Laurence Turner
MP for Birmingham Northfield · Labour · United Kingdom
“We repeatedly heard that shortages in those key skills are holding back the UK’s ability to deliver major products, as well as raising costs for taxpayers. This statutory instrument is necessary to continue the provision of essential skills training.”
“Members will recall when a former member of the Revolutionary Communist party—an organisation that acted as an apologist for the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign—was appointed to the other place a few years ago and has never disavowed those views.”
“It is difficult to imagine a role in the modern economy for the Wool, Jute and Flax Industry Training Board, but it is worth reflecting that, in the past, training boards oversaw some important skills transitions—particularly the Gas Industry Training Board’s role in the highly successful conversion from town gas to natural gas.”
“We cannot create the prospect of British citizens being tried in absentia by states they may never have stepped foot in and then effectively being barred from running for council or parliamentary positions.”
“It is worth pointing out that while it is right that we debate the petition’s important proposals, the people of Sparkhill rejected Mr Butt’s candidature. He lost decisively and two Labour councillors were returned. In that case, we needed good organisation and trust in the people of this country. I hope that my hon.”
“There is also a valid question to be asked about the effective five-year prohibition against standing for election that applies in practice for domestic convictions of terrorism but not for overseas convictions.”
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“I agree. My hon. Friend makes a very important point. When we look back at the national agreement in the early 2000s which led to the expansion of school support staff roles, the justification was that they would alleviate pressure on teachers and add to the quality of teaching in classrooms. That is exactly what school support staff workers in my constituency and his do every day. School support staff roles are essential for SEND support, but the contracts those staff are employed under are so squeezed that no paid time is available for professional development or training. In other words, we cannot resolve the SEND crisis without contract reform, and we cannot achieve that contract reform if the drift and delay, which is the legacy of the 2010 decision to abolish the SSSNB, continues.”
“I welcome today’s announcement. Recruitment and retention challenges have limited access to justice in recent years. Will the Lord Chancellor outline what steps she is taking to ensure that we have enough barristers and solicitors so that courts can get through as many cases as possible?”
“Birmingham has a large and growing community of people from Hong Kong. Although most are now well settled in the wider community, some of my constituents are fearful about continued monitoring and surveillance, especially if they speak out on human rights. Will the Minister give me and my constituents an assurance that if they are subject to those utterly unacceptable practices, they will receive protection and support?”
“I close by echoing one last Ukrainian voice—that of Taras Shevchenko, who wrote in a poem almost 200 years ago, also under Russian occupation: Oh bury me, then rise you up And break your heavy chains And water with the tyrants’ blood The freedom you have gained And in the great new family, The family of the free, With softly spoken, kindly word Remember also me. The words ring true today. If one message is to go from this House today, I hope it is this: our nation’s support for the Ukrainian cause is constant, not passing. We remember Ukraine, and we will stand with Ukraine and with our Ukrainian friends to the end—to the very end—and to the hoped-for day, as hard as the path may now be to imagine, when all Ukraine will be free.”
“But we want a just peace, without occupiers in our country.” As Oleksandra Matviichuk, the head of the Centre for Civil Liberties in Ukraine, which holds a Nobel peace prize, said: “Peace cannot be reached by a country under attack laying down its arms, that would not be peace but occupation.” I hope that message—so eloquently articulated by Ukrainians, who know the Russian regime better than anyone—is heard by all those currently making decisions about Ukraine’s future. I cannot go into detail in the very short amount of time available, but the issues identified by the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown- Fuller) with regard to the Ukraine permission extension scheme have been heard in my constituency as well, and I hope that Ministers are monitoring those concerns closely.”
“I pay tribute to the members of the British armed forces who have trained Ukrainians and to the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine in Birmingham—they have learned from us, and, as was said earlier, we have learned from them. I also pay tribute to all those who have acted as hosts as part of the wider support network for Ukrainian refugees. One of the most valuable things we can do in this place is repeat Ukrainian voices. I will quote one—that of Ivanna Khrapko, the youth chair of the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine, who it has been my pleasure to come to know over the last couple of years. Ahead of a TUC vote some 18 months ago, she said: “Of course we want peace, more than anything.”
“The proof of that assertion can be found in bodies that were laid out in Izium, Bucha and Kherson, and, I fear, in many other places whose names are not known to us and that only liberation will identify. When we think back to February 2022, we must remember the hope that could quickly be found among the despair. A small Ukrainian force defeated the Russians at Hostomel airport, and on such a fine margin, the nation may have been saved. The actions of successive UK Governments and the unity of this House have, as many other hon. Members have said, been essential to that Ukrainian struggle for liberty. Out of war have come new bonds of family and friendship.”
