Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Young]

I will absolutely look into those concerns and ensure that my officials can meet my hon. Friend to discuss them further.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The success or otherwise of levelling up will be tested by whether people in communities feel better off and whether inequalities in those communities are removed. What assessment has the Minister made of an area such as Tameside, which has had three successful levelling-up bids, but feels poorer because its council is £200 million worse off?

Teesworks Joint Venture

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for bringing that up. I repeat that we have just had an independent inquiry—an independent inquiry which went through a process that the Labour party, when last in government, set up. If the Labour party is so desperate to have an independent inquiry into the Tees Valley after one has already been completed, I would love to hear from them where their calls are for independent inquiries into Birmingham, Croydon, Slough and Liverpool, all areas where mistakes have been made by Labour administrations but which they do not want to talk about.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The report into the Teesworks joint venture highlights gaps in the oversight and accountability of mayoral development corporations and such joint ventures. Given that the mechanisms of mayoral development corporations are being rolled out across England, will the Minister say what thoughts he and his Department have given to greater scrutiny and probity not just of the work of metro mayors, but in particular of the work of mayoral development corporations?

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. Mayors and mayoral development corporations have the potential to be transformative for their areas, and both Conservative and Labour mayors have clearly made significant progress on that over the past decade or so. As I said in my opening remarks, we will carefully consider the recommendation that has been brought forward for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, but it is absolutely important to remember—I will say it once more for the avoidance of doubt—that the charge was corruption and illegality and that has been proven to be incorrect. The report states that it is incorrect, and it is important that that is on the record and repeated again and again and again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Young]

We have invited the combined authority areas that the hon. Gentleman mentions to progress to level 4 devolution, which as he rightly says does not come with a single settlement. It is something that we are still considering, and when we see it in action in the west midlands and Greater Manchester we will be able to assess its value for money and whether it is delivering for people there. I assure him that this is not devolution-minus; we are giving devolution-plus to communities the length and breadth of the country.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I am a big supporter of devolution to city regions such as Greater Manchester, and I welcome a number of the Government’s proposals to shift even more powers and responsibility from this place to the combined authority and Mayor, but does the Minister understand the disappointment of Greater Manchester MPs of all political persuasions in the proposals for greater scrutiny by MPs? One question at meetings, with a supplementary at the discretion of the chair, just does not cut it.

[Jacob Young]

I held a session for Greater Manchester MPs on the scrutiny protocol. I cannot remember whether the hon. Gentleman was there, but I am happy to hold a further session with him. The scrutiny protocol is not yet in place; it is a work in progress, which we are trying to establish in partnership with MPs. We want to know what would work well for MPs in the scrutiny sessions.

Levelling Up

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Young]

I am delighted to be able to give my hon. Friend’s constituency the funding this time around. She is an extremely efficient champion for the people of Derbyshire, and I am delighted that we have been able to fund the project.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I can be one of this Government’s sharpest critics, often justifiably, but today I thank the Minister and his predecessor, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison), whom I harassed relentlessly since the round two bid for Denton was rejected. I am so pleased that today “Destination Denton”, the project that we put forward, will receive nearly £17 million. Given that I am the constituency Member of Parliament, and was involved in putting the bid together, what assurances can the Minister give me that I will be involved in ensuring that the project comes to fruition?

[Jacob Young]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words. We expect local authorities to work with their Members of Parliament, who are key community stakeholders, in delivering the bids. A project adjustment request process is available to local authorities if projects need to be adjusted because of changes in inflation and so on; a key thing that I asked for is that Members of Parliament be consulted in that process, and I will ensure that the hon. Gentleman is consulted at all turns.

