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Public Office Disqualification: Terrorism Offences
(1 month ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 759385 relating to disqualification from election candidacy for terrorism convictions.
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. I begin by thanking Richard Donaldson for creating this petition and the more than 200,000 people across the United Kingdom who signed it. I also thank the 205 people from my own constituency who added their names.
As Members know, my role today is to introduce the petition and facilitate this debate. However, having considered the evidence and having spoken to the petition creator, I believe he raises an important point that Parliament should not dismiss. At its heart this debate asks a simple question: should someone who has been convicted of terrorism offences be entitled to seek public office? For me the answer is no—not because I reject the principle of rehabilitation and not because I believe people cannot change, but because holding elected office is not an automatic right. It is a privilege bestowed by the public, and with that privilege comes an expectation that those who seek to represent our communities demonstrate respect for the democratic institutions they wish to serve.
For most people, the current law simply does not pass the common sense test. We already prevent certain people from standing for elected office. Individuals may be disqualified because they are subject to certain bankruptcy restrictions. Others are disqualified because of corrupt electoral practices, certain sexual offence notification requirements or offences involving intimidation of candidates. Yet someone with a historical terrorism conviction may still be entitled to stand for election. Many members of the public struggle to understand that distinction.
Terrorism is not an ordinary crime. It is an attack on democracy itself. It seeks to replace political debate with violence. It seeks to intimidate Governments, frighten communities and undermine the rule of law. That is why Parliament has consistently recognised terrorism as different. We have unique counter-terrorism powers, unique sentencing provisions and unique monitoring arrangements following release from prison. We recognise that terrorism is fundamentally different because it is directed against the democratic values on which this country is built. If we accept that principle elsewhere in our law—and I believe we should—it is entirely reasonable to ask whether those convicted of terrorism offences should be permitted to hold democratic office.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Reform)
Shahid Butt is a convicted terrorist. He was convicted of attempting to blow up the British consulate in Yemen, an Anglican church and a hotel. That vile individual should never have been allowed into the UK, let alone be able to stand for the local council. It makes an absolute joke of our democracy, and I strongly support the idea of changing the law so that it can never happen again. But does the hon. Member agree that what should terrify us more than anything else in his case is that 452 people who have the vote voted for him? They voted for a convicted terrorist to represent them in the city hall in Birmingham. That is what should keep us awake at night.
John Lamont
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for making that point. I will come on to that individual’s case shortly, but I do share his concerns. Indeed, there were cross-party concerns at the time of that individual’s candidacy—both Labour and Conservative politicians expressed concerns about that. As I say, I will move on to that later in my speech.
Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)
I do not wish to dwell too much on this point, because we will all come back to it later, but in the interests of accuracy I think it is also important to record that 90% of people in the Sparkhill ward did not vote for that candidate.
John Lamont
I am grateful for that point. That is accurate, but the fact that anybody would want to vote for a convicted terrorist does raise serious questions, which I think we should be concerned about.
Every day we walk through this palace, reminded of the human cost of terrorism. Within these walls are memorials to Members of Parliament murdered in terrorist attacks, including Airey Neave, Ian Gow, Jo Cox and Sir David Amess. Their lives were taken because they believed in democracy. Those memorials serve as a permanent reminder that terrorism is not simply another criminal offence; it is an attack on democratic life itself.
We should not forget the many other victims of terrorism across our country. From Lockerbie to the 7 July bombings, the Manchester Arena attack and the attack here at Westminster in 2017, terrorism has left deep scars on communities throughout the United Kingdom. Those attacks were intended not just to kill innocent people, but to undermine our confidence in democracy and the rule of law.
The petition before us arises because many members of the public were surprised to discover that under our current law, someone convicted of terrorism offences in certain circumstances could stand for elected office. Historical convictions, even for very serious offences, may not prevent someone from standing. Indeed, candidates largely self-certify that they are eligible, with returning officers having only limited powers to determine whether someone is disqualified. The Government’s response to the petition states that there are currently “no plans” to change those rules. I hope that today’s debate will persuade the Minister to think again.
As we heard from the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), the catalyst for this petition was the case of Shahid Butt, who stood as a candidate in Birmingham during this year’s local elections. It is a matter of public record that he was convicted in Yemen in 1999 of involvement in a terrorist bombing plot that targeted, among other sites, the British consulate and that he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. Mr Butt has consistently maintained that he was wrongly convicted and that his confession was obtained through torture. Those claims have been reported widely. Members may hold differing views about that case, but today’s debate is about something much broader than one individual. It is about whether our electoral law contains an obvious gap that should now be addressed.
There is also a practical consideration that deserves attention. If someone convicted of terrorism offences were elected to this House, the parliamentary authorities would have little choice but to issue them with a parliamentary security pass, allowing routine access to much of the parliamentary estate. Members often focus on ourselves, but this is also about the thousands of people who work here every day: our staff, Clerks, police officers, security personnel, cleaners, caterers and many others. They deserve to know that Parliament takes their safety seriously.
Some will argue that once someone has served their sentence, they should once again enjoy the full rights of citizenship. That is an important principle, but society already accepts that certain positions carry additional responsibilities and require higher standards. Serving in Parliament, in a devolved legislature or on a local council is different from ordinary employment. They are positions of public trust. The public are entitled to expect exceptionally high standards from those who seek those positions. This debate is therefore not about preventing rehabilitation. It is not about denying someone the opportunity to rebuild their life. It is about deciding who should exercise democratic authority on behalf of others. Those are not the same things.
Others may point to Northern Ireland and the peace process. It is important that we approach that history carefully and respectfully. The Good Friday agreement transformed Northern Ireland and brought to an end decades of violence. Nothing I say today should diminish that achievement. Indeed, we should rightly distinguish between those convicted of terrorism offences and figures such as Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams, neither of whom was convicted of terrorism offences. Today’s petition concerns something much narrower. It concerns people who have been convicted of terrorism offences. That distinction matters.
It is also worth noting that concern about this issue is not confined to one political party. Following the Birmingham case, both Labour and Conservative Members publicly expressed concern that someone convicted of terrorism offences could stand for election. Victims of terrorism have questioned whether such individuals should be eligible to represent the public in a democracy. This should not be a partisan issue. It should be about maintaining public confidence in our democratic institutions.
Democracy depends on not only free elections but public confidence in those elected. If the public lose faith that Parliament is capable of drawing sensible lines around who is fit to hold elected office, that confidence is weakened. Parliament should never be afraid to legislate where the public can plainly see that the law no longer reflects common sense. I was encouraged to hear the Secretary of State for Defence recently acknowledge that the Government are considering this issue through the defending democracy taskforce. That is welcome, but today’s debate gives Members an opportunity to go further. The obvious question is: what should change?
The petition proposes a straightforward legal disqualification, preventing those convicted of terrorism offences from standing for elected office. The detail would require careful consideration. There would undoubtedly need to be safeguards where overseas convictions were concerned, to ensure that politically motivated convictions, handed down by regimes without independent judicial systems, were not automatically recognised. Those are important drafting questions, but they are not reasons for doing nothing; they are reasons for careful legislation.
The principle is clear: those convicted of terrorism offences should not be entrusted with elected office. Our democracy is one of Britain’s greatest achievements. We rightly welcome robust political disagreement; we encourage free speech and we welcome vigorous campaigning, but democracy also has the right—indeed, the responsibility—to defend itself against those who have sought to destroy it through violence. That is not intolerance; it is common sense, it is resilience, and it is about protecting the integrity of our democratic institutions.
I thank Richard Donaldson once again for bringing this matter before Parliament. Petitions such as this demonstrate democracy working as it should: a member of the public identified what he believed to be a gap in our law, more than 200,000 people agreed, and today Parliament has the opportunity to consider whether that gap should be closed. For my part, I believe that it should. I hope that the Minister will move beyond acknowledging the issue and commit the Government to examining proportionate, workable and robust legislative options. Those who seek to destroy our democracy should not be able to exploit it.
Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) on the thoughtful and able way in which he introduced this important debate, and I thank the 583 Birmingham Northfield constituents who took the time to sign the petition.
This petition raises important questions about democratic participation and the potential abuse of our political systems, and it is right that we are debating it. I understand and share the sentiment behind the petition. Most people would hold the view that terrorists should not hold elected office, and certainly not positions of executive authority. There is also a valid question to be asked about the effective five-year prohibition against standing for election that applies in practice for domestic convictions of terrorism but not for overseas convictions. Those overseas convictions are not always straightforward, as has already been acknowledged, and I am sure that we will come back to that point during the debate.
It has been said that there are important matters of detail to work through. One of those is that the petition calls for people who hold such a conviction to be barred from standing for public office, but it would not, as drafted, debar appointments to the House of Lords or to senior civil service positions. I do not want to spend long on this point, because I suspect that it is a drafting issue, but hon. Members will recall when a former member of the Revolutionary Communist party—an organisation that acted as an apologist for the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign—was appointed to the other place a few years ago and has never disavowed those views. That is a particularly important point for colleagues in Warrington, and for all those affected by the Brimingham pub bombings.
We must also be mindful of the precedent set by the peace process in Northern Ireland. One of the aims of the Good Friday agreement was to permit people to move from physical force republicanism and physical force loyalism to democratic participation. That peace was built on the primacy of the ballot box, and I am sure that it is not the desire or the intention of the petition’s drafters to undo any part of that settlement.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
Does it come as a surprise to the hon. Gentleman, if he is correct about the purpose of the Belfast agreement in that regard, that former terrorists who were elected continue to this very day to glorify and regularly celebrate their acts of terrorism? Surely that is not compatible with their having turned their backs on terrorism.
Laurence Turner
I think I have made it clear in my remarks about other representatives that I hold no truck at all with apologism for or the glorification of terrorism.
There is one more problem. The petition seeks to disbar from public office all those who hold overseas terrorism convictions, but such a disqualification could, if drafted without the greatest of care and precision, effectively allow foreign Governments to determine who can stand for election in the United Kingdom. Authoritarian regimes routinely misuse terrorism laws against political opponents and democracy activists. One example is Russia. UN special rapporteurs have said that the Russian Government deploy a
“repressive toolbox targeting civil society…A key part of the government strategy has been to abuse anti-extremism and counter-terrorism provisions by designating civil society organisations as ‘extremist’ or ‘terrorist’, and bringing criminal charges, including extremism and terrorism-related, against their members or anyone associated with them, including victims of human rights violations.”
We need only to think about parliamentary colleagues who have been sanctioned by regimes overseas because of comments they have made in this place. Critics of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine are now routinely labelled as terrorists or terrorist sympathisers. We cannot create the prospect of British citizens being tried in absentia by states they may never have stepped foot in and then effectively being barred from running for council or parliamentary positions. However well-intentioned the petition’s aim, we cannot hand Vladimir Putin a veto over our political representation or any other aspect of British public life.
It is helpful to return to the case that led to the petition—that of an independent candidate in Birmingham, the city of which I am proud to represent a part. While I do not seek to tar them all with the same brush, Birmingham had no shortage this year of independent candidates who preached messages of division and seemed to enjoy bringing the circus of national and international media attention down on parts of the city. We even had candidates who took their direction from or co-ordinated with George Galloway, a man who used to make a pulpit out of the Russian and Iranian state broadcasters and who now apparently lives in Russia.
In Sparkhill, one of the independent candidates was a man called Shahid Butt. Mr Butt holds a Yemeni terrorism conviction dating back to 1998-99. We can also look to more recent events to see why Mr Butt is utterly unfit to be a community representative or elected politician. Before the planned Aston Villa match against Maccabi Tel Aviv, he said this on social media—I have seen the original, and it is not taken out of context:
“if someone comes into your face, you knock his teeth out. That’s my message”.
