Greg Smith MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 18 Dec 2024 · Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  Winter pressures come around every year for all sorts of reasons. The difference this year was the political choice to take the winter fuel payment away from millions of pensioners. Worse still, the 44,000 pensioners living with a terminal illness will lose that payment. I cannot believe that a Minister as diligent as the hon. Lady has not carried out an impact assessment of the cost to the NHS of people being left in cold homes. My right hon. Friend the Member for Melton and Syston (Edward Argar)—the shadow Secretary of State—and my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) asked for such an assessment. May I give the Minister another chance to commit to publishing it?

• 18 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights: Terminal Illness · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. We have heard a good and powerful debate this morning. I thank the hon. Member for Corby and East Northamptonshire (Lee Barron) for securing and leading the debate. As he said, he has championed the Dying to Work campaign for many years, including in his role at the TUC in the midlands before his election to this place. As we have heard from many hon. Members, the campaign was founded by Jacci Woodcock, a sales manager from Derbyshire, who was forced out of her job after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012, when she was given 12 months to live. Jacci was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s birthday honours list in 2019, and I commend her hard work over the years. As a result of Jacci’s work, many people have been protected from unfair dismissal and provided with invaluable support following the tragedy of a terminal diagnosis. It is clear from this debate, and more widely, that there is more to be done to support people with a terminal diagnosis. Being diagnosed with a terminal illness is often sudden and unexpected, meaning those with the diagnosis and their families are forced to adapt to the new reality with little or no notice. People often decline quickly and, by the time the family work out what support is available, their loved one is in desperate need of help or, in some cases, has tragically already passed away. In other cases, despite the diagnosis, the person may have many months or even years left, and is willing and able to keep working, with some minor adaptations to their workplace arrangements. In my research for this debate, I found some startling statistics. According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, just a third of UK organisations have specific provision for those with a terminal illness, meaning they have no policy, guidance or line manager or awareness training. It appears that the hesitancy of so many Brits to discuss health and serious illness has created a stigma about raising this issue in the workplace. That means that employers and employees often have to make it up as they go along, rather than follow standardised guidance developed by experts in the field. As the Dying to Work campaign highlights, terminally ill people often do not have time to adapt to the reasonable adjustments put in place by employers, and are often forced to undergo stressful HR procedures. There are many financial worries left behind for families, as other hon. Members have mentioned. Cancer Research UK projects that one third of Brits will be diagnosed with cancer in their working life. According to a Macmillan Cancer Support survey, 37% of cancer patients have experienced discrimination on return to work. It is vital to end the employer lottery. Individuals are currently at the mercy of their employer far too much, and often do not know their rights or what support is available. As the population ages and treatment options improve, more and more Brits are going to be living and working with a terminal illness. At present, the legal position of terminally ill employees mainly depends on the written and verbal agreement between employee and employer. There is little specific law covering terminal illness, when it is clearly going to become ever more present in society. I suggest one of the best ways to help people with a terminal illness is to improve the information available on diagnosis, and to encourage employers to develop best practice guidance and training, so that any employee diagnosed with a terminal illness can receive support as quickly as possible. That would avoid the situation where even compassionate employers are playing a game of catch up or having to make it up as they go along. It is vital that people understand their rights under the Equality Act 2010, which makes it illegal to discriminate against people with a disability and legislates that employers must make reasonable adjustments so that employees can do their work. That would include flexible working hours, reduced workload, reallocation of duties, time off for treatment and, where appropriate, working from home. Employees must be made aware that they can and should make the most of sick leave, extended special and compassionate leave, annual leave and flexible working. There is no benefit specifically designed to help people with a terminal illness, but special rules are in place to expedite access to benefits for those with less than 12 months to live. Previously, that was limited to those with less than six months to live; I am proud that the last Government extended that period to 12 months, which in turn has provided quicker access to benefits, higher payments for certain benefits and the avoidance of the need for a medical assessment. Those with a terminal illness can access benefits designed to help with the additional costs of disability and ill health, such as disability living allowance, personal independence payments and attendance allowance. For those with a disability or in ill health, there are also the benefits designed to act as income replacements, such as employment and support allowance and universal credit. I will end by mentioning the employment rights of not just those with a terminal illness but those who care for them—the spouses, children, brothers and sisters forced to take time off work to care for a terminally ill loved one. I am proud that the previous Government passed the Carer’s Leave Act 2023, which created a new statutory right to carer’s leave that came into effect in April 2024. Employees are now entitled to take one week of unpaid leave a year if they have caring responsibilities, and that leave entitlement is available from the first day of employment, with no qualifying period. On top of that, employees also have the right to reasonable time off if a dependant is ill or injured or if their care arrangements are disrupted. Carers are protected at work from discrimination by association, and the Equality Act 2010 protects those caring for disabled or elderly people from discrimination or harassment. I am aware of previous attempts to introduce legislation to address the injustices that come with a terminal illness—most recently, a private Member’s Bill proposed in 2022 by the former Member for Stockton North. For a range of reasons, these past attempts have not succeeded but I am committed to working with right hon. and hon. Members across the House to get these issues back on the agenda and improve the lives of those who, tragically, have a diagnosis of terminal illness, to make sure that in their final months they are supported and cared for with the compassion that they deserve.

