Communities: Charities and Volunteers

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies]

I have had conversations with the devolved Administrations on sport and connecting communities, but I have not directly had any on that issue. I am however very happy to take that up and co-operate with colleagues across the House to work with the devolved Administrations. As a Wales Minister, I was very aware that there are particular communities that we need to make sure Westminster and Whitehall are reaching.

We are breaking down barriers to volunteering for everyone, and we are focusing on those at risk of loneliness and looking to the long term to help those people who might want to get involved and who might need a new direction and feel isolated. I am backing that again today with cash: £250,000 for new funding to do exactly that.

When communities are facing their moment of greatest need, a connected community is what matters most. We saw that in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Local charities at the heart of the community stepped up, working in partnership with national organisations and emergency services to provide support for those in need. The public responded, too, by raising over £29 million. That was unprecedented, and it highlighted that we are at our very best when we come together and help each other. This community support was invaluable in helping the Government reach the Grenfell victims and their families quickly, and we will continue to support them. We are working with our experienced charity partners to further strengthen the response and be ready for any future emergencies.

How can business help our communities? Society’s needs are at the heart of good decision making. The private sector is a great force for good, and this is a chance to address society’s most pressing issues by encouraging innovative public services to work alongside private investors, socially responsible businesses and social enterprise. From tackling homelessness to helping young people reach their full potential, business and finance can and must play a crucial role.

Through social impact bonds, we are bringing together investors who want to make a difference with charities who have the expertise to make real change. This successful model is already having a positive impact on people and communities across the country. Charities such as St Mungo’s and Thames Reach are working with the most vulnerable rough sleepers in London to help them rebuild their lives. This social impact bond gives charities the financial safety net to do this important work, and I was struck by the passion and commitment of the staff I met last week and the results they have achieved. Since the project was launched in 2017, it has helped more than 150 people to find homes. We know that this funding model works, and that is why we are investing £80 million through the life chances fund to give more support to social impact bonds that create people-focused results. People matter, and we are delivering for them.

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

I worked on social impact bonds prior to entering this place. One of the big barriers that social enterprises face in drawing down social impact bonds is the lack of expertise in unlocking these complex instruments. What support will there be within the fund to ensure that that money can be drawn down by social enterprises?

[Mims Davies]

In my new role in this Department, I have found nothing but complete expertise to absolutely make this work. If the hon. Gentleman would like to raise a particular issue relating to his experience, I would be happy to hear from him directly.

There is more that we can do to help vulnerable people across the country. We are working with the banks and the building societies to unlock millions of pounds from dormant accounts. Instead of gathering dust, that money is being invested in helping our young people into employment and in tackling problem debt. In 2018 alone, £330 million of dormant assets funding was announced, and by 2020, the total distribution from dormant accounts will reach more than half a billion pounds. We will expand that scheme further to help more vulnerable people to benefit. This funding is changing lives for the better, with £90 million helping the most disadvantaged young people into employment and £55 million tackling problem debt. These initiatives are led by two independent organisations.

The Government want an economy that works for everyone in every part of their life. We are building a strong foundation for social impact investing, which is bringing more capital funding to social enterprises and charities in the UK, alongside traditional forms of funding for these organisations. I am mindful that lots of people want to speak, so I shall try to commute my remarks, but I want to get these key messages out. This works in practice. Since its launch in 2012, Big Society Capital has committed more than £520 million and leveraged more than £1.2 billion of additional co-investment into this space.

The Government are building on these successes and will be using a further £135 million from dormant accounts to help further charities and social enterprises. In addition, the Government have commissioned an advisory group, and the Prime Minister has personally asked for an industry-led implementation taskforce to deliver its recommendations. We also have an inclusive economy partnership, where we work with businesses such as O2, Landsec and Accenture and with social innovators to find practical solutions and to unlock the issues on the ground. We also have the This is Me programme, an inclusive workplace programme that focuses on mental health issues, and it is working with Landsec. This is an area in which we are working with business and the community to ensure that we can deliver on the ground.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I said, 600 youth centres have closed, and all the activities that could have gone on in them have been taken away. That is a crying shame.

Sadly, the Government have not finished with that agenda; there is worse to come. Their new so-called fair funding formula will remove deprivation levels from how funding is calculated. It will take even more away from the very poorest and will weaken the very communities in which the need to tackle poverty, youth crime and homelessness is greatest. Communities cannot organise, act or assert their voice if the Government keep ripping away the resources they need to do those very things.

