Dame Angela Eagle
MP for Wallasey · Labour · United Kingdom
“The Kremlin increasingly relies on proxy organisations to pursue its objectives, seeking to undermine our security while maintaining a degree of plausible deniability. The so-called GRU Volunteer Corps is a clear example of that approach. It is not an independent force or a loose collection of volunteers.”
“This Government have introduced support for the Jewish communities who have been threatened and directly targeted by IRGC proxies. Just a couple of days ago, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced an extra £250 million for policing to ensure that we can support and protect our Jewish communities.”
“I will move on to the Islamic Movement of Companions of the Right. The IMCR has publicly claimed seven attacks at UK locations linked to Jewish and Israeli communities and to Persian-language media, including the antisemitic arson attack on four Hatzola ambulances in Golders Green on 23 March.”
“We expect platforms to act responsibly and not to provide space for state threat-linked activity, propaganda or recruitment. We will be keeping a close eye on that, as well as liaising with social media companies to tell them about how this law impacts them.”
“The IRGC Quds Force and the IRGC Intelligence Organisation, together with the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, form the Iranian intelligence apparatus. As a key component of the Iranian state’s security apparatus, the IRGC is answerable directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader.”
“It provides a targeted and proportionate means of disrupting those involved in foreign power threat activity based on the recommendations of Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of state threat legislation. To answer the hon.”
The complete record
Every one of 5,924 lines we hold for Dame Angela Eagle, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 26 of 119.
“Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Normally business statements allow Back Benchers as well as Front Benchers to ask questions of the Leader of the House. This is a difficult precedent because it does not give the Back Benchers a voice. Saying that it is just a matter of convenience for amendments is not good enough when the Government are in charge of the business and could have done this in a more organised way to give everybody a say. I think this is a deplorable development.”
“I thank the Secretary of State. I wanted to intervene earlier when she was talking about the pandemic. In my constituency many people were thrown off their dentists’ lists during the pandemic, often with no notice, and then found that they could not register anywhere else. That is what happened, I believe, all over the country. Can the Minister explain what she is going to do about it? It was not that people were not visiting their dentists; they were denied access.”
“It is obvious that those things demonstrate a system that simply is not working. The Government know about this as well as we do and announced last April that there was going to be a plan, but we still have not seen one. If they care, where is their sense of urgency? They cannot say that our plan to put NHS dentistry in working order will not work when they will not bring forward their own plan. They must get on with it now. My Wallasey constituents are in pain, and I expect it to be alleviated.”
“Her surgery has being working overtime to see NHS patients and to try to meet the unmet need—it has even overperformed on its targets to get the NHS to care for local people who desperately need it. She was doing that, but it got to the stage where her surgery was not being paid for NHS work due to errors and unexplained hold-ups in money. Just before Christmas, she said: “At the end of next year I will have been a dentist for 50 years, always working on the NHS. I don’t think I have ever known it in such a bad state, nor for the Government to have so little care of its state.” She is over-worked, under-compensated, exhausted and unable to keep up with demand, and she is not being paid for the work that she is doing. It is a terrible state of affairs. We see a picture of underspent ICB dental budgets and massive unmet need.”
“She had moved into my constituency from Liverpool a few years ago with her partner, pleased to be closer to family as they prepared to welcome a baby. Despite their home being close to four different dentists, Sarah was unable to register with any surgery. Each one was not accepting new patients. None even had a waiting list that she could join. She has now lost one molar and broken three. She has tried and failed to get an emergency appointment numerous times, and she has had to call 111 in desperation. She is in constant pain and still has no access. Her little boy, who is now four years old, has never seen a dentist, despite his parents’ best efforts. Dentists, too, are outraged. Last year, Annette, a local dentist who has a superb surgery and has worked for the NHS her whole life, wrote to me in total despair.”
