Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals

Anne-Marie Trevelyan Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

[Interruption.] My apologies for the cough, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would like to thank hon. and right hon. Members for raising so many important points here today. I should confess that this is the first debate I have ever had the pleasure of closing, and it has been wonderful to be able to sit and hear properly from all parts of the House—and indeed all parts of our virtual country—some of the really important messages that colleagues wanted to share. We have heard some really powerful and passionate speeches, and I am grateful to everyone who has been able to contribute today.

Let me address some of the important issues that have been raised by our colleagues. The business grant scheme has continued to provide support to businesses across England during the periods of national and local restrictions. I do not think that any of us underestimate the challenges, particularly for many of our small businesses, as a result of these changes, but they have been incredibly resilient and the Chancellor has continued to provide the support that was needed. The Government have introduced unprecedented packages of support to assist those businesses that have been mandated to close, as well as those that have been severely affected by the restrictions. Indeed, many colleagues have highlighted their own constituency business situations, from Darlington to Brecon and Radnorshire and from Stourbridge to Stoke-on-Trent, once my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) was correctly dressed.

The depth of support and continuing commitment from the £280 billion that the Treasury has found has been extraordinary. It is the largest package of emergency support in post-war history, of which the loan guarantee schemes are an important and successful part because they have protected, created and supported jobs. We are committed to protecting those jobs, and we have extended the coronavirus job retention scheme until the end of April. The Chancellor will set out the next phase of the plan to tackle the virus and protect jobs at the Budget next week. It would be remiss of me not to say that it is well beyond my pay grade to even begin to guess what he might have prepared for us. That is a question that we would all like an answer to. It has been asked many times today, not unreasonably, but the Chancellor will be here next week, when he will give us a plethora of solutions, I am sure.

Retailers have a history of responding to change. They are continually innovating and adapting to market pressures. That is what they do. That is the art of the retailer, and much of that dynamism has had to play out under the pressures of the last year, but we absolutely recognise the challenging environment that this sector has been operating in. Retail will always be a vital part of our local communities, and I want it to be at the heart of our high streets where our constituents live, shop, use those services and spend their leisure time as we return to normal. Traditionally, the hospitality sector has been the first to recover from an economic downturn, helping to drive our economic recovery more generally. As a result, it is more important than ever that the hospitality sector is able to play a leading role in our post-covid-19 recovery, not only economically but for the health and wellbeing of their customers, too. We all know and understand—indeed we have seen it for ourselves—that too many of our constituents are really struggling with the mental health pressures: the challenges of having to work from home; of having to teach their children at home, and of having to worry about the state of their finances. There are so many pressures, and, quite genuinely, the hospitality industry is part of the recovery not only of the sector itself but of all of us.

We will continue to work very closely with the sector. I would like to put it on record, and I know that the sector and colleagues will support me, that my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) has been incredibly committed throughout this period, working with the sector and really trying to support it, and providing a constant voice and listening ear to make sure that he can do the best he can for it. I know that all those hospitality businesses are ready and waiting to recover quickly as soon as it is safe to open fully. They are ready to bounce back stronger and greener.

[John Spellar]

If premises are physically covid secure, and their customers have vaccine certificates, why will the Government not let them open earlier?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The roadmap sets it out very clearly, as the Prime Minister has done as well, that we will open safely and steadily, making sure that we do not have to return to any kind of lockdown. We want to go at the right speed and steadily to make sure that we can get there.

Let me return now to my green point. When discussing support for individuals and businesses across our constituencies, we must touch on our plans to build back greener, supporting those green jobs, accelerating to net zero and creating that long-term advantage in low-carbon sectors, such as nuclear, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) highlighted earlier in her speech. The Prime Minister’s 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution will mobilise £12 billion of Government investment to unlock three times as much in private sector investment by 2030. This will help to level up regions across the UK, supporting up to 250,000 highly skilled green jobs. That will include quadrupling our offshore wind capacity to 40 GW by 2030, committing £500 million for low-carbon hydrogen production across the decade and investing £1 billion to make our homes, our schools and our hospitals greener, warmer and more energy efficient—an area of policy that I consider to be extremely important. The 10-point plan will be driving a revolution in electric vehicles and hydrogen buses, and enabling all of us to change how we live our lives in a way that is genuinely sustainable. Our businesses will have opportunities across so many sectors to drive to net zero.

