Richard Burgon

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

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1,864 lines on record for Richard Burgon, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, without an account. Most recent 500 lines shown. Search to find more. Page 9 of 10.

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1. “The Government are going into these global climate talks having announced new North sea oil and gas fields. If every country copied this Government’s approach of squeezing out every last drop of oil and gas, we would risk extreme global temperature rises of 3°C. Every respected climate body has warned of the dangers of this approach, so at the climate talks why should any other country listen to this Government when their policies are not compatible with the UK’s own climate commitments?”

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2. “When we strip it down, is this not really about trying to set up a whole series of complicated and uncertain hurdles so that employers or the Government can say that strike action has taken place illegally or unlawfully, and then set about trying to fine trade unions and scupper the democratic right to strike? In the Conservative party, there is a tradition of trying to avoid what it would call heavy-handed state interference in matters. Is the Government’s approach not heavy-handed state interference in the management of independent trade unions? They are trying to determine what picket supervisors and pickets will and will not say to people who have voted for strike action.”

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3. “I am sorry to draw a political parallel, but sometimes the parallel between politics and industrial practice is useful. It is the job of the Conservative party, in my area and others, to convince people to cast their vote for the Conservatives; it is the job of the Labour party to persuade local people to cast their vote for the Labour party. Is the requirement for trade unions to write to their members to tell them not to strike the industrial equivalent of requiring the Conservative party, in my constituency or others, to write to their own members telling them to vote Labour, or vice versa? Is it not a perverse interference to change the role of trade unions in a really authoritarian and heavy-handed way? The state interference here on behalf of employers in industrial disputes is quite appalling.”

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4. “My hon. Friend and I have many things in common, one of which is that we were both trade union lawyers, which Government Members perhaps think are not a good thing. Why are the Government so keen to give so much business to employment lawyers? The code of practice’s use of the phrase that my hon. Friend has just mentioned—“reasonable steps”—is a lawyer’s dream, whether they be on the employer’s side or the workers’ side. In legal libraries across the country, there are fat books of case law to determine what is and is not reasonable in various employment situations. The code is a recipe for further clogging up the courts, and it will cost further money for both trade unions and employers. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is absolutely ridiculous?”

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5. “I certainly wish the Government would put as much effort into thinking about service levels—funding proper service levels and staffing proper service levels—on those days as they do when they are trying to engage in this political stunt. I will leave it there, but people following this debate will be shocked that, for the purpose of a political stunt, the Government are seeking to treat our NHS ambulance workers like a political football and doing so in a way that has no roots in the practical day-to-day realities in our NHS on those rare strike days or on the vast majority of days when there is no strike action.”

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6. “All of this really puts at risk the good will that exists between everybody who works in our NHS, including the employers, ambulance staff and others. It is because of that good will and that care for patients that agreements between unions and ambulance trusts are brokered each time; that is why ambulance workers left picket lines on strike days to do everything they could to save lives. So this measure is concerning indeed. People outside here will wonder why the Government plough ahead and seem almost to demand a higher level of delivery on strike days than on other days. It seems a lot like that: they seem committed only to driving up delivery on strike days. What about all the other days? What about the 99% of days over the last 13 years when there has not been strike action in our national health service?”

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7. “Their very own impact assessment notes: “Engagement with stakeholders suggested the issuing of work notices would be challenging and time-consuming as this process will involve consulting with a number of unions about the number of workers to be identified and the work to be specified before issuing a work notice, communicating with workers, who may disagree with being named or query whether they are/are not named, updating rosters which may not align with strike action, and/or updating privacy notices.” Even the employers’ body, NHS Providers, speaking of the plans for ambulance minimum service levels, said: “Our view is that this Bill would add a further challenge to industrial relationships, at a time when the NHS most needs to protect them.” If an NHS employers’ body is raising such concerns, why on earth are the Government ploughing ahead regardless, unless it is for cheap political headlines and to play politics with our NHS?”

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8. “As the shadow Minister said, all of this is happening against the background of complete failure in the NHS. Should the Government not listen to their own evidence about how unworkable the practices we are considering will be?”