• 18 Dec 2024 · Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement · Hansard source

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  Following on from the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) and the Minister’s answer, can I assure him that there are areas of deprivation in rural communities such as Buckinghamshire? Further to the point made by the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), while the devil is in the detail, it already looks from the figures like Buckinghamshire will take a multimillion-pound hit from the loss of various grants. Can the Minister give an assurance that rural communities will be treated equally to urban ones, and will not be left behind?

• 17 Dec 2024 · Energy Security · Hansard source

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  Small modular reactors are less land intensive, are very efficient and would get us to clean energy very quickly if the Government were to get on and actually support some orders. As land is in scarce supply, when will the Government get on board with nuclear, instead of shackling themselves to the inefficient, land-destroying, countryside beauty-destroying and inefficient solar.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Opposition have tabled a number of amendments that probe what is introduced by clause 28 and schedule 3, which we will come on to in subsequent debates today. I will reserve the bulk of my remarks for those debates, although, as clause 28 introduces schedule 3, I will preview those debates now by noting our strong opposition to these provisions. There was a very good, solid and rational reason that the former Secretary of State for Education during the coalition years—now editor of His Majesty’s Spectator magazine—abolished SSSNBs, which was to give that flexibility and freedom to the quite right and good, educational standards-raising revolution in education that came through the creation of the academies by the last Labour Government and in particular the creation of free schools by the last Conservative Government, including in the coalition years. Clause 28 and schedule 3, which we will come on to shortly, seek to undo a lot of that. For the reasons I will outline when speaking on those amendments, I think this part of the Bill requires a rethink.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is clearly not of the orange book wing of the Liberal Democrats.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way again?

