Peter Lamb
MP for Crawley · Labour · United Kingdom
“In these situations, as a direct result of the Treasury not having revisited those rates over the last 12 years, airlines and other organisations are able to justify under-compensating their staff by pointing to what is essentially Government guidance.”
“I take that fully on board. I am delighted that the hon. Member is here for this debate. There are cities in Europe where the situation is even more pronounced than in Amsterdam. In Budapest, the total residual rate set in 2013 and unchanged since 2014 has been eaten away by a compound inflation rate of 67% in Hungary.”
“Those were first published on the Government’s website in 2013, with unique rates produced for almost every one of the world’s major cities, setting out the average cost of drinks, breakfast, lunch and dinner, a night in a hotel room and even the journey from hotel to office.”
“While simply increasing the 2013 rates in line with inflation would be welcome, I hope the Treasury takes the opportunity to undertake a full review of how subsistence rates can be systematically improved.”
“The issue has a real and detrimental impact on the working lives of cabin crew. A constituent of mine working for an airline operating out of Gatwick airport was blunt about this, telling me that the fact that the rates are so far behind reality means that they have been forced to “miss meals” while abroad for work.”
“Despite the time and effort put into producing those bespoke rates, they have been upgraded significantly only once in the past 13 years—in October 2014, a year after they were first produced—and that only included a fraction of the cities listed.”
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“However, despite my initial scepticism, I found much that is good in the new national planning policy framework and in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, showing that this Government genuinely listen to voices across the sector.”
“I hope that I am not the first or the last in this Chamber to thank those public servants for their efforts on behalf of our communities and country. Much needs to be done to reverse the decline in public sector planner numbers. While the Bill sets out many positive steps forward, I remain of the belief that few areas in the public sector would be better suited to, or would generate better economic returns from, the introduction of AI than planning. It could use decades’ worth of computerised training data to deal with simple applications automatically, freeing up expert human planners to deal with the cases that would genuinely benefit from a human eye. As a former council leader, I am defensive of the record of local government in planning.”
“My hon. Friend must be reading ahead. The impact on escalating costs and viability as a result of the delays is hard to overstate. The capacity issues do not stem from laziness or as a covert form of development suppression; they stem from one issue and one issue only: the absence of sufficient numbers of planners in the public sector. The rates of pay at local authorities are massively out of kilter with the private sector. The consequence is that an increasingly small number of extremely hard-working people are left trying to keep the system afloat principally out of their public spiritedness. Yet, instead of receiving the thanks they deserve, all too often they have to deal with public rhetoric that regularly denigrates them and the work they do.”
“Although there are mechanisms for delivering overall housing numbers, in areas such as my own, where the duty to co-operate is facilitated, meeting those numbers very often delivers housing that is neither affordable nor the right type and for which there are no allocation rights. I very hope that the Government will correct those issues in their work.”
“With that in mind, I will end on a topic of great concern to me: affordable housing. The NPPF is right not to set out strict affordability requirements for local plans, given the differences in local viability, in addition to setting out a 15% additional requirement for greenfield land. New towns will no doubt have a significant role to play in delivering new affordable housing, as will the relatively small amount of funding allocated so far, but I believe that much more needs to be done to deliver the number of affordable homes that are needed. Although I could bore the Minister with many suggestions, I will focus on sub-regional planning through the new spatial development strategies. Housing is not merely a numbers game. Other factors matter, not least the size and cost of housing.”
“The offsetting process that the Bill delivers is exactly the change that we require. I am also pleased to see in the Bill the development of spatial development strategies, which are a vital part of ensuring that housing needs are addressed beyond the limitations of any single authority. Anyone who has dealt with the current duty to co-operate system will recognise that it is largely a paper exercise that in no way actually delivers the housing required across sub-regions. Spatial development strategies overcome that in a coherent and planned-out way, and at a level far closer and more democratically accountable to residents than the old regional spatial strategies—a significant improvement. This Government are finally giving the planning system the modernisation that it needs, and I very much hope that they do not stop now.”