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9. “People will not forget some of the awful things Government Ministers have said in TV interviews about these dedicated public servants in our NHS. The Minister talks about minimum service levels, but the truth is that NHS staff, including ambulance workers, go the extra mile day in, day out. They go further than they have to; they do more work than they are expected or required to. Why? Because they care. That is why they end up working in our national health service. Others have spoken about the reality on strike days. I attended a picket line at an ambulance station in my constituency and spoke with the ambulance workers there. On that very day, they left the picket line to go and look after somebody they were concerned about, so the picture the Government paint is very different from the reality we see on the ground.”

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10. “I know that this delegated legislation is about the ambulance service, but Members should just think back to the headlines. People were shocked when nurses, in an almost unprecedented fashion, felt it necessary to ballot for strike action. The question any reasonable person would ask in that rare circumstance is, why on earth did that happen? The reason NHS workers, including nurses, felt the need to do that is that they felt they had not been treated with respect by the Government. This Government have presided over a cost of living crisis, and despite the excellent work that NHS workers do for patients day in, day out in our communities, they felt that they were not getting paid a fair wage. It really galls people outside this place to see the way Government Ministers have depicted our ambulance workers, and NHS workers more widely.”

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11. “Is the Minister aware that, in the most recent ambulance strikes, Unison reached agreements with every single ambulance trust before the strike date? Is he aware that agreements on emergency cover at employer level are far more flexible than a national agreement, because they are tailored to reflect differing local service needs and to fit the variation in anticipated core volume in each trust? As the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish, made clear in his excellent speech, this really seems to be about playing politics and chasing headlines; it is nothing to do with a practical desire to fix the problems in our NHS. As he also made clear, if we in Parliament are serious about this issue, we need to tackle the root causes of why the strikes happened in the first place.”

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12. “It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I do not want to make a meal of the Minister’s refusal to even acknowledge the presence of Members trying to intervene, but it speaks to a wider truth about the way in which the Government have dealt with workers in our national health service and with people who have raised real concerns about this legislation right across the board. Lots of people who work in the health service, whether ambulance workers or others, feel that there has been a real arrogance from the Government towards them and a real lack of willingness to listen or to engage, and the Minister—reading from his script and saying neither yes or no as MPs tried to raise valid questions—ended up personifying that.”

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13. “Reversing it could provide billions each year, for example, to introduce universal free school meals, to scrap the two-child cap, or to fund a proper pay rise for junior doctors. Let us not forget that the banks were bailed out when they were in trouble during the 2007 global financial crisis. It is now time for them to be taxed fairly, to help bail out our communities who are now in such difficulties.”

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14. “The pre-tax profits of the four big banks—Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC and NatWest—are up 79% so far this year, compared with the same period in 2022. Spain’s progressive Government offer one example of what a windfall tax could look like. They introduced a 4.8% windfall levy on certain bank incomes above a threshold of €800 million. Replicating that here could raise almost £4 billion this year. But perhaps the simplest move would be to reverse the tax break for banks that the Prime Minister introduced. He slashed the surcharge on bank profits from 8% down to 3%, which has rightly been described by the TUC general secretary, Paul Nowak, as starving our public services of much-needed funds at the worst possible time.”

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15. “For example: equalising capital gains tax with income tax rates would raise up to £15 billion a year; tackling the non-dom tax break for the super-rich would raise up to £3 billion a year; and ending fossil fuel subsidies for oil and gas companies could raise £4 billion a year. I wish to end my comments today on one sector that has been doing very well out of this crisis, and that is the banks. The banks, in my view, must now be made to pay their fair share. Just like the energy companies, the banks have used this crisis to line their pockets with windfall profits. They have done that by charging higher interest rates for loans but not passing the money on to savers—easy money indeed. Therefore, just like the energy companies, the banks should face a windfall tax on such unexpected and frankly unmerited gains.”

