Josh Simons MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 17 Dec 2024 · Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme: Living Standards · Hansard source

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  16. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes to the mineworkers’ pension scheme on the living standards of recipients.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme: Living Standards · Hansard source

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  In my constituency of Makerfield, more than 500 people stand to benefit from changes introduced by this Government to the mineworkers’ pension scheme. For years, those people and their families stood by and watched as the Conservative Government stole their pensions and disrespected their work. I want us to celebrate our industrial past and those who made this nation wealthy and powered our industrial revolution. Does the Secretary of State agree that we need to do more to remember the legacy of mining as well as to drive up the living standards of those on the mineworkers’ pension scheme?

• 16 Dec 2024 · United Front Work Department · Hansard source

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  Can I ask the Minister about the integrity of our democracy? In particular, what steps is he taking to ensure the integrity of the processes and institutions of our political process, especially but not only with regard to China?

• 4 Dec 2024 · Employer National Insurance Contributions · Hansard source

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  The economic arguments in this debate will be well covered by other Members, so I would like to make a brief point about choices and political leadership—about having arguments, rather than ducking them. For a decade, as low growth placed an ever-greater burden on the public finances, Conservative Members fiddled and fudged, choosing stealth taxes such as fiscal drag that they hoped nobody would notice. Between 2010 and 2021, Conservative Governments introduced 1,651 tax changes. They changed vehicle excise duty 258 times and alcohol duty 125 times. The last Parliament saw the largest set of tax rises since the second world war, leaving the tax burden at a third of national income. When a Government are frightened of their own shadow, as well as their own divided Back Benches, it is easier to fudge and fiddle than to face up to hard choices. Conservative Members lacked the courage and unity to tackle the great problem this great nation faced, but not us—not this Government. When we see something fundamental that requires courage and leadership to address, we square up to it and confront it. That is why we immediately undid the fiddles and fudges, ending the freeze on income tax that has burdened working people in this country. It is why we ended the hidden theft of money from working people and fixed the injustice of the mineworkers’ pension scheme, and it is why we boosted HMRC compliance, because there is no point in creating a tax behemoth that cannot be enforced. It is also why we made a big, clear choice to close the gaping hole in the public finances left by Conservative Members. Britain’s economy has run a tight labour market alongside stagnant productivity growth for decades. In that context, national insurance rises are a sensible, balanced and transparent way to incentivise business investment that will boost productivity while filling the £22 billion black hole. That is what courage looks like: squaring up to the challenges our country faces, instead of running scared and leaving working people to pay the price. We have fronted up to set this great country back on a secure path. If the Opposition wish to show the nation that they are a responsible party ready to govern this great country, they must have the courage to tell us whether they would scrap this measure, and if not, which of the challenges we face they wish to ignore. Do they want to cut off the electrification of the Wigan-Bolton train line? Do they want to get rid of the experts working with the Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS trust in my constituency to bring down waiting lists? Perhaps they want to cut back once again on the neighbourhood police officers who we are getting back on our streets, or perhaps they want to cut the £150 million investment in Border Security Command. I do not think so.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  If the hon. Member is so concerned about inequality and poverty in this country, why does he refuse to support the building of pylons, thereby adding about £4 billion to the cost of increasing electricity production in this country? Those costs will, above all, go on to the bills of working people. Is that not a measure to reduce inequality and poverty in this country that the hon. Member would support?

