Financial Services Reforms

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

The Government Actuary’s Department is the source of those figures, which we published this morning—I draw the hon. Lady’s attention to that fact. Clearly, there are a number of assumptions within that. I do not think it is right to be sceptical. These are reforms that have been formed with wide consultation, including from across the House. I hope that we can form a growing consensus so that the industry receives a signal from this place that it is ultimately time to stop talking and to get on with investing. That is the outcome that we seek.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

I welcome the statement, particularly the aim to unlock assets in the local government pension scheme through an acceleration of pooling with the aim of doubling existing investments in private equity to 10%, which could unlock £25 billion by 2030. Does the Economic Secretary agree that the reforms are a welcome step to improve our growth prospects and boost investments?

[Andrew Griffith]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The local government pension scheme is a huge opportunity for this country. In many cases, it is already very progressive. It is investing in local opportunities and allocating its capital to the sort of private growth assets that we wish to seek. With £365 billion under management, an increased rate of progress towards asset pooling, which, as the Government have made clear, should attract at least £50 billion, will provide the scale to invest well on behalf of beneficiaries. That is a great opportunity for us all.

Council Tax and Stamp Duty Alternatives

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) for securing this important debate. Like other hon. Members, I feel that council tax needs to be reformed, but I want to limit my contribution to the nuanced empty homes premium that exists in the current council tax structure, which is unfairly disadvantaging many of my constituents in Keighley and Ilkley and many people across the country.

Since 2013, local authorities in England have had discretionary powers to charge additional council tax on properties that are unfurnished for two years or more, with more tax being charged the longer the property is unfurnished. In my constituency, Bradford council charges 200% after two years, which rises to 300% after 10 years. The policy might have been introduced for all the right reasons at the time: discouraging individuals from banking multiple properties, and encouraging empty homes to be brought back into the fold. However, that tax hike has had unintended consequences.

As the housing market is being squeezed and young families struggle to get on the housing ladder, that additional tax on home buyers—particularly on young families who might want to buy an empty property, renovate it and do it up, but are unable to do so in the two years of free time that they have before the 200% kicks in—makes it unachievable. When many are struggling to get builders and contractors in, and might find difficulties because the home is not in the condition they thought it would be in and they have to make it adequate and fit to live in, the 200% increase through the empty homes premium is having a negative impact on the many householders who want to do up their properties.

There is also an impact when individuals want to sell a property but cannot sell it within the period of time that the home is vacant. The Treasury has indicated that that is something that it is likely to review; the levelling-up White Paper is also looking at reviewing it. My plea to the Minister is that he look at the negative consequences of the empty homes premium when carrying out a further report.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

As the Prime Minister said just last week,

“the Mayor of London should listen to the voices of commuters, families”—

including many of my hon. Friend’s constituents—

“and small businesses as he inflicts his…tax on them.”—[Official Report, 15 March 2023; Vol. 729, c. 832.]

As the House has just heard, our Budget last week supported hard-pressed motorists by cancelling the planned increase of about 11p in fuel duty, saving drivers about £5 billion this year.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

3. What fiscal steps he is taking to support businesses with the cost of energy.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

6. What fiscal steps he is taking to support businesses with the cost of energy.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Jeremy Hunt)]

The Government have provided unprecedented support to help households and businesses with energy costs, totalling £94 billion for households and £8 billion for businesses. That is more than £100 billion over 2022 and 2023.

[Robbie Moore]

One of my local foundry businesses based in Keighley, Leach & Thompson, has kindly contacted me to say that British Gas wants to charge it £41.50 a day as a standing charge and that its unit rate has doubled. That is having a dramatic impact on the business. The Government have helped with the unit charge, but will the Chancellor outline what steps he is taking to help support small and medium-sized businesses with the extortionate standing charges being quoted by energy companies?

[Jeremy Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue, which I know is shared by many Members across the House. That is why on 9 January I wrote to Ofgem asking it to update me on its investigation into the business market, which is not a regulated market like the consumer market. It has replied saying that it has concerns. It is concerned about significant changes in standing charges, about an increasing number of suppliers asking for security deposits and raising the cost of those deposits, and about potential breaches of the rules of the energy bill relief scheme. It will get back to me with its solutions as soon as possible.

