Chuka Umunna MP

Streatham MP Chuka Umunna, who leads Labour’s Shadow Business team, has spoken about the need to support local pubs given the vital contribution they make to both community life and the local economy.

Chuka, seen here visiting The Five Bells pub on Streatham High Road, leads Labour’s efforts to support the British pub industry. Visitng The Five Bells Chuka talked to staff about Labour’s proposals to help pubs. Labour’s proposals aim to help small business owners running pubs and include the introduction of a statutory code to reform the relationship between large pub companies and thier tenants.

It has now been 18 months since I was elected as the MP for the Streatham constituency and I am immensely proud and honoured to continue to represent our area.

In every corner of the constituency, from Streatham to Clapham, Balham, Brixton and Tulse Hill, I have always believed that our communities are some of the strongest to be found anywhere, and that our future together is one of the brightest.

I know this year may well have been a difficult year for many of you. The economic situation the country faces is a difficult one, and as your MP it is my duty to see that the Government does all it can to resolve this situation.

I know too that many of you have faced particular challenges and rest assured my team and I will continue to do all we can to help as many of my constituents as possible through my work in the constituency.

I look forward to continuing working for the constituency in the New Year. I hope that today at least we can put the difficulties to one side and enjoy those things that are truly important in life; our families, friends, neighbours and communities.

I wish you the happiest of Christmases with your loved ones. I know this will be a special time for many of you, both Christians and non-Christians alike. So I’d like to thank you, at this special time of year, for everything that you do to make our area such a special place to live.

I wish you and all of those closest to you, a very happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

Chuka

A strike is a sign of failure which results in huge disruption and great inconvenience for all of our constituents which we could not condone. So the government and the trade unions must do all they can to thrash out a deal – this will involve compromise on both sides.

However, we cannot condemn those who faithfully serve our communities for taking industrial action. To do so would be to ignore the fact that the decision to go on strike is not one any of our constituents who work in the public sector take lightly – they feel they have been left with no other option by a government which has imposed a 3% surcharge on thousands of workers and instead of engaging in constructive dialogue, has indulged in irresponsible brinkmanship with minsters taking to the airwaves, ramping up rhetoric and refusing to negotiate.

Ministers are, in effect, imposing a 3% tax rise on thousands of public sector workers who are approaching retirement, including many who work part time such as dinner ladies and nursing assistants – the monies raised by the 3% extra contribution demanded of them are not going into the various public sector pension funds but are going straight to the Treasury. This has nothing to do with the long-term sustainability of public sector pensions.

Public sector pensions need to be reformed which is why, in government, Labour negotiated a deal under which the cost of public sector pensions was not allowed to become unsustainable. But this government acts as though it is happy to see a disruptive strike, rather than working flat out and leaving no stone unturned to reach an agreement.

Kate Hoey MP
Tessa Jowell MP
Chuka Umunna MP

For Londoners today’s Autumn Statement means

• Rising travelcard costs and no end in sight for farepayers. Only Ken will cut fares and set a course that ensures a fairer deal for Londoners.

• Tory Mayor Boris Johnson has failed to get a decent settlement for London out of the Autumn Statement. He has been awarded 4 out of 40 projects for the Infrastructure Fund lower than almost every other English region. Of the 4 projects that have been announced, only two are actually funded.

• George Osborne’s remarks about a Silvertown river crossing and a Northern line extension are little more than warm words. There is little or no detail on how the projects would be delivered or funded.

• The Government should take up Labour’s five point plan for growth and jobs – which will give up to 334,000 London firms a tax break to take on more workers, create 11,500 jobs for young Londoners and build 5,000 new homes.

More Tory fare rises

Today’s fares announcement by the Tory Mayor and Tory Chancellor means rising travelcard costs and no end in sight for farepayers:

• This is the fourth consecutive year of inflation-busting fares under the Tory mayor

• Fares in London have risen faster than anywhere else in the country during tough

economic times. Boris Johnson should use the £729 million of surplus money in his TfL budget to keep fares low.

• If Ken is elected Mayor in May 2012, in October 2012 he will cut fares, then freeze them the whole of the following year and ensure that they rise by no more than inflation in the following two years.