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  Not only do I agree with my hon. Friend’s point about the carer’s allowance, which will benefit 8,000 people in my region of the north-west, the increase demonstrates a wider point about respecting those who provide care in our society and economy. For too long, we have thought the profession to be unskilled, and have undervalued it as a path of work. In several of the measures that the Finance Bill will pay for, the Government have demonstrated that caring is a vital part of the economy that we wish to build. I have said this before, and will say it again: higher productivity and more technology mean more care. We must respect and value that most human of professions if we are to build an economy in which we all want to live in the future.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  I absolutely take that point, but I will remind Conservative Members of the simple argument I am making in case they have lost the thread of it. I am going through the measures in the Budget that may have been lost by media scrutiny of some of the bigger measures. My question is: how would they pay for those measures? If they support them, they need to answer that question posed by the Bill today. As the Minister said earlier, the first words in Labour’s manifesto were about restoring economic stability. If Conservative Members support some of the measures I am describing, they must themselves answer the question of how they would pay for them. I will mention three more measures before I close. These measures specifically benefit the region that I am proud to represent in the north-west, and they will drive growth not just here in London and the south-east, but right across the country, including in Wigan and the towns across Makerfield. The first measure is the electrification of the Wigan to Bolton line, which will mean that constituents in Hindley will benefit from more reliable train services that do not get cancelled, as they have repeatedly been over the past two weeks due to the weather. The second measure is an increase in the household support fund of £66 million in the north-west. That will specifically help those just above the pension credit threshold who none the less need support this winter. The third and final measure is the integrated settlement with our trailblazing Labour Mayor Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester, meaning that we can cap bus fares at £2. It also means that we will trailblaze the Live Well centres, which working people will benefit from and those out of work will be provided with the holistic support they need to get back into work. Those are the measures that this Finance Bill supports. The question for Conservative Members is: will they support the measures that pay for those provisions? If they will not, they will continue to be the party that does not restore economic stability, that crashed the economy and that sent mortgage rates spiralling. The first and most important thing this Labour Government have done and will always do is protect the economic stability of this nation. A person’s character is most on display in watching what they do when nobody else is looking. I cannot remember who said that—either a former Prime Minister or a baseball coach in the United States. A Government’s character is often in the things that get less attention, that demonstrate whose side that Government are on. In the provisions, the Government have demonstrated that they are on the side of miners, carers, commuters and workers in Makerfield, Greater Manchester and the north-west. What this Finance Bill shows me is that this is a Government who will tear down any barrier that gets in the way of us delivering for working people in the United Kingdom.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. To be specific about the benefits that will accrue, there are 500 families in my constituency who for decades have watched the Government take out of their pension scheme and refuse to rectify the ongoing justice. We all know what Conservative Members think of miners. By ensuring that they get a 32% increase in their pension we are not only putting money directly into the pockets of the working people who built this nation but signalling our respect for an industry and profession that made this country’s wealth. The second smaller, subtler, sometimes missed thing that demonstrates the values that lie behind the measures that the Finance Bill will pay for is the £44 million funding increase for kinship and foster carers. My council in Wigan is a pioneer in the provision of adult social care and care for children. It has blazed the way in ensuring that it works with third sector organisations and maintains the budget to fund its own care provision publicly. Now it is backed by a Government who care about what carers do. As the hon. Member for South Derbyshire has argued, the flipside of a high-productivity and high-technology economy is caring. Caring is the most human thing that we will do more and more of as we build a higher-tech and higher-productivity economy. The Government’s £44 million increase will ensure that caring is properly funded in this country.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that those who kept this nation going, who kept teaching our children and who kept looking after those who were sick and dying deserve every penny of the pay rise that this Government awarded them. Since the subject of the pandemic has come up, I would add that the moral credibility of Conservative Members to ever use the sacrifices that our nation made during the covid pandemic as a rebuttal to anything that this Government do was lost the moment the Prime Minister told the nation to stay at home while he invited his colleagues to a booze-up in No. 10 Downing Street.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  May I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett) on her excellent maiden speech? As a fellow technologist, she has done so much to make sure that women in particular are part of the technology sector. That is vital as we work to get more women involved in the technology sector and in technology policy. Last week, a constituent who had voted Labour at the election came to see me. She was an elderly woman and she asked me this very simple question: what makes this a Labour Budget? As a corollary of that, she said, “If I were to vote now, why should I vote Labour to make sure that we have another Budget like the one you have just passed?” And I had a particular answer for her. We talked about some big things. We talked about the big choices that were in the Budget underpinned by this Finance Bill. We talked about, for example, the choice to make hard decisions in order to fund our NHS properly, to make sure that we shift from a national health service to a neighbourhood health service, so that, in my constituency we can ensure that there is proper health provision in towns like Hindley Green and Orrell, which over the past 14 years, have lost all their primary care provision. She thought that was compelling. I then said that another of the bigger choices that we made in the Budget, which this Finance Bill underpins, is to invest, instead of accepting the slow decline that the Conservative Members have presided over for 14 years. We then discussed some of the less well covered measures that this Finance Bill supports, and it is those that I wish to talk about today. In these measures, we can see the values that make the Budget, and this Finance Bill, a Labour Budget: care, respect, and pride in our communities. These are the measures that answer her question: what is it that made the Budget that this Finance Bill pays for a Labour Budget? Let me talk about a few of the smaller things that will benefit my constituents and working people right across the country. Most importantly for those I represent, we will end the injustice of the mineworkers’ pension scheme. Just yesterday, my constituents remembered the Springs colliery disaster in Hindley. Tens of thousands of people who used to live in the constituency of Ince, which preceded my own, came together in what was a powerful and emotional moment for them. By ending the injustice of the mineworkers’ pension scheme, the Chancellor ensured that as we build the next generation of energy, reducing bills and ensuring that foreign dictators no longer have a hold over energy production in this nation, we also remember the last generation of energy production: the workers who powered our industrial revolution and built this nation’s wealth.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Respect Orders and Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source

