Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Barclay]

[Caroline Nokes]

[Steve Barclay]

Public Health Restrictions: Government Economic Support

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

The hon. Lady is right to point to the fact that when the Government put in place the £10,000 and £25,000 grants of support linked to premises, market traders fell outside of that scheme because it was based on property. The specific issue of market traders was raised with us, and in response we put in place a further support scheme giving discretionary grants to local authorities in order that they could tailor that additional funding to local circumstances. I think she could raise this issue with her local council and ask why it has not used the discretionary grants to support those traders to whom she refers.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I hugely welcome the expanded jobs support scheme, which is so important, but what it does not do is help those businesses that supply the events industry—for example, the sound engineers and lighting engineers and, in my constituency, Beat the Street, which provides tour buses to the music industry. It has not been forced to shut down, but it has seen its trade wiped out. I urge my right hon. Friend to think of ways in which he can help companies such as that, which employ in excess of 150 people and can see no end in sight to their current financial woes.

[Steve Barclay]

My right hon. Friend rightly highlights an industry and a sector that have been particularly hit. Again, we have tried, through the package of measures such as the extension of the self-employed income support scheme, to help some of those within that sector. I think the business to which she is referring is more a pay-as-you-earn one, but it is often freelancers who work in, say, the lighting sector and the events sector, and they have been particularly impacted. That is why the self-employed scheme was introduced. To some extent, and given the over £200 million of support, the Chancellor has been very candid, as have I, about the fact that we were not in a position as a Government to save every single job. We are working with colleagues—I am always happy to work with my right hon. Friend—to look at what measures we can take, but it has to be balanced against the wider fiscal position.

Protection of Jobs and Businesses

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and that might mean some of the niceties go out of the window.

My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary is absolutely right to have identified the great long list of support that has gone to business, and I thank him for doing so because I now do not have to. I welcome the presence on the Front Bench of my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. I would like to pay particular tribute to him for the help he has given me with individual constituency cases, particularly, I note, with one small business and Lloyds Banking Group. The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) has just left—in time for me to make that point.

I want to put on record some local perspective of where businesses in Romsey and Southampton North have had assistance: over 10,000 jobs protected by the furlough scheme; £9.5 million to self-employed people; more than £42 million of bounce back loans; and £17.5 million in business grants. Those are very significant figures. The borough council has worked hand in hand with the Government in reaching out to small businesses, making sure all those who are eligible applied and received assistance. Some 47,000 meals have been eaten via eat out to help out. Could my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary pass on to the Chancellor the particular thanks of the lady I met in the Cromwell Arms in Romsey who wanted to talk about the “lovely local lad” who is of course my right hon. Friend the Chancellor?

Turning to the issue of ongoing support for local businesses, I was pleased to hear this week from Simon Parkes of Elumin8, a Romsey-based business making advanced lighting systems for the automotive industry. He is looking to recruit between three and five new employees—young employees—as soon as possible, and is keen to make the kickstart scheme work not just for his business, but for the benefit of such unemployed young people. Both he and the local council are working with the local enterprise partnership to bring together the minimum number of 30 needed so that more local businesses will be able to benefit. It is great to see the determination to make schemes work and get young people into real jobs who will then enable his business, even in difficult economic times, to thrive and grow.

I commend the support that has gone to hospitality. We know it is a sector that employs many young people and, indeed, many women—an interest I have particularly. I pay tribute to the Four Horseshoes in Nursling, which is continuing the scheme on its own terms, and I know across the country many are doing the same. However, it would be remiss of me not to return to a sector that I have raised many times in this House and will continue to champion. The beauty industry employs over 370,000 people, over 90% of whom are women. They have stayed locked down longer than other industries, and in some parts of the country they remain locked down, so I welcome the grants that my right hon. Friend has mentioned.

The green homes scheme is a great scheme and one that can provide energy efficiency and jobs, but please can we make it as wide as possible, so that companies such as Kelda Technology in my constituency, which makes showers, can also benefit from it, reducing energy costs through reducing water heating costs?

Finally, on those in the events industry, my right hon Friend the Chancellor is working really hard to rebalance the economy, but these are small businesses which, if allowed to thrive, will in turn be paying tax in years to come, enabling us to rebalance the economy.

