Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [Lords]

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Thursday 11th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

And a very good one too!

[Saqib Bhatti]

I appreciate the positive remarks. I can assure you that no business in the tourism and hospitality sector would advocate a levy on people coming to stay, especially when you yourself have accepted—

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Huddleston]

I will come on to the financial contributions in a moment.

The new clause would or could inadvertently discourage people from staying overnight in Birmingham and the west midlands at games time—the very time we want to welcome the world to the west midlands and when the region is doing whatever it can to increase visitors and the opportunities generated by the games. On top of that, even though we do not charge a tourism tax in the UK, we charge full VAT on hotel stays, which many other countries do not. Many other countries do not charge full VAT rates on hospitality and leisure.

Furthermore, local authorities have a range of existing revenue-raising and fundraising powers that they could explore to support them to meet financial contributions that are associated with events such as the Commonwealth games. Most important, the council has always been clear that it can and will deliver its financial commitments to the games without the need for a hotel tax. As ever, we remain in close contact with the council on all aspects of the games, including the budget. It is also worth noting that early analysis of the financial impact of covid-19 has demonstrated that the additional costs arising from the pandemic can be met from the existing games budget.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, I have managed to elicit a direct response from the fabulous Mayor of the West Midlands to the suggestion that there is a black hole in his budget. Rather than test your patience with a long intervention, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall reserve his comments for the House if I catch your eye on Third Reading.

[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention and look forward to his contribution on Third Reading.

There should be no increase in Birmingham’s financial contribution. Although we recognise the additional pressures that local authorities are under in dealing with the covid-19 pandemic, central Government have already announced additional funding of £3.2 billion to support that.

All games partners continue to work closely together to ensure that any additional cost resulting from covid-19 can be absorbed in the current budget so as not to increase Birmingham’s financial contribution to the games, to which it has already committed without the need for a hotel tax. That close partnership and working relationship will ensure that we deliver a memorable games with lasting benefits in Birmingham and the west midlands. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Wirral South to withdraw the motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mitchell]

I will start where the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) finished, but before I do I congratulate both Front Benchers on, if I may use a sporting analogy, being thrown in the deep end in order to take the Bill through. They both spoke really well about the importance of the games and of the Bill. They also both look very fit and well following the dreadful lockdown, which has affected us all. I may be stretching a point, but perhaps we will see them both training in Sutton Park, which will play such an important part in the games.

The Bill provides an optimistic and encouraging moment because, as the hon. Lady said, it gives us a chance to look beyond the acute challenges that our country is facing at the moment and is genuinely something to look forward to. Boy, are we going to need it. Quite apart from the games, the sport, the fun and the excitement, all of which mean so much to so many people around the world, for us in the west midlands it is about the boost to our local economy, which we all know we must maximise. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create thousands of jobs, new homes and a massive improvement to the public realm.

At a local level in Sutton Coldfield, we are delighted that our historic park is going to come into active use. It is the place where King Henry VIII used to hunt and where soldiers undertook their training in trench warfare before heading off to the western front in the first world war, and it was also visited by Her Majesty the Queen and 30,000 others to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the scouting movement in 1957. In Sutton Coldfield, we will proudly host the triathlon for the games.

In a virtual meeting with the leadership team of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth games, I was pleased to hear about the progress. Nearly three quarters of a billion pounds is involved, and it will leave a tremendous legacy. Locally, I was pleased to hear from the leadership of the Commonwealth games committee that co-operation with Royal Sutton Coldfield Town Council under its leader Simon Ward has been going so well.

My constituents will hopefully benefit greatly from the improved infrastructure in our park, which I believe is the largest municipal park in Europe. It will improve the facilities to be used, including for future events. The gain is not just for businesses locally, but for jobs, community projects and volunteering. The games will require 10,000 local volunteers to welcome people from all over the Commonwealth, as well as to perform in the opening and closing ceremonies and to host athletes and teams at sporting facilities for training purposes. In Sutton Coldfield, we are deeply grateful for the opportunities and very excited by the prospects.

We need to ensure, as the Minister made clear, that all the different organisations involved play their part and work together from now on until the games open. I have worked extremely closely over the past three months with Birmingham City Council and, in particular, with the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne). He and I co-chair a committee that tries to bring together all the local interests in order that we can tackle some of the problems that affect us across Birmingham.

I will leave others to underline the importance of the council’s role and local government, if I may. Instead, I want to refer to the role of the Mayor and the West Midlands Combined Authority, which is absolutely crucial both for the games and for the legacy. I have seen what the London Olympics have done for the east end of London. In particular, through the legacy that went on afterwards, including with the International Inspiration programme chaired by Lord Coe, I saw the huge ability of sport not only to energise children and improve education, also to help health, education and vaccination in the developing world. There is a huge importance to focusing on the legacy that will follow in all its many forms.

