British Steel

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. My training under his expert tutelage on the PAC stood me in good stead for ministerial office, and I am grateful to him for that.

I am encouraged by my right hon. Friend’s encouragement to take an activist approach. That is the approach that I have been taking. In my view—and this applies to everyone who has been part of the support group—we let this slip through our fingers if we are not there to make sure that all the questions can be answered, whether through the trade unions, which have been magnificent in this, or through the local authorities, including some of his neighbours in Lincolnshire. Ursula Lidbetter, who leads the Lincolnshire local enterprise partnership, has been very active in the group. I will, in so far as I am still at this Dispatch Box, continue that approach. I am sure that my right hon. Friend’s recommendation of an activist approach will sound with some resonance down the corridors of this place and reach the ears of the new Prime Minister, who I hope will follow his sage advice.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is disheartening to hear that this process continues to drag on with no idea how long it will take for a deal to conclude. This UK Government must at last stand up for the steel industry and deliver a sector deal. In today’s global world, the uncertainty caused by Brexit is providing businesses with the nudge they need to leave the UK. How many more will leave when it becomes apparent that the new Prime Minister has no plans beyond a no-deal Brexit? Our thoughts are with all those dealing with continued uncertainty—employees, management, unions, and those in the supply chain. What will the Secretary of State, who has shown real commitment to securing the continuation of the British steel plants, do—or, indeed, what will his successor do—in the face of a Brexit that is doing irreparable damage to our manufacturing sector?

[Greg Clark]

I am grateful for what the hon. Lady said about me personally.

I think it would be more disheartening if this process had concluded, as was the wide expectation eight weeks ago, with what happened in Redcar, as the Redcar mentioned, which was the more or less immediate closure of the plant. The fact that the process continues, far from being disheartening, is heartening in that there are several bidders that the official receiver and his agents are working with. It is absolutely vital that those discussions should continue for as long as they prove necessary. That is one of the reasons why my first act on the warning of the insolvency was to commit a Government indemnity to allow an orderly process to take place, and I very much hope it will.

I very much agree with the hon. Lady that having a sector deal with the steel sector is highly desirable. All the sector deals—colleagues have heard me launch different sector deals from this Dispatch Box—require investment by the industry and by the Government alongside each other. That is precisely what we want to do in this case. I hope that this will be a catalyst for the investment that allows such a deal to take place.

UK Steel Industry

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) for securing this important debate and for his outstanding work as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on steel and metal-related industries.

I came into this Parliament in 2015 and almost instantly got involved in steel because my constituency used to house Ravenscraig hot strip steel mill, and now houses the Dalzell works. We have had not our troubles to seek. What has been done in Scotland and in the rest of the UK has been different in the extreme. The hon. Member for Scunthorpe—I believe it was he—said that he was looking for another UK steel summit. I was involved in the first one and the one in Scotland. The one in Scotland started proceedings by saying, “We will save both mills”—there is also Clydebridge in the neighbouring constituency. That was the focus from the minute that the summit met. The steel taskforce worked tirelessly with that one aim in mind, and it succeeded by helping Liberty Steel to buy the mill from Tata, giving it as much work as possible, giving it compensation for electricity and a rates holiday, and doing all sorts of other practical tasks. It managed to do that within the EU rules. It has always been a huge puzzle to me why the UK Government cannot do what our EU competitors do, work within the EU rules and save steel in the UK. The industry should not be lightly disregarded.

Steelworkers are a special breed, as has been said. They have taken the decision time and time again across the UK to change their terms and conditions and rates of remuneration, and they have fought to save apprenticeships—all in the teeth of a Government who do not seem to care about what happens to anything other than the financial industry. No first-world country can run an economy without manufacturing, and steel is a foundation industry for any economy that wants to have manufacturing.

I feel passionately about this issue. I am not a native of Motherwell and Wishaw; I have only been there 32 years—I always say that. However, I know how passionately steel is intertwined with the very fabric of my constituency. It was a pleasure to be there recently when the Minister from the Scottish Government signed the UK steel charter. I was in a privileged position, because I was able to be at both signings, both here and in Scotland. That commitment by the Scottish Government needs to be matched by the UK Government, because there are things that are not within the competence of the Scottish Government. We have no influence on energy prices, dealing with steel tariffs or dealing with the President of the United States, so I ask the Minister to please take this issue seriously.

Many of us who take part in these debates are sick and tired of the same debates. It has been joked that we should just pull out the speeches we made before, rewind, and keep giving the same ones. There is a place for that, but we need this Government to make a commitment that we will not leave the EU with no deal and that we will save the UK steel industry in its entirety. We must save the jobs of people who have committed to the steel industry, and the unions that have worked tirelessly with management across that industry to make sure it is still here and will be here for the future and our children’s futures.

British Steel

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I was unaware that he had had that early experience in the steel sector. I do not want to make a partisan point, so perhaps I can take this in a historical sense to illustrate that the steel sector has been through periods of turbulence and difficulty in this country and around the world, and it is clearly going through one now. It was the case that steel production fell by 50% between 1997 and 2010, as did employment in the sector, but I do not blame that on the Government of the day. It was a feature of the market at the time, but I think that we should learn the lessons from some of the decisions that were taken then. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Middlesbrough reminds us from a sedentary position that the blast furnaces at Redcar were mothballed, which made it difficult to return them to service. They did come back with SSI, but it was very difficult to do that. The point is that we should have the maximum possible continuity, and attend to the lessons from that time. Criticisms were made at the time of the approach being taken both there and in SSI, and in the present situation we should learn the lessons and ensure that we have maximum continuity.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving me advance sight of his statement.

Since I was sworn in as a Member of this House four years ago, I have watched two Tory Prime Ministers and two Business Secretaries fail the steel sector across the UK. Time and again, they have refused to level the playing field for steel in relation to energy costs and to rates in England. I have been happy to show solidarity with those in the steel sector who face the prospect of not having a job and with those who work in the supply chains. We cannot keep on repeating this.