The Economy

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this afternoon’s debate. I pay tribute to the measures that the Chancellor announced. My right hon. Friend has worked incredibly hard to ensure that we get the economy moving again. I do not see an economy that is stalling; I see some real efforts to put drive behind it and make sure that we can come out of the pandemic in good shape.

However, we do need to build the economy for women as well as men; for young, as well as old; for those from all parts of the United Kingdom, all ethnicities and all religions. Surely part of levelling up means that we must make it better for absolutely everyone. If covid has taught us one thing, let it be that when we pull together, we can get real action and the strength of community that all of us have seen in our constituencies.

I absolutely welcome the news on apprenticeships, which are such a key part of making sure that young people get into their first job and develop a trade, and are able to progress in their lives. I absolutely endorse the measures that the Chancellor has announced. But this has to be about reaching across the age range and across the gender divide, so we need more to help those women who might come out of this pandemic in worse shape than they went into it. We need to help them retrain, upskill and find new parts of the economy that they can work in. I pay tribute to the Government’s record. We went into the pandemic with female employment at a record higher—higher than it had ever been in my lifetime—but we must not see that go backwards. We already know from the Institute for Fiscal Studies that woman were more likely to be furloughed during covid and are more likely to be in parts of the economy that remain shut down.

It would be remiss of me, after a week of discussing this subject, if I did not draw the Minister’s attention to the beauty industry, a sector that remain shut down. It employs 370,000 people, the vast majority of whom are women. They have asked me to point out, time and again, that they are the entrepreneurs. They are the women who have learnt a trade, built their own businesses and gone on to employ others. They have taken risk by renting premises, and in some instances they are still having to pay rent while those premises remain shut down. I do not speak just for beauticians; I speak for those practising complementary therapies, and for yoga instructors, dance instructors and those working in sectors that help our wellbeing, ones that we may well want to turn to when lockdown is finally relaxed in its entirety. I was cheered by the comments of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister earlier today when he gave some indication that we might expect an announcement—we hope, fingers crossed—later this week. It is high time that these people were given something to work for—an opportunity to start building their client list back up and an opportunity to make appointments. If not, I respectfully ask the Minister that he make some representation asking for additional fiscal support for them, because they are really struggling and want some hope.

In the 45 seconds I have left, I wish to echo the comments of the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) on childcare. I lobbied Treasury Ministers before this statement to say that we needed help for that sector. I appreciate that the sector has had support from the 33 hours offer, but the sector goes into the relaxation of lockdown having to make social distancing changes in premises and possibly having to reduce the number of spaces that can be provided. That means women may well not be able to go back to work if they cannot find the childcare they need. With schools not open until September, this industry is close to crisis. I just leave that thought with the Economic Secretary.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

After the next speaker, I will reduce the time limit to three minutes, but Emma Hardy has four minutes.

Public Health England Review: Covid-19 Disparities

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

It is imperative that we understand the key drivers of those disparities, the relationships between different risk factors, and what we can do to close the gap. That way, we will ensure that we do not take action that is not warranted by the evidence. The hon. Lady is right: Public Health England did not make recommendations, because it was not able to do so. Some of the data needed is not routinely collected, but acquiring it would be extremely beneficial. As I said earlier, I will be taking forward work to fill the gaps in our understanding, and review existing policies or develop new ones where needed. It is important to remind ourselves that this review was conducted in a short period, and it sets out firm conclusions. As the author of the report said on Tuesday night, there is a great deal of background and detailed information that we think will be helpful. It is not easy to go directly from analysis to making recommendations, and we must widely disseminate and discuss the report before deciding what needs to be done.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

The Race Disparity Unit is now in the Cabinet Office and at the heart of Government. My hon. Friend is right to say that it needs all the available data to make the correct recommendations. Will she reassure me, from the heart of Government, that this will not just be a matter for the Equalities Office or for the Department of Health and Social Care, but that it will include the Departments for Work and Pensions, for Transport and for Education? In all those areas we might expect to see real commitment to action that will make lives better for our BAME communities.

[Kemi Badenoch]

My right hon. Friend is right, and I thank her for that question. Equalities are not something that happens in the Equalities Office; equalities happen across Whitehall. Every Department has responsibility to ensure that it makes the right policies for all the people who are impacted by the activities that are carried out, and I will continue to work with them on that.