Voter Identification Scheme

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my hon. Friend for his suggestions. It is right that we look at all the practical barriers that have been encountered at polling stations. That is why we are working closely with the sector to listen to its feedback and to representations from civil society, disability charities and others. We know that where voter identification was trialled in pilots, the proportion of people who agreed that electoral fraud was not a problem increased from 13% to 32%. We know that most people were able to vote successfully in both the pilot and the last local elections, but it is right to look at all the details, and we will be doing so, in line with the Electoral Commission’s recommendations.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

If we are to have voter ID at the next general election, which we will, will the Minister seriously look at extending the amount of ID that is acceptable? It is unfathomable that a concessionary bus pass is acceptable, but an 18-year-old’s bus pass is not.

[Rachel Maclean]

I would like the hon. Gentleman to look carefully at the eligibility for 18-year-old Oyster cards and 60-plus Oyster cards, because they are different. Eligibility for the 60-plus card involves significantly more requirements, including a passport or driving licence. Of course, when we try to expand the forms of identification that can be used, we are going to say yes in some instances and no in others if the eligibility is different.

Leasehold Reform

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work that his Committee has done on this issue over a long period of time. As he said, there is no reason that this should continue except for a lack of political will to do what we have all acknowledged is the right thing.

Into this absurd scenario steps the current Secretary of State. I know that the right hon. Gentleman has the right intentions—indeed, his record has been clear. On 9 June last year, he told this place:

“it is absolutely right that we end the absurd, feudal system of leasehold, which restricts people’s rights in a way that is indefensible in the 21st century.”—[Official Report, 9 June 2022; Vol. 715, c. 978.]

On 30 January this year, he said in response to a question I posed to him:

“Finally, the hon. Lady asked if we will maintain our commitment to abolish the feudal system of leasehold. We absolutely will. We will bring forward legislation shortly.”—[Official Report, 30 January 2023; Vol. 727, c. 49.]

Now, we are told that the Secretary of State was being too maximalist. We have had grumbling from Government Back Benchers that the Secretary of State is being too socialist. Downing Street has stepped in, plans are being rowed back and he is not even able to set foot in the Chamber today. It is a bit of a mess, isn’t it?

In just a few months, the Government’s whole housing policy has completely unravelled. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) said, they crashed the economy and sent mortgages through the roof. They caved in to their own Back Benchers and, in one stroke, ensured that their own housing targets were not worth the paper they were written on. That led to dozens of councils reducing or halting altogether their house building plans, and a collapse in the projected number of houses built in coming years, in the middle of a housing crisis. The Home Builders Federation warned earlier this year that new housing supply in England would soon fall to its lowest level since the second world war.

While the Government are locked in internal battles on making basic improvements for renters, their Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill—their flagship legislation that was supposed to reform an archaic planning system—is stuck in the House of Lords, where it is commonly referred to as the Christmas tree Bill, as it has so many amendments attached to it. It does make us wonder what is actually the point of this Government.

The Secretary of State was clear that he would abolish leasehold. No one thought that it would be done overnight. The Law Commission report sets out a clear road map on enfranchisement, commonhold and the right to manage. The major leasehold groups have always recognised that it would take some time to phase out this archaic system, and so have we, but there is no excuse for inaction on the manifesto commitment to end the sale of new private leasehold houses, or for delaying the start of the process of phasing out existing leasehold and making commonhold the default of the future, as my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) has often said.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is setting out a compelling case for why leasehold needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history. It is not just the feudal system that needs to go but the sharp practices that go along with it. I have constituents who live in their own home. They do not own the land it is built on—they rent it—but they are not able to make even the most basic alterations to their house without getting the permission of the landowner, who then charges extortionate fees. That is just wrong, isn’t it?

[Lisa Nandy]

My hon. Friend is right. People who have bought their own home should have the right to change their doorbells and make basic alterations without seeking the permission of someone they have never met and will never meet. In many cases, they do not even know who that is. I pay tribute to him for his campaigning on this issue and for standing up for his constituents.

