The Economy

Albert Owen Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

Although the Government will not publish their economic impact assessment, others have made such assessments and have concluded that a hard Brexit could cripple our economy in the short and long term. We need to have a proper debate in the House to consider the consequences and discuss what amendments can be made to protect our economy.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

My hon. right Friend is absolutely right about those economic impact studies. Has he had any conversations with the Welsh and Scottish Governments about the huge impact that a border in the Irish sea will have on Welsh and Scottish communities? It appears that the Government have not done so.

[John McDonnell]

Is it not interesting that virtually every Government apart from this one are willing to undertake an impact assessment of some sort? What does that display? I am not usually a suspicious person, but I think we have our suspicions.

Let me say to the Chancellor that he has a role to play in shouldering his responsibility to provide us all with the fullest possible information on the basis of which we can make our decisions. That means publishing a full economic impact assessment and doing it fast, so that we can have a proper debate.

As the Government have a working majority of minus 45, it is obvious that the Queen’s Speech is little more than a pretty crude election stunt. In all their various comments in the House and the media, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have depicted their programme as “the people’s priorities”. As a political artisan, I can admire a good turn of phrase—

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[Sajid Javid]

First, there is no no-deal cliff-edge. If the hon. Gentleman wants to have a smooth exit from the EU, he knows what to do—vote for the deal and support the Government’s programme motion.

[Albert Owen]

rose—

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

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[Kirsty Blackman]

One of the first political moments I remember came when Jack McConnell was talking about Scotland’s population dipping and about the massive concerns there were around the millennium about its population going below 5 million; I think that was the number at the time. I recall hearing that and thinking, even as a 14-year-old in 2000, how devastating it was. I am so pleased that we have had the freedom of movement that has come as part of the EU.

My kids go to school with so many children from so many countries around the world, and a huge number of them are from the EU. They are living in Aberdeen. Outside London, Aberdeen has the highest percentage of non-UK-born people in the UK, which is amazing for a place that people think is quite far away. Actually, we are pretty good at attracting people. But we struggle with the immigration rules. Every week people come to my office and sit around my table crying because the UK Government are saying that, despite the fact that they have jumped through every possible hoop that has been put in front of them, they are not able to stay and they must return to Nigeria, Poland or whichever country it is that they originate from. This UK Government are attempting to make that situation worse, not better.

I wish to look at the economic impact of failing to support technologies that help to meet our climate change targets. In Scotland, we have the skills, ability, capacity and geography to become world leaders in these technologies, but we need the UK Government to stop messing around and to take their responsibilities seriously. We must have immediate action to support and invest in carbon capture and storage technologies. We are uniquely placed, with our geology, to capitalise on this and to become world leaders in this space, and we cannot have the situation that happened when George Osborne was in the Treasury: he pulled funding at the last moment for these vital future technologies for our country.

We also need the UK Government to take their responsibilities seriously on this. They cannot just set a target of 2050 and then refuse to set out a plan for how they are going to get there. They should look at what the Scottish Government have done on the green new deal, which sets our targets and makes clear how we are going to reach our target of 2045, rather than just having an arbitrary, pie-in-the-sky target. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) said, the UK Government are doing lots of talk, but no actual action. So we would like them actually to take action through the environment Bill.

[Albert Owen]

The hon. Lady makes an important point about different devolved Administrations going at difference paces, but we have actually seen cuts to energy-efficiency measures in England, whereas Scotland spends four times more on energy efficiency, Wales spends twice as much, and Northern Ireland, which does not even have a Government, spends one and a half times more than the UK.

[Kirsty Blackman]

This is a hugely concerning direction of travel and it comes despite climate change and things potentially warming up. We need to have energy-efficiency measures. For example, if we want to decarbonise our gas networks, we need to do things such as adding hydrogen and biomethane into the mix. We also need to do things such as ensuring that we have incredibly energy-efficient homes, be that in new homes or through retrofitting older homes. Aberdeen has a campaign to put insulation in granite tenements, which are particularly difficult to insulate and particularly common in Aberdeen. That has made a massive improvement not just in terms of energy efficiency and climate change targets, but in terms of the wealth of those people, who no longer have to pay those immensely high heating bills.

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[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

This will be my last Queen’s Speech after 18 years in this place, as I have announced that I will not be standing at the next general election. I will miss some things, but not jumping up and down for hours to get the opportunity to speak—I have to say that I have not enjoyed that at all.

Let me begin with the withdrawal agreement and Brexit itself, because it will have a huge impact on my constituency and the port of Holyhead, which is the fastest growing port in the whole United Kingdom in terms of trade with Europe. It is massive. A border down the Irish sea will mean tariffs and added costs for Welsh communities and businesses, and checks that will take time and delay cargoes. For the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say in his opening remarks that no economic impact assessment is necessary shows his lack of understanding of the policy that his Government are pushing through. The Brexit Secretary does not understand the implications of tariffs and customs checks either, and of course the Prime Minister said that there would never be a border down the Irish sea. It is not a border; it is an economic iron curtain for many of us in Wales, and it is really disappointing that the Government have done this.

We have no impact studies, but the Welsh Government reckon there will be a 7% reduction in the Welsh economy over the next 15 years. That is probably why the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not want to produce the figures—because he knows that there will be a negative impact.

I want to try to be as positive as I can about the Queen’s Speech, although it will be difficult. I welcome the Environment Bill because we need to build consensus on the challenge of climate change and a low-carbon economy. I want to see a UK Government working with the devolved Administrations on this. There are good practices in other parts of the United Kingdom that we need to adapt into Bills here, including on a low- carbon infrastructure.

If we are serious about climate change, we need a revolution in renewables, but we also need to invest in carbon capture and storage—and, yes, in new nuclear. If we are to reach our target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050, we need to double our low-carbon infrastructure. We have an infrastructure plan, but it is not ambitious enough. We need to work together on this now. We need a low-carbon revolution—not just in energy generation, but in our homes and the built environment. We need to do it street by street and community by community, with gas fitters being replaced by solar and underground storage engineers. It has to be done now and it can be done. Mr Deputy Speaker, you and I are old enough to remember North sea gas coming online. That revolution employed thousands of well-paid engineers and fitters, and that is what we should be talking about now.

This Queen’s Speech lacks content, because it should mention how we will make a material change to the lives of the people we are sent here to represent. In that respect, it has failed on all scores and I will not be supporting it tonight. I will, however, work with the Government if they want to improve people’s lives through a green revolution and ensuring that there are high-quality green jobs in this country. My constituency has a proud record and we have the ability to move forward, but there are new projects that lack a funding mechanism—another missed opportunity. Tidal and marine energy does not have the necessary funding for it to become a mature and much-needed technology for the future. The Government have missed that opportunity. We need lagoons—not just in Swansea bay, but in Colwyn bay and in Cemaes bay in my constituency.

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[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

There were around 39 speeches today, so obviously I cannot go through them all, but I would like to thank the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon)—although, given all the cuts we have had under the Tory Government, I am surprised it is not “Sixoaks”—for his support for Labour’s policy on share ownership. I also offer my congratulations to the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) on his appointment to the Treasury Committee, and commiserations to the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake).

The right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) said that the Liberal Democrats were the yellow party. They certainly were the yellow party, in that they did not stand up to the Tories when they were in coalition with them. That is the sort of yellow party they actually are. So I will not be taking any sermonising whatever from that shower at the back of me—none whatsoever.

May I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), thank you for all the work that you have done, given that this is your last Queen’s Speech—and yours was an excellent speech, too.

The Chancellor’s performance was excruciating. Judging by the faces of the Members sitting on his side of the House after he had made it, I thought I had walked into an embalmers’ and morticians’ conference. Thinking of the global banking crisis, does he not remember collateralised debt obligations—otherwise known as financial weapons of mass destruction? Has he forgotten that he had a great part in promoting them? That is the cause of the global financial crisis—reckless speculation, dependence on credit and grossly unequal distribution of income. It applies to this day. [Interruption.] Members on his side of the House may mutter all they want; that is the fact. They and their friends were the cause of the global crisis, not this side of the House—[Interruption.] Not this side of the House.

The topic today is the economy—an economy that the Tories are in the process of systematically wrecking. As many have pointed out today, after nine years in charge of the economy, their strategy has proven to be a total failure. Nine years of austerity, combined with Tory infighting over who can deliver the worst Brexit for our economy, has made us all poorer. Wages have stagnated. The queues at food banks have grown almost as long as the incoherent responses of the Prime Minister at PMQs.

[Albert Owen]

My hon. Friend is talking about the Chancellor’s opening speech in which he tried to mock Labour’s nationalisation plans, saying that we would even go as far as nationalising travel agents. I remind him that Thomas Cook made a profit when it was in public ownership between 1948 and 1972, but it went bankrupt under this Government, with people losing their jobs and their holidays.

[Peter Dowd]

My hon. Friend refers to just some of the many thousands of workers who have been let down by this Tory Government. We all walk past people sleeping rough on the streets every day, but what have the Government done about that? Nothing. Despite endless promises of jam tomorrow, there looks to be little respite ahead under this Government. Their approach to this is writ large by the smirks on the faces of the members of the Government Front Bench.

Manufacturing output in August dropped at the fastest pace in seven years, with EU-based customers rerouting supply chains away from the UK in anticipation of 31 October. Consumer and business confidence is tumbling. Anecdotally, we know that a worrying proportion of businesses are moving their operations and investment elsewhere.

My right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor said:

“We have heard the Prime Minister’s previous crude dismissal of British business. Now we are seeing his words become Government policy.”—[Official Report, 8 October 2019; Vol. 664, c. 1650.]

