Dan Carden
MP for Liverpool Walton · Labour · United Kingdom
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Harris. I once again congratulate the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) on securing the debate. I will not repeat all the points colleagues have made; people know my passion for the sport. I know the Minister enjoys horseracing and is keen to be supportive to the industry.”
“I am delighted to be here to support the hon. Member’s debate on the future of British horseracing. Aintree racecourse is in my constituency. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and declare my interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on racing and bloodstock.”
“I would like the Minister to be honest about her Department’s remit over the Gambling Commission, and where authority for this policy lies. Where does authority lie when we want to challenge it because it is not working?”
“I know good things can be done to improve the behaviour of bookmakers, regulation and health support for people who struggle with gambling. Mrs Harris, you have spent many years in this place and I am sure you are watching this debate from the Chair with interest. Let me make a couple of more general points.”
“It is important to all our communities, with 60 racecourses across the United Kingdom. It attracts a remarkable amount of investment, especially flat horseracing, through all the work around breeding racehorses for a global industry.”
“There needs to be a much broader review of the financing of British horseracing that takes account of the money from bookmakers, the levy and so much more. I will finish my contribution with one little fact: breeding is currently a loss-making activity in this country.”
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“There has been discussion about who exactly is in the private rented sector. People may not wish to live long term in the private rented sector, but too many of our constituents are trapped there. The travesty of this Government is that their economic chaos has probably led hundreds of thousands of people in areas such as mine, who would have wanted to get on the housing ladder in the next couple of months and years, to rethink their plans and stay put.”
“The Minister is clearly aware of the very difficult circumstances that face so many of our constituents. I said in my contribution that 200,000 people have been evicted because the Government have not acted since they promised to act. If the new Prime Minister leaves the Minister present in his job, will he give us a sense of urgency that the Government are going to act?”
“It has been a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I thank all the Members who have contributed. There has been widespread agreement and support for these changes. I will finish on this point alone: our constituents are facing a terrible winter, with economic pressures from all sides. I encourage the Minister to start the process of acting on these commitments. The Government could act now to cap rents and stop evictions, as our constituents face a torrid winter. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the potential merits of ending section 21 evictions.”
“Extending Avanti’s contract by six months was the wrong thing to do. The travelling public have had enough of this company running their train service into the ground. Liverpool is a visitor economy. I represent both the city’s football clubs, and it is time for us to have a decent working service. That will also rely on Avanti staff. Avanti’s tactics of smearing its own workforce and making them a scapegoat for its mismanagement mean that it will not recover this service while doing that. What is the Minister doing to improve industrial relations between the workforce and the company, and will he consider acting today, not waiting months more?”
“The UK is already a deregulated, low-tax economy with the most draconian workers’ rights in the whole of Europe, in which the richest are well rewarded; it would be bizarre if it were not after 12 years of a Tory Government. However, that has not led to a transformation of skills and training across the workforce; it has not led to rising wages, which are still lower in real terms than they were before 2010; it has not lifted children out of poverty; and it has left us ranking 150th in the world for the investment that the Tories always talk about. Let me ask the Chancellor a very specific question. Will he accept that there is no correlation whatsoever between tax burdens and prosperity across high-income countries?”
“I congratulate the hon. Members for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) and for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), who delivered a tour de force on the history of the struggle for equal rights. I really do feel humbled to stand in this place and think of the change that has come since those 2,000 brave activists took to the streets 50 years ago. They laid the groundwork for me and for others, as others have said, to have a happy life as an LGBT+ community.”
“The Economic Secretary will know that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs payroll data shows that the pay of the top 1% rose three-and-a-half times faster than the pay of those in the bottom 10%, whose meagre pay increases have already been wiped out by inflation and price rises. When we look at wealth, during one year of the pandemic each UK billionaire saw their wealth grow by £630 million on average. While the rich get richer, the working-class communities I represent get poorer. When will the Treasury look at raising taxes on the highest incomes and taxing the wealth of billionaires in order to invest in communities and UK infrastructure?”
“T4. Recently, it was revealed that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is failing to use the third-party data information that we get through international agreements to investigate how much tax is being evaded through offshore assets. Given that £850 billion is held offshore, with two thirds of it stashed in known tax havens, either Ministers are content for the super-rich to evade paying their fair share in the knowledge that their offshore wealth is not being systematically checked, or they will direct HMRC to use this reporting data, as is done in the US and Denmark, to uncover tax evaders. Which is it?”
“T2. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. There is an alcohol harm paradox, whereby people in the most deprived communities drink less but suffer larger consequences. In Liverpool, 88% of alcohol is sold at below 50p a unit, and 24% of the population drink at high risk. More and more premises are seeking to open. Will the Secretary of State look again at making public health a licensing objective and review the way that licensing fees are set nationally so that they could be set at a local level?”