Autumn Statement

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

The hon. Lady is right to raise those concerns. Flexibility on council tax is only part of the way we are funding the £4.7 billion increase in the social care budget. Part of it is coming from the delay in the Dilnot reforms, and part of it—£1 billion and then £1.7 billion—is coming from central Government coffers. We recognise those concerns. This package is designed in its entirety to give maximum possible support to the most vulnerable people, and I hope it will be welcomed in her constituency.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

Last week I met residents of Moor Help in Long Lee, attended a coffee morning to speak with constituents in Silsden town hall, met Ilkley Good Neighbours, and had several constituency meetings in Keighley. All were asking me for the pensions triple lock to be protected, so I thank the Chancellor on their behalf. Will he confirm that by protecting pensioners with the triple lock, the Government will be providing the biggest ever cash increase to the state pension?

[Jeremy Hunt]

I absolutely confirm that, and it was the right thing to do. We are also giving lots of other help to pensioners, including £500 off their fuel bills on average across the country, and an extra payment of £300 for all pensioner households to help with cost of living pressures next year. That is on top of existing help such as the winter fuel payment.

Taxation: Silage Film

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered taxation of silage film.

I am grateful for the chance to raise these issues in debate. Before we begin, I am not seeking to question or doubt the merits of the plastic packaging tax, which I fully support, along with all efforts to make sure that as much plastic as possible that we use is recycled. My concern is shared by many colleagues, plastic manufacturers and farming industries: guidance was—I could say sneaked out—released by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs just before Christmas, and unexpectedly added silage film to the list of items caught by that tax. That was not a position that anyone expected. Industries had not prepared for that, and the costs will fall directly on farmers at a very difficult time for them.

My interest in this stems both from the fact that there is a collection of farmers in Amber Valley who use silage film and from the fact that I have a large employer who uses recycled plastic pellet to make, among other things, refuse sacks for the NHS and damp-proof membrane for construction products. The irony of the situation is that, in the years in which I have been an MP, the main problem that that business has had is securing enough plastic to wash at a different plant and recycle so that it can use it in its production process. The best source of plastic that it can get is silage film, which is being exported illegally as clean waste around the world, rather than being washed and recycled at home. Our enforcement bodies were not enforcing the law that was in place, so we are in a rather strange situation. The industry has been investing, and has been keen to recycle the film for years, and if we ended up by accident with a new tax that the Government introduced to try to encourage more plastic recycling it would stop the recycling of that film so we would end up in a worse position. I am sure that that is not what the Government intended.

I have four arguments for the Minister as to why the HMRC guidance should be corrected or withdrawn before 1 April. First, the primary purpose of silage film is not packaging—it is to ensure that harvested grass can be fermented into silage. Secondly, the purpose of the plastic packaging tax is to encourage the use of recycled material and increase the recycling of plastic material. Extending the charge to silage film will not generate more use of recycled material in the film, and will lead to less recycling of the film that is used. Thirdly, I am not sure that silage film falls within the definition of the measures that were introduced in the Finance Act 2021, so the guidance is incorrect and inconsistent with the law. Fourthly, I contend that this is seriously damaging for our farming industry at a difficult time, and would reduce its competitiveness against international rivals. All of those cases are strong reasons why the guidance, which appears to be out of sync with what had been planned, should be withdrawn.

The first case I should like to make is about the primary purpose of the silage film. I would not claim to be an expert on silage or its creation, but the information that I have had from the National Farmers Union, for which I am grateful, and from other farming bodies, is that the film is very specialised. It is very thin. Generally, contractors go on to farms and, in simple terms, mow the grass and wrap it in film so that is airtight and watertight, so that fermentation can take place and produce silage to feed animals through the winter. If that film is not airtight and watertight, the grass will rot and cannot be fed to animals. That is quite a technical process and the film is an expensive and highly specialised product. It cannot be any old plastic: it has to be a very thin film that is air and watertight, and that can survive being used to wrap on a farm in those conditions, rather than in a nice, safe factory setting.