The Government passed a lobbying Act that gags charities and prevents them from campaigning. Ministers individually have put gagging clauses in contracts to silence charities and prevent them from criticising their personal failures as Ministers. The Government have discouraged volunteers in the UK by not recognising their work for national insurance credits. They announced a plan for paid time off work for volunteering, but it fizzled out into absolutely nothing.

We are a month and a half away from Brexit, but the Government have still not told us how they will replace lost EU funding for charities or how the shared prosperity fund will work, despite the fact that the Opposition have been asking about it for months. The Minister trumpets the new funding—she did so this afternoon—but she fails to acknowledge that it is a tiny drop in the ocean, compared with the billions that the Government have cut. They can work out the huge financial value of what they have taken away, but the social value that they have destroyed is incalculable.

Despite the cuts and the Government’s failure to open up power, people are doing amazing things in their communities, and are stepping in to help the victims of Government funding cuts. I pay tribute to the food banks and homeless shelters which, in such a wealthy country, we should never have needed. There is a wonderful, rich, emerging practice of sharing, co-operating, collaborating and participating in this country. People’s ingenuity and the creativity in our communities cannot and will not be beaten back, but it is fragile. It needs support and protection. It is clear that the Conservatives will never offer that, but Labour will.

[Alex Sobel]

My local council for voluntary service, Voluntary Action Leeds, wrote to me. It said clearly that volunteering is not part of the benefits system, and that people are being sanctioned if they refuse to volunteer. That is not volunteering; it is forced labour. Universal credit is affecting the amount of time that people have to volunteer, so the Government’s own welfare policies are decimating the voluntary sector in this country.

[Mr Reed]

I agree. It is outrageous that the Government are actively penalising people for volunteering when we need to be encouraging volunteering. In particular, it helps people who are looking for work to develop the skills that they need to gain employment. I hope the Minister will take that away and look at it.

People are connecting in neighbourhoods and on social media to collaborate and bring about the change that we desperately need in this country. The digital revolution has opened up data, information and connectivity in the most extraordinary ways. It offers the potential to renew our democracy, making it more open, responsive and participative. This is the new civil society. It is a force for change of the most incredible potential, if only we had a Government with the vision and ambition to support it, like the very best Labour councils already do.

Barking and Dagenham’s Every One Every Day initiative has launched spaces and projects across the borough that bring people together in their neighbourhoods to solve the problems they face. It has dramatically increased participation, with projects as diverse as shared cooking, community composting, play streets and even a listening barber. It is a great example of asset-based community development—a model that is proving its power in communities across the country.

In my borough of Croydon, the Parchmore medical centre in Thornton Heath has spawned a network of more than 100 community-led projects that keep people healthier, and it has dramatically reduced the number of people who need to see a GP. There are sessions on healthy cooking for young families, mobility classes for older people and coffee mornings in the local pub, before it opens for customers, for people isolated in their homes. All of it is free, and all of it is run in and by the community. It has had an extraordinary impact on people’s wellbeing simply by getting neighbours to know each other better and to speak to each other.

Plymouth has set up the country’s biggest network of community energy co-ops to generate energy sustainably and plough the profits back into the local community. Stevenage is pioneering community budgeting, involving local community groups. Preston is leading on community wealth building by focusing council procurement on community organisations. In Lambeth, the council has set up, with the community, Black Thrive, a new social enterprise that gives the black community greater oversight of the mental health services that the community uses. In all these cases, existing or new community groups, charities and social enterprises have shown they have the power to transform lives. They open up decision making to the creativity and innovation that lies untapped in too many of our communities.

Sport in the UK

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about free-to-air sport—indeed, I made that point to rugby union representatives today—but if we are prepared to pay for Netflix, we should also be prepared to pay for great sport. We should have the broadest opportunity for people to be seen participating and inspiring at the highest level.

On participation, I was talking about everyone, and I am pleased that the Chamber feels the same. We must ensure that everyone can benefit from sport. I also want to ensure that we reach harder-to-reach groups and get them active and staying active.

