Cathedrals Measure Diocesan Boards of Education Measure

Debate between Andrew Selous and Mark Tami

Tuesday 13th April 2021 General Committees

[Andrew Selous]

Thank you very much, Mr Gray. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks and particularly his welcome for the measures to improve safeguarding. The Archbishop of Canterbury is on record as being deeply apologetic about the Church of England’s abject failure in this area in the past, so it is absolutely incumbent on us to have the very best safeguarding procedures. I welcome what the hon. Gentleman has said, and we will endeavour to be as excellent as we possibly can in this area.

Turning to the disposal of land, if there were tenants or people living on that land, the Church of England would always seek to act in a sympathetic and appropriate way. The Commissioners have extensive land holdings up and down the country—commercial, to a lesser extent residential, and agricultural—and we pride ourselves on wanting to look after our tenants well. Obviously, this would be considered on a case-by-case basis, but having served on the board of the Commissioners for a year, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we take our responsibilities seriously when it comes to looking after our tenants.

[Mark Tami]

There are concerns about where people retire and then find themselves in a very different position: they do not have a home, and perhaps do not have the savings to purchase one. I know that is not within this particular measure.

[Andrew Selous]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s probing of this question. Although, as he said, it is slightly outside the scope of this measure, I know that where someone—like your very distinguished father, Mr Gray—has been a clergyman all their life and has moved from vicarage to vicarage, and then does not have their own property, the Church of England will provide property for that retired vicar and their family to live out their retirement in. Obviously, the ownership remains with the Church and will revert to the Church on their death, but I know of many examples where that has happened. Again, we take our responsibility to our clergy very seriously, and want to be a good employer.

Turning to the disposal of land gifted to a cathedral, again, it is probably a little bit difficult for me to comment without particular examples in front of us, but the Church would always seek to follow property law properly. We would always look at the intentions of the settlor in leaving the land to the Church. The Church does dispose of land from time to time—in my own diocese of St Albans, I know that Church land has been sold to provide the funding for our local multi-academy trust—so the Church very much does put its money where its mouth is to support mission and its current objectives.

[Mark Tami]

The fact that that provision is there obviously seems to imply that there may have been problems in the past. That is all I am saying.

[Andrew Selous]

The hon. Gentleman is right that the Church, like any institution run by human beings, has clearly not got everything right in the past. However, from all my dealings with the property department at Church House, I know that they try very hard to do the right thing, as I also know from my correspondence with hon. Members about Church land in their constituencies—I have an ongoing correspondence with a number of Members in this area. The property department is accountable to the Board of Governors of the Church Commissioners. I sit there as a representative of Parliament, taking up the concerns of Members of Parliament, so I say to the hon. Gentleman, members of this Committee and Members of the House that if they have any concerns of this nature—that the Church might not be acting in the most appropriate or sensitive way—please get in touch with me, and I will take those concerns up. I hope the hon. Gentleman is satisfied with that.

Question put and agreed to.

DIOCESAN BOARDS OF EDUCATION MEASURE

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the Diocesan Boards of Education Measure (HC 1259).—(Andrew Selous.)

Immigration

Debate between Andrew Selous and Mark Tami

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

I shall briefly address two issues, tier 1 workers and intra-company transfers, and following your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker, will give climate change and air travel a wide berth.

It is already clear that the Government’s cap, as originally formulated, does not fit, and once again a headline-grabbing policy that went down very well with the tabloid press has turned out to be far from straightforward. As many Governments have found in the past and will no doubt find in the future, ill-thought-out policies have a habit of unravelling, and the cap is a perfect example. To be fair, some members of the Government, in particular the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, made it clear some time ago that the cap would be unworkable and dangerous to business in its original form. He said:

“A lot of damage is being done to British industry”

and the quota was wrongly fixed.