The main aim of using that film is not simple wrapping or packaging to store the grass; there is a much greater purpose of converting the grass into something that can be used to feed animals through the winter. If that plastic does not fulfil that purpose, there will be no food for animals and we will have to import soya or other foods from around the world to get them through the winter.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

I should declare that while I am not one, my family are farmers and have a plastic recycling business. I want to pick up on the point that my hon. Friend is eloquently making about the nub of the issue: silage wrap should not be classed as packaging but is integral to the grass fermentation process to make silage. Does he agree that our colleagues at the Treasury need to realise this very fine point so that legislation and taxation can be addressed accordingly?

[Nigel Mills]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point, with which I entirely agree. It is not a point that the Government have ever challenged in the past. Only last year, the Environment Agency published a paper on the positions and technical interpretations in respect of responsibility for packaging. On page 31, the document accepts that the primary function of silage wrap is producing the product. I accept that it is a different Government Department, but it has accepted that the primary function of silage wrap is to produce silage, not to package, store or protect it. The Minister may argue that that is a different Department and that it is not Treasury policy, but we are trying, on a cross-Government basis, to reduce the amount of plastic that is used and encourage the use of recycled plastic and of recycling. We have measures coming in to make the producer pay for the collection and recycling of their packaging material through the whole system. It seems bizarre that the Treasury, HMRC and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have different definitions of what counts as packaging in that situation. People come under one set of rules but not the other, even though they are charging for similar sorts of things. I hope that we can achieve consistency across Government.

If the Minister is not convinced by that compelling argument for consistency across Government, I refer her to a 2018 HM Treasury consultation on tackling the plastic problem that concluded that silage film came into the category of non-packaging plastics. Even the Treasury has, in the past, accepted that silage film is not a packaging plastic. I therefore hope that there is no doubt that the primary purpose here is not simple packaging. Looking through the list of items that fall inside and outside this tax, one of the general themes is the primary purpose of the plastic. It is hard to see from that list why silage film has been treated inconsistently with other plastics that are excluded.

My second contention is that what has been done here is contrary to the policy intent. The guidance notes set out that the plastic packaging tax was designed to encourage to the use of recycled plastic instead of new plastic material in plastic packaging. In turn, the tax would create demand for recycled plastic and stimulate increased recycling and collection of plastic waste, diverting it from landfill or incineration. That is the Government’s own stated intent. Because of the very specialised nature of the film––which has to be incredibly thin, light-proof and waterproof, and capable of achieving those things when being used for wrapping in a farm setting––the industry and farming lobbying bodies are absolutely clear that there is no way any level of recycled plastic can be used in that film with current technology and achieve the effect needed for the fermentation of grass. No matter what this tax is from 1 April, there will not be any quantity of recycled plastic incorporated in the film, as that is not technologically possible at the moment. Therefore, including silage film in this tax will not generate increased use of recycled plastic; it will simply be a tax on farmers that they can barely afford to pay, given their current situation.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Helen Whately)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) on securing the debate and on his comments. I have listened carefully to what he has said. I share his expressed aim of ensuring that we get this tax right, and I very much appreciate the tone that he took.

As context to this debate and to the plastic packaging tax overall, I think that we can all agree that plastic waste is a significant and serious environmental threat, because plastics do not decompose. They can last centuries in landfill sites. With our commitment to reach net zero while driving jobs and growth, and our pledge, through the Environment Act 2021, to leave a better world for future generations and build back greener, the Government are determined to use our battle against pollution and climate change to make a positive difference to people’s lives and the wider economy. That is why we have been focused for some years on developing the right incentives, so that businesses can play their part in supporting us in the green economic transition.

That includes our introduction, back in 2015, of a 5p levy on single-use plastic bags, which led to a more than 95% drop in plastic carrier bag sales in England’s main supermarkets. Last year, we went even further, doubling the levy to 10p. As part of DEFRA’s 2018 resources and waste strategy and our 2019 manifesto, we said that we would introduce the tax on plastic packaging that we are discussing today. We estimate that the tax will lead to around 40% more recycled plastic being used in packaging in 2022-23, compared with current levels. Given that the use of new plastic in manufacturing generates more carbon than recycled plastic, we estimate the tax will save nearly 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide in the same year.