It is worth pointing out that while it is right that we debate the petition’s important proposals, the people of Sparkhill rejected Mr Butt’s candidature. He lost decisively and two Labour councillors were returned. In that case, we needed good organisation and trust in the people of this country.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley (Tahir Ali) would forgive some comments about part of his constituency. Much has been said in the national press about Sparkhill, egged on by inflammatory comments made two years ago by a former Member of this place who should have known better. My mum was born on Evelyn Road in Sparkhill, and I feel a certain defensiveness when that area or any other part of Birmingham is used as a national political football. Many of us are fed up, and I am fed up of the national and social media tourists who think they can use Birmingham as a passing canvas to propagate stereotypes for cheap clicks, and who give the oxygen of publicity to unrepresentative ideologues and self-obsessed narcissists who crave attention. I am very glad that this year, in Sparkhill, their politics was defeated.
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for opening the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee, of which I am a member. I also thank all the petitioners from across the country who kindly signed the petition which, put simply, asks whether those convicted of terrorism offences should be permanently barred from standing for elected public office. That is a serious question that deserves careful consideration by Members.
Before I go any further, let me be clear that it is my firm belief that we should never be in a situation where someone convicted of terrorism can stand for office in this country. I accept that we cannot always rely on the integrity of some overseas courts, but a terrorism conviction is incredibly serious and should have an impact on a person’s right to stand for and be elected to public office.
There has, quite rightly, been a lot of emphasis on the specific case of Shahid Butt, who, as we have heard, stood for election to the Sparkhill ward in the May 2026 local elections for Birmingham city council. At the time, it was known that Mr Butt had previously been sentenced in Yemen to five years in prison for terrorism, after being convicted with five other UK nationals of plotting to blow up the British consulate there, among other locations. This individual should never have been permitted to stand for election and—as others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, have said—it is deeply worrying that people in the ward voted for someone who had previously been convicted of terrorism offences.
This debate is incredibly important because it opens up a much wider conversation about who can and cannot stand for public office. It is right that we properly scrutinise any convictions that have been awarded by foreign courts, but surely the fact that a conviction has been awarded sparks a level of interest in an individual, so I urge the Government to consider tightening the rules. The reality is that if someone becomes elected, having previously been convicted of terrorism offences, either to this place or to a local authority, they not only represent their ward members or constituents but have access to information. Public confidence is at risk of being derailed because of that individual. What does it say about democracy in this country when an individual who has previously been convicted of terrorism offences is allowed to stand for election?
I do not think the Government’s response to the petition is anywhere near good enough. They have responded by saying that they
“currently have no plans to change the disqualification criteria”
for those standing for election who have been convicted of such offences, but that they keep the counter-terrorism framework
“under constant review to ensure it is fit for purpose.”
I say gently to the Minister that the current scenario is not fit for purpose if someone such as Mr Butt was able to stand for election in the May 2026 Birmingham city council elections. Given the level of concern expressed in the debate, what will the Government be doing to tighten up provisions to deal with what the petitioner is ultimately asking for?
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. I commend the petitioners who brought forward the important issue we are debating. I certainly endorse both the spirit and the letter of the petition, but I want to make an important point. If the Government are ever to act on this matter, as they should, they must act on a UK-wide basis. I say that as someone who represents a constituency in Northern Ireland, where too often a double standard has been applied. We should not and must not have a double standard on the issue of terrorists being allowed to be elected in one part of the United Kingdom but not in another.
I say that in the context of the sad experience of Northern Ireland. We have had a gallery of serious terrorist convicts elected not just to the Northern Ireland Assembly, and not just to this House—they do not take their seats but get all the expenses that the rest of us get; some have gone on to hold governmental office in Northern Ireland. I think of some of the more notorious ones, such as the Old Bailey bomber, Gerry Kelly, who came to this city to bomb the Old Bailey. A man died and, in due course, Gerry Kelly was convicted and put where he ought to have been—in prison. He escaped, shooting a prison officer in the head in the course of his escape. He was then able to stand for and be elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly. More than that, he was able to become a junior Minister to the First Minister of Northern Ireland. And more than that, he is to this day a member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board. Think of the absurdity of that: an Old Bailey bomber sitting in judgment over a police service on the Northern Ireland Policing Board.
If the Government ever act as they should, they must take action across this United Kingdom to prevent all those with terrorist convictions from attaining office. Of course, Kelly is not alone. There are many more, including Conor Murphy, a man who was elected to this House. He has never served here, because Sinn Féin refuse to take their seats, but he still got all the expenses of this House. He is a man who was convicted of the possession of explosives and given a five-year sentence, and he still has unanswered questions about his knowledge of the murder of young Paul Quinn in south Armagh. Yet he is a man who was once an MP, then a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and then a Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive. That is what happens when we do not fetter the rights of those who have taken up the bomb and the gun and we allow them to abuse the democratic process.
I think of another continuing member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Pat Sheehan, who got 24 years for an attempted booby-trap bomb. He still serves as an elected representative. I think of Paul Butler, who was convicted of the murder of a policeman. The Principal Deputy Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Carál Ní Chuilín, is a convicted terrorist. She was convicted for a booby-trap attack on a police station. There are many more besides. That illustrates what happens when we do not address an issue like this. There are abiding lessons from the experience of Northern Ireland
I must correct the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), who said that Martin McGuinness had no convictions. Martin McGuinness was convicted twice by the Dublin criminal court of membership of the IRA, which is a terrorist offence. Yet he went on to become Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland.
There are two abiding consequences of allowing terrorists to be elevated to elected office. The first is that it sanitises the very acts of terrorism. As I said in my intervention on the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner), we have a situation in Northern Ireland where regularly, weekend after weekend, elected representatives glorify acts of terrorism and salute the so-called bravery of those who were what they call freedom fighters and what the rest of us call vile terrorists. For example, to this very day the First Minister will regularly salute the memory of terrorists. She does that from a position of elected office, and that elevates, sanitises and justifies the very acts of those terrorists. That is the fallout of allowing terrorists to be elected to public office.
The second, chilling, abiding consequence of allowing terrorists to be elected is that it sends a very dangerous message to the next generation of people who might be tempted to tamper and get involved in terrorism, because what do they see? They see that it worked for the previous generation of terrorists. They end up in the highest offices in the land, so it incentivises rather than disincentivises the pursuit of terrorism.
If young people, misled by dissident republicans in Northern Ireland, look at the Sinn Féin Benches and see multiple former terrorists presenting and parading as statespeople, having attained elected office, what message does it send to those young people? It sends a message that terrorism worked for them—“So why not for us?”, they might think. That is one of the dangers of allowing the elevation of terrorists into elected office. An act of terrorism is an act that deliberately takes on the political system to destroy it by the bomb and the bullet. It is wholly incongruous, given the definition of terrorism, to then have those terrorists, still boasting of their acts of terrorism, involved at the highest levels of that system.
I come back to my first point. If the Government are to act on this petition, and they should, they need to act on a nationwide basis across the United Kingdom. We cannot have one rule for one and another for another. There cannot be any hiding behind what is euphemistically called the peace process in Northern Ireland to justify the elevation of terrorists, because peace came in Northern Ireland—I will correct some Members here—not because of the Belfast agreement but because our gallant security forces defeated the terrorists, who were then, sadly, able to win the peace and gain what they gained. With those thoughts, I strongly support the petition, and I salute those who brought it to the House.
Zöe Franklin (Guildford) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for his opening remarks, and the petitioners who brought the petition today.
Public trust in our democracy is sadly at an all-time low due to broken manifesto commitments, resignations or just the perceived lack of accountability that has led to general political disillusion for so many. Every failure of standards and every perception that rules do not apply equally risks further damaging confidence in not only us as MPs but our democratic institutions.
The petition was signed by over 200,000 people across the country, including 227 of my constituents in Guildford, and it asks a question that goes to the heart of our democracy: who is fit to stand for public office and how do we protect the institutions that make our democracy work? We Liberal Democrats believe that we should be working hard to restore public confidence in our democratic institutions. Those who have sought to undermine that confidence through political violence should face serious consequences.
However, the question raised by the petition is not a simple one. Those who signed it are asking beyond whether someone convicted of terrorism offences should be able to stand for elected office; they are asking whether the system is serious about protecting itself. They are asking whether we understand what public office is for. The UK already disqualifies certain people with criminal convictions from holding elected office. Anyone sentenced to three months or more in prison is barred from serving on an English local authority for five years. Police and crime commissioner candidates are disqualified if they have ever been convicted of an imprisonable offence. MPs serving prison sentences of more than a year are disqualified under the Representation of the People Act 1981, so a framework is already in place. The question is whether it goes far enough for terrorism offences specifically.
We do not think that it would be right to bar every person with any historic conviction from ever standing for office; that would be disproportionate and cut against the principle of rehabilitation. But terrorism and national security offences are different. They are, by definition, attacks on the institutions that the person may later seek to serve. It is reasonable for Parliament to treat them as a special case.
Any new prohibition, however, must meet two tests. First, it must comply with the 1998 Human Rights Act. Restrictions on the right to stand for election must be proportionate and subject to proper legal safeguards. That is not a barrier to action; it is the framework that any workable law will have to fit within. Secondly, any prohibition must be consistent with the Good Friday Agreement. The constitutional settlement in Northern Ireland has held peace for a generation, and legislation drafted without regard to it could do real damage. That is a practical consideration, not a theoretical one, and I hope the Minister will address it directly.
Within those tests, though, there is a clear route forward. The Elections Act 2022 already allows courts to issue disqualification orders, but only for five years. The Liberal Democrats support giving courts the power to issue longer disqualification orders, so that people who pose an ongoing threat to our democracy can be barred from public office for as long as that threat lasts.
Currently, the Representation of the People Bill is making its way through Parliament. It provides a great opportunity for the Government to make changes to our electoral system. My hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) has tabled an amendment that I fully support, which would prevent anyone convicted of offences relating to the promotion, incitement or use of political violence from making donations to political parties. If we agree that people who have used violence against our democracy should not sit in its chambers, we should also agree that they should not be funding the parties that do. I ask the Minister to look at that amendment seriously at the next stage of the Bill.
There is a wider point about how nominations are handled. Returning officers currently have to accept nominations at face value. They cannot investigate allegations or reject a nomination because they think someone might be disqualified. As candidates self-declare their eligibility, the system depends on honesty. It is worth the Government asking whether that is still fit for purpose.
Tackling extremism also requires more than legal disqualification. It requires the police and prosecutors to have the resources and training to prevent and prosecute hate crimes. It requires protective funding for places of worship, schools and community centres that have been the targets of attacks, and it requires all of us in public life to think very carefully about the rhetoric that we use and about the rhetoric that has too often been the precursor to violence.
The Government currently have no plans to change the existing disqualification criteria. I hope that, having listened to the debate, the Minister will be willing to go further than that. Public trust is hard won and easily lost. On this issue, the Government can show that they take that trust seriously.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) on the way in which he introduced this complex debate.
Let me start by addressing the issue that prompted the petition that we are debating. Many of us will have heard of Councillor Robert Alden, the leader of the Conservative group in Birmingham, who called on voters to “help keep extremists out” of Birmingham city council. We have heard examples from a number of different parties of how, in response to a high-profile individual with a very serious conviction, there was a sense across the political system in that city that they would not welcome division into their local politics. Although some in the ward voted for that individual, the community exercised what I think most of us would respect as being good judgment.
That leads to the broader question of how, particularly in local elections where turnout can be extremely low—sometimes as low as 20% at ward level—and in complicated politics with sometimes five or more political parties and a number of independent candidates, we ensure that people who wish to bring extremism into politics do not use those types of elections to leverage public office to pursue extremist aims.
My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) represents a community that has had to face and deal with some tensions, and he has led the response to that extremely effectively. He set out in his clear contribution that we need to ensure that in our politics and democracy—how we come together to collectively make the best decisions to support our communities and national interest—we do not see people seeking to leverage political office to create division.
This debate comes at a time when there is a bigger picture when it comes to those seeking to import disputes from other parts of the world into our politics. All of us, as constituency MPs, deal with that on a daily basis. Sometimes there are heartfelt requests for the intervention of the British state. I recently met constituents who wanted to talk to me about access to reservoirs and water in Sri Lanka. They felt that people in their country would respect the intervention of the British Government and that it would produce a positive impact on something directly affecting the lives of their friends, family and relations in a community with which they, like Britain, have a strong connection.