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

I am sure the Minister knows that basketball is the second most played team sport in the UK and reaches hard-to-reach groups in urban communities. I pay tribute to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and her predecessor, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), for giving £500,000 to GB Basketball. It meant, in particular, that the women could stay on court and qualify for EuroBasket top of their league. It is important to look at UK sport funding to ensure that basketball can make its Olympic dream come true.

[Mims Davies]

Basketball is a sport that has been helped by the aspiration fund, which makes it possible to turn the dial, become medal winners and so continue to inspire. I am delighted about the fund, and I, too, pay tribute to my predecessor.

I was talking about harder-to-reach groups, and some of those have just been described. We want more women; more black, Asian and minority ethnic women and men; and more disabled people taking part in sport, as well as those who might have a hard time finding the cash for exercise and wellbeing. We want everyone to have the opportunity to take part, including those who struggle to find a family activity that they enjoy—we have heard about that this evening as well. These are often the people facing the biggest hurdles to being active, and they are the people we need to support most. I want to tackle those hurdles and make sport fun.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Allin-Khan]

The hon. Lady makes a most excellent point. If you can see it, you can be it. I firmly believe that, and in my position as shadow Minister for Sport I have always pushed for equality in the boardroom, not only based on gender but across socioeconomic divides and for the black, Asian and minority ethnic community.

While I celebrate our wonderful Olympic success in London and Rio, I question whether we should be pumping millions into niche sports to gain a couple of gold medals when sports such as basketball, which is ever so popular in the UK, are going through a funding crisis. Should our success be measured by the number of gold medals we win?

[Alex Sobel]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning basketball. I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on basketball. The UK and Team GB are on track for Olympic qualification, which will happen at the world cup this summer, but we will need the funding from the National Basketball Association and the Women’s National Basketball Association to get our players into that qualification tournament and into the Olympics.

[Dr Allin-Khan]

I know that my hon. Friend has been tireless in his pursuit of ensuring that basketball gets the funding it deserves. I also know that, like me, he was staggered to discover that shooting is getting £6.9 million while basketball, a popular grassroots sport that can be played by all, has had its funding cut.

Should our success be measured by the number of gold medals we can win, or by the millions of people we can motivate to get fit and active and take the opportunity to play the sport they love? Just £23 million a year is being put into grassroots sports by the Government, and half of that was put in under Labour. Local government cuts have resulted in more than 1,000 grass pitches, swimming pools and sports halls being closed over the past two years. The discussion surrounding the sale of Wembley stadium sparked an interesting debate about the funding of grassroots sport in the UK. We believe that the Football Association answered all our questions and had the best intentions, but did we really need to consider selling our national stadium to build grassroots facilities fit for the 21st century?

Equitable Life

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)]

I start by paying tribute to my all-party parliamentary group co-chair, the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who has given an excellent introduction and who has worked very hard indeed in the nine years that he has been in the House to try to bring about the justice that we all want for the victims of the Equitable Life scandal. I am sad that, after so many years of debating the issue, we are back here again today talking about the continuing losses suffered by hundreds of thousands of Equitable Life policyholders. They invested in the world’s oldest life assurance company in the belief that they would be able to live a comfortable old age, but instead, after a lifetime of saving, they find themselves sometimes destitute and often much poorer through no fault of their own.

How have we arrived here, nearly 20 years after Equitable Life closed its doors to new investors and nine years after the Government promised to ensure that the losses incurred by Equitable Life policyholders would be fully compensated? I hope that hon. Members will permit me briefly to go back over some of the history of this sorry tale in order to give the House and the public some answers to these questions. My first involvement in the Equitable Life saga was to speak in a Westminster Hall debate that I led on 24 June 2009. In that debate, I spoke about the serious issues facing so many of our constituents since the crash of Equitable Life following its inability to meet obligations and promises made to investors over decades.

In July 2008, the parliamentary ombudsman published her first report on Equitable Life, entitled “Equitable Life: a decade of regulatory failure”. On 11 December that year, the Public Administration Committee produced a report entitled “Justice delayed”, in which it stated:

“Over the last eight years many of those members and their families have suffered great anxiety as policy values were cut and pension payments reduced…Many are no longer alive, and will be unable to benefit personally from any compensation.”

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

I should like to thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for making the case for Equitable Life members. I should also like to pay tribute to my constituents, Ray and Marjorie Dunn, who have been brilliant campaigners for the Equitable Members Action Group. They have made these exact points: this has been going on for a very long time, and many pensioners are now well into their retirement and living in pensioner poverty because the Government have only partially compensated them. Is it not time for the Government to make up for their past mistakes?

