Claudia Webbe: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Mark. I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) on securing this important debate. The UK economy was already facing a crisis of high inflation driven by corporate greed, which was squeezing living standards and forcing millions deeper into poverty, but while large corporations have exploited the crisis and the...
Claudia Webbe: The cost of living crisis is not really a cost of living crisis; in reality, it is a cost of greed crisis. It is greedflation driven by a lack of political interest in protecting ordinary people. As with any crisis, it is the most vulnerable in our society who suffer most, and there are few more vulnerable and more unsupported in our society than those with a disability. Disabled people are...
Claudia Webbe: The water industry is a classic illustration of the harms of privatisation and the contradiction of a Government who claim that privatisation is more efficient while giving companies free rein to profit by damaging the environment. In 2021, Severn Trent Water—the water company in my constituency—was fined £1 million for a 2018 raw sewage discharge that lasted for hours, and £500,000 for...
Claudia Webbe: I am delighted to speak in the Bill Committee, not least because I was for a decade a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers’ firearms committee, working alongside NABIS, the National Ballistics Intelligence Service. I therefore welcome the Bill, which is much needed. For more than 25 years, we have prided ourselves in the UK on having the best firearms legislation in the world....
Claudia Webbe: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many universities have twinned with Ukrainian universities and institutions; and which universities have twinned with which Ukrainian institutions.
Claudia Webbe: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) Ukrainian, (b) British, (c) Commonwealth and (d) international students who were studying in Ukraine are now being supported by UK universities.
Claudia Webbe: It is frankly frightening that we are at the second stage of a Bill that begins with an effective admission by the Home Secretary that the proposed legislation is not compatible with international law and human rights obligations. Yet despite this, the Home Secretary says that they want this House to go along with it anyway. The European convention on human rights is often misrepresented by...
Claudia Webbe: My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point, to which I hope the Government are listening. The Bill is manifestly unjust and must not become law. That is why amendments 93 and 92 are needed. The Government are not just showing their contempt for the UK’s legal and democratic principles with this Bill. As it stands, the Secretary of State can ignore the UK’s international legal and...
Claudia Webbe: I rise to speak in support of the amendments that protect democracy, our devolved Parliaments, our human rights, our workers’ rights, our compliance with international law and, fundamentally, our freedom. Those aspects are laid out in new clause 1 and amendments 92, 93, 80, 27, 83, 84, 20, 8, 40, 94, 4 and 1, among others. I declare my proud membership of Unite the Union, the GMB and...
Claudia Webbe: I wanted to check whether the review would include what was reported in The Times just last year that the UK security services had some involvement in Mr Johal’s arrest. Will the review include that as part of the investigation?
Claudia Webbe: I rise to speak as a proud trade unionist, which I have been since I was 16 and will be until the very end. The Government do not care about patients, passengers, parents or the public. That is not what their minimum service levels Bill is about. It is a shameful attack on the democratic right to strike. At just six pages long, the Bill does not even set out the boundaries of what is...
Claudia Webbe: The first thing that needs to be said in this debate is that its title gives a false impression: “mismanagement” creates an impression that the Government have been doing their best to manage the NHS well but have failed to do so, whereas in fact the emergency in our NHS is the result of 13 years of deliberate policy decisions by the Conservatives. A staff shortage of 133,000 that has...
Claudia Webbe: On that point, will the Minister give way?
Claudia Webbe: Thank you, Mr Gray. Food poverty is a political choice. It is slow violence; we are talking about social murder. The sheer numbers of people who are suffering hardship in this country is staggering. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that over 20 million people in the UK have been forced to cut back their spending on food and essentials because of the spiralling...
Claudia Webbe: rose—
Claudia Webbe: Does the hon. Member not agree that the immigration system is based on the hostile environment and that we are going to have difficulties unless we do something about that? The Immigration Acts of 2014 and 2016 effectively introduced internal borders. That means that every aspect of someone’s life, including going to a bank and accessing any type of service, is being policed by immigration...
Claudia Webbe: It is really disheartening to hear about those deaths from the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford). While the moral and economic justifications are obvious, allowing asylum seekers to work would, conversely, deprive the Government of propaganda that says, “Asylum seekers are a drain on the country and a detriment to our society”. We all know how much the right-wing mainstream...
Claudia Webbe: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) for securing this valuable and important debate. The Government claim that evidence clearly shows that their sanctions regime is clear, fair and effective in getting people into work, so why are they hiding data from experts who want to study that effectiveness?...
Claudia Webbe: Contrary to what we have heard, the Bill is not about growth. It goes nowhere near what is needed. It is not fair, and it is not just. The median annual pay per person in my Leicester East constituency is, at £20,300, the lowest in the country according to the latest figures from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which were published in April 2022. The national average for the same period...
Claudia Webbe: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) for securing this important debate. Despite the Bhopal gas explosion occurring almost 40 years ago at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, hundreds of thousands of Bhopalis are still living in its long shadow, unable to move on with their lives with dignity and justice. In addition to the 3,000 people who died almost immediately,...