The UK Government need to achieve a sector deal for steel and, by their actions, fully commit to the steel industry’s future across the UK. A first step would be to listen to the industry and its concerns on Brexit, and I am glad to hear the Secretary of State say that he will do that. The inaction and apathy of this Government and this Prime Minister towards industry are reminiscent of another Tory Prime Minister. We are still recovering from the damage that Margaret Thatcher did to the steel industry in Scotland. Do this Tory Government recognise the danger inherent in pursuing their current policy regarding industrial strategy?

In 2015, by contrast, the SNP Scottish Government saved the Scottish steel industry. They saved the Dalzell works in my constituency and the Clydebridge works in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West constituency. Indeed, I am going there on Wednesday to sign the UK steel charter with the Scottish Minister for Trade, Investment and Innovation. Will the Secretary of State look to what was done by the SNP Scottish Government in setting up a Scottish steel taskforce and commit to saving steel across the UK? The Scottish steel taskforce was a model committed to saving those works, and it did so because it started out with that commitment as its sole objective, by contrast to the UK steel summit that we had in 2015. Minister, you have a grave responsibility here and I hope that you will come back and tell us that you have achieved what we all want for British Steel.

[Greg Clark]

I recognise that responsibility, and the intention of the group that the hon. Lady describes is precisely what I have set out. We all need to join forces to provide the best prospect for continuity for these operations. She referred to the important steelworks in Scotland. Sometimes, for the reasons I have set out, it is necessary for a Government to participate in a sector where discontinuities and interruptions can be difficult to recover from. I think she would be generous enough to concede that the £120 million that I informed the House of on 1 May gave precisely the possibility for these operations to continue, without which we would have been unable to have this discussion today about the prospects for the industry.

The hon. Lady asked about energy costs. Energy-intensive industries obviously incur significantly higher energy costs than other sectors. Over the past few years, we have paid £291 million in compensation to energy-intensive sectors, including steel. The industrial strategy contains an industrial energy transformation fund to increase the energy efficiency of energy-intensive operations, and that is worth about a third of a billion pounds. That constitutes, I think, the kind of action that she would expect. We now need to ensure that that is applied to the situation facing British Steel so that it can continue to operate and, indeed, to flourish.

British Steel

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

My hon. Friend is a huge champion of the steel sector. I was pleased to meet representatives of Tata yesterday, and I have regular engagements with companies across the steel sector to talk about these issues. The UK steel charter is a really good initiative, and I am proud to have signed it on behalf of my Department. I will be encouraging other Departments to do the same.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It was left to the SNP Scottish Government to secure a future for Scottish steel with the transfer of the Dalzell and Clydebridge plants to Liberty. Although Liberty still expects operations at British Steel to continue as normal for the time being, it is preparing and taking the necessary measures to protect the business from a potential shortage of slab, which would affect the Liberty works. Will the support shown to British Steel, not to mention Nissan, be given to any Scottish firms affected? British Steel needed a loan earlier this month to pay its £100 million Brexit fine. Given that British Steel is clear that Brexit-related issues are taking the firm to the brink, how many more jobs will Westminster sacrifice before it gets the message that Brexit must be stopped?

[Andrew Stephenson]

I am very keen to work with the devolved Administrations to support the UK steel sector. Only this week I met the Secretary of State for Wales and a Welsh steel company to talk about support for the steelworks in that part of the United Kingdom. I am very keen to work with the Scottish Government to ensure that we have a thriving steel sector in Scotland as well.

Education

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

I am a trifle confused. The territorial extent of the regulations is described as across the UK, but in fact they contain not a lot, if anything, that affects Scotland. They do refer to UKRI, which is the amalgamation into one body of all the research funding councils across the UK, no work on which has actually been done by this Government since the amalgamation was announced in the 2017 Act. This will have a great and deleterious effect on Scotland and on Scottish universities. There is a worrying spectre facing the Scottish universities in regard to research funding, which will no longer come from Europe. Scotland has had more, some would say, than its fair share in population terms, but certainly not more than its fair share in excellence terms because of the research done in Scottish universities, quite often by EU nationals who have given a great boost to the Scottish university sector and who are welcome, and still welcome, in Scotland.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

That will affect not only Scottish universities but English universities, certainly in the midlands and in the Coventry area, where there are two universities. Those universities in Coventry and the midlands do a lot of research and development for Europe, and they sometimes rely on the expertise of employees coming from Europe. We cannot get a guarantee out of the Government that that expenditure will continue at present levels or increase beyond 2020. Does the hon. Lady agree that that is cause for concern for all universities in Scotland and in England?

[Marion Fellows]

I certainly do, but as the hon. Gentleman is aware, I have a particular interest in Scottish universities.

I thank the Minister—it was a bit bad of me not to thank him immediately—for his detailed explanation of the regulations and for the promise that more regulations will be brought forward on research. I gave him—I am sure he remembers it well—a 101 on Scottish universities education when he came to the Education Committee this morning. It was a pleasure to meet him and to listen to what he had to say, and I believe he has the interests of universities at large at heart. I hope he will take up my offer for him to look closely at what is being done in Scotland about funding and widening access, which we discussed this morning. However, I am going off the point and I do not wish to speak for long.

I share the puzzlement of the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden). No one is against these regulations; they are technical and they will help to ensure that the 2017 Act makes sense after we leave—if we do—the European Union. My preferred option is to stay, of course. The regulations are really just technical, and I am baffled about why they have been brought to the Floor of the House but the Minister has not published the information on research funding that universities need now; that is almost teasing the whole university sector. Universities UK was very pleased because a successor to Horizon 2020 is moving forward, and we may, as a United Kingdom, be a third party and involved with that. Some of the best research done across the UK and across Europe has been the best precisely because it has been pan-European, not confined to the UK.

As has been mentioned in this place before, the Government’s proposals for tier 4 visas for students after three years in the UK will have a much greater impact in Scotland, where a standard degree is generally a four-year degree. That must be dealt with. It also affects those students who carry on, who want to do real and lasting research and want to stay in Scotland. The whole premise of tier 4 visas is to put off—it has already put off—researchers coming to the UK, to Scotland as well, and to make it much more difficult for universities to attract the right kind of research that they can build on and keep the UK in the forefront of research worldwide.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I strongly agree with the hon. Lady. Does she agree that the policy affects not only Scotland, where four-year courses are a norm, but courses such as engineering throughout the UK, where four-year courses are standard, and other courses where the master’s degree is required as the first degree that people get, because it is a four-year course, and because of the level of learning that is needed to reach that standard?