“I thank the members of the Backbench Business Committee and the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for granting and leading the debate. Three years ago, we watched as missiles rained down on Ukraine from Kharkiv to Lviv, damaging even the Holocaust memorial at Babyn Yar. Anyone who has stood in that space will share the sense of revulsion at that desecration. A motorised column, reported to be some 40 miles long, advanced on Kyiv and its advance groups left a horror of murder in their wake. This was the terrible return of unrestricted industrial warfare to Europe for the first time since 1945. The goal must be stated bluntly: the Russian state seeks the destruction of Ukrainian sovereignty and Ukrainian national identity.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for giving us the opportunity to talk about our local non-league football clubs, such as Northfield Town FC and Alvechurch FC; I pay tribute to them for their community work. Does he agree that many clubs face a challenge in finding funding to bring on more women’s and girls’ teams, and to invest in the infrastructure? The same applies to disability teams. That can be a barrier to accessing wider funding. I believe he knows both football clubs well. Does he share my hope that they will find that investment?”
“My hon. Friend is making a characteristically powerful case. Do the history books not show that Labour has always been the party of the pints? Harold Wilson expressed enthusiastic support for preserving the pint measure. Labour is the party of the pints, while the Conservatives do not serve anything more than small bitter.”
“We heard from the shadow Minister that he does not believe that public sector employers should offer facility time at all. The Opposition attempted to block better contracts for teaching assistants and other low-paid members of school support staff. A witness who was presented as representative of business opinion had previously said that lockdowns would kill far more people than covid. I do not think that the motion or the party putting it forward is a credible voice of economic growth or business.”
“I draw attention to my declarations in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It is a pleasure to follow my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas). I will just say that the clean heat market mechanism that he spoke about, which is causing concern to a business in his constituency, was of course brought forward by the last Conservative Government. I will start by talking about the Employment Rights Bill, because some of us have just spent two months in Committee going through it line by line. I thought that the House might want to hear about some of the opinions and positions put forward by the Opposition during that process. The Opposition tried to exempt millions of workers in some of the lowest paying sectors from protection against harassment at work.”
“When I recently met small businesses on Northfield high street, we had—as you would expect, Madam Deputy Speaker—a serious and robust discussion about a whole range of Government policies and policies enacted by the previous Government, but the first issue raised was crime and antisocial behaviour. Anyone who has been a victim of crime can attest to the devastating impacts that it can have on a person or business.”
“One of the pleasures of the Committee is that we have 970 pages of transcript where those matters were discussed at length, and the Government are indeed bringing forward further impact assessments on those points. Looking at my constituency and, indeed, the constituencies of all Members of the House, the economic record that we have inherited is one of pallid economic and wage growth. After 15 years, average real wages in Birmingham Northfield are £300 lower a month than they were in 2010. The costs of delayed and cancelled NHS appointments, crime that goes without investigation and shortages in key teaching posts are borne not just by our constituents, but by businesses. We should say this clearly: public services create value. Businesses and the people who work for them need strong public services to sustain themselves and grow.”
“I wonder whether any Conservative Member wants to tell us today what their offer would have been, if not 5.5%, had they won the election. It should not be a hard question to answer. What would the difference be in the pay packets of nurses, teachers and members of the armed forces? I would be very happy to take an intervention on that point. [ Interruption. ] They cannot answer the question.”
“Given that the pay year starts not in July or even at the beginning of the election period but in April, why were those recommendations delayed? Because Conservative Ministers and their Departments were late to submit the remit letters and evidence. The Office for Manpower Economics has been clear on that point: “The work of the PRBs is demand led and essentially non-negotiable—departments set the remits and timetables.” That is the truth of the matter. The additional costs were always coming, and the only reason they came seven months into an election year is that Conservative Ministers were content for them to be so delayed. Conservative Members claim that they would not have accepted those recommendations, but they have not said at any point what their offer to public sector workers would have been.”
“That system very clearly broke down.” He said that “there was about £9.5 billion-worth of net pressure on Departments’ budgets, which they did not disclose to us…which under the law and under the Act they should have done.” The decisions that awaited the incoming Government on public sector pay, which is the other element of the £22 billion, had been ducked and delayed until after the election. [ Interruption. ] We need to be clear on that. The right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) indicates from a sedentary position. He will know about the situation with the School Teachers Review Body. Conservative Ministers already knew about the STRB’s recommendations and that the recommendations of the other review bodies tend to be similar.”