Businesses are responding in droves. The Centre for European Reform says that the economy is already £69 billion smaller as a result of Tory turmoil and uncertainty since the Brexit vote. That is their responsibility on their watch—nobody else’s. Time and again, they put party over country while the economy suffers. The Government’s false dichotomy of no deal versus a bad deal amounts to an attack on the economic wellbeing of our citizens. Our economy needs cast-iron guarantees of frictionless free trade and strong regulatory alignment with the European Union. It needs a targeted industrial strategy to turn the biggest threat of our time into an economic opportunity, but not with the Tories.

The only threat we face that is equal to the continuation of this Government is the climate emergency. We need a green industrial revolution: a rapid and far-reaching transformation of the UK’s infrastructure, from our homes to our transport and energy systems. That requires investment on a scale that makes the Government’s programme pale into insignificance. Labour is offering—

Santander Closures and Local Communities

Albert Owen Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I add my thanks to the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) and congratulate him on securing this debate. I am delighted to support him. As my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) said, bank branch closures affect the constituents of hon. Members on both sides of the House. It is important that we stick together to represent people and stand up for the most vulnerable in our society.

In 2016, not long after I was elected, I was faced with a couple of bank closures in my constituency, in Cheam. The high street there thrives on independent shops. First, Lloyds Bank came to the end of its lease. I would give the constituent of the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) the same counsel that I gave my constituents who were upset about losing Lloyds Bank: vote with their feet and go to HSBC up the road. Unfortunately, just a few months later, HSBC decided to close, too. Constituents can be pulled from pillar to post, continually having to move, to chase the exodus from the high streets. Banks do not want to be the last bank on the high street, because all the focus would be on them when they eventually respond to a changing market.

I retain a good relationship with my local Santander branch in Sutton, which looks after customers of the two that are now closing. I remember a tweet that I sent to a constituent on 19 May 2016, in which I said that I had had a chat to Santander, which was closing quite a small branch in North Cheam, but was committed to its main Cheam branch. Fast-forward only three years: that branch is now closing. The last bank in Cheam will have gone.

When Lloyds Bank and HSBC were closing, residents set up petitions, but petitions only have so much value. Yes, they can show the weight of opinion and ask the banks to please be considerate, but when a banking chain has made a corporate decision, a petition will generate heat but not a lot of light, so we need to look at other ways to respond. Can we encourage customers to move elsewhere? Can we work on the post office network, despite the restrictions on that, which we heard about from other hon. Members? Are we putting an unfair burden on the post office network and the Government in relation to decisions made by corporate organisations?

In the case of the Santander closure in Cheam, three local councillors, Elliot Colburn, Holly Ramsey and Eric Allen, have taken a different tack. Metro Bank is looking at expanding its network in other areas, so they have made a direct approach to Metro Bank, saying, “Here’s a space. There are no banks. It is an area where there are a lot of independent shops. Metro Bank takes a different tack in its approach to attracting customers—it is a bit of a disruptor bank—so why don’t you come in and consider Cheam as an option?”

What more can we do? We have talked about the pressure being put on to post offices. In Sutton, it looks as though our Crown post office will be moved to WHSmith, which will cause angst and concern to a number of people there. On the other hand, not far away in Belmont, a village to the south of my constituency, a post office has just been opened at the back of a pet shop, and it is one of the best-used post offices. It won an award from the network as one of the best new post offices in London, coming second only to one on Oxford Street. That is pretty impressive. If it is put in an imaginative place, it will be used.

What more can we do? Should we look at the banking hubs and a return to the ’70s, or some form of technology to move banks from making corporate decisions to making marketing decisions, which can go a totally different way? If the bank takes a marketing decision to look at innovation, its corporate social responsibility will move the decision away from just being a box-ticking exercise for its shareholder report to being something that can actually add value to the high street and tackle the issues such as loneliness mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Angus. By making the high street a hub and a community centre and bringing in other businesses to work with the bank, the bank can become the centre of the high street, which has to be good for that bank.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point about hubs, as have other hon. Members. What role does he think the Government should play in that? We have heard about the closure of Crown post offices, which the Government own, but surely hubs could be there, because they are well located and owned by us. We are the taxpayers and our constituents need those services.

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[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) on securing this debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. The hon. Gentleman was right that the motion should be about not just bank closures but their effect on local communities. It has been interesting to listen to the contributions that Members have made, because bank closures rip the heart out of our communities.

I have been here long enough to see a trend develop over many years. Like the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), I received a letter from Santander saying that it is going to close down a branch, and that letter could have been cut and pasted from any other bank letter over the years. The bank says it is a very difficult decision, but, frankly, it is a corporate strategy now; it is a policy. It is part of their toolkit to say, “It is a difficult decision,” but they go ahead and do it anyway.

The letter that I got is, as the hon. Member for Glasgow East said, a desktop exercise. Mr Davies, as an expert on unitary authorities in Wales, you will know that I represent a constituency that is coterminous with the county of Ynys Môn, the isle of Anglesey. However, the address given for Llangefni, the main market town, says it is in the county of Gwynedd, so there is an error there to begin with. Santander has not done due diligence in its exercise to close down these branches; it has done a central allocation of closures right across the country, and the brunt of that is felt by rural and periphery areas. This has an impact on the whole of my constituency.

Closures, as I have said, are done by stealth. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton, the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, is quite right: first, the hours are altered so that they do not suit customers, and then, when those customers go in, they are encouraged to bank online. I have experienced that myself: whenever there is a temporary assistant in my local branch of Lloyds bank, they say to me, “Mr Owen, would you like to move to online banking?” and I say, “No, thank you.” Then they are told who I am, and they discreetly go to the back and say, “Oops, I’ve made a mistake.” I have been arguing for frontline services for many years, because people need that interaction. They need the privacy of speaking to somebody they know when dealing with sensitive financial issues.

Santander has shot itself in the foot with this exercise, and it is going to get no credit here for the way it has gone about it, but it is not alone. We do not have accurate figures about bank closures—there has not been a central source of data about them since 2014, and maybe the Minister can help me—but we all know they are real and they are in our communities. There should be a central source of data, because we should have facts and figures about financial exclusion. Which? is very good at helping us out and has said that there has been a decline of around 35% in banking since 2014. I did some research in my own periphery constituency, and more than 46% of banks have closed in the area—nearly half in two and a half years. That is the trend.

I am not a luddite. I can download an app and use an Apple phone, but like many of my constituents I choose not to. Broadband is not as great in my area as it is in central cities, for example, so it is difficult to use alternative banking methods. I do not want to make a bank transaction and then go offline and become stuck, or to do one draft and then another. It is a serious problem. I think the hon. Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) mentioned that the broadband distribution in her area is not suitable. There needs to be some joined-up thinking here.

The Government have played a role in the trend I mentioned. Colleagues have rightly mentioned the shrinkage of the post office network over many years. Yet the standard letters that Santander and other banks have issued say, “Go to your nearest post office,” without the banks’ having researched whether there is a threat of closure to the Crown or sub-post office in that area. That illustrates the lack of joined-up thinking.

The central negative element is the reduction of our town centres, with footfall seriously affected. I have seen it in the towns in my constituency. Llangefni is a market town. Farmers used to go there, although, unlike the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton, not to pump up their overdrafts. They used the banks regularly, as well as the shops, cafés and pubs.

Footfall is also being reduced in Amlwch, a town at the northern tip of my constituency that now has no bank at all. It has a sub-post office in a retail shop that is not as effective—no disrespect to the staff—as the post office that was closed. There is also a lack of cash machines. A lack of access to such machines has already been mentioned. I was given a letter by a very able councillor who pointed out that ATMs are often broken, and the ones that work make a charge. The surcharge is 95p on a transaction. The reason given for that is that banks now give less money to the LINK fund for ATM operators. Not only are banks closing branches, but they are cutting the money they put towards running ATMs. I am sure I am not the only one experiencing that.

[Jim Shannon]

I should have mentioned in my earlier contribution that ATMs in Northern Ireland have been targeted by criminals and thieves. We have the largest number of ATM break-ins and thefts across the whole of Northern Ireland, and the Police Service of Northern Ireland has set up a taskforce to take that on. It is happening with regularity. The people who run the ATMs then say to themselves, “Why should we bother putting an ATM there at all if it’s going to be broken or stolen from?”

[Albert Owen]

That is a very strong point, but I think the banks themselves are ripping people off if they are not giving money. Cashzone machines are charging 95p per transaction. Often they are in poorer communities. The Which? research I referred to earlier highlights that almost two thirds of bank closures have been in the poorest areas of our country—those with an average household income of less than £26,000—so the closures affect our poorer constituents.

We need to look for solutions. We have heard a few ideas about financial hubs, for example. I seriously put to the Government the proposition of using Crown post offices, because we need to look for solutions. They are closing down these buildings, which they often own and which often lie empty for some time, as in Holyhead in my constituency. Such buildings could be used as financial hubs.

I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) will be very happy that I agree with our Labour party policy to re-establish a Post Office bank—a people’s bank—and to have regional banks so that regional business can benefit. We need to go beyond just blaming the banks; we need to have a proper Government policy and framework.

[Dr Whitford]

We used to have the Girobank, and people’s “giro”, as their unemployment benefit or pension was called, used to be paid through it. The Government’s policy is that people receiving social security need to have a bank account. They then get sent back to the post office. Is that not Kafkaesque?

[Albert Owen]

I absolutely agree. The role of the Post Office is important, and the Government are the owner. We are the shareholders, and we need to look at this in the long term. Banks, whether Santander or any of the other major banks, think in the short term; they look at their shareholders and at cutting costs. If we had a people’s bank—a Post Office structure and network across the country that had the same rates—it would be fair and even for all our constituents across the country. They would have better access, and we could invest as a country in the infrastructure and the broadband. In the digital age, it could be as modern as any other bank.