[Fabian Hamilton]

Yes, indeed. I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for making that point. I know Ray and Marjorie Dunn very well—they correspond with me regularly—and I know that my hon. Friend has been a champion of their case and of many other cases in his constituency. I will go on to say a bit more about how I think they should be compensated.

Fashion Industry

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is a passionate and committed member of the Committee. We were thrilled to be hosted by the V&A. Its amazing “Fashioned from Nature” exhibition contains earrings made out of little birds 150 years ago, showing how we have consistently stolen from nature to decorate ourselves. There is nothing new under the sun.

The hon. Gentleman is right about our very large Committee hearing. We are breaking all sorts of new bounds with this Committee. When we launch the report we are going to have some cartoons to accompany it. I think that will be a first for Parliament, too. As the right hon. Member for Wantage says, the real value of a garment comes not in its price but in the number of times it is worn. That is where we get real value. A £50 garment worn 100 times is better than a £5 dress that is worn just once.

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

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, our Committee Chair, for her foresight in bringing this inquiry forward at this time. It is absolutely the right time. Does she agree that it is shameful that one of the top 10 fashion retailers in this country, Kurt Geiger, refused point blank to provide evidence to our Committee? It must come forward with evidence before we get to the final report.

Grassroots Football Funding: Wembley Stadium

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Justin Madders]

As a Manchester United fan, I would say that, if we can encourage more George Bests, I will certainly be very pleased to see that. I will talk a little more about how we can encourage more youngsters to participate a little later.

Football in this country is in a very strong position. The premier league is the envy of the world. Most of the world’s top players come here, and England’s youth teams have enjoyed unprecedented levels of success in recent years. Whether those kids who have enjoyed great success with the national team recently get to play at the highest level remains to be seen. We should be concerned about the declining number of home-grown players, such as George Best, coming through the leagues, although I am sure someone with that talent would still make it today.

About 35% of players who started games in the premier league last season were English, on average. That represented a huge reduction on the 69% of English players who started games in the inaugural season of the premier league in 1992-93. There are huge questions about how professional clubs operate and about how our younger players can hope to get a chance against the huge influx of imported superstars, and I also sometimes wonder about the effect of giving a 17-year-old who has never played for the first team 10 grand a week—what does that do to their chances?—but that is probably outside the scope of today’s debate.

What we can do today is discuss how to improve the game below elite level. One in six grassroots matches were cancelled last year, and I recall my own kid’s games getting repeatedly cancelled over the winter period, although I do not think it was a particularly extraordinarily bad winter. Cancellations have a detrimental effect on both an individual’s and a team’s development, and we need to encourage that development. There are of course plenty of distractions and reasons why kids may find something else to do rather than play football, but we should do what we can to support it by encouraging a little bit more of the wealth that flows through the game to trickle down to the grassroots. We cannot expect the superstars of tomorrow to emerge if we are not prepared to invest in them.

One thing we can and, in my view, must do is improve the standard of facilities for younger players of all abilities, and for everyone involved in grassroots football. We should not tolerate second-rate facilities in our national sport. We know the pressure local authorities are under to balance the books and how there is little left for discretionary spending on improving sporting facilities. Pitches are often in poor condition, with poor drainage and areas of the pitch that are more mud than grass. Many pitches have little or no changing facilities connected with them.

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

My hon. Friend is making a wonderful case for grassroots football. A club in my constituency, Otley Town, wrote to me to outline its concerns about facilities. It said:

“The key issue that we have is the quality of training facilities in winter. Most junior and senior clubs need access to all weather pitches so they have good environments to train in.”

They went on to talk about the need for funding for girls football, veterans football and disability football, to ensure that everyone can enjoy the game. Should we not ensure that the money trickles down from the billionaire owners to the grassroots?

[Justin Madders]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A whole range of groups are participating in football that possibly traditionally did not, and we need to encourage them as well.