“As a result, since that time, housing delivery in my area has ground to a halt and economic development has been hampered, and Members would not believe the level of debate taking place on Facebook about whether Taco Bell will ever open. All the while, we are waiting for our local water company to build the water infrastructure that has been desperately needed for some time. I have nothing against little snails, but the consequence of that decision is that, until Natural England feels that its needs have been satisfied, almost 2% of my community is trapped in temporary housing at huge cost to the public sector—not to mention the enormous human cost to those families. The ability to improve our natural environment alongside development is a vital part of being able to avoid forcing a conflict between human and environmental need.”
“Planners tell me that planning is a matter of balance, and in this Bill, the Government balance all the relevant considerations well. Another example of delivering balance is in dealing with nature. Crawley has the second worst housing crisis in the country, and during my time as leader of the council, I delivered over four times the number of units as our centrally assessed Government housing target. I point out that targets are a floor not a ceiling—they in no way restrict future development. That came to an end when Natural England unilaterally imposed water neutrality restrictions on all development in north Sussex—an area that, according to the figures, has a larger economy than most of our core cities—on the basis that it had concerns about the wellbeing of the little whirlpool ramshorn snail.”
“I have learned over the years not to look a gift house in the mouth. This is a positive step forward. No doubt other steps could be taken in future, but this is significant in enabling the system to be far more sustainable than it has been of late. There must always be a role for local expertise and knowledge in planning decisions and democratic oversight, but that does not mean that the way we have always done things in the past needs to be the way we do it in the future. Indeed, it does not mean a better or fairer outcome, and a longer process is not always a better one. I am sure that we all have experience of planning decisions, both nationally and locally, that have taken a long time to produce the decision we all knew would be the final decision from day one, and that in no way meet the needs of residents or our community.”
“It will not require a penny more in expenditure than is necessary to fulfil the social contract that generations of Parliaments have sustained with our poorest children. The requirement to qualify for free school meals is a combined household income of £7,400 or less—an income of roughly half the average rent in my constituency. I find it hard to believe that it is possible to sustain a household on such a low income. It is these children the Bill seeks to support. The stories we hear of child poverty are heartbreaking, not only because of the hunger and the impact on children’s performance at school, but because of the stigma, with stories of children pretending to bring food out of their bags so that they can fit in with their friends at school, even when there is nothing available.”
“However, I do accept that £3.2 billion cannot simply be found overnight. If we are serious about ending childhood poverty, we need to consider all the issues in the round, and the child poverty taskforce is a vital part of ensuring that limited public money is used most effectively to address this crisis. What can we do here today, while we await the findings of the taskforce, to try to improve the conditions of children living in poverty? Members will be aware that private Member’s Bills cannot authorise new expenditure, and I do not seek to challenge that. This Bill seeks simply to ensure that the children whom this House has already stated should receive free school meals receive them automatically, unless their parents actively opt out of the system.”
“Today, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, almost a third of our children—innocents who have no control whatsoever over their personal circumstances—are living in poverty. Harold Wilson famously said that the Labour party is “a moral crusade or it is nothing.” If this Government are to be judged on anything over the next five years, let it be how they treat the most vulnerable members of our society. Like many Members of my party, I have found the decision not to immediately lift the two-child benefit cap extremely painful. We do not need further reports on how this policy was one of the most significant drivers of child poverty under the previous Government; at this point, I do not believe the bookshelves of the House of Commons Library could support any more evidence, were it to be submitted.”
“I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. I am very grateful for my good fortune in having the chance to introduce a Bill in my first year as a Member of this House and to seek to address, in part, one of my greatest policy concerns: childhood poverty. The previous Labour Government made reducing child poverty one of their most significant missions in office, and research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has demonstrated that without the changes they made to benefits, child poverty would have increased by more than a quarter by 2010—instead, it fell by more than a quarter. It was a remarkable achievement under the circumstances. Unfortunately, the actions of the Conservatives in the years since have reversed much of that good work.”
“We know also that the same barriers exist as with any other form of state support, where barriers of language, agency, awareness and ability ensure that those facing the greatest disadvantages in our society are the least likely to access the support available. These are the families who would benefit most from this legislation.”