[Marion Fellows]

I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman. I have been a bit remiss. Medicine is affected as well; many degrees in England, as well as in Scotland, last longer than four years. The Government must take that issue seriously.

Can the Minister say when he will introduce further regulations under the 2017 Act? That is crucial to universities the length and breadth of the UK.

Post Office Network

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dame Cheryl Gillan (in the Chair)]

Before we start the debate, I remind colleagues that the Post Office group litigation concerning in particular sub-postmasters and their contractual relationships with the Post Office is currently before the courts. In accordance with the House’s sub judice resolution, reference should not be made in the debate to cases that are currently before the courts. I will allow discussion of the wider issues relating to the sustainability of the post office network—that is permissible—but I remind Members that I will intervene if I think they are overstepping the mark.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the sustainability of the Post Office network.

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship yet again, Dame Cheryl. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this important debate on the sustainability of the post office network and the many Members from all parts of the House who supported my application for it. I also thank my Hansard Society scholar intern, Rebecca Orbach, who worked so effectively in organising my application.

At the outset, I want to recognise and thank the sub-postmasters in my constituency, and across Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, who work hard in difficult circumstances to serve our communities. I also want to acknowledge a hard-working sub-postmaster—they know who they are—for working across all parties to seek support for the future of post offices. Friends in the National Federation of SubPostmasters and the Communication Workers Union also deserve our recognition for their fight for the preservation of the post office network. Finally, I thank all those who have attended today’s debate. I am sure that Members will agree that the post office is a recognised and important part of our respective communities and an institution that is widely recognised and respected across Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

The post office is a valued public asset, as many of our constituents have made us aware. From the reaction of people in my constituency to the Crown branch closure in the centre of Motherwell and the temporary closure of the branch in the centre of Wishaw, I know that people and businesses not only use, but rely on their post offices and the services they provide. Their importance has underpinned the strong opposition in communities to the franchising of Crown branches and the closure of franchised branches due to poor postmaster pay.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady most sincerely on securing this important debate. Part of the problem in my constituency is that over the past year we have had temporary closures in Ogmore Vale, Aberkenfig and the community of Bettws. Those temporary closures are ongoing, with one of them nearing a year. Post offices provide banking services as well as the postal service, and they are often linked to local shops. Those services are important, given all the bank closures in my constituency. I have only one bank left for 58,000 constituents. Temporary closures are as much of a problem in my constituency as permanent closures. Does the hon. Lady agree that the Post Office needs to up its game in resolving those temporary closures?

[Marion Fellows]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I will come to the point he raises further into my speech.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I am more cynical than my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore); I have had a temporary closure that has lasted four years and I have four temporary closures. The Post Office knows that permanent closures get a lot of opposition, so temporary closures and downgrading Crown post offices to the back of WHSmith is its way of undermining the network while muting public opposition. I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. She is obviously not fooled in that way.

[Marion Fellows]

I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman. I have a temporary postmaster still in office in Wishaw after the sub-post office there was temporarily closed last year.

What the public are seeing is yet another managed decline of a valued public asset driven by a Tory ideology of non-intervention. The public are, through their elected Government, the owners of Post Office Ltd. They feel and have let their elected Members know that the Government should be driving action to ensure the sustainability and promotion of the post office network. I hope the Minister will outline not only the actions her Department has taken, but the further actions she will take in response to the concerns of communities, postmasters and Members here today.

The main issue undermining the sustainability of the post office network is the postmaster crisis. At the root of that is sub-postmaster pay. Scottish National party MPs and Members from all parties have heard over and again from their local sub- postmasters about how poor pay is a leading cause of closures in their constituencies; I have even had sub-postmasters contact me from England to complain about the level of pay they are receiving.

The National Federation of SubPostmasters—the organisation that represents sub-postmasters across the UK—has said that two thirds of branch closures are due to sub-postmaster resignations, and they have attributed that to low pay. Sub-postmasters’ general conditions are also poor, with as many as one third taking no time off at all last year.

A survey released this month by the National Federation of SubPostmasters found that one in five towns could lose its post office in the next year. Of the 1,000 workers surveyed, 22% plan to hand in their keys, pass on their branch or downsize. The Post Office’s 2017-18 annual report states that sub-postmasters’ pay has fallen by £17 million in one year. That is a 4.4% cut. Sub-postmasters sustained a brutal £27 million cut the year before. Looking at postmasters’ pay in the long term, we see that it has declined by £107 million since 2012.

As part of Post Office Ltd’s North Star initiative to create a profit of £100 million by 2021, it used cuts to sub-postmasters’ pay to increase its profits from £13 million to £35 million in 2017-18. That is while the majority of sub-postmasters earn less than the minimum wage for running a vital public service in their communities.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. The issue has been raised by sub-postmasters across the UK, and I have had meetings with some in my constituency. My hon. Friend has talked about the job that sub-postmasters do. The sub-postmaster in Scotstoun, Ali Akram, has an old folks’ sheltered housing complex across the road. He considers the work he does there to be a vital community service. He goes way above and beyond his actual job—he helps the men and ladies package things up and properly address them and so on—but when we consider the pay of sub-postmasters, that is not valued at all.

[Marion Fellows]

My hon. Friend is completely right, and I have heard many similar tales from Members from all parts of the Chamber. One told me that the sub-postmaster who served his mother actually helped her with her banking, going way over and above what he was paid to do. At meetings with sub-postmasters, I have been told how they feel driven to help their communities, but because of the limited pay they are getting, they feel they will no longer be able to offer that valuable public service.

The majority of sub-postmasters earn less than the minimum wage for running a vital public service. Our postmasters are being overworked and underpaid while Post Office Ltd is allowed to hoover up their wages for its own profit, rather than properly remunerating the people responsible for that profit. What is the Minister’s assessment of the Post Office’s North Star initiative in general and in relation to the decrease in sub-postmaster pay? Postmasters are working hard for poor pay so the executive board can meet its arbitrary profit targets. There is no real pay-off to that, as it is fuelling the downfall of the post office network.

