Better Jobs and a Fair Deal at Work

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It was an engaging speech by the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), and he made some important specific points that I am sure the Government will bear in mind. I wonder, however, whether he will accept this more fundamental point. In the 2019 election, when the country was looking for a person who could identify opportunities as the country went through substantial changes to its economic relationships by leaving the European Union, and a person who had the ambition and drive to fulfil those opportunities, it chose my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. As we reflect on the elections last week, will he also accept that although there was a substantial amount of support for the successful vaccine roll-out, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor’s support for such a vast array of activity across Government was also rewarded by the public? Those fundamental points of trust in the Prime Minister and in his ambitions for this country are resonating with the public and are reflected in the Queen’s Speech, which I wholeheartedly support.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the only person to whom the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) should be directing his comments in respect of fire and rehire, as the events of the weekend showed, is the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer)?

[Richard Fuller]

My hon. Friend, as is customary, makes a poignant point, which I am sure will be reflected on with glee by those on the Opposition Front Bench.

The longer context for this Queen’s Speech is that, since 2010, the thread all the way through has been a focus on the value of work. In the first period of 2010 to 2015, a lot of that was about benefit reform, so that people who had to go out to work did not look at their neighbours and think, “Well, they’ve got a better life living on benefits”. The second part was the Conservative Government implementing a living wage commitment—a commitment this Government continue with. The third, which we are seeing in this Queen’s Speech, is the identification that ultimately what we are looking for is a lifelong commitment from the Government to support people’s skills development.

What is so exciting about the skills and post-16 education Bill is that it is starting to focus on potential. It does not matter who someone is, where they are, how rich they are or how poor they are; what matters is what their potential is for this country. However, I would urge the Government to look at three ways of going a bit further. First, can we broaden even further the scope of what we understand as potential? As we have seen, potential can come in academic potential and it can come in skills potential, but it can also come in commercial potential and it can come in artistic and creative potential. Where are the mechanisms—creative mechanisms—for those talents and for unlocking that potential?

Secondly, can we also get a better balance of where the risks for taking part in these programmes comes? At the moment, all of the financial risk lies on the person choosing what they decide to do. As a paper by Peter Ainsworth on the education, enterprise and giving-back grant suggests, institutions should have more skin in the game. There should be a sharing of risks between the institutions that are trying to tap into and unlock that potential and the individual who is seeking such forward movement.

Thirdly, why is there not an opportunity now to have more competition both between types of providers for Government resources—between the academic track or the skills track, and potentially the commercial track or the artistic track—and within those types, between universities, based on an accountability of how well institutions are fulfilling potential?

There are a number of measures in the speech that are particularly relevant to the people of Bedfordshire. The commitments on air pollution will be particularly relevant to people in Sandy and other parts of the community along the A1 corridor. I welcome, cautiously, the Government’s obesity strategies, but I worry that some of the measures may inadvertently harm certain producers, including Jordans, which is a manufacturer of healthy cereals in my constituency.

I firmly welcome the Government’s commitments to drug and alcohol rehabilitation in criminal justice, which was such a crucial part of the successful election of Festus Akinbusoye as police and crime commissioner of Bedfordshire last week. On planning, I echo the concerns that other Members have mentioned.

I do think the Government need to make sure that the 1 million existing approvals are actioned—that there is a tax and build schedule—otherwise the Government will not just face a northern powerhouse group on the Back Benches, but have a southern alliance to tackle.

Finally, looking across the Atlantic, one wonders how powerful countries and empires end. There are two substantial ways they do so in peacetime: the first is that Governments spend too much, and then tax their populations beyond their tolerance to take it; and the second is that Governments debase their currency, and then inflation lets rip and destroys savings. Let us make sure that, as a fundamental part of this, we maintain and hold up the probity of public finance.

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[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

There is so much to welcome and so much ambition, yet I have so little time to welcome, on behalf of the constituents of Arundel and South Downs, what was in Her Majesty’s Speech yesterday. There were tougher sentences for dangerous drivers; fairer immigration; an ambitious environment Bill to clean our air, purify our rivers and boost biodiversity; and, for so many people, the lifetime skills guarantee, giving them a second chance at a first-class life.

As a member of the Science and Technology Committee, I look forward to a record £22 billion of funding coursing through our labs and catapult and research centres while the Advanced Research and Invention Agency brings disruptive and dynamic thinking to play in that world.

Every citizen and taxpayer should celebrate and quiver with excitement about our new plans to reform procurement; to cut red tape; to allow small businesses to participate on an equal footing; to allow us to buy British; and to streamline the 300 different regulations through which people who are trying to sell services to Government currently have to jump. Over the life of this Government, £1.5 trillion of spending will be procured—that is a great opportunity to improve the quality of services for our citizens and value for money for taxpayers.

Let me conclude on a subject that Her Majesty mentioned that I am very passionate about. We can all be proud that Britain is a world leader on climate action. While some Opposition Members talk about the climate emergency, we are getting on and solving it. We were the first to put a 2050 net zero target into law, and our target of a 68% reduction on our 1990 emissions is one of the most ambitious of any country on the planet.

We have the fastest growth in renewable energy of any G20 nation and some of the most ambitious targets. By contrast, a German child born today will be leaving school before her country stops burning coal, in the year 2038. It is not just energy; we are an automotive green leader in the world. The last combustion engine in the UK will be sold in 2030, while across the channel our French friends will be rolling out combustion-engine-driven vehicles for another 10 years, until 2040.

The reason we can make so much progress so quickly is that we Conservatives believe in the ferocious problem-solving power of free enterprise and free markets—that human ingenuity and innovation are the answer, not delaying ambulances with street protests or blockading a free press. With the right frameworks, business is the solution not the problem, and just as global capitalism has lifted billions out of poverty and transformed the length of human life, and just as we have seen with the vaccine development, so too will it be business that actually solves the climate crisis.