“For a family affected by the child benefit cap, it would increase their income by a fifth or more. Why, given the difference that it could make to their household, is every eligible family not claiming? There is a range of reasons. In some cases, there is a belief that their children might be bullied due to being in receipt of a free school meal, as my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) mentioned. If there is one immediate outcome of this debate, I hope it is to reinforce the message to parents that no one can now identify which child is on a free school meal. There is no stigma in claiming—please make the application.”
“I absolutely agree. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. The Government are doing a lot to try to address this issue, but that is not to say that we cannot do more. We hear those stories of stigma, with children pretending to bring food out of their bags so that they do not miss out or so that they fit in, even if they do not have the actual food. We should be glad that over the years since, the system of free school meals has changed, so that people cannot tell which children are in receipt of free school meals. I will come back to that point, but it hopefully has encouraged parents to make use of the option. Free school meals are estimated to save roughly £500 a child. Against such a low income, that amount makes a huge difference.”
“In fact, there is a double-digit improvement in performance at GCSE level between children in the lowest and second-lowest income deciles, and that improvement continues all the way up in decreasing amounts until we hit the third-highest decile, where for all the money spent on private schools, educational outcomes plateau across the top 30% of incomes.”
“Beyond the moral argument, this measure is about the future of our country. Education is an investment in the future prosperity of our country and of our citizens. It is the bedrock of economic growth and of enabling people to live independent and successful lives. Auto-enrolment stands to improve educational outcomes in three ways. The most obvious is by reducing hunger, the impact of which upon concentration and educational performance is well known. School meals were introduced 120 years ago next year to ensure that children received at least one nutritious meal a day, so that they could function effectively. Secondly, auto-enrolment would improve household incomes, and household income is positively correlated with educational outcomes.”
“It has been a while since I looked at the numbers, but my understanding when I last looked was that the level of unclaimed benefits in our system is at least 10 times greater than the total value of benefit fraud. People are choosing not to access the support available by and large because of stigma or a lack of awareness, but the impact within our society is real, and we should be doing everything we can to reduce that stigma. We all pay in so that there is a safety net for us when we need it and to ensure that other members of our community, our neighbours and the people we care about do not have to go without when they fall on difficult times. We should do everything possible to avoid the vilification that is disgustingly often put upon people simply because they are poor.”
“However, I hope that the Minister—who has been generous with his time with me on this matter, and has demonstrated his commitment to increasing the uptake of free school meals—will be able to give a commitment that auto-enrolment will be given serious consideration as part of the work now being undertaken to bring an end to childhood poverty in the United Kingdom. I also hope that today’s debate will underline the support among Members of this House for bringing about this change on behalf of our most vulnerable constituents. Surely, the very least that our country has a right to expect of its Parliament is that we will ensure that the nation’s children are fed.”
“It is worth noting that the £7,400 income threshold cuts off the overwhelming majority of children who are living in poverty in this country, who still do not qualify for free school meals. That should certainly be corrected in due course, but for now, this Bill would make the most amount of difference to the very poorest children, benefiting them, their families, their schools and—through improvements in educational outcomes—society at large. I accept that the mess the new Government have inherited from the last Government and the economic uncertainty created by decisions currently being taken in Washington mean that it may be too much to expect a wholesale adoption of the policy today.”
“In the interests of alleviating hunger in schools and improving health and educational outcomes for the poorest children, auto-enrolment must be brought in without delay.” Pilots run by local authorities, which quite heavily bend the rules set by current legislation to try to get as many of their children registered as possible, have repeatedly shown over recent years the scale of under-registration and the impact that auto-enrolment could have, both for those families benefiting and for school funding in deprived communities. The Government’s own figures suggest that under-registration stands at a minimum of 11%, which is equivalent to a quarter of a million children, although research nationally and in my own constituency suggests that the overall figure could well be significantly higher.”
“It is a payment that schools receive on the basis of the number of pupils in receipt of free school meals. Low uptake of free school meals is now directly limiting the funding available to those schools where it would make the most difference to educational outcomes. As a Government who are ambitious for the education of our children and committed to securing high levels of economic growth, the failure to address these matters of deprivation is a hurdle that we have to clear if we are going to succeed. This is well recognised. The Education Committee recently reported: “We consider that the arguments for auto-enrolment in free school meals for those children currently eligible are conclusive.”