However, there are also those who seek to use British politics as a means of pursuing conflict and division, and clearly we do not welcome that. In considering cases like that of Shahid Butt, we know that Yemen is a country beset by terrible conflict and violence that have cost the lives of many thousands of innocent people. We do not want that conflict to be pursued either in Birmingham city council’s town hall or in any other part of our politics.
The challenge for the Government, who currently hold the responsibility to address this issue, is how we strike the right balance when seeking to draw boundaries around who is eligible for public office in our country. We are a country that respects and cherishes freedom of speech, and we support the right to the freedom of religion and belief. We believe, and it is enshrined in our rules, that there should be a path to redemption and reconciliation for people who break the law or the norms of our society. However, as politics becomes an increasingly contested space, we need to ensure that we balance those principles with preserving the integrity of our politics.
People could seek local office not to benefit the wider community but because they want a decision to be made in favour of a planning application, a grant from the council or the sale of a piece of land to the benefit of them and their associates. People could also seek election to this Parliament to try to change the policy of the British Government in respect of interventions in conflict, wars and disputes in other countries. None of those things is about the longer-term interests of the British people.
Given the rising tide of antisemitism, which most of us will have heard about from our constituents—the Maccabi football team case in Birmingham was a classic example—we need to ensure that our governance and local ethics are free from the taint of extremism, wherever it may be found. The official Opposition support the Government in seeking to take forward their policies on this area.
I reflect on what the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) set out in respect of the complex history of Northern Ireland. It must be difficult for members of that community to find themselves face to face with people who are not only terrorists but may have been involved in the murder or harm of their own relatives. I have personally heard about that from Northern Ireland politicians. They have told me what it is like to sit in a council chamber knowing that somebody there was directly involved in the killing of someone very close to them, and trying to work out how to put that dispute behind them and move forward in the interests of the community, while not disrespecting the memory of those they loved.
Sorcha Eastwood (Lagan Valley) (Alliance)
I would add that this is not complex, in so far as terrorism is always wrong. All communities in Northern Ireland knew and understood that throughout the troubles. When it comes to the wholesale rewriting of history, our job now, through the Representation of the People Bill, which we are taking through Parliament, and the debate on the petition today, is to ensure that those who continue to endorse and glorify terrorism are dealt with.
David Simmonds
The hon. Member has set out clearly, and I think boosted, the point about the complexity. She is absolutely right that we should not have a situation where someone feels that their election to office overrides their obligation to the basic good conduct and due process we expect of all politicians—the basic respect for human rights, the lives of other people and everything that makes this country strong.
We need to make sure—I am sure the Minister will—that the Government reflect on the long-term lessons from Northern Ireland. This is not just about what Shahid Butt may have done in Yemen in 1999; it is about our experience as a country of terrorism influencing our politics and our communities, and about making sure those lessons are taken into account, so that we can be better protected for the future.
The Opposition will support the Government in seeking to bring forward whatever policy changes are necessary, and some suggestions have been made in the debate about what those might look like. That could include a test specifically around convictions for terrorism or around crimes of violence that would impact on the suitability of someone for public office. It could include how we work with other countries to ensure that convictions abroad are captured through the nominations process, so that we know what people may have been convicted of and are able to make an effective appraisal of the soundness of that conviction—recognising that a conviction in Russia or China may not carry the same weight in the view of our politics as a conviction in France, Germany or Ireland.
We pledge to work with the Government to seek to address this issue and make sure that all of our communities, for the long-term future, can have total confidence in the integrity of our political system.
The Minister for Local Government and Homelessness (Alison McGovern)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for moving the motion, and all hon. Members who have participated in this important debate.
I wholly agree with what the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk said about terrorism. All those who bear the scars, the pain and the trauma of political violence know that the value of our democracy is not just good government, but the right of us all to peace. I feel proud every day of the work my predecessors did in office to bring about peace on these islands, and I am glad the hon. Member reasserted the value of that peace through this debate.
Democracy depends on public participation, so it is only right and fitting that I acknowledge and thank the more than 200,000 people who signed the petition, which calls for a ban on anyone convicted of terrorism offences from standing for public office. The Government recognise the concern that underpins the petition: public confidence in our democratic institutions matters, and terrorism represents one of the gravest threats to our society, as Members have said. Although the House clearly understands that the threat of terrorism is serious, the question is whether a further electoral disqualification is the right, proportionate and effective response, and how any such change would sit alongside both the current and wider proposed legal frameworks.
In my response, I will set out what the Government are doing, but first I want to respond to what Members have said by repeating the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley North (Dan Jarvis)—now the Defence Secretary—from Question Time on 8 June. In response to the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers), he said:
“the defending democracy taskforce…is looking carefully at the issue…The Government are considering whether further action is required, and I should be happy to work with him on it.”—[Official Report, 8 June 2026; Vol. 787, c. 10.]
I will make sure that the Defence Secretary sees a copy of the debate we have had today, and I again extend that offer to Members to work with the defending democracy taskforce on these issues. I thank the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) for his offer, and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) for her interest. I know that the Defence Secretary will be grateful for the points they have raised.
It is worth noting, as Members have, the wider context in which the petition has come before the House. As has been set out, during the May local elections there were reports about an individual standing for local office who had previously been convicted of terrorism offences overseas. As we all know in this House, elections are democracy in action. The community considered the candidates before them and made its choice at the ballot box, and that individual was not elected. I recognise what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner) said about Birmingham, and he is right to stand up for the good sense of the people of Birmingham. I look forward to being in the fine city of Birmingham on Thursday to hear more about issues we are working on there.
Our system places trust in not only legal thresholds but the judgment of the electorate. People will ask whether somebody with a serious terrorism conviction should be able to stand at all, even if the electorate do ultimately reject them.
Robbie Moore
Before we move on from Shahid Butt, I want to be clear that he was allowed to stand for local elections. The Government have said they currently have no plans to change the disqualification criteria for those standing for election. Why is that? At the moment, somebody convicted of terrorism offences is allowed to stand. Why would the Government not want to change that?
Alison McGovern
As I set out to Members at the beginning of my contribution, the now Defence Secretary has said that the defending democracy taskforce is keeping this under review.
I will now discuss the disqualification framework and set out the current position. In England, a person is disqualified from being elected to, or being a member of, a local authority if they have been convicted of an offence and sentenced to imprisonment for three months or more, including a suspended sentence, within the previous five years. Candidates are required to declare that they are not disqualified when they submit nomination papers, and making a false statement is a criminal offence. Where eligibility is disputed, that is a matter for the courts. That would be particularly true where the issues may involve historic convictions or offences committed overseas. Clearly, returning officers cannot make subjective judgments over the suitability of eligible candidates.
The phrase “standing for public office” covers a wide range of roles, each with different responsibilities and existing disqualification rules. Changing those rules would mean carefully considering whether the same approach should apply to not just councillors, but mayors, police and crime commissioners, and Members of Parliament and devolved Governments. Any exclusion such as that proposed must be principled, proportionate and legally robust. A lifetime or indefinite ban is the most serious restriction. If Parliament chooses to create such a bar, it must be precise about who it captures and why it is necessary, and safeguard against unfair or unintended consequences that prevent citizens from engaging in our democracy.
Let me turn briefly to the counter-terrorism framework. The threat from terrorism is always evolving, which is why we always keep our broader counter-terrorism framework under review and ensure that our operational partners have the tools they need to mitigate risk to the public. Independent of disqualification from elected office, the UK has one of the strongest counter-terrorism frameworks in the world. That includes a range of specialist counter-terrorism powers that support detection and disruption of terrorist risk, as well as a robust toolkit for managing terrorist offenders upon release. That is supported through the independent scrutiny provided by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation.
Electoral law determines who may stand for office; counter-terrorism law exists to provide the police and other operational partners with a toolkit to disrupt, investigate and prosecute terrorism-related activity. Alongside both, the Government are taking action to strengthen our democracy and electoral integrity, and to protect those who participate in our democracy—I just came from the statement that the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), whose was responsible for the Representation of the People Bill, gave in the Commons Chamber.
Harassment and intimidation of voters, electoral staff and campaigners, both online and in person, are totally unacceptable and have a profoundly detrimental impact on our democratic process. Impersonation and fraudulent nominations reduce the trust integral to democracy. That is why this Government have introduced the Representation of the People Bill to take decisive action to secure our elections against those who threaten them, to protect those who participate, to ensure that our democracy remains open and accessible to legitimate voters, and to strengthen and preserve our democracy for the next generation.
Requiring candidates to submit ID and sign a declaration to confirm that they understand the legal consequences of providing false information will strengthen public confidence without creating unnecessary barriers to standing. The Bill will empower courts to give tougher sentences to those who abuse candidates, campaigners, elected representatives and electoral staff. The measures will be supported by working with the Electoral Commission and the Speaker’s Conference to develop an updated code of conduct for campaigning and improved safety for returning officers and candidates.
From the moment a candidate puts themselves forward and asks the public to place trust in them, they are subject to public scrutiny. Disqualification rules decide whether someone is legally allowed to stand for election; they do not decide whether that person has the character, judgment or conduct to serve—that is for the public to decide at the ballot box. Once elected, Members are expected to uphold codes of conduct based on the seven principles of public life: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership, which are the foundations of trust in public life.
Sorcha Eastwood
I want to pick up on the Minister’s point that it is for the electorate to decide. In the case of Northern Ireland, we made the decision—it was a bitter pill—to allow people who were terrorists to get out of jail early as part of a wider peace process. Where some of those people have gone on to attain elected office, which is their right, we have seen a rewriting of history. Therefore, it is not just the people who are there to decide; we as a state retain the right to make sure that past terrorism is regarded as wrong and that those who continue to propagate it by other means are held accountable.
Alison McGovern
There is no excuse or justification for terrorism. I repeat those standards, which we must all uphold in public life, for that reason. The hon. Lady made her point clearly and directly on the record.
Alison McGovern
I will give way very briefly—I do not want to detain the House.
Jim Allister
The Minister talks about standards in voting and public life. As I indicated in my speech, weekend after weekend, we have people in public life glorifying terrorism and saluting the memories of their fallen colleagues, as they call them, who were vile, vicious terrorists. How is that upholding any standard in public life?
Alison McGovern
I simply say again that there is absolutely no justification for terrorism. All of us who seek elected office are responsible for upholding the standards I just read out.
We are all too aware in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government that the current local government standards framework does not have the teeth it needs. Where elected members fall short of the standards the public rightly expects, there must be meaningful ways to hold them to account. Specifically in English local government, the vast majority of councillors serve their communities with dedication and integrity. Poor behaviour, though rare, can have a profound impact by damaging trust, undermining the performance of local government and deterring good candidates from contesting elections. If we want high-quality candidates to come forward, they need the confidence that local government is a serious, respectful and safe environment in which to serve.
That is why we will introduce a framework that commands public confidence, which will include a mandatory code of conduct for local government; appropriate sanctions, such as suspension and disqualification for multiple breaches; and fair processes, such as a clear appeals route for complainants and members. Last year, we published the response to the consultation on strengthening the standards framework for local authorities in England. We have a substantial and ambitious legislative programme, and there was no capacity for a dedicated Bill to enact those reforms this time, but we remain committed to strengthening the framework and intend to bring forward legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows.
The 200,000 people who signed the petition raise a serious and legitimate question about whether the current framework is sufficient, and as I mentioned in opening, the defending democracy taskforce is considering it. Existing disqualification criteria, candidate declarations and public scrutiny, alongside our wider counter-terrorism powers, provide significant safeguards from immediate threats. However, we are going further, and we will strengthen our systems to protect our democracy, embed high standards of Member conduct and rebuild trust in public office. Any change in the law would need to be workable for electoral administrators, fair to candidates, robust in the courts and clear to the public and, most importantly, to uphold the values of democracy that we hold dear. I am sure Members in this House will continue to engage with this most serious of issues.