There is also no real strategy to deal with the crisis that the Post Office faces. Across the UK, 460 postmasters want to leave as part of the network transformation programme, but cannot do so until a new postmaster is found. Currently, there is interest, and interest only, in 90 of those branches, so 460 people are essentially being held captive because the remuneration rates are so poor that Post Office Ltd cannot find a new postmaster to fill the position.

I am aware that a deal has recently been struck that will increase remuneration on banking transactions, but that is only one small source of income for sub-postmasters, and it will not come into effect for another six months. What discussions has the Minister had with Post Office Ltd on remuneration for postmasters, and why is there a six-month wait before the new rates come into force? Our postmasters need better pay now, and the whole postmaster contract, introduced in 2012 under a Tory Government, needs to be reviewed. Will the Minister commit to urgent action to review the whole contract?

In February, the Minister wrote to me to say that she would ask Post Office Ltd for the hourly rates effectively paid to sub-postmasters. Her Department must conduct an independent analysis of that. Given the poor treatment of postmasters by Post Office Ltd over decades, it is essential that the injustices that they have faced and the oppositional stance from Post Office Ltd management are not allowed to continue and influence any findings or outcomes. The attitude of Post Office Ltd towards postmasters has been shameful, and caused the loss of dozens of jobs and ongoing legal action that is now sub judice. I hope that the Minister will commit to an independent analysis of remuneration to sub-postmasters, and to a thorough review of postmasters’ contracts.

Furthermore, our postmasters have already been paying the price for the executive targets of Post Office Ltd through poor pay. Any future unexpected legal costs payable by Post Office Ltd must not influence decisions on postmaster pay. Postmasters cannot be expected to continue to pay the price for the Post Office’s shortcomings. The Government must, for once, put the interests of working people ahead of the aims and aspirations of an executive board and profit. I hope that the Minister will commit to ensuring that the outcome of any court case will not affect any potential new deal for sub-postmasters.

The consequence of poor postmaster pay is that communities are left without a branch and the services that they need. In response to a written question last month, Post Office Ltd confirmed that 1,016 branches across the UK are temporarily closed right now. Of all 12 regions of the UK, Scotland is the hardest hit by the postmaster crisis, with the highest number of temporarily closed branches—currently 134, representing 13% of all temporarily closed branches. That is 134 communities without something as simple as a post office, and 52 of the 315 branches with a temporary operator are also located in Scotland.

Temporary closures are affecting access. In 2017, Citizens Advice reviewed the Government’s access criteria and raised two concerns, the first being that measuring proximity to a post office as the crow flies does not accurately reflect the distance that people have to travel. It estimated that, if more accurate measurements were used, the UK Government would have failed five out of six of their own access tests. This is an attempt to pull the wool over people’s eyes. The number of branches operating in the post office network has been tumbling, which is greatly affecting people’s ability to access post office services, both rurally and in urban areas.

The Post Office’s own figures show, between 2014-15 and 2017-18, performances getting worse in five of the six elements used to judge performance. There is no doubt that the postmaster crisis is a driving force behind access to branches and quality service, so what are the UK Government doing to improve access, while maintaining quality services?

Crown branch closures have also affected access. People can no longer access the full service that they had previously at their post office. Since 2013, the Crown network has been cut by a massive 60%. Although Crown branches make up only a small percentage of the branches in the post office network, they have historically represented 10% to 20% of the Post Office’s overall revenue. They therefore play a crucial role in the network’s past, present and future, and must be preserved. These branches are flagship stores in prominent locations, so the impact on local communities, and the network generally, of closing them can be massive. Smaller, franchised branches often do not have the same presence in communities, provide the same level of service or offer workers the same conditions. In 2012, a report from Consumer Focus found a drop in performance; it concluded that franchising resulted in longer queuing, poorer customer service and advice, poorer disabled access, and a reduced number of counter positions.

When Crown branches are removed from prominent places in town centres, that removes yet another reason for people to visit their high street. That in turn reduces footfall and the likelihood of people spending on our high streets, as opposed to shopping online. The businesses surrounding Crown branches often benefit from being near a post office, which affects their income. Speak to any person from any town and they will complain about the state of their high street and closed units. What assessment have the Government made of the impact of Crown branch closures on town centres?

It is not just communities and sub-postmasters who are getting a rough deal from the current strategy—so are workers who are TUPE-ed over from a Crown branch to a franchise. The majority of workers being TUPE-ed opt to leave the profession, and take with them their skills and experience. In 2014-15, only 10 out of 400 staff were TUPE-ed over to a new retailer. In 2016, only six in 200 were TUPE-ed.

The Communication Workers Union has expressed concerns about conditions and the loss of skills. New jobs with franchising partners such as WHSmith are advertised at lower rates than the very same jobs with Post Office Ltd. That affects not only workers and their families, but the economy of the local community. According to the CWU, it makes more financial sense for franchise partners to offer a settlement to get Crown workers out the door, and bring in new staff in fewer positions, on lower pay and with poorer conditions.

The UK Government cannot be allowed to shake off their responsibility. Just because jobs are franchised, that does not mean that Ministers can turn a blind eye to the lower pay and conditions. Ministers have a duty to staff working directly and indirectly for Post Office Ltd. Will the Minister take action to prevent a two-tier system, and to bring everyone up, not down, to the same standard, regardless of the type of branch in which they work?

WHSmith has informed the CWU that once staff are TUPE-ed to their franchises, the CWU will no longer be recognised, so new and existing staff are not only being given a poorer deal, but are not even being given the means of improving their situation. They are being told to like it or lump it. Every workforce must have the right to union recognition. A stipulation for any new franchise contract must be that unions—the CWU and others—be recognised. Will the Minister commit to ensuring that?

The CWU has also expressed concerns about the fact that WHSmith was voted worst retailer on the high street in a 2018 poll by Which?. It has appeared in the bottom two in the Which? survey in each of the last eight years. With that rating, customers cannot expect quality service, and workers cannot expect a quality employer. Given that these retailers are carrying out roles on behalf of the UK Government as the special shareholder of Post Office Ltd, what is the Minister’s assessment of the quality of the service and rates provided by retailers such as WHSmith?