I ask Ministers to take this issue back to the Secretary of State when they next see him. He will know that the delay is a significant setback for leaseholders, who have been left waiting for far too long, and for all of those who have campaigned so hard and for so long and thought they could finally see the light at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel. Let me place on record our thanks to Katie Kendrick at the National Leasehold Campaign and Commonhold Now for all they continue to do. Tireless advocates in this place include my hon. Friends the Members for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) and for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), and the father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley).

I hope that the Minister will be keen to talk about legislation that we are told will be forthcoming in the autumn. The Labour party strongly believes that it is a no-brainer to crack down on unfair fees and contract terms, to require transparency on service charges and to give leaseholders the right to challenge rip-off fees and conditions or poor performance, along the lines we have heard about from many Members present.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Western]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is incredibly complex and extremely expensive to go through that process.

The last Labour Government’s Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 introduced commonhold as a new tenure, which this Government should have pursued over the past 13 years. Progress was not made for two reasons: the conversion from leasehold to commonhold requires consent from everyone with an interest in the property, as my hon. Friend just said; and developers do not want to build new commonhold developments because there is no incentive and no financial upside, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) highlighted. This Government have ignored these exploitative practices, and the ever-louder calls from the public to end them, for 13 years. They launched the Commonhold Council two years ago, so will the Minister update us on what has happened with that? It appears to be nothing.

The public are aware of the Conservative Government’s broken promises. Their 2019 manifesto promised to address this issue by implementing a

“ban on the sale of new leasehold homes”.

That has not happened. Even the Housing Secretary admitted that they should end this “absurd, feudal” system, but we are 13 years on from the last Labour Government and nothing has happened. This Government have let down the public. I appreciate that there is a high incidence of these cases in the north-west England, but there are also some in my constituency. Groups of residents across my local towns are keen to take control of the development of their blocks, but it is too expensive and complicated to do so, as many Members have been saying. In one block of 70 flats, the residents have managed to take that on, but the previous managing agent took £76,000 from the residents’ account and they have not been able to recover the money. The residents are keen to ensure that managing agents are better regulated in any proposed legislation.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) said, there is so much sharp practice out there. That is why Labour would implement the three Law Commission 2020 reports in full. They included measures designed to make it easier for leaseholders to convert to commonhold; to allow shared ownership leases to be included within commonhold; to give owners a greater say over how the costs of running their commonhold are met; and to ensure that they have sufficient funds for future repairs and emergency works.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend mentioned sharp practices, which I mentioned to those on the Labour Front Bench at this debate’s opening. I can give many examples from my constituency, but one of the latest involves leasehold companies, or their agents, sending out innocuous questionnaires to people about improvements they may have had done to their homes. People are filling those in and sending them back in good faith, and then getting a bill for the privilege.

[Matt Western]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that, and I have examples of that in my constituency; letters will suddenly appear demanding, let us say, £13,000 from each and every resident for changes that have been made and claims of service.

For some time, Labour has been pressing the Government to bring forward the promised leasehold reform part 2 Bill and to ensure it contains those recommendations set out in the Law Commission reports of 2020. As I mentioned at the outset, we have had so many scandals associated with property and mis-selling over the years, including endowment mortgages. There is now an entire parasitic industry surrounding home ownership in this country and it needs to be addressed. The situation is so much better in other countries around the world.

Twenty-one years ago, Labour introduced the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. For the past 13 years, the Government have not seen this issue as a priority. The developers are profiteering and there is a correlation between the profits being made by those companies and the exploitative practices that go on around leasehold developments. This is a scandal and Labour in government will bring an end to it.

Voter ID

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 27th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I refer the hon. Lady to my earlier remarks, where I answered the question clearly.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I think the Minister was in her place when my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) answered my question at Electoral Commission questions. There is only a week left until the local elections, and the Minister knows there are a number of immuno- compromised people for whom catching covid could still be deadly. They will be required to remove their face masks at the polling station. Can she look urgently at getting that changed in time for Thursday, so that those people who can prove they are immunocompromised do not face the requirement to remove their face mask in order to get a ballot paper?