John Lamont
I thank all the Members who participated in this important debate, particularly the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner), my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) and the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister). All Members made very valid points, particularly both the Members from Northern Ireland—the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim and the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) —who are obviously acutely aware of the challenges of having terrorists operating in their democratic institutions. I apologise to the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim; I totally forgot that Martin McGuinness had been convicted. Of course, anybody who is convicted of a terrorism offence should not be allowed to stand for office.
I appreciate the Minister’s response and her initially positive style, but I am a bit disappointed with her conclusion. This is such an important principle: people who want to destroy our democracy, who want to pull the rug from under us and who have gone to great lengths to bring down everything that we in this place believe in, should absolutely not be allowed to stand for election, whether that is for local government, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly or the UK Parliament in Westminster. If they have ever held those fundamental views about bringing down the very pillars of what our country believes in, they absolutely should not be allowed to stand for Parliament. I was disappointed that the Minister could not quite bring herself to say that.
Yes, there are challenges around overseas convictions, but we employ very clever drafters for our Government; they can come up with wording to get around that to ensure that those who have been wrongly accused of something overseas are not debarred from standing for election. Yes, we have disqualification rules, but we should be able to extend them further to ensure that terrorists—those who want to destroy our country and the institutions we in this place guard and protect dearly—are barred from standing for Parliament.
I hope the Minister and her Government will reflect on today’s debate and on what the petitioner and all those who signed the petition put forward. I thank Richard Donaldson again for bringing this petition forward, and all Members who have taken part.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered e-petition 759385 relating to disqualification from election candidacy for terrorism convictions.
Ceramics Industry
(1 month ago)
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Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 764785 relating to support for the ceramics industry.
It is a pleasure, as ever, to see you in the Chair, Dr Murrison. Before I get going, I declare that I am a member of the general, municipal and boilermakers union, the GMB.
It is a particular pleasure to introduce this debate as a ceramics MP, and I add my full-throated support to the petition and its aims. My constituency of Lichfield, Burntwood and the villages is home to Armitage Shanks, a company that for more than 200 years has been manufacturing bathroomware in the village of Armitage, from which it takes its name. The identity of the village is inextricably tied up with the company, but, sadly, my constituents will fully recognise the petition’s characterisation of a struggling ceramics sector, because like so many of our British ceramics businesses, Armitage Shanks has been suffering, despite the best efforts and hard work of its brilliant staff.
Earlier this year, the firm—now owned by Villeroy & Boch, a German manufacturer—was forced to close one of the kilns at its site in a bid to keep the business internationally competitive. That closure has had a real impact on the community, with 100 jobs lost as a result, and it is a reminder that when our heritage ceramics brands are struggling, it is about not just our country’s manufacturing history and the heritage of the areas that support those businesses, but present-day jobs, skills and livelihoods. I have visited the Armitage site multiple times in recent months, and the concerns that I have heard over and over again from workers there and from their union, the GMB, fully echo the petition.
The job losses at Armitage Shanks are, sadly, just one example of the pressures that the sector faces. In 2025, we lost two ceramics firms in Stoke-on-Trent, Royal Stafford and Heraldic Pottery, a blow that went right to the heart of that city’s identity. Last month, the final pieces of pottery rolled off the production lines at Denby in Derbyshire, which was a sad moment for many people, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth). In March, the iconic British brand, known around the world for quality manufacture and design, entered administration. Its collapse has also led to more than 100 skilled workers losing their jobs.
Thanks to one of those workers, Hayley, we are here to debate this motion. I am very glad to see her in the Public Gallery today. I congratulate her on her first week in a new position that she found elsewhere, but I am sure she would have liked to go to it in rather better circumstances. I am sure that I speak for all right hon. and hon. Members in the Chamber when I say that British ceramics is richer for retaining her experience and passion in the industry.
Hayley’s petition could not be more timely. We met ahead of the debate to discuss her concerns, which echo the worries that I hear from the constituents, businesses and unions in my area, and which I and other ceramics MPs gathered here today have been pressing the Government on. I am not surprised to see so many hon. Members joining us, because almost 110,000 people signed Hayley’s petition—more than 10% of them coming from just seven constituencies.
This issue is very much centred on Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, and the people in our areas care deeply about it. Hayley’s petition recognises that much of the ceramics sector in our country is in crisis. As she warns, “soaring industrial energy costs” have left businesses
“at the risk of imminent collapse without urgent intervention”.
Ceramics manufacturing relies on high levels of electricity and gas, and when their prices rise here in the UK, our businesses are put at a competitive disadvantage on the international stage.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way in this debate, which is clearly important not only to his particular area, but to UK manufacturing more widely. On the challenges of energy costs, the ceramics industry has suffered similar challenges to the critical minerals sector, specifically the tin mining and processing sector in my Camborne, Redruth and Hayle constituency. Does he agree that the Government must go further and faster to replicate some of the support that has been afforded to the ceramics industry for critical minerals?
Dave Robertson
My good and hon. Friend is right to raise the importance of energy costs to industry across the United Kingdom. Ceramics, though, is the hardest industry to decarbonise. It is therefore right that the Government are looking at a specific carve-out for ceramics, especially given its geography.
Returning to the problem so ably diagnosed by Hayley, she has also offered a solution. The petition calls on the Government to urgently review the British industry supercharger—a scheme that helps energy-intensive businesses including steel, chemicals and paper manufacturers with their electricity costs. She calls for that to be extended to the ceramics sector. During the last few months, Denby has said that relief through the supercharger scheme would have saved the company, but currently, ceramics businesses are falling through the cracks of the scheme.
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
As my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) pointed out, the critical minerals industry lacks wider support through the British industrial competitiveness scheme and the supercharger scheme, but so does upstream china clay production. That is a huge concern for a supply chain industry that supports many businesses represented by Members in the Chamber.
Dave Robertson
It seems like Cornwall has come mob-handed today; I am getting it from both sides. My hon. Friend is right, and that goes back to the point about reindustrialising the nation. We have heard for so long about deindustrialised areas and former industrial areas, so it is fantastic to see the Government continuing to drive the reindustrialisation of those areas to bring highly skilled, high-quality unionised jobs back to our communities, where they deserve to be.
Returning to ceramics, since this petition was started, the Government have recognised the challenge facing the ceramics sector specifically and have pledged a £120 million package of targeted support. That funding is hugely welcome, but we all know that funding alone is not enough. A lot now hangs on the design of that scheme to ensure that the money is delivered quickly and is well targeted at the companies that most need it and where it will protect the most jobs.
Crucially, the scheme should be simple for firms to apply for. Some ceramics firms employ large numbers of people, but they do not have significant back offices that can go through a very complex and heavy administrative process to access such a scheme. Although it is important that companies are asked for the right information to support the scheme, we must not create an unnecessary administrative barrier. I and other hon. Friends in the Chamber will continue to work on this alongside the GMB, other unions and the Government. We must ensure that that funding helps bolster and secure this industry for the long term rather than kicking the can down the road.
That brings me to why supporting this sector is so important—all of us in the Chamber know this, but I never miss the opportunity to remind a Minister. Ceramics manufacturing goes to the heart of identity in our counties. So many ceramics firms take their names from the towns, villages and areas in which they are based, and they have made those places famous around the world. I spoke to one hon. Member who had used an Armitage Shanks toilet in Samoa. That is a powerful form of soft power, if Members will excuse a rather crude pun.
Ceramics manufacturing jobs powered our economies. Stoke-on-Trent is literally known as the Potteries, and if I had not mentioned that, I am not sure I would have been allowed to leave the room. Just as the closure of mines struck at the identity of the towns that supported them, including places such as Stoke-on-Trent, deindustrialisation has hurt our communities.
Ceramics speaks to a proud tradition of world-class manufacturing in our counties, but it is not just about the past; it is about the present and the future. It is about providing jobs for people where, at the end of the day, they have the satisfaction of looking at a pallet of whatever they have produced and knowing that they have made something. It is a proud tradition that we should not allow to pass into the past.
To support that soft power, those iconic British brands need to know that they have a supporter in our Government. I would like to see our public procurement work much harder to make sure it is championing the best of British ceramics—actually, the best of international ceramics, because the very best of international ceramics comes from the midlands of the UK, and I will defend that hill until there is no breath left in my lungs. It is entirely possible for our public procurement to be used to support ceramics. It would be fantastic if every embassy were stocked with ceramics made in Britain. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Again, other ceramics MPs are behind me. Every public building should also look at whether it can support British-made ceramics in its sanitaryware—and the list goes on much further than that.
I will also draw attention to the private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), which I support. The Bill relates to backstamping and the “Made in Britain” mark, so we can make sure that when something says “Made in Britain”, it is from Britain and it is of the high quality that people expect. Currently, firms can import ceramics that have been made cheaply elsewhere, glaze them here, refire them and stamp them as British. Being able to support the supply chain through not only public procurement but the backstamping Bill is very important.
Wider than that, we need to come back to the supercharger. Ceramics is an energy-intensive industry. It relies on high inputs of electricity and gas, but electricity prices in the UK are higher than in many of our competitor countries. That takes a toll on the industry and means that the supercharger scheme is so important. Entry to the scheme is based on what is known as a SIC—standard industrial classification—code and the categories that the Government use to classify businesses and identify what they do. The SIC codes in use for ceramics are not currently eligible for the scheme, but, worse still, because of the way the scheme is funded, ceramics businesses are being levied to subsidise other high-energy businesses—because if businesses do not receive the supercharger, they pay for others to get it.
Ahead of the debate, I met with the industry association Ceramics UK, the GMB union, the Trades Union Congress and Energy UK. One concern was that SIC codes are not necessarily being properly applied. The number of ceramics businesses that the Government count is far higher than the number that the sector recognises. Hopefully that is good news for Ministers, because if we can get the codes altered correctly, we will see that there are fewer ceramics businesses in need of support, which will help to reduce the headache in the Treasury.
First, we can look at tightening up the SIC codes, then we can extend the supercharger to those codes. We can then ensure that the supercharger scheme is properly funded by the Treasury and not by other businesses, so that general taxation can support these jobs. Beyond the supercharger, which is undoubtedly vital for ceramics, the Government have committed and recognise that the industry needs tailored support. I ask Ministers to look closely at the specific pressures that the sector is facing.
As well as high electricity inputs, ceramics uses a huge amount of gas. Although the cost of gas in Britain is internationally competitive, prices are highly volatile because of a lack of storage in the United Kingdom. If we could look at supporting gas storage or some other mechanism to smooth peaks and troughs in gas pricing, it would help ceramics businesses with their long-term planning and help to them look at their decarbonisation processes, too.
On decarbonisation, hydrogen gas is a promising alternative, but hydrogen kiln technology requires further investment and if we cannot pipe gas in, there will be serious supply problems. Some ceramics manufacturers run their kilns 24/7/365, and the idea of hydrogen being brought in by lorries just does not stack up. We can use the revenues from carbon levies to support the transition and protect manufacturing jobs both today and for the future.
I have gone slightly over the amount of time I was aiming for, and many other hon. Members are eager to make the case for the industry, so I will draw to a close. I reiterate my thanks to Ceramics UK, the GMB, the TUC and Energy UK for meeting me, to Hayley for spurring today’s important debate, and to every single one of the workers who go out day after day to produce fantastic, high-quality ceramics—some of the best in the world—right here in the UK.
Several hon. Members rose—
Dr Andrew Murrison (in the Chair)
Order. There is a lot of interest in this debate, so I am imposing an indicative time limit on speeches of four minutes, an exemplar of which will be Sir Gavin Williamson.
Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson), on securing this debate. As one of probably a few Members of Parliament who have worked in the ceramics industry, this is not just about jobs for me; it is about who we are, identity and what it means to make something tangible and real that can make a difference to our economy. It contributes £2 billion to our economy, including £600 million worth of exports from a country that, sadly, exports too little.
