Andy McDonald MP, Labour’s Shadow
Transport Secretary, responding
to the failure
of the East Coast franchise, said:

“The Government
is trying to bury the news that they’re giving Stagecoach and Virgin a get out
of jail free card to walk away from their franchise and a potential £2billion
of payments to the Treasury.

“It is
outrageous that the Transport Secretary Chris Grayling is refusing to answer
what the true cost to the public purse will be.

“Under
public ownership, the East Coast Mainline returned over £1bn to the Treasury,
outperformed its commercial competitors and kept fares down when no private
operators made the same move.

“When the
Tories cynically re-privatised the line on the eve of the 2015 General
Election, they said the decision would deliver for the British taxpayer, but
we’re now being left with a colossal tab.

“The
Government must now come clean and reveal the true cost to the public purse of
this decision and bring to an end the costly failure that is privatised rail.”

Liam Byrne MP, Labour’s Shadow Digital Minister, responding to the news that Google are facing legal action for alleged unlawful data collection, said:

“The scale of this case shows the imbalance of power between everyday people and the companies that hoover up their data to make money.

“Google ‘You Owe Us’ legal challenge seeks to bring justice to the millions of people who may have had their data unlawfully collected and, if successful, will ensure companies like Google act in good faith when it comes to users’ data.

“The Data Protection Bill is currently going through Parliament and Labour will be aiming to put trust at the heart of the UK’s new data protection system to ensure companies can innovate but only if they collect and use data responsibly.”

Angela Rayner MP, Labour’s Shadow Education
Secretary, commenting on reports the Government are set to lose £800m from the
private sale of student loans, said:

“This is just the latest evidence that the Government should abandon
their privatisation of the student loan book.

“In the Budget, they promised to assess value for money before any sale.
We now know that they have lost £800m of taxpayer’s money on this sale.

“This cannot possibly be value for money, and they should change course
now before even more of our cash is wasted on their ideologically driven
plans.”

Barbara Keeley MP, Labour’s Shadow
Minister for Social Care,
commenting on a report from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which
has found that the current system
for providing social care is not sustainable without additional funding,
said:

“The Tory Government needs to act on
the resounding verdict of the Competition and Markets Authority and end their
swingeing cuts to local authority budgets, which have caused underfunding and
instability in the social care sector since 2010.

“Due to these cuts, £6.3 billion
will have been lost from social care budgets by March next year. This has meant
less publicly funded care for those in need, increased pressure on unpaid
family carers and worse conditions for hard-pressed care staff. 

“The Tory Government must now make
clear how they will enact the will of the House of Commons to meet the funding
gap for social care and act on the recommendations of the CMA so that the
rights of self-funders are protected.

Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s
Shadow Health Secretary, responding to NHS England’s Board Meeting confirming
waiting times standards will not be met next year, said:

“NHS England’s unprecedented
confirmation that NHS constitution waiting times standards ‘will not be fully
funded and met next year’ is the direct result of Philip Hammond’s failure to
give the NHS the funding it needed in the recent Budget.

“Today NHS bosses have effectively
conceded that the 18 week target for treatment can’t be met given continued
underfunding of the NHS.

“This will mean more and more
patients waiting longer and longer in pain, discomfort and distress for
elective operations. This is the real debilitating impact on patients’ quality
of life as a result of Tory austerity.

“What’s more, there are serious
questions about the legality of effectively abandoning a standard of care
enshrined in the NHS constitution. As a matter of urgency Jeremy Hunt must
now tell us whether he intends to amend the law and the NHS Constitution
through legislation and publicly accept his Government’s funding squeeze is
jeopardizing legally guaranteed standards of patient care.”

Ends