That is the way we need to move. I am pleased that the Opposition Front Bench will agree with me, but I want the Minister, who is very diligent, and who looks for solutions—I am trying to help him in doing so—to stop closing the Crown post offices that we own. He should use them as major financial hubs across the United Kingdom, so that when banks are closed, we do not get bog-standard letters telling us to go to a nearby post office that is also closing down. We need a people’s bank. I say to my constituents who use Santander in Llangefni: “Don’t travel 15 or 20 miles to your nearest post office. Change banks. If Santander won’t stand up for you, stand up for yourself.”

I pay tribute to the staff who work in banks across the country. They are the face of the banks. During the banking crisis, they took a lot of flak. It was nothing to do with them. They are diligent workers, but I am afraid that, when it comes to these large banks, these staff are just pawns in the game. They will lose their jobs, and people will lose their financial services. I want the Government and all of us to work together to stop that.

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[Dr Whitford]

I absolutely agree. I pay tribute to the staff in my branch, who were very helpful when we opened our account and are always cheerful. They are not about to retire. They are young working people who are not looking to take a package, but will need a job. They are being made unemployed, and they are deeply shocked by that.

There have been 3,000 branch closures since 2015, 230 of which are in Scotland. Two thirds of branches have been cut since the end of the ’80s. By the end of this year, we will have fallen from 21,000 to less than 7,500 across the UK. That is an incredible change. I totally accept that banking is changing, but, like many others, I use mixed banking. I will use an ATM, go into my branch and do online banking, but it is important that I have that choice. We are talking about choice being taken away.

This change is 20 years too early; we are not yet cashless or online. My mum, who is 84, and most people over 70 are not happy to do banking or any sensitive financial transactions online. My mum has her iPad and can do emails. It is not stupidity. She simply does not trust it. In making this change, we are leaving two decades’ worth of older citizens feeling uncomfortable and like they have had things taken away from them.

When banks move out, they do not leave their ATMs behind, which means that there is less access to cash in community after community, and the ATMs that remain are running out. Troon has already lost three banks. This is our fourth. I went through all this with RBS, which tried to use a unique customer identifier. It told me that only 97 customers a week went into the branch. I found that really strange, because every time I went in, I was in a queue. It only counted people who only went into that branch and went into the branch every single week. As was said, no other business would count custom in that fashion. When I finally got the correct figures out of RBS, that number was 10 times as high. Yet the bank would not reconsider its decision.

Although my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East has highlighted the issue of vulnerable people who have poor internet access, in Troon, a place to which many people retire, the issue is the elderly. In the impact assessment, it says that 58% of people have, on at least one occasion, used online, mobile or telephone banking, meaning that 42% have never used those methods. There is no quantification, so we do not know—as the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) said—whether someone simply phoned the branch to ask what its opening hours are or when they could go in to get a statement. The idea that that means someone is suddenly ready to manage all their finances by phone or online is just a fairy tale.

The problem we have is that our elderly population is suddenly being told, as I was assured, that the closest branches are within a 10-mile radius—it is seven miles in one direction and 11 miles in the other—and for most of the elderly who live in Troon, however, that means taking two buses and more than an hour’s journey on a bus that is not frequent, so a visit to the branch could mean a three-hour round-trip. As was highlighted earlier in the debate, that also takes footfall out of Troon’s town centre, because if someone takes the trouble to go to Ayr, the chances are that they will shop in Ayr. They will not come back, go in to the middle of Troon, shop, and then get a bus home. That is gradually killing our high streets.

The access to banking standard and the need for an impact assessment were mentioned. We have all been sent little infographic-laden impact assessments, but it strikes me that they are largely about the impact on the bank. They are not really about the impact on customers, staff or our high street. The hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) mentioned the idea of having a hub. The obvious way to do that would be to bring back Crown post offices, but why do we expect post offices to co-locate with other businesses, but not banks to co-locate with each other or with post offices? It is absolutely vital that communities have some form of safe and secure access to financial services and advice.

Post offices are proposed as the answer to everything, but we cannot use them to open new accounts, carry out bank transfers or, if trying to manage our money, get full bank statements—only a balance. We certainly cannot arrange loans. Many of us used to go into a bank to speak to our bank manager, who was very strict about the income that we needed to obtain a mortgage. Part of what led to the 2008 crash was random decisions to lend people three, four, five, six or seven times their income so that they could get a mortgage, instead of giving them the chance to sit down and talk with someone who could see their financial performance. That applies to business customers who, at the early stages of development, need really personal input from someone who manages their service.

Quite apart from being the answer to all those problems, post offices are struggling financially. Previously, postmasters would get a fee, but funding for that is being cut from £210 million to just £70 million. As this is the fourth bank to close in Troon, all of that work is going to the post office. It has the same number of counters that it has always had, and it had a two-year gap of struggling to find a new postmaster when our previous one was ill and found it frankly all too stressful. In the Which? survey, 42% of those not happy about the move to the post office were concerned about queues. If the post office has the same number of counters but is suddenly doing the work of four banks, queues are inevitable.

Our closest town, Prestwick, has also lost three banks. When I met our postmaster after the most recent closure, he was initially quite positive, because he saw it as a business opportunity. I met him recently, however, and the bank transactions actually take money out of his business. Cash deposits are time consuming and he has had to take on an extra part-time member of staff. He does over 500 extra banking transactions a month and takes in £1 million a month. While Santander charges £7 per £1,000 deposited, the postmaster is paid 37p per £1,000 deposited. The Government subsidy for the 3,000 community post offices that are protected as the last shops in the village will end in 2021. We will literally have dead and empty communities with no access to anything and nothing to maintain footfall in a town centre.

We need to reward and support the post office. Santander is one of the biggest users of post office services, because it makes its business customers deposit cash in the post office. The fee paid to post offices for those transactions is currently being renegotiated. It is critical that that fee be fair, because otherwise we will see the last remaining Crown post offices not redeveloped as banking hubs, but shut down. Frankly, post offices wedged in corners of shops are not always accessible, are often cluttered and do not offer privacy to carry out financial decisions and management.

[Albert Owen]

Is there not an additional risk of going in with one retailer—WHSmith, for example—because many high streets brands are closing down, meaning the whole service could go?

[Dr Whitford]

That is the problem. We almost have that tumbling effect—the work is just passed to someone else, who cannot maintain it, and it is passed on again. It is important that there is a different way of looking at the issue. I agree with the hon. Member for Glasgow North East: it is down the Government to look at innovative approaches across the world, see how such banks are expected to behave in other countries, and, perhaps, to learn from America—not in all things, but in the idea of having regulation to ensure support for financial facilities in all our communities, and not just the leafy streets of middle-class suburban areas.

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[Jonathan Reynolds]

I agree with my hon. Friend. She is right to highlight—she did so in her speech—the many difficult issues with conduct in the UK banking industry, and specifically the abuses of lending to small businesses, which we have had many debates about in this Chamber and the main Chamber. Such abuses are particularly difficult to hear about—people have suffered some real abuses—and compounding them makes things especially difficult.

I have heard some particularly moving stories from those who care for others, who have borne the brunt of some closures. This comment choked me up:

“My mum with Alzheimer’s relied on her Lloyds branch in Droylsden before it was shut. The staff knew her well and helped her. They knew her condition and if she was in a bad way they would phone me and give her a cup of tea while they waited for me to arrive. The staff said there were lots of other people like my mum. The closure really affected her.”

Such stories show that we are talking about real people and the impact on their lives. Those are real experiences. The data do not always reveal that. The banks, of course, have the right to present that data to us, but our job is to tell the human side of the story.

We cannot hold back the tide of technological change—like some of my colleagues, I am not a luddite, and I love technology—but we can stop to think about how to make it work for us, not the other way around. Without protection the move to online as a default option will risk leaving the most vulnerable and marginalised in our society without services that work for them.

As we have seen in the debate around ATMs—which were raised several times in this debate—the risk is that we will sleepwalk into a society without access to cash at all, with the industry realising that we need those safety nets only when it is too late. Access to cash is becoming an increasing challenge for people, following bank closures and the decline in our high streets. The chair of the Payment Systems Regulator, Charles Randell, was right to ask in a Treasury Committee evidence session earlier this week whether access to ATMs should be seen as a universal service. I am sympathetic to that.

No one wants to prevent innovation. Indeed, some technological advances, such as remote video appointments or audible speaking ATMs, could for the first time help to include people who have historically had trouble interacting with traditional banking. Our objective, however, must be to use technology to benefit all customers, rather than creating a pared-down, automated banking sector that leaves people without the support they need.

The bank branch network has been shrinking at an accelerating rate. In December 2016, Which? reported that more than 1,000 branches of major banks had closed between January 2015 and January 2017. Banks stopped publishing data on closures in 2015, and there is now no central source for it, so the exact number of closures becomes more and more difficult to find out. Since those figures were published, however, we have seen multiple further closure announcements from banks, including Yorkshire Bank, RBS, Lloyds and now Santander.

The scale of the closures seems disproportionate and does not necessarily match how people want to use their bank branches. Also—this has come out in the debate—some of the modelling around the closures does not reflect the fact that branches are all closing at the same time. That was particularly the case in Scotland with RBS. Research conducted by the Social Market Foundation in 2016 found that strong consumer appetite remains for a physical presence. Nearly two thirds of consumers would prefer to talk to someone face to face when making a big financial decision.

A report by Move Your Money, published in July 2016, made the damning assessment that, far from responding to market pressures, the major UK banks are simply closing branches in poorer areas and opening or retaining them in more affluent ones. That is simply not acceptable. The same report mapped bank branch closures against the postcode lending data from the British Bankers Association, which is now UK Finance, to show that bank branch closures dampen SME lending growth significantly in the postcodes affected. The figure grows even higher for postcodes that lose the last bank in town. At a time when we all want to stimulate more lending to SMEs and to encourage growth, a sustained programme of bank branch closures risks taking us in precisely the wrong direction.

