Clive Efford MP: speeches

Speeches

• 21 Jul 2025 · Independent Water Commission · Hansard source

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  What has happened to our waterways is a national disgrace. The state in which the Conservatives left our rivers, our lakes and the seas around Britain epitomises what they did to public services in general. Does my right hon. Friend agree that what has been lacking over the past 35 years of privatisation is a proper consumer representative to protect customers, and will he give a guarantee that that will be at front and centre of the new regulator?

• 14 Jul 2025 · UK-France Migration: Co-operation · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary on succeeding in agreeing a deal with France. It just shows that treating people with respect can result in positive action, and treating them with contempt, as the Conservatives did throughout this issue, was never going to provide a solution. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that each of those four volunteers whom the Conservative Government paid to be sent to Rwanda was paid, by the British taxpayer, £150,000 to provide free housing, a free university education and free private healthcare? Who approved that funding in the Department?

• 14 Jul 2025 · Future of the Post Office · Hansard source

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  I welcome my hon. Friend’s statement and the consultation on the Green Paper. Does he agree that we should see the withdrawal of banks from high streets like mine in Eltham as an opportunity for the Post Office to expand what it can offer, not just to individuals but to small businesses in local communities? That is an opportunity rather than a burden for post offices, and we should seek to maintain them wherever possible.

• 10 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Further to the answer given by the Paymaster General regarding the contaminated blood inquiry, I welcome that he will update the House when he has had an opportunity to digest yesterday’s report, but can I have an assurance from him that it will not be on the last sitting day before recess?

• 10 Jul 2025 · Infected Blood Compensation Scheme · Hansard source

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  Sir Brian Langstaff was particularly critical of the engagement with the infected and affected community since the publication of his final report in May last year. In particular, he was critical of the way the expert group was set up with the explicit instruction not to engage with the community. Does my right hon. Friend accept that a lot of damage has been done since the publication of that final report, as is exposed in the report that Sir Brian Langstaff published yesterday? Will he say what he intends to do to improve relationships with the infected and the affected?

• 10 Jul 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend the Paymaster General has given a commitment to respond to Sir Brian Langstaff’s report, which was published yesterday, before the recess. I stressed to him earlier that the community out there who are campaigning feel wounded by the way they have been treated since the final report was published in May last year. If it is left to the fag end of this parliamentary term and squeezed in on the last day, that would just exacerbate the situation. Can I stress to the Leader of the House, for her discussions with the Paymaster General, that we should not leave it that late?

• 8 Jul 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Secretary of State and the Sports Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley South (Stephanie Peacock), on bringing the Bill to this point. I also congratulate them on listening to arguments about how we treat the vast resources that come in through TV deals and distribute them throughout the football pyramid, particularly in giving the regulator powers over parachute payments, if he deems it necessary—I sincerely hope he will—if we do not get an agreement between the English Football League and the Premier League. Those payments really distort competition, particularly in the championship. That needed to be addressed in this Bill, and I congratulate the Secretary of State and the Minister on doing that. I support the new clause and amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). They deal with how we identify the people who really began this journey: the sports fans. This started with the super league and the fans’ reaction to it. They are determined to stop clubs from breaking away from the premier league and forming a super league with other clubs from across the globe. The reaction of fans shocked the Conservative Government at the time into action; they could not really resist. The power of fans has brought us to this point. We need to understand how we can identify fans—bona fide supporters of a club—and consult them on how we regulate the game going forwards. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East is attempting to do that through some of his amendments. My hon. Friend has identified another very important factor, which is how we prevent assets being attractive to those people who look to take over a club, not because they are interested in football in any way but because they see assets of value from which they can make money. By running clubs into the ground, they seek to make a profit from those assets. Through the “asset of community value” powers or something similar, my hon. Friend is trying to prevent that from happening. If his amendments are not accepted or voted on tonight, I would certainly commend them to the regulator, who I hope will take heed of what my hon. Friend is attempting to achieve. One other amendment I added my name to is new clause 1, because I think the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French), is on to something. Why do we treat other sports differently from football—why is football singled out? Well, I think we know the story of that, but it has been a long time since the issue of alcohol at football grounds has been looked at. There is nothing unreasonable about asking clubs and the football community to look at whether we can relax those rules in certain circumstances, so that where clubs want to do it, they can do it, and should do so in partnership with their fans. A review of that issue would not be a bad thing at all. This Bill is a giant leap forward for football in this country. I commend my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench for what they have achieved, and I wish the Bill a fair wind.

