Andy McDonald MP: speeches

Speeches

• 29 Jan 2025 · Outsourcing: Government Departments · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered outsourcing by Government departments. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Jeremy. I am pleased to have secured this debate on outsourcing in Government Departments, in which I also intend to discuss the outsourcing of public services more widely, some of the negative consequences of outsourcing and the opportunities of a new wave of insourcing, and to acknowledge that the Government are putting together their national procurement policy, which the Chancellor said last week will be published shortly; I am sure the Minister will have a lot more to say on that. I wish to draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and the support I have received from a number of trade unions that have their own published policies on outsourcing of public services, some of which provided briefings for today’s debate. First, I wish to set out the background to the outsourcing of public services and its growth in recent decades, before setting out some of the steps I hope the Government will take in the coming days and weeks to begin a new wave of insourcing. I believe there is a prevailing view on the Government Benches that essential public services should be run for the public, not to make a profit for shareholders. An emphasis on competition and markets has undermined the public service ethos associated with public services and has too often worked against the public interest.

• 29 Jan 2025 · Outsourcing: Government Departments · Hansard source

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  We are giving a lot of attention to the recognition of trade unions. As the Employment Rights Bill progresses, we will want to ensure that that gets proper attention. The people we are talking about are the ones who kept the country going through the covid pandemic. We have come out of that but they are still in dire straits. I want to mention the dispute involving G4S, as it has resulted in Department for Work and Pensions buildings, including jobcentres, closing for several days. The DWP has been asked to intervene in the dispute and to set out the sanctions it has issued to G4S for failing to deliver its contractual responsibilities. Not many months ago, I was on a picket line outside our jobcentre in Middlesbrough with G4S security guards who were expected to put food on the table at £11.40 per hour—their employer was not the DWP but G4S. We have to ask whether that is a legitimate and moral way to organise our public services. There are other disputes between the PCS and G4S, ISS and OCS in the Department for Business and Trade, the Department for Education, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Cabinet Office. The Government should intervene and ensure that the Government Property Agency meets PCS to help reach a conclusion with the outsourced firms. We need a hard stop to new outsourcing, because not only have the Government inherited poorly performing outsourced contracts, but there is concern that they might be about to re-let to private providers that have already failed in His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. In the halcyon days when I was a member of Select Committees, we made trips to other jurisdictions and we were met with horror by other parliamentarians who found it anathema that prisons were in private hands. They thought that it was contradictory and unacceptable for anybody other than the state to be involved in incarceration. There is a fundamental question we need to ask ourselves. The Government have the opportunity to put this right by insourcing facilities and estates management, rather than increasing the profits of private companies. If prisoners are living in squalor, those union members are working in squalor. Just as unions have argued that it is not too late to invite in-house tenders, it is now time to invest in existing prisons—not just new prisons—by ensuring that the Prison Service runs its own maintenance and facilities management. Prison maintenance in England and Wales was fully privatised in 2015, with Amey winning the contract for the north and Carillion the one for the south, later replaced by Gov Facilities Services Ltd—GFSL—which took over its contracts. A race to the bottom continued, and 10 