Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Baroness Verma Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register. I thank my noble friend the Minister for the way he introduced this Second Reading. He laid out very clearly that this Government will be forward-thinking after coming out of Europe and that we will make sure that, instead of excluding professionals from countries we are currently limited to, we will welcome them. We will work closely with them through our regulators to ensure that we do not dumb down but collectively make our own country stronger through professional services and work closely with regulators, mutually, across those countries with which we will have trade agreements. That is right and proper, and it is important that, rather than constantly looking backwards, we look forward as a country with confidence.

I had a different set of notes; I changed them after listening to noble Lords because I was getting rather down in the mouth thinking that, rather than us all being optimistic about how we can make our country really strong and great, working with developing nations that are racing ahead, we should look at immigration, migration and all the challenges that we have collectively faced with the pandemic. We should see the opportunities to share best practice and make regulators—not in other countries but our own regulators—stronger and much more independent. They need to be able to look both at where there are jobs currently and at the jobs that do not actually exist. We should look at how we are going to future-proof ourselves.

I am glad that the Bill is here. When I first took the papers home, I thought it was a very small document. I agree with noble Lords that there will be a lot of scrutiny. That is what this House is really good at: scrutinising and making sure that we get the best outcomes, not just for our country but for the partners that we will deal with. I hope that, by being critical friends but also constructive contributors, across this House we will be able to use the collective expertise and experience that this House affords us to come out with something that is not only a game-changer for the professional bodies but a gold standard for those regulators with which we will no doubt be making these bespoke arrangements.

Sometimes I get rather depressed when I look at competency in English and the ability to communicate. Of course those are important issues, but we have failed ourselves by failing to address competency in language in our country for decades. It is only right and proper that we address that issue now and make sure that, as people come to this country, the competencies of speaking, reading and writing in English are there. This also applies when we engage with our partners across the waters. I do not know who mentioned India but, if I may say so, Indian workers tend to have absolutely accurate, precise English. They are taught it grammatically and they come to this country with a very high level of competency. Unfortunately, we have also allowed lower-skilled workers to arrive on our shores and huddle in communities where they do not bother to engage in learning English. That is something that we as a country should address instead of blaming migrants who come to this country.

I also hope that my noble friend the Minister will see to it that, as we come out and look at the work that the Secretary of State for International Trade is doing—I must congratulate her on her progress—we look at ourselves as a country that embraces the new world, where developing, emerging economies will play a large part in the generation of global wealth, and not look at ourselves as rule-makers without being rule-takers. I hope that these short comments have set out my position: I hope that I will be constructive to the Minister, but I will also take time to scrutinise every single line that the Bill presents.

Covid-19: Small Businesses

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an important point. There are a range of assistance schemes provided by many local authorities and government agencies to help and support them.

[Baroness Verma (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I refer to my interests as set out in the register. Would my noble friend help me understand what help will be given to our high streets? I am particularly concerned about my own city, Leicester, where so many shops have closed down since the pandemic. Can my noble friend please see what more can be done to help those in the supply chain to the hospitality and leisure sectors, especially those in multi-occupancy buildings? They have not received as much support as they possibly could have.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I will certainly bear the comments made by the noble Baroness in mind. Local authorities across England have been allocated a further £500 million in discretionary funding via the additional restrictions grant to support businesses from 5 January. This could include businesses supplying the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors or businesses outside the current business rates system which have effectively been forced to close

Covid-19: Small Businesses

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes an important point, but we have paid out more than £11 billion to more than 900,000 small businesses, and some small businesses that are ineligible for the SEISS grant extension may still be eligible for other elements of the scheme.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend look at councils that rent their properties out to small businesses, so that those businesses do not receive demands to pay their rent at this very difficult time? Leicester has been in a second lockdown since June, and small businesses are struggling. Will my noble friend also look at not re-adding VAT to PPE? I refer noble Lords to my interests as set out in the register.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My noble friend makes an important point, and I hope that councils, in particular, being part of the public sector, will be sympathetic to the plight of many small businesses at this time. I am sure that my noble friend will understand, however, that I cannot predict what the Chancellor might have to say, on VAT or any other matters, in his future Budgets.

Energy: Hydrogen

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I agree that we need to look at all available technologies for the production of hydrogen, whether blue or green, including electrolysis and other methods. It will be a key fuel for our decarbonisation efforts and we need to consider all available technologies.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I too refer to my interests in the register. I congratulate my noble friend on the fund for innovation but can he also tell me what work is being done with the construction industry for future builds, to try to ensure that the innovation we are investing in is deployed into the new build?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

We will shortly set out a heat and buildings strategy, which will take account of these factors. As I mentioned earlier, we are already working with the boiler manufacturers through a £25 million fund to see how much hydrogen we can currently inject into the system. Experiments are taking place in various parts of the country to see how we can deploy hydrogen into the domestic gas networks. Obviously, we need to work with the boiler manufacturers to ensure that that works.

Covid-19: Business

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Wednesday 13th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)]

We now come to the 30 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. I ask that questions and answers be brief so that we can call the maximum number of speakers.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

Can my noble friend confirm that businesses in multioccupancy properties where business rates are shared among the businesses and added to the rental agreement are able to access business grants through local authorities? Many businesses I have spoken to have said that they have not been able to do that so far. If not, what is available and how quickly can they access it? Like all businesses, they are having to make adjustments for safe working, and this all comes at a cost.

[Lord Callanan]

I thank my noble friend for her question. We have announced a package of support to help businesses with their ongoing business costs in recognition of the disruption caused. This package includes the small business grant fund, specifically for hereditaments in England that were eligible for relief on 11 March under the small business rates relief fund. The funding is to support small and rural businesses which are ratepayers on a property, as these businesses are more likely to have ongoing fixed costs during this period. Unfortunately, businesses that were not eligible for percentage SBRR relief on 11 March are excluded.

Nevertheless, there are other new measures to provide support to those businesses, including CBILS, deferral of the next quarter of back-payments for firms until the end of June, representing a £30 billion injection into the economy, and a new fast-track finance scheme providing loans with a 100% government guarantee. In addition, there is also the bounce-back loan scheme, which will ensure that the smallest businesses can access loans in a matter of days. We are working currently with local authorities to try to make sure that this support is delivered as fast as possible.