“My hon. Friend makes a sensible point, and the issues that he raises are reflected in my constituency. That is one of the major barriers to getting jobs and spending into our high streets. If the Budget last year had failed to raise money for investment in public services, it would have been like changing the colour of the shovel before continuing to dig a hole in the same old ditch. We could not prolong the failed approach of the past 14 years. We can add to that the disgraceful situation that awaited the incoming Labour Government. For all the sound and fury that we have heard from the Conservatives, there is little mystery about that now. Richard Hughes, the chair of the OBR, told the Treasury Committee: “When we had a high-trust relationship with the Treasury those things were being well managed, and managed within the total.”
“My hon. Friend makes his point as well as it could be made, and I thank him for his intervention. Let us not forget the costs that the previous Government inflicted upon businesses. Their botched EU withdrawal policies have meant up to £7.5 billion in costs from customs checks alone according to HMRC, £1 billion from higher energy trading costs, and a further £1 billion from the cost of chemical regulations in that sector every single year. One former Conservative Prime Minister said something like, “Screw business.” At least we can say that he lived up to his word on that. The motion is not a serious proposition. I hope that the House rejects it.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the other major challenges that small food businesses face is importing and exporting ingredients? That needs to be a focus for the review of the trade and co-operation agreement next year.”
“I understand the point the hon. Gentleman is making, but is it not the case that in that specific circumstance, after a week, they would be covered by the new probationary period provision? This provision is writing probationary period into the law for the first time.”
“Will the hon. Member acknowledge that what the Bill actually says is that no one should be forced on to a zero-hours contract? It is not the case that someone who wants that flexibility will be denied it.”
“As the Minister knows, the Nationwide Caterers Association, which represents small independents and family-run street food businesses, is based in Kings Norton in my constituency. I thank him for the recent positive meeting we held. Does he not agree that one of the previous problems it faced was that, under the previous Government, it struggled to get a seat at the table?”
“Much could be done in schools to improve the sensory environment—I believe this point has been partially raised already. When I was a SEND pupil, such simple adjustments as flexible lighting and variable noise levels would have made a huge difference to classroom management and learning support. I hope that when school design standards are next looked at, minimum expectations for inclusion by design can be set.”
“The pirates of the high needs exist in SEND as well. I see it in my constituency and I see it in the cases parents and families bring to the SEND surgeries I run. I hope that when legislation is brought forward in this area, those problems will be addressed. In a former role, I submitted a freedom of information request to all local education authorities. Two thirds could not answer a simple question about average spend on EHCPs in their area. Indeed, no such duty exists under the 2014 Act. If we are to drive up standards we need accountability for the money that is being spent, because parents are furious at the money that is not available to their children. I will make just one more brief point, because time is so short.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Jenny Riddell-Carpenter) on securing today’s debate. I draw the attention of the House to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in respect of support from support staff unions. I also wish to make a non-financial declaration of interest, which is that my partner is a member of the Department’s expert advisory panel on SEND. However, the views I express are my own. In the House we often talk about SEND funding and funding is important, but we also need to talk about SEND spending. The reality is that much money in the system is not spent well and that there are providers who charge too much for too little. In other aspects of education —children’s homes and other parts of the sector—we look at overcharging.”
“Let me start by drawing attention to my declarations in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in respect of the GMB defence manufacturing trade union. I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to rebuilding the UK’s industrial capacity in defence. All Governments face a balance between international collaboration and avoiding dependency on complex supply chains which can limit freedom of action, as some of our allies have found in their attempts to aid Ukraine. Does the Prime Minister agree that one of the objectives of the spending announced today must be to maintain and strengthen our sovereign freedom to aid our allies and defend our own shores?”
“Once Birmingham’s Camp Hill line reopens, we will need track investment if we are to restore the pre-pandemic service frequencies on the cross-city line, including to Northfield and Longbridge. Will the Minister look fully at the case for upgrading King’s Norton station?”
“The Minister’s commitment to continued defence support for Ukraine is essential, and I am sure the House’s thoughts are with Ukrainians who are fighting for their freedoms and all the Ukrainians in our own communities who have found sanctuary in this country. Does she agree that any settlement cannot be a repeat of the Budapest memorandum or the Minsk agreements, which failed to deter future Russian imperial aggression?”