[Rachel Maclean]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the remarks I made when questioned on this precise point earlier. I also refer him to the remarks made in great detail by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), who was answering for the Electoral Commission, about all the work that has gone on to make sure we protect public health in this situation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dehenna Davison]

My hon. Friend is a fantastic champion for Rother Valley, and I know that two of his councillors who have been championing this project are sitting in the Gallery—Councillor Ball and Councillor Mills—and I thank them for their dedication. This project is due to provide almost £20 million for local regeneration schemes, including in Dinnington and Wath upon Dearne, but that is of course in addition to Rotherham’s two successful levelling-up fund schemes in the first round, worth a total of £39.5 million. Labour let the Rother Valley down, but the Conservatives are levelling it up.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Thornley Lane North is literally the boundary between Denton and Reddish, and the Minister will not understand the incredulity of local residents to see these huge electronic billboards plastered with “Levelling up”. Denton did not succeed in round 2 of the levelling-up fund. Reddish did not succeed in round 1. What is the Minister going to do to help me level up Denton and Redditch, rather than leaving us out?

[Dehenna Davison]

I am certainly happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss those levelling-up projects. We have had a huge swathe of fantastic projects that have been funded around the country.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The Chancellor closed his Budget last week proclaiming that “the plan is working”. But as has been pointed out time and again, the OECD has confirmed that the UK will be the weakest economy in the G7 this year. Living standards have taken the biggest hit since comparable records began, and the average French family are now a tenth richer than their British counterparts. None of those figures scream to me that the plan is working. Instead, they speak of a sad truth: the Tories have mismanaged our economy and have catastrophically failed to level up and invest in our communities.

I will not pretend that the new devolution deal for Greater Manchester is not welcome. The Greater Manchester Combined Authority and the Mayor’s office have been working around the clock to secure the deal, and I am pleased that they have negotiated a settlement that will assist the ongoing work in the region. I am particularly pleased to see support for the integration of the Bee Network. Transport connectivity is key to growing the economy—something the Government would do well to consider before handing another six-month contract to the failing rail operator Avanti.

While positive, the devolution deal does not absolve the Government of their failure to level up. After all, the deals for Greater Manchester and the West Midlands only grant extra powers to 9% of the population. The other 91% remain tied to the economic disaster of successive Tory Governments in Westminster.

Let us take a moment to assess whether the levelling-up plan is working. Bloomberg’s 2023 levelling-up scorecard shows that since 2019 people across Denton and Reddish have seen their salaries, access to affordable housing, life expectancy and broadband coverage all fall or remain the same. The report also shows that overall Government spending has declined in my local area. The Government can talk about growing the economy until they are blue in the face, but those words feel particularly hollow to the people I represent and the communities in my constituency. They have less money in their pockets and they are struggling to put food on the table and heat their homes.

Those words also feel hollow to me. I have tried countless times to secure levelling-up investment both for Denton and for Reddish. Most recently, I backed Tameside Council’s levelling-up fund bid to transform Denton town centre. It would have enabled Tameside Council to significantly improve Denton Festival Hall, with a new neighbourhood hub for children’s services and new NHS primary care services. As with the earlier Stockport bid for Reddish, the Denton bid was rejected. That is just not good enough, not least because my town is plastered full of levelling-up posters with nothing to show for it.

It does not need to be that way. I want to see rapid investment in good jobs for the future, and better salaries and working conditions for the people I represent. I want to see more powers handed to local communities, an end to “The Hunger Games”-style bidding process and an investment that benefits working people instead. Labour is the party that has a plan to deliver that. The Tory Budget was nowhere near bold enough. Sadly, economic growth is just another slogan for this Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr McFadden]

I am not going to give way; I am going to proceed.

