Backing Business to Create Economic Growth
Ayoub Khan Excerpts(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Peter Kyle
I have committed to invest in, modernise and protect the steel industry where I need to. Those are watchwords that I apply throughout the economy in highly volatile times. We are investing up to £2.5 billion to modernise and transform the steel sector, from blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces—those are the kinds of transformations we need to make. If I had invested that money but not also protected our sector, that would be pouring vast amounts of public money straight down the drain. In certain circumstances I have had to step in and use measures to protect the domestic British industry. I am not introducing measures for any products that are not manufactured in the UK. I am doing so wisely; I am doing so to protect and ensure that we can build and retain a steel industry that is fit for the future and sustainable.
We will move forward and ensure that, in an era of global instability, we have the key aspects of our supply chain that we need for our resilience as a nation—yes, in defence; yes, in industry; and yes, in all the money we are investing in infrastructure. We must reserve those capabilities. I am listening and engaging with all parts of the steel sector, and the manufacturers and businesses that depend on it. I am listening closely to them. If there are any impacts, I will of course engage with them to understand and see how it will be possible, where necessary, to provide support.
Peter Kyle
No, I am going to carry on. I appreciate Members’ kind offers to intervene again and again; I look forward to all their speeches.
The Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill will give us the authority to bring British Steel into public ownership, not as an ideological exercise but as a practical means of safeguarding the national interest. It will allow us to retain the Scunthorpe plant as a critical piece of our national infrastructure that is essential to British economic resilience. Britain has long been a proud steelmaking nation. Whatever I have to do to make it so, Britain will retain its capacity and capability to manufacture steel. That is my commitment to Members in this House and to the remaining steel communities of our country. The strength of that commitment can be measured in our determination to boost domestic steel production to ensure that 50% of the steel used here is made here.
Britain cannot make its way in the world as a services-only economy. We have to make our way—earn our way—to greater prosperity, equality, security and opportunity. We cannot do that by economic isolationism, neoliberalism, greater protectionism or a command economy. We cannot regulate our way to prosperity. We can achieve it only through practical and pragmatic policies that support British businesses to be profitable, to scale up, to create jobs and to grow. We have to end the outdated free-market ideologies, failed economic theories and siren voices that all but destroyed Britain’s manufacturing base and drove the British public towards Brexit. Britain’s future prosperity can be built only by business success. There is no other way, no shortcut, no easy option and no magic bullet—no matter how attractive and simplistic slogans and superficial soundbites may appear to some.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
As Chair of the Transport Committee, my remarks on the Gracious Speech will focus mainly on transport; if there is time, I plan to touch on some of the other areas where the Government’s proposed legislation will benefit many of my constituents directly.
This debate is entitled “Backing business to create economic growth”, and our transport system is key to growth. Economic growth is central to the ambition of the £45 billion investment to deliver Northern Powerhouse Rail. That will start to address the 10% productivity gap between northern England and the UK average. Residents and businesses in the north endure longer and often unreliable journeys compared with international comparators. For instance, only 38% of residents can access the city centre of Leeds within 30 minutes by public transport, compared with 87% in Marseille, a city of a similar size. With the new rail infrastructure proposed from Liverpool to Hull, the whole of the economy across the north of England will benefit from Northern Powerhouse Rail.
The highways financing Bill will introduce a new funding model for road infrastructure by introducing a regulated asset base, or RAB, funding model to unlock private capital investment in road infrastructure, with the lower Thames crossing to be the first road scheme to use the model. The Government point out that the RAB model has been successfully used in sectors such as energy and aviation, but I am also aware from the example of Heathrow that those paying the bills—in that case, the airlines—say that capital costs can be excessive and poor value for money.
It seems natural that as the lower Thames crossing will be a whole new road, it could be funded by tolls, as the Severn bridge was and as is the norm for motorways in many similar economies, but what are the plans for the future? Are the Government considering implementing tolls on projects to improve and repair current highway infrastructure? Surely the Government are not seriously considering building new roads, or significant new capacity? Otherwise, we could be going back to the ’70s with “predict and provide” creating more road capacity, which in a system of infinite demand just continues to deliver congestion while eating up more and more of our land. I would like the Minister today or subsequently to explain more about the role of the Office of Rail and Road in the context of the regulatory role mentioned in the Government briefing.
The civil aviation Bill will deliver consumer enforcement powers to the Civil Aviation Authority and allow for timely regulatory intervention to improve aviation safety, modernise UK airspace and provide for a revised slot allocation system to deal with unplanned disruptions. I welcome the proposed additional consumer enforcement powers, including compensation rules when airlines damage mobility aids. That will be welcome for disabled passengers whose mobility is dependent on, for instance, high-powered wheelchairs. The current compensation is wholly inadequate. However, His Majesty the King announced that the Bill
“will be introduced to unlock the benefits of airport expansion”.
I am not sure that I quite see the direct link between that statement and the subsequent deal and detail that I have just covered.
The overnight visitor levy brings UK tourist destinations into line with many places that I and others in this House will have visited in other countries. It will enable local areas to invest in their transport infrastructure and other facilities, which will benefit visitors and residents alike, whether that is shuttle buses to reduce traffic jams on country lanes or improving facilities at busy stations.
The draft taxi and private hire vehicle Bill is also welcome. It addresses almost all the issues that witnesses raised in our recent inquiry into taxis and private hire licensing.
Ayoub Khan
We have some 300,000 private hire drivers up and down the country. Uber has been incrementally increasing its fees while the drivers have been getting a fairly stagnant increase in their pay. We have just learned that Uber will be introducing driverless vehicles, which would impact 300,000 workers. Does the hon. Member agree that there needs to be some sort of action to prevent that?