The situation we are in is a tragedy. Ceramics is not just cups and saucers, plates and bowls; it is the tiles on our homes and the bricks. I have some amazing ceramics businesses in my constituency, whether that is Dunoon, Lucideon, AMRICC and, of course, Ibstock, which makes the iconic Staffordshire blue brick. It is crazy that we are in a situation where bricks are being imported into this country from India, Turkey and the Netherlands, and British manufacturers employing British people and providing British exports are being priced out of the market.
The core issue here is energy costs—energy costs first, second and third. It would be disingenuous of me not to thank the Government for the action that they have taken to support the ceramics sector, but we will continue to see a decline in ceramics unless we address that core issue of energy. The Government have taken important steps to address it. The supercharger is important, but the reality is that only 10% of ceramics businesses are able to apply for that, for the simple reason that gas is not included, or not in the way that they are able to access it.
Some 86% of the energy costs for ceramics manufacturers come from not electricity but gas. That is not through choice; it is necessary in order to make the product. They are not sat there thinking, “I don’t want to do the transition to electricity;” they cannot make that transition and, as the hon. Member for Lichfield rightly pointed out, hydrogen will not be able to come to the rescue and save those jobs.
I am conscious that many people want to contribute, so I come to my ask of the Minister. I know that he is incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about this sector. I urge him to look at setting out a timetable for a review of extending the supercharger so that it can cover gas costs. If he is unable to do that and we are unable to get the support required, more British businesses will sadly go under; more British manufacturing businesses will no longer be manufacturing or exporting, and firms from across the sea will step into that gap. That is not something that anyone wants to see, whether in Staffordshire or across the United Kingdom.
Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) on presenting this debate, and my constituent Hayley who brought the petition. I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests that I am a member of GMB.
While the petition speaks to the wider issues facing the ceramics sector, it was set up following the devastating news that Denby Pottery, the largest employer in my constituency, was entering administration. The nearly 110,000 signatures—3,900 of which are from Amber Valley; I thank my constituents for signing it—are a testament to the national significance, rich history and enduring popularity of Denby Pottery, handcrafted using clay from the very site on which the company was founded. Throughout its 217 years, the pottery has remained committed to local craftsmanship, even as its competitors offshored production to mass-produce goods more cheaply. That commitment has inspired extraordinary loyalty, with many in the local area having worked there for decades and even generations.
However, despite its world-class reputation, Denby Pottery struggled financially. It had previously been through administration, and more recent global shocks in energy markets faced further pressure on manufacturing costs. That is why I worked with Hayley to produce the petition, which calls for the ceramics sector to be included in the British industry supercharger scheme.
In the months that followed, I met repeatedly with Ministers and officials and raised Denby Pottery’s situation directly with the Prime Minister. He committed to a full review of the supercharger scheme across all sectors. But understanding the need for a more immediate intervention for Denby Pottery and the sector more widely, the Chancellor acted decisively and announced a bespoke package of £120 million for ceramics.
I thank those who worked tirelessly to produce this, including Ceramics UK, GMB Union, colleagues here today and the Treasury, as well as the Minister for Industry, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald), and the Secretary of State for Business and Trade.
Heartbreakingly, in spite of that support, we now know that investors were unable to view Denby Pottery as a viable business proposition, so I am refocusing my efforts towards fighting for a different future, working with Government, the administrators, local businesses and any future purchaser of the site to maximise opportunities for good quality jobs in Amber Valley. Alongside that, I am clear that Denby Pottery’s heritage must be preserved. The onsite museum told the story of more than two centuries of innovation and industry. I commend the excellent work being done by Linda and others to ensure that the collection will be enjoyed for generations to come.
Denby Pottery has many legacies, ranging from the nationally significant to the deeply personal: its heritage, its skilled and committed workforce and the pottery itself—treasured, gifted at weddings and passed down through generations. Today, its legacy must live on in the lessons learned from its closure and the changes that it catalysed, so that other ceramics companies can continue and thrive.
I therefore urge the Minister to continue working with industry to ensure that UK ceramics manufacturers can compete on a level playing field. That includes insulating the sector from unfair competition, such as the dumping of heavily subsidised products from overseas markets.
The public want to back overseas business and manufacturing, as illustrated by the incredibly moving scale of the support for the #SaveDenby campaign. I pay tribute to the campaign led by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) for clearer country of origin labelling, and I hope the Government support his private Member’s Bill.
To any potential purchaser of the Denby Pottery brand alone, I say this: if your produce is not made in Denby, using clay extracted from the ground in Denby village and hand-crafted by the people of Denby, then regardless of the name stamped upon it, it will never be recognised as true Denby pottery.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson), my good friend and colleague on the Petitions Committee, on his excellent introduction to this debate. He talks about the wares of Armitage Shanks; I would venture to suggest that Armitage Shanks products are seen in some of the great houses the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.
One may wonder what a Member from the north of Scotland doing on his feet on this debate. There are two ceramic companies in my constituency: ANTA in Fearn, owned by Lachie and Annie Stewart, whose products can be seen in Dumfries House—a place not unfamiliar to His Majesty the King—and Highland Stoneware in Lochinver, which is owned by Mr David Grant, whose wares can be seen in Balmoral. We are very proud of that.
My point is that these companies actually teach vital local skills that would not otherwise be taught, create jobs in some of the remotest areas of the United Kingdom and provide a tourist product, which is absolutely crucial when it comes to visitors. When people, including right hon. and hon. Members, come to my part of the world in the north of Scotland, they should come and see ANTA’s fine ceramics in the village of Fearn. They should come and see Highland Stoneware in Lochinver. They will not be disappointed. We would not dare to compete with Stoke-on-Trent in terms of quality, but we are very proud of what we do.
I am going to keep my contribution very short, but I want to make one point. It is not really pertinent to the Minister, but those fledgling and now grown-up companies would not have come into being had it not been for a key decision taken by Harold Wilson’s Labour Government in the 1960s, which was to put in place the Highlands and Islands Development Board. This was to encourage enterprise in some of the remotest parts of the UK and to halt and reverse the depopulation that was the curse of some of the remotest parts of Scotland. It was a great success story, and I give credit where it is due.
However, that success story is not what it once was. This is a political point, but under the stewardship of the present Scottish Government the Highlands and Islands Development Board, now Highlands and Islands Enterprise, is a shadow of what its parent once upon a time was, which is a great pity. Although that is not the responsibility of the Minister or indeed the UK Government, I give due notice that this is a matter I shall continue to raise in future. Thank you very much, Dr Murrison, for your forbearance.
Dr Andrew Murrison (in the Chair)
That was commendably brief, although not everyone will get in at this rate. I shall have to impose a three-and-a-half minute indicative time limit.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for participating in this debate. He demonstrates something that we have tried to make clear throughout our lobbying: this is not a Stoke-on-Trent issue. Yes, we are the spiritual home of the pottery industry, but there are ceramics manufacturers in most parts of this country making something beautiful out of dirt, essentially, and turning clay into art. The fact that he was able to share that story is very helpful in articulating the points we are trying to make.
I congratulate Hayley for starting the petition. I declare my membership of the GMB and my chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group for ceramics. I want to put on the record my thanks to Rob Flello from Ceramics UK as well as Sharon Yates and Chris Hoofe from the GMB for their sterling work in leading the campaign that has got us to this point. As was said by the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson), the industry employs 20,000 people. It is worth £2 billion to the economy, with £600 million-worth of exports. That makes it bigger than the fishing industry, yet the country’s emotive connection to it is not quite as great, so we still have work to do.
I am grateful that my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) picked up on my Ceramics (Country of Origin Marking) Bill. I genuinely believe there is a market around the world for quality ware made in the UK. We know it from Portmeirion’s advancements. They tell me about markets they are looking at, potentially bringing work back to the UK. Some companies in Stoke-on-Trent talk about where they export, and the value of that export, because of that mark on the bottom that says “made in Stoke-on-Trent”. I hope the Minister can continue the constructive conversation that we have had so far to see how we get that Bill over the line in this Session.
We are a city that looks at our history and we take it very seriously. I am proud to have the tile manufacturer H&E Smith in my constituency. It makes tiles for London Underground and is celebrating its 100th year. I have Emma Bridgewater, which makes incredibly well-known stoneware, and I have Portmeirion. I have Halcyon Days that makes giftware for the House of Lords shop. The city also gave this place Duchess China and, of course, Minton tiles are made about a mile from where I live. That is the history that we have contributed, but the sector has so much more to offer.
We cannot make steel in this country without refractory grade ceramics. We cannot build houses in this country without the bricks. I say to the Minister, like my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee), if we are to have Homes England subsidise the building of homes in this country, can we please mandate that it buys British bricks with that subsidy? It would be a huge benefit for taxpayers’ money to go into a British industry to protect British jobs using a British product.
There are also advanced ceramics that we use for defence, for nuclear and for medical technologies, which are leading the way in which we treat people, the way we defend our country and the way that we do some of that green technology advancement. As the Minister and I have often discussed, decarbonisation should not mean de-industrialisation, and the ceramic sector is a clear example of where, if we get it right, we can show that it works for that proof of concept.
Finally, I want to briefly talk about the carbon border adjustment mechanism. CBAM is an issue. We have to get that right. It potentially puts the ceramic sector at risk. We are in danger of carbon leakage, yet that is not recognised as part of the scheme. As my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth) mentioned, the dumping of Chinese ware is a problem. Will the Minister look at how the Trade Remedies Authority considers the calculations for injury? Will he also make sure that ceramics are included in the supercharger scheme, which we discussed on Thursday during the Adjournment debate, to protect those jobs for the future?
Several hon. Members rose—
Dr Andrew Murrison (in the Chair)
Order. I am calling the Front-Bench spokespeople at 6.58 pm—so do the maths, folks.
Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) for opening this debate. It is fitting that that was done by a good, loud and honourable Staffordshire voice—it could be no other way. Like him, I declare an interest as a proud member of the GMB. This debate is personal for those of us who call Staffordshire—the best county in England—our home, so I thank Hayley for allowing us to debate this issue.
Newcastle-under-Lyme and north Staffordshire are at the heart of the British and worldwide ceramics industry—they always have been, and they always will be. I welcome the ceramics industry support package, which contains £120 million of real and meaningful support for businesses such as Silverdale Bathrooms and Ibstock Brick in Chesterton. We fought hard for that support, hunting as a Staffordshire pack—with a little bit of Derbyshire and Leicestershire thrown in, alongside the mighty union movement and Ceramics UK, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) said. I thank the Minister, who has been a real champion and a solid ally in this effort.
For generations, people in my community in Newcastle-under-Lyme have produced the very best British products, with skill, smarts, experience and talent. Their work has powered and fuelled our local and national economies. There will be a theme in all the speeches in this debate: we welcome the £120 million, but we want to know that that package of support will be made speedily and widely available. There will be asks of the Government to step up properly and ensure that this age-old and successful industry is protected and to ensure that we train and equip our young people in Newcastle-under-Lyme and across our country with the skills necessary to enter and thrive in this most important industry. There will be the important demand that our communities should no longer be ignored, forgotten or left behind.
As I say, team Staffordshire hunts with all parties as a pack, and that can be seen in this debate. For too long, our communities, home to the ceramics industry, were let down and left behind by the powerful few. We are here to change that, and change that we will.
I am the third generation of my family to call Staffordshire home, and I have seen up close the powerful impact the ceramics industry has had on our part of the world. I can see its potential to do so in the future but we need to act. Out of all the sectors that once powered and thrived in our industrial heartlands, ceramics has been left behind, despite having built our homes, schools and hospitals. We need urgent action on energy bills and the costs associated for businesses in the ceramics industry. We need to ensure that the industry is at the heart of our trade agenda, and we need to redouble our efforts to ensure that we buy British every step of the way. That is why I brought my “back British bricks” Bill to Parliament, and I will continue to push that agenda.