years later there is widespread prison squalor and an estimated maintenance backlog of almost £2 billion. Amey and GFSL’s contracts were extended in 2020 and are up for renewal over the coming months. The prison unions are calling for maintenance to be brought back in-house—not with GFSL, but with a return to full works departments in every establishment. However, the Government have previously stated that the public sector will not be invited to bid for the new contracts, after a 2023 assessment apparently determined that a privatised solution was the preferred option for meeting prison maintenance service needs. It was welcome that the Prisons Minister, Lord Timpson, recently promised: “As future prison maintenance contracts approach expiry, we will conduct detailed assessments to inform decisions about whether to continue to outsource services”. —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 23 January 2025; Vol. 842, c. 1804.] I was pleased to hear the Prisons Minister tell the House yesterday that the Government still have an open mind on maintenance contracts. The private sector has completely failed to deliver on its promises around prison maintenance, with staff, inmates and the taxpayer all paying the price. Will the Minister explain why the Government seem to be following the last Government’s privatisation plans, despite the obvious failure of running key prison services for profit? The Minister set out to the House last autumn how the new national procurement policy framework would be a legal framework to deliver greater value for money and improve social value, which the previous policy statement did not do. Will the Minister give some indication as to whether the framework might be founded upon such a review? The task before the Government is twofold. First, in the civil service, the Government must intervene in industrial disputes and ensure that public services are not disrupted by contractors prioritising profit over public service and at the expense of public servants’ livelihoods. Secondly, I encourage the Government not to enter into any further outsourced contract arrangements in the civil service or elsewhere before a review into the costs and impact of the outsourcing is complete, and before a new strategy setting out the case for a new wave of insourcing has been published. I agree with the PCS proposal to “seek an agreement on a programme of civil service insourcing and rights for contractor staff. Whilst services remain outsourced” the PCS “seek an agreement on union recognition for all facilities management workers and selected outsourced staff. A key element of that agreement would be parity for private sector workers with civil servants in respect of pay and terms and conditions of employment.” Similarly, Unison has set out its concern: “Any decisions by public bodies to outsource any services should have to pass a key public interest test.” That test should consider: the quality of the service that would be delivered; value for money; the effects on workers’ job conditions, such as pay and holiday entitlements; the implications for other public services and their budgets; the impact on the local economy and its job market; and the ability of the contractor to meet climate targets and equality considerations. Unison has also said that “the test should be applied to contracts coming up for renewal whilst providing services in-house should become the default position.” I wholeheartedly agree with that notion. In her speech in 2021, the Chancellor said that “under Keir Starmer’s Labour government we will see the biggest wave of insourcing of public services for a generation.” It is now time to deliver just that.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q10. The Employment Rights Bill is urgently needed, especially given the exploitation of gig workers such as retail assistants employed through apps, with vital rights denied and staff being charged a premium should they want to be paid on time. Insecure work denies workers their rights, but the TUC has said it also costs the economy around £10 billion a year. So will the Prime Minister agree with me that having a single status of worker will help end such abusive practices, give workers security and significantly benefit the economy?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Gaza: Humanitarian Situation · Hansard source