The recent decision to turn another 74 Crown post offices into franchises in WHSmith stores is alarming, particularly given reports that franchising is occurring without consultation with existing local post offices, meaning that the competition risks further destabilising the network. There have even been cases where a new franchise was opened in a WHSmith that was less than five minutes away from a post office branch, without there having been any consultation with the existing postmaster. Such decisions can have a devastating effect on a postmaster’s income, and can lead to a branch closing. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that sub-postmasters are listened to, and that their branch’s sustainability is taken into account in the decision-making process?

Communities must also be consulted, and any consultation must be meaningful. When the Post Office “consulted” people in Motherwell about the franchising of the town centre branch, it was merely a rubber-stamping exercise; I conducted my own consultation, which found that the post office was well used and well valued by the local community, but the Post Office pushed on with its plans anyway. A proper consultation would have required Post Office Ltd to listen and react to what it was told, but it has not done so. Nor have the Government: they have constantly palmed off the public and hon. Members with claims that anything that relates to the Post Office is a matter for the Post Office. Can the Minister outline what major steps the Post Office has taken in response to communities’ reactions to Crown branch closures?

Last year, the Post Office’s director of sales and trade marketing told the all-party parliamentary group on post offices that it had no contingency plans in case WHSmith—a company with 14 years of declining sales—goes bust, which would leave communities with no post office and leave Post Office Ltd floundering, deepening the postmaster crisis. With 596 branches, Martin McColl is the largest retail operator, while One Stop has 179, so Post Office Ltd may be guilty of putting all its eggs in one basket. Can the Minister outline her Department’s contingency plans in case the larger retailers fail and their post office branches close along with them?

The post office network is being gutted by Post Office Ltd, and the UK Government are allowing it to happen. If the UK Government see a real future for post offices as a “front office for Government”, the physical network must be supported to maintain services and attract more people to opt in. More Crown branches are closing and more mobile post offices are being deployed, which is not attractive and does not represent the strong public institution that people once knew.

The machinery and skills needed to perform certain services are being lost as Crown branches close. Not only are private providers of services not opting in, but neither are the UK Government. The Home Office has chosen not to renew its contract for biometric services with Post Office Ltd, which means that fewer people are visiting their post office and less money is being spent. I accept that a competitive tendering process has to be undertaken, but why has Post Office Ltd not been competitive enough?

Will the Minister pledge to speak to her colleagues in the Home Office and other Departments about what services they can provide through the post office network? In their response to the 2017 consultation on the post office network, the UK Government pledged to look at what new products post offices could provide. New products serve not only communities but sub-postmasters, who can increase their income. New services could therefore be a way of preventing the mass exodus of postmasters. Since publishing their response, what products have the UK Government introduced? What products are being examined?

The preservation of existing services is important not only for the sustainability of the post office network and sub-postmasters’ incomes, but for particularly vulnerable people. For example, people who use Post Office card accounts to withdraw social security payments rely massively on that service. Typically, people are taken to a bank in their youth by their parents to open an account, but that is simply not the case for everyone, especially those who are most vulnerable. I have assisted constituents who needed to open a bank account but were unable to—not because they did not want to, but because they held no recognised ID, as they would then be pursued for debts and put in an even more difficult position. How do the UK Government plan to support those people when the card account contract expires in 2021? A commitment must be made to extend the contract, not just until 2024 but indefinitely. People must have the choice. Not extending the contract would be a choice by this Government to place yet more barriers in front of people to prevent them from accessing the support that they need.

One key way in which the network can achieve longevity is through banking transactions. The proposal from the CWU, in conjunction with Cass Business School, to form a post bank deserves serious consideration. With more and more banks closing in our communities, a post bank could be a viable public alternative that provided customer service on people’s doorsteps and in their communities while larger banks are abandoning them. It would require vision as well as will from the Government, but right now they have no vision—only a strategy for managed decline.

If the UK Government truly see a future for the post office network in which it can continue to have a prominent presence in town centres, so that people can still access an array of services, there needs to be a clear strategy. That strategy cannot simply be cuts dressed up as efficiency, or privatisation disguised as modernisation. The UK Government need to step up to the plate and ensure that this public service meets the standard that the public expect. Their key pledges must be to review sub-postmaster contracts, drastically increase and improve services, halt and reverse Crown branch franchising, commit to union recognition and better conditions for workers, actually listen to communities and sub-postmasters, develop a contingency plan in case retailers go bust, and assess the impact of the current strategy on town centres and vulnerable groups.

Fulfilling those pledges would be a major step towards a sustainable and doable strategy. However, I and many others have a suspicion that the Tories are overseeing the managed decline of the post office network as part of a deliberate strategy to underfund the service, making it poorer in order to lower confidence in it and justify a full-scale privatisation of the network. If that happened, I am sure it would be met with the same public opposition as the Crown closure plans.

The SNP believes that post offices should remain in our communities, that the franchising of Crown branches should be halted and that Crown branches should be re-established, so that people can enjoy more and better services, workers and sub-postmasters can enjoy better conditions, the post office network’s sustainability can be ensured and the commonweal can be served. A public service should serve the public, not the aims and aspirations of people on retailers’ executive boards or of Post Office Ltd, which is profiting from the feebleness of the UK Government, who refuse to act.

The post office network is in a postmaster crisis. The strategy of non-intervention is not coherent. Communities, sub-postmasters, workers and the network as a whole need action—and they need it now.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Marion Fellows]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chamber and to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. Unfortunately, you missed the beginning of the debate, and I have to say that the Minister’s summing-up did not bear a lot of resemblance to what was actually said throughout. However, I am delighted that she agrees with us that the post office network is a vital national asset. It was a commitment in the Tory manifesto of 2017 to safeguard the network, but the tales that we heard from across the Chamber today are strong evidence that the network is not being safeguarded.

However, I am also very pleased that the Minister has reiterated that managed decline is not her objective. It is no one’s objective, but there is real concern and fear in our communities. Almost weekly now, we as Members of the House of Commons receive representations from postmasters about their absolute desire to work harder and to work well within their communities, but about how they cannot afford to do that at present. They are making less money per hour than the national minimum wage. Some are handling huge sums of cash, and they cannot make a living—that must not be allowed.