I am not saying that there is no investment. Since 2000, the Football Foundation, funded by the FA, the Premier League and Sport England, has invested more than £600 million in projects. My constituency has recently benefited from such investment, with fantastic facilities at the Vauxhall Sports and Social Club, where two new fourth generation pitches, which I occasionally grace, have been opened alongside a fantastic new clubhouse. About half the money for that came from the Premier League and the FA facilities fund, but the other half had to be raised locally, and I pay tribute to the incredible work done by Dave Edmunds and Tony Woodley, in particular, who really fought to get those facilities off the ground.

Finance (No. 3) Bill (Seventh sitting)

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 6th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Clive Lewis]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the clause and our amendments. As the Minister might outline shortly, the clause provides for changes to certain levels of vehicle excise duty, which I will refer to as VED, by amending the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994, which will now be known as VERA—there are lots of acronyms in this.

Changes to the rates are due to take effect in relation to vehicle licences taken out on or after 1 April 2019. VED is chargeable on vehicles, dependent on various factors, such as vehicle type, engine size, date of first registration, carbon emissions data—indirectly—and other emissions’ impacts, such as air quality and public health. I will not go through all the changes to the various excise duty rates as they apply to the different types of vehicle covered by the clause. At this stage, I will simply note that they are relatively small.

The amendment would require the Chancellor to review the revenue impact of the clause and to publish the findings. That would allow the House, not to mention the drivers of those classes of vehicle and the public at large, to understand the impact on the public purse. Without such an assessment, neither the Government nor indeed Committee members would know how much additional money was available to redirect into measures to help drivers—in particular those on low incomes—to take up cleaner vehicles to the benefit of the natural environment and public health. Will the Minister tell us whether the Government have undertaken any such assessment? If so, will he commit to publish it? If they have not, will he undertake to do so?

The amendment would require the Chancellor to review the impact of the clause on carbon dioxide emissions and the UK’s climate change targets, and to publish that analysis. As the Minister might confirm, road transport accounts for 22% of total UK carbon dioxide emissions—a major contributor to climate change. The European Union has agreements with motor manufacturers that aim to reduce average CO₂ emissions from new cars. Colour-coded labels, similar to those used on washing machines and fridges, are now displayed in car showrooms, showing how much CO₂ new models emit per kilometre. However, as traffic levels are predicted to increase, road transport will continue to be a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

Given that light vehicles and other vehicles covered by the clause contribute substantially to carbon and greenhouse gas emissions, will the Minister explain why no such climate impact assessment has been carried out? How will the Government take a lead internationally in the fight to keep average atmospheric temperatures below 1.5° C in the absence of full monitoring and measurement of all greenhouse gas emissions from all sources? He will surely also need to apply “polluter pays” disincentives in the form of increased taxes, for example, including relevant changes to VED.

Finally, will the Minister give a commitment that any such planned or future increase in VED will be recycled into helping drivers to adopt low-emission fuel alternatives, such as electric vehicles or, in future, hydrogen-powered vehicles—that is particularly important to help drivers who must use their vehicles for work purposes as well as for leisure activities—or, where convenient, into helping public transport alternatives, which are rarely available in some parts of the country and many rural areas?

Amendment 110 would require the Chancellor to review the impact of the clause on road congestion and traffic levels and to publish the results. Vehicle use affects our whole quality of local life: traffic can be dangerous and intimidating, dividing communities and making street life unpleasant, while air pollution and traffic noise can make urban living uncomfortable. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies points out, taxing only fuel consumption and car ownership, no matter how the taxes are differentiated by emissions and engine size, cannot result in anything approaching an optimal tax, because neither is a good proxy for the impact of car use on congestion.

Many journeys occur on relatively empty roads. Those journeys are overtaxed because the congestion cost imposed on other road users is minimal. Rural road users are overtaxed relative to those who regularly drive in towns during busy periods. The result is too much driving in towns relative to the amount of driving in less congested areas, and the build-up of noxious fumes and climate-changing pollution. Those adverse impacts are in addition to the disruption for all drivers, who are less able to move freely and go about their business or other driving activities efficiently and without wasting so much time stuck in their vehicles. Not only is that personally frustrating and a contributor to so-called road rage, but the impact on economic and social productivity should be minimised. Will the Minister therefore explain why there has been no assessment of the impact of the clause on road congestion and traffic levels, or publish any that has been carried out?