• 8 Jul 2025 · Post Office Horizon Inquiry: Volume 1 · Hansard source

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  I associate myself with the comments of the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), about the involvement of the Post Office—I hope the Minister has checks and balances in place to test what information it provides, because it clearly cannot be trusted. My question is about Fujitsu, which stayed quiet while sub-postmasters, including a former constituent of mine, went to prison. The Minister said that the Government are in negotiations with Fujitsu, which sounds like Fujitsu will not pay the compensation that it should. Will he say more about who will be the final arbiter in determining how much Fujitsu should pay in this scandal, which it is fundamentally at the root of?

• 3 Jul 2025 · NHS 10-Year Plan · Hansard source

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  I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Yesterday was one year to the day since I completed my radiotherapy treatment for prostate cancer. I was very lucky—my cancer was caught at stage 3 and was treatable—but I had to ask my GP for the prostate-specific antigen test that got me my treatment. I know my right hon. Friend has that said he wants to see a national screening programme aimed particularly at black men over 45, one in four of whom will get prostate cancer, people like me who have a family history of prostate cancer, and men over the age of 50. Will he ensure that we have a national screening programme as part of the 10-year plan?

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  I never expected to be standing here opposing Labour Government legislation that seeks to impose changes on disability benefits that will put 150,000 people into poverty. The Government’s own poverty assessment states that the concessions mean there will be a “negligible” impact on pensioner and child poverty. I do not know when we became so matter of fact about the implications of putting people into poverty, or where that language comes from. I would expect us to be moving people in the opposite direction. We talk about choices, and we hear a lot from the leadership about tough choices. I do not consider cutting disabled people’s benefits to be a tough choice for us politicians, but it will mean that people on the receiving end will be forced to make tough choices about the way that they make ends meet. Too often, we make choices that adversely impact those who cannot fight back. We show deference to people with wealth and power, when we know that they should be bearing a heavier amount of the burden. Those who have enormous wealth have done extremely well over the past 15 years. Average incomes for ordinary families in that time have stagnated and the standard of living has gone down. If we want to make tough choices, we should be looking there. I wish to use my time today to highlight some of the areas where we could make a difference: reforming capital gains tax, for instance, through increasing rates and closing loopholes to raise £12 billion a year; closing the carried interest loophole to private equity bosses so that they pay their fair share to raise half a billion pounds; applying national insurance to investment income to raise up to £10.2 billion; introducing a 4% tax on share buybacks to raise between £0.1 billion and £2 billion a year; ending and redirecting fossil fuel subsidies for oil and gas companies to raise £2.2 billion a year; taxing private jets to raise an additional £1.2 billion a year; and stopping rich multinational corporations evading tax and mandating that they declare their profits wherever they operate to raise £15 billion a year. Then we come to the performance of the Treasury. In 2023, according to the Audit Commission, the Treasury gave out £204 billion in tax relief. The Audit Commission, the Treasury Committee and the Institute for Government concluded that the Treasury is not investing enough into understanding the benefits of these tax reliefs. There are a total of 1,180 tax reliefs, 815 of which the HMRC has no idea what benefit they bring to us. That is billions of pounds a year going on tax reliefs. Those are the choices that we are choosing not to make. Let us balance those choices against the choice that we are being asked to make today. It beggars belief that we are putting savings in the welfare budget ahead of changes to the welfare budget that might assist people into work. The amount of money that is available in the examples that I have given could easily offset what we are talking about today and allow us to implement the reforms of the welfare state. Then we could see how they benefit the people in the system and what savings can be achieved. For all those reasons, I will be supporting the reasoned amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and voting against this Bill.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  This is a relatively small Bill, but one core part of it has now been delegated to the PIP review and that will not report until November 2026. Can my right hon. Friend say just how many disabled groups have indicated they want to participate in the PIP review? She has set out a number of red lines today that I doubt they would agree with. If they were to propose that we do not have a two-tier system, what would be the Government’s response?

• 26 Jun 2025 · Legislative Scrutiny: Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill · Hansard source

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  We begin with a Select Committee statement. Alex Sobel will speak on the publication of the fourth report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, “Legislative Scrutiny: Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill”, HC 789, for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions will be taken. At the conclusion of the statement, Members will put questions on the subject of the statement and Alex Sobel will respond to those in turn. Questions should be brief, and Members may ask only one question each.

• 26 Jun 2025 · G7 and NATO Summits · Hansard source

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  I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s statement and his commitment to increase defence expenditure, but given that we are looking to improve public services—the health service, social care, education and the police—is it realistic to do that within the current tax envelope? Has the time not come for us to review how we tax wealth, as opposed to work, to ensure that those who can bear the heaviest load do so?

