Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

Absolutely not. What we are interested in is jobs right across the UK—quality, highly productive, high-skilled, high-wage jobs. We will introduce all the employment measures to which we are committed in good time, when parliamentary time allows.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

15. Whether he plans to take further steps to improve the energy efficiency of domestic buildings.

[The Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change (Greg Hands)]

The Government have announced a package of measures designed to support the most vulnerable in these unprecedented times. It includes support for the local authority delivery scheme, the home upgrade grant, the social housing decarbonisation fund and the boiler upgrade scheme, and takes our total funding across this Parliament to £6.6 billion.

[Paul Blomfield]

The Minister knows that reducing consumption is vital to households and to the country, but back in 2013 the Conservative-led Government cut energy efficiency programmes, which led to a 92% fall in home insulation; and the flagship green homes grant scheme was scrapped as a failure just six months after its launch. When will the Government commit to the ambitious programme of retro-insulation that we need if we are to cut emissions, slash family bills, reduce gas imports and create thousands of jobs?

[Greg Hands]

We are committed to that programme, and that is exactly why I have outlined the £6.6 billion of support in this Parliament. We have achievements as well: since 2010, the percentage of UK homes rated A to C for energy efficiency has gone from 13% to 46%. That is almost a fourfold increase under this Government in homes that are rated good for energy efficiency. We have put a lot of money into heat pumps and the heat and buildings strategy. I suggest that the hon. Member look at that strategy, which we launched only last October. He should study it and then come back with further questions.

Shale Gas Production

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

I agree absolutely with my right hon. Friend on both the importance of hydrogen and on the importance of being pragmatic. He and I were both elected on a 2019 Conservative party general election manifesto and Government policy is unchanged from that manifesto. That is the height of pragmatism: to stick to our manifesto and keep our options open.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is unfortunate that the boss of Cuadrilla has, with the support of the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), used the Ukraine crisis to reopen the discredited case for fracking. Will the Minister simply agree that we are better off investing in the renewable technologies of the future in terms of both our energy security and of meeting our climate commitments?

[Greg Hands]

We are investing massively in renewables. Our current round of allocations in the contracts for difference auction is larger than in any previous round. Within that, we have announced big support for offshore wind and other technologies and, for the first time, a dedicated £20 million pot for tidal.

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]]

In my brief remarks, I should like to focus on the context of the Bill—on how we make the most of our country’s extraordinary research capacity, about which many Members have spoken.

Six years ago, I led a Westminster Hall debate highlighting the fact that the UK had fallen behind others in research and development investment, from a position in which we had led OECD countries. We had particularly fallen behind in publicly funded R&D, and I argued that we needed almost to double spending to 3% of GDP. Six years later, actual spending has not increased much—it is still about 1.6% or 1.7%. The Government are talking about their ambition to increase spending to 2.4% although, as ever, the Prime Minister’s rhetoric of the UK as a science superpower does not match the reality of his plans, as 2.4% simply brings us in line with the OECD countries overall. It is an ambition to be average.

There is an even bigger concern that the reality does not live up even to that target. The Bill proposes a new agency for research and innovation, but its funding is unclear. Some £50 million is set aside in 2021-22, but future funding remains unallocated, and there is no long-term investment model. The Government’s rhetoric is ambitious, talking the talk about an innovation nation, but real results are delivered through sustained investment in our brilliant science. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is obviously the most cited example today, and is the most current instance of the extraordinary capacity that we have as a country, but it was delivered through years of consistent funding and focus, incredible new science providing the route to reopening society and the economy.

The scientific community has made it clear that without certainty and stability we will lose out in the global market. I think one of my colleagues has cited this, but the vice- chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge Universities said:

“World-leading research cannot just be turned on and off like a tap.

Once our highly trained young researchers leave our universities they will not come back, and once they leave the country they will not return.”

Of course, the importance of research extends well beyond Oxbridge, throughout the universities sector and right across the country. It is worth remembering, at a time when we all share a concern about regional imbalance within our economy, that universities are one of the few national assets we have that are spread evenly right across the country, well positioned to generate economic growth in all regions and all nations of the UK.