Unfortunately, those warnings went unheeded, and only yesterday—at the eleventh hour—did the Prime Minister lay the ground for a muddled retreat. How far that retreat will go remains unclear, but recent announcements suggest that some areas are finally being looked at. The problem is that the Government just do not want to admit that their policy is wrong, and badly wrong. I am sure that many hon. Members will have been lobbied by local businesses that are concerned about how the policy—in respect of tier 1 workers, in particular—will impact on them.

The popular press would like us to believe that workers who come to the UK are largely unskilled and easily replaceable with unemployed UK workers—presumably ending unemployment overnight. If only the situation were so straightforward, because the truth is very different. Tier 1 workers, in particular, are important, highly skilled individuals who are key to the well-being and growth of many businesses.

Many employers tell me that, despite advertising vacancies nationally as well as locally, they are unable to recruit people with the required skills. Indeed, in some cases, despite advertising nationally, they have not received any applications at all. I shall cite one example that illustrates the issue perfectly. Comtek is a high-end, knowledge-based company located on Deeside, and Mr Sheibani, who owns the company, wrote to me saying that he has found it impossible to recruit well-trained, qualified and skilled engineers. He said:

“We have been trying very hard to recruit engineers locally and from other parts of the UK. The vast majority of highly skilled people are reluctant to relocate. In July and September this year we did a presentation to 20 skilled telecoms engineers in Belfast who were about to be made redundant from their jobs. We offered all of them employment in Deeside with exactly the same salary as they were getting from their bankrupt employer plus free accommodation. None of them were prepared to move.”

He went on:

“In contrast Tier One skilled workers are very mobile and prepared to relocate, they are resourceful and enthusiastic”.

But Mr Sheibani’s key point was that

“for every tier 1 engineer we recruit we employ four trainee technicians or apprentices from the locality.”

He has made it very clear that, if he were unable to recruit those tier 1 workers, he would be unable to expand his business in the UK. Comtek’s work force has doubled in recent years, and the company pays many millions of pounds into the UK economy, but he would not be able to employ those local apprentices who, after training, attain the required skills.

By chance, just across the road from Comtek is the Toyota engine plant on Deeside. On that site and at Toyota’s car assembly plant in Burnaston, Derbyshire, the firm directly employs more than 3,500 people. It invests more than £1.85 billion and exports more than 85% of its production, and I am sure we all want to encourage such companies to grow and invest further in the UK. Toyota uses a small number of ICTs, mainly from Japan, who are vital to technology transfer and the development and implementation of new products.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Like the hon. Gentleman, we all want this country to accept the brightest and the best, but he has not referred to the fact that 29% of tier 1 entrants have been found to be working in jobs such as pizza deliverers or security guards. Will he comment on where tier 1 has gone wrong?

[Mark Tami]

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point that, in some aspects, tier 1 has gone wrong, but we should not put the whole thing in the bin and say, “We are going to introduce a blanket ban at some point when we reach some quota that is made up as we go along.” I accept that there are problems, but I am discussing a company that directly employs and pays such workers; they do not come to this country to look for work.

ICTs are not a substitute for trained local employees. In fact, they are quite the reverse, because the vast majority of ICTs are trainers themselves who train local employees. They have helped Toyota to improve the productivity of its UK plants, which have become some of the company’s leading plants throughout the world. I am sure that we all applaud that. The ICTs are paid by Toyota; they pay taxes locally and pay money into the local economy; and they have helped to create and maintain many thousands of jobs, as well as to help our export efforts.

I asked a question in Business, Innovation and Skills questions today, because, although I welcome the statement about ICTs, I know there is still a feeling that, given the levels being discussed, the policy is being made up as we go along. We have to clear up the situation as quickly as possible, because many companies are worried about exactly how it will work. Toyota employs 3,500 people in the UK, but throughout the entire business it employs on average only 50 ICTs each year.

I am concerned, because those ICTs are key workers, and if we say to Toyota and other companies, “At some point, you will not be able to site the key workers who do that very important work,” we will affect their decisions about whether to invest more money. I accept that it is probably a marginal decision, but if it is a close call, those companies might start to think, “Should we put our money here or somewhere else?” Somewhere else might mean somewhere prepared to make those guarantees.