I salute the efforts of Andy Street, our Mayor. He was teased, I think, by the right hon. Gentleman earlier about the so-called black hole in the budget. I have said to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I have, through the miracles of modern technology, been able to elicit a response from the Mayor. He said this:

“There is no black hole. Every year, the West Midlands Combined Authority has lived within its budget—both in-year finances and also within investment ceilings. It has been well managed and for example at last week’s board the annual finance review was fully accepted. Citizens of the west midlands have not paid a penny for a Tory mayor, but over £2 billion of new Government cash has been brought into the region since Andy Street was elected. Yes, we are still short of funds for some investments, but they are steadily closing as further new investment comes in.”

Those are the other words of Andy Street, delivered through me to the House on this important point this afternoon.

[Liam Byrne]

That was a fantastic defence of the Mayor, and it only lacks the very best wishes conveyed to the Mayor of the West Midlands on the occasion of his birthday today. None the less, all I would ask by way of intervention is for the Mayor to speak to his finance director, because during the transition talks before the mayoral elections were cancelled, it was not my analysis that revealed the £1.2 billion black hole; it was the analysis of his finance director. Admittedly, it took her three weeks to crunch the numbers and produce that figure. This is a gentle ask, I suppose, that we work together to try to repair this rather large hole that the WMCA finance director herself has identified.

[Mr Mitchell]

It is extremely decent of the right hon. Gentleman, given his current position, to send his best wishes to the Mayor on his birthday. I am sure the Mayor will receive them, if not from one of us Conservative Members then over the airwaves. I reassure the right hon. Gentleman and the House that the Mayor of the West Midlands needs no lectures on financial success, financial ability or financial probity: he ran John Lewis, one of the most respected and most brilliant retail organisations in the country. I have no doubt whatsoever that we are all grateful for that experience, which he is sharing with the people of the west midlands through his mayoralty.

The Mayor has personally lobbied for £21.3 million to support the TTI—tourism trade and investment—programme to maximise the Commonwealth games opportunity, and that is, of course, in addition to the Mayor’s pivotal role in securing for Perry Barr, in respect of the games, £165 million of housing infrastructure fund money, which will help to regenerate a swathe of north Birmingham and leave a legacy of additional housing. All that was agreed in the March Budget this year, and last week, on 5 June, the West Midlands Combined Authority signed off a further £2.6 million as a regional contribution to the programme.

Given the current economic impact of covid-19, all that will have even greater significance, as it will enable us to raise the profile of the region’s businesses and to promote trade and work to secure jobs. In that respect, I particularly welcome the focus that the Mayor, the WMCA and all its partners have placed on using the opportunity of the games to accelerate and improve regional skills and employment opportunities. To help to achieve that, we have the new Commonwealth jobs and skills academy; the Mayor has put £1 million of the devolved adult education budget into funding technical skills for the development for the games.

The £100,000 skills hub in Perry Barr, in partnership with the main contractor, Lendlease, is very encouraging. We know that the construction industry in our region will need 50,000 more trained staff by 2030. The hub, funded by the WMCA, offers local people free skills training and a guaranteed job interview once a 20-day course has been completed. We hope the programme will help 4,600 young people and 2,600 unemployed people to gain skills, experience and then jobs. The games will also benefit, along with the rest of us in the region, from the wider transport investment programme that the Mayor is promoting, including the expansion of the metro network and investment in the rail network.

Having looked at severely local and regional aspects and aspirations, I wish to end by considering the international dimension, to which the hon. Member for Wirral South referred towards the end of her speech, and the Commonwealth itself. By ensuring that the world-class games succeed and bring pleasure to millions, perhaps billions, of people around the globe, Britain underlines the community of nations that is the Commonwealth. It is a north-south organisation, a family of countries co-operating in many different ways. At a time when narrow nationalism is rampant and the case for the international rules-based system is severely on the back foot, let us hope that the games will remind us all that we have much to gain from international co-operation and much to lose when the structures that sustain it breakdown.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

This is a debate of many firsts. It is the first I have sat in with my friend and neighbour the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards) and to which here we have both contributed, and it is probably the first in which three of the four Members from Sandwell Metropolitan Borough area have been on the Government Benches at the same time. It is also the first debate in which I have found myself agreeing with the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne). His speech hit most of the points. I do not agree with him on most things, but in fairness it was a very good speech, so I thank him for that.

It is not often that I come to a Third Reading debate so excitable—and no, it is not just because you are in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, or because I get to head back to Tipton soon. It is fantastic to talk about what is at the core of this debate: opportunity. That has been highlighted by all the speakers so far. Areas and communities such as mine are crying out for this opportunity to grow and invest.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards) was right when she said that nearly 1.5 million people would be visiting the west midlands during the games. This is our time to shine. That point was echoed by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), who put it very eloquently. The influx of visitors to the west midlands will put it back on the map. Our Mayor, Andy Street, has been advocating at every level to ensure that the west midlands has its voice heard during the games.

