Working People’s Finances: Government Policy

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Payday lenders —loan sharks, really—are charging exorbitant interest. The Government changed the regulations in 2017, but that has not helped at all. In the credit union market, which we particularly support, credit unions are absolutely at their limit because of covid, but the Government have not stepped in to support those low-cost lenders at all. It has been a boon to payday lenders, but for low-cost lenders such as credit unions, which are membership organisations, the Government have done absolutely nothing.

[Jessica Morden]

My hon. Friend has made an extremely valid point. I see that at first hand in my constituency, and I hope that Ministers will note what he said, take it away and actually do something about it.

People are using credit, including high-cost credit, to cover essential outgoings—spending on groceries, energy bills, and school books and stationery for children. Those on the lowest incomes are also bearing the brunt of the rising food prices that we have talked about today. I pay tribute to Raven House Trust food bank, Caldicot food bank, and all the other food banks that serve Newport East for the fantastic work that they do to support people. I also pay tribute to the community and the churches for supporting those food banks during what has been a very difficult time.

Health and Social Care Levy Bill

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. I think the point is perfectly clear: this levy is intended to be and will be a long-term, permanent funding arrangement to support health and social care. The plan includes a component that is designed to support local government in the delivery of care services without distorting markets that are already in existence. There is no reason to think, and we do not anticipate, that there will be specific issues that cannot be addressed at the time. The commitment to provide a longer-term funding settlement that can be reviewed and considered by individuals when they pay their national insurance contributions, and to do so in a way that gives them comfort that that same settlement will be in place, in a way similar to the state pension system, so that they can plan against it, is manifest. The Government have made that clear.

Clause 3 specifies that any provisions that apply to a qualifying national insurance contribution are to apply to equivalent payments in respect of the health and social care levy. It also sets out the limitations of such provisions applying to the levy.

Clause 4 provides for regulations for the purposes of the health and social care levy to be made under the Bill and specifies the parliamentary procedure that will apply to those regulations.

Clause 5 sets out the transitional arrangements for the measure and specifies that they will apply only for the 2022-23 tax year. Its effect will be to increase temporarily the rates of classes 1, 1A, 1B and 4 NICs by 1.25% for one year. There will be a corresponding temporary increase in the amount of contributions allocated to the NHS by the same amount.

Clause 6 defines various terms used in the Bill. Clause 7 specifies the short title of the Act as the Health and Social Care Levy Act 2021 and states that the levy is payable by or in relation to employees of the Crown. I commend all those clauses to the House.

Let me turn to new clauses 1 and 2, tabled by the SNP, and clauses 3 to 5, tabled by Labour. These new clauses ask the Government to review and report on the impact of the revenue effects of the levy, its impact on business and its impact on equality. I wish to explain why they are unnecessary.

The Government have already provided a number of assessments of the levy’s impact, including a distributional analysis of the impact of the combined tax and spending announcements that shows that lower-income households will be large net beneficiaries from the package, with the poorest households gaining most as a proportion of income. It also shows that the 20% of highest-income households will contribute more than 40 times the contribution of the 20% of lowest-income households.

There is a further assessment in a technical annex in the Government’s plan for health and social care. It sets out the impact on the Exchequer, individuals and businesses and shows that 70% of the money raised from businesses will come from the largest 1% of businesses, while 40% of all businesses will pay nothing extra.

The tax information impact note is a third form of assessment. It sets out the equality impact of the levy specifically rather than of the overall package of measures.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

As well as on businesses, the levy will have a large effect on the bills of public services. For instance, West Yorkshire Police is looking at having to pay an extra £3 million of national insurance, and for Leeds City Council the amount for directly employed services is also in the region of £3 million. Somewhat ironically, many of the social care services that the council uses are outsourced, so the NICs will push up the cost of those services. What assessment has the Minister made of the effect of the levy on local government and the police?

[Jesse Norman]

The plan is clear that, to the extent that national insurance contributions are incurred by public bodies, they will be met. The funding is set up on that basis. In respect of local government, extra pressures other than those already contemplated are matters for discussion in the spending review. That is the normal fiscal procedure and the one the Government are following.