“Clause 129(4) states that the Secretary of State will be consulted in the process. What would be the Secretary of State’s powers in relation to that? Would she be able to overrule Ofcom in the writing of its guidance?”
“While I welcome that much of the Bill seeks to deal with the criminality of individuals and the harm and abuse that can be carried out over the internet, overall it misses a great opportunity to deal with the harmful impact the internet can have on society.”
“When I spoke at the very beginning of the Committee’s proceedings, I said that the legislation was necessary, that it was a starting point and that it would no doubt change and develop over time. However, I have been surprised at how little, considering all of the rhetoric we have heard from the Secretary of State and other Ministers, the Bill actually deals with the general societal harm that comes from the internet. This is perhaps the only place in the Bill where it is covered. I am thinking of the echo chambers that are created around disinformation and the algorithms that companies use. I really want to hear from the Minister where he sees this developing and why it is so weak and wishy-washy.”
“I would like to hear the Minister’s views on how this clause, which looks at users’ experiences, can go further in dealing with the harms at source, with the companies, and making sure a light is shone on their practices.”
“I agree with the right hon. Member for Basingstoke that these are important clauses. I want to put them into the context of what we heard from Frances Haugen, who, when she spoke to Congress, said that Facebook consistently chose to maximise its growth rather than implement safeguards on its platforms. She said: “During my time at Facebook, I came to realise a devastating truth: Almost no one outside of Facebook knows what happens inside Facebook. “The company intentionally hides vital information from the public, from the U.S. government, and from governments around the world.” When we consider users’ experiences, I do not think it is good enough just to look at how the user engages with information. We need far more transparency about how the companies themselves are run.”
“I add my voice to the concerns that have been raised about the clause, and about the powers for the Secretary of State that are littered throughout the Bill. This comes on top of the scandals around the public appointments process that we have seen under this Government—even around the role of chair of Ofcom, which they tried to hand to a former editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre. Earlier this year, Lord Grade was appointed for a four-year term. He is on £140,000-odd a year. The Secretary of State is responsible for appointing the whole board of Ofcom. I really do wonder why, on top of the power that the Government hold in the appointments process, they need the Secretary of State to have the claims to intervention that the Bill affords her.”
“The reality out in the country is that we have labour shortages across multiple sectors, 1.3 million job vacancies, the most persistent post-pandemic drop in employment in the G7, operations not being carried out in our hospitals, restaurants and the hospitality industry being unable to recruit staff, and a shortage of drivers to drive produce around the country. Why will the Minister not act pragmatically and immediately, introduce more work visas where are there shortages, lift the ban on asylum seekers working and have an independent review of the impact of ending freedom of movement?”
“I was at the Speaker’s House reception, and one of the most shocking things I heard was that two thirds of people who commit suicide have never sought any support for their mental health. What does my hon. Friend think are the consequences of that, and how should we be trying to deal with it? I think that we need to ensure that we have a holistic approach that offers support, because we all have mental health needs; we all need support. What does she think?”
“I will finish by mentioning a place in my constituency that I have visited over the years. Paul’s Place was set up by the parents of Paul Williams; Paul and I went to school together, and he took his own life in August 2015. Paul’s Place offers bereavement support to families who have lost members to suicide. I invite the Minister and the Opposition spokesperson to visit Paul’s Place to talk about the important work it does for communities across Walton, and how its funding can be sustained.”
“In England, nearly half of all patients who are in the care of mental health services and who die by suicide have a history of alcohol misuse. They account for almost 600 deaths a year on average. Despite that harrowing evidence, there has been no national alcohol strategy since 2012. I welcome the Government’s recent efforts on tackling illicit drugs and gambling and tobacco harm. My question is: where is the effort on alcohol? To fully understand the current scale of alcohol harm, and to provide targeted recommendations to improve outcomes for people with co-occurring mental health and alcohol-use conditions, I would like to see the Government conduct a Dame Carol Black-style independent review of alcohol harm. I hope the Minister will respond to that point.”
“Growing up gay leaves trauma, so many people in the LGBT community require support to overcome trauma, shame and other issues of that nature. That is why counselling and therapy are important. When we in this House talk about mental health, we rarely mention or acknowledge that addiction is a chronic mental health condition; addiction is an illness. Alcohol is a depressant that can exacerbate low mood and suicidal thoughts. It is probably the most normalised way of coping with mental health issues, trauma or suicidal thoughts; it is a fast-acting way to change how we feel. The relationship between alcohol and suicide is well established and a cause for great concern. Research by the Samaritans shows that people who are dependent on alcohol are two and a half times more likely to die by suicide.”