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  Since I was elected, there has been a constant stream of antisocial behaviour incidents across the towns that I represent, at Hindley Town and Ashton Athletic football clubs and in Platt Bridge and Winstanley. It really dents people’s pride in the towns that they live in, as the Minister said. Does she agree that the capacity for councils and housing associations to apply for and issue respect orders is a vital part of the new powers that she has announced today?

• 19 Nov 2024 · Primary Care: Patient Access · Hansard source

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  1. What assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of patient access to primary care services.

• 19 Nov 2024 · Primary Care: Patient Access · Hansard source

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  In my Makerfield constituency, Wigan council and my local NHS trust are working closely together to pioneer a health system focused on prevention and delivered through neighbourhood health centres, but they need help. What is the Secretary of State doing to improve access to primary care, especially data-driven preventive care, through neighbourhood health centres?

• 30 Oct 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  I, too, rather than getting lost in the weeds, will take a step back, because we in this country today, like allies over the Atlantic and across the channel, are reckoning with turbulent forces of change: technological transformation, ageing societies, the destruction of our natural world, vast inequalities of wealth and power, and mass migration across the globe. Ours is an age of insecurity and uncertainty—a moment when grasping the opportunities before us requires choices, such as whose side we are on, which industries will power growth, what frictions we will permit in pursuit of security, and which partners we will embrace around the world. Today, the Chancellor has made choices. What underpins those choices is a simple but powerful point: because the challenges of this age are immense, the solutions must be equally bold. A turbulent age requires the confidence to stand tall, square up to what is not working and ensure that we reform what is not delivering for the people of this country. The Chancellor’s choices demonstrate that commitment, reckoning with the magnitude of the challenges that the country faces. First, the Chancellor chose investment. Sometimes I wonder whether Conservative Members could benefit from more time to think through what they are really for and why, because to oppose the changes that she has made today is to welcome the apathy and defeatism that says that decline is inevitable. A certain mental attitude appears to have gripped Conservative Members: it is too hard; there are too many barriers; it cannot be done. By opposing the revolution in investment that the Chancellor unleashed today, Conservative Members have firmly put themselves on the side of the naysayers, and those who would lie still while Britain declines. Not us. Not Labour Members.

