14 Nov Government ministers need to stop bullying their staff, says Labour
GOVERNMENT ministers have a history of bullying staff and civil servants, and it needs to stop according to Labour’s shadow levelling-up secretary Alex Norris MP.
Speaking in the wake of claims Dominic Raab threw tomatoes at staff, Mr Norris told GB News: “It’s bullies and cowards that bully their staff. People in that power imbalance can’t really do very much about it, and simply have to put up with what we’ve seen happen.
“We’re only reading in the last sort of 24 hours some of the issues relating to the deputy prime minister (Mr Raab) and what he may or may not have thrown and it’s important that that’s given the full airing. But we do know what happened with Gavin Williamson, that’s accepted.
“I just don’t think Government ministers should be bullying civil servants and we can make this as complicated as we want in terms of what language people use or, or what other behaviours people exhibit in public, but fundamentally, I just don’t think they should do that. And I don’t really think that that should be very controversial.”
Asked about the impending Autumn Statement, he told Stephen Dixon and Ann Diamond on GB News: “We’ve got a Prime Minister who was Chancellor and was proudly boasting that he re-routed money from some of the more deprived communities to better off ones, which obviously is the reverse of levelling up.
“What we’re likely to see in this week’s budget is not going to help much. This is the reality of a government that has crashed our economy and now expects hard working people to pick up the bill for that.
“I think people will rightly be very disappointed in this. There isn’t a mandate for it and I think that’s a very good reason for a general election, frankly.”
On a windfall tax, he said: “The oil and gas giants have made eye-watering profits that they weren’t expecting…and that it would be an equitable thing for them to help meet some of the pain that the British people are feeling.
“The Government says, ‘oh, no, we’re not doing that, that will stifle investment’, which isn’t true. The companies say that’s not the case. And then eventually they do it and we’re about to see whether that’s going to happen for a third time.
“Of course, that would be the right thing to do, which is why we’ve been calling for him – we hope very much that we’re able to push them into doing it.
“There is a very important point, though, about whether anything is actually being paid in these windfall taxes, because we know that some of the big producers have avoided them altogether at the moment by saying it’s investment in fossil fuel extraction.
“I think that’s the wrong balance. So we want to see the windfall tax this week, and we want to get paid.”
Asked about media reports today about care homes still not allowing visits, he said: “We know that visiting care homes, visiting loved ones is really integral part of someone’s life both for those who are doing the visiting and for those who have visited.
“It was quite surprising to read that we would want all of these places to be doing everything they can to facilitate visiting and – it’s been shown now for a long period of time, there’s plenty of ways to do that to minimise the risk and it is surprising that that’s not happening.
“That would be exceptionally distressing as you say and that would be something we wouldn’t want to see.”