“I agree with my hon. Friend. I am well aware of the amount of effort that local schools are having to make directly to deal with the consequences of financial deprivation. It is important that we try to ensure that the statistics on free school meals are accurate, because it is a gateway to support. It is also how we measure any number of indicators of poverty in our society. If there is a statistical link between some groups under-reporting compared with other groups, we will have inaccurate figures on where deprivation is in our society and how best to try to address that problem. The last benefit of auto-enrolment relates to the pupil premium of £1,455 a pupil, which is designed to counter the impact of deprivation on educational outcomes.”
“Speaking with those in Ukraine, not only politicians, soldiers and analysts, but the everyday residents who we met along our travels, they are determined to go on fighting however long it takes—alone if they must, hand to hand if totally necessary. We cannot allow things to come to that. Three years into the combat, why do Ukrainians still want for bullets and shells? Why do they struggle to access sufficient electronic countermeasures? Why are we training soldiers in batches in the UK and have not set up colleges in Ukraine to train them en masse? If Putin was standing on the French coast, would we have not resolved this in months, if not weeks? We are at war. It is a war we can and must win. To do that, we must be prepared to do whatever it takes, starting today. Slava Ukraini.”
“I want to be frank that many more painful decisions will follow if we are to do what is necessary to ensure the defence of our country against an enemy power. We must mobilise. With no American security guarantee, the only choice is a European security guarantee, of which the UK must play a central role. For us, this will be a mobilisation not of men and women, for the most part. If we must replace the total manpower of the US military, that number—one million—already exists within the Ukrainian armed forces. Ukraine does not need the people; they are already on Europe’s frontlines holding back the enemy. They need our combined economic and intellectual power across the continent dedicated to our collective victory.”
“The arguments against appeasement have already been well made, and we know that if Ukraine falls, it would be a NATO country next and, in all possibility, a general nuclear war as part of Putin’s quest to rebuild the Russian empire. We must accept the reality that we are at war—a cold war, but a war none the less. Neutral countries do not attack UK infrastructure or test UK airspace and territorial waters. Neutral countries do not release nerve agents into the streets of Salisbury, or openly discuss in the papers, as they are doing now, that the Americans have given them licence to bomb London. Those are the actions of an enemy state. Since the announcement on Tuesday, which I greatly agree with, I have received correspondence from constituents expressing concerns about the cuts to international aid.”
“After the first world war, it retreated back into isolationism. After the second, it would have done so were it not for the cold war. Since the end of the cold war, September 11 brought George W Bush back into the world, having been elected on a programme of isolationism. All three Democratic Presidents since the end of the cold war have in part retreated from international affairs. That is the default status of America, and we have to wake up to that reality—it is not about a single American President. This is about the future of Europe. It is about the fact that we no longer can rely on an American security guarantee. Were we living in peaceful times, that would be worrying enough, but the fact is that Europe is at war.”
“As Members have said, a number of us were in Ukraine at the end of last week, and four days ago we were sat in a bomb shelter in Kyiv as the Ukrainian military worked to clear the sky of drones. Kyiv is a beautiful European city—one of the great cities of Europe—filled with a freedom-loving, well-educated population that are committed to liberating their country, and it is a place no different from our own. We were there as one of a 16-strong delegation to the Yalta European strategy conference. Never before in the history of that conference has that city come under bombardment while European parliamentarians were present, so great did Russia consider the risk of killing members of a NATO country. Something has changed, and we all know what it is. We need to wake up. For most of America’s history, the country has been isolationist.”
“Since April, Crawley’s urgent treatment centre has been temporarily closed overnight because of low staffing levels. What do the Government intend to do to ensure that normal services are resumed for communities such as mine?”
“Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) will agree, north Sussex’s infrastructure is already completely overloaded from dealing with the existing levels of demand from the airport and the associated industries. Any growth in capacity will require someone—either the airport or the Government—to step in and significantly invest in our communities to make sure that they do not suffer the ill effects of far greater levels of aviation in our region.”