Turning specifically to how the tax relates to silage film, let me address the points that my hon. Friend made so logically. First, the design and structure of the plastic packaging tax reflects extensive stakeholder consultation, including two design consultations in 2019 and 2020 and three technical consultations on the legislation. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has also established an industry working group made up of trade bodies and organisations, which was consulted on the finer detail of the policy, legislation and guidance. As part of that consultation work, Treasury and HMRC officials met Berry BPI, a plastic packaging manufacturer based in my hon. Friend’s constituency. There has been substantial consultation and engagement, so I was surprised to hear my hon. Friend say that the guidance comes as a surprise.

My hon. Friend talked about DEFRA’s producer responsibility obligations, which it is in the process of reforming. I am clear that, as he indicated, those obligations and the tax are different schemes with different sets of rules and objectives, and they use intentionally different definitions of packaging. The definition for the plastic packaging tax covers products designed to contain, protect, handle, deliver or present goods at any stage in the supply chain. Unlike DEFRA’s responsibility obligations, the tax includes goods that meet that definition even if they are used by an end user. That is in order to better achieve the objective of the tax, which is to reduce the environmental harm caused by plastic.

During silage season, large amounts of silage film are used by farmers throughout the country. I am sure hon. Members are aware of the quantity of plastic used; I see it in my own area of the countryside. As we attempt to reduce the use of non-recycled plastic and the amount of plastic overall that ends up in landfill, it is right and it makes sense for the Government to include the use of plastic for silage in the tax. Like cling film and plastic wraps, silage film meets the definition I outlined because it is suitable for use in the supply chain for the containment of silage, but it can also be used by farmers—the main end users—to make their own silage.

[Robbie Moore]

I want to pick up on what I feel is the nub of the issue. Silage wrap is used as part of the process of fermentation to produce silage; it is not classified as packaging in isolation. Could the Minister explore that point specifically?

[Helen Whately]

I fully appreciate my hon. Friend’s point, which I will come to in a second. There are two sides to this issue. On the one hand, silage film can be part of the supply chain; on the other, it can be used by farmers, as end users, to make their own silage by wrapping grass and other crops with the film. If the Government exempted silage wrap and similar items, such as pallet wrap and cling film, we would be shying away from dealing with the overall challenge posed by the use of plastic packaging. That would undermine the aim of this tax, which is to reduce the environmental harm caused by plastic. I do not for a moment dispute that the film is part of the process of turning grass into silage. However, that does not exempt it from falling within the definition for the tax.

That definition is targeted so that it does not include plastic packaging products that are essential for goods to be used, in contrast to products that are essential for goods to be manufactured. Therefore, products such as tea bags, coffee pods, inhalers and lighters are not taxable because the product contained by the packaging simply could not be used by the end user without the packaging. However, that is not the case for silage film.

Covid-19: Ethnic Minority Disparities

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I believe that we have answered this question before; if memory serves me correctly, I think I have written to the hon. Lady on this subject. It is something that the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities is looking at. The commission will be reporting shortly and will be able to give a statement on ethnicity pay reporting. I would like the hon. Lady to send me her statistics about workforce inequality; they are not statistics with which I am familiar, and it would be very interesting to look at the evidence base on that.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

The vaccine roll-out is the best tool in our fight against covid-19, and we must do all we can to ensure that there are no racial disparities in its uptake. This Saturday, I was lucky enough to visit Keighley central mosque, where 525 vaccinations were delivered on that day alone. Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating all those involved, particularly Mohammed Nazam from Keighley Muslim Association, and the Modality Partnership, for all their efforts to ensure that everyone is protected against covid-19?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and add my congratulations to Keighley Muslim Association on its success, and particularly to Mohammed Nazam. Working with religious leaders and others to promote vaccine uptake among ethnic minorities, including housing vaccination centres in mosques and other places of worship, is important to ensure that we achieve good vaccine coverage within these groups. The NHS has now opened 47 vaccination sites in places of worship and community centres, as this boosts perceptions of vaccine safety and improves access. High-profile visits to these sites have a huge impact on the faith community being visited.

Government's Management of the Economy

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

I suspect that we all anticipated the Leader of the Opposition’s speech last Thursday to be bold, with a strong economic vision for the future. The speech was billed as “A New Chapter for Britain” and we were told to expect fresh new ideas from the Labour party. It was therefore a great disappointment that the speech contained nothing of any substance—no charisma, no impassioned speech, no vision for our economic prosperity as a country. Instead, we were treated to the same old Labour arguments about the economy—the same arguments, I add, that the British people rejected only 14 months ago. The Leader of the Opposition talked about economic legacies, yet the only legacy of the last Labour Government was summed up effectively by one note, which read:

“I’m afraid there is no money left.”

