BIS Sheffield/Government Departments outside London
Debate between Anna Soubry and Callum McCaig
Anna Soubry
It is not as simple as cutting costs. The right hon. Gentleman, with his great experience in and out of government, should know that. It is a question of making sure that we have an efficient and effective way of working in BIS, set against the financial restraints that we have quite properly put upon our Department as part of our overall requirements with regard to the deficit.
Our current HQ office locations are based on the legacy I mentioned, and have resulted in a complicated map of management relationships, with work in policy teams spread across 14 different locations. We are committed to reducing our headcount by 2020. That will involve becoming more flexible and redeploying fewer staff quickly to new priorities. We need simple structures that allow staff to interact through quicker, less cumbersome means and stay close to each other in flexible teams. We rightly put a strong emphasis on staff engagement, excellent management, visible leadership and developing and coaching our staff. Those are harder to achieve if teams are not collected together or are not working under the same roof. We believe that having a single-site BIS policy headquarters is the best way to preserve our effectiveness. Given that our teams serve Ministers in Parliament, those headquarters have to be in London.
I want to make this point absolutely clear. Whatever the decision, we will continue to provide good and full support to the 247 members of staff who have had this proposal hanging over them—we are very conscious of that—since 28 January. If the decision is made to close the Sheffield office, that support will continue, because this Department takes its duty of care to each and every one of our staff extremely seriously, as I hope hon. Members would imagine.
I have said that tough decisions have to be made. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) and his colleagues on the Scottish National party Benches will understand that, for Governments of all colours, there are times, set against a difficult financial background, when tough decisions have to be taken. I make no criticism of the SNP’s decision back in 2013 to close 10 sheriff courts and seven justice of the peace courts, with operations transferred to other locations. Those are the difficult decisions that have to be made. Of course, the SNP closures were justified as cost-saving measures, but, to be fair, as part of a wider reform of the justice system as well. We can all take away from that the fact that the SNP was not just cutting things for the sake of savings, but was doing so as part of a broader strategy.
Anna Soubry
Unfortunately, the clock is against me, and the hon. Gentleman has only just walked into this debate, so I am even less disposed to take his intervention.
Those are the difficult decisions that Governments have to make if they are to fulfil their duty, which is not only to make sure that we live within our means but to ensure that we act efficiently and effectively.
I will deal with the four questions that the hon. Member for Sheffield Central asked me—I am grateful for the email and attachment that he sent to my Department. Some of what he raised has already been dealt with by the permanent secretary in his evidence to the various Committees. I will take just the sharp end of the hon. Gentleman’s questions. He asked what assessment had been made of the cost of replacing jobs and moving them to London. A full assessment has not yet been made, but, as he will know from the evidence of the permanent secretary, the total over time for the Sheffield office was thought to be some £14 million. As I have said, however, this is not just about costs. As for the assessment of the cost of replacing Sheffield jobs in London, the final decision has not been taken, and until it has been and we know all its ramifications it will not be possible to give that assessment.
The hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members asked about the northern powerhouse, but I do not need to be told what a great and wonderful city Sheffield is. You do not need to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, about my connections with Sheffield, or the fact that my family comes from there—[Interruption.] Exactly. Because I am from north Nottinghamshire, I spent a great deal of my youth in Sheffield. It was an outstanding city then, just as it is now and will no doubt be in future. In our devolution deal, we have put Sheffield at the heart of south Yorkshire, and we have delivered millions of pounds to Sheffield—[Interruption.] Which part of the Sheffield city deal do Labour Members not understand? The clue is in the name: Sheffield is at the heart of that deal, with all the attendant money and power that comes from it. That is to be welcomed, and I am surprised that Labour Members are not talking up that excellent deal, the outstanding city that is Sheffield, and the northern powerhouse. I hope that they will make the case for HS2 to have a proper station in Sheffield. I have a bias because I want an east midlands hub in Toton, as I am sure there will be, but we must now ensure that Sheffield plays its part in HS2.
Enterprise Bill [Lords]
Debate between Anna Soubry and Callum McCaig
The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise (Anna Soubry)
It has been an interesting debate, but I must confess that I do not agree with many of the arguments advanced by the Opposition, so I hope that hon. Members will not support any of the new clauses.
If I may deal with things in reverse order, I will first address new clause 8, tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), which seeks to ensure that the Green Investment Bank continues its green investments plans post-privatisation. We agree on what we want the bank to continue to do. We are seeking bidders who can fund the GIB’s legally binding commitments and who have the deep pockets to fund its ambitious green business plan. The bank’s management is clear that it needs access to private capital to fund its green business plan. That could be equity capital raised as part of the sale process, debt capital, which the GIB can raise when it is in the private sector, or private capital raised as part of a fund structure.
Business plans change and evolve as new opportunities arise, and we will not bind new owners into the current plan, so I cannot accept the hon. Lady’s new clause. The new owners of the GIB will have views on the future strategy and business plan. They will assess it as part of their due diligence and make it a part of their offers. Whoever the new owner or owners are, the special share ensures that the business plan, like the GIB, will continue to be green.
It must be said in response to many of the points and arguments that it is almost impossible to understand why anybody would want to buy the Green Investment Bank—the clue is in the name—unless they wanted to ensure that it continued to invest in green projects.
Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
We welcome the general direction of travel, given the special share. The Government will have a clear say during the privatisation process in the selection of the new owners, so will the Minister expand on how they will ensure that appropriate owners, who will respect not only the special share but the green agenda, are put in place?
