Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Steve Barclay

Thursday 14th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

My hon. Friend knows from our regular conversations just how engaged I am on this subject. He met with the Minister for Water and Rural Growth yesterday. As he knows, there is a consultation about medical exemptions for boats under 10 metres. I know the Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries is looking closely at the issues around pollack. I am happy to update my hon. Friend on a series of other initiatives as we work through them.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Has the Secretary of State actually talked to the National Farmers Union recently? Has he even talked to the celebrity farmer on television who we all know about? What is the plan? Farmers are in a period of stasis. They do not know where they are going or how they are going to face the future, because there is no plan under this incompetent Administration.

[Steve Barclay]

Not only have I spoken to the new president of the NFU—he has been in my office already—but I have been on his farm to discuss these matters. I have also been his deputy’s farm. In fact, on being appointed Secretary of State, the first meeting I had was with the former NFU president and the first meeting in my office, within a week, was with the then president of the NFU, so I regularly engage with colleagues in the NFU. Just this week I had a meeting with the NFU county president for Cambridgeshire. However, I am surpassed in that engagement by the Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries, who has discussions with the NFU even more frequently.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Steve Barclay

Thursday 1st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I know my hon. Friend champions very strongly the farming and food sector in his constituency, and that he has raised this issue with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries, who is actively engaged on it. Of course, a proportionate approach should always be taken on these issues.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

2. Whether his Department is taking steps to help ensure profits in the food sector are fairly distributed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Steve Barclay

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I could not agree more. The hon. Gentleman is right to champion diversity, which is at the heart of the Places for Growth programme. If we want a meritocracy, we need diversity as a part of that, recognising, as the Prime Minister has frequently said, that talent is equally distributed but opportunity often is not. People should be able to fulfil their careers closer to home. Moving senior-level jobs—for example, with the Treasury in Darlington—is a key part of enabling people from all backgrounds to access the very best jobs in our civil service.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I associate myself with the remarks made earlier. This is a dark day for democracy. As someone who has been in this House for a very long time and who was born during the Blitz, I know that dictators are never deterred by sanctions; they are deterred by firm action.

Huddersfield is a booming university town. It is the perfect place for people to come and live, with beautiful countryside. We are also a real centre for technology and innovation. We would love anything to do with green skills, green enterprise and green start-ups based in our university town.

[Steve Barclay]

First, I thank the hon. Gentleman. Through his experience in the House, he brings great context to the issues we face.

On Huddersfield, I very much agree. One of the issues is how we combine the Places for Growth programme with other parts of Government, not least the record investment in research and development—increased from £15 billion to £22 billion—so that we take the best of our academic research in our universities, and get the start-ups and then the scale-ups in places such as Huddersfield.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Steve Barclay

Thursday 25th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is on Thursday mornings, Mr Speaker, that those of us who are regulars miss David Amess—those Thursday mornings when he was so lively and showed that he was a true parliamentarian.

When the Minister talks about putting jobs in places around the country, will he lead, with all of us in our constituencies, a campaign for sustainable development in every town, city and community in this country?

[Steve Barclay]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his first comments, which are widely shared across the House.

On the hon. Gentleman’s substantive point, I agree. I was recently looking, for example, at the Cabinet Office relocation plans for Peterborough, which were part of a much wider regeneration programme that will make a significant difference there. One of the key learnings from past attempts by previous Governments to relocate civil servants outside London is that one has to do it a way that builds a hub and spoke, so that there is a sustainable career and it sits within a wider regeneration, as in areas such as York. He makes an extremely important point, and it is a key part of the plans we are bringing forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Barclay]

I, and I am sure all hon. Members, join the Prime Minister in saying how deeply saddened we all are by the terrible tragedy we saw yesterday.

The response to the challenge of small boats is a whole-of-Government endeavour, and it is therefore right that we work across the whole of Government to look at all aspects of that journey: upstream, our processing and our legal framework. My hon. Friend will be aware that progress has been made, and 20,000 crossings have been stopped so far this year. We will continue to work in partnership with the French to ensure we can avert tragedies such as we saw yesterday.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I do not want the Secretary of State to get away with it this morning. What is he doing about the “blob”? If he reads the Tory-supporting Daily Telegraph, it says that the blob is stopping the Government, and the Prime Minister in particular, getting their policies delivered in every Department. Can the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster tell us a little more about what this blob is? If it is stopping the Government delivering their policies, could he do something about blobism?

Public Health Restrictions: Government Economic Support

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Steve Barclay

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

First of all , I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend and I welcome the constructive approach that he always takes on these issues. In terms of eligibility, part of the design of the discretionary grant was to give discretion to local authorities to apply it in different ways, and it would be slightly at odds with that for the Government to say that there must be a particular way of applying it. However, he speaks to a sector that I know has been particularly hard hit by covid; we recognise that, and it is a factor that has shaped a number of the approaches we have brought forward, particularly on things such as cash flow. I am very happy to speak with him.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

May I be helpful to the Chief Secretary, as I have been sometimes in the past? I am the Member of Parliament for Huddersfield in west Yorkshire; we are tier 2 and, like so many parts of the country, we will be facing vast problems of youth unemployment. May I be very helpful by asking him to look at Margaret Thatcher’s history? She introduced a windfall profit tax on the banks. Why cannot he introduce a windfall profit tax year on Amazon, the gambling sector—you name it; we know who has done well in this crisis—and then use that money to fund a wonderful green revolution, with new green businesses, new green training and new green jobs for young people?

[Steve Barclay]

I have always found the hon. Gentleman constructive, and I welcome the fact that he is looking at the fiscal position we face as a country and how we may address that. It would be remiss of me, given my responsibilities, to stray into the terrain of the next Budget and tax-raising measures; I will leave that for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor.

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the very serious issue of youth unemployment. I think it is an issue that concerns us all in this House. The sectors that are most hit have concentrations of young people, particularly in the hospitality sector. It is really at the heart of the winter plan that my right hon. Friend brought forward in doubling the number of work coaches, in tripling the number of traineeships and with the £2,000 for apprenticeships. We have been looking at and learning from not just the Thatcher era, but actually from the previous Labour Government with some of the packages we discussed with the TUC and others. One of the great challenges we face is how we address not just the number of people who are unemployed, but the length of time they are unemployed. That is an absolutely key issue, and that is why the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is so focused on doubling the number of work coaches. The hon. Gentleman is quite right to highlight that issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Steve Barclay

Thursday 9th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Secretary of State back to this House. We have always got on very well, and he is much cleverer than me, but I do have a couple of degrees in economics. When the President of the European Commission comes here and says that in any deal, if we do not have free movement of labour we will not get free movement of goods and services, is that not something that we should all be very sad about as we leave the European Union?

[Steve Barclay]

I am always grateful to the hon. Gentleman for how he champions his constituents and raises thoughtful points. He is quite right to pick up on what I thought was a constructive speech from the European Commission President at the London School of Economics yesterday and to draw the House’s attention to it. What I took away from her speech was her language about wanting a very ambitious partnership—she referred to

“old friends and new beginnings”

and drew on her own time in London and how much she enjoyed it and valued the United Kingdom. She wanted to see a close partnership, whether on climate change, security or many other issues on which we have values in common with our neighbours.