Labour’s answer to that is a proposal to change the law regulating banks so that no closure can take place without a real local consultation or the Financial Conduct Authority approving the tranche of closures. A future Labour Government would obligate banks to undertake a real consultation with all customers of the branch proposed for closure, including local democratic representatives on the relevant local council. The bank would be mandated to publish details of the reasons for closure, including the financial calculations showing the revenues and costs of the relevant branch. The share of central costs such as accounting systems, IT, cyber-security and personnel would have to be identified separately, because many of those costs are relatively fixed and not proportionate to the number of branches. The FCA’s approval would be needed for any bank branch closure. We think that is the right balance. It accepts that, as technology changes, there might be some closures, but it would ensure that customers are not forgotten about or taken for granted.

That is our policy on closures, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn said, we wish to go further. The Post Office is often referred to as the solution to bank branch closures, through its relationship with the Bank of Ireland. That is better than nothing—something like £14 billion in deposits is held in accounts linked to the Post Office—but there are clearly shortfalls. The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire highlighted some of those in her speech.

The potential exists, however, to build on that model and to create a genuine Post Office bank, which would ensure universal access to banking services for every part of the UK. It would be a standalone institution; it would pay the post office network for use of those branches, and it would therefore replace the network subsidy payment. It would offer a future for the Post Office, as well as for financial services in every part of the country. It would be held in a public trust model, with 100% of the shares held in trust for the public benefit, ensuring that no future Government could seek to privatise it. I plan to develop those plans and to present them in more detail in the near future, alongside our plans for the future of the public stake in RBS and other measures designed to increase plurality in the banking sector, including the return of new post offices to the UK.

[Albert Owen]

Is not one of the problems—perhaps a future Labour Government could address this—that so many different Departments are involved? We have heard about the Department for Work and Pensions and about the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with its responsibility for the Post Office, and the Treasury Minister is responding to the debate. Would my hon. Friend include in his plans a responsible Minister so that there is accountability to Parliament?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

That is an interesting submission. Ultimately, if we wish to see the kind of developments that my hon. Friend and I would like to see, we have to have the Treasury behind them, in whatever way Whitehall responds to that. Clearly, there are lots of different aspects; some are about the legislative environment, some about the regulatory environment and some about the spending decisions that need to be made if we are serious about ensuring universal access to financial services.

In every debate such as this, we all recognise that the financial crisis has had a severe and long-lasting impact on communities in Britain. That fallout has damaged the banking sector in the public’s eyes—we cannot get away from that—but banks must not compound that damage with an overly aggressive and sustained programme of closures, which risks being another step in leaving the high street as an empty shell. Regulators, banks and policy makers need to work together to build a viable banking infrastructure that works for all customers and all communities in a way that will ultimately restore trust and confidence in the UK banking sector.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Albert Owen Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My right hon. and learned Friend is right that, strictly, the flow of trade in goods would be facilitated by such an arrangement, but there are two problems with the EFTA-EEA model. First, it would continue to impose on us the obligations of freedom of movement, which we believe the British people voted against in the referendum decision in 2016. Secondly, it would leave our financial services industry in particular extremely exposed to having to comply with a rapidly evolving body of EU regulation over which we would have no influence.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

I am listening carefully to the Chancellor. He mentioned frictionless trade, but where in the political declaration does it say “Guaranteed frictionless trade”? It said so in the Chequers agreement, but it seems to have been omitted in what we are voting on on Tuesday.

[Mr Hammond]

Under the political agreement, there is a commitment by the parties to working in good faith together to minimise any impediments to trade between us. We are confident that, with goodwill on both sides and the evolving technologies that are available, we will be able to design a very efficient and free-flowing border for UK goods and for imports from the European Union.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle). I always find it slightly amusing when Labour Members describe the Conservatives as deeply divided—

[Albert Owen]

It’s true.

[Ms Dorries]

The reverse is true. It is also a pleasure to speak after the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), and I particularly enjoyed his reference to Lewis Carroll. While listening to the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie), who is not in his seat, I was put in mind of Milton:

“No light, but rather darkness visible.

Serv’d onely to discover sights of woe”.

Of course, that comes from “Paradise Lost”, which is exactly what the hon. Gentleman’s speech sounded like. As we are on a literary theme, I want to quote the Attorney General, who described the deal before us as akin to Dante Alighieri’s first circle of hell which, as we all know, is limbo. In fact, it is worse than limbo, because it is a bit like imprisonment, and it is why I, on the behalf of my constituents, from whom I have received many thousands of representations, will not be able to support this deal. If there was a guarantee that we could secure a trade agreement at the end of the transition period and if there were no automatic backstop, I may have been able to support it. However, I am doubtful that we would able to secure this trade agreement. The Chancellor said that he would prefer to see an extension of the transition period, and then there would probably be another extension, which is what the Attorney General was referring to.

I see no reason why there could not be a time limit on the discussions for a trade agreement with the EU. Canada has already been there and done that with the comprehensive economic and trade agreement, and those negotiations make me doubt that we would reach an agreement in the first phase of the transition. CETA took seven years, and it has still not been signed off and ratified—it is still a provisional agreement. We may not reach a trade agreement with the 27 member states, and we have already seen how difficult it is to negotiate with them. Belgium was incredibly difficult during Canada’s negotiations with the EU, for example. If we do not reach an agreement, we will have to ask the 27, “Can we leave?” There is no unilateral way to exit, which is like taking us into the transition period, but in a pair of handcuffs, and I simply cannot agree to that. That is not what people voted for. They did not vote for limbo or to continue to be dictated to by the 27 member states.

Turning to the backstop, whatever side of the House or the argument they are on, I know of no Member who will answer positively to, “What do you think the chances are of us negotiating a trade agreement with the EU in the transition period?” Almost everyone says, “Absolutely none.” We will therefore end up in the backstop by default. According to the legal advice, which the Attorney General provided at the Dispatch Box without having to publish it, that will put us in an extremely difficult position. Again, there is no unilateral way out, and it will precede the break-up of the Union. It puts us in an invidious position with regard to the Northern Ireland agreement. It will lead to a scenario that we do not need to be in.

I started talking about Canada, and that sort of agreement was offered to us by Barnier. Our negotiators refused to accept it, but it was what was articulated in the Lancaster House speech. If the Prime Minister had come back with an agreement based on that speech and on the Canada plus agreement that she was offered by Barnier, I would vote for that on the behalf of my constituents and they would agree with it, too. Sadly, however, she did not, and I cannot support this withdrawal agreement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

The draft withdrawal agreement is a political fudge. The political declaration weakens the United Kingdom, and, as the economic analysis, whether of this deal or no deal, shows, the agreement would make my constituents, the people of Wales and the people of the UK worse off economically. I cannot support a fudged deal that weakens the UK and makes people poorer, and I will be voting against it on Tuesday, but I will be supporting the amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn).

In 2016, my constituency voted by the slimmest of majorities—715—to leave the European Union. I respected that result. It was a mandate to trigger article 50, which I voted for because I felt that it was the right thing to do. I stand today representing not one section of that community, whether leave or remain, but 100% of the electorate, which includes those who did not vote and those who could not vote because of their age. I am here to represent all those people.

In 2017, the Prime Minister called a Brexit election. She proposed a clean Brexit—everyone will remember her saying that Brexit means Brexit—and she lost her parliamentary majority and that mandate. As other Members have said, she could have then reached out and built a consensus across the Chamber and pulled our country together. She chose instead to put her party’s interests first. She said that a general election was not in the interests of the country, but she went ahead with it anyway and made a deal with the European Research Group and the DUP, and we have seen where that has ended up.

In the 2017 general election, I put forward a sensible soft Brexit. My mandate and my majority increased significantly. Indeed, parties that represented that opinion in my constituency secured more than 70% of the public vote. I wanted a sensible Brexit, and voted for amendments in the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. Unfortunately, they were forced down by the Conservatives and the DUP.

My constituency is on the frontline of Brexit. It is the major port with the Republic of Ireland, a gateway to Wales and Great Britain and it relies heavily on trade across the Irish sea. Yesterday, I read with great interest the Attorney General’s advice on trade. His words were very clear—although he is a barrister, I understood every word that he said. He said very clearly that trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain would require regulatory checks, whether at the airport, at the port, or down the road. There is no room for such checks at the moment. Goods from Great Britain going to the EU would be considered third-country goods. That is why I cannot accept this deal, and it was right that our Front-Bench team fought to get that evidence.

I am on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee and have seen no evidence that this deal will be better than what we currently have. I accept that businesses are putting pressure on us, saying that this deal is better than no deal, but it is just pushing the matter down the road. There are no guarantees, which is why Members have to look to the long-term future and to our younger generation and ask with honesty whether they can support a deal that makes that generation poorer and that makes our country poorer. I cannot do so. I think that we should look again. We should go back to Brussels, have a general election or, indeed, another referendum, which is based on the facts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Fox]

As the Chancellor said in his introductory speech this afternoon, it is widely acknowledged that when there is an agreement, there is potential for a dividend because investment that might be being held back because of uncertainty around Brexit could come forward. That is probably particularly true of domestic investment, rather than foreign direct investment, which I will come on to.

[Albert Owen]

rose—

[Dr Fox]

I will give way again soon because, unlike the Labour Front-Bench spokesman, I am happy to have a debate in the House of Commons.

[Albert Owen]

Will the Secretary of State give way on that point?

