Karin Smyth: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for bringing forward this debate. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) that my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea works tirelessly as a great ambassador and advocate, not just on the subject of eyesight,...
Karin Smyth: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Karin Smyth: rose—
Karin Smyth: To be very clear, we are very interested in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, not just those north of the border.
Karin Smyth: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Ali. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) for securing this debate and for his continued commitment to this issue. The petitions that are coming forward highlight the level of concern and interest in this area. It is right that we are debating it in this place. We are witnessing a burgeoning rise...
Karin Smyth: The Secretary of State seems to say that we have intense excitement about being here today and she is surprised. Our law is the basis of our democracy, and the flippant and ill-prepared way in which this has been brought forward is a disgrace; it is not worthy of our Parliament or, indeed, of our country. In the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, we are currently...
Karin Smyth: What steps the Government are taking to support small and medium-sized enterprises bidding for public contracts.
Karin Smyth: I am pleased to hear about the Procurement Bill, because small and medium-sized businesses are fundamental to the economy of Bristol South and for jobs. What steps will the Minister be taking to address gaps in the Procurement Bill to enforce payment deadlines and to make sure that filters down through the supply chain to help small businesses in my constituency?
Karin Smyth: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I understand that Parliament is technically in recess, but here we are working hard to the last on this very important debate. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) for securing it. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) that she used her expert knowledge to provide...
Karin Smyth: In our Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee report into the Greensill affair, we suggested: “The Government should outline the range of sanctions and indicative examples of breaches to which they might apply. Without this, the suspicion is that the only determinant of the level of sanction will be political expediency.” In the discussions with the Deputy Prime...
Karin Smyth: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, and to be present for this debate. I take what the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) said about it being in a late slot on a Thursday, but it is an important debate, and I am pleased that we have had time for contributions. The right hon. Gentleman clearly outlined the case for a...
Karin Smyth: I am on the optimistic side of the spectrum that the Chancellor was talking about today. I would welcome measures on prepayment meters and some support for suicide prevention, but the most sensible thing he said today was about the contribution that those of us in our mid-50s can make to the economy. Overall, however, it is truly astonishing, knowing how many thousands of pounds worse off...
Karin Smyth: My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Does she agree that it is astonishing that the Government are not looking at the issue in the way that we have done? They are concerned about growth in the economy and particularly about the loss of women from the workforce, but they are not looking at social care or childcare. Does she agree that if they want to steal our plans, they are welcome...
Karin Smyth: International Women’s Day is a time to celebrate, and there is much to celebrate about being a woman in 2023. I always think at this time of my friends, many now spread across the country and some across the world, who I have spent time with in the past. They are now too busy with children, grandchildren, older parents and their own jobs to get together, but I know that they are always...
Karin Smyth: I am not ignoring it, and I pay tribute particularly to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) for the work she led in government, but we need to continue to use legislation to underpin, and it should be good legislation. I am not sure that in this week of all weeks we can be proud of what this Government have done. If we think about the trafficked women who are coming forward, that...
Karin Smyth: The Government entered the pandemic unprepared, ignoring the lessons from Operation Cygnus, and ran the NHS at 96% capacity. That was part of the problem. We all know that mistakes happen. We all know that it was really difficult. However, today is disappointing, because some humility should have been brought to this place. More than 17,000 people lost their lives. It is our job as the...
Karin Smyth: Having spent most of my career in NHS management roles before becoming an MP, I often reflect on my own motivation for choosing two such unpopular careers—ones that, like the England manager job, virtually everyone can do better. One of our colleagues said recently that NHS managers are utterly useless and overpaid, which is what many of our constituents might say about us. As someone who...
Karin Smyth: The hon. Lady talks a great deal about the inputs of the SNP Government in Scotland, but very little about the outcomes there. Does she not agree that, rather than carping about the contrast between how good things are in the rosy land of Scotland that she portrays—which is not a true picture, as we know from what is happening with the SNP leadership election—and how bad they are in...
Karin Smyth: Will the Minister give way?
Karin Smyth: I want to pick up the point about social care, on which, as the Minister knows, I am very keen to see progress. Her Government shelved their social care plans. The former Prime Minister said he had fixed social care, leading the entire country through that dance. He promised people that it was fixed and that people in their older age or with disabilities could be secure, so it is rather...