I do not think it is right that the Minister should hide behind the commercial independence of Post Office Ltd. It is really important to everyone in this Chamber and in our communities that the post office network be sustainable and move forward. During my speech, I asked 15 questions of the Minister. I asked for reviews; I asked for various things. I have not heard a single answer to any of the questions that I asked, but for the sake of brevity, I shall pick up now on only two of my questions.

As the Minister mentioned, Citizens Advice will continue to track services provided by the post office network, but what will she actually do when it reports back and says that things are not working? I have not heard an answer to that.

On outreach post offices in rural communities, a matter raised by various Members, I ask the Minister this: what happens after 2021, when the payments to those post offices cease?

I am sorry: I cannot count, because I have one more issue to raise. Post offices were to be the front office of Government. I ask the Minister to speak about that to Ministers in other Departments, such as the Home Office. The contract for biometric services has not been renewed by the Home Office, and that is putting more post offices at risk.

Hon. Members from across the Chamber intervened on the Minister. I chose not to do so, but I really hope that she will take on board my questions and provide answers that I can share with the Members who were here today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the sustainability of the Post Office network.

Universities: Financial Sustainability

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

The University of Reading is an example of the recent trend of universities running into financial difficulties. It has got a short-term loan, but it is very unclear what this Government intend to do, as the Office for Students said last year that it would not bail out universities any more. Is it or is it not the Government’s position to offer financial aid to universities with cash-flow issues?

Universities UK is extremely concerned about all the issues that universities are facing, such as pensions and the Brexit strategy being pursued by the present Government. Will the UK Government look at universities—the place they hold in society across the UK and the amount of cash they generate for the UK economy—and help them to get through this real and immediate crisis?

[Chris Skidmore]

I made it clear in my opening remarks that the Government do not intend to bail out any independent, autonomous institutions, which is what HE providers are. What we have done is provide the regulatory framework by which the OfS can step in to help universities by signposting and working with them in advance to ensure that market failure does not occur. I have to say that our ability to provide record levels of investment in universities has been the result of increased tuition fees, which we have not seen in Scotland. As a result, some of the poorest students are able to access universities in a way that does not happen north of the border.

Crown Post Offices: Franchising

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Lisa Nandy]

The hon. Gentleman’s constituents clearly have a very strong voice here.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. The Crown post office in Motherwell was closed down and there was a consultation. As we all know, the consultation consists of simply saying, “Can we have your opinion on the new place we have decided to put the post office?”, but then totally ignoring that opinion. Does the hon. Lady agree that this is yet another example of Tory privatisation of public services by default?

[Lisa Nandy]

I absolutely agree that that is happening, and the public can see it is happening, which accounts for the anger and the public response, particularly from older people, who the Conservative party has traditionally been very concerned to attract. It would be worth reflecting on the fact that the National Pensioners Convention has come out very strongly against the latest wave of Crown post office closures, because it can see where it is going, and it will not be in the interests of its members.

It concerned me when it became apparent at the all-party parliamentary group meeting that, should WHSmith fail, there is no plan B at all. There have been widespread media reports that WHSmith is in trouble. In fact, we have been here before. When the bizarre decision was taken some years ago to move branches of the Post Office into, of all places, Bargain Booze, which then folded, we were left in crisis. It seems there is no learning happening. Unless the Minister tells me otherwise, the Post Office has no plan B for what will happen in the event of WHSmith’s collapse.

--- Later in debate ---

[Marion Fellows]

The question of post offices temporarily closing is really down to the fact that Post Office Ltd cannot contract new sub-postmasters to run them. That is not to the benefit of my constituents in Wishaw, who lost their post office for almost four weeks last summer.

[Martyn Day]

I thank my hon. Friend for making an excellent point. I hope that the Minister is listening.

The Scottish National party supports a strong network of post office branches, which are the backbone of local communities and businesses. Many post offices are offering a greater range of services, including paying in money, after many local bank branches have closed. Some 537,000 businesses are registered in rural areas, accounting for one in four of all companies. They are very creative—almost half are considered to be innovators—and they contribute, as I pointed out, more than £200 billion to our economy. Small rural businesses are more likely to use post offices for deliveries and paying bills, and twice as likely to use them for withdrawing or depositing cash. Citizens Advice found that eight in 10 small businesses in remote rural areas would lose money if local post offices were closed. That should be a salutary economic warning to us.

The UK Government’s disastrous privatisation of Royal Mail and recent mishandling of post office management show that they cannot be trusted with our public services. The current contracts make it harder for sub-postmasters to afford to keep going, as my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) pointed out. At the same time, Post Office Ltd recorded net profits of £35 million in 2017-18, up from £13 million in 2016-17. As hon. Members have pointed out, its chief executive Paula Vennells got a 7% pay rise last year, while postmasters took an average pay cut of 4.5% and 11,500 Post Office workers received a combined £17 million pay cut. I ask the Minister to take urgent action to review the contract for sub-postmasters that was introduced in 2012.

My final point is about the effect on footfall on the high street. Closing a post office and moving its services to a franchisee will not increase the franchisee’s footfall, since many of the customers were already using the high street; it simply reduces the footfall travelling across the high street and has a detrimental impact on other businesses. What we actually need is to ensure throughput on the high street. If a post office closes and is moved out of a town centre location, that can be even more detrimental to the local community.

There are many concerns about the proposal and its effect on customers, staff and local communities. At the end of the day, we must remember that the Post Office is wholly owned by the Government. I implore the Minister to step in and halt the process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I have heard what the hon. Lady has said today, and I will go away and look it. Every post office operates differently throughout the country. There is not a standard rule for all branches, but I will continue to look at the issues that have been highlighted. I care as much about our post office network as any hon. Member does, and that is not just because I am the Minister in post.

The Post Office’s financial performance has improved significantly, and consequently the Government funding required to sustain the network has drastically decreased and is set to decrease even further in upcoming years. It is the first time in 16 years that the Post Office has made a profit. There was a time back in the early 2000s when the Post Office had a deficit of more than £1 billion. Things have changed, and we are ensuring that we get value for money for the taxpayer while ensuring that we sustain the network.