Amendment 111 is similar, requiring the Government to assess the impact of the clause on air quality standards. As the Minister must be aware, air pollutants in transport include nitrogen oxide, particles, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons, all of which have a damaging impact locally on the health of people, animals and vegetation. Air quality in the UK might be slowly improving, but many areas still fail to meet the health-based national air quality objectives and European limit values, particularly for particles and nitrogen dioxide.

In town centres and along busy roads, vehicles are responsible for most local pollution. Vehicles of all types tend to emit more pollution during the first few miles of a journey, when their engines are warming up. Although new technology and cleaner fuel formulations will continue to cut emissions of pollutants, these benefits are being eroded by the increasing number of vehicles on the road, including motorcycles, and the number of miles driven. Can the Minister please explain why he does not believe that any such assessment, as set out in our amendment, is necessary to understand the impact of the clause on such a critical aspect of road use?

Amendments 108 and 111 also allow us to address a particular aspect of the total revenue impact and the impact of the measure on air quality: the specific amount raised from VED in London and the extra amount that would be raised as a consequence of the clause, and the consequent impact on air quality.

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

Are our amendments not particularly important in the light of fact that the Government have been taken to court three times by ClientEarth for failing European air quality standards and have lost three times?

Finance (No. 3) Bill (Fifth sitting)

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Jonathan Reynolds]

Having just passed clause 32, which ended first-year allowances on the basis they were little known about and ineffective, I cannot help but comment how clause 33 extends the first-year allowance for another technology for four years on the basis it will provide the incentives and drive Government policy in that direction. Forgive me for pointing out that there are mixed messages from Ministers on these clauses.

It is disheartening that this is one of the relatively few mentions of environmental issues in the Finance Bill. We were all at Mansion House in June when the Chancellor gave a speech about how we would lead the way on green finance, yet there have been no legislative measures to follow up on that promise. We still lag behind our European counterparts on things such as mandatory climate disclosure laws or sovereign green bonds, but we should welcome any measures we like the look of when we see them.

Transport is a major source of emissions and we agree that we rapidly need to shift away from fossil fuels towards electricity and renewable sources and, to a certain extent, hydrogen for heavier vehicles. Thankfully, electric vehicles are coming through the system quickly and are expected to move rapidly through their cost curves, getting cheaper and cheaper. I have been hugely impressed by the electric vehicles I have experienced. Some estimates have cost parity for purchasing an electric vehicle as soon as 2022, after which buying an electric vehicle will become cheaper than buying a fossil fuel powered car.

The transition to a decarbonised, clean and smart economy will offer the UK many advantages, particularly considering how tech-savvy and early adopting much of the UK population is. The Nissan LEAF is the most-sold electric vehicle in the world. I say with some local pride, as someone born in Sunderland, that Sunderland has been the sole producer in Europe of the Nissan LEAF, creating over 50,000 vehicles. Of course, electric vehicle and hybrid production in the UK has provided a £3 billion trade surplus.

With a growing list of countries setting a date to ban combustion vehicles and modelling showing strong uptake curves, the global move to electric vehicles will be rapid. The first mover advantage to capture supply chains and jobs in this coming market will be considerable.

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

Norway is planning to ban combustion vehicles by 2025—the incentives and the infrastructure in Norway are sufficient for that. We are not planning that until 2040. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a policy failure not just on this measure but more generally in terms of building our electric vehicle infrastructure?

Finance (No. 3) Bill (Third sitting)

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mel Stride]

The provisions of the clause change the regime such that they will be required to account for the capital gains within 30 days. In a sense, this has been done by changing the rules rather than providing an incentive, I am afraid. I thank my hon. Friend for his interesting interventions.

Amendment 31 proposes that the changes come into effect only once we can guarantee awareness of them. HMRC has engaged with stakeholders on the details of the change and the draft legislation. The Members who tabled the amendment will be pleased to know that the Government published a summary of responses to their consultation on 6 July.

Amendments 32 and 33 request a review of the revenue impact of the changes, including the impact on the tax gap. The latest estimates for the revenue impact of the measure, both with the original 2019 start date and the delay to April 2020, were published at the Budget 2018.

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

The transition from diesel and petrol to electric cars is vital for us to meet our carbon budgets. Has the Treasury assessed the impact of the measure on the electric vehicle market, as well as the wider automotive sector?

[Mel Stride]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that in these tax matters—as with all tax matters—given our firm commitment to honour our climate change commitments, we are in regular contact with car manufacturers and those producing electric vehicles, through my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary.