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  We covered many of the issues relating to this clause when we discussed amendments 112 and 162. I am grateful to the Minister for citing the 2017 changes, which were brought about by the previous Conservative Government. It is morally right to completely close the gender pay gap. That will undoubtedly take some time, but every step taken to close it completely is a welcome one. It is important to make sure that employers are taking proper and serious account of the issue and action on ensuring gender equality in the workplace.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that clarification. There is a danger that we will end up dancing on the head of a pin, but I am always concerned about naming individual things in a catch-all provision. If amendment 112 were to be accepted, it might create an interpretive problem for the courts at a later date. Indeed, it might create a problem for employers in navigating whether they have to abide by legislation that mentions one condition but not another. I would be grateful if the Minister, in his response to the amendment, gave the Government’s interpretation— [ Interruption. ] With two Ministers on this Bill, it is confusing to work out which one will be responding. I would be grateful if, in her response, the Minister gave clarity on the Government’s interpretation and the legal advice that they have received.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once more, Mr Mundell. Clause 25 has got me thinking about many moons ago, in 2006, when I was part of the team that won Hammersmith and Fulham council for the Conservatives for the first time since 1968. One of our first acts was quite literally to take the red flag down from the roof of the town hall. Part of the symbolism of that, which is why I mention it, was that the council, in 2006, was one of the last to outsource anything at all. Competitive tendering simply had not happened in that London borough. Everything was still a direct service run by the local authority, and we set about contracting out waste, grounds maintenance and many other services. Why? Because we wanted to deliver better value for taxpayers—indeed, we cut council tax by 20% over the eight years that we ran the council—and to improve service standards. One of the things I learned in that process, and the reason my point is relevant to the clause, is that the first iteration of any contracting out—that first contract, be it for refuse collection, street cleansing, grounds maintenance or whatever—does not tend to result in economies and improvements. It is often in the second or third contract iteration where the cost savings and improvements in service standards start to be seen. That is partly because of the TUPE provisions that rightly exist to ensure that those staff who are being transferred from whatever part of the public sector we might be talking about—in this case, local government—transfer with the same rights, terms and conditions, and pay that they had at the point that they ceased to be direct employees of the council, or whatever other public service, and became employees of whoever won the contract. The rub comes in the real-world application. In such cases, the staff members who transferred are on favourable terms and conditions, and probably better pay, than some of the staff that the contractor brings into the team. If it is immediately locked in that everybody new has to be on the same terms and conditions and pay scales, we will never achieve value for money for taxpayers, and we will never enable the contractor, be that a refuse collection company or whatever, to find efficiencies and savings at the same time as increasing service standards in the way that we all want to see. It might as well never be done in the first place. That makes me question whether that is in fact the ideological position that the Government want to take. I can see the Minister grinning; perhaps I have hit upon something. I gently remind the Committee of the time when every refuse service and local government service was provided directly, in house, before competitive tendering and the revolution of the 1980s and the Thatcher Government. We can all remember what delivery of those services looked like in the 1970s: the rubbish piled up on the streets with no one collecting it.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend indicates that perhaps there are not any left. I fundamentally disagree with the point made by the hon. Member for Torbay. It is not about profits for the private sector, although the profit motive is an important element in driving up service standards and ensuring that if a company wants to keep a contract, it has to deliver on it. Some councils have failed on this front by failing to set the specification of a contract correctly and failing, as the client, to enforce against the contract. That is where we see failure on so many fronts; it has little to do with terms and conditions or the points covered by the clause. Often, an ill-equipped council, be it the members or the officers—I have seen this from both sides—fails to properly specify in the first place, when it goes to market, and then fails to deliver proper contract management. That is where we see gremlins creep into the system and unintended consequences come about. I gently point out to the hon. Member for Torbay that when I was in local government, we saw many benefits from competitive tendering over multiple iterations of the contract. I can ensure him that in the cabinet portfolios that I held in that local authority, where I was directly overseeing the waste, street cleansing and grounds maintenance contracts, I was pretty tough on those contractors in ensuring that they did drive up standards. But sometimes it is not the right step. The Labour council we took over from had outsourced housing, which we as a Conservative council brought back in house. We ended the arm’s length management organisation to bring it back within direct council control to deliver a better service for the tenants of those properties. So if it is not done properly in the first place, that model does not always work. The measures in clause 25 are once more a sledgehammer to crack a nut. They do not recognise the practical realities of how competitive tendering has worked, excepting the flaws that I raised about how well contracts are specified and enforced against. If we want to ensure that we are delivering the best possible value for money for taxpayers—the people who pay for public services—at the same time as increasing the standard of services delivered, which I expect is a universal aim that all of us hold, there have to be flexibilities to ensure that efficiencies can be found, and that the fat is taken out of all systems, processes and ways of doing business. If we lock contractors into absolutely having to match every term and condition, with every pay scale being exactly the same, we are never going to deliver that.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The clause builds on the gender pay gap reporting introduced by the last Government. Of course, in 2017 we were on the second of four female Conservative leaders, while the Labour party is still yet to show its commitment to gender equality in its leadership. Perhaps the Minister might be the first female leader of the Labour party—who knows? I gently and slightly naughtily make that point; it is the Conservative party that has shown a clear commitment to gender equality, particularly with the changes to gender pay gap reporting. Expanding reporting to outsourced service providers does not seem a controversial move, but I urge the Minister to ensure that the provisions that the Government introduce do not create loopholes or miss anyone out; I can imagine various scenarios in which someone might argue that something is not outsourced, even though it is contracted. I urge her to double check that the specific language used does not create something that anyone can exploit or legally challenge. That is to ensure that the provisions build in spirit on the previous Government’s 2017 changes and do not create loopholes.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  How does the hon. Gentleman feel that the NHS in Wales is doing—better or worse than in England?

