Humber Bridge Bill

Debate between Alan Johnson and Graham Stuart

Tuesday 26th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

I rise to emphasise that there is cross-party, cross-Humber support for the Bill. I pay tribute to the work of the hon. Members for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), my hon. Friends the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) and for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), and the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), too. We have all worked together to establish a new way of looking at the Humber bridge. I also pay tribute to the Secretary of State for International Development for the work she did in her previous post. To emphasise the cross-party consensus, I should point out, too, that the Minister who will be replying to the debate is a Liberal Democrat.

It is said that the way to bring two communities together is to build a bridge. We did that to bring the communities of east Yorkshire and north Lincolnshire together. In a way, that bridge became a cause of division, however, and it certainly did not allow us to fulfil the economic development potential of the region. This Bill changes that, not least because the bridge board will have the power to promote and participate in the economic development of our sub-region.

Because of the tolls and because of the archaic, centralised and almost Stalinist way in which the Humber Bridge Board was set up—it was a creature of its post-war time—it was impossible to use that bridge between the two communities to maximise our economic potential. Now, with the local enterprise partnership, with an emphasis on localism, we are determined to make that work. We have done an awful lot by halving the bridge tolls, which is very important, but we need to set up a new structure, reducing the 22 board members to four local authority members—and we need to include all the local authorities, because one was not included under the current structure. We also need to add to that the knowledge and expertise of the business community. Allowing those things to happen will mean that we can take advantage of the huge potential in renewables, chemicals, logistics and digital gaming, which are all huge for our sub-region.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

I agree with every point that the right hon. Gentleman has made, but will he join me in paying tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), who, when she was a Treasury Minister, played such a role in not only finding the money to halve the tolls, but setting out the vision, which he has just described, of a more dynamic board, rather than the Stalinist one we had before?

[Alan Johnson]

I clearly recall paying tribute to the right hon. Member for Putney, but I am happy to do so again—she is so good, they pay tribute to her twice.

I do not want to speak for long. This Bill is very important for our little corner of the world. There is not a person, organisation, agency or business opposed to this development, and I very much hope the Bill gets its Second Reading this evening.

Static Caravans (VAT)

Debate between Alan Johnson and Graham Stuart

Thursday 26th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stuart]

My hon. Friend is right. I am not sure that I am ever going to get on to the issue of the non-anomaly that this measure is tackling. We are fortunate that Roger Tym & Partners produced a report on the economic impact of UK holiday parks in January this year, showing that 85% of static units are privately owned and that the remaining 15% are rented out as part of a park’s letting fleet. The market that will be most hit is the one that drives profits on these parks and drives investment. I do not think that the Treasury factored that into its calculations properly.

[Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for arranging this serial intervention event.

This afternoon I spoke to Lord Haskins, who is the chair of our local enterprise partnership and the business leader in Hull. He believes that the damage resulting from this measure will, at a stroke, remove all the advantages of our two enterprise zones and local enterprise partnership. Should not the voice of business take precedence in this debate?

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Alan Johnson and Graham Stuart

Wednesday 18th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alan Johnson]

My hon. Friend is right because, on the Treasury’s assessment, more than 1,000 jobs are going to be lost. Some 90% of this manufacturing industry is based in east Yorkshire. I say to those on the Treasury Bench that this is not an industry that has asked for help from the Government—indeed, in 2008-09, it had to pull itself up by its bootstraps. Having done that, this is not a question of its asking the Government for any help; it is about asking the Treasury and the Government not to inflict on that industry a possible death blow to a great British manufacturing success story.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

It is my pleasure to follow the other speakers. Like all those who have spoken so far, apart from those on the Front Bench, I shall speak to new clause 6 and the proposal that the Finance Bill should set out that this House will not approve, in a future statutory instrument, the imposition of VAT on static caravans. So much has already been said, but I must point out that my constituency contains ABI, a major manufacturer in the heart of Beverley; companies in the immediate area that are part of the supply chain; and a series of parks along the Holderness coast that depend for their profits on the sales of static homes, as we discover when we speak to the owners.

The Treasury’s assessment of the impact of introducing the VAT is that there would be a 30% reduction in sales. When we think about the employers in the various constituencies in Hull, in my constituency and in those of my right hon. Friends the Members for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), we find that so many companies are involved. More than 90% of the production of static caravans in the UK is concentrated in east Yorkshire and, as has just been said, so successful is this industry in the UK that nearly all the caravans that are bought and installed in the UK are built there. So my constituency has a great concentration of all those who may suffer from a 30% reduction in demand—manufacturers and all the people who work in that area, suppliers, and the parks themselves.