As with all policy changes, the fiscal impact of the measure will be monitored by HMRC, and the Office for Budget Responsibility may request for it to be reviewed as the new out-turned data becomes available. The fiscal impact on taxpayer compliance has been considered and is included in the overall costing of the measure. HMRC publishes annual updates to its tax gap analysis, which will reflect the effect of capital gains tax policy changes. I therefore urge the Committee to resist the amendments and I commend the clause and schedule to the Committee.

Finance (No. 3) Bill (Second sitting)

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 27th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Dowd]

That organisation is always helpful, and it points us in the direction that the Government should go in. That goes to the point I am making.

Many proposals have come back to bite us, so we need a proper review to see how they are bedding in. For example, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, the automotive industry employs 168,000 people directly in manufacturing, and more than 856,000 are employed across the wider industry. It accounts for 12% of total UK exports of goods, and invests £3.65 billion each year in automotive research and development. More than 30 manufacturers build in excess of 70 models of vehicle in the UK, supported by 2,500 component providers and some of the world’s most skilled engineers. The automotive industry represents 1% of all employment in the UK and 7% of all manufacturing. It is also one of the few industries in the United Kingdom that has had a huge productivity increase since the financial crisis. The manufacturing of motor vehicles went from 5.4% of UK manufacturing in 2007 to 8.1% in 2017. Those figures do not, however, reflect the role that the automotive industry play in communities across the nations and regions of the UK, and the impact that a fall in sales or rentals relating to optional remuneration might have.

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

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech in support of the communities around the country that are reliant on motor manufacturing, which include Tyne and Wear, Derby, Swindon and Merseyside. Does he think that the Government should undertake and publish a proper impact assessment on the communities that will be affected by the changes outlined?

Folic Acid Fortification

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) for initially asking the Backbench Business Committee for this debate. When time could not be allocated, the Government allowed for this time instead, so I thank them, too. I thank my hon. Friend and the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) for their tireless campaigning. I was moved to speak in the debate because of my hon. Friend’s presentation at the Backbench Business Committee, of which I am a member. This whole issue seems like such a no-brainer, so I am really pleased that the Government have come forward with a consultation. I echo the comments of Members who want the consultation to happen quickly so that we can get measures in place.

In preparation for this debate, I went to Holland & Barrett to find out the cost of folic acid tablets. Just one jar costs £8.49. Being pregnant is an expensive business, as is having children. As well as folic acid pills—if someone is aware of their pregnancy or intends to become pregnant—there are baby clothes, decorations, cots and car seats to buy, and all that at a time when many people have very little money and are just about managing. Do we really expect those families to spend £8.49 on supplements?

Although supplements are costly, treating illnesses caused by the lack of folic acid in the diet of expectant mothers costs the NHS far more. Studies show that adding folic acid to food reduces instances of neural tube defects by 72%. That is exceedingly significant when we consider the fact that hundreds of babies are affected by spina bifida every year in the UK. Researchers in Chile compared the annual cost of the rehabilitation and treatment of children with spina bifida with the cost of adding folic acid to flour. The results showed that for every $1 invested in adding folic acid to flour, $12 was saved in medical treatment and care. Adding folic acid to our flour will not only benefit the would-be victims of neural tube defects, but save significant amounts for the NHS and therefore the taxpayer. It is estimated that it would cost only £200,000 a year for us to add folic acid to flour, and there are only 10 major flour mills in the country. It could be done very easily and very quickly.

Of course, there is a small minority of people who do not like mass measures such as the fortification of foods, but food fortification is nothing new and already makes an important contribution to diets in the UK and overseas. In the UK we already fortify white and brown flour with iron, thiamin and niacin after they are removed with the bran during the milling of wheat, so the relevant technology and infrastructure is already in the UK industry. We add other substances to food for flavour, for texture or to increase the speed of production, so why would we not add a harmless ingredient, for which there is no upper limit, that could save hundreds of babies a year from being born in the UK with lifelong birth defects?

Having children is an incredibly exciting time for parents—full of hope and expectation—but it is also fraught with risk and concern. Pregnant women and expectant parents are bombarded with information about diseases and issues that can afflict the mother and the baby. If we can do one simple, cheap and effective thing to reduce the chances of a baby contracting a life-changing illness, surely it is a no-brainer.