The Labour party said that the Government were not prepared for the challenges and events of the pandemic, but this is an unprecedented time, the like of which we have not seen for more than a century. Labour said that 10 years under the Conservatives has left us unable to support the economy through this time; looking at the evidence, I suggest the opposite is true. After years of the deficit rising under Labour, the Conservatives made the difficult but important decisions necessary to get it to a sustainable level.

It is because the Conservatives worked to reverse the dire economic consequences of the last Labour Government that we have been able to provide world-beating support for our businesses over the past year. The Government have already spent £280 billion to protect livelihoods during the pandemic, helping to fund our hospitals, schools and local governments. The furlough scheme, which has helped more than 13,000 people in Keighley and Ilkley, has been vital to the protection of jobs in the hardest-hit industries, including the hospitality and tourism sectors. Cash grants, deferred VAT payments and the bounce back loan scheme are examples of the way the Government have assisted businesses throughout this crisis. All those vital measures were possible because we entered this pandemic with the public finances under control.

Yes, the months ahead may be tough, but Britain’s economy and the British people have bounced back before and we will do so again. The Labour party’s response to the pandemic is certainly being delivered by Captain Hindsight, but when it comes to an economic vision for the country, it would seem that Captain No Foresight is in charge.

Equitable Life

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con) [V]]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for securing this vital debate. Ever since my election to this place just over a year ago, I have been contacted by dozens of constituents from across Keighley and Ilkley asking for my support on this issue, and they have it. The Equitable Life scandal has gone on for far too long.

Fundamentally, this comes down to one simple principle: fairness. When we save for retirement, we expect the money that we invested to be there for us, but the customers of Equitable Life, even after compensation, have been left with just a fraction of what they were owed. The final report on the Equitable Life payment scheme in 2016 set out that compensation payments to policyholders equated to only 22.4% of their relative loss. Some victims have spent years campaigning for compensation. Very sadly, some people died before they could receive the compensation they were due.

In 2010, when the parliamentary ombudsman found in favour of savers, stating that there had been a decade of maladministration, many savers breathed a sigh of relief, expecting to be compensated for their losses. While I recognise that in 2010, the coalition Government took significant steps, despite tough economic circumstances, by delivering £1.5 billion in a compensation scheme, there were inherent unfairnesses in the way the scheme was administered. Some policyholders rightly received their full compensation, but others were unfairly excluded. These are people who have worked hard and form the backbone of our country.

I accept that this is not an easy position for the Government. Of course we have to strike a fair balance between the interests of policyholders and taxpayers. Our public finances, especially in the coming years, will be put under enormous strain as we recover from the terrible pandemic. But what better place to start building back better from the pandemic than delivering a fair and just outcome for these savers?

I know that the Government have already taken action to do all they can to prevent a scandal like this from happening again. I know that the Pensions Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), has worked hard as part of the Pension Schemes Bill to protect customers from reckless actions of pension bosses. But I urge the Economic Secretary to the Treasury to look at this again and see what more action can be taken to compensate those victims. Has he considered, for example, reopening the challenge mechanism, which allowed policyholders to identify errors? No one should be penalised for doing the right thing. We owe it to the Equitable Life generation to stand by them.

North of England: Infrastructure Spending

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Damien Moore) for securing this debate. I want to touch on the concept of levelling up, which all of us have spoken about, and to give some thought to what it actually means. We have all talked about it and many of us stood on a manifesto to deliver it. But what does it actually mean to somebody on the ground? In my constituency of Keighley, it very much refers to that forgotten-about place that many of us have referred to. For far too long, Keighley and Ilkley have sat in the shadows of Leeds and Bradford. Levelling up is about ensuring that places like Keighley get the economic recognition they deserve, ensuring that proper, sound, well-thought-through investment is put right into the hearts of these places. I mean tangible investment in projects that will make a real difference to everyday lives, and not just glorified, piecemeal projects, but projects that will have a real impact. For me, the levelling-up agenda is about investment in society and communities—in our healthcare, in our schools, in delivering homes and, of course, in cutting crime, which is a huge consideration in my constituency.

