Oral Answers to Questions

Anne Main Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady seeks to lean into the scaremongering. The statutory instrument has a very limited direct policy impact and will not impose additional restrictions on EU nationals or EU-based businesses or on the nationals and businesses of countries with associated agreements after we have left the EU. It is very important that we all take great care not to scaremonger and try to make people think that things are the case that are simply not the case.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Establishing a business is very difficult, particularly when business rates are so high and online businesses often do not pay their way. Is it not time, particularly for those establishing businesses, that we had a root-and-branch review of the business rates model, which affects so many businesses in St Albans?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am very sympathetic to my hon. Friend’s point; I know she is a big champion of businesses in St Albans. In my Department, we are helping the British Business Bank to provide greater support to start-up businesses, providing huge support to the UK’s 1.2 million female-led SMEs, and doing everything we can to ensure that there are more incentives and opportunities for women to start businesses than ever before.

Public Holidays on Religious Occasions

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. I have given the hon. Gentleman some latitude, but we are talking about a petition and not general working time directives or other things. He should confine his remarks to the need for the petition to be discussed.

[Justin Madders]

Thank you, Mrs Main.

I was merely explaining that some workers in the gig economy, who are perhaps falsely labelled as self-employed, may not be able to take advantage of holiday entitlements. Has the Minister made an assessment of the number of people denied the right to annual holidays as a result of being incorrectly labelled as self-employed?

In theory, flexibility should mean that there is no issue, but we have heard too many tales of one-sided flexibility. It is important that people of every religion have the right to exercise their religious observance, regardless of their employment status. What steps have been taken to ensure that those employed on zero-hours contracts or in agency work are not subsequently penalised for taking time off to observe religious festivals? With so much work in the gig economy dictated by algorithms on a phone, what steps can the Government take to ensure that no particular religion is disadvantaged by the way those apps operate? That is important, because those apps work only as well as the information that is submitted to them. I am not sure that it is clear that software programmers would think about religious observance when they are working on those apps.

The real problem is enforcement. Rights are only as strong as an individual’s ability to exercise them. To raise concerns about holiday entitlement requires cases to be taken up with an employment tribunal, which until recently attracted a fee imposed by the Government. Even without the fee structure, where cases are complex, like those in the gig economy, representation is often required. Even then, employers can choose not to comply with tribunal decisions. Tomorrow, Uber will go to the Appeal Court to fight a two-year-old ruling that its drivers should be entitled to holiday pay. In those two years, Uber has not paid a penny to the drivers. It is estimated that they are owed about £18,000 each in lost entitlement.

As the Minister knows, where the minimum wage has not been paid, the Department investigates—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. I am struggling to see how that is relevant. The hon. Gentleman is making some interesting remarks, but if he could confine them to the need to have holidays for religious observance, as the petition outlines, I would be grateful. I would like to hear the Minister’s response to that part of the debate.

[Justin Madders]

I would suggest that it is important to look at all forms of workplace structure—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. And, I would suggest, so long as it is in line with the debate that is on the table.

[Justin Madders]

I am coming to a conclusion anyway.

Will the Minister look at occasions where holiday entitlement is not observed? Could the Department adopt a naming and shaming policy, as it has for minimum wage cases?

In conclusion, the debate has reminded us of the need to recognise the importance of respecting and facilitating the opportunity for people of all faiths to observe their religious festivals, but also to think more broadly about the importance of being able to access the right to paid leave.

Sainsbury and Asda Merger

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffiths]

I thank the hon. Lady for her important points. I share many of the concerns that she voices, but she says that the CMA’s remit does not extend to the substantial lessening of competition—[Interruption.] That is exactly what the CMA does. Its role is to examine competition matters—[Interruption.] If I misheard the hon. Lady, I apologise.

The CMA’s role is to consider the impact of this merger on not just competition in the marketplace, but suppliers. The hon. Lady rightly raised the impact that the merger could have on farmers and suppliers, and that was why the Secretary of State and I reiterated to Asda and Sainsbury’s when we spoke to them this morning the importance of their engaging with not just the CMA, but bodies such as the National Farmers Union and other unions to ensure that this is a proper process that we understand. The hon. Lady will know that section 172 of the Companies Act 2006 puts a duty on directors of the new company to have regard to the impact that their decisions would have on their suppliers, and we will be monitoring that very closely in the months to come.

We must also recognise, as the hon. Lady said at the very beginning of her contribution, that the retail sector is in a huge state of flux. We must all understand that the way in which consumers purchase these days is changing dramatically. There has been a 9% increase in sales through online vehicles in the last 12 months alone. That, by necessity, means that the retail sector has to change and adapt. One of the things that the merger will offer is reduced costs for the consumer, which I hope she will welcome. We all want to protect consumers and make sure they are getting great value for money, and that is one of the things that the merger promises. I can assure her, from the discussions I have had with the CMA, the Groceries Code Adjudicator and both parties, that ensuring the supply chain is properly protected is one of the priorities and something that I guarantee we will keep a close eye on.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

The Minister said that he had a conversation with Mike Coupe about store closures this morning. Given that the CMA insisted that 53 stores were offloaded when the Safeway-Morrisons merger occurred in 2003, how can Mr Coupe give the Minister such an assurance, and what does the Minister have to say about that?