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  The ceasefire that is apparently being progressed is seemingly the same as the one drafted in May, which was deliberately frustrated by members of the Israeli Government. Sadly, since that time, hostages and those falsely imprisoned have remained captive and so many lives have been lost. No doubt the Minister can assure the public that, should the ceasefire be confirmed, every effort will be made to get aid and supplies to the Palestinians, particularly those in northern Gaza. Does she agree that this means that neither Israeli military activity nor Israeli legislation preventing the work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency can be accepted?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Gaza: Humanitarian Situation · Hansard source

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  22. What steps he is taking to help improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Local Transport Authorities and Mayors: Financial Support · Hansard source

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  May I also welcome the Secretary of State to her place? It is a delight to see her there. I wonder if she might help me. In circumstances where a mayor does not want to embrace the opportunities of the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill and fully re-regulate, as in the Tees Valley, will she give some consideration to providing a power in forthcoming legislation for the public to overreach that? Will she consider that option?

• 7 Jan 2025 · Northern Gaza · Hansard source

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  The Minister is a good and knowledgeable man, and his frustration with the process is palpable. For many of us, although we see the steps taken by the UK Government—which should be acknowledged, as they have been different from those under their predecessor—they have been completely and utterly ineffective. The continued repetition of the call for a review and keeping matters under review does not move the dial one jot. Israel is just laughing at the UK. It has no regard for the position here. While we have been home at Christmas celebrating with our children and grandchildren, in Gaza children are being burnt to death as bombs rain down upon them, buildings crush their little bones and six babies die of hypothermia. I am afraid that the Government’s position just does not cut it. I say to my hon. Friend with all sincerity that this continued dancing around and avoiding of clear legal definitions of genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes of extermination is just prevarication. We need to make the position clear. More important than anything, what is now required, and what the British people are asking the Government to do, is to visit sanctions and consequences on the Israeli Government for their flagrant disregard of basic humanitarian law. If we do not, the entire world system will collapse.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  Presumably, my hon. Friend will recognise that 15% of the F-35 construction parts come from the United Kingdom, and they are the choice of delivery of the 2,000 lb bombs that obliterate civilian populations in Gaza. Does he share my concern that continuing to participate in that programme leaves the United Kingdom at risk of being prosecuted under various conventions for complicity in those heinous acts?

• 16 Dec 2024 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  Will my hon. Friend please accept from the people who make this argument that there is strength in it? The issue is the end user of the F-35 programme. There is no suggestion that the UK should withdraw from the programme entirely, only that there be a block on the end user. Those F-35s are delivering the 2,000-pound bombs that are rending asunder civilian communities in Gaza and we must play our part in making sure that does not happen any longer. Will he please accept that?

• 16 Dec 2024 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  The Minister has mentioned several times the three illegal outposts and four organisations. All outposts in the west bank are illegal. As a nation, why are we not taking much more strenuous action against all illegal occupation of the west bank and the occupied territories?

• 11 Dec 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s remarks welcoming the fall of Assad, and with his hope for the Syrian people. Since Middlesbrough council has returned to Labour control under Mayor Chris Cooke, it is no longer subject to Government intervention in its children’s services or to a best value notice—and it is on track to become financially stable. I know that the Prime Minister will want to join me in congratulating Mayor Cooke and the council on their recent successes. Can he confirm that the spending review will not simply end 14 years of Conservative austerity, but will unwind it, and provide the resources that councils need to properly serve our communities?

• 11 Dec 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 11 December.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Planning Committees: Reform · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Government’s new ambition on homes and note that the stated aim is to ensure that “skilled planning officers in local authorities are given the appropriate amount of trust and empowerment.” Unfortunately, that is not the case in Middlesbrough, because the last Tory Government handed over power to the unwanted Middlesbrough Development Corporation, which totally undermined the council’s planning department and instead used a private planning consultancy, at a significantly higher cost to the public purse and with a considerable loss of democratic authority. What assurances can the Minister give me that Middlesbrough will get the trust, the empowerment and, indeed, the affordable housing that it needs, and that local democratic legitimacy will be restored?

• 9 Dec 2024 · Syria · Hansard source

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  There will be great jubilation at seeing the back of Assad. I very much welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement, including his reference to illicit finance, which is critically important, and what he said about building an inclusive society that protects minorities. This is a great moment of hope, but it comes with trepidation as well. The Foreign Secretary spoke of a new hope for Syrians getting their country back, and I am grateful for his clarification regarding the Golan heights. Whatever emerges from this transition, I know he shares the desire to seek a reliable partner and a supporter of democracy to replace this dreadful regime, but can he say something about the urgency of establishing that partnership and the timescale for it? What work is going on with partners to make sure that it happens quickly?

• 26 Nov 2024 · “Get Britain Working” White Paper · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement. My constituents will very much welcome the additional funding for young people in the Tees Valley, and the modernisation of jobcentres, which will benefit our wonderful jobcentre staff. Can the Secretary of State say how the changes will dovetail with the Employment Rights Bill? How will we ensure that young people are offered quality employment and training opportunities, and not pressured into accepting inadequate and insecure zero-hours jobs? Can she also say how the Government and Members can monitor and evaluate the combined authorities’ delivery of the youth trailblazer programme?