“I recently visited the Royal Orthopaedic hospital in my constituency, which has an outstanding veterans’ care service. Does the Minister agree that it is essential for former and current service personnel in Birmingham and beyond to continue to have access to specialised musculoskeletal rehabilitation services?”
“I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. My hon. Friend and I previously both advocated for and represented workers in children’s social care for Unison and the GMB respectively. Does he agree that driving up pay and terms and conditions for those workers is just as important in children’s social services as it is in adult social services?”
“I pay tribute to all the campaigners, including the hon. Lady, who have taken some form of good from the hardest pain and dearest loss to provide some comfort to others. I ask the Minister to look at the good work undertaken in Birmingham and to assess the case for national guidance and support for register offices, so that the circumstances that Wunmi and Charlie faced do not happen again.”
“Last week, Birmingham city council carried her motion calling on the authority to work with the register office to secure an appointed officer with seniority and experience to support families through their grief, so that people who experience baby loss do not have to register their baby’s death alongside parents who are registering births, and to explore what additional support the registry service and the NHS can provide to parents in that situation. Carmel spoke about the loss of her own son, Aodhan Hay, 28 years ago, when she experienced something very similar. If something can come out of this debate, I hope it is attention for the issues raised by the hon. Member for South Devon and for the situation that my constituents faced, because if we can prevent a similar ordeal for other bereaved parents, we will have done some good.”
“They found themselves sitting in Birmingham register office alongside new parents who were registering their own children’s births, and they were required to attend two separate appointments on the same day to register the birth and their son’s passing. Wunmi said: “I was already feeling the pain of our loss so much and when we arrived we had to sit and wait our turn with everyone else, including with parents with their babies registering their births. I felt my loss so intensely in that moment, it hit me like a ton of bricks… It should be a joyful time for new parents, while obviously for us it was an awful, traumatic one. I just didn’t feel those two worlds should have to collide like they did.” I also pay tribute to Councillor Carmel Corrigan, who is a representative for Kings Norton North in my constituency.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) on bringing forward this incredibly important debate and thank her for having the strength to share her experience. She has shone a light on a matter that will resonate with people in every constituency across the country. I rise to raise a related matter that has been brought to my attention and to the attention of other representatives in Birmingham by one of my constituents, Wunmi Babalola. Last year, she and her partner Charlie lost their infant son, Kayode Babalola-Fellows. Her experience of registering Kayode’s death was much more difficult than it needed to be.”
“Almost a decade ago, I had the interesting experience of working for the Labour party on aviation policy and, on Heathrow, the fundamentals have not changed. The exhaustion of that sovereign hub capacity is offshoring our emissions and is a stopper on growth in every part of the country. Does the Chief Secretary agree that this decision is long overdue? In respect of comments from those on the Opposition Front Bench, will the Chief Secretary also confirm that in the two months since the Budget, redundancies as notified by employers are down by 20% compared with the same period under the previous Conservative Government?”
“It is right that in this debate we all champion our local and regional airports, including Birmingham International. However, the reality is that no other airport is a serious rival to the long-haul hub capacity that Heathrow provides, and its exhaustion of that capacity is a block on growth in every region of the UK. Does the Minister agree that redirection of that pent-up demand to Schiphol and Dubai is no good for the national accounts and no good for the environment?”
“I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Member’s Financial Interests, given my background in the GMB trade union, which represents ambulance workers in the West Midlands ambulance service. Does he agree that during the difficult winter period, ambulance staff endured an extremely difficult time, and we should all pay tribute to their professionalism? Does he further agree with ambulance crews that if we had more community-based health services, pressure on those central accident and emergency centres would be reduced?”
“As a former official of the GMB shipbuilding and ship repair union, I warmly welcome today’s announcement. Does the Minister agree that an aim of the defence industrial strategy should be to open up opportunities for jobs and apprenticeships to people from disadvantaged communities?”
“Classroom-based school support staff spend the majority of their time supporting SEND learners. We cannot resolve the SEND crisis without resolving the workforce problems. I am proud to have been a SEND pupil. I am open about my differences as an MP. I hope that, on a cross-party basis, we can look back at the end of this Parliament and say, “We found a system in crisis, and we changed it.””
“In the seconds available to me, I cannot do justice to the cases I have heard of pupils and parents who are stuck in the system. Ten years on from the passing of the Children and Families Act 2014, it is time to look at where the current system is failing. Local authorities had additional responsibilities loaded on to them, and at the same time they had powers and resources taken away. It has become harder for them to plan shared resources, and that is a major cause of delays and cost increases in the system. I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am a member of the GMB. We cannot lose sight of the role of school support staff in this equation. I appeal to the shadow Minister to please rethink the opposition to reinstating the school support staff negotiating body.”