“Surveys of gay men regularly find that three quarters of the community suffer from anxiety or depression, abuse drugs or alcohol, or are in abusive relationships. That is the case despite social progress and greater acceptance, and despite the fact that we have got rid of many discriminatory laws. Rates of depression, loneliness, substance abuse and suicide among gay men remain many, many times higher than for the general population. A book that was very important to me was “The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man’s World” by Alan Downs. The important message in that book is that when someone comes out about their sexuality or gender identity, the trauma is not overcome at that point.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) on securing the debate, in which we have heard some really powerful contributions. I add my support to what has already been covered in the debate, including for a new suicide prevention plan. I will concentrate my remarks on suicide in the LGBT+ community, and on the important role of alcohol in this debate. According to surveys, young LGBT+ people are three times more likely to self-harm, and twice as likely to contemplate suicide as their non-LGBT+ peers. Depending on the study we look at, gay people are between two and 10 times more likely as straight people to take their own life. We are twice as likely to have major depressive episodes.”
“It is really important that we send a clear message that it is absolutely nonsense to send people away to recover from their addiction without the mental health support they need, as happens up and down the country. We should send a clear message that the guidance needs to be rewritten, and that support for mental health and addiction services must be delivered.”
“I have concerns that some clauses have been dropped, and I hope that there will be future opportunities to amend the Bill, not least with regard to how we educate and ensure that social media companies promote media literacy, so that information that is spread widely online is understood in its context—that it is not always correct or truthful. The Bill, I hope, will go some way towards ensuring that we can rely more on the internet, which should provide a safer space for all its users.”
“It is a pleasure to serve on the Committee. I want to apologise for missing the evidence sessions. Unfortunately, I came down with covid, but I have been following the progress of the Committee. This is important legislation. We spend so much of our lives online these days, yet there has never been an attempt to regulate the space, or for democratically elected Members to contribute towards its regulation. Clause 1 gives a general outline of what to expect in the Bill. I have no doubt that this legislation is required, but also that it will not get everything right, and that it will have to change over the years. We may see many more Bills of this nature in this place.”
“This part of the Bill deals with the definitions of services and which services would be exempt. I consider myself a millennial; most people my age or older are Facebook and Twitter users, and people a couple of years younger might use TikTok and other services. The way in which the online space is used by different generations, particularly by young people, changes rapidly. Given the definitions in the Bill, how does the Minister intend to keep pace with the changing ways in which people communicate? Most online games now allow interaction between users in different places, which was not the case a few years ago. Understanding how the Government intend the Bill to keep up with such changes is important. Will the Minister tell us about that?”
“On the way that media literacy relates to misinformation and disinformation, we heard from William Moy, chief executive of Full Fact. His view was that the Bill does nothing to tackle disinformation and that another information incident, as we have seen with covid and Ukraine recently, is inevitable. Full Fact’s view was that the Bill should give the regulator the power to declare misinformation incidents. Is that something the Minister has considered?”
“Some of the evidence we heard suggested that the current precedent was that the Secretary of State had very little to do with independent regulators in this realm, but that the Bill overturns that precedent. Does the right hon. Lady have any concerns that the Bill hands too much power to the Secretary of State to intervene and influence regulators that should be independent?”
“I want to add my voice to the calls for ways to monitor the success or failures of this legislation. We are starting from a position of self-regulation where companies write the rules and regulate themselves. It is right that we are improving on that, but with it comes further concerns around the powers of the Secretary of State and the effectiveness of Ofcom. As the issues are fundamental to freedom of speech and expression, and to the protection of vulnerable and young people, will the Minster consider how we better monitor whether the legislation does what it says on the tin?”
“One of the challenges for this legislation will be the way it is enforced. Have my hon. Friend and her Front-Bench colleagues given consideration to the costs of the funding that Ofcom and the regulatory services may need?”
“There are too many examples—whether in the financial crash or the collapse of companies such as Carillion—where accountability was never there. Without this amendment and the ability to hold individuals to account for the failures of companies that are faceless to many people, the legislation risks being absolutely impotent. Finally, I know that we will get back to the issue of funding in a later clause but I hope that the Minister can reassure the Committee that funding for the enforcement of these regulations will be properly considered.”
“I congratulate my own Front Bench on this important amendment. I would like the Minister to respond to the issue of transparency and the reason why only the regulator would have sight of these risk assessments. It is fundamental that civil society groups and academics have access to them. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is an example of where that works very well. HMRC publishes a lot of its data, which is then used by academics and researchers to produce reports and documents that feed back into the policy making processes and HMRC’s work. It would be a missed opportunity if the information and data gathered by Ofcom were not widely available for public scrutiny. I would reinforce the earlier points about accountability.”