I turn now to address the Opposition’s new clauses 6 and 7 on reporting the levy expenditure shares and the revenue derived from those in the social care sector. First, on the share of levy spent on health and social care, the Government already routinely publish data on departmental spending throughout the year, including at main and supplementary estimates, through public expenditure, statistical analyses and in departmental annual reports and accounts as well as data on the revenue raised from individual taxes.

At present, this reporting shows, for example, exactly how much revenue NHS England receives from national insurance contributions. In future, this will show the contribution that this levy makes to the budgets of the Department of Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. There is no need for additional reporting in that context as all the relevant information will readily be publicly available. The Government have already published the amounts that will go to the NHS and to adult social care over the next three years as a result of this levy and will confirm final allocations at the spending review.

Finally, on the levy revenue derived from those in the social care sector, existing data sources do not include or reliably collect data on employment by sector. It is not known which sector an individual works in, only their income types and amounts. I hope that, given these considerations, Opposition Members will not press their new clauses for the reasons that I have outlined.

Let me turn to new clause 10 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills). This would require the Office for Tax Simplification to publish an assessment of the merits of the levy. As outlined in the Finance Act 2016, the statutory role of the OTS is to advise on the simplification of the tax system. To assess fully the advantages and disadvantages of introducing the health and social care levy would require the OTS to consider and comment on choices with far broader policy considerations, including on health and social care, which sit well beyond its remit and expertise.

The OTS functions as an adviser to the Chancellor rather to Parliament and it is for the Chancellor to commission work for the OTS or for the OTS to advise the Chancellor on its own initiative as it sees appropriate. It is not the role of Parliament to commission work from the OTS, though I have no doubt that the Treasury will have taken on board this new clause, and I thank my hon. Friend for tabling it.

The published tax information and impact notes set out clearly that the operational costs for the levy are being quantified and the Government will publish these estimates before the measure comes into effect in April 2022.

Health and Social Care Levy

Alex Sobel Excerpts

1st reading
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I will give way just twice more: to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) and then to the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott).

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In my constituency and in my hon. Friend’s constituency next door, we have many people right at the start of their working lives paying, as she says, nearly 50% in tax after this change and very high rents in the private rented sector. They effectively have no disposable income. Their dreams of ever owning a home are being destroyed by Conservative Members. Does she not agree?

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend speaks well of what our constituents in Leeds North West and Leeds West will be facing with that double whammy of universal credit and the national insurance increase, in addition to the other tax increases from this Government. I will take a final intervention and then I will start to wind up.

Black History Month

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) for securing what has been such a rich debate. Celebrating and raising awareness of black history through Black History Month has been shown to be urgently necessary in light of the growing anger of our black community expressed through Black Lives Matter and how the Government are approaching our own history on slavery and reparations.

We need the Government to be an honest broker in our history without an attempt to whitewash history or belittle the oppression of black communities in the Americas or Africa. Unfortunately, we see the opposite in our cultural institutions. The Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye Museum, in Hackney, was named after Sir Robert Geffrye, a slave trader. The museum has a statue of Geffrye, and after consultation there was a very strong feeling that it should be removed. The decision should be made entirely by the museum, which has curatorial freedom and a responsibility to listen to the local community. However, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport decided to intervene in the decision by writing to all museums with arm’s length bodies arrangements. The letter seemed particularly aimed at the Museum of the Home and was quite extraordinary in its tone and overreach.

The letter said:

“Statues and other historical objects were created by generations with different perspectives and understandings of right and wrong.”

I am not sure that many see the enslavement of others as a matter of perspective or understanding of right and wrong. The Secretary of State went on to say:

“It is for this reason that the Government does not support the removal of statues or other similar objects.”

Then comes the implied threat to funding:

“As set out in your Management Agreements, I would expect Arm’s Length Bodies’ approach to issues of contested heritage to be consistent with the Government’s position... This is especially important as we enter a challenging Comprehensive Spending Review, in which all government spending will rightly be scrutinised.”

Appearing before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the museum director, Sonia Solicari, said that the board had taken the letter “very seriously”, adding that the Department is “a major stakeholder” for the museum so it took that on board in the decision-making process.