“In Wallasey, we have seen people kicked off existing lists without notice. That happened often during the pandemic, with the excuse that they had not visited the dentist in two years—they could not, as the dentists were closed because of the pandemic—and they cannot get access to another provider. There are care homes in my constituency where there is no access to dental treatment for those living in them. I have had email after email from constituents writing to me in despair, disbelief and often pain, all unable to get an appointment. NHS workers, an expectant mother, a retired firefighter, concerned parents and disabled people with declining health are all unable to see a dentist because of the terrible 14 years of Tory neglect. Last summer, Sarah wrote to me when she was at her wits’ end.”
“As Labour’s motion sets out, NHS dentistry is in crisis and is approaching breaking point, if it has not already passed it. The people of the UK are paying the price, and the poorest are paying a much heavier price. The Nuffield Trust says that NHS dentistry “is at its most perilous point in its 75-year history.” In Wallasey, my constituents are living with the reality of that day to day. As we have heard, a seven-year-old is more likely to be hospitalised for rotting teeth than for any other medical issue. That is an astonishing statistic. Many people—including my constituents—are growing up in places where they simply cannot get access to dental care. In Wallasey, only two dental surgeries will take a child as a new patient, and not a single one is taking any new adult patients on to its books.”
“It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Simon Lightwood), who made a superb speech. I have childhood memories of much older relatives who grew up before the NHS was created having no teeth left at all—they had had them all extracted because it was cheaper. I never thought that might start to happen again, but I fear that in some cases we are getting far too close to it with the current situation in our dental service. As many hon. and right hon. Members have pointed out in today’s debate, this is not only serious for oral health but has other health connotations. New medical insights link oral hygiene with heart and lung health. If we neglect oral hygiene to the extent that we are—we have heard about that in the debate—that will have huge implications for the health of future generations.”
“Order. In the spirit of Christmas, I allowed that intervention. The debate is about coastal erosion in Suffolk and Norfolk. The hon. Member is getting close to the edge of scope there, but because it is Christmas, I allowed it this time.”
“Before I bring in the Opposition spokesperson, I should let the remaining speakers know that I intend to call Peter Aldous to respond to the debate at 28 minutes past 5. Bear that in mind, please.”
“Just before I end the session, I wish everybody a very happy Christmas and a safe journey home. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered coastal erosion in Suffolk and Norfolk.”
“The Minister contributed to a very good debate in the UK-EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, which met in Westminster earlier this week, and touched on some of these issues. We are clearly dealing with hybrid warfare—there is no other phrase for it. Although I commend the Minister for coming to the House to give us this information, the response of sanctioning two people seems rather mild. Will he say more about that? Will he also say something about the co-ordination across western democracies and allies on next year’s year of elections? We must all co-ordinate so that we can spot patterns in order to deal with this threat.”
“Surely, every single citizen of this country has a legitimate interest in closing the kinds of loopholes that have allowed rotten, dirty money to come flooding into our jurisdiction. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it has had huge detrimental effects on ordinary people—who do not have trust funds and are unlikely to inherit anything—such as the huge increases in property prices that have forced many people out of the housing market?”
“With war raging in Europe and the middle east, and contemplating the revelations the House heard earlier about organised attempts by the Russian FSB to interfere in UK elections, it is clear that the threat is growing. The cross-party Foreign Affairs Committee has rightfully called for public registers as a “matter of national security”. Increasingly, I believe that the risk to the UK’s international reputation is growing. Our reputation has already been substantially damaged. It is in the public interest for the Minister to tell us what he is going to do as a matter of urgency to deal with this growing threat.”
“Tax Justice found that 35% of global tax losses suffered by countries around the world occur in the UK and its network of overseas territories and Crown dependencies. That is a shameful statistic. The lack of transparency in offshore jurisdictions facilitates myriad other illicit activities at great cost to our country. Companies based in overseas territories have enabled corruption cases to the tune of £250 billion. Notably, an astonishing 92% of those were registered in the British Virgin Islands. For context, £250 billion is more than the whole of the UK’s foreign aid budget for the past 20 years. That money is going unaccounted for, when it could be working for our communities.”