We cannot avoid the fact that coronavirus is indeed one of the greatest challenges that the UK, and, indeed, all across our planet, have faced this past year. The Government recognise the significant disruption that individuals, businesses and public services have experienced as a result of the steps that have had to be taken to manage it and to protect our citizens.

To protect people’s jobs and livelihoods, the Government have provided immediate support on a scale unmatched in recent history, but as restrictions ease and the economy is gradually and safely reopened, the Government will carefully tailor the level of support to individuals and businesses to reflect the changing circumstances. The Prime Minister’s road map will set out our commitment to give businesses large and small the support and clarity required to plan ahead and manage everything from staff to supplies. Indeed, it will help businesses such as Leckenby’s tearoom in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) to be able to open safely for customers once again.

We will build on our short-term response to ensure long-term economic growth, working towards our longer-term objectives, boosting productivity and giving businesses throughout the country the confidence to invest as we put them at the forefront of new opportunities. The Government stand—

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Main Question accordingly put.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne-Marie Trevelyan Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Marcus Fysh. Where is the chappie? He was here earlier. He has beetled out of the Chamber prematurely, but he could have had another go.

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

T10. Will the Secretary of State update the House on what he and his Department are doing to ensure that every council is meeting its commitment to and obligations under the armed forces covenant?

[James Brokenshire]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful and important point. I commend her for the work she has done to champion the military covenant, which every local authority has signed. The Minister for Defence People and Veterans and my Department have just written to councils, to encourage them to have a covenant champion. It is through such practical measures that we want to ensure that the covenant pledges are upheld.

Local Government Funding Settlement

Anne-Marie Trevelyan Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I am always sorry to disappoint the hon. Lady, but I will have to do so on that point. However, I can highlight the £3.5 million additional funding from 2018-19 to 2019-20 for Bath and North East Somerset unitary authority. Therefore, we do take account of the differentials in council tax and how grant is applied, and that is very firmly recognised and understood within the system.

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that my constituents in Northumberland will benefit from the increases in the rural services delivery grant, which is a most welcome recognition of the rurality challenges with which our public services have to deal across my vast and very sparsely populated constituency?

[James Brokenshire]

As I have indicated, we acknowledge some of the real pressures within rural areas—some of the additional costs that come through from that—through the rural services delivery grant. We also acknowledge those pressures through the business rates retention pilot, which I am sure will be of assistance in my hon. Friend’s area.

Anti-Semitism

Anne-Marie Trevelyan Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Smeeth]

I thank my hon. Friend.

To move on to my final piece of abuse:

“The gallows would be a fine and fitting place for this dyke piece of Yid shit to swing from.”

This is merely a snapshot, and the comments are those that I would feel comfortable—if that is the right word—to say in this place. It is a glimpse into the abuse that now seems par for the course for any Jew who has the audacity to participate in this political world.

But this is not the worst of it. There have always been racists and anti-Semites in our country, lurking on the fringes of our society—both left and right—and I dare say there always will be. What is so heartbreaking is the concerted effort in some quarters to downplay the problem. For every comment like those we have just heard, we can find 10 people ready to dismiss it—to cry “Smear”; to say that we are “weaponising” anti-Semitism.

Weaponising anti-Semitism! My family came to this country fleeing the pogroms in the 19th century. Of our relatives who stayed in Europe, none survived. We know what anti-Semitism is; we know where it leads. How dare these people suggest that we would trifle with something so dangerous, so toxic and so formative to our lives and those of our families. How dare they seek to dismiss something so heinous and reduce it to the realm of political point scoring. How dare they, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I am speaking not just for me, but for the young Jewish people I meet across the country who are beginning to fear they do not have a place. These are young people who are braver, tougher and better than I could ever be—the kind of young people who make us feel that our future is in safe hands, but right now they do not feel safe.

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ruth Smeeth]

I have run out of time; I am sorry.