• 25 Nov 2024 · Speaker’s Statement · Hansard source

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  Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to add my own few words to the tributes that have been made, and especially to welcome the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), which were so warm and personal. John Prescott’s great many achievements—his commitment to climate change and other matters—have already been spoken of. He was a truly authentic working-class hero, and somebody who always attracted a crowd wherever he went. He persevered with his famous battle bus through good times and poorer ones. What may sometimes be missed is his commitment to devolution, and the great efforts he made in the north-east of England, where he committed to the campaign for a north-eastern assembly. We were not successful on that occasion—the referendum was not won—but, ultimately, John’s legacy prevails in the devolved institutions and authorities that we have seen ever since. On a personal note, I want to put on record my thanks to John for his personal support to me. I found myself propelled on to the shadow Front Bench a little bit prematurely and unexpectedly, but he was of great support to me in discharging the transport brief. He retained such immense knowledge, and on every single occasion he offered encouragement, for which I will be eternally grateful. He was a true giant of the Labour movement. We will miss him enormously, but his legacy remains. I, too, pass on my sincere condolences to Pauline and to all his family.

• 25 Nov 2024 · Israel-Gaza Conflict: Arrest Warrants · Hansard source

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  In response to the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), I note that the UK under the previous Conservative Government signed an ICC state party statement in support of the ICC and to preserve it from political interference, just before the election. The Foreign Secretary has confirmed the UK’s acceptance of and respect for the ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu’s war crimes. Therefore, is it not now incumbent on the Government to take effective, concrete steps to prevent further such acts by banning all arms licences to Israel, including those relating to F-35 parts; by imposing sanctions on individuals, on assets and on goods trading with the illegally occupied west bank; and by the urgent recognition of Palestinian statehood?

• 20 Nov 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q8. In a new report, Human Rights Watch has set out irrefutably how Israeli authorities are committing the war crime of forcible transfer in Gaza, which amounts to crimes against humanity. Israel’s evacuation system fails to ensure civilian safety. Civilians are not provided with access to health, nutrition and shelter, that is compounded by the banning of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and much of Gaza is now uninhabitable. Will the Government acknowledge that Israel has carried out mass forced displacement in Gaza, and will they take concrete measures on arms, trade and Israeli officials in order to comply with their duty to prevent genocide and protect Palestinian lives?

• 20 Nov 2024 · Draft Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (Amendment of Schedule A2) Order 2024 · Hansard source

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  It is a delight to see you in the Chair, Mr Mundell. I had wondered whether it was necessary to speak, but given some of the comments I have just heard, I feel compelled to do so. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on the Employment Rights Bill, on the back of the “New Deal for Working People”. The Bill will be the single and foremost change to working people’s terms and conditions in this country for more than a generation. It is long overdue. When I first saw this order, however, I got quite a shock. I thought, “Is this it?”, although I suppose a 25% uplift is better than nowt. But of course it has not come from our Front Bench, thank goodness; it is something we have inherited. I want to look at this draft measure through the prism of fire and rehire—actually, not fire and rehire, but fire and replace—that we came up against in P&O Ferries and Peter Hebblethwaite. I was a member of the Business and Trade Committee that heard evidence from that chief executive. He made it abundantly clear that he was quite prepared to break the law of the land on consultation periods and to price it into the compensation, the pay-off, of his workforce. All we got from the then Government was a wringing of hands, a condemnation and very little else. The draft order seems to be the sum total of their response to that travesty. I have to tell the Committee that the 25% uplift would be a doddle to the likes of P&O. It would not be impacted one jot. I am delighted that the Minister mentioned interim relief; when we go forward with our excellent Employment Rights Bill, I am sure we will discuss what that will look like. I gently say that if we are going to be able to stop another P&O, we will need injunctive relief because trying to bring out interim relief after the horse has bolted will be no good whatever. I also gently suggest that the sorts of financial penalties that need to be imposed on the egregious behaviours of the likes of P&O will have to be significantly higher. There was discussion about unlimited fines being visited on those who had deliberately prepared to break the law for their own ends. We have to look at those issues very carefully. In addition, now that we have the opportunity we have to reflect on the appalling record of enforcement across the piece. The number of tribunal awards that are not paid out by employers is legion, and the ability of people to then pursue their enforcement is sadly lacking. It is critically important that we should have rights and protections for our workforce and the powers to have those enforced. I will close with that; I just express my relief that we did not bring the measure forward—

• 20 Nov 2024 · Draft Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (Amendment of Schedule A2) Order 2024 · Hansard source

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  I get the right hon. Gentleman’s point, but the legislation did not originate from the Government side. We are taking this first step, but I put the Opposition on notice that it is simply a first step.