“The facilitating of illicit finance through our overseas territories and Crown dependencies poses a serious threat in a number of ways. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking said, it deprives the public purse of funds, and it prevents true economic stability. It poses very real threats to our national security, and it affects each and every citizen of this country, be it in underfunded public services, higher than expected property prices, illicit crime or organised crime in our communities. All of that affects each and every one of the constituents of Members up and down the country. The financial cost of global tax evasion, enabled by a lack of transparency in our territories and dependencies, is staggering to contemplate.”
“I hope he will once more be directly responsible for policy in this area, and I hope he will be able to help us make some real and meaningful progress. The public disclosure of company ownership information would facilitate the trailing of money and identity and illicit activity, and deter money laundering, crime and sanctions busting, and it is essential that we make progress. Labour has repeatedly tried to push the Government to act. Both last year and this year, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) moved amendments to the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, which would have required the Government to lay an Order in Council and to make some progress, but the Government defeated them. They continue to say they are doing things while achieving no real outcome that makes a difference.”
“It has been almost 10 years since the Prime Minister, Lord Cameron, called on our overseas territories and dependencies to raise their transparency standards, and not a lot has happened, as we have heard. After five years, amendments were made to what became the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, requiring territories and dependencies to act. By that time, the Prime Minister had gambled and lost the Brexit referendum, and he had left office, left Parliament and got embroiled in the dubious activities of Lex Greensill, and still nothing had changed. The case for transparency is clear and unarguable, and the fight against crime and corruption requires it, but we are still no further forward. Lord Cameron has returned to Parliament in a new guise as Foreign Secretary.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) for securing this debate, and for her consistent and tireless work in tackling the scourge of illicit finance. As she said, the introduction of public registers of beneficial ownership in our country’s offshore financial centres ought not to need debating, and it should have happened many years ago. Yesterday, after seven long years, the Hillsborough families finally got a response from the Government to Bishop Jones’s report, yet it was a response that rejected his key recommendations. This Government have been even more tardy when it comes to delivering on their declared policy of public registers of beneficial ownership.”
“Does the hon. Gentleman agree that ensuring we have open and transparent registers of beneficial ownership is only the first step in dealing with what is a very well established, very difficult and growing threat?”
“The legitimate public interest filter, as the Minister calls it, stands or falls on how “legitimate public interest” is defined. At the moment, it appears to be far too narrowly defined, which undermines the purpose of the transparency. Will he take into account the fact that the filter, as it exists, does not let any light through and is rendering the openness of the list moot?”
“Will the Secretary of State talk about what the implications would be if sex were defined in law as biological? Would existing trans people have to act in all public appearances in accordance with their biological sex, so, unless they had a gender recognition certificate, trans men would have to use female toilets and trans women would have to use male toilets? I am genuinely trying to find out the implication of what she has announced, without any papers before us to look at.”
“The Chancellor did not mention the freezing of tax thresholds, which is due to rake in £52 billion in the next six years. Was that an omission, or is he leaving the freeze in place?”
“I welcome the hon. Lady to her new post. I hope she has an enjoyable time at the Treasury, as I did when I was there. Will she confirm that figures show that this Parliament is the highest tax-raising Parliament since records began, in all our history, even after today’s statement?”
“My hon. Friend is making some important points. Does he agree that, if it is the decisions of the Bank of England that have halved inflation, as the Opposition think, the Government cannot go around claiming credit for it?”
“We need a serious Labour Government with a plan to grow our economy and prepare properly for the future. We need planning reforms to be delivered, not talked about; we need Labour’s green prosperity plan to get us to net zero and create good jobs; and we need a new deal for working people to ensure that work pays. And by the way, we also need a general election—the sooner, the better.”