• 18 Jun 2025 · HS2 Reset · Hansard source

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  I commend my right hon. Friend for the swift actions she has taken to try to put right this disastrous situation, created by the previous Government. The parallels with the fast-track contracts for personal protective equipment cannot be ignored. I understand that contracts were signed when appropriate decisions had not been made. Will the people who signed those contracts be interviewed? Will they have to explain why they decided to take those decisions, against advice? Will we get any of that money back?

• 16 Jun 2025 · Air India Plane Crash · Hansard source

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  This is truly a terrible tragedy. As an elected representative in Greenwich where we have a large Gujarat community, over 40 years, both as a councillor and an MP, I have got to know many people from the community, particularly those who are members of the South East Gujarati Association. Like all of us, they will be grieving today after this terrible tragedy. In his statement the Minister mentioned that family liaison officers have been appointed. What resources do they have? They must be able to get information to families promptly, and people may need further assistance, such as with travel. Do they have access to those sorts of resources?

• 16 Jun 2025 · Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report · Hansard source

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  I am shocked that the Conservatives do not seem able to recognise that they were in power for 14 of the 15 years to which Louise Casey refers in her report. If they had had any kind of enthusiasm for an inquiry when they were in government, they would have called one—so we can dismiss them. Is my right hon. Friend confident that we are hearing the voice of the victims—the children and their parents? When we had a similar problem when I was in local government back in the ’90s, we set up a thing called Childline to give a direct voice to young people so that they could raise their concerns. Does she think that we should have a similar thing here so that victims of child sexual exploitation can have their voices heard?

• 12 Jun 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Will my right hon. Friend tell the House when we are likely to see the public authority accountability Bill, which will introduce the Hillsborough law on duty of candour? Are we likely to see it before the summer recess, and can we have an assurance that it is not being watered down at the request of mandarins in the Cabinet Office?

• 12 Jun 2025 · Long-term Medical Conditions · Hansard source

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  I remind Members that they must bob if they want to take part in the debate.

• 12 Jun 2025 · Long-term Medical Conditions · Hansard source

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  I call the Minister.

• 12 Jun 2025 · Long-term Medical Conditions · Hansard source

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  My congratulations to the hon. Member for Wellingborough and Rushden for filling in ably for the Minister. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered long-term conditions.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  At yesterday’s meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood, we heard from someone whose father was terminally ill and unlikely to survive to see the compensation to which he is entitled. It is not fair on people who have waited 40 years for justice that they are left at the starting line for compensation. Is there any way we can make a list of people who are in that situation and calculate their entitlement for their estate?

• 5 Jun 2025 · Free School Meals · Hansard source

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  I notice that not one Reform MP has turned up to hear an announcement that benefits so many working-class kids. I first joined a governing body of a primary school in my constituency in 1986 and served for 37 years. From Thatcher to Sunak, I saw what was going on in our schools, and I never saw need like that under the last Conservative Government, so this is a very welcome statement indeed. But even this measure and all the other measures that I understand the Government are considering will not result in fewer children being in poverty in 2029 than are in poverty now unless we remove the two-child benefit cap. I want to add my voice to those who have already asked the Minister to assure us that the cap is being looked at.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Bank Closures and Banking Hubs · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. In Eltham, our last bank has closed, but because we still have a Nationwide in the town centre, the banks will not consider the option of a banking hub. That needs to change. Does he agree that we need a review of the criteria, so that we can have a chance of getting the banks at least to co-operate in a banking hub? They should not rely on Nationwide.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  My constituent, who has lived here for 10 years and is from Ukraine, was joined by her parents, who were fleeing the conflict. They set up a bank account when they arrived here and tried to transfer some of their money. The bank immediately shut down their bank account, which also resulted in my constituent’s bank account being shut down. There must be a number of people in this situation; it is no way to treat people who are fleeing conflict. Can we have a statement from the banking Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Emma Reynolds), so that we can find out exactly what is going on here, and force the banks to treat people with a bit more respect?

• 5 Jun 2025 · Governing the Marine Environment · Hansard source

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  David Attenborough has said that we know more about the surface of the moon than we know about the bottom of our oceans and the ecosystems that exist down there. It is disturbing that Donald Trump—who else?—has signed a directive allowing deep-sea mining. Can this issue be taken up at next week’s conference to try to secure co-operation on studying the bottom of our oceans and understanding the ecosystems before we do permanent damage that we might regret?