Local people in Hackney were appalled. I spoke to Jermain Jackman today, who chairs the Hackney Young Futures Commission, and he told me: “When the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol was pulled down, the Government called the protests out for not allowing the democratic process. However, Hackney allowed and followed a democratic process, consulting the local community, which was overwhelmingly in favour of having it removed. However, the Government put pressure on the board and ignored the will of the people.” Jermain is correct. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is moving the goalposts, and to whose detriment?

The Museums Association puts it best in its statement:

“The letter is the latest in a series of interventions from the culture secretary that have led to fears the government is undermining the sector’s independence.”

Those are its words, not mine.

I also want to talk about an episode of black history that, sadly, is rarely taught in our academic institutions or schools: the oppression and genocide of the West Papuans under Indonesian occupation. As chair of the all-party group on West Papua, it is incumbent on me to add their struggle to those of so many black and indigenous ones around the world.

This year, following the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, the West Papuans found inspiration to link their struggle with those struggles under the slogan “Papuan lives matter.” The campaigners shed light on Indonesia’s institutional racism against West Papuans. For instance, in August 2019 Papuan students were attacked in Indonesia’s second largest city and called monkeys. The police then rounded up the students firing tear gas into their dormitory. In 2006 in Jayapura everyone who had dreadlocks was arrested and their hair was cut. This continued for a fortnight. The Jakarta Post last year discussed Papuans living in Yogyakarta and said that it was not unusual for landlords to express approval of rent applications by phone only to reject them once they find out where they are from. These and many other incidents of racism will chime with many of my colleagues in the Chamber, and they reflect how many black communities in the UK were treated in the past.

West Papuan leaders, including Benny Wenda, chair of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, have sought political asylum around the world. Benny Wenda is a brilliant exponent for his people and needs to be platformed much more here in the UK where he lives so that light can be shone on what is happening to the West Papuan people.

Finally, I again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead for securing this opportunity that has enabled me to add my voice to those of my many black colleagues in the Chamber whom I am honoured to serve alongside.

Public Health Restrictions: Government Economic Support

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of benefiting from the local knowledge on track and trace, which is why the Prime Minister and the Chancellor announced an additional £500 million to address exactly the point my hon. Friend highlights about the benefit of working closely with local directors of public health. That is exactly what we are doing, and the funding announced by the Prime Minister and Chancellor yesterday will enable that work to accelerate.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Yesterday, I held a roundtable with hospitality businesses facing tier 2 restrictions, at which a restaurant owner said that his business would just bleed out with the economic support that was available. They asked whether we could look at increasing the intervention rate for the job support scheme in November in order to be more generous, because otherwise they will have to let go of their staff and there is the potential for large-scale closures of hospitality businesses. What additional measures can the Government bring forward for hospitality businesses that are under tier 2 restrictions?

[Steve Barclay]

Again, I appreciate the concerns the hon. Gentleman raises on behalf of businesses in his constituency, but, as I said to the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) a moment ago, by international standards the package of support the Chancellor has put in place stands fair comparison. That interaction between the support for those jobs and businesses that are able to be open, and the additional £7 billion of welfare support through universal credit, provides dynamic support for the workers to which the hon. Gentleman refers.

Finance Bill

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones]

A lot of people wish to speak on this group of amendments, and time taken will squeeze future debates so I will be brief.

I support the positive words from my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), but I also want to highlight clause 102. It takes up two and a half lines in a large Bill of 7,500 lines, so it is easy to miss. It makes provision for HMRC to start work now on a new tax on plastic packaging containing less than 30% recycled plastic. I welcome this measure. Indeed, I hope that in time it might be possible to go further, but it is clearly right to start now. During the coronavirus crisis, we have heard little about the environment, although I think people have been pleasantly surprised by the real and noticeable difference to our environment—our clean air—resulting from the lack of vehicle use. That 2050 deadline for net zero carbon countries has got ever nearer, and reducing what we use and reusing what we have are ingredients for progress. Changing our plastic use in our lives is one way that all of us can make a difference.

