Daniel Francis MP: speeches

Speeches

• 6 Nov 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. My wife is employed as a special educational needs co-ordinator in one of our local authority schools. My constituents in Bexleyheath and Crayford have been clear: they want a country and community where public services work and the economy is growing. Our Government have been bequeathed an inheritance of 14 years of low to no growth, the impact of the Conservatives’ Kamikaze mini-Budget and the £22 billion black hole left in the public finances. This Budget invests in public services—the OBR has outlined that the direct effect of policy changes in this Budget is the largest sustained increase in spending in at least the past 15 years. The path to rebuilding Britain will include building the homes that we need, and I welcome the investment in the affordable homes programme in this Budget to kickstart progress towards 1.5 million new homes over the Parliament. It will include investment in the capacity of local planning authorities. In my local authority in Bexley, applications from the council’s own development company take 15 months to reach committee from submission. If our local economy is to grow, applications need to be determined more quickly than at present. Phase 1 of the spending review provides record levels of capital investment for health. My local authority’s local plan has identified sites for new homes, but not the sites to deliver the additional local health provision that is required. I will be pressing for this capital investment to deliver a new neighbourhood health centre to help the Government’s objectives. The Budget delivers £6.7 billion of capital funding for education in England, alongside the increase in funding for the core schools budget. I particularly welcome the £1 billion to support the special educational needs and disabilities system. While we await the detail, my local authority signed a safety valve agreement to avert effective bankruptcy, and, like other authorities we have heard about today, it now faces a ticking time bomb signalling the running out of the statutory override in 2026. Its finances will be boosted by the increased spending power provided in the Budget. It is three years since my Conservative council sought a capitalisation order and made 15% of staff redundant to stave off bankruptcy, and I believe that this Government will work with local authorities to ensure that the impact of austerity is not repeated. For those reasons, I will be supporting the Budget this evening.

• 29 Oct 2024 · Lower Thames Crossing · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that we also need to look out for businesses in my constituency of Bexleyheath and Crayford? Currently, when there is congestion, they end up travelling 28 miles—instead of six miles—to the Blackwall tunnel and back again, and a 10-minute journey ends up taking them an hour. We therefore need to look at options for river crossings through both south London and Kent as we move forward.

• 23 Oct 2024 · Paternity Leave and Pay · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) for bringing forward the debate. Very quickly, I will speak from a personal perspective. Eleven years ago, our twins were born nine weeks early, when I had been with my then employer for five months. In the six weeks they were in hospital, I was given three and a half days of leave. One of those was on the day after my wife had a seizure and I had spent the whole night with her in the hospital. In fact, when my wife was told, when our children were 12 days old, that one of them had cerebral palsy, I was at work because the doctors had to tell her during working hours. That shows the complexity of the issue. When my children came home at six weeks, my two weeks’ paternity leave was actually my holiday, because I was not entitled to a penny. I welcome what the Government are bringing forward for leave, but we have to look at the pay aspect and try to get it right, because we cannot repeat some of the mistakes that too many fathers like myself have experienced in the past.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) for bringing this debate today. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Clwyd North (Gill German) and for Weston-super-Mare (Dan Aldridge) and to the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) for their maiden speeches. First, I put on record my thanks to carers across Bexleyheath and Crayford and to fantastic local charities including Bexley SNAP, Bexley Voice, Bexley Mencap, Carers’ Support Bexley, Crossroads Care, Evergreen Care, Mind in Bexley, and Irish Community Services for all they do to support communities in my patch. Being a carer is often unexpected: we all see people who come to us when a loved one is diagnosed. As I referred to in my maiden speech, my wife and I knew at 12 days, when one of our children was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Day to day, we see what it means to be a carer in the support we have to give her. I have thought today about the pressures that exist: not just the mental health and caring pressures, but the pressures of managing the bureaucracy, such as applying for and renewing your freedom pass and blue badge; dealing with the administration of appointments at four different hospitals, in our daughter’s case; the constant appointments and calls to ensure your child’s wheelchair is working to support them; organising and constantly chasing for the correct equipment at home; reapplying for disability living allowance every three years; trying to find the respite to allow you a break and the ability to work; and exploring the minefield that comes with applying for a disabled facilities grant. There is also the complexity of being an employer under the direct payments system: arranging shifts, issuing contracts, running payroll every month, paying insurance, calculating your staff’s holidays and ensuring the support is there, just to get—in our case—eight hours’ care per week. I have twice exhausted the complaints process with our Conservative local authority through stage 1 and stage 2 complaints. On one occasion, they did not pay our carers for six weeks; on another occasion, they did not make those payments at the national minimum wage. That all adds to the burden and pressure on carers. In our case, we do not claim carer’s allowance, but I know at first hand the pressure of having to battle the system when it is not working for you. I hope that the review set up today will look at the issue of overpayments and at other issues that really need to be resolved for those on the frontline. As I have said previously, I will carry on pressing the Government to create a sustainable national care service that works for unpaid carers, sector partners and carer organisations. As part of that process, I will be supporting the Government’s amendment today as the first step to make things easier for carers in the years ahead.