The urban west midlands is made up of some of the most diverse and unique communities in the whole country. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East and other Members who represent the West Midlands Combined Authority area would agree that what works in one part of the west midlands, particularly in our borough of Sandwell, might not work in another—go half an hour down the road and suggest it and you will get some raised eyebrows. Indeed, what works in West Brom might not get looked at the same way in Tipton, but that is the joy of our area—that diversity, that coming forward with views, that straight talking is what makes me so proud to be a west midlands and black country MP.

Before I turn to my main comments, I want to make a more sober point about security. As we saw last week, our police are heroes; we cannot deny that. What they put up with last week was abhorrent. It was disgusting, and I want to put it on record that all police officers in this country are unsung heroes, and they deserve our praise and support.

We need to make sure that visitors to the games feel supported and safe and that they can come here without fear of crime. I have talked a lot in this Chamber about the effect that crime has had on my communities in west Sandwell, and nowhere more so than in Tipton, which is set to lose its police station this summer. I must reiterate my utter opposition to that move. It undermines the safety of our communities and, I am sorry, but when the police and crime commissioner can spend £38 million on his ivory tower at Lloyd House but cannot save the police station in one of my most vulnerable communities, that is absolutely out of order. It shows a complete lack of priorities from the administration there.

[Mr Mitchell]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the police and crime commissioner is also trying to close the police station in the royal town of Sutton Coldfield?

[Shaun Bailey]

I am indeed, and I am very aware of the campaign that my right hon. Friend has been running to keep the police station open in the royal town.

Security will be key and we need to make sure that people feel safe. I have every confidence that our west midlands police officers will do that. They are, in my view, the best police force in the world, and I am proud of the work that they have done across our community to support cohesion and diversity and to keep our communities safe. I put on record my thanks to them.

I turn to my main point, which is about long-term opportunity, and that comes in the form of long-term investment. Many Members have made points about the crisis we find ourselves in and the economic crisis that we will go into. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) said that we need about £3.2 billion of investment to deal with the jobs crisis. These Commonwealth games go some way towards doing that, but they are not a fix-all. However, their timing could not be better. We need to ensure that we have those long-term opportunities to battle the threat of long-term and increased unemployment, which will happen. My area and the communities that I represent —Wednesbury, Oldbury and Tipton—were absolutely decimated by unemployment last time. I do not want to see that happen again and I will be fighting to make sure that it does not.

The point about community is absolutely crucial. I am very proud to represent Tipton. Many Government and Opposition Members have heard me go on and on about the town. I love Tipton, mainly because it is an underdog. Many people often call Tipton the forgotten city and that makes me angry, because nowhere in this country should be forgotten, and why should Tipton? Why should the people of Tipton feel that they do not matter? People might think that it is a joke or that it is funny, but it is not, because those communities are crying out. When I stood in a school in Tipton and spoke to those students, I took a straw poll and said, “How many of you will come back here once you have done whatever qualification it is you decide to do?”, and 80% of those kids said that they will not come back. That is the reason why we need these games and the long-term investment and opportunities that come out of them. It is for those kids in that school, because they should feel proud of the town and community they come from, and they should feel that they will come back there and live their lives in that community.

The fact is that if we are going to enhance these opportunities, we need to ensure that we respect the fact that the urban west midlands in particular is a patchwork of individual socioeconomic areas. Yes, the games will be in Birmingham, but as many right hon. and hon. Members have said, we need to ensure that the benefits transfer across the urban west midlands, and I am proud of the fact that that will happen. As hon. Members have pointed out, we will have the aquatics centre in Smethwick, in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar), but if we think back to the long-term legacy, we need to look as well at encouraging innovation.

I have been really impressed by the engagement from the Commonwealth games team and the fact that it wants to secure local procurement and local jobs, but we need to tie that into ensuring that we get whatever residual investment comes out of that into Black Country innovation, because that is what makes the Black Country —things such as the Wood Green Academy in Wednesbury making personal protective equipment, and Q3 Academy in Tipton currently completely diversifying the way it teaches its students. It is about latching on to the core principle of ingenuity in the Black Country and that residual investment as it comes through over the years—not just in 2022, but in 2032 and 2042—and absolutely maximising it, so that Tipton is never forgotten again.

I will draw my remarks to a close, because I appreciate that I have been talking for some time and, as one of my predecessors said, sometimes it is better to be a bit quicker and leave them wanting more. We need to join this up; we need to ensure that the opportunity and investment that comes out of these games benefits the whole of west midlands, from Tipton to Tettenhall, from Perry Barr to Princes End, from Wolverhampton to Wednesbury and from Clitheroe to Burnt Tree—