Levelling up is also about infrastructure. When I say infrastructure, I mean a whole range of products. In the summer, the Prime Minister himself said that we need to build, build, build, and build back better. Those sound like great soundbites, but it is exactly what we need to do. I want to talk about projects in my constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe) talked about the Skipton to Colne railway, which I support hugely. We need to get that delivered, and to connect Yorkshire to Lancashire, so that my constituents can get across to Manchester much quicker, and hers can get across to Leeds.

Levelling up is about ensuring that we connect Northern Powerhouse Rail and the cross-Pennine route. Also, it is about ensuring that the towns fund’s kick-start of up to £25 million is really delivered, so that, if we use those public funds wisely, we can crystallise private investment. When I go around my constituency, business after business tells me that they want to grow and expand. We need to start thinking about how we can use public money wisely to remove restrictive barriers and enable the wise use of private investment on infrastructure, and how we can revitalise business rate structures.

There is one small project I would like to push the Minister to consider in the short time I have: a pedestrian bridge across a dual carriageway connecting Silsden and Steeton in my constituency. This has been talked about for nearly seven years; I must see it delivered in my time.

To conclude, levelling up is much more than a slogan. It is about transforming the lives of people right across the country, not just in the north. I am certainly committed to doing that in my constituency. I will continue to lobby on behalf of all of my residents.

Covid-19: Future UK-EU Relationship

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken in this debate. It is perhaps unsurprising that we have heard from one—or perhaps no—Labour Member in what has been a very important debate. Perhaps this highlights to the whole House, to the country and to the hard-working people in Keighley and Ilkley that, once again, we are seeing, just as we have seen over many months and years, a real lack of decisiveness, a real lack of any decision making and a real lack of any leadership from Her Majesty’s Opposition. I could say lost in action, but there has been no action—so just lost.

I know that Labour Members would rather sit on the fence and see how the wind blows before taking any real stance, so it will be interesting to see how they vote this evening. Will they sit on the coat-tails of the SNP Members, or will they be bold and decisive and back this Conservative Government, who are determined to deliver on the will of the people? Ruling out extending the transition period gives businesses the certainty that they need to crack on. Time and again, people right across my constituency have been telling me that it is even more important now that we get this delivered.

I note that the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), who is no longer in his place, said that there has been much repetition in this debate, and he is absolutely right. Listening to SNP Members is like listening to a broken record going on about independence. I say to the SNP that, rather than just pressing the case for another extension, for more frustration and for more uncertainty for British businesses through seeking more dither and delay through an enhanced extension period, it should look a little closer to home and focus its efforts on the great failures that its leader and its party seem to be completely incapable of addressing.

It is clear from listening to SNP Members that their party seems to be more interested in promoting the fear factor of exiting the EU, along with its continued insistence on independence, rather than tackling head-on the improvements that are so desperately needed to the education system in Scotland. In fact, one could conclude that the SNP is so obsessed with pursuing independence—to which, I remind SNP Members, people in Scotland said no—that it would rather put this ahead of any young child growing up in Scotland who wants to get on and get the best education in order to go on and thrive. 

It gets worse. It is inexcusable that SNP Members here, along with their colleagues in Scotland, cannot even bring themselves to acknowledge that there is a problem with education in Scotland. Time and again we see stats, reports and information highlighting the SNP’s failure to tackle the downward spiral in the Scottish education system. Just earlier this year, reports showed that the number of school leavers who had at least one pass at higher level dropped from 62% in 2017-18 to 60% last year. The figures also dropped for advanced highers, and the attainment gap between the richest and poorest students in Scotland is growing again in certain areas.

The SNP has already pulled one education Bill, and on its watch there are far fewer teachers. The results by students in science and maths are down. New ideas and fresh thinking by the SNP are noted for their absence, and the suspicion lingers that, for all its rhetoric, the SNP is still reluctant to accept the true scale of the problem. So I say to the Scottish First Minister and her Education Secretary, and to every hon. Member on the SNP Benches here, that they should get a grip of the situation, because right now they are failing the young people of Scotland, and Scotland deserves much better.