London’s economy in worse state

The London economy is in a worse state than it has been for more than 15 years

• 410,000 people are now unemployed in London, almost one in ten of the population. Unemployment in London is now higher than it has been at any other point since 1994. According to the latest estimates from ONS, more than one in four young people in London is unemployed.

• Only 56 affordable homes were built in London in the last 6 months, and the number of housing starts in the last quarter went down by more than 50% on the previous year.

• Between January and September, the number of 18-24 year olds on the dole for more than 6 months has doubled in more than half of London’s boroughs.

• A survey by Travelex yesterday showed that 59% of small and medium sized businesses in London expect to go into a double dip recession.

Infrastructure projects cut

The government is cutting not investing in infrastructure.

• Only 4 out of the 40 infrastructure projects outlined today are in London, less than the 10 in Yorkshire and the Humber, and less than the West Midlands, the North West, the South East and the East of England. This is despite the fact that unemployment is higher in London than anywhere else apart from the North East.

• The Tory-led Government got rid of the London Development Agency as well as agencies to promote tourism and inward investment in London

• And even these 4 are beginning to unravel once the detail emerges:

I. The Northern Line extension is a wish not a commitment. London will get no money from the Government for the Northern Line extension, and no guarantee that it will be allowed to borrow. At the earliest, this project will only begin in mid 2013.(In the Autumn Statement it says “Subject to commitment by April 2013 from a developer to develop the site and make agreed contributions, the Government will consider allowing the Mayor of London and partner authorities to borrow against the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) to support this scheme.”)

II. If London receives the same as the other super-connected cities – it will get only £2 million of funding next year – 26p for every citizen

III. There are no commitments on where or when new river crossings will be built or how they will be funded. (In the Autumn Statement it says “the Government will work with the Mayor of London and Transport for London to explore options for proposed additional river crossings, for example at Silvertown.”

Child tax credits cut

As a result of George Osborne’s cuts to tax credits:

• 561,900 families in London will lose out as a result of the changes to the child element of the child tax credit

• 323,600 families in London will lose out as a result of the freeze on the couple and lone parent element of the working tax credit.

In 2008 Boris Johnson axed the childcare affordability programme which had delivered affordable childcare for thousands of London children.

Pay freezes

As a result of George Osborne’s further reductions in public sector pay

• 719,000 public sector workers will experience just 1% pay increases in the two years after a pay freeze ending in 2013. This will impoverish well over a million households in London, who will experience falling real pay every year for the lifetime of the Tory-led government

Labour’s 5 point plan in London would:

1. Create up to 11,500 jobs for young people and build 5,000 homes

2. Bring forward investment projects like new school buildings

3. Temporarily reverse the Tory-led Government’s VAT rise – a £450 boost for families with children

4. Cut VAT on home improvements to 5% for a year

5. Give up to 334,000 small firms a tax break to take on extra workers

Chuka Umunna MP has written to Mary Portas ahead of her Independent Review into the health of Britain’s High Streets.

Chuka, who as MP for the Streatham constituency represents the longest High Street in Europe, along the A23, including Streatham High Road, regularly meets with local business so as to bring their concerns to Parliament.

To find out more click here.

Chuka Umunna MP has written to Mary Portas ahead of her report into the health of Britain’s High Streets and is due to meet with her along with other MPs to advance the case for local business.

Mary Portas, who has showcased her years of retail business experience in hit Channel 4 shows such as ‘Mary Queen of Shops’ and ‘Secret Shopper’ was asked by the government to provide an independent report on what can be done to aid Britain’s High Streets following criticism that enough was being done to foster confidence and support growth.

It is a particularly challenging time for local High Streets which are grappling with the Government’s VAT rise and low consumer spending and confidence. As MP for the Streatham constituency Chuka Umunna represents an area that includes the longest section of High Street in Europe, along the A23, including Streatham High Road.

Chuka Umunna, who is the Shadow Business Secretary, has written, along with fellow Labour MP’s Harriet Harman, Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Hilary Benn, Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, in order to ensure that concerns about the future of Britain’s High Streets are taken into account.