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16. “Such a tax could create a huge social emergency fund to help people during this crisis. It could provide the much-needed funds to help rebuild the public services that have been hit so hard by a decade of austerity, and fund the investment that we need to build the infrastructure for a greener, fairer, high-wage economy. An annual wealth tax of just 1.5% on assets over £10 million would raise around £12 billion a year. It is worth pointing out here that this would apply only to wealth above £10 million. This is a measure that is backed by three out of four people, including more than two thirds of Tory voters. Other reforms to tackle wealth inequality could also raise billions of pounds more.”

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17. “Britain’s super-rich boosted their wealth by £31 billion over the past year alone, at a time when living standards have been under a near unprecedented attack for everyone else. This is no one-off; the wealth of British billionaires has increased by more than £430 billion over the past decade. Such vast fortunes are hard to imagine, so to put it another way, they have increased their wealth by £120 million every single day for the past 10 years. This soaring wealth of the billionaire class is the flipside of the weak wages that we see across society. As the share of the economy going to workers has gone down, so the share of the economy going to the super-rich has gone up. Such soaring inequality is one reason why I have been campaigning for a wealth tax.”

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18. “One in seven people face hunger across the UK, according to the Trussell Trust, which is around 10 million people. We have more branches of food banks than we have branches of McDonald’s. Homelessness in our society is on the rise, as rents and mortgages soar, and of course that is just the tip of the iceberg, with many more families living in totally unsuitable, overcrowded and temporary accommodation. Six million households are in fuel poverty, according to National Energy Action, and so are unable to afford to heat their homes to the temperature that is needed to keep warm and healthy. Sick people are unable to get the treatment they need because of the Government’s neglect of the NHS, creating record waiting lists. This social emergency is not affecting us all. For some, the past few years have been boom time.”

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19. “Furthermore, even deeper public service cuts are planned for after the next general election, if the Tories win, deepening the austerity that has not only caused harm to key services on which people rely, but severely undermined growth in the economy. When we have these big set-piece economic events in Parliament, the economy is talked about, but in such a way that is almost entirely divorced from the lives of people. We should remind ourselves that the economy is meant to serve people. How well it is performing should be judged by how well it is delivering for the vast majority of people. By that simple measure, the economy is failing. We have a deepening social emergency. Some 14 million people are living in poverty, including 4 million children, in what is meant to be the sixth richest economy on Earth.”

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20. “Listening to the Chancellor yesterday, it was clear that his words were simply at odds with the lives of millions of people up and down the country. The Tories are acting as if the crisis is over, but the reality is that millions of people in this country are going through the deepest social emergency in decades. Beyond the myths and distortions put out by the Downing Street spin machine, the truth of the autumn statement is that growth has been downgraded—even after what has been called the worst period of economic growth in a century. Living standards have had their largest fall since records began 75 years ago. Wages are set to be no higher in 2028 than in 2008, which means two lost decades of wages for workers.”

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21. “T6. Banks are taking advantage of higher interest rates to make bumper profits. A new poll shows that people have had enough, with big support for a one-off windfall tax on bank profits, yet the Government have chosen to slash the surcharge on bank profits. Is it not time for a windfall tax on excess bank profits to help people who are hit hard by this crisis?”

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22. “France’s President Macron has called for a ceasefire, joining other European nations such as Spain, Norway, Portugal and Ireland, as well as the UN Secretary-General. Securing a negotiated ceasefire—one that is binding on all sides—will require a huge diplomatic effort, so is it not time for our Government to add their weight to the push for a ceasefire, rather than dismissing out of hand a proposal that has growing international support?”

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23. “Of course, securing a ceasefire will not be easy, but it will not happen if Governments do not even bother to try. Once we secure that ceasefire, instead of more bloodshed, more suffering and occupation, let us turn this moment—as difficult as it now seems—into the moment when we secure, alongside Israel, the viable Palestinian state that is so needed for the cause of justice.”