Self-employed Persons: Financial Support

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I am very happy to make it a six-word slogan, if the hon. Gentleman prefers: “Help is coming”, and we will do, “Whatever it takes”. As to whether the House will sit, that is not an issue for the Government, as he well knows as an experienced Member of the House. Whether the House sits—whether Ministers are called to answer questions—is a matter for the Chair, and not for Ministers. In fact, we had an urgent question last week, and we have one here, so that suggests that Mr Speaker is keen to ensure, quite properly, that Ministers are held to account.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

Many self-employed have already taken the right decision and socially distanced themselves—the hairdressers who have not gone into care homes, the taxi drivers, the driving instructors—but they are looking for some reassurance from my right hon. Friend that they have done the right thing and will not be penalised for it.

[Steve Barclay]

Again, that is quite right in terms of the self-employed, which includes many hairdressers, but my right hon. Friend will also be aware of measures we have already taken—they will support many hairdressing businesses—such as the business rate relief and the grants. The £10,000 grants targeted at the 700,000 smaller businesses are, again, part of the package of measures to apply to some of that population. However, it is clear from many of the questions that populations are not tightly set, and that there is a degree of overlap and underlap, which is what we are working through.

Economic Update

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

For those people, the measures that we took last week will already start to help from day one. The Work and Pensions Secretary has already put in place support to make sure that access to the security that they need is both faster and more generous than it was.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

The events industry is not only highly seasonal but full of people working on a self-employed basis. Given that this season has pretty much been wiped out, what reassurance can my right hon. Friend give the industry that he is looking to its needs?

[Rishi Sunak]

I am happy to look specifically at the issue that my right hon. Friend has raised, but the measures that we took last week will provide immediate support to many of her constituents in that situation.

Apprenticeship Levy

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)]

Order. I have five Members indicating that they wish to speak and we have about 35 or 40 minutes, so there need not be a time limit.

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[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), has done so much to promote apprenticeships and to ensure they are a regular subject of debate here in Parliament. There have always been very high quality apprenticeships in this country. Multinational companies in engineering and automotive have long offered apprenticeships that compete and are comparable with the very best in the world, but not all apprenticeships have been very high quality. Within sectors there have always been companies that have seen it as part of their duty, responsibility or mission to invest in the next generation coming through, but there have also always been companies that have not seen that imperative and benefit instead from the training provided by competitors.

The levy must be seen in the context of a package of measures introduced in the 2015 summer Budget and autumn statement, which included the reductions in corporation tax and included the national living wage and this third arm, the apprenticeship levy. With that package, the Government effectively said to companies, “We will give you a very competitive corporation tax regime, which will lower the hurdle for investment. It will mean that businesses can grow, but we need to make sure that people are paid properly and fairly, and we need to ensure that everybody invests in the next generation of talent coming through.”

There have been some difficulties with the levy, some of which have been referred to. One is the speed of approval of certain standards, which has got better over time but needs to carry on getting better. Fundamentally, there has been a great quality uplift in apprenticeships. Thanks to the levy, the amount of cash in apprenticeships has doubled over the decade in cash terms. We have seen a move to longer, higher level apprenticeships, and the move from so-called frameworks to standards. That is all a bit jargonistic, but it basically means that there is a more exacting standard for the apprenticeship, with a greater degree of employer approval. Effectively, business has voted for a higher standard of apprenticeship, which creates some tension against a numerical target.

I want to talk briefly about each of the three main objections to the apprenticeship levy: first, it is just a tax; secondly, it is too inflexible; and thirdly, “I can’t manage to use the whole amount.” On the first point, the apprenticeship levy is a non-optional deduction levied by Government, so it does bear some tax-like features, but it is not exactly the same as a tax. Of course, money is extracted from business as part of the overall Exchequer requirement.

Something that I discovered when I worked at the Treasury was that for every tax, there is a really good argument against it. Corporation tax? Too many companies avoid it. Business rates are a fixed cost, as we all know, and that can be difficult for certain companies. National insurance is a tax on employment. Sales tax, or VAT, may apply at an early stage of development. Even excise duty, which is based on volume, inevitably involves problems with whatever system is set up and whatever threshold is set.

It is right that we rebalance the approach over time and right that we look again at business rates and introducing a digital sales tax, because there are concerns about some companies being able to avoid corporation tax, and, conversely, there is the strain on some of our shops on the high street and elsewhere,. Fundamentally, in that suite of taxes and ways of getting money out of business, the levy solves the free rider problem when it comes to investment in skills and, relatively speaking, rewards the companies that make a greater investment. I suggest that, as part of a suite of approaches, it has an important role to play.