“I am well aware of many of the points the hon. Member is making. In fact, back in 2014 I was on Gatwick’s consultative forum as a community representative and I was well aware then of the impact that the trial route had, in terms of concentrated noise in some areas and the consequent storm of community feeling. However, I suppose that one of the key problems will ultimately be that if we are trying to rationalise airspace with a complex set of interconnecting airports, there will only be a finite number of routes that can reasonably be taken in order for that rationalisation to happen. Beyond that point, my broader concern is that in enabling a far more efficient set of flightpaths, ultimately what we are doing is enabling far greater capacity in terms of flights in our region. As I am sure both the hon. Member and the hon.”
“Under the Mauritian criminal code, anyone who questions the integrity of Mauritian territories, including the Chagos archipelago, is potentially subject to 10 years’ imprisonment. Most British Chagossians have, at one time or another, effectively given that level of disconsideration to the Mauritian Government. What conversations has the Minister had with the Mauritian Government to ensure that this part of the code is removed so that it is possible for British Chagossians to visit Chagos, in the event that the deal goes through?”
“I commend the Minister for his work in bringing forward the settlement to secure a fair deal for the sector, but, as many hon. Members have alluded to, the elephant in the room is temporary housing. That is in large part due to decisions taken by the last Conservative Government to freeze the housing benefit subsidy at 2011 levels and cap the local housing allowance at a far lower level than local housing tends to cost, with the end result being that local government is subsidising central Government’s welfare bill to an astounding extent, with two thirds of the council tax in my local area going towards paying that bill. As an advocate for the sector, will the Minister meet with counterparts in the relevant Departments to try to lift that cap, so that people are housed at a rate that is cheaper both financially and socially?”
“Q8. Following years of real-terms cuts to its funding, St Catherine’s hospice, which serves my constituency, has recently made a number of redundancies. Palliative care is hugely important to our communities, and I pay tribute to those who work in it. Will the Prime Minister join me in thanking St Catherine’s for its work and outline how the Government will look to support palliative care moving forward?”
“The hon. and learned Gentleman has already outlined that there are 300 tightly bound areas where the EU influences Northern Irish legislation, but it sounds very much as if he is now suggesting that the United Kingdom should operate under whatever remit the President-elect of the United States chooses to set for us. Policy is made here in Parliament, not in DC.”
“T6. Crawley’s public services, not least its schools and the NHS, are set to benefit significantly from the measures set out in the Budget. Does the Minister agree that Opposition parties cannot have it both ways, claiming to support the investment in our local public services while rejecting every one of the measures necessary to fund them?”
“In five years, the cost of West Sussex county council’s Oracle upgrade has risen from £2.6 million to £28 million. Is that the kind of contract mismanagement that the Office for Local Government can look into?”
“Chagos belongs to the Chagossians. A quarter of the global population of Chagos lives within my constituency. I am aware of statements made by Ministers that they have met representatives of the Chagossian community; I do not know who those representatives are, but I know of representatives in my constituency who have not yet been consulted. Does the Minister agree that before any further dialogue takes place, the Government should engage fully with the community representatives in my constituency?”
“My local authority collects £120 million worth of business rates each year and we get to keep £4 million, which puts paid to the idea that words have any real meaning when they are used in connection with some of these policies. This is the single biggest change that can be introduced to ensure that our high streets survive in the future. I am very proud that, regardless of whatever idealised form the Opposition may wish to imagine could exist, the policy being delivered in the Bill enables us to support the businesses that our communities desperately want, and will ensure that businesses that can afford to carry a bigger load do so.”
“They ensure that the parts of our community that our constituents want, which are fundamental to their identity, survive into the coming decades, while also ensuring that those that no longer have the profit margins they once had—surprise, surprise, in Elizabethan times the most profitable businesses were buildings next to the local church—are given a comparable break. We have heard a great deal from Opposition Members about what parties in government over the last 14 years could, would or should have done given the opportunity, but I am sorry to say that they did not do any of it. As a council leader during that period, I was regularly making the case for changes. We were promised changes at various times, but they never happened. The one thing that we did end up with was full business rate retention.”