“I therefore take this opportunity to ask the Minister how far the Bill goes on transparency and what his thoughts are on that.”
“Amendment 10 would create a duty to publish the illegal content risk assessment, and proactively supply that to Ofcom. This is new legislation that is really a trial that will set international precedent, and a lot of the more prescriptive elements—which are necessary—are perhaps the most challenging parts of the Bill. The Minister has been very thoughtful on some of the issues, so I want to ask him, when we look at the landscape of how we look to regulate companies, where does he stand on transparency and accountability? How far is he willing to go, and how far does the Bill go, on issues of transparency? It is my feeling that the more companies are forced to publish and open up, the better. As we saw with the case of the Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, there is a lot to uncover.”
“The point I was trying to get the Minister to think about was the action of companies in going through the process of these assessments and then making that information publicly available to civil society groups; it is about transparency. It is what the sector needs; it is the way we will find and root out the problems, and it is a great missed opportunity in this Bill.”
“Contrary to the narrative put out by French authorities, he believes that it was only “the calm behaviour of the fans” in not retaliating that “saved events from turning fatal”. What can the Minister do to ensure that the promised investigations get to the truth?”
“I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) on securing this urgent question and on the way he has represented the fans over the last week. We need an apology from UEFA and French authorities for the chillingly familiar, knee-jerk lies blaming Liverpool fans, and we need the investigations, but I want to share with the House a few emails and comments I have had from constituents. Anthony said: “We were very close to a disaster on Saturday night...we were being crushed, pushed, intimidated and assaulted. It felt like an act of intimidation to get a reaction from fans.” Suzanne said: “I was crying and scared. My legs were like jelly. I was just in shock. For the first time in my life I felt old and vulnerable.” Jon said that the police were behaving like “thugs looking for a fight”.”
“The people whose energy and enthusiasm keep our favourite places alive feel frustrated and ignored by the Government, as apocalyptic price rises and a squeeze on people’s incomes threaten their very existence.”
“I believe every job can be a good job where workers are organised in trade unions, trained to the highest standards and rewarded with a fair share of the profits they generate. We do not value hospitality or service sector workers enough in this country. They too often work the longest hours for the lowest pay in insecure jobs. A Government working with the sector could change this for good. To conclude, restaurants, hotels, cafés and pubs are the lifeblood of our high streets and our communities. In Liverpool, they underpin the whole local economy. The sector pays almost half the city’s business rates, and the reality is that these business are coming out of the frying pan and into the fire.”
“Extending it is a pragmatic measure recommended by the Migration Advisory Committee to boost economic activity. I am sure the Government will say that their current strategy is about improving the skills of those already in the UK, but they are failing on any reasonable measure of this strategy, too. The numbers of students participating in hospitality courses in schools and colleges continue to decline, so what is the Minister doing to ensure the best possible catering T-levels are available and will he consider a stand-alone hospitality T-level to create the most frictionless pathway between education and hospitality? UK Hospitality has said that the current apprenticeship levy is inflexible and asked for greater training provision to be given to employers. What is his Department doing to facilitate this?”
“Do the Government have anything useful to say to the country’s hospitality sector on this issue? In fact, the Government continue to place arbitrary limits and bans on employment. In March, at Prime Minister’s questions, I raised the issue of the right to work for asylum seekers. Currently, those seeking asylum are in effect banned from working unless they have been in the country for over a year and can find a job on the increasingly niche shortage occupation list. What justification do the Government have to continue with this harmful ban, especially in the light of such labour shortages? The Government should, as some Conservative Members have broken rank to say, urgently lift the ban. What work is being done on extending the youth mobility scheme?”
“According to UKHospitality’s workforce strategy, published just last month, vacancies in hospitality stand at 160,000. That chronic labour shortage is crippling some small businesses and limiting the sector’s ability to recover. Many restaurants and bars have been unable to remain open seven days a week. Yes, Brexit has caused many of those problems—or the Government’s failure to prepare for the impact of Brexit on the number of EU workers in the UK hospitality industry has caused them. The ONS says that 100,000 EU nationals left accommodation and food services in the two years to June 2021: the highest figure of any industry. What is the Minister doing to get people into jobs across this sector? We have seen the same problem in the care sector, the NHS and road haulage.”