[Marion Fellows]

The Minister is talking eloquently about the profits that the Post Office is making, but the people who run smaller post offices—the sub-postmasters —tell me that they cannot live on the new contract. When they have to hand back keys to local post offices, does she think it is right that the Post Office is making profit at the expense of these hard-working individuals?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I understand why the hon. Lady has raised concerns about sub-postmasters, and she is absolutely right to do so. Whoever has my role in Government—whichever colour of Government—has a duty to defend the Post Office but also to hold it to account. Since being in post I have challenged the Post Office and will continue to do so. Yes, it is commercially independent and operates within terms. We represent the taxpayer, who is the shareholder and owner of the post offices. It is right that we hold the Post Office to account for decisions and that we exert influence where we can.

Changing consumer behaviour has been a serious challenge for post office and small retailers, including many postmasters, which is why in the autumn Budget we made decisions on business rates to ensure that we helped not only some of our sub-postmasters, but small retail more generally.

There is widespread misunderstanding that franchising is a closure programme that will lead to redundancies and the deterioration of services for consumers, but that is not the case. I appreciate that proposed changes to the delivery of post office services can cause concern in some affected communities, but post office branches are not closing—they are being franchised either on site or by relocating them to other high street locations.

Franchising has been common practice since 1635, when King Charles I issued a proclamation allowing the public to use Royal Mail. The model has endured to this day, and the vast majority—11,300 of our 11,500 post offices—are run successfully as a franchise or on an agency basis with retailers, whether large or small. Delivering post office services as part of a wider retail offer is a proven model that brings benefits to the community.

The hon. Member for Wigan raised concerns about the post office in her constituency, which is included in the 40 that will be taken over by WHSmith. Subject to consultation, WHSmith will take over the running of Wigan’s central post office. Let me be clear that the community in Wigan like other communities across the UK is not losing its post office. It will be relocated to a nearby WHSmith branch, and the services will be more accessible for customers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are extremely grateful to the Secretary of State.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

The Association of Accounting Technicians’ recent survey found that 73% of MPs agreed with its recommended changes to the prompt payment code, which are making the code compulsory, ensuring that larger businesses pay in 30 days and implementing a penalty regime. Will the Minister introduce those changes in legislation, to help the many small businesses that will benefit?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. As she will know, we launched the call for evidence in October, and it finished in November. We are reviewing the evidence presented. In October we made announcements to underpin, secure and make better the prompt payment code. The small business commissioner has delivered £2 million of collections for small businesses over the first year in his position. We will continue to work to ensure that small businesses get the payments they need when they should.

Former Steelworks Site in Redcar

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) on securing this important debate.

I want to speak about my constituency’s experience of a steel plant closing down, because there are valuable lessons to be learned from it. The Ravenscraig integrated steel mill closed 26 years ago in 1992. That was before devolution, so there was no Scottish Government and all industrial matters were dealt with by the UK Government. In the mill’s last two years, 4,400 people—mainly men—were laid off. Unemployment stood at 15% shortly after the closure and is still higher than average. The constituency still does not have the same number of highly paid and highly skilled jobs that it once had. The former MP for Motherwell and Wishaw, Frank Roy, did a lot of work to try to re-energise and rework the Ravenscraig site and led on a proposal to build a new town on it, but that has never come to pass because of recessionary pressures and local resistance.

Ravenscraig is slap bang in the middle of my constituency, between Motherwell and Wishaw town centres. The SNP Scottish Government made it a national priority in 2007, and lots of money has been poured in from various funds and resources. Ravenscraig Ltd was set up as a joint venture between Tata, Scottish Enterprise and Wilson Bowden when the plant closed. The site now has a new college, a new regional sports centre, less than 1,000 new homes—although more are being built—a pub, a hotel and a building research centre. There are proposals for more new homes and for a civic park. In 26 years, we have not come a terribly long way, given that it is a 1,400 acre site, most of which is covered by roads that do not necessarily lead anywhere yet.

I do not want to sound too pessimistic—as the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) said, we need to have hope—but when something as big as the Ravenscraig integrated steel mill closes, that is a hammer blow to a community. Not much help, if any, was given by the then Conservative Government; I hope that the Redcar site does not suffer the same fate. North Lanarkshire Council—of which I was recently a member, as the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) still is—is spending quite a lot of money on trying to make the site viable.

As the council’s new chief executive, Des Murray, says, it has always been recognised that there needs to be a redevelopment site at Ravenscraig, because it is of symbolic strategic significance, but we cannot live on symbols. The hon. Member for Redcar talked about Redcar as an iconic site, as was Ravenscraig, but people cannot live on such sites. People do not get jobs just because sites are iconic. There needs to be real and continuous development.

I do not want to paint too gloomy a picture, because there are improvements. The new Ravenscraig regional sports centre has hosted international and national events to great success, and the new houses there are lovely. The site building is now creeping forward, and in April there was another planning application put in for a more modified, and probably more likely to be built, new area in Ravenscraig, which now includes industrial and retail centres as well as two primary schools and development of the civic park. This is all good news, but I have to warn people in Redcar that it takes a long time and does not necessarily lead to the kind of jobs that have been lost.

[Alex Cunningham]

The hon. Lady is giving us a good illustration of why we need big, fast decisions and investment now. I am sure she will agree that Redcar cannot wait 20 years for the Tees valley to secure the good, well-paid jobs that we need. We do not want service jobs; we want good, well-paid jobs like we have had in the past—that needs decisions now.

[Marion Fellows]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I do not have a solution; I can only lay out what has happened at the Ravenscraig site. People have been doing their best, but the recession in 2007 really bit into developments there. When things get delayed, they do not always come back again, which is a real worry for everyone.

I give credit to North Lanarkshire Council, as I always do when it does things right, for continuing to work on the site and for trying to get more investment into it, but I fear that, with Brexit apparently here, this is going to be an ever-growing challenge to local agencies and authorities. Motherwell and Wishaw were iconic not just for Ravenscraig; there were always steelworks in my constituency. The fact that the Scottish Government managed to save what is now Liberty Steel—the DL works—and, in a neighbouring constituency, Clydebridge, is testament to the work that they have done and are trying to do.