This was a hot topic before the crisis and it will be one in the future, but it has not always been so. I launched plastic bag-free Harrogate with some colleagues in 2008, and although it was generally well received, some people did ask me if I had gone a little bit cranky. We nevertheless made a bit of a difference, and I see a difference being made now in the actions taken by national Government, regional government, local government and community groups. My local council, Harrogate Borough Council, has done good work in waste collection, recycling and education, and I see strong community groups and vibrant environmental groups such as Zero Carbon Harrogate and Knaresborough SPARKs moving the debate forward. We can and will go further and faster. So, although this measure has not attracted attention, it is very positive and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister on taking it forward and using a financial lever to change behaviour among companies using plastic packaging, and, through that, encouraging people to recycle more. That has to be a good thing.

There is one other measure in the Bill that I would like to highlight, and that is the measure on increasing the uptake of electric vehicles. Basically, it is a measure to ensure that employees and employers pay no tax on zero-emission company cars. It supports the measure on electric vehicle charging infrastructure. I have had responsibility for this, as both a Transport Minister and a Treasury Minister, so my views are known. I have shared them in this place on previous occasions, and I will therefore not detain the House with repetition. I simply say to my right hon. Friend the Minister that he will be even more popular if he goes on to further incentivise change in this area.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I come to the debate more with sadness than with pleasure, having read the progress report from the Committee on Climate Change on how the Government and the country are doing. The report is absolutely damning of the Government’s performance. It says that they are not even meeting the 2° warming target, they are failing the commitments that we made in Paris five years ago, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) said, they are not expected to meet the fourth and fifth carbon budgets. The report goes on to say that many national plans and policies are not acknowledging the long-term risks of climate change, and that many Government Departments are not acknowledging those risks.

I am going to talk about a few different areas and measures, hopefully not for too long, to let other colleagues fully take part in the debate. We have with us a Minister who has spent time at the Department for Transport, along with my neighbour the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), who was a long-serving Minister in that Department, so I will start there.

I am pleased that there are measures such as clause 83, which exempts electric vehicles from vehicle excise duty, and clause 82, which deals with the calculation of cars’ CO₂ emissions, but is that enough? We are talking about a country still addicted to petrol and diesel vehicles. Just look across the North sea to Norway. We have to thank the Norwegians, because their No. 1 selling vehicle is the Nissan Leaf. They are therefore supporting Nissan jobs in Sunderland with their Government measures, yet we are not sufficiently supporting them with ours. Those two measures in the Bill will not be enough to make Nissan Leaf the top selling car in the UK, which is what the Government should be aiming for. Not that I am particularly promoting Nissan—this goes for any electric vehicle. I have no interest to declare in relation to Nissan; this is about British jobs. We should look to Norway and its measures on sales tax, charging points and other things, which have meant that the majority of vehicles sold in Norway are electric.

Looking forward to COP next year, the reason why Paris was so successful was that the French showed global leadership, through domestic policy and diplomacy. The problem we will have is that we are not showing the same global leadership in domestic policy. We are a global leader, rightly, in reducing the use of coal-fired power stations, which will effectively have ceased in this country by the time we get to COP. However, we are not a global leader in any other area, so how can we secure a world-leading agreement in Glasgow next year? It is incumbent on the Treasury to introduce incentives to ensure that we reach those points, so that we can show that our measures work. It is not enough to talk a good game; we have to deliver.

Let me turn to some points drawn up by the all-party net zero group, which I chair, which should be instructive for the Minister. They are points that he should take on board and that hopefully the Government will look into. One thing we have seen in the renewable energy sector is a lack of confidence, because in many areas the Government have withdrawn support or not introduced it. One area where I would say the Government have done well and are world leaders is offshore wind. Contracts for difference have made a huge difference. However, we do not have the same confidence in other areas of the renewables market.

What has happened with solar feed-in tariffs has removed confidence from the solar market. Support for green hydrogen and the renewables to create it has not come forward in the way that it should have. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) mentioned the tidal barrage. Again, we are not talking about value for money; we are talking about a world-leading project that could create new technology that we could export. We are not thinking broadly enough about these measures, and the Treasury needs to rethink them.

