Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Power Station: Wylfa

David Baines Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

Let me say genuinely that with all the debates we have about our energy mix, nuclear may be a point of consensus. That is important for the industry, so I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s comments. On the exact details of the timelines, I am afraid that I am not the Nuclear Minister, so I will get my noble Friend Lord Vallance to write to him on that point.

In terms of the overall timeline for the SMR programme, our ambition is that the SMRs will be online in the mid-2030s. There is obviously a significant amount of work to do on the site itself and on the designs, but we want to ensure that we are moving everything possible to get this done quickly. We have a first-mover advantage as a country if we can prove that this technology works, set about expanding it and look at the export market for it internationally.

[David Baines (St Helens North) (Lab)]

I strongly welcome this announcement. Nuclear is a growing sector. Just on Friday, in Haydock in my constituency, I helped officially to open the new HQ of Delkia, a relatively new company that does a lot of work in this sector. Will the Minister assure me and small and medium-sized businesses such as Delkia that they will benefit from this growth, supported by this Government?

[Michael Shanks]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The investment in these projects is felt in his constituency and in communities and small businesses right across the country. It is creating apprenticeships and opportunities for young people to set out in their careers in the energy industry.

As I said earlier, Great British Energy Nuclear’s ambition is that 70% of the supply chain products that will build these SMRs will be built in Britain. That is a hugely important investment right across our economy. Of course, 70% might not be the ceiling of our ambition, but this is an opportunity for communities and businesses to come forward and say, “We can help to build this innovative and hugely important part of our future energy mix, and we are really excited about the opportunities that it presents.”

Parental Leave Review

David Baines Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders]

As always, it is a pleasure to hear from the hon. Gentleman. He raises an important point about how the current shared parental leave system is not working. We have seen that the percentage of people taking advantage of that is in the low single figures. We are aware of that and will be looking at it closely as part of the review.

[David Baines (St Helens North) (Lab)]

I warmly welcome the review, as I know will families and dads in St Helens North. I am also sure that Jay White, who runs the Dad Matters organisation in St Helens, which supports new dads and is doing a great job, will warmly welcome it as well. With dads across the country and, as we have already heard, across the Chamber, I have been supporting The Dad Shift campaign, saying that two weeks are not enough. I know from personal experience, and from speaking to dads across St Helens, that it is not enough. Will the Minister confirm for the benefit of dads in St Helens North and elsewhere that the current state of paternity leave, including consultation with employers, will be a key focus for the review?

Budget Resolutions

David Baines Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I start by congratulating our US allies on the election of their 47th president? When it comes to business and trade, America is our most important partner. As our economies are so interlinked, nearly 1.5 million Brits work for American companies, and more than 1.2 million Americans work for British companies. That trade relationship is worth £280 billion a year, and the amount invested in each other’s economies has now surpassed £1 trillion.

The Government may be right to say that there is much to rebuild in Britain today, but what this Budget does, combined with the Government’s nationalisation of railways, Employment Rights Bill, and Great British Energy, is to take us further away from that goal, with higher taxes, more regulation, bigger government and a smaller wealth-producing part of the economy. It is a Budget for prejudice rather than for progress. While Labour Members will praise the Budget for its finer measures and the socialist purity of its design, their constituents can see that, when it comes to growth, the Budget emperor has no clothes. The Office for Budget Responsibility strips it back to its stark, naked flesh. It says that Budget policies temporarily boost output in the near term, but leave GDP largely unchanged in five years. If growth is their central mission, the Government have already failed.

In the harsh light of day, the Secretary of State’s colleagues are starting to realise that the Budget is not such an appealing sell. As was reported on Sunday, Labour Back Benchers have said that the Chancellor’s Budget is impossible to sell to horrified constituents—they have been reading their emails again. One colleague of the Secretary of State for Business and Trade told The Daily Telegraph, “It has been received very badly indeed within the Labour party”. There is a stark contrast between what the OBR is saying and what those on the Government Front Bench are claiming. The chances are that it will not be a growth Budget, as is claimed. All the evidence is that it will have no more growth by the end of it, and it will certainly be paid for by higher effective taxes on working people.

The Secretary of State’s colleagues are right, and no wonder. The private sector experience of the Cabinet could barely fill a beer glass, let alone a boardroom. Conservative Members know that it is business that creates jobs and the prosperity to pay for our public services. Businesses are the builders, and there is no rebuilding without them. That is something that Labour Members simply do not understand. Britain’s business needs a Government who have their back, not one that drags them down.

[David Baines (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Under the previous Government, life expectancy plateaued, and the number of people living with long-term ill health increased. Was that good for business?

[Andrew Griffith]

The ability to continue to invest in our public services, and the sterling work done by the predecessor Government on levelling up every part of the United Kingdom—[Interruption.] Government Members do not like it, but that work relies fundamentally on private enterprise, which pays the taxes that fund the prosperity and the infrastructure that this country needs. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is merely showing once again his party’s deficient understanding of how a modern economy works—it is markets, not Governments, that drive up prosperity—and how free trade has improved human health.