The MPs are calling for the Government to enact Labour’s four-point to give local retailers the boost they need given the difficult economic situation nationally. They are calling on the Government to introduce a temporary VAT cut from 20% to 17.5%, putting £450 into every family’s pocket; to amend the the Localism Bill to give communities power to develop a strategy for retail growth in their own area; to give Councils the funds to reinvigorate high-streets blighted by empty shops; and to ensure that small business can compete fairly with big business by putting a fair competition test into the planning system.

In their letter the MPs raised their concern that chain betting shops are putting negative pressures on local high streets and exploiting vulnerable people. Gambling machines which can take up to £18,000 an hour are currently in use on London’s High Streets and there are serious concerns that deprived areas and vulnerable people are most at risk from gambling addiction and resultant hardship.

In the next few weeks Chuka Umunna MP will be continuing his regular walkabouts with local businesses and will continue to work hard to transform their concerns into positive action in Parliament.

Commenting, Chuka Umunna MP said:

“I have written to Mary Portas to make the case for High Streets in my constituency and up and down the country. The Conservative-led Government, through actions such as the ill-advised VAT rise, has created a dangerous lack of confidence that is making life incredibly difficult for hard working local retailers.”

“Our Constituency has so many vibrant local Shops and it is essential that we do all we can to support them. I will be fighting the case for local businesses both in Parliament and on the ground in my constituency”

Chuka Umunna MP has visited the site where work is due to start this month on building the UK’s first National Black Heritage Centre.

The Black Cultural Archives have begun work to transform the derelict Raleigh Hall on Brixton’s Windrush Square into a purpose built National Black Heritage Centre.

Streatham constituent Dawn Hill, along with Black Cultural Archive CEO Paul Reid and Project Director Vivkek Malhorta. To find out more click here.

This Friday 21st October 2011, Chuka is hosting a coffee afternoon between 3:00pm and 5:00pm at the High Trees Community Development Trust (St Martins Learning Centre, 220 Upper Tulse Hill, London SW2 2NS).

Feel free to pop by at some point during the afternoon, and to invite friends, local business owners or anyone who you think might like to raise an issue, make a suggestion, or just have a chat. Please note if you have a personal casework issue you’d like to raise, it is best to contact the constituency office directly to set up a private surgery appointment.

Chuka Umunna MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills
Speech to the Central Buying Consortium Annual Conference, Thursday 13 October 2011

Good morning. Thank you for that introduction, and thank you for inviting me to be here with you this morning.

I should say that this time last week I was not expecting to be speaking to you as the Shadow Business Secretary. Last Friday I took over from my good friend, John Denham, who is one of the most thoughtful and best respected Members of Parliament. You will know John for many reasons not least because he resigned – along with Robin Cook – from the previous Labour government over the Iraq War.

I have big shoes to fill but I am blessed with having a predecessor who bequeathed to me a very good inherence and strong solid foundations on which to build and set out the Labour argument for the future direction for the UK economy.

Government spends almost £240bn of taxpayers money each year. What government buys, how it buys and who it buys from can make a massive difference to the shape and nature of our economy. If government chooses the big or the small, the insurgent or more established players, the risky new or the safely conventional – these have an affect. Whether government buys from those who train and those who pay fair wages, those who – with every pound they make – make the UK economy stronger and fairer, it matters.

And, yes, getting value for money is important but it would be a fallacy to mistake cost alone for value. We need a more thoughtful approach to procurement.

If you help us get our approach to procurement right, you help us use one of the main levers government has to shape the economy more effectively: to strengthen key sectors, to support innovators, to encourage better business practices, to train the next generation. In short – to build the economy we need.

That is what this is about and you are the experts. You help us get it right.

There are many important but technical issues about procurement that, no doubt, dominate far too many of your working hours. There will be time for those discussions in the future. But for now, our Policy Review process – the biggest overhaul of our policies carried since Tony Blair became leader of our party – is forcing us to take a step back and think about our overall approach.

Before talking about where our thinking is going on procurement, I should put it in the context of the overall Review, and the challenges facing our economy today.