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24. “It is time for our Government to add their weight to the push for a ceasefire rather than dismissing out of hand a proposal that has growing international support—especially when polls show that two thirds of the British public want a ceasefire. I am afraid that the Government have instead sought to distort what is being demanded, so let us be totally clear: a ceasefire means that all sides stop firing. That requires negotiation, so our Government should be straining every sinew, using every possible diplomatic avenue, and talking to Governments of all persuasions—those with sway in Israel, and those with channels to Hamas, such as Qatar—to secure a negotiated ceasefire that is binding on all parties, and bring an end to this crisis.”

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25. “The UN Secretary-General says that the way forward is a ceasefire, and so does the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In fact, the heads of all major UN agencies are calling for a humanitarian ceasefire, so why do our Government think that they know better than the world’s leading humanitarian agencies? President Macron has now called for a ceasefire, so France joins other European nations such as Spain, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland and Ireland, as well as the UN Secretary-General, in that call. Other major nations, such as Brazil, and middle eastern nations including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, are all calling for a ceasefire. Securing a negotiated ceasefire—one binding on all sides—is achievable but it requires a huge diplomatic effort.”

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26. “I will address the crisis in the middle east and the Government’s failure to back the growing calls for a ceasefire from the UN Secretary-General and beyond, and I will speak to amendment (b), tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana), of which I am a sponsor. Already, after just five weeks, more than 11,000 people in Gaza and more than 1,200 Israelis have been killed. It is the duty of everyone in this House to help save life—both Palestinian and Israeli—to help stop the bombing, to help end the suffering, to help free the hostages, to stop the war crimes, and to get the aid that is so desperately needed into Gaza. That means that we have to work for a ceasefire, and that work needs to happen now—there is not a second to waste.”

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27. “To tackle this humanitarian crisis, we need to strain every sinew for a ceasefire. The UN Secretary-General says that we need a ceasefire, one binding on all sides. The UN high commissioner for human rights also says that we need a ceasefire; so, too, do the heads of the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the UN Children’s Fund, UN Women, the UN World Food Programme and the World Health Organisation. In fact, the heads of all major United Nations agencies are calling for a humanitarian ceasefire. Why do this Government think that they know better than the world’s leading humanitarian agencies?”

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28. “Is it not simply impossible to get aid in on the scale that is needed if we are to end the humanitarian nightmare under way in Gaza without a ceasefire?”

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29. “The horrific death toll of this crisis now includes 1,800 Palestinian children. More children will die while the bombs are dropping. The aid needed will not get through. The United Nations Secretary-General is calling for a ceasefire; so is the EU foreign policy chief and so are France, Spain, Japan and Brazil. We need more than just expressions of regret about the loss of civilian lives; we need action to stop it. Is it not time to back a ceasefire, binding on all sides?”

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30. “The most urgent priority must be to prevent the loss of any more civilian lives. To do so, the UN General Secretary has called for an immediate ceasefire. Leading humanitarian agencies such as Oxfam have also called for that. Surely the Government must add their voice to that. Does the Foreign Secretary accept that, if they do not, many thousands more will die? Will he also withdraw his earlier remark that what is going on is not forced relocation? If he does not, I believe that he will come to regret that remark.”

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31. “The massacre of Israeli civilians was a heinous act of terrorism that we all utterly condemn and the hostages must be released immediately. In the words of the United Nations Secretary-General, “the horrific acts by Hamas do not justify responding with collective punishment of the Palestinian people.” But that is what we are seeing in Gaza, with civilian areas bombed and food, electricity, water and medicines all cut off. Such collective punishment is a war crime under the Geneva conventions, so will the Prime Minister take this opportunity to make it clear to the Israeli Government that this collective punishment of Palestinian civilians must end immediately?”

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32. “The truth is that the Government have failed to properly lift the ban on onshore wind, while bending over backwards to support expensive new oilfields and even giving billions in tax breaks for those polluting projects. That ban has already added hundreds of pounds to people’s bills, undermining the investment we need in the cheapest form of energy, and cost thousands of good green jobs. Will the Minister not admit that the Government’s failure to properly lift the ban on onshore wind will continue to keep bills higher and makes us less energy-secure?”

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33. “I have a straightforward question for the Secretary of State that I hope she will answer clearly. Will she guarantee that the cost of all the repairs will be funded by new money from the Government, not the current education budget, which is not enough anyway?”