[Dr Fox]

I heard the hon. Gentleman—calm down. Clearly, the vote to leave the European Union has not had the catastrophic effect on our economy that was predicted—quite the reverse—and it is worth making a point about the difference here between forecasts and scenarios. Throughout today’s debate, I have constantly heard scenarios portrayed as forecasts, but it is worth pointing out that, in a forecast, all variables in an equation are considered, and their combined effect is looked at and becomes a forecast. A scenario is the isolation of a single factor and the assumption that if nothing else changes, that is what may happen. Clearly, in the real world that is not what happens. It is not realistic to expect that there would be no potential shift, if necessary, in Government fiscal policy, or in the Bank of England’s monetary policy, or changes to what the Government will be able to do on tariffs. We have to be realistic and try to understand what those things are. To try to confuse forecasts and scenarios, intentionally or otherwise, is not helpful to the debate.

[Albert Owen]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to tell the House that George Osborne got it completely wrong with the panic measures and emergency Budget that he was going to introduce, as he did on eliminating the deficit. The Secretary of State is laying out different scenarios. What forecast would he like to give the House for how he sees the state of the economy within x amount of time after leaving the European Union?

[Dr Fox]

Again, that is exactly the same pattern. We want a continuation of good economic management for the United Kingdom that continues to provide jobs and prosperity in our country and record investment in its infrastructure. I can forecast that if the Labour party was ever to take office with its crazy spending plans, the financial and economic consequences for the prosperity of this country would truly be catastrophic.

Oral Answers to Questions

Albert Owen Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

We absolutely look forward to being able to make progress on the Moray growth deal, and I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend. I know that the Exchequer Secretary, who is dealing with this matter, would also be pleased to meet him.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

The Government acknowledge that they want to spread wealth and economic growth across the United Kingdom through their industrial strategy. Does the Chancellor of the Exchequer therefore agree with the Welsh Affairs Committee, chaired by the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), that the money from the cancelled rail electrification between Cardiff and Swansea should be spent in Wales, so that we can have that shared prosperity?

[Mr Hammond]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I firmly believe that the service that will be provided on the route from London to Swansea will deliver exactly what passengers have bargained to get, without the need for the disruption and cost of overhead electrification. We will look at the funding needs of all parts of the United Kingdom appropriately, to support economic growth and to reduce regional disparities.

Customs and Borders

Albert Owen Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

Obviously, the customs union is a part of the European Union; that is the arrangement that is in place at the moment. I think we need a customs union because once outside the European Union you cannot have “the customs union”; but we are in danger of getting ourselves tangled up on the definite and indefinite article. We chose the words “an effective customs union” in the motion to avoid disputes about grammar, and to get to the substance. We want an arrangement that includes no tariffs, but has frictionless borders and, crucially, a common external tariff. That is the immensely important point that I want to cover now.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend mentioned trade through ports. She is aware that my constituency is on the frontline of Brexit, and is the busiest port with the Republic of Ireland—400,000 lorries a year pass through it. This is not scaremongering: already, Irish companies are making contingency plans to trade directly with mainland Europe, bypassing Britain altogether, on a business case.

[Yvette Cooper]

They are, and it is perhaps unsurprising that they should do so, because businesses will make investments, they will take a precautionary approach, and they will look for the best way to protect their trade at a time of such huge uncertainty about what might happen to trade that we want to pass through the UK. We will see more and more of those consequences, therefore, particularly if we do not get answers and decisions soon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I join all those who have spoken today, other than the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), and endorse and embrace pretty much everything that has been so ably said. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) said, this is not just a simple case of our having a debate, which of course we should have had some time ago in order to assist the Government in this extremely difficult process, but of having the debate that we should have had in the run-up to the EU referendum.

I do not know whether the good people of Vauxhall actually did sit and discuss the intricacies of the customs union and the single market. Perhaps they did. That might explain why, of course, they voted to remain in the European Union. What we are seeing—I am sorry that I am repeating myself here—is the dawning of a Brexit reality. In that reality, businesses the length and breadth of our country are worried. They are extremely worried, especially those in the manufacturing sector.

On Tuesday, a real-life business in my constituency, which employs 750 people, came to see me. Such is the atmosphere in this country that it has not allowed me to tell Members its name, because it is frightened of the sort of abuse that many Members on these Benches have received and to which we have become accustomed. We will not give up, and we will speak out, because it is not about us, but about the generations to come and indeed the people in our constituencies who now, in the real world, face the real possibility of losing their jobs.

What did this company tell me? It makes a world-leading medicine. I am enormously proud to have it in the borough of Broxtowe. The reality is that, as it uses specialised medicinal ingredients, it imports them into our country. In Broxtowe and Nottingham, it puts them altogether and makes a world-leading medicine. Some 60% of its exports go directly to the European Union. Tariffs do not concern it so much. They concern the car industry where margins are so tight that any imposition of a tariff simply will see those great car manufacturers, which employ 425,000 people—people, whom I am afraid, the hon. Member for Vauxhall, casts to one side—move their production and new lines to their existing facilities in countries such as France, Germany and other places.

Returning to the pharmaceutical company that came to see me, any delay at all of those basic ingredients will have a considerable effect on its ability to produce, and time costs money. Any delay also means that it has to look for warehouse spaces—and it is doing this now—so that it can stockpile. I am talking about the sort of expanse that we can barely begin to imagine. It is looking for warehouses so that it can store and stockpile both the ingredients and the finished products. It fears that any delay will affect its business of exporting into the European Union.

[Albert Owen]

As a member of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, I met some pharmaceutical companies. One thing they told us, which was quite stark, was that research and development is done in this country, and manufacturing in the Republic of Ireland, and the product is then transferred back to the UK to go to mainland Europe. They will be paying tariffs perhaps half a dozen times, adding costs to our NHS.

[Anna Soubry]

The hon. Gentleman speaks with authority because he knows the reality. He will also know that pharmaceutical batches must be checked to ensure that the quality and ingredients are right. That work has to be done in a European Union country in order for those products to be sold within the European Union, so this pharmaceutical company it is going to replicate exactly the same brilliant labs that it has in Broxtowe and in Nottingham over in Amsterdam. This is the stuff of madness. The company is looking at flying qualified, high-skilled technicians out to Amsterdam on a weekly, if not daily basis, to do the work there. Replication adds to costs, and I have no doubt that it will not be long before the senior managers simply say, “Why on earth are we doing it in the UK, facing the end of the customs union and the single markets, when we could simply go into another country in the European Union and replicate our manufacturing process there?”

--- Later in debate ---

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

To me, this debate means more than just customs and borders; it means jobs and investment in my constituency.

I live on the frontline of Brexit—my constituency is on the frontline. I am closer to the great city of Dublin than the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams), and over the years, European Union and Irish politics has meant a lot to people in north-west Wales, because we are linked to the people of Ireland and the people of the European Union.

Of course, the Republic of Ireland joined the European Union at the same time as the United Kingdom. We had, and still have, a common area of trade between the two countries, but if we were to leave without the protection that a customs union could give us, we would have a completely separate entity for the first time in our recent history.

The amount of European trade that comes through the port of Holyhead in my constituency is second only to the amount that goes through Dover. Some 400,000 lorries enter and exit the port annually. It is the gateway to the United Kingdom from the Republic of Ireland, and 11,000 jobs are directly or indirectly supported by the Welsh ports that handle goods from the European Union.

I hear talk about “Project Fear”, as we did with other referendums, but the reality is that many Irish shipping companies, hauliers and agencies are preparing contingency plans as we speak to reroute trade directly from the ports of Cork and Dublin straight to mainland Europe, bypassing the Welsh ports, the English ports and the Scottish ports. That trade would take with it the job opportunities and investment that make the United Kingdom a strong trading nation.

The relationship is very special, and people I speak to in the Republic of Ireland care about what withdrawal and exit from the European Union would mean for us, because it will have a severe impact on us and on them. The customs union would provide a lifeboat for the United Kingdom come Brexit. I think that the Prime Minister really believes that, but has been forced by forces within the Conservative party to take a different route. That route would be disastrous for the port communities, the regional economy in my area, and the entire United Kingdom.

I want to deal head on with the issue of the will of the people. My constituency was split down the middle in the 2016 EU referendum, with a small majority—just over 700—in favour of leaving the EU. I spoke to a lot of people during that period, and many of them told me that one reason why they wanted to leave the European Union—these were older constituents—was that it had become too big and cumbersome, and was not the Common Market that they voted for in the 1970s. Well, a customs union is very similar to the Common Market—

[Helen Goodman]

indicated dissent.

[Albert Owen]

It is slightly different, but it needs arbitration—

[Robert Neill]

rose—

[Albert Owen]

I will take one intervention—from the hon. Gentleman.

[Robert Neill]

I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman makes that point. My constituency voted to remain by 521 votes, and my experience in London was exactly the same: people voted to leave the political institution. They actually believed in the market—that was what we signed up for, and it is what they will be content to remain in. It is actually misleading for any person, either in this House or elsewhere, to hijack what was a vote on a simple yes/no issue otherwise.

[Albert Owen]

I am grateful for that intervention. I am making the point that the customs union replicates the Common Market, and I feel that continuing in a customs union will give my constituents the job security that they need.

To return to the will of the people, the Prime Minister called the 2017 general election—the hard Brexit general election—so that she could boost her majority in the House of Commons. She failed to do that—in fact, she lost her majority—and she now relies on a party that represents a part of the United Kingdom that voted to remain in the European Union. That is significant. In the previous general election, I had a very small majority, and I told people that I would come to this House to fight for their jobs and investment, and for what I feel is best for the people of Ynys Môn. My majority, unlike the parliamentary majority of the Prime Minister and the Conservative party, went up.

