Ian Lavery

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) for bringing this timely debate to the Chamber. As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I want to dispel some myths in the few minutes that I have got. I want us to wake up and smell the coffee, because this is not “outsourcing”. What is outsourcing? It is privatisation. One hon. Member said it is privatisation by the back door, but it is not; it is just privatisation. We have got to get to grips with how privatisation in this country is getting out of control. Who benefits and who does not benefit? The reality is that the companies are making fortunes and the workers are struggling to make ends meet. There are some private companies that are actually providing food banks in their places of work for the people they employ. How obscene is that? It is not about socialism or about even left-wing ideology; it is about decency and respect. It is about ambition and giving people a fair deal. That is what we should be about in a prosperous country like the one we live in. Who suffers under privatisation? I was one of the people who worked in a nationalised industry that was privatised over a period of time, so I have got experience of this. Who suffers? It is the workers. It has been mentioned: reduction in pay, sacking of the labour force, lack of trade union recognition—even trying to fight back—nae sick pay, nae holiday pay. It is absolutely absurd. It served them! We need to be saying what it really is, and the Government Departments are ridden with individuals who are working under the most horrendous of conditions. I pay tribute to the many workers who have worked tirelessly. Many of those in privatised companies are claiming universal credit. The company directors are trousering fortunes, while the workers are losing out on the rights that I have just mentioned. It is horrendous. Some of them cannot make ends meet. Many of them are going to work when they really should not be there, because of sickness, for example. It is just wholly unacceptable. We have got to get to grips with this privatisation. We have got no other option. We need to protect people in this country from the abuses and the exploitation by privateers, who are making fortunes at the cost of those in the industry. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to listen to what my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton and Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) said about the legal presumption of in-house employment, because the reality is that we cannot control what we do not own.