One thing was not leaked, however, and that was the Chancellor’s plan to abolish the pensions lifetime allowance—a £1.2 billion policy that will benefit those with the biggest 1% of pension pots. Let us be clear: there is a problem facing doctors, and it has existed for years. In the run-up to the Budget, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), the shadow Health Secretary, called for a special scheme to deal with the issue facing doctors, which is forcing some of them to retire early. That call was supported by the Chancellor when he was Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee. His report said:

“The government must act swiftly to reform the NHS pension scheme to prevent senior staff from reducing their hours and retiring early from the NHS.”

That is exactly what the shadow Health Secretary proposed.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr McFadden]

I am going to proceed.

Such a scheme already exists for judges, but when the shadow Health Secretary made that call, he was attacked by the Tories, who said it was financial profligacy and unaffordable—and let us remember that that was only a scheme directed at the NHS. A Conservative spokesman said:

“Now they announce an expensive pensions policy without pointing to how they would fund it”,

adding that the shadow Health Secretary should think about the impact on the public finances. And what did the Tories do then? They said, “Wes, hold my beer.” Just days later, having denounced a smaller NHS scheme as being completely unaffordable, they proposed to abolish the entire lifetime allowance for everyone. According to the Tory argument, it is completely unaffordable for doctors alone, so we are going to propose it for everyone.

However, that was not always the Tories’ view. They used to think that,

“we must demonstrate that we are all in this together. When looking for savings, I think that it is fair to look at the tax relief that we give to the top 1%.”—[Official Report, 5 December 2012; Vol. 554, c. 878.]

Who was the ideologically suspect pinko who said that? Who was that anti-aspirational enemy of enterprise? It was, of course, George Osborne. That is how far they have moved. They used at least to claim we are were all in this together; now they do not even pretend.

Growth is the essential challenge facing the country. We need better growth to make the country more prosperous and its people better off. Right now, in the United States, growth is being driven by the Inflation Reduction Act sucking in investment in new technologies and the green transition, and creating jobs right across the country. Europe is responding with incentives of its own. What is the Government’s position? It is that this is “dangerous”, as the previous Business Secretary said. Other countries are on the pitch; they are using the power of government to crowd in private investment. That is exactly what we should be doing. This is not about the state doing it all; it is about setting a clear, long-term direction, and asking business and employees to be partners in making that work.

Those investments will happen somewhere. The question we pose is: why not in Britain? Why not in Britain when we have some of the best researchers in the world? Why not in Britain when we have a tradition of innovation and creativity that is second to none? Why not in Britain? Because we lack a Government with the ambition to make it happen. In the end, that is what was missing from this Budget.

The Chancellor and the Prime Minister want to project themselves as the adults in the room, but with the challenges that the country faces, that is not enough. It is not enough just not to be reckless and ideological; it is not enough just not to subject the country to another giant juvenile experiment with real-world consequences; it is not enough just not to degrade the idea of public office itself; it is not enough for them not to be their disastrous predecessors. The country deserves a lot more than that. It needs a Government who will break with, not continue, the last 13 years, and who will break with the whole pattern of low growth, high tax and creaking public services. That is what we need, and that is what we did not get from the Budget last week.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)]

What a privilege it is to close this four-day Budget debate on behalf of the Government. I thank the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) for his remarks—for someone who moved from being the high disciple of Tony Blair to sitting in a Cabinet where there was “no money left”, I think there was a lot of cheek in his remarks.

This Budget takes our collective potential and unleashes it to deliver sustainable long-term growth. We are now able to direct our attention to the future because of the difficult decisions that we took in the autumn, when we cemented stability and the prudent management of the nation’s finances, taking responsible, necessary decisions for the good of the economy—for the vulnerable, for families and for communities up and down this country. Since then, debt-servicing costs are down, mortgage rates are lower and inflation has peaked. We are heading in the right direction. The OBR’s clear assessment is that because of the action taken in the autumn, combined with the actions announced by the Chancellor last week, we are on track to meet all the Prime Minister’s economic pledges.