The most important point that we must all remember is simple: the ceramics industry can flourish, thrive and continue to lead the world, but that requires the state to act. We are not asking to be bailed out or to get the same level of commitment that other industries have received in recent months. The growth potential of this industry is massive in communities like mine and in our national economy, too. I ask the Minister to remember that now and in the months and years ahead, because we will not be going away and we will not stop making the case for the ceramics industry, which has brought such pride and opportunity to communities in the industrial heartlands like mine in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
David Williams (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. Ceramics are who we are in north Staffordshire; they are in our DNA. They are in the bottle kilns on our skyline and the names above our factory gates, and they are literally in the hands of the people I proudly represent. Yet for years, people in our communities were told the same story: that the industries that built our city belonged in the past and that globalisation meant that towns like ours simply had to accept decline while investment flowed elsewhere.
In May, this Labour Government tore up that narrative when they announced the £120 million supporting growth package. That happened because our Labour Government listened to me, my north Staffordshire colleagues and the GMB union. I pay particular tribute to Sharon Yates, a GMB member who is in the Gallery. She was absolutely integral to winning that support.
In my constituency, we know better than most about what is at stake because we have lived it. In less than two years, three fantastic companies in my constituency have faced an uncertain future. At Moorcroft, I supported workers at risk of redundancy alongside Sharon, and I am not too proud to say that my emotions got the better of me as I listened to the worries of the 30 workers in that room who had collectively amassed over 800 years of craftsmanship, skills and talents between them. At Royal Stafford, we did the same—again, hundreds of years of skills and talents were at risk. Those meetings were tough and emotional, but they reaffirmed to me the importance of why we had to keep fighting for our pots: if those companies are allowed to go, with them will also go the skills and talents of our workforce. More recently, Burleigh, the country’s oldest Victorian pot bank, was at risk following its owners, Denby, falling into administration.
Out there, people know that our industry needs protection and that it has a future. Step forward Will Moorcroft, the founder’s grandson; Cornishware, which has stepped in and taken over the Royal Stafford site; and Christopher Bailey, who transformed Burberry into a global fashion brand and has amassed a team of investors to keep Burleigh’s kiln firing. The prize is now long-term sustainability and an industry that stands permanently on a level playing field.
I have two specific questions to pose to the Minister. I recently met with a number of smaller ceramics companies in my constituency. They are incredibly pleased with the support package. However, can the Minister confirm that all companies, both large and small, will benefit from the £120 million package? Will he also please come and meet with those companies in my area? Secondly, the Government can do more to support our local companies by ensuring that the UK Government, and their Departments and embassies around the world, buy British. Will the Minister consider extending plans for procurement so that Stokie plates, cups and saucers are the only ones we see when we flip them over?
I am grateful to the Minister because he understands the sector. We will keep fighting for more, as we always have. Ceramics is who we are, and our story is far from finished.
Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I thank all the people who signed this petition and commend the hard work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth) and all who fought hard for Denby and our ceramics industry.
In Stoke-on-Trent South, factories such as Wedgwood and 1882 Ltd have crafted bespoke projects for centuries. Duchess China produces the cups and saucers used here in Parliament, Susan Rose supplied tableware for No. 10 and Caverswall China crafts pieces for Buckingham Palace. It is no wonder that so many of my constituents take great pride in working in the Pots—I see that we have pottery workers here today, including my constituent, Sharon Yates, who created the potter’s pledge led by the GMB. I encourage all to sign it to combat the issue of fakes and dumping.
Since being elected, I, along with all my colleagues, have repeatedly raised with Ministers the importance of the ceramic sectors in north Staffordshire. That was to safeguard not only our tableware sector and proud potters’ heritage, but the strategic value of advanced ceramics, which I am pleased to see are now included in the British industrial competitiveness scheme.
Regrettably, companies have faced real challenges: Brexit disrupted trade; there has been an influx of imported knock-offs; and energy prices have shot up following the war in Ukraine and the closure of the strait of Hormuz. The petition asks that ceramics be included in the supercharger scheme, and that is an understandable ask, but it does not solely answer all the challenges faced by the sector; nor does it address the future sustainability and the need for transition to low-carbon alternatives. That is why I have previously asked the Government to introduce what I dubbed an “industry energy innovation fund” for gas-intensive industries. As well as funding the capital investment for new technology, whether electric, biofuels or hydrogen kilns, such a fund would provide grants or loans to companies to explore process emissions reduction, artificial intelligence-enabled process optimisation along with processes to recover waste heat and improve energy efficiency.
I was delighted that the Government announced a £120 million fund to support the sector in May. Following that announcement, I asked the Chancellor to clarify that the purpose of the fund was to support decarbonisation and innovation. She confirmed that it was indeed to help the sector tackle energy costs, improve energy efficiency and create a sustainable future. Alongside Lucideon and Visk, I want to thank the Henry Royce Institute and David Knowles, along with the TUC, GMB and Russell Hall at Warwick Manufacturing Group, for working alongside me to develop proposals as to how we can deliver a sustainable, energy efficient future using this fund.
Can the Minister ensure that the consultation about the design of the fund includes experts such as those mentioned above as well as a variety of small and medium-sized enterprises and organisations including Make UK and Glass Futures, along with the excellent Ceramics UK, which has worked so hard?
Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison.
As we have heard, the ceramics industry is a vital part of Britain’s manufacturing heritage and economic future. It supports thousands of skilled jobs, sustains local communities, strengthens domestic supply chains and contributes significantly to our economy. These are highly skilled jobs and preserving that expertise must remain a national priority. However, like other energy intensive industries, including those in my Mid Cheshire constituency, the ceramic sector has faced significant pressure from high energy costs. Manufacturers are competing in a global marketplace while dealing with energy prices often far higher than those faced by international competitors. Those pressures have placed additional strain on businesses already working hard to invest, innovate and plan for the future. That is why tackling high energy costs and supporting the decarbonisation of energy-intensive industries must go hand in hand; those objectives are not in conflict.
If we are serious about delivering net zero while maintaining a strong industrial base, we must ensure that the transition protects jobs, skills and domestic production rather than driving investment overseas. While the ceramics industry is concentrated in places such as Staffordshire, the challenges it faces are not unique. In the north-west, energy-intensive industries are grappling with the same pressures of high energy costs, international competition and the need to decarbonise. The question we face is whether we allow those industries to decline, with the resulting impact on the communities around them, or whether we provide them with the tools they need to remain competitive.
Hydrogen is one tool that can help achieve that. It offers a credible pathway to reducing emissions from high-temperature industrial processes, where electrification is not an option, while preserving the skilled jobs and manufacturing capability on which communities depend. We already see that potential here in the UK through the development of the hydrogen cluster in Cheshire. Although it is centred on the industrial clusters of the north-west and north Wales, the project demonstrates what hydrogen can achieve for hard-to-abate sectors across the United Kingdom, helping manufacturers reduce emissions while remaining competitive and attracting future investment.
Whether we can realise that potential across the wider north-west, Staffordshire and the country as a whole is now the key question because we stand at a crossroads as we await the publication of the updated hydrogen strategy. I hope that we make the right choice to bring forward a strategy that backs those of our industries for which hydrogen is the only option—crucially, wherever they are in the country and not simply by picking winners and losers.
The north-west has seen too many manufacturing sites close in recent years. We cannot afford to lose more industrial jobs, skills and investment. I hope that Ministers will publish the updated hydrogen strategy at the earliest opportunity and bring forward a hydrogen network that delivers for the communities that we represent. If we get this right, we will support not only industrial decarbonisation but skilled jobs. We will unlock private investment and help ensure that British manufacturing continues to thrive for generations to come.
Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) for his excellent opening speech. My remarks today will be at a slightly different level. They are focused on studio pottery—ceramics made on an individual basis, where each piece is unique and handmade. Studio pottery is growing in popularity in this country following programmes such as “The Great Pottery Throw Down”. There are thousands of makers up and down the country, and the industry is worth about £50 million in its own right.
Pottery and potters are as old as the human race; although it might not be the oldest profession, it is certainly one of the earliest. Britain leads the world in modern studio pottery, which was largely started by Bernard Leach and the Japanese master Hamada in St Ives in Cornwall. Many of his techniques came from traditional Japanese techniques and favoured an apprenticeship system. More contemporary and well-known potters such as Grayson Perry and Keith Brymer Jones have all grown from that movement.
However, making a living from pottery remains tough. The price of clay and energy have increased, and most potters earn well below the minimum wage. The Arts Council could help individual potters, specifically at the beginning of their careers. That would help nurture the industry, while a reduction in VAT on clay would help small producers. Furthermore, the way HMRC treats apprenticeships and mentoring needs a more creative attitude to help the industry. In Stroud, there are long-running potteries such as Lansdown Pottery and the newer Stroud Pottery. The Clay Loft in Nailsworth provides studio space and tuition for this very popular art form, while Stroud markets provide an excellent place to sell the pots.
Linsey Farnsworth
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech about the importance of continuing the skills and heritage of the pottery industry. Will he join me in congratulating Fran, Kate and Daizy? They were employees of Denby Pottery and recently set up the Potter’s Nook in Ripley, where people in my constituency and beyond can go to learn the skills needed in the pottery sector.
Dr Opher
Developing young potters is essential for the ceramics industry in general, and particularly for studio pottery.
As a GP, I know that the therapeutic effects of clay are well documented. I introduced arts in my surgery in 2001, using ceramics and clay, led by Karen Hilliard, to relieve stress in patients. I also pay tribute to Jeremy Steward and Petra Reynolds, who work at Wobage pottery and have remained an inspiration. I cannot finish without mentioning my daughter Martha, who makes a living selling her unique pottery in Stroud market. Although she will never be rich, she continues to inspire me and many around her with her functional and exquisite ceramics.
This country should be proud of its world-famous studio pottery industry, which brings employment and joy to so many people. We must do all we can to support that industry and its people.
Juliet Campbell (Broxtowe) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Dr Murrison. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) on securing this debate and on his opening remarks. His strength of feeling and that shown by the petitioners, including nearly 800 in my constituency, demonstrate how important the ceramics and manufacturing sector remains to communities like mine and across the country. I would like to declare that I am a proud member of the GMB.
The Government have rightly identified advanced manufacturing as a strategic priority for their modern industry strategy. Manufacturing accounts for nearly 15% of the east midlands economy, a greater share than in any other region in England. The £120 million support package for the UK ceramics industry is a welcome example of this Government backing manufacturing in the midlands. Over 450,000 people are employed in manufacturing across the east midlands, including a significant portion in the ceramics industry. These are not just jobs; they represent generations of expertise, craftsmanship and industrial knowledge that have been passed down through families and communities of working people across generations.
Broxtowe still bears the scars of the industrial decline. Parts of Eastwood, a former coalfield community, have never recovered from the loss of traditional industries and the secure jobs that they provided. Broxtowe remains a home to major manufacturers, including Reckitt in Beeston and Caunton Engineering in Moregreen. Yet in meetings with both those companies, they highlighted challenges shared by manufacturers across the country: persistently higher energy costs and the challenge of decarbonising industrial processes while remaining competitive. Those pressures are being felt now. Without action, we risk seeing further investment in jobs being moved overseas.
We must ensure that British manufacturers are not placed at a competitive disadvantage. If we are serious about retaining high-value industrial jobs, businesses cannot continue to face energy costs significantly higher than those of their international counterparts and competitors. We must ensure that the infrastructure needed for industrial decarbonisation is in place. Many manufacturers are ready to electrify their operations but are held back by constraints in local electricity networks and grid capacity. The ceramics industry has rightly highlighted those issues, but the lessons apply across the manufacturing industry. I urge the Minister to consider expanding eligibility for energy cost relief for manufacturers that fall outside the existing schemes and to support investment in local electricity networks and grid capacities to enable industrial decarbonisation.
By supporting energy-intensive industries and providing the infrastructure they need to invest, we can protect skilled jobs, strengthen our industrial base and deliver growth in communities that have waited far too long for their share in prosperity.