“I am pleased that the Chancellor has decided to uprate benefits as normal despite the speculation that he would not do so, but benefits have already been cut a lot and have not kept pace with inflation. With that and other cuts since 2010, the poorest fifth of the income distribution have lost £2,700, as the Resolution Foundation has shown. The social security system is not generous: 73% of universal credit recipients are in food poverty—and by the way, food inflation is still at a punishing 10.1%. In my Wallasey constituency, there has been a 54% increase in the number of people needing to use food banks in the past year. The autumn statement has done nothing to address those concerns. We need a change of Government away from the chaos, the in-fighting, the clown show.”
“The OBR points out on page 11 of its executive summary that the tax changes “reduce the tax burden by 0.7 per cent of GDP but it still rises in every year to a post-war high of 37.7 per cent of GDP by 2028-29. Income tax increases explain most of the increase in this forecast”, and goes on to demonstrate that “frozen thresholds result in nearly 4 million additional workers paying income tax, 3 million more moved to the higher rate, and 400,000 more paying the additional rate.” Apparently, that is a tax-cutting Budget, in our Chancellor’s view—well, not in mine. Close to the end of the Parliament in which the Conservative party has raised the tax take by more than any of its predecessors, giving a tiny bit back at the end will make virtually no difference.”
“While inflation has halved, it is still very high in comparison with other G7 countries, and the Governor of the Bank of England told us yesterday in the Treasury Committee that he feared that the risks were on the upside, so there are considerable dangers in the Chancellor pursuing the strategy that he has decided on. The current Prime Minister’s decision to freeze tax thresholds for six years has been revealed as a stealth tax that is due to rake in £52 billion—one of the biggest tax grabs ever, as I think the right hon. Member for Witham said in her contribution. The cut to national insurance does not unravel that tax grab. For most people, even after that modest cut to their national insurance contributions, their taxes will still go up next April.”
“We need to increase economic growth, and, despite the blind faith of the Conservative party, tax cuts do not do that; investment in equipment and people does. Labour’s green prosperity plan will put shovels in the ground and cranes in the sky, propelling us to net zero and transforming our infrastructure in every region, truly preparing us for the future. Having spent most of the last year saying that tax cuts were irresponsible, the Chancellor has now decided to cut national insurance by 2p at a cost of around £10 billion, spending that headroom created by higher nominal tax receipts because inflation is higher than expected.”
“As members of the Monetary Policy Committee pointed out in evidence to the Treasury Committee yesterday, productivity growth since 2016 has been a dismal 6%, while the USA has achieved a 25% increase in the same period. Falling so far below our competitors will simply lock in the stagflation we are already experiencing. There can be no prospect of sustainable growth in living standards and real wages without a significant improvement in our economy’s performance. Labour has long argued for a move to make full expensing of business investment permanent. The Chancellor condemned that as “irrespon-sibility from Labour” in the King’s Speech debate just eight days ago, so we welcome his damascene conversion today, which ends the uncertainty of the three-year cut-off period and the problems it was creating.”
“The Institute for Fiscal Studies has calculated that the extra spending pressures imply real-terms cuts of 16% for unprotected Departments such as Justice and flat budgets in real terms for many of the rest, but the Chancellor has conveniently pushed that scarcely credible fiscal consolidation into the next Parliament, where it is safe to assume he will not be in the job or have to deliver it. It is a scorched earth policy that Julius Caesar would recognise. The outlook for both growth and productivity is currently gloomy. The OBR forecasts a modest improvement this year, coupled with significant downgrades for the next three years. That is slightly more optimistic than the Bank of England forecast last month, which put the chances of a recession next year at 50-50, with the possibility of three quarters of zero growth.”
“That means the headroom the Chancellor has just splashed around is cut in half by that one decision on fuel duty. This apparent largesse of his also signals—he did not talk about this much—that public spending plans which were already very tight indeed are going to end up even tighter. As the OBR has pointed out in its assessment published this afternoon, this headroom is “mainly a reflection of a £19.1 billion erosion in the real value of departmental spending.” The Chancellor did not give us any indication that he was going to increase public spending in real terms to compensate for that, which means that already very difficult public service and departmental budgets will be squeezed further.”
