change, there is the funding of local authorities as well, and it is a broken system. When we look at business rates—I have debated them many times in this place—we see that, as the high streets are hollowed out, the business rates return even less, so local government’s dependency on business rates does not work. We have of course seen precepts, which are regressive, and the council tax, which at its concept was a stopgap for the failed poll tax system. We need to look at funding for local authorities in a very different way. This is not just about funding, but about how funding interconnects with the social ambition of our councillors.”
“That is why the all-party group on ageing and older people, of which I am the chair, set up an inquiry into the human rights of older people, and the report came back saying that it is absolutely vital that there is a commission on the rights of older people. I have written to both the Ministers sitting on the Front Bench—the Minister for Care and the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price)—and I have to say that the response has been woeful. We are talking about the rights, voice, opportunity and future of older people, but they are just dismissed. I believe that is why we have seen the delay in the social care Green Paper, which, let us face it, is a discussion document and is not going to change anything.”
“We heard earlier about how Labour brought in a place-based system, looking at how to get the interconnectivity of different lines of funding. Now we see the fragmentation, the diktats from Government and the pulling apart of local communities, and I see that reflected in my local area as well. The whole system of funding is broken, and funding has not been spread out to where there is greatest need. Returning to the issue of older people, I want to highlight this point. In this place, we talk about older people only with regard to social care and pensions, which are seen as financial burdens on the state. We do not talk about how the state can invest in these really precious lives and ensure that their rights are upheld right to the end.”
“Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith) highlighted how careworkers in particular are paid so poorly. Why? They are women. The fact is that this Government take it that women will not go out on strike and will not fight, but will care instead because they know how desperately people need their labour. They know how desperately people need them to visit and how, if they do not turn up that day, somebody will be worse off. That is why money is not put in: because they care and because they are women. The inequality that is now embedded so deeply in our system highlights to me how broken the funding system for local government is. Beyond that, we know that local government itself does not get the investment, yet it is where change can really happen.”
“My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) has summed up the importance of today’s debate. The reality is that care does not come for nothing; it costs money, and it is about where this Government’s priorities actually sit. We have heard the talk about millions and billions of pounds so many times, yet the very people in our society who need special care are so often overlooked. I want to thank the staff of City of York Council for the incredible work they do for my city, as they have in very difficult times over the last four years. Decisions are often made that they do not agree with, yet they have complied with them as servants of our people, and that is against the backdrop of losing a fifth of their wages in real terms. My hon.”
“I am really grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate, because the Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust lost the main contract with our clinical commissioning group as the result of a litany of failures in my constituency, including ignoring three Care Quality Commission reports, which put mental health patients in my constituency at serious risk. My question today is this: will the Minister review the licence of that trust to operate, or not, in light of the consequences of its actions and the harm it has caused?”
“Other outlets in York, such as Alligator and Bishy Weigh, where customers fill their recycled pots with grains and groceries, provide an alternative to the plastic wrapping used by all the supermarkets. My diet has changed—for the better, I have to say; it is now plant based. I bake my own bread and make my own coleslaw, but I have gone without some products as a result of wanting to source them plastic-free. Dairy is hard to source, and there are others. As a consumer, my choices were removed. If I have experienced that, people across the country are experiencing it today and there is therefore an obligation on us all to address the plastic challenge.”