Coeliac Disease

Debate between Lord Beamish and Anne Begg

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jones]

I am disappointed about that, because I was looking forward to the right hon. Gentleman’s attendance. He is a good friend, but I will obviously leave it to the Department to decide who is the best person to come, and we will certainly issue that invitation in the next few days.

I want to pick up some of the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire raised, including the products that are available. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South was right when she said that products have changed remarkably in the last 10 years from bread like cardboard that was hardly edible without a pint of water to some very good products on the market now. It is interesting that on the commercial side, large bread manufacturers such as Warburtons are producing gluten-free bread, so it obviously sees a market. I have tried its bread, and it is very good. Likewise, the invention of products such as Genius bread has completely changed the type of bread that is available, and the technology for producing it.

The supermarkets have also changed. Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s in particular have done two things. First, they have shelving dedicated to gluten-free products, which is important. Secondly, labelling has changed, which is important for people who suffer from coeliac disease, because it is amazing how many products contain gluten. Some flavours of crisps contain gluten, but others from the same producer do not. Correct labelling is important for all products so that people may buy with confidence, and see that the products that they are buying are gluten-free. It is important that the supermarkets recognise that there is a large and growing market for such products, so anything we can do to encourage better labelling of food content is important.

My hon. Friend referred to eating out, which can be difficult, although some restaurants recognise the problem of gluten in certain foods. However, the bane of my life is organisations that provide food on airlines and National Express, on which I sometimes travel. The people serving the food have no understanding of what a gluten-free diet is, and offer everything from sandwiches to sausages. When asked whether those foods contain gluten, they look blank.

The other reaction, which one gets from British Airways and which is amazing, is that whenever one asks for a gluten-free meal it thinks that that means vegetarian. I am not sure why, but it seems to think that one can eat what everyone else eats, but without the sauce. It seems to think that coeliacs are vegetarians, and my usual response is to ask whether I look like a vegetarian. There should be a campaign to persuade airlines and train companies that provide meals to ensure that their staff know what a gluten-free diet is. They could also be more imaginative about what they provide, because it is often inedible.

[Dame Anne Begg]

My hon. Friend may agree that if one tells an organisation that is providing a sandwich lunch that one wants a gluten-free sandwich, it always seems to provide the worst possible gluten-free bread, without the same filling as everyone else. One is given processed cheese or a bit of cold ham, and looks lovingly at the filling in everyone else’s sandwiches. Not only does one get the worst bread in the world, one gets the worst filling in the world, when it would have been easier to take out the original filling and put it on a plate to make quite a good salad.

[Dr William McCrea (in the Chair)]

Order. Time is passing, and the Opposition Front Bench spokesman and the Minister must make their winding-up speeches, so perhaps the hon. Gentleman will draw his comments to a close.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Lord Beamish and Anne Begg

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

It does, and that leads us to the point about how we would arbitrate in disputes between different companies. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) mentioned the fact that decisions on investment in oil and gas are not taken in this country, but in Houston, Calgary and other parts of the globe, so the North sea and exploration in this country is competing for investment from around the world. If companies have to jump through hoops to negotiate their individual tax liabilities before trying to put an appraisal together, I am sure that decision makers will go for the easier options so that they know what the return on investment will be, rather than the uncertainty that this has left us with.

[Dame Anne Begg]

If it is necessary to bring in all sorts of complicated extra things to mitigate the effects of a tax and make it appear fairer, surely the original tax is fundamentally flawed and should never have been introduced in the first place.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and her point about investment will increasingly be thought of when making such decisions.

That brings us to the question of what the decision-making process was when coming up with this tax. We have already had the ludicrous situation whereby even a Minister who practically used to work for a gas company did not recognise the difference between gas and oil prices. In my experience as a Minister dealing with Treasury officials, I always thought that they knew what they were talking about, so I am surprised that the Treasury allowed this measure to get through, because everyone knows the difference between the prices of the two.

We have already seen the effects of that this week, with the possibility that Centrica might turn off investment in Morecambe bay, and I am sure that the Minister will be off the company’s Christmas card list next year unless she does something radical to change what has been proposed. That decision will not only mothball a gas field that would have provided this country with gas for years to come, but write it off.