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) for opening the debate, which has been a useful opportunity for us to talk about ceramics. I am also a member of the GMB. I thank Hayley for the petition, which was inspired by Denby Pottery, and the 504 constituents who signed it. For more than two centuries, Denby has represented the very best of British craftsmanship, with high-quality products, skilled jobs and a reputation recognised across the world. It is such an iconic brand for the east midlands. It is up to us as representatives to keep championing our local manufacturers now and for the future. I know of the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth) has done with Denby.
North West Leicestershire has a proud industrial heritage. Manufacturing remains the largest sector of employment locally and we are home to major ceramics employers such as Ibstock Brick. Brick is a key part of the sector. I have three Ibstock Brick sites and have been greatly pleased to meet with people from them on several occasions. The bricks are quarried and fired directly in North West Leicestershire. We create bricks and material used across the country that last for hundreds of years. In recent years, Ibstock Brick told me, imported bricks have made up about 20% of the UK brick market, and yet we already have the capacity to supply enough bricks for British homes for the future. When we talk about concern about ceramics, we need to ensure that we also put that in the context of industries that ceramics directly supports, one of them being construction.
North West Leicestershire has about 4,000 people working in the construction sector, as well as being the national headquarters of a number of prominent house builders. We need to use the industry strengths that we have right on our doorsteps—British bricks building homes, so the family can thrive alongside our industry. Will the Minister in his response set out how we can ensure that UK brick manufacturers are not only supported in the challenge they face as an industry, but given the tools to help our house building and industrial targets? The support they need is on energy costs and energy transition. Every home built creates a job, but it also creates jobs for those businesses that help create a home, filling it with pots and crockery such as Denby and sanitaryware as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield.
The petition is right to highlight the importance of protecting not only the jobs, but the skills. Once specialist manufacturing skills are lost, they are incredibly difficult to rebuild. We must ensure that future generations have the opportunity to pursue rewarding careers in British industry. I also want to make a nod to Furnace Lane Pottery, a local craft potter based in Moira. Such potters are important to the sector. The Government’s industrial strategy rightly recognises the importance of manufacturing, but the ceramics industry needs targeted support, so I ask the Minister two things: will he ensure that the £120 million gets to those businesses as quickly as possible, setting out a timetable in his response; and how will Government work with industry, trade unions and local communities to ensure that British ceramics has a strong future?
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I declare my interest as a member of GMB union, and of Unite, which represents so many of the china clay workers in my constituency. That is one reason I welcome so warmly this Government’s £120 million package for the ceramics industry. I particularly welcome the £60 million of backing for capital investment in energy efficiency and decarbonisation, and the further £60 million to help manage rising costs. That is decisive support for a sector that has every right not just to survive, but to thrive in a changing world in which Governments have an absolute obligation to ensure a smooth transition.
In this world, protecting the supply of china clay is vital to insulating supply chains for not just ceramics, but construction, advanced manufacturing, technology, aerospace and defence. Domestic production is only truly protected for any industry when the whole supply chain is. In my constituency, upstream producers of Cornish china clay are part of the foundation of the ceramics sector, directly and indirectly employing thousands of local people in Cornwall. It is our strongest current mining industry, serving as a big granitic bridge between our industrial heritage and the mineral products of the future.
I will take a moment to thank the Minister for his excellent leadership in this sector, and for his lucid understanding of those supply chains and the fact that minerals represent quite clearly the biggest Cornwall-specific growth engine in the years ahead. I thank him for his work, with his Department, to help unlock the potential of that key industrial cluster for us. May I ask him, however, whether he will confirm that upstream producers, including those that extract china clay, will be eligible for the support? Can he provide me and my constituents with some clarity on when those decisions about who receives the support will be clear? Will he outline what steps he is taking for an industry with high energy costs upstream—again, ineligible for BICS, the British industrial competitiveness scheme—and facing not only the huge challenges of foreign dumping practices but, in many cases, significant environmental and legacy pension liabilities due to the labour-intensive nature of its workforce? What steps is he taking to ensure that we put that industry on a more sustainable footing?
Mr Joshua Reynolds (Maidenhead) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate the petitioner on securing 109,000 signatures, as well as the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) on introducing it.
I thought that when I had written a speech about bricks, I would be the only Member to talk about them, but then I noticed that the hon. Members for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) and for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) were present and realised that I would definitely not be. Bricks are the nation’s favourite building material. They are durable, beautiful and woven into every constituency across the United Kingdom. In any of our constituencies, we can walk past beautiful brick-built homes and terraces built to last—many of them more than a century old, still standing, loved and lived in.
That concerns the first point I want to make to the Minister. A recent report published by Create Streets set out a serious issue about how we measure carbon in new homes. The standard assessment assumes that the building will last only 60 years. As we know, bricks do not last 60 years. Assess a brick over a realistic lifespan—120 years or more—and they perform significantly better on whole-life carbon. By baking in a 60-year assumption, the standard systematically makes bricks look higher carbon than they are and favours materials that look low carbon on day one but may need significantly more maintenance, replacement or even demolition early in the planning process. The short-termism of that standard is penalising one of the most durable, repairable materials that we have. This cost is being placed on factories. According to reports, domestic production has fallen from about 2 billion bricks not many years ago, to 1.3 billion in 2024. That is a 32% reduction in just a few years.
The sector supports thousands of skilled jobs and is worth more than £1 billion. We have seen some brick factories closing already, and if more follow, we must make sure that we do not simply import bricks, adding risk to the supply chain and transport emissions while hollowing out our British industry. That, unfortunately, is being made harder, not easier, for British manufacturers. The UK is already the single largest importer of Indian bricks, and the trade agreement that the Government have signed with India will take away the remaining protected tariffs on those bricks imported to zero.
Gareth Snell
The hon. Gentleman rightly points out the Indian trade deal. He is right about the environmental and economic impact, but there is also the social impact. Too many factories making those bricks over in India and Pakistan are using what we would consider modern slavery and indentured labour. Additionally, efficacy surely ought to be at the forefront of any decision that the Minister makes about how we build houses in this country.
Mr Reynolds
The hon. Gentleman is correct about the social impact, with modern slavery used in bricks coming from outside the United Kingdom. The Business and Trade Committee recently heard about how, although the Modern Slavery Act 2015 was a good start and had the full support of the House, the declaration requirements within it are not strong enough. A company can import things potentially made by modern slaves and satisfy the requirements, so we need to see a new piece of legislation to ensure that companies cannot import items that they know or feel have been made using slavery.
We must also ask what the British public actually want to see in buildings. In visual preference research, bricks were preferred by 60% of the population when asked to compare two proposed buildings: one made out of bricks and one not. That is very clear across age, gender, religion and political affiliation. We are trying to build more homes, but pushing developers away from building with the material that the majority of the British public want to live in.
Brickmakers are caught in the same energy trap as all the ceramics sector. Firing clay takes enormous heat, and that heat comes from gas, but because the Government’s flagship energy relief policy is designed around electricity, gas-intensive makers are largely excluded. The same industry is squeezed from multiple directions: a penalising carbon standard is undervaluing its products, we are shutting out suppliers in the United Kingdom and favouring suppliers overseas, and then there is the energy-intensive issue.
I have four questions for the Minister. First, will he work with colleagues across Government to review the 60-year reference period for whole life carbon assessments and adopt a longer, more realistic lifespan so that we do not by accident create a de facto ban on bricks? Secondly, will the Government commit that sustainability standards will not rule out quality, durable, repairable materials that people love? Thirdly, will the Minister support cleaner brick production here at home rather than importing bricks from overseas, which sends the jobs and the emissions abroad? Fourthly, will the gas-intensive brick and ceramics industry finally be given the proper support that it needs via the Government’s supercharger scheme, so that its firms can compete on a level playing field? Bricks are not relics; they are well used, beautiful, durable, repairable and genuinely part of what makes Britain great. We should be building more homes and neighbourhoods that last for our children and our grandchildren, and stop penalising the material that does exactly that.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
It is an honour to follow such an interesting speech about bricks. I congratulate Hayley and the other petitioners, the Petitions Committee and the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) for bringing this important issue into Parliament; it has been a really interesting debate. It is fair to say that the efforts of the petitioners have made sure that the concerns of workers, manufacturers, suppliers and the local communities that depend on the ceramics industry have truly been heard in Parliament.
It is clear that the ceramics sector faces several existential pressures including, in particular, high energy costs, as well as burdensome regulation and rising labour costs. We have heard a range of valuable contributions from Members, and the importance of the industry, not just in Staffordshire but in many other parts of the UK, has truly come across. I was fascinated to hear about Scotland, Cornwall and Stroud, and about a number of businesses in the ceramics sector. It was very welcome to hear from my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson), who made a powerful contribution on behalf of a sector in which he has first-hand experience of working.
We have learned that the ceramics industry is not simply another manufacturing sector. It is a source of highly skilled employment, a proud part of our industrial heritage and a significant contributor to our economy. For generations, the British ceramics industry has been recognised all around the world for its quality, craftsmanship and innovation, but it is clear that the industry faces particular challenges because it is particularly energy intensive. The high temperatures that kilns need mean that the industry cannot simply find, at short notice, alternative sources of energy, or switch on and off when prices fluctuate. The industry is uniquely exposed to very high energy costs, and the recent challenges facing some of its well-known firms should serve as a warning.
The supercharger scheme is a sticking plaster on the damage that has been caused by the Energy Secretary’s net zero policies, which have driven up the cost of energy and piled that cost on to businesses. The net zero costs that the Government have imposed on businesses have meant that the Government were required to introduce a £120 million subsidy for the ceramics industry.
Dame Harriett Baldwin
I will not give way, given how tight we are for time.
I hope Members will welcome the fact that the Conservatives have a clear and credible plan to cut energy bills, reduce regulation and lower taxes. We have a cheap power plan that will cut household energy bills by £200 a year and cut electricity bills for businesses by 20%. That could save ceramics businesses a large amount of money. It would save the average restaurant £5,500 and the average pub £1,100. We would achieve that by axing the carbon tax in full, including the UK emissions trading scheme and carbon price support.
We would also scrap the renewables obligation certificate scheme, which would free up money that is currently used to fund the payments through general taxation. We would back the North sea and get Britain drilling again, unlocking home-grown energy and generating an estimated £2.5 billion in additional tax revenues each year.
Dame Harriett Baldwin
I am very tight for time, but if the hon. Gentleman insists.
Gareth Snell
We have heard a lot from the hon. Lady’s party about its cheap power plan. Is it her intention that gas drilled from the North sea would be specifically ringfenced and sold at a below-market price to sectors such as ceramics in Stoke-on-Trent and throughout the country, so that they can benefit, or would that gas still be sold to them via the international market?
Dame Harriett Baldwin
It would mean we would have to import less from countries outside the UK because we would have our own supply. I do not want to intrude on arguments within the governing party, but I will call out the fact that it does not make sense to leave our own gas in the ground. The policies I have been outlining are precisely the ones that energy-intensive sectors such as ceramics have been calling for. If we are serious about protecting the British ceramics industry, we need to act now to cut the cost of industrial energy.
I will ask the Minister a couple of questions. We have heard a bit about the challenge in respect of imports, so it would be interesting to hear from him what representations the industry has made to the Trade Remedies Authority. Will the Government support the cheap power plan that would cut business energy costs, and therefore abandon the ideological policies that are driving proud sectors such as ceramics into decline? The future of a great British industry, and all the livelihoods that it supports, are too important to ignore.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Chris McDonald)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank everybody who has contributed to the debate. I am sure that those observing from the Public Gallery will have seen that there is huge support in Parliament for the ceramics industry, for its communities and for its jobs. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) for securing the debate, and to Hayley for organising the petition. I am sure that many of the petitioners will have been following the debate and will have heard the support for the sector from Members, as well as from Ceramics UK and the GMB trade union.
There were a number of speeches on several issues, and I will endeavour to address them all, but if I could sum up the debate in one line, it was probably put most succinctly by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee): “Thank you for the £120 million —can I have some more?” To which I have a short answer: “You’re welcome—and I want to do more.” I will talk a bit about what that “more” might be, and address some of those issues, because I do recognise that more needs to be done.