“Living standards are now due to be 3.5% lower in 2024-25 than pre-pandemic, the largest reduction in living standards since the 1950s. Taxes are at record levels and the national debt is projected scarcely to fall at all, meaning soaring levels of debt interest spending to service it. Higher tax receipts in nominal terms and borrowing coming in slightly below the expectations set in the March Budget have increased the so-called headroom the Chancellor has if he is to meet his fiscal rules. He has decided to spend all of it. The OBR points out that half of this so-called headroom comes from a fuel duty escalator that keeps being cancelled and which the right hon. Member for Witham has just perfectly reasonably argued ought to be cancelled next time.”
“My constituents are furious about this, and it is right and proper that my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor has pledged to set up a covid corruption commissioner to get some of these lost billions back. It is good news that since March this year growth has been revised up slightly, inflation has halved—although is still high by G7 standards—and borrowing has been revised down. In other words, inflation is twice the target and growth is so modest it could be a rounding up error. The bad news is that the economy is barely growing, with ongoing risks of a recession, and despite what the Chancellor said in his autumn statement, the OBR has downgraded growth forecasts substantially for the next three years.”
“The Tories have delivered the worst economic growth since the 1920s and the worst performance for real wage growth since Napoleon crowned himself emperor. Yet despite a tax burden running at a 70-year high and a debt which is the highest in peacetime, our public services are crumbling, our schools are riddled with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—RAAC—our rivers are full of sewage, and there are 7.8 million people on an NHS waiting list. The Tories in all their various iterations of Government have somehow managed to deliver the worst of both worlds: record high taxes and crumbling public services, and an ongoing cost of living crisis causing misery to millions. To be fair, there have been some achievements. We have seen record levels of waste and fraud: a staggering £l00 billion of it in the last four years.”
“They have made our country weaker, and working people are worse off. Taken together, these Tory Governments have delivered 25 tax rises since 2019. The last Prime Minister sacked the Treasury permanent secretary responsible for fiscal stability, crashed the economy and nearly melted down pension funds, and millions of people are paying higher mortgages and rents as a result. Since the last election we have seen the highest increases in tax in any Parliament since records began and today’s announcements have not changed that reality. This Tory Government have cost each and every household in the UK a massive £4,000 in tax rises since 2010. Even after today’s tax cuts, the tax burden still reaches its highest level for 70 years.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who made an interesting and thoughtful speech. The backdrop of the autumn statement is an ongoing cost of living crisis and a flailing Government who cannot defend their appalling record in office and know that the general election is fast approaching. The fifth Tory Prime Minister in 13 years has had four relaunches in the past six weeks. He cannot decide whether he is the change candidate or continuity Cameron, he cancelled the northern leg of HS2 in Manchester, his King’s Speech was a visionless damp squib, and he has had to ditch an incompetent Home Secretary he should never have appointed in the first place. The reality is that the Tories have delivered 13 years of chaos, incompetence and instability.”
“I also welcome the Minister to his position. Does he not distinguish between borrowing for capital investment and borrowing for current expenditure? If he does not, he has a very peculiar view of the national accounts.”
“The change Britain needs is a mission-led Labour Government embarking on 10 years of national renewal—a Government who will secure the highest growth in the G7, make Britain a clean energy superpower, build an NHS fit for the future, make Britain’s streets safe, and break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage. It is long past time for this flailing, divisive Tory Government to recognise that the country needs real change, and to call a general election so that the country can have the new start it deserves—and sooner rather than later.”
“We can spot the dwindling band of Boris Johnson supporters publishing absurd, conspiracy-laden books such as “The Plot” to explain his defenestration, when the rest of us only need to follow the covid inquiry to appreciate what the real explanation is. As the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) tours the world proclaiming that despite her catastrophic 44-day tenure in office, she was in fact right all along, we can see that the Tory party can never be the change that this country is crying out for.”