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34. “My hon. Friend is giving a fantastic tribute to Ann, who so many Members on both sides of the House, as well as her constituents, loved so much. Ann was Labour through and through, very principled and a lovely person. Does my hon. Friend agree that she also represented the best in our party’s tradition, this Parliament’s tradition and our democracy’s tradition of independent-minded public service and being a true conviction politician? As my hon. Friend said, not everyone would have agreed with everything that Ann said, but that is fine—that is what our democracy is all about. We can all learn from Ann when we think about how we go about our politics, and I thank my hon. Friend for paying such a well-deserved tribute to somebody we loved so much.”

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35. “Will the Minister reflect on our journey towards increasing participation in democracy, and on how this rotten arrangement is robbing people of their hard-won democratic rights?”

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36. “On the day of the local elections, I remember knocking on the door of a constituent who told me that she usually votes, but was not going to because she realised that she did not have the necessary voter ID. That broke my heart: her democratic rights, which she has exercised time and time again, were taken away, and of course she will not appear in that figure of 14,000 people who were turned away. The Electoral Commission says that ethnic minorities and unemployed voters were more likely to be turned away at the polling station. When we show our constituents around this House, we talk about the struggle for the universal franchise. Let us remember that the establishment that the Conservative party represents did not want women or the working class to have the vote.”

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37. “Local newspapers, both online and in hard copy, are vital, and local journalists do a vital job for our communities and for democracy, but next week members of the National Union of Journalists who work for National World—it owns more than 100 local titles, including the Yorkshire Post and, indeed, titles in the Leader of the House’s Portsmouth constituency—are set to begin strike action over the company’s failure to reach a fair deal on pay. Will she therefore grant a debate in Government time on the sustainability of local newspaper titles? Does she share my concerns about the danger posed by owners such as National World hollowing out titles in order to boost short-term profits, prioritising shareholder payouts over journalists’ ability to afford to do their jobs, and cutting staffing to unsustainable levels?”

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38. “My hon. Friend is making an important speech. Nobody who heard President Allende’s last speech in Chile as the bombs fell on the palace will ever forget his voice or his words. As my hon. Friend has explained, Chile was the first place where the Chicago school of economics—Milton Friedman and the rest; “the Chicago boys”—rolled out their neoliberal experiment, which spread across Latin America. Actually, Latin America was the first place in the world not only where neoliberal economics was tried but where elected Governments, in the late ’90s, fought back against neoliberalism with a different view. Would my hon. Friend like to reflect on that? It is poignant to think about it today.”

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39. “My hon. Friend has shared examples of chilling sounds from that coup. I would like to take this opportunity to ask him to share his memories of a very inspiring sound from Chile that the junta sought to silence, and that is the sound of the progressive folk singer Victor Jara, who went around Chile arguing for a better society and singing songs about social justice. He was taken to the football stadium, his hands, which usually played the guitar, were broken and then he was killed. Will my hon. Friend share his memories of Victor Jara during this significant anniversary week?”

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40. “The heart and soul is being ripped out of our local shops, our local railway stations and our communities. Human interaction is so important. There are more important things than profit. Community and accessibility are both very important, and they are being ridden over by this proposal.”

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41. “The National Federation of the Blind of the UK said that the public consultation was not accessible, and that is the extended one—first it was meant to be 21 days, and then it was extended, but even then, the consultation was not fully accessible to many of those who will be most adversely impacted by this dreadful proposal. Despite that, nearly 700,000 people have registered their objection to this proposal. If the consultation had been carried out more sensibly and more accessibly, that figure would have been even higher. There have been 13 train operating companies and 25 email addresses, with variation in the level of accessibility of documents, and yet 700,000 people still made their point. Many more out there feel very strongly about it.”

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42. “It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. Both the proposal and the process have been carried out incredibly badly, and both, I would argue, are discriminatory. The proposal to close all these ticket offices is bad for passengers and the public in general, and it will disproportionately impact disabled people, women and other minorities. That is one of the reasons the public object to it so much. We then turn to the process itself. How can we have a situation where the Government are pushing through a discriminatory proposal with a consultation that, itself, is discriminatory?”