I believe that the customs union is right for this country. I also believe that we should go further, but I am a realist. I want to unite the people of this divided United Kingdom and I believe that the customs union could be the symbol to do that, because while we could leave certain aspects of the European Union, we could remain in the customs union, trading freely with our European neighbours. That would also not deter us from trading with other countries. We heard from the Father of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), that Germany is increasing its trade with India, for example, and we can do the same. An outward-looking United Kingdom in the customs union could be of benefit to us. There could be a positive double whammy of our remaining within the customs union and trading freely with my friends in the Republic of Ireland, thereby benefiting my constituents, and that, I believe, is in the national interest of the whole United Kingdom.

Protection of Welsh Speakers from Defamation

Albert Owen Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Indeed. Much about Welsh is a success story. None the less, the constant undermining—the drip feed—affects the way parents approach sending their children to Welsh medium schools and the way individuals approach using Welsh in services. I will return to that.

There is an idea that Welsh is somehow antiquated rather than new. We need to challenge that. Many of us are frustrated by references to Welsh as a quaint folk antiquity. A language is as venerable as its oldest literature and as vital as its youngest speaker. Yet language is not just a mechanical tool of communication. There is an expression—in Welsh, of course—“Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon,” which means, “A nation with no language is a nation missing its heart.”

For many people, Welsh is their first language. For many, the Welsh language is their mother tongue. It is the language of the home, the language of the community and the language of the workplace. Why would anyone seek to force those people to justify the language in which they think, dream, work and live? It is as natural and as normal to them as the English language is to its first-language speakers. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to learn the language as an adult, but my daughter’s first language is Welsh, as it is for my husband and for the majority of people in my constituency. For them, speaking Welsh is not an optional extra; it is who they are. The Welsh language just is.

Ask almost any Welsh speaker and they will talk about the accumulative effect of centuries of establishment scorn. They will talk about parents choosing not to pass their own first language on to their children, about Welsh speakers being reluctant to use the language beyond a narrow social group, about the social norm of turning to English, about children who lack the confidence to use Welsh outside school, and about adults who are reluctant to access services in Welsh, internalising the negative stereotype. Let us speak plainly. We know that that prejudice is an example of the majority asserting its power over minorities to devalue them. Tolerance and diversity walk hand in hand. This is on the spectrum of oppression.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way and thank her for securing this debate. I have the advantage of not reading the Sunday papers, but I understand that the debate originated with Rod Liddle. I am not a defamation lawyer, but does the hon. Lady agree that, rather than changing the law in the long term, we need a respect agenda for the United Kingdom’s four nations and their languages so that we can all express ourselves comfortably in the language of our choice?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I agree entirely that we need a range of approaches. We do not want to be heavy-handed in our legislative approach, but when there is legislation that could be put into effect, as there is in other countries—I will come to that—it would be remiss of us not to consider all the options open to us.

Let me give an extremely brief synopsis of the status of Welsh in law, which is concerned mostly with the rights of Welsh speakers to use and access services in the language. The office of Welsh Language Commissioner was established by the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, which gave Welsh the status of an official language in Wales with legal effect. Most of the commissioner’s work concerns the creation and implementation of language standards, but she also has a remit to ensure that Welsh speakers are treated fairly. In the light of what we are discussing, the commissioner recently stated:

“While it is important that we respect freedom of expression…the increase in the offensive comments about Wales, the Welsh language and its speakers is a cause for concern.”

She called for action to stop such comments and said that

“legislation is needed to protect rights and to prevent language hate.”

I remind Members that Welsh and Scottish Gaelic enjoy European status as semi-official or co-official languages, meaning that they can be used in the European Council and the requesting member state. The UK ratified the European charter for regional and minority languages 17 years ago, and article 7 of the charter includes provision to,

“promote…mutual understanding between all the linguistic groups of the country and in particular the inclusion of respect, understanding and tolerance in relation to regional or minority languages among the objectives of education and training provided within their countries and encouragement of the mass media to pursue the same objective.”

I also draw attention to the evident relationship between the characteristics afforded protection under the Equality Act 2010 and how a number of those are reflected in the way police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service record hate crimes on the grounds of hostility or prejudice towards a person’s disability, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation or transgender identity.

It is interesting that some forces have chosen to identify additional protected characteristics, with Greater Manchester police recording hate motivation against alternative subcultures such as goths. North Wales police treat the Welsh language and culture as legally protected characteristics. Such hate crimes and incidents are identified under race and further categorised as Welsh or English, with 42 such crimes and incidents recorded in the last two years in the force’s region. Indeed, it appears that legislation may already cover hate crime on the grounds of people speaking a different language, given that the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Criminal Justice Act 2003 included national origins within the definition of a victim’s membership or presumed membership of a racial group when considering whether an offence was racially aggravated.

Looking further afield, it is interesting to note that a number of legislatures make specific reference to language as a factor in crime. Those include Canada, Belgium, Croatia, Kosovo, South Africa and Australia. Australia’s federal Racial Discrimination Act 1975 makes it

“unlawful for a person to do an act”,

if

“the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people;”

and

“the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.”

I draw attention to the reference here to both individual and group rights, which is significant to our debate.

As the Welsh Language Commissioner has stated, this matter requires a number of approaches, but I question why Welsh speakers, as individuals within a group, have no legal protection at present. Put simply, that is felt by speakers in the present post-Brexit climate to encourage comments against them that they as individuals feel to be defamatory.

I ask the Minister to commit to respond to the Welsh Language Commissioner’s call for a meeting with interested individuals and groups to explore how to move this agenda forward. I also ask him, in his response, to consider the implications of article 7 of the European charter for regional and minority languages, which we have of course ratified, and the UK’s commitment to encouraging the mass media to play its part in promoting respect, understanding and tolerance across linguistic groups.

Although I understand full well that defamation as a legal concept refers to the individual rather than the group, I beg the Minister to consider that linguistic groups are made up of individuals, as are groups protected from discrimination and hate crime by the Equality Act’s protected characteristics, which in turn are reflected in IPSO’s list of what qualifies as discriminatory.

I ask the Minister to approach his Government colleagues and discuss how to deal appropriately with the prejudiced caste of Welsh language speakers by acknowledging the existence of language hate and thus laying the foundations necessary to identify language as a recognised protected characteristic in equality legislation. That might be on the grounds of the Welsh language’s status as an official language, along the lines of a list of identified languages, or by an alternative method. It might be via greater clarification of the resources already available in criminal law. As this is potentially a protected characteristic, could he comment on the means by which IPSO might then be called on to review its present dismissal of Welsh speakers’ complaints, and on the wider question of IPSO’s handwashing of responsibility for the effects of media incitement of hatred against protected characteristic groups?

Finally, I ask the Minister to join me in welcoming North Wales police’s inclusion of the use of both Welsh and English as protected characteristics in relation to hate crime, and request that we work together to facilitate the complete devolution of policing and the enabling of Wales’s four police forces to establish a hate crime unit best able to address our country’s needs. Would he also note that once again this might well be an example of how a separate legal jurisdiction would better serve the needs of Wales than the England-and-Wales anachronism? Diolch yn fawr.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart Andrew]

I take note of what the hon. Lady says. I will move on, because I notice that time is running out, as often happens in these debates.

I know that the author of that article wanted to be provocative. It is what he is about. It is how he tries to gain publicity, in the hope that more people will read his articles. He will probably give some publicity to this response. However, I do not personally intend to give him any more airtime.

[Albert Owen]

The Minister and I are both from a bilingual community. Although he does not want to give any more oxygen to that author, is he as concerned as many Opposition Members, including the mover of the debate, about IPSO? Will he take this matter up with the editor of the newspaper that the article was published in, to show the concern there has been in Wales? I am sure that the Wales Office is also upset by the article. Will he make the editor of that newspaper aware of what has been said in the debate?

[Stuart Andrew]

I will happily write to the editor.

As I say, I do not want to give any more oxygen to that article—although I commit to writing that letter. Instead, I will focus on our language and the important contribution it makes to our culture. At about 4,000 years old, Welsh is one of the oldest languages in Europe. We should be proud of how we teach people to speak Welsh; of how we are keeping the language alive; of our institutions, such as S4C, which, through the reforms we are implementing following the independent review, will broaden the appeal of the language to a digital audience; and of events such as the National Eisteddfod, which has roots back to the 12th century and attracts more than 150,000 visitors each year. Our attention must be focused on the important matter of ensuring a strong language for the future; on giving people across Wales the opportunity and confidence to use Welsh in social and official capacities; on ensuring that more and more Government services are available in Welsh; and on taking every opportunity to promote the strengths and attractions of our nation.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd. She made an important contribution, as have other hon. Members. I know that there is a great strength of feeling on this in Wales, but I also know that Wales is a very confident nation. It is staggering to compare the number of Welsh speakers in my community of Llanfaes and around Beaumaris when I was growing up on Anglesey with how many there are now. I was there just a week or two ago and it was pleasantly surprising to hear more and more people speaking in Welsh in shops, in restaurants and, of course, in the pub. I hope we will see more of that.

I have agreed to the hon. Lady’s meeting request, and I will of course approach other colleagues. However, the Government have a firm view on police devolution. The practice of English and Welsh police forces working together is a strong one that we will stick to. On the other issues, I look forward to our meeting in due course, so that we can debate these issues even further and hopefully get the resolution and the confidence that we all want to see.

Question put and agreed to.

Leaving the EU: UK Ports (Customs)

Albert Owen Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The Transport Secretary said that not every vehicle will be stopped, and that is absolutely right. In fact, we will use intelligence-led, technologically driven interceptions where appropriate, as is currently the case for our dealings with countries outside the European Union.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

When will Ministers realise that the mantra of “frictionless border, frictionless border, frictionless border” is not standing up to scrutiny? Is he aware that Irish companies are already making contingency plans to go directly to mainland Europe, thereby bypassing Welsh, Scottish and English ports? Does he understand the effect that that will have on those port communities, but also on Her Majesty’s Treasury?