“Is there a plan to help? UKHospitality has called for VAT again to be lowered to 12.5%, a measure that we saw during covid, but this time around we have not heard anything about such measures to protect businesses. A restaurant does not pay VAT on the fresh produce that it buys, so it is in the unusual situation of paying 20% VAT once the food is cooked up and served and yet it has no VAT to claim back at the end of the financial year. The rate on hospitality venues, at 20%, is set far higher than in France, Italy, Ireland and many other EU countries. What more can be done on VAT, especially for local, small, independently owned businesses in the hospitality sector? More needs to be done on the labour and skills shortages in the sector, too.”
“The impact of many of those existing measures has since been reduced by the huge increases in business operating costs and prices. Business rate relief was decreased, and the return to 20% VAT meant that businesses could not begin to recoup some of the losses made throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Business rate relief is currently capped at £110,000 a year. The Chancellor announced the cap at last year’s autumn Budget, but economic conditions have changed, and the level of the cap may need to as well. Many businesses are now paying back coronavirus business interruption loans and bounce back loans. Many found that insurance companies would not pay out for losses due to the pandemic, and many venues are having to face up to crippling rent debt accumulated during the pandemic. Is the Minister aware of those challenges?”
“If assisted by the Government, the hospitality sector could revive communities across the country. While the Government still claim that levelling up is their ambition, figures and research from Bloomberg show that many regional inequalities are, in fact, yawning wider, with Liverpool in particular being left behind. The Conservatives claim to be the party of business, and yet calls for greater support from hospitality businesses—the chip shop, the restaurant, the café, the pubs, the bars and the nightclubs—are going unheard at this critical moment. I urge the Minister not to allow Government to rest on their laurels of the emergency support provided during covid. This is a new crisis and it requires new support at, if not higher than, the level that came in the last two years.”
“Only someone completely out of touch with the lives of those living with the reality of poverty could even think that, let alone say it. When my constituency office team recently visited a local food bank to volunteer, one of my constituents asked for ready-to-eat food not because he could not cook but because he could not pay his energy bill, and without gas or electricity, he could not even boil water for a pot noodle or cook a microwave dinner. There is no solution to the cost of living crisis that would not radically boost the incomes of the least well off. When people have no money in their pockets, they simply cannot spend on the local high street. Local independent businesses, the beating heart of local communities, struggle to survive. People lose their jobs and livelihoods, and we have a downward spiral. It could be so different.”
“It is little wonder that people want to hold on to the little extra money that they have, with the Governor of the Bank of England warning of “apocalyptic” global food price rises. There is a clear link between the cost of living emergency and the hit to what people call “consumer confidence”. However, in the most deprived areas, in communities such as mine, it is a matter not of confidence, but of survival. When someone is already on the breadline, they simply have nowhere else to go. My constituents are seeing prices going up, their rents going up and their bills going up, while wages and social security payments are being squeezed. I hope that the Minister will not repeat the insulting words of some Government Members—that the worst off should simply buy value brands, learn how to budget or learn how to cook.”
“It needs to be a successful business model in itself. As a result of the pandemic, the café was forced to close its doors, leaving Liverpool’s recovery community without a space to socialise and connect with others. Places such as The Brink, Homebaked and other businesses in Liverpool are very anxious about what the future holds across the sector. The continuing rise in the cost of living effectively lowers people’s incomes and reduces their ability to spend. Inflation has hit its highest level for 40 years. Every pound that people had last year can purchase only 91p-worth of goods today—if there is 9% of inflation. People’s ability to pay for basic goods is set to worsen in the autumn and winter this year, with further price rises coming down the line.”
“If Homebaked, a café, were to close, it would leave a huge hole in the lives of the people who depend on it. To give one more example, in May I was at the reopening of The Brink café in Parr Street with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson). The Brink is a recovery café. It was the UK’s first dry bar when it opened in 2011 and its model has been replicated across the country. At the reopening, I listened to stories from Caroline and Andy, who spoke of the importance of The Brink to their recovery. In their words, it saved their lives. The café breaks down the stigma that prevents so many people from asking for help. The Brink has been the start of many people’s recovery as well as a place for ongoing support. The café is not funded through contracts or services.”
“The building that it now occupies was initially designated for demolition in an abandoned development scheme, but it was brought back to life by people in Anfield and Everton, who wanted to show that regeneration can come from the ground up, by and for the community. It is a real living wage employer and a Disability Confident employer. The team has grown to 20 staff and provides apprenticeship opportunities for local young people. The bakery supplies at least 20 nursery meals a day to Anfield Children’s Centre and has a partnership with Liverpool homeless football club, supplying pies for its markets. In partnership with the Spirit of Shankly supporters’ union and Vauxhall community law centre, it also hosts weekly drop-in sessions, providing free debt and benefit advice to people in need.”