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43. “Water companies have dumped sewage more than 1 million times over the past three years. Now we find out that instead of standing up to the water companies, the Government seem to have been complicit in letting them break the law. Beyond the Government’s own failures, has this sewage crisis not been driven by under-investment, while £72 billion was handed out to shareholders since privatisation? Is it not time to put an end to this racket and restore water as a proper public service?”

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44. “My hon. Friend is making an important speech. It is clear that the Government want to tackle harmful suicide and self-harm content. It is also clear that the Bill does not go far enough. Does she agree that we should support Samaritans’ suggested way forward after implementation? We need the Government to engage with people with lived experience of suicide and self-harm, to ensure that the new legislation makes things better. If it is shown—as we fear—not to go far enough, new legislative approaches will be required to supplement and take it further, to ensure that the internet is as safe as possible for vulnerable people of all ages.”

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45. “I urge all those who are following the progress of the Bill and who look at this issue not to make the mistake of thinking that when we talk about dangerous online suicide and self-harm related content, it is somehow about freedom of speech. It is about protecting people. When we talk about dangerous online material relating to suicide and self-harm, it is not a freedom of speech issue; it is an issue of protecting people.”

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46. “The Samaritans were correct to say that the Bill represents a welcome advance and that it has improved recently, but it still does not go far enough in relation to dangerous suicide and self-harm online content. How will the Government engage with people who have lived experience—people such as Melanie and Catherine—to ensure that the new laws make things better? Nobody wants the implementation of the Bill to be the end of the matter. We must redouble our efforts to make the internet as safe a place as possible, reflect on the experiences of my constituents, Joe Nihill and his family, and understand that there is a lot of dangerous suicide and self-harm related content out there. We are talking about people who exploit the vulnerable, regardless of their age.”

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47. “The Bill provides an historic opportunity to ensure that tackling suicide and self-harm related online content does not end with this Bill becoming law. I urge the Government to listen very carefully to what the Samaritans have said. As my hon. Friend the shadow Minister asked, will the Government commit to a review of the legislation to ensure that it has met the objective of making our country the safest place in the world in which to go online? Importantly, can the Government confirm when the consultation on the new offence of encouraging or assisting self-harm will take place? As I mentioned in an intervention, it is clear that the Government want to tackle harmful suicide and self-harm related content with the Bill, but, as we have heard throughout our discussions, the measures do not go far enough.”

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48. “I thank the Minister and his team for meeting Joe’s mother, his sister-in-law and me, and for listening to what we had to say. I recognise that, as a result, the Bill has improved, in particular with the Government’s acceptance of Lords amendment 391, which was first tabled by Baroness Morgan of Cotes. It is welcome that the Government have accepted the amendment, which will enable platforms to be placed in category 1 based on their functionality, even if they do not have a large reach. That is important, because some of the worst and most dangerous online suicide and self-harm related material appears on smaller platforms rather than the larger ones. I also welcome the fact that the Bill creates a new communications offence of encouraging or assisting self-harm and makes such content a further priority for action, which is important.”

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49. “As we reflect on the Bill today, it is important to say that it has been improved as it has progressed through the Parliament. That is due in no small measure to Members from across the parties—both here and in the other place—who have engaged very collegiately, and to individuals and groups outside this place, particularly the Samaritans and those who have lived experience of the consequences of the dangers of the internet. People from my constituency have also been involved, including the family of Joe Nihill, whom I have mentioned previously. At the age of 23, Joe took his own life after accessing dangerous suicide-related online content. His mother, Catherine, and sister-in-law, Melanie, have bravely campaigned to use the Online Safety Bill as an opportunity to ensure that what happened to Joe so tragically does not happen to others.”

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50. “Members who have engaged with this issue. I urge the Government to see the Bill not as the end when it comes to tackling dangerous online content related to suicide and self-harm, but as part of an important ongoing journey that we all work on together.”

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