Anna Soubry
Everyone will, of course, have to comply with the due diligence. I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s comments and will dwell on that topic in a moment. I want to make it absolutely clear that it is difficult to believe that anybody would buy the Green Investment Bank unless they absolutely wanted to continue its great work, for which I pay tribute to the bank.
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity
Debate between Anna Soubry and Callum McCaig(8 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Anna Soubry
I do not know how many times I have said it, but I am going to send all the information to the hon. Lady. It will say all these things and make it absolutely clear that TTIP is not a threat to our public services and our NHS. In fact, on the contrary, it will deliver billions of pounds of wealth to our economy, because it will free up trade between us and the USA. I think Opposition Members have got to be honest about it. I think the real problem is their prejudice against the USA. They should fess up and be honest about it, because they are creating bogeys that do not exist.
Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
If I may return to the oil price and the sheer joy that Members in the Chamber expressed at the collapse in the oil price—I look at the hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), who is sitting directly behind the Minister, and the joy and almost delight that were on his face. In the real world, in the constituency I represent, that means jobs are being lost. The Minister has expressed her delight at Scotland staying in the Union, so can she explain to me what the Union is doing to help Scotland at its moment of need?
Anna Soubry
It is not for me to speak on behalf of others, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there was no joy on the Government Benches at the fall in the oil price. The joy, I would like to think, was at the point I made, and made rather well. The hon. Gentleman is in a party that put all its faith in the oil price as the salvation of Scotland’s economy and it was absolutely wrong. I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not knowing the constituency he represents, but I suspect it is in the north-east of Scotland. He makes a good point, and this is the only good point, about the concerns we all have about the future of the oil and gas industry.
I am well aware of the importance of the oil industry to north-east Scotland. I am also well aware of the redundancies announced yesterday by BP, and I agree that there is much that we—the hon. Gentleman should note the “we” bit—can do. It would be so good for the UK Government to work with the Scottish Government to make sure that we do all we can. We have a fantastic oil industry, based largely in Aberdeen, that is one of the finest in the world. There is much that we can do, working together, to make sure that we do not see further job losses, especially on the scale we have seen.
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
Debate between Anna Soubry and Callum McCaig(8 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise (Anna Soubry)
I think you are too young, Madam Deputy Speaker, to remember Sanatogen wine, but yesterday I was unfortunately on my sick bed. In fact, I was so ill—I do not expect any sympathy—that I could barely sip water, never mind Sanatogen wine, but today’s debate has been an absolute tonic. At times my blood pressure rose a little too high for comfort, but I think we have had a really good debate about this important agreement.
Unfortunately I have only about seven or eight minutes to try to answer all the points that have been raised, and I will fail in that. The usual rules apply, and anybody who has raised an important point will get a letter in response to it, because time—as ever—is against me. I congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) on securing this debate, and hon. Members on the quality of almost all the speeches.
My hon. Friends the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), and for Newark (Robert Jenrick) raised a point about the unfortunate scare stories that have been put around. I gently chide the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) who spoke about the fact that the Government Benches were empty. In fact, many Members seem to have disappeared by the time he rose to speak—I am sure that was not a comment on his oratory. There were about 15 SNP Members in the Chamber, and it would be silly to suggest that those who were not present do not care about this important matter.
Anna Soubry
No I will not.
It does not enhance the reputation of the Chamber when hon. Members refer to the lack of people present, because that does not mean that other hon. Members are not in their rooms working and following the debate, or that they will not read it in Hansard. We all care, on all sides of the House, about this matter.
My hon. Friends the Members for Brigg and Goole, for Aberconwy and for Newark made very important points about the scare stories. There has been a lot of unpleasantness around this matter. I would just say to the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) that perhaps he and others on the Labour Benches are now experiencing the sort of abuse and attack that, frankly, most of us on the Conservative Benches have been receiving for many, many years. This is really a rather good example of it. We have been told that we do not believe in our national health service, although we do, and that we want in some way to privatise it, which we do not. Equally, we have been told by an SNP Member that such was his concern that he decided to write to the Prime Minister and that the Prime Minister wrote back giving an unequivocal guarantee that neither the NHS nor any other public service was under threat from this agreement, at which point he—the hon. Gentleman—said it was not worth the paper it was written on. I do not think that that advances democracy; it is grossly insulting to the office of the Prime Minister and it does the hon. Gentleman no credit at all.
We then have the letter from the European Commission. I will not repeat it, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole read out the most important points and put them on the record. Well, I hope hon. Members will take the view of the European Commission. It is a remarkable document from the EU. It is succinct and it answers good questions with good straight answers. It is absolutely clear that this trade agreement poses no threat to the national health service or any other bit of the public sector. It is most unfortunate that too many Opposition Members refuse to listen to the reality and take those assurances, and instead scaremonger and whip up a storm where no storm exists.
There has been criticism about an apparent lack of transparency. I am very grateful to the European Union, which during the course of the debate has tweeted a link to its website. I have visited its website. If Members follow me on Twitter, I will very happily provide a link to it. Again, I have to say—perhaps remarkably, although I am a firm supporter of our continued membership of the European Union; that is well known and has been known for donkeys’ years—in all seriousness that it absolutely lays out everything that is being negotiated very clearly in good plain English. The idea, therefore, that this is all being conducted in a secret manner is absolute nonsense.
It is very important to make the point that there have been six debates about TTIP in this place, and rightly so. That is exactly what this place does extremely well. Backbench Business debates, Westminster Hall debates—it matters not. They have all been opportunities, like today, for hon. Members quite properly to stand up and raise their concerns, as the hon. Member for Swansea West so ably did.