Obviously we are in the post-covid period, and we need to think about retooling our workforce, because of the many people unfortunately losing their jobs and the Government’s own agenda of levelling up areas. I want to give one example of where that might really work. Not far from my constituency, in East Yorkshire, we have a plethora of factories that build caravans. I will come to the construction industry later, but the way in which we build houses is the 19th-century way of doing it. In fact, we have been building houses in more or less the same way since the Romans. Why are the Government not incentivising the repurposing of those factories to build modular, Passivhaus standard, zero-carbon homes, creating jobs in areas neighbouring coastal resorts, a lot of which are going to lose jobs, and making available houses at different specs for a wide range of people, from social housing right through to the most expensive types of houses in this country, all of which could be implemented quickly? The Prime Minister said, “Build, build, build”, but it is not enough just to build; we have to build in a way that creates a green recovery.

There is a real dilemma around how we incentivise the construction sector. If someone has a property—a terrace, a house or even a heritage property—and wants to refurbish it and put in green measures, they have to pay VAT. If they want to demolish that property and build a brand new one, they pay no VAT. Is that not perverse? Should the Minister not be looking to fix that? We have systems and financial incentives in place that are going to create more carbon, not less.

I will finish soon as I want to give colleagues a chance to speak. Every Department’s plans should include a green fiscal rule or measure that every single policy has to meet. Every time the Treasury or another Department are putting forward a new policy, they should be asking whether it will reduce carbon, and help to meet our fourth and fifth carbon budgets—and the carbon budgets after that, if we get to that stage. If it does not, that policy should not be coming forward, because we only have one chance to do this. There is no planet B. There is no second United Kingdom. We need to be doing this now and in the best possible way.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Yesterday, like a number of Members across the House, I was lobbied—by 15 residents, in my case. The time is now.

Today I spoke to 180 delegates of CPRE, the countryside charity. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) was there as well. Those people told me what they wanted fed back to Ministers about the progress they would like to see in the green economy. They are frustrated with the lack of progress, and determined and ambitious to ensure that we get to net zero a damn sight quicker than the Government’s current targets suggest. They are keen to protect our green spaces and environments, and, in turn, to create great green jobs. Where there is development, they are determined that we have a brownfield-first policy, and that the houses built are genuinely affordable and carbon neutral. Picking up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel); there are some great examples of modular houses that we can build at scale and create the jobs, jobs, jobs that the shadow Minister spoke about.

We need real and bold investment in our cycleways and pathways, and affordable transport, until the point that it is in our DNA to ensure that our buses are electric, that we get more people working on buses and that our railways get people from A to B, which they clearly do not do currently. At Northwich station in my constituency, people who are disabled or have mobility problems cannot get to the other side of the tracks. That affects their mobility across the conurbation and productivity in terms of sustainable growth.

People have spoken about renewable energy, including the decision on the tidal lagoon. That was a retrograde step; the lagoon should have been invested in. There is a similar situation in Merseyside, where Mayor Steve Rotheram is taking forward a project. I sincerely hope that the Government can escalate that problem—not only for Merseyside, but for the whole nation.

Finally, on renewable energy, people have mentioned hydrogen, which is a real growth industry in my community in Weaver Vale. I would like to see the Government actually escalate such support and put some speed behind it. I would also like to see a recovery plan, which again is about jobs, jobs, jobs, but also about building back better and certainly building back greener with more ambition.

Economic Update

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I very much appreciate people’s anxiety at this difficult time. With regard to those who are self-isolating, we have already made changes to our welfare system to ensure that those people qualify for the support that they deserve. With regard to public services support, as I have said, the Communities Secretary and the Health Secretary are actively engaging with those sectors to understand whether there is extra support that is required.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The reality is that for businesses and workers this crisis is going to last for many months. Has the Chancellor considered a much more interventionist microeconomic policy? For instance, has he thought about repurposing the businesses shutting now—hotels, restaurants, music venues, theatres—as infection rates rapidly rise?

[Rishi Sunak]

That would be a question for my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary, who is actively engaged in making sure that we can increase the capacity of our health service to cope with the next few months and is considering a range of measures, but we will do whatever it takes to make sure that we have the capacity we need to help those who fall sick at this time.