• 10 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to the “Rights on Flights” campaign for the work that it is doing to improve accessibility, particularly for wheelchair users. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to improve aviation accessibility for disabled people?

• 8 Oct 2024 · VAT: Independent Schools · Hansard source

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  For the record, my wife is a special educational needs co-ordinator in a local authority school and one of our children is in receipt of an EHCP. I have heard accounts from parents and seen at first hand the decisions local state schools have had to make to cut their budgets. Teachers and staff have to subsidise classroom equipment, make cuts to the curriculum and mix year groups to reduce teacher numbers, which has an impact on children educated in the state sector in my constituency. Conservative Members would do better to spend their time understanding the real issues on the frontline and the impact that their decisions, made over the past 14 years, have had on my constituents in Bexleyheath and Crayford. The Ofsted area SEND inspection of the Bexley local area partnership last December found “widespread and/or systemic failings leading to significant concerns about the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND)”. The report concluded: “Overall, the voices of children and young people are not heard well in Bexley.” The task of fixing that lies with the Bexley local area SEND inspection partnership and a range of partners, including our schools. At the same time, because of the pressures in our schools, Bexley’s Conservative-controlled council found that the only way to stave off bankruptcy, due to its significant high needs block overspend, was to agree a safety valve agreement with the previous Government. A report to Bexley schools forum last week outlined that “it will undoubtedly be very challenging to succeed in both delivering the mitigations already envisaged in the Safety Valve agreement (the impact of which is assumed to accelerate in 2025/26) and also in identifying further realistic cost reductions to deal with the current level of overspend.” It said that the deficit at the end of this financial year is “expected to exceed the safety valve assumptions by £1.798m.” While this unholy mess has been unravelling, impacting the most vulnerable children in my constituency, I was shocked to see a return published in the Electoral Commission register. An independent school in my neighbouring constituency, but within my local authority area, made a financial donation to a local Conservative association. I am afraid that that sums up the sorry state of where we are. While Conservative Members presided over 14 years in government, delivering a position where teachers and parent teacher associations are funding basic provision in our state schools, an independent school clearly does not find itself in that position, as it is able to donate part of its profits to the local Conservative association. I was clear in my election campaign three months ago that I would support the policy to introduce VAT on private schools. That is the mandate given to me across Bexleyheath and Crayford. For the reasons outlined, I will be opposing the motion today and supporting the Government.