The problem is that contrary to their stated intentions, the Government have started reducing research funding. First, as we have heard from others, £120 million is going from the international development budget, cutting about half of development-funded research activity. Only yesterday, the Royal Society described powerfully to me how this has forced it to withdraw funding from current projects that will not be able to continue, as well as shut down future opportunities, with huge implications not just for global research, but for the very relationships with the Indo-Pacific nations that the Prime Minister has been so keen to foster.

Secondly, there is the threat to give back word on funding the association with Horizon Europe. Clearly, participation in Horizon Europe is hugely welcome. The understanding has always been that it would continue as a separate funding stream. Now, apparently, there is a suggestion it might come from UKRI’s existing budget. When I met UKRI a month ago to discuss funding for extending studentships in cases where research has been delayed by covid, we discussed the immense pressure on its existing budgets. If it is expected to pay for Horizon out of existing budgets, that would take about 11% of its funding, or £1 billion. That is the equivalent of 18,000 research-focused academic jobs.

In a city of two large universities and more than 60,000 students, I can testify to how important research is to our communities and to our economy. We know that public sector research informs and improves private innovation, while generating revenue for the public purse. The University of Sheffield’s advanced manufacturing and research centre is a great example; one that is recognised internationally. From seedcorn public funding, it now has more than 125 industrial partners, and employs more than 500 researchers and engineers from all over the world, with the university at the centre of that network, pulling together that collaboration. Although the Prime Minister talks of increasing their investment in R&D, the Government are reportedly on course to miss their target of 2.4% of GDP spent on R&D by 2027, so now is the time to put their money where their mouth is and protect our research capabilities, and with that their futures.

In winding up, I ask the Minister to respond to three questions: what assessment has been made of the £120 million cut to official development assistance funding in R&D? Will she confirm that Horizon funding will not, in fact, be drawn from UKRI’s existing budget? Will she tell the House when the Secretary of State will be able to confirm what the UKRI budget will be for 2021-22?

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Tuesday 29th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

We work closely with the enforcement body to make sure that it can do its job and we resource it accordingly. We are also looking to the long term to see what more we can do for better enforcement in these matters.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

What assessment he has made of the potential effect on employment levels of closing the coronavirus job retention scheme.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Alok Sharma)]

Some 9.6 million jobs have been supported through the coronavirus job retention scheme and millions of people have now moved off furlough and back into work. The job support scheme and other measures, such as the extension of our temporary VAT cut for the hospitality and tourism sectors, demonstrate our commitment to supporting businesses and workers.

[Paul Blomfield]

May I return to a theme that has been raised by other Members without success in terms of answers? Sheffield City Region Music Board wrote to the Culture Secretary with local Members over six weeks ago about the problems facing the music industry. We have had no reply. The new job support scheme offers nothing to businesses that are unable to open, such as many of Sheffield’s iconic music venues, with impacts on jobs right across the sector. One constituent said to me yesterday that by declaring most music businesses not viable, the Government have basically hung everyone out to dry. Ministers did not address this issue in their earlier answers, so will the Secretary of State recognise the problem and spell out what action the Government will take to protect jobs in the music, events and creative industries?

[Alok Sharma]

I completely understand the concerns that colleagues have about the sectors that are not open. I can only reiterate, without going into full details, that we continue to have discussions with those sectors. The hon. Gentleman talks about the particular sector that he knows, which is the responsibility of another Secretary of State, but I have spoken to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport about those issues in the past day or two. We will continue to have discussions.

I say to the hon. Gentleman that we are trying to make sure that the economy stays open, and the vast majority of the economy is open, but we need to do that in a safe way. If we all play our part, we will be in a position where we can reopen the rest of the economy and move to some sense of normality.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Monday 4th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

No.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]]

It was good to hear reports this morning that the Government are getting behind the EU-led international initiatives to find a coronavirus vaccine. Given this approach, can the Minister confirm reports that the Government are now seeking to retain participation in the EU’s early warning and response system for pandemics, as requested by the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS Providers, and will they look again at participation in the European Medicines Agency?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. We will co-operate not just with our European neighbours, but with other countries in the fight against covid-19. He is right to say that the Prime Minister is joining the call today to ensure that we can support the effort to secure a vaccine. The effort to secure a vaccine is necessarily an international one. We will of course look pragmatically at how we can co-operate with our European friends and partners, but participation in the European Medicines Agency would involve, certainly at the moment, the acceptance of the European Court of Justice’s oversight, and that is not something the British people voted to do.