[Mel Stride]

We are committed to, and confident that we will achieve, a frictionless border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland that will facilitate trade in the future.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Albert Owen Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Temporary Chair (Albert Owen)]

Order. Is the hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) referring to me, because he is saying “you”? He should refer to the hon. Lady, and if he wishes to take an intervention, he must sit down.

[Bim Afolami]

I give way to the hon. Member for North West Durham.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dawn Butler]

I am sure that the hon. Members around the hon. Gentleman are trying to get him to stop talking, but Labour Members do not mind. It is actually nice to see you go through your journey of trying to put the pieces together and understand the problems we are talking about. You cannot justify any of your statements because you have no data.

[The Temporary Chair (Albert Owen)]

Order. Too much “you”. The hon. Lady is an experienced Member of the House and she should set an example.

[Dawn Butler]

My apologies, Mr Owen. I am getting carried away in my enthusiasm to try to educate the hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami). The Government cannot justify anything you are saying, because you have no data to back it up. We are having to rely on data from voluntary groups and charities, which do an amazing job of crunching the numbers and looking at the intersectionality of the Government’s policies. But in order for you to make your statements, you need to have the data.

[The Temporary Chair]

Order. That was a very long intervention with too many “yous”. Let us get used to the parliamentary language and have a proper debate.

[Bim Afolami]

I will conclude my remarks by saying that it is important when we talk about these issues—in this House or outside—always to remember that improving the performance of the health service, the economy or anything relating to Government policy will benefit everybody in this country, if we make the right judgments and the right policy.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Albert Owen Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Duffield]

Absolutely—

[The Temporary Chair (Albert Owen)]

Order. As the hon. Lady continues, rather than concentrating on recent history, will she get back to the bank levy, which is what is under debate?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Temporary Chair (Albert Owen)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

That schedule 11 be the Eleventh schedule to the Bill.

Clause 41 stand part.

Amendment 2, in clause 8, page 4, line 16, at end insert—

“(4A) Regulations under this section may not increase any person’s liability to income tax.”

This amendment provides that the power to make regulations in consequence of the exemption from income tax in respect of payments of accommodation allowances to, or in respect of, a member of the armed forces may not be exercised so as to increase any individual’s liability to income tax.

Amendment 3, in page 4, line 17, leave out from “section” to “may” in line 18.

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 2.

Clause 8 stand part.

New clause 4—Review of Relief for First-Time Buyers—

“(1) The Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs shall undertake a review of the impact of the relief for first-time buyers introduced in Schedule 6ZA to FA 2003.

(2) The review shall consider, in particular, the effects of the relief on—

(a) the public revenue,

(b) house prices, and

(c) the supply of housing.

(3) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must lay a copy of a report of the review under this section before the House of Commons no later than one calendar week prior to the date which he has set for his Autumn 2018 Budget Statement.”

This new clause requires a review to be published prior to the Autumn 2018 Budget on the impact of the relief for first-time buyers, including its effects on house prices and on the supply of housing.

New clause 10— Annual Report on Relief for First-Time Buyers—

“(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must prepare and lay before the House of Commons a report for each relevant period on the operation of the relief for first-time buyers introduced in Schedule 6ZA to FA 2003 not less than three months after the end of the relevant period.

(2) The report shall include, in particular, information in respect of the relevant period on—

(a) the number of first-time buyers benefiting from the relief,

(b) the number of purchases benefiting from the relief,

(c) the average age of first-time buyers benefiting from the relief,

(d) the effects on the operation of the private rented sector,

(e) the effects on council housing and other social housing,

(f) the effects on the supply of affordable housing, and

(g) the effects on the operation of collective investment schemes under Part 17 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 in the provision of cooperative housing.

(3) For the purposes of this section, “relevant period” means—

(a) the period from 22 November 2017 to 5 April 2018,

(b) each period of 12 months beginning on 6 April during which the relief is in effect, and

(c) the period beginning on 6 April and ending with the day on which the relief ceases to have effect.”

This new clause requires an annual report on the operation of the relief for first-time buyers, including information on the beneficiaries and effects on different aspects of housing supply.

New clause 5—Parliamentary Scrutiny of Regulations Relating to Armed Forces’ Accommodation Allowance—

“(1) Section 717 of ITEPA 2003 (regulations made by Treasury or Commissioners) is amended as follows.

(2) In subsection (3), leave out “subsection (4)” and insert “subsections (3A) and (4)”.

(3) After subsection (3), insert—

‘(3A) No regulations may be made under section 297D unless a draft has been laid before and approved by a resolution of the House of Commons.’”

This new clause requires that regulations setting conditions relating to the availability of the income tax exemption in relation to armed forces’ accommodation allowance shall be subject to the affirmative procedure.

[Mel Stride]

The Budget set out an ambitious plan to tackle the housing challenge—a plan that will raise housing supply by the end of this Parliament to its highest level since the 1970s. However, the Government also recognise that we need to act now to help young people who are trying to get on to the housing ladder. This Bill therefore introduces a permanent relief in stamp duty land tax for first-time buyers, which I will turn to shortly. Alongside that, I will also cover clauses 8 and 40, which respectively introduce an income tax exemption for accommodation payments made to members of the armed forces and make minor changes to the higher rates of stamp duty land tax.

Home ownership among young people has been falling. Today, the average house in London costs almost 12 times average earnings, nearly 10 times average earnings in the south-east and more than eight times average earnings in the east.

Taxation: Beer and Pubs

Albert Owen Excerpts

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Cunningham]

In the last Parliament, there was a Bill on this subject; I think that a Liberal Democrat introduced it. Certainly the landlords of Coventry’s pubs are voicing a lot of concern about this matter. There is a big effect on pubs—many are now closing—but also a big effect on high streets. Coventry has universities, and sometimes the students have jobs in the pubs, so they subsidise their—

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Mike Wood.

[Mike Wood]

The hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) of course makes an important and valid point in talking about the role not only of students but of young people more widely in employment, because the pub sector can generate an extremely fulfilling and constructive career for many that goes much wider than the stereotypical picture of students working in a pub until they are in full-time work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Order. A number of hon. Members have indicated that they wish to speak, so I am going to start with a four-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches, starting with Mr Toby Perkins. Bear in mind that we may have votes shortly.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Order. We now resume the debate. Mr Perkins has 41 seconds left, but I will be generous and give him a minute to gather his thoughts. Mrs Anne Main will follow and will have four minutes.

[Toby Perkins]

I will finish with this. We have spoken a lot about beer duty and VAT, but it is crucial that the issue of business rates is addressed in the Budget. Every member of the Conservative party who stood in the 2015 election stood on a manifesto of a comprehensive review of business rates. That seemed to disappear from the 2017 manifesto, but the issue of business rates is crucial. We have the most expensive corporate property tax in all of Europe, and no Government who theoretically profess to be a low-tax Government can continue to see business rates going up in the way that they have. I urge the Government to get away from an over-reliance on business rates at the expense of corporation tax cuts and bring down business rates for our pubs instead.

--- Later in debate ---

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Order. A mobile phone is being picked up by the microphone, which we can hear loudly up here.

--- Later in debate ---

[Toby Perkins]

And because my hon. Friend wants to hear what I have to say, I am sure. On the important point about the relief for small breweries, does he agree that although the policy is excellent, its impact sometimes means that brewers cannot grow any more as they will no longer come under it? Perhaps some kind of tapering to allow brewers to go from small to big would be helpful.

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

The hon. Gentleman does not have to take the full minute.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

I call Anne Marie Morris to speak for four minutes and I will then reduce the time limit to three minutes, because I want to hear the three next speakers after that. They will be Peter Aldous, Steve Double and Fiona Bruce.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Order. Before I call Fiona Bruce, let me say to Iain Duncan Smith that his debate will start at approximately 4.30 pm.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Double]

I absolutely agree that cider should be considered for the relief as well.

The Budget gives us an opportunity to send the clear message to the brewing industry and our pubs that we back them, we understand how essential they are and we need to take action to support them.

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

I thank the Labour and Scottish National party Front Benchers for agreeing to shave some time from their speeches, to allow all Back Benchers time to get their points across.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) on securing this debate and on his excellent and thorough opening speech. There has been great cross-party agreement today about the important role that pubs play as employers and as the hearts of our community. We have also heard heartfelt pleas for freezing the duty on beer and for assistance with business rates.

The Scottish National party is proud of the substantial economic contribution made by pubs, breweries and microbreweries to the Scottish economy. The brewing and pub industry supports the employment of 60,000 people in Scotland, some 72% of whom are directly employed in it. Individuals who work in these jobs earn a combined £767 million per year; the industry contributes £1.6 billion to the Scottish economy and generates £972 million in tax revenues for an annual investment of only £69 million.

The SNP has long supported a wider evidence-led overhaul of the alcohol duty regime. We believe that evidence-based decision making that levies alcohol duty based on alcohol content is fairer, more equitable and more in line with encouraging a healthier approach to drinking. That is what the Scottish Government’s minimum alcohol pricing policy seeks to do; it will not attack the price of a pint in a pub, but it will affect supermarket cheap alcohol promotions.

The Scottish Government are encouraging new small businesses in the drink industry with the small business bonus, which provides 100% rate relief on business property up to a rateable value of £15,000. As the hon. Members for St Albans (Mrs Main) and for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) mentioned, the Scottish Government also introduced a 12.5% cap on business rate rises for the hospitality trade. The national chairman of CAMRA, Colin Valentine—a constituent of mine—said that the cap

“has made a big difference and in some cases it has been, and will be, a life saver”

for pubs, so the policy has clearly been of some assistance, although I am sure he and others would say that there is much more to be done.

