PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES - United Kingdom Parliament

73 Debate on the Address
9 MAY 2012
Debate on the Address
74
The unfairness is seen in the retention of the cut in
the 50p tax rate, helping the top 1% of earners in this
country, while many of my constituents are keen to
work but are unable to find the extra eight hours they
will need to continue to receive tax credits. At one end,
therefore, families who are doing everything they should—
they are working hard and trying to work more, but are
unable to find those extra hours—are losing out. What
they need is some extra hours from their employer, as it
is currently very hard to find another job. At the other
end, however, millionaires are saving thousands of pounds
in tax. That does not strike me or my constituents
as fair.
Fortunately for the Government, I do not have sufficient
time to dwell on their increasing incompetence. I might
mention, however, the border controls fiasco that has
been going on since last autumn. It is continuing now,
which is especially serious given that we are in the
run-up to the Olympics. I might also mention the youth
unemployment figures. The Government’s incompetence
in that regard will affect a generation of our young
people and their families. There are also the ministerial
dalliances with BSkyB, which demonstrate a real lack of
appropriateness, to put it politely.
There were some announcements in the Gracious
Speech that I welcome. I have long been a supporter of
the Green investment bank. My big concern is that it
is being introduced too late, even though there will be
£3 billion of funding—although not all of it is certain.
Will the bank be able to move quickly enough to ensure
we secure the green investment required to help businesses
grow and create the jobs we so desperately need? The
environmental ship might have already sailed to other
ports in Germany, China and other countries, whose
Governments are far ahead of ours.
I also welcome the flexible parental leave proposals.
It is important that people have that choice, but it must
be couched in the right way so that women do not feel
forced to go back to work and pass over the care of the
child, whom they may still be nursing, to their partner.
The principle of allowing families freedom over how
they manage their own affairs is important, however.
Overall, the Government’s economic policy is hurting
and it is not working—not in my constituency.
Unemployment is rising. It is the worst we have seen for
16 years and of course, youth unemployment—I am on
the record as having spoken about this a number of
times before—is a real scourge of our society.
There are a couple of proposals I welcome. I welcome
the intention to ensure through the children and families
Bill that there is an all-through assessment for children
and young adults. Too often, my constituents have
experienced breaks in the support for their children,
either at the age at which they transfer to a different
school or when they transition into adulthood. Personal
budgets provide a real opportunity for those young
people and their families to have control as long as there
are safeguards for the many families with whom I deal
who would not be able to manage those budgets themselves.
We must not throw out the baby with the bathwater and
although I welcome the personal budgets, we must
ensure that there is a safety net and support for those
who are unable to do the necessary paperwork and to
manage the employment side of it. The detail will
matter if the good intentions in the Bill are to be met,
and I look forward to working with my colleagues on
my Front Bench to ensure that those needs are considered.
I hope that the children and families Bill will talk
about ensuring that children are protected and supported.
That seems to be the general feeling. I am concerned,
however, that although the Government are considering
protecting and supporting certain groups of children
on the one hand, actions by other Ministers on
safeguarding—such as the suggestion that faith leaders
should be exempt from vetting and, if necessary, exempt
from being barred from working with children—are a
very worrying step. We must be vigilant about ensuring
that we do not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
The Government are very keen to talk about rolling
back the frontiers of the state and rolling back red tape,
but as far as the protection of children is concerned,
when we put our children—and vulnerable adults, too—in
the presence of a stranger, we need some surety that
that stranger has been properly vetted. It is not acceptable
to rule out one group simply on the basis that they are
faith leaders.
Businesses in Hackney have been struggling for
some time. We have had some great successes—Silicon
roundabout is in my constituency—but they are largely
small start-ups and are finding it hard to grow. We have
some very innovative business models in a very innovative
part of London, but businesses in Hackney are struggling
to get loans and even, in many cases, an overdraft
facility from their bank. The Prime Minister spoke
earlier about Project Merlin, saying that it had worked
and that the loan guarantee fund was generous. It is not
so much the level of a loan that is an issue, however, but
the fact that banks will not loan in the first place. There
is an opportunity that has perhaps not yet been missed
in the Gracious Speech—we will see whether it has
when we have the detail of the legislation—to consider
alternative funding methods for businesses. Innovators
out there are prepared to fund innovative businesses in
a different way and we must ensure that they are properly
supported and regulated so that investors and businesses
are protected. There are opportunities for more mutuals
in the banking sector, which ought to focus on investment
in their own areas, helped by their understanding of
their locality. They would, of course, be owned by their
members.
That brings me on to one thing that was missing from
the Gracious Speech. As a Co-op and Labour MP, I
was keen to hear the co-operatives consolidation Bill
debated during the next Session, but it is not here.
Where has that Bill gone? It would have been supported
across the House. The previous Government did a great
deal to change the law on co-operatives and to provide
new legislation that made it easier to set them up, but
as that was done piecemeal through different Acts of
Parliament, there was room to bring it all together.
Consolidation Bills, by their nature, are complicated
and difficult, but it would have provided the platform
for the introduction of yet more opportunities for mutuals
and co-operatives. There is a feeling across this House,
shared by members within every party—although it is
not necessarily the view of every party—that there
needs to be a different way of doing business in this
country. If there is a better way of doing business than
mutuals, which are owned by their members, who benefit
from and see the direct outcomes of that ownership,
Idonotknowwhatitis.
There is no commitment in the Queen’s Speech to
introduce any mutual models at all, as far as we can see.
The water Bill would have offered such an opportunity