[Andrew Griffiths]

I thank my hon. Friend for that very important question. The reassurances I was given this morning were first that there would be no store closures and secondly that the head offices of both Sainsbury’s and Asda would remain open. Those are both very positive things. My hon. Friend mentions the forced sale of particular branches, and that is clearly a matter for the Competition and Markets Authority. When Sainsbury’s and Asda move on to the phase 2 investigation, they will get down to the granularity of the merger’s impact on particular villages, towns and cities. If there is a feeling that it will cause a lack of competition in the marketplace, the CMA has the power, when making a decision, to force the sale of stores to competitors to ensure that there is greater competition for the consumer.

Hydraulic Fracturing: North East Derbyshire

Anne Main Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

City of York Council policy is to not have fracking, yet INEOS Upstream is at its heels. In Kirby Misperton, 99.2% of the community in a survey said they did not want fracking, but fracking is now going ahead. Is it not vital that we listen to the community and also the environmental protectors, who are there night after night and day after day protecting that site at Kirby Misperton, wanting to ensure that those environmental standards are upheld?

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

I point out that the interventions are incredibly long—they are becoming mini-speeches. I ask that the hon. Member be given the courtesy of being able to continue his speech.

Residential Premises: Product Safety and Fire Risk

Anne Main Excerpts

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Andy Slaughter]

I am not sure the Committee has reached such a conclusion, but I sincerely hope it does. If anything will have encouraged it, it was the desultory way in which the manufacturers dealt with the matter yesterday.

Whirlpool’s view over months and years was that it was perfectly all right for customers to continue to use the machines, provided they were in the same building and awake—not even in the same room. It persisted with that view even against the evidence from the Shepherds Bush fire where the victim, my constituent, was in the same room when the fire started and took every possible correct action: pulling the plug out, calling the fire brigade, shutting the door, and doing everything they could to prevent the fire from spreading. It took another six months for Whirlpool to change its advice and only, as has already been said, under threat of legal action from Which?, which I applaud. It was disgraceful to see Whirlpool pretending yesterday that that was not the cause of its change of policy, but that it just suddenly lighted on the fact and, after a couple of years, decided to do that. I think all Members will be angry at the dismissive attitude that was shown.

What are we going to do about the Whirlpool situation, specifically in relation to Grenfell? I am grateful for the Minister’s clarity in saying that the broader issues to do with the cause and spread of fire are matters for the public inquiry. We accept that. As I understand it, the specific issue of a fault within the model of fridge-freezer identified is a matter for her Department. I will press her a little further and ask when we will know that. We knew quite quickly that it was a fridge-freezer, which model it was and which flat it was. We know the model number, so that indicates to me that it was not completely destroyed. I would hope that by now there was some indication, because there could be a variety of faults. It could be within the fridge-freezer, it could be to do with its use or the cabling or anything of that kind. If it is a fault in that model or similar models of fridge-freezer, that needs quick action in terms of product recall and product safety notices.

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech, but there are two others who wish to speak and I will be calling the Front-Bench speakers at half-past.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am grateful, Mrs Main, for your very gentle chiding. I will bring my remarks to a close.

I have concentrated on the specifics, but my final point is on the generalities. The Minister said that the working party group will report in the autumn. We look forward to that, but we are already disappointed by the fact that the group’s ambitions do not go far enough. There are three key issues that the organisations I have talked to are concerned about. The first is effective registration, so that when white goods are sold, we know, as far as possible, where they are. The second is recall and better attention to proper product recall when things go wrong, as in the Whirlpool case. The third, and perhaps most important in many ways, is enforcement. With the best will in the world, given the job they try to do under difficult circumstances and with limited resources, local trading standards organisations are not enforcing. I therefore wholeheartedly support the Which? campaign for a national body to deal with and oversee such matters. I await the Minister’s response.

Energy Price Cap

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

In response to the first part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, I welcome, as he does, the huge progress that has been made not just in the deployment of renewables, but in the cost reductions that we have seen. That process has created jobs across the UK, especially in coastal towns. I had the pleasure of opening the Siemens wind blade factory in Hull, which created 1,000 good jobs. However, he is right that the detriment has been going on too long, which was why the Government asked the CMA to investigate the industry root and branch. It has identified £1.4 billion of detriment, and I have made it absolutely clear that that detriment needs to be returned to the pockets of consumers.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

May I tell the Secretary of State that the latest data show that 2,687 households in my constituency are estimated to be in fuel poverty? That is 6.6% of all households. What more can be done to identify these vulnerable groups and ensure that they have the best advice and information about switching tariffs? The suggestion that people search online is not the way forward. Perhaps it would be more helpful to have a better dialogue between the consumer and the energy provider.

[Greg Clark]

I agree with my hon. Friend. One feature of the energy market is that the poorer someone is, the larger the proportion of their income that they spend on energy. That is why it is imperative that vulnerable consumers should not be required go on the internet every few months to check that their tariff has not defaulted to a much higher one. That was the reason for my letter to Ofgem, and it is why I want its response to be vigorous. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that an aspect of the wider set of policies is to make it easier for consumers to know the price of energy and how much they consume, and smart meters are being introduced to help more people to do that.