There is something more fundamental at stake here than any party’s policy platform or electoral performance: the right of Jewish people to participate in the politics of our country as equals. Last month we heard a plea: enough is enough. I stand here today to say that we will not be bullied out of political engagement, that we are going nowhere, and that we will stand and keep fighting until the evils of anti-Semitism are removed from our society. [Applause.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne-Marie Trevelyan Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

It is an important issue, and we are looking to see what more we can do with the challenges that it represents. We are planning to publish a consultation and will do so as soon as possible.

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

An article in The Sunday Times yesterday highlighted that some councils are still performing mass burials of babies. To be honest, I was appalled. Some research today has identified that, despite campaign efforts by colleagues across the House and charities such as CLIC Sargent, we have not yet been able to set up a children’s funeral fund. Will the Secretary of State meet me to progress the matter?

[Sajid Javid]

Nothing can be harder on a parent than losing a child, and we must always look to see what can be done to provide help. Local authorities do provide help in many ways, but my hon. Friend is right to raise this matter. I, too, was concerned by the article she mentioned, and I will be happy to meet with her.

Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation and Liability for Housing Standards) Bill

Anne-Marie Trevelyan Excerpts

Friday 19th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey). I congratulate the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), who has worked closely with Government to be able to bring this Bill to a really strong position of cross-party support so that we can all really stand up for what it does.

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a private landlord. As a landlord myself, this Bill has my wholehearted support because it changes the status quo by empowering tenants to take action with legal backbone if their landlord is failing them and their family. The Bill empowers those living in social housing and private rented accommodation to take charge of taking on their landlord to enforce housing standards for their home that has fallen below standard, making it unfit to live in due to serious and immediate risks to their health and safety.

The Bill is an excellent example of something that we should try to use more often than we do—the philosophy of “nudge” politics. I am genuinely hopeful that, because it means that a tenant can compel a landlord to fix these housing failures, the vast majority of landlords will start to discover the satisfaction of proactive property maintenance. Everyone deserves a decent and safe home to live in. Every child should be able to grow up in a home free from damp. Properties both old and new can fail to be properly ventilated, thereby leaving children in conditions that aggravate or indeed create skin and breathing health difficulties.

My constituency extends over a vast area of north Northumberland. It is the most beautiful and rural of constituencies. It consists of over 150 villages, many of which have old, stone-built cottages as the backbone of the housing stock. These bring their own challenges to meet modern heating standards. However, many local landlords have shown creativity by investing in sustainable and renewable heating methods that have given their tenants a greatly improved day-to-day living experience. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) mentioned, a good landlord knows and acts on their responsibilities to provide and maintain a good standard alongside their right to collect rents. Sadly, some private landlords have not been as speedy in making long-term improvements in such old properties, leaving tenants with rotten window frames, which ensure that no amount of heating will keep their home warm, or with poor and degraded provision, which means that entirely avoidable health risks are still in the mix.

One of my frustrations is that the recently built or refurbished social housing for my constituents, mostly in Berwick and in Alnwick, still fails to meet the standard, despite investment for improvements. A family living in Berwick have a daughter with respiratory problems who cannot live with her mother and sisters in their council property. So-called ventilation improvements simply sealed up the property and created such dampness and health problems that the child cannot spend more than an hour in the house before suffering an asthma attack. In fact, I have sat in the living room several times, and each time I have felt a constriction in my breathing airways caused by the damp air.

The so-called improvements have completely failed to do what the family asked for, but we are continuing to battle on, and the housing association wants to fix this problem. It is an example of poor installation—the builders who did the work failed to meet the requirements they were given—that needs to be sorted out. This is a huge frustration to all those involved, but we have to find a way to fix the problem. If we cannot find a different house to which to move them, the Bill will empower my Berwick family—with an amazing mum, who has been fighting for her daughter’s health and for her right to live with her mum—to enforce the improvements. My local authority cannot do so, because it cannot take enforcement action against itself.

The Bill will give thousands of tenants in my constituency a new empowerment to get the home they deserve—from repairs that landlords refuse to complete to a properly ventilated home, free of dampness, with a good and reliable water supply, effective drainage and sanitary systems, facilities for cooking and waste disposal, and good internal arrangements that mitigate and eliminate fire risks. For colleagues with high-rise blocks, the Bill will help with the absolutely key issue of fire risk. We have the chance to support our constituents, who are newly empowered to get homes to live in of which we can all be proud.