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I rise to address the technicalities of how the amendment would work in legislation and with the Bill’s gender equality provisions. I entirely accept the hon. Gentleman’s point about the disparity between the average age by which a woman might take on caring responsibilities compared with the average for a man, but those are averages and there will be outliers and exceptions across all age ranges and all genders. I say clearly that the Opposition welcome the contribution of all carers and salute them as the heroes they are, but I am concerned that the amendment would shoehorn a very worthy and important matter into a provision on gender equality. I do not see how it fully fits; it would have been more sensible to have created provisions for the support and recognition of those with caring responsibilities in a new clause or in another part of the Bill. I worry that, like amendment 112, amendment 162 could confuse the Bill’s interpretation as it goes down the line and, potentially, is challenged in court at some point. I accept the core argument about support for those with caring responsibilities, but it is dangerous to shoehorn provisions into clauses where that is not the primary intent. It is important that the gender equality points remain focused on gender equality issues, on which I think the Government have good intent. If the Bill gets changed too much by us bringing in things that—although clearly in scope, given that they have been selected—are on the edge of scope, that could cause an interpretative challenge later. Provisions on support for those with caring responsibilities would be far better in a new clause or a different part of the Bill, where they might fit more neatly and enable us to avoid judicial challenge.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I hear very clearly what the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough have said. I do not take issue with anything that has just been said. The endometriosis point is a clear one, and well made. Where I challenge the hon. Member for Chippenham, and indeed the Minister, is that that women’s health issue is not exclusive; there are many health concerns that only women face, and indeed some that only men face. Given that the clause explicitly refers to gender equality, would it not be better, from a pure legislative drafting perspective, to say that gender equality will be the catch-all that encompasses all that? Is there not a danger that by listing one or two medical concerns, we will lock out other health problems faced exclusively by women, or exclusively by men? Naming one or two things in legislation often creates a problem in the interpretation of the rule. Courts may look back at this debate, or at any other debate on the Bill, and understand that this gender equality provision is intended to be a general catch-all for anything that any man or woman may face. If we name one or two things in legislation, however, it could become dangerous for when a man or a woman presents with something that is not named.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I do understand the ideological difference between the two sides on this point, but I take issue with the Minister that this is about a race to the bottom and cutting terms and conditions; it really is not. From my experience, it was not a matter of consultants, but of properly probing contracts, setting the right specification to deliver for the residents in the place that the council served, and requiring the flexibility to ensure that some people would be doing very different jobs in a different way from before in order to deliver that. It was not about wanting to cut anyone’s pay or terms and conditions; it was about service delivery and value.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am glad the festive spirit is alive and well, but I remind the hon. Gentleman—there is no sugar coating it for Opposition Members—that the Labour party had a thumping victory in July. There is no general election on the horizon, and there is little chance of any change of Government before 2029, so it is on the Labour party to make political choices for the next four and a half years. Will the hon. Gentleman do that, or is he just going to deflect back to the Opposition?