“We have five criminal justice Bills that toughen sentences for convicted criminals, but have nothing to say about the huge and growing backlogs of criminal cases —some of which are taking two years even to get to court—or about the plummeting arrest and conviction rates for serious offences. They are tinkering, not dealing with the real issues. Rather than do the day job, this tired and incompetent Government are grinding to a halt. They seem much more preoccupied with pursuing their own internal factional fights than addressing the growing needs of the country. Even now, it is possible to discern the looming battle to be the next Leader of the Opposition commencing between the current Home Secretary and the Trade Secretary.”
“We have a programme for the final year of this Parliament that was briefed out by senior Tories as being designed to set “traps” for Labour in the forthcoming general election campaign. The offshore petroleum licensing Bill is one such example: the industry says that the Bill will make no difference whatsoever, and the Secretary of State has been forced to admit that it will not lower energy costs for consumers. While rough sleeping is up 74% under the Tories, we have a Home Secretary who, instead of solving the problem of the housing shortage, wants to make it illegal to give tents to the homeless. She claims they are indulging in a “lifestyle choice” by having the temerity to sleep on our streets.”
“Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) mentioned, there were some notable omissions from the speech, including a promised reform of the Mental Health Act 1983; an employment Bill to give workers a fairer deal; and the Tory manifesto promise to ban conversion therapy for LGBT+ people. There was no sign of the promised reform of audit rules—boring to some, but quite important to the good working of our economy—and as my right hon. Friend pointed out, the promised reform of pensions was also absent. Despite the Prime Minister’s much-vaunted summit, there was no regulation of artificial intelligence anywhere to be seen, either. We have a Government who have long since ceased to govern, who seem uninterested in tackling the serious issues our country faces and who seek division, rather than solution.”
“Food insecurity was once rare; now, in the past year in a rich G7 country, over 11 million of our fellow citizens have experienced it. In my constituency of Wallasey, the number of emergency food bank parcels provided by the Trussell Trust has increased by 57% since the last general election. On the Wirral as a whole, over 16,000 people received emergency food parcels last year, a third of whom were children, and in the country as a whole, nine children out of 30 in a class are growing up in poverty. This legislative plan does not even mention, let alone begin to address, the daily struggles and hardship that millions of people in this country are now facing. As my right hon.”
“They sit alongside such towering legislative ambitions as a Bill to license pedicabs in London. That legislative programme leaves the challenges that my Wallasey constituents are facing virtually unaddressed: taxes are the highest they have been for 70 years, mortgages are up, rents have skyrocketed, the cost of living squeeze goes on, inflation remains the highest in the G7, and food inflation is higher still. Growth is projected to be zero next year, and the Bank of England has put the chance of a recession at 50:50. After 13 years of this Government, our rivers and seas are filled with sewage, our schools are crumbling, 94% of crimes go unsolved, our transport system is in chaos, and over 7.5 million people are on an NHS waiting list. Where in this King’s Speech were those things addressed?”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) in this King’s Speech debate. After 13 years of Tory Government, and three Prime Ministers in the last year and a half, this King’s Speech offered us pretty thin gruel. There was no real vision for the future, there was nothing like a plan to get there, and it was nowhere near adequate to meet the challenges this country is facing. The Speech contained just 21 Bills, six of which have been carried over from last year’s parliamentary Session. Many of those included, such as on leasehold reform, turn out on closer inspection to be pale shadows of what was promised by the Government. There are Bills that nod towards the need for reform but do not actually deliver meaningful change, or delay it so long as to be meaningless.”
“The hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill came in at short notice to deal with an issue, and the Minister ought to be more sensitive to that in his remarks.”
“Thank you. In the interests of the debate, I have been very lax, because we have had lots of time. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the Contracts for Difference scheme.”
“The Home Secretary’s speech was “a signal to people who don’t like people who are LGBT+ people.” Those are not my words; they are the words of the Conservative chair of the London Assembly as he was being thrown out of that conference. Let us get a grip. Let us remember that real people are involved. When hate crimes rise it ruins lives. Let us do something about it and let us unite to do so.”