• 30 Oct 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  I will make some progress. Secondly, the Chancellor chose who the Government will stand beside, by raising taxes; taxing assets, wealth and those who can afford it; protecting working people; and following my predecessor, Ian McCartney, in raising the minimum wage, from which 8,000 of my constituents will benefit.

• 30 Oct 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  No, I will not. Labour Members are proud that, alongside the Make Work Pay package, the Government are delivering a generational shift in wealth and power towards workers—a shift that is long overdue. We know that eroding worker power and pay is bad for productivity and growth. More importantly, how can any worker in Britain trust their Government and have faith in their country when for so long the Government have failed to deliver for them? This Government will stand beside working people no matter what. Lastly, the Chancellor chose to move Britain confidently into the future by being an activist Government, embracing a new era of technological change, investing billions in data storage and processing, and transforming how we deliver healthcare to shift towards prevention and community health provision. I hope that she and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will visit my local trust in Wigan, which is pioneering such healthcare in the towns I represent in Makerfield. For weeks now, Conservative Members—disinterested in big arguments about the future—have reverted to type. They have sought to sow discord and division, at times telling outright lies, and as ever wholly lacking the humility to reflect on why they are in opposition and we are in government. I have spoken to hundreds of constituents in the last month who have heard some of their nonsense, and to them I say this: I promised that this Government would not remove free bus passes for pensioners. We kept that promise. I promised that this Government would not levy income tax on pensions, and we kept that promise. I promised that income tax rates would not go up, and we kept that promise. We chose to back workers and tax wealth and assets; we chose to invest in our NHS; we chose to take Britain into the future rather than wallowing in the past; and, above all else, we chose to keep our promises, because that is what Labour does. I wonder whether Conservative Members will own up to their choices and show some leadership in an age when it is so badly needed. If they oppose our investment rule, which hospital and data centre would they cut? If they oppose our tax rises, which struggling public service would they sacrifice? If they cannot answer those questions, as they have not done today, the public will not take them seriously and will see them for what they are: the same old Tories, always navel-gazing, and always lacking hope and the imagination to see how things could be better and different, and what a stronger and more confident country might look like. Their party no longer measures up to the age in which we live. I, for one, am mighty glad that we have a Chancellor and a Government who do.

• 29 Oct 2024 · Economic Investment and Growth · Hansard source

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  3. What steps she is taking to increase long-term investment in the economy.

• 29 Oct 2024 · Economic Investment and Growth · Hansard source

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  As co-chair of the Labour Growth Group, I welcome the Chancellor’s decision to unleash a revolution in investment in Britain, but the capital we must invest in is not just physical but digital. For years, Conservative Members cut capital investment in technology, depressing productivity and leaving workers with less money in their pocket. What steps is the Chancellor taking to boost long-term investment, especially in digital and technology?

• 29 Oct 2024 · Ministerial Code: Policy Announcements · Hansard source

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  Like others, I am surprised to hear that Conservative Members recently rediscovered their moral compass—the one that they lost perhaps when the former Prime Minister sent out the “bring your own bottle” invite to Downing Street, when he spent taxpayers’ money jetting his girlfriend around the world, or when they unlawfully suspended this place. Perhaps the Minister agrees that there might be another motivation. Does the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) want to keep her job next week?

• 28 Oct 2024 · Housing Supply · Hansard source

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  18. What steps her Department is taking to increase the supply of housing in towns in the Makerfield constituency.

• 28 Oct 2024 · Housing Supply · Hansard source

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  We know that the barriers to building more houses in towns such as those I represent in Makerfield are often political, not technical. For years, Conservative Members allowed themselves to become mouthpieces for the blockers and the naysayers, which is why, as co-chair of the Labour Growth Group, I welcome the commitment by the Secretary of State to back builders. What steps is her Department taking to increase the supply of housing in towns such as those I represent in Makerfield?