“Will the hon. Member acknowledge that the CST said it is the right time to take school support staff pay out from under the local authority umbrella, and that its concern was that a ceiling would be set on school support staff pay? It has been clarified in the Employment Rights Bill Committee that that is not the case; the policy is about establishing a floor, not a ceiling.”
“I hope that the review, and the Government’s response to it, will take account of the House of Lords Committee’s recommendation that the financial requirement should be revisited to become more flexible and to focus on the likelihood of the future income of the family unit, rather than solely on the sponsor’s past income. The review should also take wider account of a family’s whole circumstances and of the differences in labour markets and local wages, and focus on improving the administration of applications so that fewer families are left in limbo for so long and the system is ultimately fairer and more compassionate.”
“I want to place on the record an appreciation of how they have responded to their ordeal: by working to benefit others who find themselves in comparable situations today. Gillian and Patrick are not alone in Northfield. Another of my constituents estimates that he has spent £50,000 to try to resolve his wife’s case, which he says is an exceptionally generous subsidy to airlines, hotels and lawyers. Would it not be better for the economy if that money could be spent in south Birmingham instead? I welcome the Government’s decision to ask the Migration Advisory Committee to look again at this policy.”
“She fought for years for her husband, Patrick, who is also with us, and their children to be allowed to join the rest of the family in Birmingham. The applications were initially refused and were granted only in 2018, after significant political and press attention. Patrick is now a senior physician associate at the Royal Orthopaedic hospital, and his application was strongly supported by the NHS. Indeed, his work in the UK is of ongoing benefit to patients and the wider community, but Gillian and he had to fight to bring their children to the UK from America; distressingly, their adopted children—two young teenagers—were turned around and put on a plane at Heathrow. They are now heavily involved in the Reunite Families UK campaign.”
“There is a clear risk that if the inherited plans proceed, the right to respect for family life will become the preserve of a fortunate few, concentrated in just a few neighbourhoods within the city of Birmingham. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) made the point well: the previous Government confused income with skill. It has been the stated ambition of successive Governments to attract highly skilled migrant workers. Two of the constituents who contacted me today hold doctorates, including in shortage occupation areas, but, due to a combination of altruism in their choice of career and family circumstances, they do not have large incomes. One of them, Dr Gillian Thies, is in the Public Gallery.”
“In my constituency, the average full-time employee’s salary is about £31,000, but that does not take account of the self-employed, whose earnings tend to be lower. That figure is almost £3,000 lower than in Birmingham as a whole, almost £4,000 lower than in the west midlands overall and more than £6,000, or 16%, lower than the average for the UK. More than half of people in work are below the current threshold, and that would rise to more than 70% under the former Government’s plans. The £29,000 threshold is already an extremely challenging barrier for many families to meet because the jobs are just not available. I have constituents who work two or more jobs in an effort to meet that threshold, at great personal cost.”
“The House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee report said that the family visa system can be “complex and inconsistent”, and drew attention to the processing delays and decisions that are sometimes very hard for constituents to understand, as other hon. Members have ably highlighted. There are a number of examples of unfairness in the policies and practices that this Government have inherited. The inflexibility of the cut-off takes no account of variations in earnings across the country. There is affluence in my constituency, but by and large wages are low and we have not fully recovered from the closure of the Longbridge plant 20 years ago. In a ranking of all constituencies by average income, Birmingham Northfield is 35th from the bottom.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) on her very capable speech introducing the debate. I speak today in recognition of the strength of the representations that I have received from constituents; I thank all those who took the time to write to me ahead of this debate. I accept—as, I think, all my constituents do —that all Governments face the challenge of striking the right balance between a fair and rules-based immigration system and the human right to respect for family life, but we are here today because the 2012 system does not strike the right balance. The results can be arbitrary, unfair and distressing for families. As has been said, family life and love cannot be neatly divided by borders.”
“I also thank some of the GMB figures who made critical contributions during that time, including the national political officers during that period—Tom Warnett, Caitlin Prowle and Gavin Sibthorpe, who put in more hours than anyone—the national legal officer, Barry Smith, and the staff of the research and policy department, Anna Barnes, Ross Holden and Cassie Farmer. Finally, I would like to mention the staff of the Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation: Robbie Scott, Kieran Maxwell and Helen Pearce—the best political organiser in the labour movement, who herded cats and moved mountains.”