Let me be clear. The task facing us economically is great. We face huge challenges. We need action and leadership to get the economy going again and laying the foundations for the future. This is must be the priority but it is where we have differences with the government. If you indulge me, I will just say a few things about this because it is important to be open and frank.

]With no growth in our economy since last autumn and unemployment rising again, with families feeling the squeeze, it’s clear that Britain now faces a real jobs and growth crisis. Yesterday we learnt unemployment has surged to 2.57 million – the highest rate in over 17 years.

Tax rises and spending cuts that go too far and too fast have crushed confidence and choked off the British recovery well before the Eurozone crisis. Choking off growth, makes it harder, not easier, to reduce the deficit.

We’ve set out a clear five-point plan for growth now – to create jobs, help struggling families and support small businesses. Tax breaks for small businesses taking on extra workers, a temporary VAT cut giving families a boost of around £450; and tax on bank bonuses to fund 100,000 jobs for young people.

It is the action we need to get the economy going and a credible plan for growth which the government is failing to deliver.

The immediate challenges are intense, but the challenges for our economy are not only short term. As a nation, we face a big choice – to carry on as before, or to set a different course for our economy and our society.

The global recession exposed deep seated problems in our economy where growth had become unbalanced: too narrowly based on a few sectors and regions, and therefore vulnerable to global shocks.
The ‘squeezed middle’ have seen wages stagnate since 2003, well before the recession hit.

There are skills gaps while simultaneously we fail to make the most of the skills of a full half of the workforce.

We face competitive challenges from traditional rivals and rise of the BRICs.

To pay our way in the future, to build an economy that works, we need private sector growth – more people starting businesses, growing businesses, succeeding in business.

To set this new direction, government cannot just stand at the sidelines.

Government must use every tool purposively and consistently to shape and support this business environment – from competition policy to taxation, and from regulation and to, yes, procurement.

It means developing institutions for collaboration and support, making sure the right finance is there, the research base, the skills base and the other elements that support innovation and growth. It means investing in infrastructure, offering certainty in the policy environment, giving businesses the confidence to invest.

It is active government shaping markets, growing key sectors of the economy, and supporting the growth of more companies which build value over time, invest long term, innovate, offer good jobs, pay fair wages, and train.

Governments cannot tell individual companies what strategy to pursue but neither should governments be indifferent to the choices they make.

There are many businesses already pursuing these strategies – it can make good business sense. But the policy environment doesn’t always mean that this is the case.

The challenge for policy makers is this: how to create the framework so that that which is good business –socially valuable, sustainable – is also that which is most profitable. Good business always being good business.

And this brings us back to procurement – getting it right so it can shape that environment. Enabling procurement to play a critical role in the economy we need for the future.
In government we took steps to improve the way services are procured.

In 2006 for example we launched the Supply2gov portal to make it easier for SMEs to access government contracts

In 2008 we commissioned a report on using public sector procurement to encourage SME growth. In the Pre-Budget Report we committed to
• advertise Government contracts worth more than £20,000 in a single free online portal;
• introduce measures to reduce bureaucracy and make opportunities more transparent for small businesses;
• standardise the qualification criteria and encourage innovation by specifying outcomes rather than prescribing solutions;
• to help SMEs get a fair deal when they are sub-contractors.
Just before we left office in the 2010 Budget:
• we set central departmental targets to increase the proportion of central government procurement spend that goes to SMEs by 15 per cent throughout the supply chain;
• we required departments to publish contracting and sub-contracting opportunities through a free single portal; and,
• we worked with main contractors to open up supply chains to SMEs.
This government has sought to build on this:
• it wants 25% of government contracts to be delivered by SMEs;
• eliminate Pre-Qualification Questionnaires (PQQs) for all central government procurements under £100,000;
• it has sought to introduce a one stop shop that displays every central government tender opportunity; and,
• it wants to iron out wasteful practices and unnecessary complexity in procurement processes.

These I am sure will be welcomed but there have been contradictory signals too – government’s adviser Sir Philip Green suggesting ways government procurement would squeeze out SMEs and delay payments is an example.

