Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

We have had multiple debates on UC, and we have been at pains to say that this extra £20 was a temporary measure brought in because of covid. We are looking after the public finances, we are doing the right thing by taxpayers and we are doing everything we can to support vulnerable people in this country.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

T2. Last week, I had the privilege of meeting my constituents Thomas Gill and his parents, who suffered major injuries as a result of a car being driven by a female driver who was under the influence of drink and drugs. Thomas raised his concern because the sentencing was so low and young women were getting more lenient treatment than young men. Could the Minister assure him that we are equal under the law?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)]

I was very sorry to learn of the injuries sustained by Thomas, and it is right that this matter is raised by my hon. Friend. I can assure him and the House that equality applies to all aspects of justice—it always has and it always will.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Howell Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

It is not my job to monitor the personal emails of all my colleagues. If I did, I suspect—[Interruption.] Well, it might be quite interesting, actually; quite entertaining. The key thing is you cannot conduct Government business from private email to private email. The only way you can conduct Government business is through civil servants.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that that relocation of Government Departments is a key part of levelling up? Could I ask him to encourage his friends in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to consider placing the Advanced Research and Invention Agency in the new county hall being built in Durham, which the new administration are reviewing the options for, as stated by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) earlier? This could be the perfect location, linking Durham University and the innovative businesses on NETPark in Sedgefield. Doing this could encourage the local team to share more of their staff around places such as Bishop Auckland, Consett, Crook, Newton Aycliffe and, of course, Sedgefield.

[Michael Gove]

And indeed Peterlee. My hon. Friend makes a very important point. As we heard earlier from my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham, it is a pity that the Labour administration in County Durham have squandered County Durham taxpayers’ money in the way that they have, but the point that my hon. Friend makes about the Advanced Research and Invention Agency’s potential location in the north-east and in Durham is a very good one, and I will discuss it with the Business Secretary.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I think I can certainly say that I personally agree with my right hon. Friend. I do know that these issues have been looked at by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins). She is not here today, unfortunately, but she has been looking into this issue and I will follow it up with her to provide a more comprehensive response to my right hon. Friend’s question.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

What steps she is taking to promote female participation in STEM.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

What steps she is taking to promote female participation in STEM.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)]

Science and technology will drive our country’s future and women are brilliant at STEM— science, technology, engineering and maths. There are now more girls taking chemistry and biology at A-level than boys, but we need to continue to make progress in other subjects. Initiatives such as T-levels provide an excellent opportunity for girls interested in STEM.

[Paul Howell]

Could I ask the Minister to encourage young women to utilise options like the South Durham University Technical College in Newton Aycliffe, where every one of last year’s students got an outcome they wanted, whether it was a job or further education? The UTC is supported by companies such as Hitachi and Gestamp, and that can create great STEM-based career opportunities. However, currently only about 20% of the students are female. Does she agree with me that more should consider this educational option? The next time she is in the north-east, will she come to see for herself the opportunities that are being created,?

[Vicky Ford]

I thank my hon. Friend for championing women in STEM. I congratulate the UTC in Newton Aycliffe for helping women to gain access to prestigious engineering jobs and higher technical opportunities. It is great to see more women taking up subjects such as engineering, but we would like to see more. A really proper and meaningful conversation with a woman role model who has already broken through STEM barriers can inspire girls and young women to enter STEM careers. Companies, such as those he mentions, have an important role in that.

Public Health

Paul Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

The people of Sedgefield respect the difficulties and challenges involved in how best to control the virus. We understand that we must look after our vulnerable, and we understand that the picture is complex. As hon. Members would anticipate, I have had representations ranging from, “We shouldn’t be allowing anyone to do anything until we have a vaccine” through to “We’re infringing human rights by impinging on civil liberties.” We understand that this is complex. We also understand that the simpler the message, the more clarity can be delivered and therefore the more likely it is to be acted on.

Unfortunately, there are also things that we do not understand. The north-east has been grouped as a region with an edge running through the south of my constituency and all the way up to the Scottish border—a distance of 136 miles and a geographic area of 3,344 square miles. Sedgefield as a constituency has only 140 of those square miles and a population of 85,000. Its population density of 600 per square mile reflects the County Durham figures. However, we are also linked to towns such as Newcastle, which has a density of 6,100 per square mile. That is 10 times as much, and poses a very different risk. Our concern is the agglomeration of this mass. Sedgefield sits in the middle of this. It does not have a city centre. It has many rural villages and a small town. The only reasons people are leaving their communities and travelling are for work and retail, and that is the same across all tiers.

Our hospitality is primarily village pubs and a few hotels. A number of those, such as Walworth Castle, Redworth Hall, and The County in Aycliffe Village, are among those that have made representations to me. They deal almost exclusively with food and meals, with limited accommodation demand other than from workers, and need whatever opportunity Christmas spend would bring. The risk of inter-community transmission from tier 2 restrictions here would be extremely low, but we are tier 3.

I welcome the extra support for hospitality, but we should recognise that these businesses are the lifeblood of these communities and desperately need help and to be allowed to open economically—and not just them, but their extended supply chains. I would like to see rural areas considered differently from cities when it comes to hospitality rules. I would like to see non-food venues evaluated by their risk profile, perhaps by local councils, so a wet pub or private club—be that a golf club or what was previously known as a working men’s club, such as the Big Club in Newton Aycliffe—that has been able to introduce covid compliance could open. Instead, we are grouped into a mass that includes city centres with significantly higher risk profiles, and an exit is difficult to see.