Beer and Pub Taxation

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Ms Rimmer]

Pubs have always sat at the heart of our communities and our societies. I remember how my dad, at the end of a hard day’s work, would go to his local for a pint to enjoy the companionship and relax. If we look back at history, we see how many of our rights originate from people sitting down in the local and planning for a better world: democracy, workers’ rights, trade unions. All of those had many of their roots in this country in the local pub. Even today, pubs play an important role. They are where we celebrate our success in work, love and life. It is where we cheer on our nations in sport and mourn our losses in wakes, raising a parting glass for those we have lost.

Pubs remain an integral part of the St Helens, Whiston and Prescot communities. We have many fantastic pubs across the constituency, including the Cricketers Arms, which deservedly won the 2017 national pub of the year award, but we have seen dozens of pubs close. Many local pubs across the country are struggling under current taxation arrangements, which makes it extremely difficult for local pubs to compete with massive supermarkets and large pub chains. People in the UK pay almost 40% of all the beer duty in the EU, while consuming only 12% of the beer. If we compare ourselves to similar sized nations such as Germany, their beer duty is 11 times lower than the UK’s rate. We need to ask ourselves why our taxation rate is so much higher. Some will argue that it is to discourage people from excess drinking: an aim I completely agree with. It is vital we make sure that people drink responsibly.

If we look at the Green Budget published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies in February 2016, we see:

“The current structure of alcohol duties is not well targeted at harmful alcohol consumption.”

In fact, because local pubs cannot afford to offer the same prices as supermarket chains, people drink excessively at home in pre-drink sessions. They feel under pressure to drink as much alcohol as they can before going for a night out at a pub or wine bar, where prices for drinks are higher than in supermarkets, partly because of the way in which our taxes are applied.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Many independent pubs in my constituency, particularly in Otley, complain about business rates as well as beer duty. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is also an important taxation issue?

[Ms Rimmer]

Of course it is. We have heard colleagues talk about it today.

If the aim is to raise money for the Exchequer, I agree with that aim, as taxes are important and pay for the vital things our society needs. However, the brewing and pub industry is a massive employer, with almost 900,000 jobs across the UK. The loss of those jobs would have a major impact on our economy and offset much of the income from the high taxes. We also find that the taxes are not applied evenly, with wine and spirits’ duty rates per litre of pure alcohol on an almost constant decline since 1978, yet beer has largely stayed constant and has gone up in some cases.

I therefore call on the Government to look at the way in which we support our local pubs. One way to do it is by improving the current structure of the small brewers relief. I also call on the Government to implement a modest cut in beer duty so that we can help our local pubs.

As the hon. the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) has said, 250,000 people have signed up to the Long Live the Local campaign, showing that the British people want to protect our pubs. Let us take the steps necessary to ensure that our great British institutions do not have to call for last orders permanently. I urge the Government to act.

Summer Adjournment

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who spoke with great authority about a large number of international issues, as well as about his local buses; I always instinctively trust a Member of Parliament who knows about his local buses. It is also a great pleasure to take part in a debate started with such panache by the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess).

It was Lord Hague of Richmond who said that early-day motions in this House were “parliamentary confetti”. Although he is a distinguished Yorkshireman, I disagree with him—for me, they are the bread and butter of our Parliament. I want to bring to the attention of the House, before we adjourn for the summer recess, three early-day motions that just happen to be in my name, which the House may have missed while other things have been happening over the last few days.

Early-day motion 2649 calls for a review of the Heathrow expansion decision. It is supported by nearly 30 hon. Members—including some Labour Front Benchers, which I was pleased to see; I hope that it will be supported by the Labour leadership. Things have changed over the past year: we have declared a climate emergency, and we now have a target of net zero. In the north of England, it has become very apparent that, given our net zero target, any expansion of Heathrow will choke off any possible expansion of routes in the north of England. The Prime Minister famously said that he would sit down in front of the bulldozers to stop Heathrow expansion. I am not asking him to do that, but I do think that a review is the least that we can expect.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend and neighbour is making an excellent speech. It is vital that we cancel the third runway at Heathrow and that we share the reduction in aviation emissions right across the country, so that we do not play airports against each other.

[John Grogan]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. There is express provision for such a review in the Planning Act 2008, so it would not be difficult.