We need steel. When I was first elected to Parliament, the all-party parliamentary group on steel and metal related industries was the very first one that I joined. I fought hard to save the steel industry in my constituency, and that was achieved. Ravenscraig does not make steel—it simply rolls plate—but it is still there. That is thanks to the work of the Scottish Government, who were determined to save that site and as many jobs as possible—not only the workers, but, more importantly, the apprentices who were working on the site at the time. It will be interesting to hear whether the Minister can give the same commitment to the industry in England and Wales. There are no longer steelworks in Redcar, but we need these iconic industries at our backs if we are to move forward as a group of countries.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland for saying that everyone has to work together, which I think everyone realises. It is not a party political issue when something like this happens, but things do move ahead on party political lines. We have to be cognisant of that fact, and people have to keep putting pressure on the Government to make decisions and to treat the area favourably, even if it is not recognised as a really good area for their party.

I go back to 1992, when very little was done by the central Government to support Ravenscraig and the workers who lost their jobs. I moved into the area shortly afterwards, and all I could hear was tales of when the steelworks used to be open and how Motherwell and Wishaw were such thriving, wonderful places. It took a long time for the towns to recover. They still have not recovered totally, because the jobs that people do now are completely different. I think that is what is found in Redcar, too.

[Anna Turley]

Regarding the hon. Lady’s experience, does she sense that there was a loss of skills and a loss of the workforce in any way? My big concern is that the longer this delay goes on, the more people will move away from Redcar to look for work elsewhere, and we will lose our highest-skilled and best workforce.

[Marion Fellows]

The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) has already said that Scots people go all over the world looking for work. Yes, there were people who left and people who retrained. There was a very good deal in those days for the steelworkers who were made redundant; they were given, I think, two or three years’ training, which allowed many to go to college or university and completely retrain. In fact, my predecessor retrained and then became an MP, which was not necessarily what he retrained for, and he moved away—part-time, anyway—down here to work.

It really is important that all parties look at what happened after Ravenscraig shut, because that is comparable and it should be used as a template, in some regards to complement what is still going on there, but in others to look at this and say, “We mustn’t allow that to happen. We mustn’t allow things to stall and nothing to happen for long periods.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Harrington]

All in good time. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a date now, but I will come to that shortly. I will make progress because I want to leave time for the hon. Member for Redcar to sum up.

The £14 million granted by the autumn Budget and the special economic area status for the site are both important. They came about because all those different Departments—including the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and the Treasury—are working with South Tees Site Company, the development corporation and the combined authority. We have worked together on the proposals and will continue to do so. The 1,500 jobs quoted are a first step, but I know they are nothing compared to the number of jobs that were lost when SSI went into liquidation and struggled from crisis to crisis.

It is very easy to blame one Government and not the other or to say that the Government could have intervened by putting in a load of money to keep things going, but I have seen the consequences of that. I have seen places in the valleys in Wales where hundreds of millions—if not billions—of pounds were spent on keeping businesses open, and I saw a failed industrial policy in the north of England, where I was brought up. That does not mean that Government do not take part in industry—we are spending more money on research and development than ever before.

I really believe that the industrial strategy, in partnership with businesses, is the future. The reason why there is not a steel sector deal—as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) mentioned—is that industry itself has not come up with its side of the proposals. I am working on this, meeting industry regularly, and am still hopeful, but that is work that must be done in partnership.

The Government responded immediately with support for the site when the closure took place, including a sum of £30 million that was ring-fenced for the statutory redundancy payments. The SSI taskforce, under the leadership of Amanda Skelton, took a leading role and deserves a lot of credit. The hon. Member for Redcar was a member of the taskforce and did a great job.

The clichés about people working together are predominantly true in this case; spats and disagreements come and go. I think it is fair to say that we cannot recreate what was there before—time has moved on. My right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) made the point about how steel has changed and certain commodity products cannot compete with much lower costs. Of the factors for the industry growing up there—iron ore, steel and water—only one remains. That does not mean that the site does not have a fantastic future—I really think it does. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Redcar quoted Lord Heseltine and former Chancellor George Osborne in different parts of her speech.

The Scottish National party spokesperson, the hon. Member for Motherwell, made a very—

[Marion Fellows]

For Motherwell and Wishaw.

[Richard Harrington]

I was abbreviating—my apologies to the half of the hon. Lady’s constituency that I did not mention. The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) made some good points about apprenticeships, and I am very pleased about the way that apprenticeships in steel are going. I was pleased that all the apprentices at Redcar were found alternative jobs and positions. The experiences of Ravenscraig and Consett were fed into the creation of the solution, with the development corporation and so on. That does not compensate for what happened, but it shows that lessons have been learned.

The master plan is excellent, and proposals for additional funding will be carefully considered. They have to meet public funding guidelines, which I know all hon. Members will accept. The Government’s current position is therefore to commit resources in a number of areas. I accept the shadow Minister’s view that some of that is just hot air and announcements, but that is the way that public sector financing works; there is a principle and then there has to be a business case. I make no apology for that—that is the way it has to work. Business cases are not there to be stopped; they are there to be taken on board.

I really am running short of time—that is my own fault for giving too many compliments to most of the other speakers, which I should not have done—so I will hurry up. The subject of the airport, which was raised very eloquently, is not one that I have really concentrated on. Maybe I should have, but I have not. May I suggest a meeting with the hon. Members who are interested in the airport issue, rather than just giving a vague answer today?

We very much believe in the concept of a local solution, and the Government are very open to specific suggestions from private companies or from the development corporation. I hope we see through all the smoke about individuals—who should be in this or that job, or who said this or that—and come to the collective solution that we all want.

The debate has given me the chance to canter over matters. We must remember that the site is the UK’s largest regeneration opportunity, and if the UK is to develop in terms of its industrial strategy, which we hope it will and fully intend it to do, that will be there. The site has received much publicity thanks to the efforts of hon. Members present, the Mayor and everybody else involved in the development corporation. We know what the challenges are in the special economic area in the Tees valley. Even people who did not watch the documentary on television—I was very disappointed about the lack of a starring role for the hon. Member for Redcar; had I been in charge of casting I would have altered that—will know that these things take a lot of time. Decontamination has to happen first, before a deal with the banks, which I am sure will come about—these are very complex matters. It is not as if the banks are a single entity; there are three of them, with very different views.

The Government are determined to see the site redeveloped in an exciting way in the end, so that it is a flagship for our future industrial strategy and an example for the next industrial revolution as it was for the first.