Ruth Cadbury
The hon. Member is absolutely right. I am well aware of the concerns of drivers up and down the country, which are not about the improved licensing that the Government are talking about, which they welcome, but about some of those other threats, such as the processes that Uber is using at the moment and the impact of autonomous vehicles.
UK-India Free Trade Agreement
Ayoub Khan Excerpts(4 months ago)
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Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)
We all want a trade deal—a symbiotic relationship through which not just our country succeeds, but any other country that we trade with also succeeds—but that must not and cannot be a compromise that undermines the core British value of upholding the law, as well as ethical and moral values. However, when it comes to this agreement, that is exactly what we have done. Our commitment to human rights, climate change and justice have been sidelined for obvious commercial gain, and this kind of moral weakness has become a defining feature of pretty much everything that this Government have done on the world stage, discarding human rights at the first sign of pushback and branding cowardice as pragmatism.
Time and again we have seen the same story. We all know that when the Prime Minister went to China, the Uyghurs—who we all know face forced assimilation, abuse and genocide in Xinjiang—were the last item on his agenda, if not left out entirely. Today, British Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for defending democracy in Hong Kong, so it is clear that any attempts to move the dial on that front have failed miserably.
Without doubt, the same can be said of the Prime Minister’s trip to India. He promised to raise the case of Jagtar Singh Johal, who many hon. Members have mentioned—a British Sikh who has been imprisoned for eight years without conviction, all because he stood up for the most basic human rights for Sikhs in India. Environmental and labour standards have been neglected too. The Government refused even to complete an independent human rights risk assessment that would have highlighted the violations that British money was at risk of perpetuating. That refusal speaks volumes.
Nowhere is this Government’s moral abrogation more glaring than in their silence on Kashmir. A region born out of the catastrophic failure of partition in 1947, Kashmir has endured decades of broken promises and betrayed commitments, yet the Prime Minister did not even pretend to raise its plight with Prime Minister Modi. For a people long accustomed to British indifference, this was simply the latest insult. The region is not only occupied partly by India, but had its constitutional autonomy removed in 2019. For decades, the people of Kashmir have seen their most fundamental rights trampled upon; we have military occupation, political repression, arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial killings, and restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly.
The suffering endured by the Kashmiri people at the hands of India is nothing short of horrifying, and yet it is in that context of systemic and unashamed oppression that Kashmiri people’s fight for self-determination continues to be ignored, overlooked by nations that are more interested in kowtowing to an occupying power for economic gain. For more than 75 years, successive British Governments have washed their hands of a crisis they helped to create, hiding behind the fiction that it is merely a matter for India and Pakistan.
Even now, when we have presidency of the United Nations Security Council, we are silenced by our political objectives and paralysed when it comes to addressing injustice around the world. This Government are always talking about their non-tolerance of affronts to justice, but when the time comes to act on those promises, they falter. It is not just about priorities—it is a sign of the discrimination that this Government are willing to tolerate on our own shores, when it suits their interest. It speaks to the responsibilities they are willing to flout when sorting out the mess that our empire left behind.
Wherever there are human rights violations, we cannot neglect our moral and legal obligations abroad for quick wins at home. Just as there should be with any trade deal struck by this nation, the free trade agreement with India should have included a clause that made the benefits of trade conditional upon the protection of human rights, the release of political prisoners, the enforcement of labour standards and the liberation of the oppressed. I heard the Minister mention the fact that we have such a clause, but it is not enforceable; unfortunately, that might as well not have been included in the documentation, because it has no bite.
If there are no meaningful sanctions to deter nations from committing such atrocities, how can we expect them to change? I gently request that the Government reflect on how committed they truly are to upholding international law and on their willingness to have tough conversations with our allies. In a world where, I am afraid to say, we are losing international law and the values aligned to it, Britain must be a binding force that holds it together no matter what. I echo what the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) has said repeatedly in this Chamber: we must uphold our moral and legal obligations. Wherever there is injustice, we must be the force that stands up to it.
Budget Resolutions
Ayoub Khan Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)
I congratulate those hon. Members who made their maiden speech in this debate. Their speeches were touching and very inspirational.
The Chancellor promised us that by making the necessary tough choices, the autumn Budget would provide the blueprint for unlocking growth and prosperity, yet I struggle to see the substantive improvement that my constituents will experience to their lives—and for good reason. Many people in Birmingham Perry Barr have never felt as poor, as disheartened and as ignored as they do at this moment, and it does not take much soul-searching to see why. The Budget did not deliver for the 73.7% of pensioners in my constituency who are no longer eligible for the winter fuel payment, many of whom are now forced to choose between keeping warm, feeding themselves or incurring an inordinate amount of debt.
The Budget did not hear the pleas of families in low-income households. Some 48.9% of children in Birmingham Perry Barr live in poverty, and 5,930 children in my constituency alone live in households directly impacted by the two-child benefit cap, yet despite the child poverty crisis unfolding nationally, this Government’s refusal to remove that cruel measure has limited their ability to tackle the issue head-on. In the wake of the Budget, the safety net for our nation’s most vulnerable stakeholders is unable to support the weight of living; the protections are brittle and hollowed out.
This Budget did not serve my constituents in Birmingham Perry Barr, nor did it ease the burden for Birmingham’s 1.2 million residents, who continue to face indiscriminate cuts to local government spending. Following mismanagement, Birmingham city council, which, incidentally, is Labour-run, is essentially bankrupt. Necessary services such as transport for schoolchildren with special needs, adult social care, youth centres and libraries are being cut and closed—the list is endless. What was once a far-reaching local government authority has been reduced to a minimalist, bare-bones, skeleton service. While I welcome the Government’s slight increase in local government finances, Birmingham city council needs a significant amount of funding. I urge the Government to consider increasing local government finance.