What will we do instead? We will import gas, which does not make sense economically or for energy security, especially when we look at where the large concentrations of gas are in the world—the former Soviet Union, parts of the middle east and, lo and behold, north Africa. Any idiot can work out that even Morecambe bay, and possibly Blackpool on a rowdy Saturday night, is more peaceful than north Africa or parts of the former Soviet Union, so it is important that we take seriously the comments of companies such as Centrica, which have invested over many years and not just in oil and gas fields but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon said, in new technologies.

It is a dirty industry, but it is also a leader in new technologies, such as robotics and drilling, and, owing to the difficulty of extracting oil and gas from parts of the North sea, we have been able to develop new techniques that are now used throughout the world. That is why many UK companies are leaders not only in this country, but throughout the world.

It has also become increasingly clear that the tax rate will have a real effect on the economy of north-east England. I accept that hon. Members who represent Scottish constituencies feel passionately about the issue, but the measure will have a dramatic effect in the north-east, too. The Conservative part of the coalition tells us that we in the north-east should grow the private sector, but the oil and gas industry is a very vibrant part of the private sector. Indeed, my hon. Friend has already mentioned the sub-sea sector, which supports 10,000 jobs and 380 firms in the north-east.

Amendment of the Law

Debate between Lord Beamish and Anne Begg

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg]

Indeed, if the oil price goes up, the amount that the Chancellor gets will go up. These must at best be guesstimates. Therein lies the problem for the offshore industry. The North sea is a mature province, but there is still a lot of oil left. In fact, there are probably as many known oil reserves in the North sea today as there were in the 1970s, but they are much harder to reach and more challenging to get out of the ground. The one thing that the offshore oil and gas industry needs is stability—stability in what the Chancellor is going to do. The last time the tax revenues for the offshore industry were changed, by the last Labour Government, there was a slowdown in the industry for a good two years before it recovered. The industry complained about the unexpected nature of that change and the fact that it was not able to plan for it. This change comes into effect from 12 o’clock tonight, so it will come as a huge shock to the offshore sector that it will be affected.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my hon. Friend recognise, given her expertise on the oil industry, that investment in exploration is long term? In some of the fields that she is talking about, planning and investment can take up to 10 years. A fluctuating oil price will make such decisions very difficult. That will have a direct impact on Tyneside and Teesside, which are strongly supported by the supply industry for North sea oil.

[Dame Anne Begg]

I could not agree more. In fact, I believe that 200 constituencies have 50 jobs or more that are directly related to the supply chain of the offshore industry. The change will come as a big shock out of the blue, and I do not think people are prepared for it.

As my hon. Friend suggests, in its long-term planning, the offshore sector tends to use an oil price of between $50 and $60 a barrel. In other words, it projects a stable oil price in its forward planning. That is clearly not the real situation, because sometimes the price dips below that level and sometimes, as at the moment, it goes up to $100 a barrel. The fluctuation of the oil price makes the sector’s long-term planning difficult, and the Chancellor has added another factor that will fluctuate, making the situation even less stable. To call it a fair fuel stabiliser is a complete misnomer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Anne Begg]

I advocated a universal or citizens pension as a Government Member for many years, but one strong argument against such a pension is that many people are very attached to the contributory principle. That came out in the original discussions, when the Government of the day decided to reduce the state pension qualifying years down to 30 for both men and women.

Part of the problem in this country is that we have no means other than NI contributions by which to determine who should qualify for a state pension, because we do not keep residency records, which is how the judgment is made in, for instance, New Zealand. The problem in this country is more complex than it may seem.

The state pension age is about to go up to 66 for men and women by 2020. This was meant to be a Budget for growth, but the very first thing the Chancellor spoke of was the downgrading of the growth figures. I am worried about where all the jobs will come from given the increased number of people in the workplace. The numbers in the work force are expected to increase because of the new work obligations on jobseeker’s allowance claimants; because lone parents will be expected to look for work when their youngest child is five; because 30% of incapacity benefit claimants will be assessed as fully fit for work and expected to go into the workplace; and because another 30% of such claimants will end up in the work-related activity group of employment and support allowance. Huge numbers of people are expected to go into the workplace. It is difficult to get figures on how many more people will be looking for work because the Department for Work and Pensions could not give them to us, but on top of those, the raising of the state pension age means that even more people will be looking for work.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

The Chancellor trumpeted the extension of support for mortgage interest, but has my hon. Friend seen page 42 of the Red Book, which says that that will continue for 2012-13, but decrease in 2013-14 to £15 million and then to zero in 2014-15?