Hope and optimism are the key to getting us through these winter months. The Government should enable those that can provide controlled environments to do so. We need to communicate personal responsibility, in that the rules cover a broad church and we all have to look after our friends and relatives, particularly those that are vulnerable, and we should not max out on our options.

Regionally, numbers are trending well. I support the concept of tiers, but I find it very difficult to accept the size of the regions and the current application across diverse and separate geographies. Please can we see some light on our journey? Can we have some hope for our collapsing hospitality trade? Please reconsider the gravity and pressure of tier 3 on these low-risk enterprises and provide signals as early as possible of any opportunity to trade. It is no good telling them on 16 December, “You can open for Christmas.” No stock, no staff, no bookings—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Sorry, time up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Howell Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

What steps the Government is taking to promote economic growth to support recovery from the covid-19 outbreak.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to promote regional economic growth to support recovery from the covid-19 outbreak.

[Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)]

What progress the Government has made on ensuring regional equality of economic opportunity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julia Lopez]

The new Member for Beaconsfield is another very refreshing change in this Parliament, and I thank her for her question. She might wish to point her constituents to the Chancellor’s plan for jobs, which is designed to help unemployed people find work through training to develop their skills. That support includes incentive payments for employers to hire new apprentices and funding to triple the uptake of traineeships. The Prime Minister also set out his commitment this week to lifelong learning. As part of that, adults who do not have a full level 3 qualification will be able to take level 3 qualifications in high-value subjects for free from next April.

[Paul Howell]

I also welcome the Minister to her place. Economic growth in the regions will be maximised by the public and private sectors working in partnership. Currently, there are 92,000 civil servants in London, 56,000 in the north-west and only half of that in the north-east—and two thirds of those are in Newcastle, leaving negligible numbers in Durham and the Tees Valley. Does she agree that any relocation of Government Departments to the regions can be a critical lever and that it is important that they do not all now just move to another metropolitan centre? It is imperative that Departments such as the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government consider locating to areas such as Sedgefield, which sits on the intersection of the Tees valley and County Durham and has all the rural challenges, but also has excellent connections to London.

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He also makes a passionate pitch for his constituency. The Government are committed to levelling up across the UK, ensuring that this Administration is much less London-centric. The Places for Growth programme is working with Departments on their relocation plans ahead of the spending review and continuously exploring opportunities to build clusters of civil servants across the whole UK. I welcome my hon. Friend highlighting what Sedgefield has to offer, and I am sure the north-east will benefit from the relocation of civil service roles.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

We are undertaking a number of strands of work. One is making sure that we can more effectively disperse key decision makers across the UK—to Teesside and other parts of the UK—and my colleague Lord Agnew is leading work to ensure that new senior civil service posts are located outside central London. Work requires to be undertaken to make us more transparent and effective in how we deliver for all parts of the UK. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller), we are doing more to use data and digital tools to make transparent the work of Government.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

    As was discussed in the blue collar Conservative session in Sedgefield, opportunities for UK growth post-covid and Brexit are aligned by doing everything that we can to support Made in Britain. Will my right hon. Friend support that agenda and encourage HS2 in particular to do so rather than placing orders for steel and bridges overseas? We have great companies in Sedgefield such as Ebac, Cleveland Bridge, Hitachi and indeed Roman showers, of which David Osborne, one of the joint chairs of Made in Britain, is the managing director. I invite my right hon. Friend to come with me to visit Roman and others to see for himself the passion behind a Made in Britain agenda?

[Michael Gove]

Hon. Members for Sedgefield have always been powerful advocates for the north-east, but none more so than my hon. Friend the current Member. He is absolutely right that Teesside, with Sedgefield in particular and County Durham as well, is at the beating heart of the economic future of this country. We need to invest in the next generation of manufacturing excellence; it is the young men and women of his constituency who will be at the cutting edge of that revolution, and they have no better advocate for manufacturing, for growth and for smarter government than him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am not going to comment on any individual case, but it is obvious that the rights of journalists and whistleblowers should be upheld, and this Government will clearly continue to do that.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

Q2. My wife is a volunteer with the local branch of the Samaritans, and my right hon. Friend will know what good work they do in helping to keep people safe online in Sedgefield and the rest of the UK. Does he agree that today’s announcement that we are putting Ofcom at the helm of a strong regulatory regime shows that we are delivering on our commitment to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. As we deliver gigabit broadband to every part of this country, including to the people of Sedgefield, we will also ensure that the UK is the safest place to be online.

Transport Infrastructure

Paul Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, I can.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

I particularly welcome the Northern Powerhouse Rail connection with HS2. Will the Prime Minister look at the procurement process and ensure that UK-based companies, such as Hitachi Rail in my constituency, have a real chance of getting the business out of it? Can it be done as quickly as possible, so that they have an opportunity to plan?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend. He has lobbied me personally several times on that issue, and I can assure him that the plant and the jobs in question will be uppermost in our minds.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

Yesterday’s announcement of the Nexus contract being placed with the Swiss company Stadler instead of with Hitachi Rail, which is based in my Sedgefield constituency, is in my opinion inappropriate and it takes no account of the socioeconomic benefit to us of UK-based business. I hope to see a positive decision on HS2 with its potential to reconnect the north with London, and would ask the Prime Minister to ensure that UK-based businesses such as Hitachi see their investment in the UK properly recognised in the procurement process.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has personally raised the issue with me before, and I am sure that his constituents will congratulate him on sticking up for their interests in the way that he does. I can tell him that there will be a decision on HS2 very shortly, if he can just contain his impatience a little bit longer.