As has been famously said before, inflation is taxation without legislation. It makes us all poorer. That is why we said that we will halve it this year. Indeed, the OBR says that we will do more than that.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Will the Minister give way?

[John Glen]

No, I will not.

Inflation in the UK will fall from 10.7% in the final quarter of last year to 2.9% by the end of 2023. If debt is left unchecked, it acts as a ceiling on our economic potential. That is why we are bringing it down. Under this Government, we will pay our own way.

On growth—the focus of the Budget—there were those who said that we would fall into recession in 2023, but last week the OBR said that we will not enter a recession this year. Instead, after this year, the UK economy will grow in every single year of the forecast period, including by 2.5% in 2025. As we look to the future, we are now rolling out the biggest employment package ever, we are overhauling incentives to get businesses growing, and we are unleashing our green energy sector while supporting families and businesses with bills in the short term. But, contrary to the characterisation in many Opposition speeches today, there is no complacency from this Government. There will be no let-up in our relentless focus on enabling growth.

The subject of today’s debate is halving inflation, reducing debt and growing the economy. During the course of the debate, we have heard some excellent speeches from right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, and I would like to respond to some of them now. I will respond first to my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), one of my predecessors. Although he welcomed many measures in the Budget, he drew attention to the question of corporation tax. Let me draw his attention to the remarks of the Chancellor, who expressed his determination that the full expensing measure will be a permanent intervention of this Government.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), my parliamentary neighbour, for his constructive suggestions about the simplification of childcare. I also draw his attention to the fact that this Government have committed £492 million over this year and next to ease the supply for those who will provide our child support.

I also want to refer to the speech from my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne), who gave us a helpful contextualisation of the world economy and pointed out the fact that, contrary to what we heard in many Opposition speeches, since the Conservatives came to power in 2010 we have grown more than major countries such as France, Italy or Japan, and about the same as Europe’s largest economy, Germany. We have halved unemployment, cut inequality and reduced the number of workless households by 1 million. I also want to refer to my hon. Friend’s remarks on the pensions intervention. That was called for by many in the medical profession over many months, but our pension reforms benefit other experienced key workers as well as doctors, including headteachers, police chiefs, armed forces clinicians, senior armed forces personnel, air traffic controllers, prison governors, senior Government scientists, Government-employed vets and, yes, even senior people in the private sector who create jobs, sustaining growth across the economy.

I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), who had a characteristically clear understanding of how economic challenges will be met. He also mentioned the support of his local brain surgeon. Many more people working in the NHS are realising that within two weeks they will be able to continue working, knowing that their pensions are safe.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) for his remarks on defence expenditure. I suspect that there will never be enough money for him on defence, but he shows a clear understanding of the extra commitment the Chancellor has made in the Budget to invest in continuing to support our efforts in Ukraine.

There were many other worthwhile contributions from Members on both sides of the House, and I think it is important that we recognise that one of the major themes of this Budget was levelling up across the whole United Kingdom. I welcome the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell), who drew attention to the value of the announcements on nuclear, particularly Great British Nuclear, and the transformation that will bring to his economy and to the country as a whole.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dehenna Davison]

My hon. Friend is a great champion for his community and I would be happy to meet him to discuss this policy further.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The Minister knows that I am very supportive of the devolution of more powers to Greater Manchester, but one area that she needs to look at carefully is the increase in scrutiny that will be necessary at a very local level. As powers shift from this place, where scrutiny is strong, to local government, where scrutiny is not as strong as it perhaps ought to be, we need to look afresh at those powers.

[Dehenna Davison]

I could not agree with the hon. Gentleman more on that point. If powers are being handed to local areas, which I think we all agree is right, it is important that that comes with a proper scrutiny framework. That is why we will shortly be publishing a detailed devolution accountability framework, alongside the trailblazer deals.