Barry intervened during an Urgent Question in the House of Commons about the COP 27 climate summit to point out that while it may be true that the UK is reducing emissions faster than other countries, it is not sufficient to meet the targets.
He asked the minister what the government was doing to ensure there was enough “new money” - not previously announced “old money” - to fund the Glasgow Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) adequately going forward.
“Workers’ wage demands are not fuelling inflation, they are following it, and responding to it in desperation as they see their living standards eroded - first by genuinely inflationary pressures and then by company profiteering.”
Barry intervened in the House of Commons in the debate on the Autumn Statement by highlighting how profit margins for the UK’s biggest listed companies are now 73 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels.
A survey of retailers earlier this year revealed that firms are actively using inflation to boost their profits by increasing prices more than the increase in their costs - an act of gouging which then creates further waves of inflation.
Barry called on the Labour front bench to do more to make the case that workers are not causing inflation.
“When companies themselves tell us they’re ripping us off, it’s time for politicians to listen and to act.”
Watch Barry’s speech 🔽
Barry called on the Home Secretary to commit to publishing figures on the “abstraction” (taking) of Safer Neighbourhood Police Team hours, after it was revealed that Brent has seen 320 hours abstracted in the last three months.
He said it was important that the figures are made public as communities need to be able to access the information to know if the teams are there, acting for them.
Watch him ask the question 🔽
“Why is it possible to still purchase a cheap tourist to Tehran?”
Barry asks the minister why, if the government sanctions are strong enough, why travel to and from Iran has not been stopped.
Watch climate change minister Graham Stuart’s extraordinary response to Barry’s suggestion that the government is misrepresenting its record on achieving its targets on net reductions of emissions 🔽
Barry intervened in Prime Minister’s Questions to ask the (then) Prime Minister Liz Truss what, in view of her recent experiences, she intended to do to improve the mental health of the people of the country, given the mental anguish and despair being sufferred by his constituents.
Her reply was that the Health Secretary has set out a "very clear plan". She resigned the next day.
Barry warned that the government’s Energy Prices Bill, which is intended to control prices and encourage the efficient use and supply of energy, would introduce another windfall tax - but on renewables not oil and gas producers.
Speaking during the remaining stages of the Bill in the House of Commons on 17 October, he welcomed the new Chancellor’s statement announcing a Treasury-led review of the government’s energy support plan, he urged him to ditch the Investment Allowance Subsidy, which allows producers to effectively offset the temporary windfall tax, and to adopt a tax rate that the rest of the globe considers “fair and equitable”.
Some 15,626 families in Brent North are dependent on means tested benefits. Today, Barry told the Leader of the House Penny Mordaunt that failing to uprate benefits in line with inflation may save the government £3 million but it will put those families, and millions like them across the country, into deep debt and despair.
He asked whether she would arrange for a debate on the uprating of benefits, and on poverty this winter.
Barry intervened today after an Urgent Question was asked of health minister Will Quince about the mistreatment of patients at the mental health Edenfield Centre in Prestwich near Manchester, where a BBC Panorama investigation found a "toxic culture of humiliation, verbal abuse and bullying".
What, he asked, was the earliest date a whistleblower or family member contacted the department or the Care Quality Commission, and what confidence can there be in the CQC as a result?
Barry asked the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Chris Philp if, given the £60 billion borrowing for the government's energy guarantee is to be paid back by bill payers – not the oil and gas producers making record profits off the backs of the public's misery – he would consider raising the basic tax rate for producers. It's the lowest in the entire world and even raising it to the global average would raise £13.4 billion a year.
Predictably, Philp refused. This was soon after the climate minister Graham Stewart announced, in an Environmental Audit Committee in which Barry was sitting, a windfall tax on renewables – an outrageous move
Barry has today intervened in the House of Commons during an Urgent Question about the death of the young Iranian woman Mahsa Amini at the hands of the “morality police”, warning that any reduction in sanctions and unfreezing of Iranian assets would only serve to strengthen the regime and turbocharge its repression of young people.
“What assessment has the government made of the attempt by President Biden to revive the Iran nuclear deal, which would lead to such a reduction?”
Intervening in the new Chancellor’s “mini-Budget” statement, Barry challenged Kwasi Kwateng on his motives in slashing taxes.
“If the Chancellor is so optimistic about growth, will he set a timescale for it? Will it be six months? Will he retire in a year if the growth he has predicted hasn’t been achieved?
“Or was today's budget an admission that he’s going to stuff as much money into as many of his friends’ pockets before the general election in 2024?”
Barry challenged new health secretary Thérèse Coffey on the measures she announced to tackle NHS backlogs and waiting lists and shortages. He cited the experience of his constituents who waited five hours for an emergency ambulance after suffering a stroke.
“The health secretary can set all the expectations and targets she likes but she will not have the human resourse to achieve them unless she addresses the workforce strategy and the 132,000 vacancies in the NHS.”
The government’s lifting of the ban on fracking cannot be justified on environmental or economic grounds, Barry insisted.
He challenged the business secretary as to why taxpayers, who are covering 9/10ths of the investment in the incentives being given to oil and gas companies – who stand to make vast sums as a result – should not receive that amount of the profit?
Barry challenged the business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg in the House of Commons on the government’s six-month cap on the unit price of gas and electricity for businesses and how the government would pay for it in the long term.
Barry asked: “Given that the domestic rate cap is to be based on a loan, to be paid out of future bills, if the business scheme is the same, why would businesses not regard this as a tax rise deferred?”
“If not, is the business secretary really expecting it to be repaid out of general taxation by the rest of the taxpayers?”
Plans to help businesses, schools and other organisations with spiralling energy costs this winter have been announced.
Watch the business secretary’s breathtaking response 🔽
“Integrity is not commonly found in the public sphere these days. But her life was one of real integrity. We should thank God that she brought together all these virtues in her life. It was a life that was selfless. It was a life that was whole. And now it is complete.
“May her soul rest in peace.”
WATCH Barry’s tribute to Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. 🔽
“Given that the Prime Minister has been careful to frame her guarantee on tackling energy prices in terms of her refusal to tax, how will she going to explain to the British public how a levy on their bills in the future to repay the borrowing is not actually a tax?”
WATCH Barry’s interventions in today’s parliamentary debate on UK energy costs 🔽
Barry intervened in Parliament today to call on the new Leader of the House, Penny Mordaunt, to pledge a debate on the government’s failure to meet seven of the nine urgent referral cancer targets.
WATCH 🔽
Children of service personnel in Cyprus are being taught by supply teachers brought out there on employment contracts with the Ministry of Defence. Barry has today (21 July) raised the urgent issue of the MoD’s threat to sack these teachers unless they sign new contracts that abolish their pension rights and lower their terms and conditions.
He called for an urgent government statement, given that ministers profess to be against Fire and Rehire.
WATCH his question here 🔽
Barry has asked Greg Hands MP, the minister of state for business, energy and clean growth, to look at the fiscal regime around offshore oil and gas and to abolish the “obscene subsidy” which is distorting investment into outdated fossil fuels instead of renewables, which do not qualify for the investment allowance.
WATCH 🔽