In recent months we have seen the case of Bombardier – which brought into focus the failure of the government to recognise the significance of this procurement to our future competitive success – the consequences of which have placed the future of the train manufacturing industry in the UK in jeopardy.

We believe that it is essential that there is a UK based train building industry capable of designing, building and, of course, winning orders for those trains. We are urging the government to outline the strategy for ensuring that this can happen, including for the new Crossrail rolling stock.
We want to see UK rail manufacturing to be in a position to win these orders, not put at a disadvantage following the Thameslink decision.

The UK’s train industry cannot be allowed to disappear. The jobs that the industry provides are an important element of our future success, not only in the direct manufacture but the supply chains too.

This draws me to the fundamental question we need to consider – how we ensure procurement is an engine of growth; how to improve the processes but critically the ambition – what can procurement unlock
The government is unfortunately missing this opportunity in our view.

With £240bn to spend, the government is by far and away the UK’s biggest single consumer. Procurement can and should be a driver of growth, driving innovation, opening up markets, and creating new markets. Opening up to new businesses, new ways of doing things.

It means putting procurement centre stage that we know has not always happened, across government, local government and in the public sector.

We must ask how we can demand more of procurement.

How can this buyer power be leveraged to support the kind of economy we want to see? How can we make every single pound of spending create the most value to our economy and society?
I suggest three ways:
1. Building broader objectives into public procurement contracts
We did it with the Olympics – construction contracts included clauses requiring the training of apprentices, creating 350 new apprenticeships places. And we are calling on the government to embed this approach to drive more apprenticeship places. Haringey is doing it – through its procurement process it has opened up business to SMEs and creating new employment opportunities for many long term unemployed people, while saving £8m over 5 years.

EU law is often put up as an obstacle to so-call ‘social clauses’, not least because they can limit competition. But they don’t have to. So this is an area where we are keen to explore the full potential and to test the boundaries rigorously and robustly. You tell me…

2. Creating markets for innovative products and services
In government Labour created the Small Business Research Initiative, using procurement to create markets for innovative companies who often lack financial backing during exploratory development phases. But it remains very small – worth between £10 and £15m a year. By contrast, the US SBIR programme it is modelled on has now been running for almost 30 years and is worth $2.5bn a year. Properly scaled to the differences in the size of the economies would be a programme of around £240m in the UK.

There are many more examples of procurement encouraging innovation in services, particularly with the trends towards outcome commissioning, as well as integrated commissioning at local levels, but there remains plenty of scope of driving this forward further.

3. Strategic procurement – using procurement to build sectors of global strength or strategic significance

I talked about Bombardier. The UK is going to be buying a lot of new trains over the next decade. Network Rail estimates that between 12% and 25% of the current rolling stock on British railways will need to be replaced over the next ten years. Critically, there will also be the orders for the new Crossrail trains, the process for which is due to begin.

With the Bombardier factory in Derby now in jeopardy, there is a significant likelihood that UK taxpayer money will have to leave the UK to buy the trains we need. Government procurement that took a more strategic approach might try to address this problem now.

Labour’s Defence Industrial Strategy which gave certainty to the UK industry is being replaced by a commitment to buy off the shelf. There are arguments about whether this is really is cheaper – given the costs of adaptation, licensing and servicing. But there are certainly wider costs that are also relevant, including the loss of national capabilities which should also be taken into account.

So, there we have it. Three outline principles to begin aligning procurement policy with the broader aims of our business strategy and our ambitions for the UK economy:
• Taking a broad view of the value in a contract, giving advantage to companies who train or otherwise create additional social value
• Taking risks – creating markets for innovative products and services
• Being strategic – thinking about how government procurement might support or grow sectors of strategic importance or known future demand.

Clearly there are limits to all of these approaches, as well as some tensions between them. In some circumstances there may be a tension between the first objective of achieving broader benefits, and the second of encouraging plucky innovators. But both goals should have a significant place in an overall framework, allowing explicit choices to be made about the tradeoffs in particular situations.

We would need to get the framework right, and implementation. But for now, I look forward to hearing your comments – on the broad direction of the Policy Review, as well as on the outlines of the procurement framework, where your insight will be invaluable.