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Much as the hon. Member for Chippenham said, this is about political choices. If this new Labour Government, six months in, wish to make a political choice to fund schools to pay support staff more, why do they not make that political choice and make that money available? We all want people to earn more, to get more in their pay packet and to be richer.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  As we prepare to begin the 12 days of Christmas, we have the 16 clauses of the adult social care negotiating body. I am not sure which has the better ring to it, but I think only one ends with a partridge in a pear tree. I have a few questions for the Minister after his impressive run-through of the 16 clauses. I might not have agreed with every word he said, but we have to acknowledge a powerful performance, and he went through such technical detail with such speed. In clause 29, yet again we have the powers to set up a body but only after engaging the sector. There is nothing wrong with engaging the sector, and we encourage regular engagement with any and every sector, but this is yet another example in the Bill of legislate first, consult second. That is always a concern whenever it comes up, and not least on clause 41, where the Minister repeatedly referred to certain retrospective powers.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 123, in schedule 3, page 124, line 39, at end insert— “(2A) Before making or revising arrangements under sub-paragraph (1), the Secretary of State must publish and lay before Parliament an impact assessment of the costs on the education sector of any proposed arrangements.” This amendment makes a requirement from the Secretary of State to undertake an impact assessment of the costs on the education sector before making or changing arrangements related to the School Support Staff Negotiating Body.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I think the hon. Lady has potentially misinterpreted my remarks. I am not directly conflating the pay of staff with the educational outcome: I am saying that there are academies that may well be able to structure their own affairs in the way they recruit, pay and set terms and conditions so that that is actually more favourable. That is one of those fundamental freedoms that make academies—and free schools, for that matter—different and able to offer the diversity that we both seem to celebrate, particularly in supporting those children who need additional support to whatever degree in that setting. Someone else was waving at me a minute ago.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  After that lengthy oration from the Minister, I can only conclude that when it takes that long to explain something, a bureaucracy is coming that probably nobody wants. As we rehearsed during our debates on amendments to the schedule, it challenges in many respects the freedoms that some of our education establishments enjoy. As the Bill leaves Committee at some point in January and heads back to the main Chamber for Report, I urge the Minister to reach out to educational establishments—and perhaps to the Department for Education, but real-world schools are probably better—and reflect on the impact that this new bureaucracy will have on them. Is it as streamlined as it can humanly be? The Minister was on his feet for seven or eight minutes trying to explain that bureaucracy. In fairness, he did a commendable job of it, but that does not necessarily make it right. Whether we are in opposition or in government proposing things, we too rarely ask ourselves in the House: have we collectively got this right? The Opposition believe that this new body—which we in government, along with the Liberal Democrats, removed—should not be brought back in. There is a better way of achieving some of the noble aims that the Government have in this regard and avoiding some of the potential catastrophes that we spoke about earlier. We therefore cannot support the schedule remaining in the Bill.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way once more. She is presuming that the academy would be offering a lower rate, but in fact, it might be the case that, in order to attract staff, the academy offers something much higher.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Amendment 123 requires the Secretary of State to undertake an impact assessment of the costs to the education sector before making or changing arrangements related to the school support staff negotiating body. I have already spoken, probably at greater length than anybody particularly wished me to, about our reservations over the re-establishment of the body—in particular the way that it will override the traditional academy freedoms that seem to trigger Government Members so much. I am interested in what assessment the Secretary of State has undertaken about the current arrangements for pay and conditions for support staff, and in whether the Minister can provide concrete evidence about the shortcomings and how those would be rectified by re-establishing the school support staff negotiating body. In other words, is the policy driven by evidence or by ideology? The amendment asks for the Secretary of State to come clean about the costs of the proposed arrangements, not just to the schools budget but to pupils in schools. We had some back-and-forth earlier about how, if they are to work, the changes made by the Bill need to marry up with the real-life pay settlements and budgets made available by the Treasury. Otherwise, the net result will be that schools will have to obey the rules as set out in the Bill without getting any additional money to pay for doing so. Who will suffer if the school is asked to do that? It will be the children and pupils, because of the number of textbooks, laptops, iPads or interactive screens and boards—all the things that are used in education—that the school can buy.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Does the point the hon. Lady is trying to argue go to the very reason for having different types of school in the system? Academies were set up by the last Labour Government for a reason, which was to have additional freedoms such as those the amendment defends. Free schools were set up by the coalition Government, of which the Liberal Democrats were part, to have a different set of freedoms—in that sense, parental and governing body freedoms that are over and above everyone else. If we were to make all schools the same, surely that is an argument for one style of school alone.