[Dame Anne Begg]

I was going to talk about housing, but I could speak for another three hours if I go down that route, so if my hon. Friend will forgive me, I shall resist.

Will older people who have not reached state pension age be in work or not? At the moment, only 30% of men are still in work aged 65—not only because of early retirement and other things, but because people lose their jobs towards the end of their working lives—but they will be expected to work another year. Only 47% of women aged 60 are still in work, but they will be expected to work for another six years. Those people will not necessarily get anything under the universal credit, because they will probably have saved a nice little nest egg—a nest egg of just over £16,000—to see them through retirement. They will not get jobseeker’s allowance—or rather, they might get it for six months, but that is all they will get through the contributory principle. If they have fallen out of work because of ill health, the most that they might get is a year of employment and support allowance before then getting nothing. Those are big figures, and that is where a lot of the welfare reform savings in the Red Book will come from.

Indeed, it is perhaps worth alerting the House to the fact that the big savings in welfare reform do not come from getting “shirkers” back into work; they come from taking money from those who would normally have got contributory incapacity benefit, but will now get only contributory employment and support allowance for a year. That means that around £80 a week will come out of those people’s incomes. They will get nothing else if they live in a household with someone in work or with any other source of income, or if they have a small pension or savings of more £16,000. Therefore, there will be a new group of people struggling, and they will not be old-age pensioners; they will be pre-old-age pensioners, as it were. They are people who have fallen out of work, but not been able to work to 66 and get their state pension. They have been left with little—in fact, in some cases nothing—from the safety net that we think the welfare state is there to provide.

There is a lot more that I could say; indeed, I am sorry that I have spoken for longer than I intended. Over the coming days I will go through Red Book in a lot more detail than I have managed to today. However, from what I have seen already, there is a great deal for people to be concerned about in what the Chancellor has announced today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

If the hon. Gentleman continues, I might go on for a bit longer, so he must be clever and not do so.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) said, it has been billed that the Government have somehow saved the motorist by reducing tax by 1p, but the effects of paying for that will be disastrous for the oil industry in this country, including Scotland. They will be disastrous for the north-east, as it relies heavily on Teesside and Tyneside to supply the expanding gas and oil fields, which need long-term investment. It is completely and utterly irresponsible to throw a spanner into the works of the investment in developing some of the most difficult oil and gas fields in the North sea.

[Dame Anne Begg]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the danger of today’s proposals is that they might fatally undermine the whole North sea offshore sector, which is fragile anyway because the geology makes it difficult to get the oil out? As a result, the country may lose even more money, because the sector is a huge taxpayer. As my neighbouring MP, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith), said, 20% of all corporation tax is paid by the industry. What is being done today could put that in jeopardy.

[Mr Jones]

I agree, and there will also be a direct impact on jobs in oil exploration and in the booming oil supply business in Tyneside and Teesside. The short-term measure to try to get the Government out of a political fix on petrol prices will cause deep and long-term damage to jobs in the north-east and in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

The first-time buyer scheme, which the Red Book states will cost £250 million for just one year, will not help the north-east in any great way, because it will clearly be concentrated where a large number of houses are being built—the south-east and other areas. Because the Government have removed housing targets and affected social landlords’ ability to build new houses through the ham-fisted way in which they have structured the financing of social house building, I doubt whether there will be much effect on the north-east.

I also note that none of the £200 million additional investment in regional railways will go further than Leeds. Investment schemes for railways in the north-east—I have been calling for extra capacity for people to commute into Tyneside from Chester-le-Street and other places—will clearly not be forthcoming.

Finally, I wish to mention armed forces pay. The Chancellor said that there would be a £250 uplift for those in the armed forces earning less than £21,000. I remind the House that that is from the same Government who have frozen armed forces pay for the next two years. In addition, they have changed the calculation from RPI to CPI, which will cost many thousands of servicemen and women huge sums of money over the coming years. The Government should not be proud of that. I get rather annoyed because if the previous Government had done that, when I was a Defence Minister, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats would have howled us down and called us a disgrace.

Is this a Budget for growth? No, it is not. Will it help the north-east of England? No, it will not. Under the confused regional policy that is proposed, which is supported by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and his Liberal Democrat colleagues in the north-east, we will find that as the country’s economy declines and contracts, regions such as ours will go from the very bad position that they are in now to an even worse one.