The Scottish Government are working closely with public bodies and industry to support jobs, infrastructure and the thriving sector. I am happy to say that start-ups have helped the Scottish brewery sector to double in size since 2010. In 2016, 115 breweries were up and running in Scotland, compared with 55 just six years earlier. I am very proud that my constituency of Edinburgh South West hosts one of Scotland’s most iconic breweries: the Caledonian Brewery in Slateford Road. Edinburgh South West also boasts one of Scotland’s most successful microbreweries, the Edinburgh Beer Factory, which is located on the Sighthill industrial estate.

As the hon. Member for Keighley (John Grogan) said earlier, Heriot-Watt University in my constituency has an International Centre for Brewing and Distilling—a unique facility devoted to teaching and research, and meeting the needs of brewing, distilling and malting industries worldwide. I applaud Heriot-Watt University, which of course recently won International University of the Year from The Sunday Times.

The Caledonian Brewery, which is in the heart of Edinburgh and close to my constituency office, opened in 1869 and it has been preserved by Heineken UK, which now owns it, as a working masterpiece of manufacture, utilising many of the more old-fashioned methods of brewing but in a modernised setting. Heineken’s UK headquarters is in my constituency at South Gyle, employing around 550 people. Of course, Heineken is one of the UK’s leading pub, cider and beer companies, and more than 90% of the beer it sells in the UK is brewed here. It is also a major supporter of British agriculture, sourcing 100% of its malt and barley for its UK-brewed beer from UK farms and maltsters.

Heineken is also a passionate supporter of the great Scottish pub, through its Star Pubs and Bars business. I am proud to say that I have visited several of its pubs in my constituency, including the Jolly Botanist; the Athletic Arms, which is a very old Edinburgh pub known as “the Diggers”, where I held my victory party after the SNP tsunami in 2015; and the Spylaw Tavern. These are all thriving, local, community pubs.

I also applaud Heineken for what it puts back into the community in Edinburgh. In the summer of 2016, I joined Heineken employees, in collaboration with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, in a volunteering project to regenerate the Broomhouse Centre in Broomhouse in my constituency, which is a charity that provides personal, social and community development opportunities. At the end of a day of hard work, we celebrated by enjoying performances from Edinburgh festival artists.

Earlier, I mentioned the Edinburgh Beer Factory, which is also in my constituency. It was founded just over two years ago and is an independent, family-run brewery that is going from strength to strength. It has won multiple awards, including the award for the UK’s best Helles lager two years running and the award for the world’s best American brown ale in 2017. The company’s products are really quite outstanding and 2018 will be an exciting time for it, as it launches two new products and starts to export its beers. However, like many other companies, the Edinburgh Beer Factory would like to see a freeze in beer duty in the next Budget, as well as measures to encourage exports. Beer is in the top three British food and drink exports, and, like all parts of the British food and drink industry, brewers fear the consequences of Brexit and require more reassurance on that front.

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

I am very grateful to the hon. and learned Lady; if the next Front-Bench spokesperson takes the same amount of time, we will get a good response from the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her remarks and for allowing the Minister a full 10 minutes, unless he wishes to allow the sponsor of the debate to finish. Either way, I will call time at 4.30 pm.

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Andrew Jones)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) on securing this well attended and enthusiastic debate. I participated in the Adjournment debate seven years ago—I remember it well. I take this opportunity to commend the work of both the all-party parliamentary beer group, which my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South chairs so effectively, and of which my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) is a distinguished former chair, and the all-party parliamentary save the pub group. No one in the pubs and brewing sector across our country can be in any doubt that they have some enthusiastic and eloquent champions within Parliament.

I will try to respond to as many of the issues as I can, but I am sure that hon. Members will appreciate that I am not able to pre-empt what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor may or may not say in three weeks and one day’s time. The requests to do so have been very tempting, but I am afraid that those making them will be disappointed. Before commenting on duty, let me just say that the Government recognise the importance of the UK beer and pubs sector. We hugely value the industry and its contribution to employment, to promoting responsible drinking and to community life. The sector’s footprint covers every single constituency in the country.

As colleagues across the House have said, pubs play a central role in our communities, whether in urban areas, in villages or on the high street. They are often far more than just a social venue; they double as restaurants and I can think of somewhere where they are also the village shop and, indeed, the post office. In my constituency we have a very good not-for-profit organisation called Pub is The Hub, led by John Longden, which does fantastic work helping pubs to diversify their offering.

Colleagues have also mentioned the charitable work in which pubs are involved. Pubs raise more than £120 million per year for charity, so there is a significant impact. The British Beer and Pub Association estimates that the sector as a whole invests more than £2 billion per year in its pubs and breweries, which in turn has an impact on employment; the sector is estimated to employ nearly 900,000 people throughout its supply chain, generating £23 billion in economic value. The very good points made by colleagues about the sector’s employment record have been powerful, and I entirely agree with them. In the run-up to preparing the Budget, I have met the British Beer and Pub Association and other businesses from the industry, including pubs and brewers of all sizes, and we recognise the contribution they make to economies and to the wider beer market—I have made that very clear to them.

The number of breweries in the UK has risen by 64% in just the past five years, to more than 2,000. The growth in the number of small breweries in recent years has increased the diversity and choice in the beer market, and has promoted consumer interest in a much larger range of beers, which has benefited the entire sector. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South commented on export, and I can provide some further information about that. More than 1 billion pints of beer are exported from Britain every year and reach 184 countries. Beer is one of the top three food and drink exports, generating nearly £700 million in sales—nearly £2 million, therefore, every day.

Colleagues have spoken about beer duty. I must say, first, that since ending the escalation of the beer duty in 2013, we have demonstrated clear Government support for this industry. After ending the duty escalator, the Government proceeded to cut beer duty in the 2013, 2014 and 2015 Budgets, before freezing it in 2016. It is worth noting that, as has been the Government’s policy since 2013, the public finances assume that alcohol duties will rise with the retail prices index each year. That means that there is a cost. If we choose to cut or freeze duties, there is an impact on the amount of money taken into our Treasury, which affects other areas of public expenditure or perhaps means that we have to seek to raise tax elsewhere. We just need to balance all those points; colleagues must remember that we are still running a giant deficit, which we inherited from the Labour party.

I know that hon. Members will want to reiterate the point made here this afternoon, that cutting duty supports growth and increases revenue. We have seen some evidence of that. I am, instinctively, a low-tax Conservative and I recognise that the lower the tax environment, the more businesses have to invest. It is not as straightforward to see direct cause and effect where we have had cuts, but the principle is, I think, understood. We, therefore, had to take the difficult decision last March that beer duty, along with other alcohol duty rates, needed to rise in line with RPI, but it is worth noting that in light of all the cuts and freezes to beer duty since 2013, a pint of beer costs 11p less than it would otherwise.

Some hon. Members have mentioned the price difference between the on-trade and the off-trade. That issue is raised regularly, and people would like to see the Government applying higher duty rates in the off-trade. Currently, however, that is not legal. European Union law requires member states to charge excise duty on all alcohol and alcoholic beverages, which prevents the UK from selectively charging excise duty on particular products, such as off-trade alcohol, or relieving other sectors, such as on-trade. I need to be clear about that so that we can manage expectations here. I cannot say what is in the forthcoming Budget, but I can say that I will take to it all the representations from today’s debate and share them with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor.

A number of colleagues have raised the issue of business rates, recognising that they are a high fixed cost for some businesses, including pubs. We fully recognise that, and that is why in last March’s spring Budget the Chancellor announced a £1,000 business rates discount for pubs with a rateable value of less than £100,000. To put that into context, that is 90% of all pubs, which basically means that the pubs that do not qualify are more likely to be managed by the much larger chains and are therefore able to manage business rates much more easily. Having said that, I can assure colleagues that we are aware of the request made both here and by the sector to extend the discount, and I can confirm that we will include it within our Budget representations, as we will the comments on business rates overall. However, I should just note that the cuts in business rates announced in the 2016 Budget will cost nearly £9 billion over the next five years, so we are out there helping businesses.

I turn finally to small brewers relief. We know that the number of small brewers has increased significantly over the years, from 400 in 2002 to 2,000 now. I mentioned earlier that the Government recognise that that diversification has added to the sector and the small brewers relief has really helped the growth of the industry. However, we are aware of the concerns about small brewers relief that many have raised with me. When I consider what we need to do, I want to ensure that we work with the whole sector. I want to work with the sector, not against the sector, to support growth, and I would like to see what evidence can be produced to suggest that we can have some uniformity of opinion before moving anywhere forward.

We have heard the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) made about white cider and will respond in due course. We have had a consultation on that; there is no doubt that it is a problem area.

I finish the debate by saying that it has been a great, constructive and positive one. We have clearly demonstrated support for the sector and the Government are clearly a part of that, with all the actions we have been taking, for all the excellent reasons that have been presented throughout the debate. I assure everyone here that I have listened keenly and that we will take the contributions to be Budget representations. It is only three weeks and one day until we all get to hear what the Budget says—not very far away. I thank hon. Members once more for their contributions and for raising the issue.

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

I thank the Minister. I call Mike Wood to make the concluding remarks.

[Mike Wood]

I thank the Minister for making a generally positive response and for the many meetings he has had with colleagues and industry groups over the past few weeks, and will have over the next few weeks. I thank the many industry groups that have contributed to support Members in this event: CAMRA, the British Beer and Pub Association, the Society of Independent Brewers, the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers and the Small Brewer Duty Reform Coalition. I also thank the many hon. and right hon. Members—

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Order.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).