• 12 Sept 2024 · Sir David Amess Adjournment Debate · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me the opportunity to make my maiden speech in this debate. It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), having served with his brother on my local council 20 years ago. I wish to add to his tributes to Sir David Amess and Jo Cox. I would like to start by paying tribute to my predecessor, Sir David Evennett, who represented our local area for 33 years, first in the former Erith and Crayford constituency and then in Bexleyheath and Crayford. He took a keen interest in education, serving twice as a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Education Department. He was elected with the other Sir David in 1983 and they were close friends, and it is apt that this debate is named after Sir David Amess. Sir David Evennett was the only Conservative Member of Parliament to lose their seat in 1997 and then regain it at the second attempt in 2005, which says a great deal about his tenacity, and I wish him and Marilyn a happy and healthy retirement. I note that when Sir David Evennett made his maiden speech in 1983, he followed and complimented the then Member for Sedgefield, who of course went on to be a great Prime Minister for 10 years, so I say to the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford, please feel no pressure in the years ahead. At this election, my constituency of Bexleyheath and Crayford gained parts of the Northumberland Heath and West Heath wards that were previously represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Ms Oppong-Asare). Given the new boundaries, it is a privilege to follow former Members who have represented parts of my constituency, including Jennie Adamson, Norman Dodds, Jim Wellbeloved, Sir Ted Heath, John Austin, Nigel Beard and Teresa Pearce. It is an honour to have been elected to this House and I am indebted to those constituents who have sent me here, and I shall work tirelessly for them as well as for those who did not vote for me. I have lived in the London borough of Bexley all of my life, attended local schools and served as a councillor for 20 years. My constituents include former school friends, former work colleagues, my parents, who are here today, and my grandmother. My constituency is located at the south-east tip of London, with my constituents looking both west into the capital and east across the Kent boundary. My family roots are like those of many of my constituents: families from south London who moved a bit further east, with my maternal roots in Southwark and my paternal roots in Plumstead. We in the constituency are proud of two amazing heritage assets: the grade 1 listed Hall Place, built in 1537; and the Red House, designed by Philip Webb and William Morris in 1859. We are also proud of our contribution to the hits of my childhood, having been the birthplace of Boy George and Kate Bush. We have an industrial past, with the Thames at the north of the constituency, but today most jobs are in manufacturing, retail and hospitality. However, that past helped change history and ensure that Britain is the country it is today. The Vickers works were located in Crayford for 101 years, from 1884, and during the world wars they manufactured the Vickers machine gun, aircraft, naval gun laying equipment, and the casings for the Barnes Wallis bouncing bomb of Dambusters fame. Famously, it was where the British aviators John Alcock and Arthur Brown manufactured the first Vickers Vimy bomber, with the first 12 manufactured in Crayford, while it was the thirteenth, manufactured elsewhere, which in 1919 made the first non-stop transatlantic flight. That history of our constituency continues today with my constituents across Barnehurst, Bexleyheath, Crayford, Northumberland Heath, Slade Green, and the small parts of Abbey Wood, Belvedere, Erith and Welling that I represent, working hard and delivering for our country. Every day I speak to local residents who work in the public sector, and I know how grateful their neighbours are for the work they do and on which we all rely. My constituents rely on train services provided by Thameslink and Southeastern, which have a depot in Slade Green where they maintain rolling stock and train staff. It is those railway workers who keep my constituents on the move. Those commuters work in the financial and professional jobs that London relies on, but also, importantly, in shops, restaurants and hotels, keeping London’s economy moving. And if we take a quick glance around any road in my constituency, we see a variety of white vans and black taxis, demonstrating that my constituents are the workers that London relies on to get them from A to B, and the builders, plumbers, brickies and lift engineers who will help us grow our economy. But there is one set of workers on which our community really does rely: our volunteers and carers. Today, my day started as many others’ will have done: I lifted my child from her bed; I changed her nappy, dressed her, fed her and tidied her hair; and then I ensured that she was in her wheelchair and ready for her transport to collect her for school. Our children are twins but will lead very different paths in life. One talks of a future in work and the journeys she will make; the other, after many years of work from professionals, can now manage to talk, but her language is limited to about a dozen words. The eldest of our twins has cerebral palsy and a range of complex disabilities. Like other carers, the greatest concern that my wife and I have is what will happen to her when we are gone. Many of us know what it was like to have to work and educate our children at home for months during the covid pandemic. In our case, this was stretched by the fact that one of our children requires full-time care, our family network and carers were not allowed into our home, and my wife was undergoing chemotherapy at the time—she is now thankfully recovered, due to the fantastic work of our incredible NHS. I can assure Members that in my time in this House I will be the greatest of champions for carers and the disabled, because I really do know the challenges that families in our position face on a daily basis: having to fight the local authority because either it has not transferred the money to pay the carer, or it is not paying at a rate that meets minimum wage requirements; the constant battle to ensure that our child has a wheelchair that works; the arguments over which part of the public sector will fund the person required to cut our child’s food at lunchtime because the education, health and care plan is not clear on the matter. I could take the easy path and sit at home rather than be here taking difficult decisions to fix the inheritance bequeathed to this Government, but I believe that this House really does need people like me, who know how badly reform is needed in the special educational needs system and for the rights of carers. My constituents, like me, rely on volunteers and charities across the constituency. I am not going to name them, because I am bound to miss one out, but those charities know that I have the greatest admiration for them, having worked alongside them for many years. They make such an important contribution across Bexleyheath and Crayford, and I look forward to continuing to work with them, our faith groups, businesses and my incredible constituents to deliver the change that our community and our country so desperately need.