Subsidy Control Bill (Fourth sitting)

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Paul Scully]

The spirit is certainly there, but I do not want to bind future Administrations to a requirement to respond in emergency situations.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

I concur with my hon. Friend. We have seen in the past few years—with British Steel, for example—that the Government have had to move incredibly quickly to get subsidies in place. Adding that one-month period could determine the success or failure of such subsidies in supporting a specific UK industry. Time is of the essence.

[Paul Scully]

Absolutely. The Government have determined—as we did in debate on the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020—that subsidy control is a reserved matter, so it is right that subsidy control policy is made and voted on in Parliament. Clearly, we must ensure that those schemes are scrutinised, and we will continue to engage with the Scottish and Welsh Governments and the Northern Ireland Executive, as we have done in drafting the Bill and since its introduction. We are committed to engaging with them regularly and listening to their views during the Bill’s passage and beyond. That includes engagement on the definitions of “subsidy, or subsidy scheme, of interest” and “subsidy, or subsidy scheme, of particular interest”. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston to withdraw the amendment.

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[Kirsty Blackman]

I beg to move amendment 17, in clause 13, page 7, line 30, leave out

“in relation to energy and environment”.

This amendment would require public authorities to consider energy and environment principles when giving any subsidies, not just those related to energy and environment.

The reason I tabled the amendment is something that we covered earlier today in relation particularly to net zero and thinking about the obligations that we all have to ensure the protection of the environment. I think it is really important, as the Minister agreed earlier today, that in every policy decision that is being made by every authority, whether it is granting a subsidy or doing anything else, those authorities are considering the environmental principles of that decision.

This proposal would ensure that consideration was given to the energy and environment principles in schedule 2 in relation to every subsidy that was given. That is not too much for us to ask of granting authorities. They are giving subsidies, and we have to remember that the subsidies they are giving represent significant amounts of money. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of pounds; we are not talking about when a local authority gives a grant of 100 quid to a small community council to put up Christmas lights. As we are talking about big sums of money, it is totally reasonable that we expect these public authorities—which do anyway a huge amount of audit, and a huge amount of sense checking of any spend that they do and consideration of any spend that they do— to think about all that spend. They should do so not just in relation to subsidies, but in relation to the energy and environment principles.

I probably would have written schedule 2 slightly differently. I maybe would have had slightly different energy and environment principles, including the Opposition’s suggestions around net zero, but given that those are in the Bill and that schedule 2 is in the Bill, it is totally reasonable for us to say that those authorities should consider the energy and environment in everything they do. That is not explicit or even implicit in schedule 1, in terms of the concerns that authorities have to look at with regard to the principles there. This is hugely important.

[Andrew Bowie]

Given that we did not accept the hon. Lady’s earlier amendment, does she not worry that this new proposal might weaken the Bill further with regard to what she is talking about—environmental protections?

[Kirsty Blackman]

I think that, actually, schedule 2 does provide some environmental protections; I am quite comfortable in saying that. It does not do everything I would have wanted it to do. It does not create a requirement to meet the carbon commitments and move towards net zero in the consideration of the principles. However, increasing the level of environmental protection is in there, and it is important that all authorities are thinking about increasing the level of environmental protection in whatever they are doing. Now is the time for the UK Government to make that explicit in relation to everything that everybody is doing, whether it is subsidies or something else. That is why the amendment has been tabled.

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Amendments 14 and 15 would ensure that rescuing and restructuring subsidies can be given to ailing or insolvent enterprises if they are of vital strategic importance.

[Andrew Bowie]

Will the hon. Gentleman expand on how Morrisons would fit into the definition of “national critical infrastructure”, as set out in amendment 14?

[Bill Esterson]

Morrisons, as one of the big four supermarkets, is crucial to our national economy. The problem is that the Government do not show enough interest in businesses of such strategic importance.

[Andrew Bowie]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

[Bill Esterson]

As the hon. Gentleman has been wearing a mask today, I will.

[Andrew Bowie]

I thank the hon. Member; he is too kind. The decision to allow Morrisons to be taken over, in the way that it was, was made because it was deemed that that would be good value for shareholders, but also good for the company in general—it would be able to reinvest in its infrastructure here, in the United Kingdom. The decision was actually supporting one of the big four supermarkets to provide jobs and employment for this country. To try to define it in this way and say that the Government should step in when businesses like that are under threat of takeover—even when those takeovers could be to the advantage of that company and to the British people—would be, I think, a retrograde step.

[Bill Esterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for intervening. I think he is rather missing the point, which I tried to explain the first time around. I am making the point that the Government showed no interest in what was going on with Morrisons, nor the merits of what was happening.

Coming back to steel, the Government have belatedly woken up. Before I was intervened on, I was actually going to say that perhaps there are signs of improvement on this front. The Government have shown some interest in improving things, because there are amendments in the Budget that would give the Secretary of State for International Trade powers to overrule the recommendations of the Trade Remedies Authority. I am therefore mildly hopeful that we are seeing an improvement in policy and approach from the Government on that measure alone.