• 19 Nov 2024 · Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will certainly give way. I look forward to it.

• 19 Nov 2024 · Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill · Hansard source

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  Madam Deputy Speaker, you will perhaps be relieved to know that I will not detain the House particularly long. I rise to support the Government, but also to say something in favour of the motion in the Secretary of State’s name relating to Lords amendment 2. I read the Lords debate on their amendments 1 and 2, and I sympathise with the notion that passengers receiving the poorest service from a train operating company may wish its franchise to be terminated early. However, the point of this Bill is not simply to take over the worst franchises, but to recognise that the private operation of the passenger rail service has delivered a poorer service for passengers in general, and that the remedy is to return all passenger franchises to public ownership and closer control. I say to Conservative Members that the British public spoke on this issue at the last election. If we look at any of the research and analysis on the passenger rail service, it is abundantly clear that not only do the vast majority of the British public want to take our railways back into public ownership and control, but the majority of Conservative supporters want the same thing. Perhaps that tells us a great deal about why the party opposite is the party opposite—why Conservative Members no longer sit on the Government Benches. The hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) made many references to ideology. I do not know how many times he mentioned the word, but I ask him to cast his mind back to the Railways Act 1993: if ever there was an act of ideology, that was it. John Major took a step that even she whose portrait must be removed was not prepared to take—she recognised that it was a ridiculous step to take. I suspect that the mover of the motion in the other place was seeking a device to disrupt the orderly transfer of passenger rail back into public ownership, which is best achieved with the least cost to the taxpayer by doing so as each franchise contract expires. I am heartened to hear Conservative Members be so evangelical about the issues of performance and punctuality. Where were they for the past 14 years? Why were they not doing anything about those issues?

• 19 Nov 2024 · Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the shadow Minister give way?

• 19 Nov 2024 · Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill · Hansard source

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  Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to tell us where he thinks the dividends go when they ship out of the system. The Conservative party was quite content to see massive dividends paid out to Abellio, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Deutsche Bahn, and every other nation state on the planet that could subsidise its own transport system because of the ridiculous system imposed on this country’s railways by the Conservative party. Rather than serving passengers and performance, what we got was money shipping out of our system for decades, subsidising other nation states’ transport systems—if that is not a good example of barmy ideology, I do not know what is. We are correcting that, and rightly so. The Minister in the Lords, my noble Friend Lord Hendy, said that “the Government do not believe that we should either pay compensation for termination or keep paying fees to owning groups of train operating companies when we do not need to.” He also clarified that some contracts may end early if their performance requires it: “if we have the opportunity to put passengers out of their misery by ending a failing operator’s contract early and bringing their services into public ownership, we will do just that.” —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 6 November 2024; Vol. 840, c. 1519.] The Government are clear that they are moving ahead with restoring passenger rail to public ownership. They have a clear plan to do so, but Lords amendment 2 creates obstacles to doing that. It is not in the interests of passengers, and I hope the House will throw it out when we vote later.

• 19 Nov 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Women with spinal cord injuries face significant challenges in accessing core health services, including breast screening, cervical screening and gynaecological care. Research shows that women with disabilities, including spinal cord issues, are 30% less likely to attend routine breast screening appointments, in significant part due to the physical inaccessibility of the screening equipment. Will the Minister meet me and representatives of the all-party parliamentary group on spinal cord injury to discuss these unacceptable disparities and ensure that women receive the equitable and accessible care they deserve?