Margaret Greenwood: Integrated care systems have their roots in accountable care organisations, such as those used in America, in which individuals take out private health insurance. It is therefore hardly surprising that there is a great deal of concern about the introduction of integrated care systems here. Will the Secretary of State give a cast-iron guarantee that he will legislate to ensure that NHS patient...
Margaret Greenwood: I begin by paying tribute to the hard work and dedication of Wirral Council workers and Wirral Council throughout the pandemic. Sadly, financial challenges are nothing new to our local councils. More than a decade of Conservative Government austerity has put immense pressure on our local authorities and pushed many of the services that we all rely on to near breaking point. According to the...
Margaret Greenwood: I would like to begin by paying tribute to the officers, community support staff and other staff at Merseyside Police, and to police forces across the country, for all the work they have been doing to help keep our communities safe. The past year has been particularly challenging, and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude. I would also like to express my condolences to the families and friends...
Margaret Greenwood: A number of my constituents have contacted me to stress that the Office for Environmental Protection should be an independent and powerful body capable of ensuring that the Government uphold environmental laws on everything from plastic pollution to air quality. They are concerned about clause 24 of the Bill and have pointed out that, if the Government have the power to tell the Office for...
Margaret Greenwood: I wish to declare an interest as a member of Unite the union. The recent reports that Ministers stand ready to trash the hard-won rights of working people by ending the 48-hour working week, changing the rules around rest breaks at work and not including overtime pay when calculating some holiday pay entitlements are a sharp reminder of just how important it is to fight to protect employment...
Margaret Greenwood: The amendments we are discussing are incredibly important. Amendment 1 would provide vital parliamentary scrutiny obligations preventing the UK from signing a free trade agreement unless a draft of the agreement had been laid before and approved by both Houses of Parliament. That is immensely important when we consider protecting human rights, environmental standards, animal welfare...
Margaret Greenwood: Children cannot learn when they are hungry, and children who are malnourished cannot possibly reach their potential or lead happy and fulfilling lives. Last week, we saw another appalling episode in the Government’s approach to the wellbeing of children in the delivery of food parcels. The parcels, which were nearly identical to the Government guidance on food parcel content, were an...
Margaret Greenwood: What recent discussions she has had with UK trade partners on inserting clauses on human rights in future trade agreements.
Margaret Greenwood: Following on from the Minister’s response, successive UK Governments have believed in the principle that all new trade treaties should contain clauses allowing those treaties to be suspended if the other party engages in serious abuses of human rights, yet the UK recently signed new treaties with Singapore, Vietnam and Turkey, none of which had those clauses, despite ongoing concerns about...
Margaret Greenwood: The recent sharp rise in covid-19 cases across the UK makes it imperative that we have a national lockdown. One in 50 people in England has the virus. In Wirral, there were 606 cases per 100,000 in the week to 1 January—well above the rate in the average area in England, which had 481. Sadly, nearly 600 coronavirus-related deaths have been registered in Wirral since the start of the...
Margaret Greenwood: What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of Government outsourcing during the covid-19 outbreak.
Margaret Greenwood: The Good Law Project estimates that £1.6 billion-worth of contracts for covid-19 services have yet to be published, and details of contracts are consistently being published late. This is despite the fact that there is a legal requirement for those details to be published no more than 30 days after the contract is awarded. The Government are clearly failing in their duties. What is the...
Margaret Greenwood: Dr de Gruchy, the president of the Association of Directors of Public Health, has said: “it is completely incomprehensible that the Government is not increasing the public health grant” to local authorities next year. She spoke of the importance of “learning the lessons of how existing health inequalities have driven and exacerbated the impact of COVID-19”, as well as addressing...
Margaret Greenwood: What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of statutory sick pay during the covid-19 outbreak.
Margaret Greenwood: At £95.85 a week, the level of statutory sick pay is just too low, and it excludes 2 million of those on the lowest pay. To qualify for the Government’s test and trace support payment, people need to be receiving social security payments like universal credit; according to the Resolution Foundation, seven out of eight workers will not qualify for it. What assessment have the Government...
Margaret Greenwood: The Government have failed to make provision for the delivery of remote education to pupils who live in a household where someone is clinically extremely vulnerable. A number of my constituents are suffering from extreme anxiety as a result, as they do their best to keep their family safe. Some are even considering home schooling, despite the fact that their children love their schools. Will...
Margaret Greenwood: What steps the Government are taking to support the manufacturing industry in Wales.
Margaret Greenwood: Several of my constituents work at the Airbus plant in Broughton in north Wales. In July, it was announced that more than 1,400 jobs would be cut there and earlier this month we heard that there could be more than 400 compulsory redundancies. This is a time of immense uncertainty for the aerospace sector, so what action is the Secretary of State taking to work with the Welsh Government and...
Margaret Greenwood: What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on support for self-employed people during the covid-19 outbreak.
Margaret Greenwood: According to the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed, the solo self-employed contributed an estimated £305 billion to the UK economy last year. So why have 1.6 million self-employed people been excluded from government support during the pandemic? What will the Minister do to address this failure of Government to recognise the huge contribution self-employed people...