The second big argument is that the levy is too inflexible. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow mentioned, there is always a question of re-tagging: of training that would happen anyway, or re-accrediting skills that exist already, and it is always a strain. The apprenticeship levy already covers quite a lot. Let us compare what the apprenticeship levy in the UK covers compared with the German apprenticeship system, which is commonly regarded as the gold standard in apprenticeships. The minimum specification for our apprenticeships is lower in terms of duration; the age range that it covers is considerably wider than is common practice in Germany and some other countries; and, as has been alluded to, it covers apprenticeships at numerous different levels.

We can argue legitimately that there are more things that it should be possible to use levy money for, such as pre-apprenticeship programmes, and so on, but the mathematical reality is that if we were to do that, other things being equal, we would need a higher levy or we would need to take something else out of eligibility for levy spend.

Finally, there is the objection, “I cannot spend it all.” It is worth bearing in mind, of course, that some companies do spend it all, or almost all of it. It is also true, and relevant, that sectors vary. In the engineering sector, for example, there is typically a very high apprenticeship spend. In retail and hospitality, it is typically lower. Again, we need to recognise the mathematical reality, which is that the levy is designed so that levy payers cover the apprenticeships in their own companies but also cover the cost of apprenticeships for non-levy payers. To change the system, it would be necessary to extend the scope of the levy or raise its level.

I think it is right at this point to review and reform the levy. It is legitimate to look at such things as coverage of MBAs, although it turns out that it is hard to define where the line should be drawn on post-level 6 qualifications. I think we could look more at tailoring the specifications of difference to different age groups and sectors, and I think there is an argument around pre-apprenticeships and that particular social justice agenda. The overall principle, however, is good. It has increased the amount of money and investment available for apprenticeships and skills and protected it, and it solves the free rider problem. I would say that, along with T-levels, higher level technical qualifications and our school reforms, apprenticeships are key to reforming productivity, and they deserve our support.

[Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)]

I now call John Howell. Please can comments be kept to four minutes, so that the Minister and Front-Bench spokesmen have time?

Beer and Pub Taxation

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) on securing this debate. My brief speech will not be a tale of gloom and doom, but will be about success and Bar SO16, a new pub set up by the community—I went to its opening on Friday night. It was incredibly badly timed because it was still dry January. The community found an investor and premises and really pulled behind a new venture in an area that has lost both the Stile and the Stoneham Arms in the past few years. So that is a success story.

In Nether Wallop, the community has come together with a neighbourhood plan and the Five Bells is going through the process to be registered as an asset of community value. People are optimistic that they will get a pub that has been closed for seven years back up and running again. Likewise, people in Longparish are pursuing the same objective for the Plough Inn.

The challenge is not finding the community that wishes to pull behind its local. It is finding the economic environment in which it can thrive. I respectfully point out to my hon. Friend the Minister that that is about the taxation of beer, as we have heard this afternoon—I will not bore anybody with stats again—and it is about business rates. It is about making sure that we have an environment in which the pubs we are hearing about this afternoon from all corners of the Chamber have the circumstances in which they can not only set up, but go on to thrive.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The steel industry faces a big challenge at the moment, and that is true in many other countries in the world, as the price of steel has collapsed. We have taken a number of steps to ensure the level playing field that the hon. Gentleman speaks of. First, we have taken the industry out of the energy levies that were imposing additional costs on it. Secondly, we have made sure that local areas that have had redundancies get the support they need. Thirdly, we have changed our procurement rules so that we can make sure we are buying British steel and taking into account the social impact of those steel purchases in making our value-for-money assessments. Fourthly, as I said in reply to an earlier question from him, we are working, through our partners in the EU, to make it clear that we do not and cannot support Chinese steel dumping, and that we need to take action against it.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend the Chancellor will be well aware of the widespread and cross-party support for a children’s specialist accident and trauma department at Southampton general hospital, so may I urge him to give careful consideration to the bid put together by clinicians? I know they have sent it to him and are looking for support for a match funding bid.

[Mr Osborne]

I am aware of the case being made—a strong case, in my view—for the children’s facilities at the Southampton hospital. It is a case advanced by my hon. Friend and other colleagues, notably my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), who has pushed it, alongside her. We are looking closely at it and I will make an announcement in due course.