I move on quickly to early-day motion 2650, which is about commercial local radio and Bauer. Although it stands only in my name at the moment, I am confident that at least a dozen MPs will sign it overnight. It deals with an important issue of commercial local radio, to which two things have happened in recent years. The market has consolidated: Global and Bauer now own over half the market. Furthermore, Ofcom has weakened the regulations so that local radio stations now have to have only three rather than seven hours of local content on a weekday and local content can come from regional centres; it need not come from the area of the franchise.

Bauer is trying to buy over 30 local radio stations in four different groups. The good news is that yesterday the Competition and Markets Authority stood up to it and said that there was a clear competition case to answer. There will be a phase 2 investigation of these possible purchases of Bauer’s. The fear must be that local advertisers will be taken out of the market, all the advertising will become national and Bauer will follow Global in closing local studios; Global has already closed 10 local studios. If the purchases go through, Bauer will own exactly 80% of the Yorkshire commercial local radio market: 16 of 20 stations. I fear for stations such as Stray FM, which covers part of Keighley constituency. I fear that, ultimately, programmes will be made just from Leeds and London.

The third early-day motion to which I want to draw attention, Mr Deputy Speaker, may be to your taste: it is to do with cricket and football World cups and free-to-air TV. It is EDM 2608. One thing that the retiring Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport did in his last few days in office was to announce for the first time in about 20 years additions to the list of events that must be shown on free-to-air TV. He said that he wanted a consultation on future women’s World cups and future women’s FA cup finals and that they should be listed just as the men’s events are. Some 11 million people were inspired by the football World cup this year, and that will now also be true for future women’s football World cups: women will have equal status with men when it comes to great sporting events. The right hon. and learned Gentleman also suggested that the Paralympics should be added. I would like his successor to go further and to add the cricket. We cannot just have one game every 15 years, courtesy of Sky and its owners Comcast—at the very least, England internationals in the cricket World cup and in the T20s, as in Australia, should be free to all the nation, to inspire them.

Finally, I want to preface an early-day motion that is not yet on the Order Paper but will be in September. It is to do with the private security industry. One of the great benefits of being an MP is that, courtesy of Mr Speaker, we can see in the new year on the Terrace. I was coming to do that last year and met Mr Michael Thompson, who turned out to be from Keighley. He was outside the Palace. I kept in touch with him over the months that followed. He told me that the firm he was working for, 24/7 Security, have not paid a lot of people—not just on that occasion but on others, including the Leeds festival and so on. The security industry is very heavily regulated for the individual security guards but not when it comes to the contracting companies. Under the Private Security Industry Act 2001, there is provision to have such regulation of the contracting companies. I hope that, as we approach the 20th anniversary of the Act, we will review the situation.

Finally, I wish you a happy summer holiday, Mr Deputy Speaker. Particularly in view of the county of your loyalty, I wish you a happy Yorkshire Day on 1 August next week.

Youth Services

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith]

My hon. Friend pre-empts a future section of my speech, where I go into detail about that. He is absolutely right and I agree with every word that he said about the sustainability of the workforce. In many ways, youth work is the first public service to have been dismantled. The uncertainty over local government funding creates growing challenges for local authorities to innovate and to provide for these services. It is a testament to our voluntary sector that provision has not completely collapsed under the weight of these cuts. I want to pay tribute to traditional organisations such as the Sea Cadets, the YMCA, the Scouts, the Guides, the Boys Brigade and the Girls Brigade that have innovated to keep open access youth work alive. We have seen many new and innovative models of delivering youth provision, spanning public, private and civil society partners to deliver excellent provision for young people in some areas.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

As well as the traditional voluntary sector names, social enterprises play a key role in delivering youth services and use other income streams through enterprise to fund youth services, but that is insufficient. We have seen a huge cut in funding and people having to rely on lottery funding, charitable trusts and short commissioning cycles. We are seeing a real volatility in the sector. Is it not time that we had some sufficiency in the sector so that those organisations, the voluntary sector and the councils can provide a really good-quality youth service?

[Cat Smith]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the diversity of the current provision of youth work, and I pay tribute to the work that he does in Leeds, where he champions young people’s needs. I look forward to working with him over the summer on a particular project that he is launching.