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

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  I absolutely agree. The support that men can give to their partners is an absolutely vital part of the argument for paternity leave, which is why we need to talk about what it means to be a man in the society that we live in that is in step with the age that we live in. Strength and resilience are qualities that my wife has just as much as me. Care and love are qualities that I have just as much as her. Being a dad is about care, protection and love as well as strength and courage. As men, we must take pride in both. I very much hope that the Government’s review of parental leave will include paternity as well as maternity leave, and that it will cover pay and duration of leave for employees of firms of all sizes. Every week working parents I represent open the door exhausted and broke, despite loving their kids with all their heart. Better paternity leave is vital to show that we value parenting, kids and family in this country.

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

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  Time and again, my constituents in Makerfield have told me that having a child in this country is too expensive and exhausting. Mums have said that they have been forced out of their job through long maternity leave, and dads have told me that employers have made it impossible for them to spend time with their kids and support their partners. As other Members have said, only when dads take parental leave will we make maternity discrimination a thing of the past, but we also need a deeper cultural shift. As ever, the Tory party is lagging behind our society, as we have seen this week, because thankfully we no longer live in a world where women make the home and men make the money. Men want to be parents. They want to be dads, and to cook and do the washing. They want to hug their kids when they have had a tough day at school, to tear up when they watch a Disney movie, or to laugh with their kids at my best-known constituent, Hacker the dog. In an age when so many young men suffer from mental health problems and feel that they lack purpose in our society, we must talk about what it means to be a man in a way that is in step with the age.

• 21 Oct 2024 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  When Sam Woods, one of my predecessors as the MP for Makerfield, started his working life at just seven years old, he accompanied his father in the pit. By the time he died in 1915, he had become a strong representative for his fellow miners. He played an instrumental part in the formation of the Labour party and championed the legal limit of eight hours for a single mining shift in the Coal Mines Regulation Act 1908. He was, like me—as my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests will attest—a proud trade union member. Sam Woods’s story is partly about the Labour party’s moral purpose: to improve through Parliament the conditions, security and pay of working people in the United Kingdom. But his story is also about the transformative power of work itself. At its best, work is how we contribute to our family, our community and the trajectory of our nation. Coalmining powered Britain’s industrial revolution, providing industry, warmth and energy. It bound the work of ordinary men and women to the path of our nation. That spirit of production instilled the values of respect and hard work in the communities I represent—values I continue to hold dear. By contrast, the Conservative Benches—sadly, once again so sparsely populated—always sought to resist the change that makes work more secure and better paid. They pit the interests of businesses against workers, of finance against industry, and even sometimes the interests of men against women. In Sam Woods’s time, Conservative Members said that regulations would bankrupt businesses and even increase unemployment. They said that they would harm communities such as mine. That is why I am particularly pleased the Bill introduces day one protections for pregnant women and rights to paternity leave. The impact assessment clearly anticipates the reforms will have a positive economic impact, which is good for mums, for dads and for growth. I look forward to the upcoming review of shared parental leave, which will cover maternity and paternity leave. Through work, women organise their power to advocate for equality at work and at home. Through work, we build social bonds, relationships and our sense of purpose. Now, Britain once again has a Government who recognise that work is at the heart of how we participate in, and contribute to, our families, community and country. The industry and ingenuity of working people up and down this country is what makes us who we are. A century ago my predecessor Sam Woods changed the law because he understood that. Now, I am proud that this Government are once again restoring respect and dignity to work, as well as ensuring that all work is secure and well paid. That is why it is an honour to support the Bill tonight.

• 17 Oct 2024 · Government’s Childcare Expansion · Hansard source

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  We’ll see! I am intrigued to hear Conservative Members’ attempts to defend their record. Moments ago, the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) said that the right hon. Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch) is “preoccupied with her children” and cannot be the Leader of the Opposition while spending time with her family. This comes after she herself said that maternity leave has “gone too far”. Does the Minister agree that whereas this Government are working hard to back the hope that children represent, Conservative Members are, in the end, the same old Tories?