“The problem is that no matter what we do on the ground, no matter how much effort we put in, we simply cannot overcome the huge cost disparity between online retailing and physical retailing in the high street. One would expect that, where these challenges exist, the state would use the levers at its disposal to encourage an extra boost for what we consider to be socially beneficial, as opposed to what we consider to be detrimental to society. The proposals under discussion do exactly that.”
“We have heard town centres described as the heart of the community. What do we actually mean by that? Without a clear public space where the whole of society interacts, towns lack identity and a common sense of bonds between them. They tend to fall apart, and we see social degradation. Council leaders such as me have spent the last 14 years trying to adapt to the new realities of our economy, spending a fortune in public money and investing countless hours—including countless officer hours—in trying to reinvigorate our town centres to ensure that they live on for the next generation, not simply because that is what we think best but because, overwhelmingly, it is the response that people say they want for their areas. They want their town centres to be vibrant again, and to be a fundamental part of their communities.”
“National non-domestic rating multipliers: is there any more interesting topic for nearly 9 o’clock on a Monday night? [Interruption.] Quite right: absolutely not. I am sure that the regular readers of my blog would say much the same. Our system of taxation and local government is the product of evolution and not of design. It has its roots in Elizabethan forms of taxation that have been inherited and altered during the passage of time to adapt to modern realities, and what we are talking about today is yet again adapting to those modern realities. Like many other Members, I am a former local government leader, and I might well have been one of those who were bending the ear of the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (James Murray), in asking for this change, because it is well overdue.”
“The Darzi report has shown us the way forward, and this Budget puts us back on course to deliver the world-class, cradle-to-grave health service that Labour Members gave to the country in the 1940s, that Labour Members rescued in the 1990s, and that Members here will save again in the 2020s. If Conservative Members wish to save that service, they are perfectly welcome to join us in the Division Lobby later in the week.”
“When it comes to NHS investment, there is one thing that we can all rally around: it is desperately needed for research on the collective amnesia of Conservative Members. While the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is in the Chamber, it would be remiss not to mention that Crawley could do with a brand new acute hospital, if they are being dished out. However, as this Government do not tend to promise hospitals and then not put any funding aside for delivering them, I will leave that debate for the future. The services that we have need to deliver for patients once more.”
“He wrings his hands for millionaire families, but was perfectly happy to see child poverty grow to include over a third of children in the UK. Conservative Members talk of the Budget plunging people into debt, when they racked up £2.6 trillion of debt—three times the amount they inherited from the Labour Government. They talk about the amount of tax on businesses while ignoring the fact that working people in the UK have never been more highly taxed than under the last Government. They talk about being on the side of businesses, but ignore the fact that a Prime Minister who they put into office used a very rude four-letter word to say what he thought about businesses in this country.”
“That shows the scale of the problem that we face. We know from personal experience—from whenever we come into contact with the health service—that NHS workers bend over backwards to try to make things work for us, often when they are in overtime, but mistakes and delays are inevitable in an organisation that has been systematically under-resourced. NHS workers need a Government who are on their side. In this Budget, we are providing exactly that by delivering a £22.6 billion increase in NHS funding, with 40,000 new elective appointments per week, and new surgical hubs and scanners. That will get on with the job of clearing the Conservatives’ backlog. I found some of the comments made by Conservative Members deeply surprising. They are best summed up by what the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) said.”
“I am grateful for being called to speak in the Budget debate, particularly during this discussion of the UK’s most beloved national institution. The NHS may be well loved, but unfortunately it has not been well cared for over the past 14 years—and don’t we all know it: our inboxes are filled with messages from people crying out for our support in getting the treatment that they desperately need. All the data shows the problems. In my area, we are more than four times over the NHS national target rate for people waiting in A&E for over four hours. Elective operations are being cancelled at the last minute. In the first quarter of 2010, when the last Labour Government were in power, just 75 such operations were cancelled in my area, but 520 operations were cancelled in the first quarter of this year.”
“No father will be operating at peak levels of efficiency under those circumstances. Frankly, we have an appalling birth rate in this country that is dropping, and this is one of the reasons why that is happening.”