It is important to recognise the pride of the communities we have heard about, because the ceramics industry is integral to the history and heritage of so many communities throughout the country. Staffordshire is the home of the ceramics industry, but it spans the whole country: we heard that it includes the china clay pits in Cornwall and extends right up to communities in the north of Scotland. There is also a diverse range of subsectors: bricks, pipes, tiles and tableware, of course, and advanced technical ceramics, with many applications in sectors such as energy, defence, medical and technology. I am most grateful today for the application of ceramics in air conditioning filtration systems—I thank the industry for that.
The ceramics industry is represented in some great traditional and heritage tableware. It is very much possible to value things not only for their utility but for their beauty, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher). I am quite a fan of traditional Staffordshire stoneware. I also have a very special Dunoon mug with a Union Jack on it, and I want to let those in the Public Gallery know that I use it every morning for my first cup of tea.
We heard about bricks from my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, and from the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mr Reynolds), about the lifetime assessment of bricks. To be clear, I am very aware of the disadvantage in respect of bricks with a short lifetime assessment. I have bricks in my house that are over 200 years old and still doing sterling service. I am interested to hear more representations from Members throughout the House on that issue.
We have of course talked a lot about ceramics, but my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Juliet Campbell) made a much wider point about manufacturing in her area of the east midlands. The issues facing ceramics are also faced by manufacturing industries around the country: high energy costs, the import of cheap goods and challenges with decarbonisation. The challenges have been exacerbated by the geopolitical instability due to the invasion of Ukraine and the conflict in the middle east, which has put pressure on our energy prices.
The ceramics industry has continued to demonstrate resilience, and the people who work in the industry have demonstrated resilience, but I was very sad recently to learn of the closure of and job losses at Denby Pottery. I worked closely on that issue with my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth), and she represented the community so well in this place. There was also the closure of a tunnel kiln at Armitage Shanks. I pass on my personal sympathies to all the workers, families and local communities that were impacted by events at those firms, as well as at Royal Stafford and Heraldic Pottery.
Manufacturing has now ceased at Denby Pottery, and the administrators were unable to find a buyer. My officials at the Department for Business and Trade worked diligently with the administrators to take the process forward. The Government’s priority now is to ensure that all affected workers are given the support they need. I commend Fran, Kate and Daizy and wish them every success with their new venture. I realise that my words may sound somewhat clinical to the workers and communities who are so rightly proud of Denby, so I want to take this opportunity to say how sorrowful I am that Denby has closed and that those workers, and others in the local community, can no longer work there. That is why I am so determined that we will fix some of the problems with the underpinning of the business environment, not only for ceramics but for other parts of industry.
So many Members mentioned the ceramic industry support scheme. My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley thanked many people involved in the creation of that scheme—our right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer played such an important role—but she was not able to thank herself, so I thank her on behalf of us all. I wonder whether the scheme would have been brought forward so speedily were it not for her work. It is important to recognise the scheme as a great vote of confidence by the Government in the ceramics industry. We are determined to work with the industry to provide support with decarbonisation, and I thank all my parliamentary colleagues who have advocated for it.
A number of Members raised issues relating to the design of the support scheme. My hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams) and for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) raised issues around eligibility, consultees and so on. I reassure them that we are determined that the scheme will have the maximum eligibility to enable firms to win support for both capital and operating expenses around their decarbonisation, and to make that decarbonisation makes sense as well.
This is perhaps an opportune time to firmly put down some of the myths around Government policy pushing up the price of electricity. Of course, that is not the case at all. After the previous Government, the UK was left in a position of high electricity costs, both for industry and for domestic consumers, because our electricity market is dependent on the price of gas.
The cheapest form of electricity we have is solar, the second cheapest is onshore wind and the third cheapest is offshore wind. That is why the Government’s clean power 2030 mission is designed specifically to give this country a strategic and competitive advantage in electricity price from the 2030s onwards. It is particularly challenging to manage the period from now to 2030, because during that period our electricity is still set to a great extent by the gas price. For economic reasons alone, and to ensure that we have a competitive business environment, we need to work through that.
Dame Harriett Baldwin
I want to ask the Minister about the auction price that the Energy Secretary set today for offshore wind, which I understand is £120 per megawatt-hour. That sounds very high to me.
Chris McDonald
This replays some of the conversations we have had on the Floor of the House. Ultimately, it is important to remember that the prices we are quoting take into account both the capital and operating costs. Our existing gas fleet would also require renewal if it was to continue beyond the mid-2030s, so there would be a capital and operating cost element for that as well.
Noah Law
Does the Minister share my disbelief that the Tories continue to trot out the line that the Government are auctioning off wind power at a high price, while simultaneously neglecting to mention the levelised cost of electricity for thermal power, which is at least as high but takes a lot longer to deploy? Let us bust that myth once and for all.
Chris McDonald
My hon. Friend put it exactly right. We need to take both capital and operating costs into account. Fundamentally, the issue comes down to a belief or view—or, in my case, looking at the economic evidence and corporate finance. Is it possible to decarbonise and reindustrialise? Yes, of course it is, and that is precisely what the Government want to do. No one in the industry is asking us to tear up climate policy—they are using the policy to invest, and have invested £100 billion since the general election on that basis.
Many people mentioned the supercharger scheme, which currently supports around 10% of the ceramics industry. Quite obviously, 10% is not 100%, but the recent uplift in the scheme to 90% compensation has benefited members. The British industrial competitiveness scheme will offer further support on advanced and technical ceramics from 2027, backdated to the current year. That will reduce electricity bills by up to £40 per megawatt hour.
Chris McDonald
I will continue, but I will address a point that the right hon. Gentleman raised. He focused on the parts of the sector that are unable to electrify, which I am also very concerned about. Larger brick kilns and some sanitaryware items, which my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield spoke about in relation to his constituency, are difficult to electrify. The main decarbonisation options on the table are hydrogen, or biogas —that was not mentioned today but it could be a solution—but it is important that businesses remain competitive and able to raise capital until such a time as those occur.
I reassure the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge that I am focused on that issue. I am not pretending that processes that cannot be electrified can be, but the policy is to electrify first, where that can happen. However, I realise that I need to work with the brick sector and others. I am also concerned about capacity utilisation in the brick sector currently, which was mentioned by other hon. Members, because that situation, of course, makes everything much more difficult.
Many people talked about international trade. I presume that all hon. Members in the room are in favour of free trade on a level playing field basis; unfair trade was what was particularly referred to. That can be an issue of energy—overseas companies having access to energy from sources that we would not use in the UK, such as Russian gas—or, as we have heard about, some have inappropriate labour practices. When the Government decide to enter into a free trade scheme and liberalise tariffs we are always cognisant of the overall economic benefit to the country but, ultimately, we want free trade.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Worcestershire, asked about interaction with the Trade Remedies Authority, which is our means of correcting that. I am incredibly keen to continue to encourage the sector to engage with the Trade Remedies Authority. If there are any difficulties with that, I want to know about it.
Gareth Snell
Given that the Minister asked that he be informed of problems, the investigation process for calculating injury is incredibly arduous. In the last investigation, only two companies were able to take part in the process because of the bureaucratic and cost demands placed upon them. Simplifying the process for investigation would allow more companies to participate and provide evidence, which would make the TRA’s release more in line with what the sector and economy need.
Chris McDonald
My hon. Friend makes a reasonable point. The Trade Remedies Authority recently took some steps to try to speed up and reduce the cost of the process, but I understand that it is particularly difficult in a sector such as ceramics, in which there are so many small businesses—often, that is where a trade association might have a role. I will continue to work with the sector to understand the issues and to help, encourage and support companies to take cases to the Trade Remedies Authority where they feel that there are unfair trading practices. My hon. Friend thanked me in his speech for engaging with his private Member’s Bill, which I assure him I will continue to do.
The ceramics industry has faced great difficulties in the business environment, as have many of our manufacturing industries. I am sure that the Government’s measures to support the business environment will also support other parts of our manufacturing sector. Just as people in the potteries are proud to be potters, so people in other manufacturing areas in the country—
Dr Andrew Murrison (in the Chair)
Order. The sitting is suspended for 15 minutes.
Chris McDonald
I will not detain Members for very much longer. Earlier, the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) mentioned the former Prime Minister Harold Wilson and the many great things he did, one of which was his extremely strong focus on British manufacturing. The hon. Member for Lichfield talked about the opportunity we now have for reindustrialisation. Unashamedly, I lay claim to having recently introduced that word into the lexicon, and I am delighted at how quickly it has caught on.
However, I hope people might follow me if I introduce a few more words: increasing British productive capacity; improving British productivity; and increasing our exports and our balance of trade to improve our manufacturing competitiveness. That way, we can reindustrialise, we can provide good jobs for working people and we can put pride back into working communities around the country. In the case of the ceramics industry, I am very much looking forward to working with parliamentary colleagues to ensure that it continues to be a great British industry into the future.
Dave Robertson
It is a pleasure to sum up this debate, although my thanks will be a bit out of order, because I want to start with my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth). It has been an incredibly difficult year for her and her constituents. Throughout all the difficulty that she has faced, I have been proud to call her a friend. She is a great credit to both her constituents and this House for her hard work in this area.
I want to move on to the other contributions. Yet again, the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) and I have come to a debate in which we are forcefully agreeing on the same points—normal service will resume very soon. The points he made about identity and the need to increase exports are well met, and I am sure that they are common to many people in the Chamber today. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) rightly brought up the high-skilled jobs that the ceramics industry provides and its link to his visitor economy. But if he wants me to go that far north, he might have to take me to a distillery as well.
We can never expect to come to one of these debates and not hear the Stokies—my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams) and for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner)—or my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) coming at us with the importance of ceramics to their areas, as well as its centrality to the north Staffordshire identity and economy. It was also fantastic to hear them talking about the advanced ceramics industry and its growth potential, and how the Government can support that through better procurement and action on backstamping.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) focused on jobs, skills and growth. He also highlighted the fact that the ceramics industry is not just an area that we need to help; if we can provide the right support, it can drive our economy in this century and beyond. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) excellently showed that these are not jobs of last resort. People want to work with their hands and they want to make things—people want to work with ceramics. It would be remiss of me not to say that we must support this industry by driving it forward and providing those high-skilled, high-quality jobs that people really want.
My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Juliet Campbell) importantly raised the £120 million package that the Government have announced, and she talked about the identity of place that comes with this industry. I am actually unaware of any other industry that is so linked to the identity of the place that it supports.
I would not expect to attend a ceramics debate without hearing my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) talk about bricks. Not only did she mention the importance of bricks and the jobs they bring to her area, but she highlighted the importance of the industries that ceramics support, particularly construction. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law) also mentioned the £120 million support package, and it was fantastic to hear somebody else talking about the impact that dumping has on the ceramics industry.
I give many thanks to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mr Reynolds), for also talking about bricks. He made a really valuable point about the assessment of carbon costs, especially when we talk about the quality. He said that 120 years might be more appropriate for a brick; although that estimate might be true for an international brick, it is very conservative for bricks made in the UK, because they are of such high quality. I also wrote down a quote from the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) as she said it: “This is not just another sector”. Everyone here today can really understand that this is not just another sector; it is recognised the world over for exactly the quality I mentioned. The hon. Lady and I significantly disagree on the myth about cuts to North sea gas, but fortunately I expect to have many more opportunities to rehearse that debate until we finally get the Conservative party to see sense.
Finally, I think the Minister will eventually become sick of the sight of us all banging down his door to talk about ceramics—I do not care. It would be remiss of me not to remark on his willingness to work with MPs. He listens to parliamentarians and turns that into action. Clearly, we are still not there with the design of the scheme, but we are not going to go away and we will keep asking for more. The Minister quoted my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme shamelessly asking, “Can we have some more?” However, we will keep banging on about this, and I know we have a partner in that fight. Hopefully, we will be able to turn our shoulders to the wheel and continue to get support in the right place for this great British industry.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered e-petition 764785 relating to support for the ceramics industry.