Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight this issue and I share a lot of his concerns, but it is wrong to suggest that we are not doing anything. From autumn this year, we are providing a package of low-interest loans with long payback periods, supplemented by a small element of grant, to cover up to 80% of the universities’ income losses from international students. The money that is being pumped into our further education deals precisely with the point that he raised, and we are continuing to do that.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Because the exhibitions industry generates so much additional economic activity we should reopen it fully immediately, shouldn’t we?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My right hon. Friend raises an important point. Of course we recognise the valiant contribution that the sector makes to the UK economy. We are working closely with the sector to pilot the reopening of conference centres, with a view to full socially distanced reopening from 1 October, subject of course to continuing to make progress.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to support businesses during the covid-19 outbreak.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to support businesses during the covid-19 outbreak.

[Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to support businesses during the covid-19 outbreak.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alok Sharma]

I thank my hon. Friend for doing his bit to support businesses in his constituency. In coming up with the workplace guidance, which has allowed businesses to open safely, we have worked closely with businesses, business representative organisations and trade unions. I have already outlined the support that we have provided for the sector, but what we all need to do is to get out there to support businesses that are now opening. We owe that to them and to the economy to get it going again.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

What is available for those fast-growing firms that rely on equity finance and for which loans and grants have not been a good fit?

[Alok Sharma]

What an intelligent question. On 20 April, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced a package of support worth £1.25 billion for fast-growing innovative companies and that, of course, included £750 million in grants and loans delivered through Innovate UK, and a £500 million future fund, through which the Government will invest up to £5 million per company, matched by the private sector.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

1. What guidance her Department has issued to businesses to help them make more effective use of the apprenticeship levy.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

3. What steps her Department is taking to help businesses realise the potential benefits to their organisation of the apprenticeship levy.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Andrea Leadsom)]

I strongly believe that apprenticeships are a superb option for people to earn and learn. In my Department, we have 154 apprentices, 149 of whom are levy funded. I have taken on a new school leaver apprentice in my office every year since becoming an MP, which has been an excellent experience for them and for my team. Since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, we have made changes to ensure that businesses can spend up to 25% of it in their supply chain, and I am delighted that the number of people starting higher-level apprenticeships has increased by over 40% since the 2016-17 academic year.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

Is the 80:20 rule an overhead that is unwelcome to employers who have to provide cover for employees who are learning?

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. Friend makes a really important point, but he will appreciate that off-the-job training is vital for apprentices to develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need to succeed at work. The 20% off-the-job training rule is based on standards used by apprenticeship programmes regarded as world class, such as those in Switzerland and Germany, which we have made it our ambition to at least match.

Net Zero Emissions Target

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. This is a shared responsibility, and part of the funding that we have made available—more will be needed—is to ensure that both the private and public sectors contribute to establishing a network that is not only available but dependable and also rapid in its ability to charge. That network needs to cover every part of the country—cities as well as rural areas.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

The Secretary of State will recall the green deal. Will he ensure, now we have a new target, that we have a commensurately robust plan to incentivise households?

[Greg Clark]

I do recall the green deal, and it is fair to reflect that as we take decisions and adopt policies in this area, not every one of them is going to work in the way that is intended. It is an area in which we are innovating, and my view is that we should innovate in technology as well as in policy. I hope that the House will not be too harsh when innovations are attempted that perhaps do not work out in the way that was predicted. However, my right hon. Friend is right to say that we need to give incentives to individuals as well as companies to participate in this roll-out, and through the clean growth strategy and the forthcoming energy White Paper, he will be able to see more of that in the weeks ahead.

National Minimum Wage Naming Scheme

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst]

Given the hon. Lady’s previous role, I know that she understands well the portfolio, and the naming and shaming system. I reiterate that we have not dropped the naming and shaming scheme. I have tried to be extremely clear that I want the naming and shaming scheme to be meaningful, add value and give us proper information so that we can understand where there is detriment to workers and why. We will still name individuals, but I want employers to comply with the law and workers to get what they are owed. That is not just about naming and shaming; it is also about ensuring that the information that we are publish aids education and helps to stop any detriment to employees. Not all employers are wilfully paying under the national minimum wage, and we have a duty to educate businesses so that they are easily able to comply with the law.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Why was it necessary for the Minister to suspend the scheme while she reviewed it to make it more meaningful and useful?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I decided to do that because I wanted to ensure that I was naming and shaming with meaningful information. I will not make excuses for making sure that we are delivering and reviewing a policy, or for carrying out what the director of labour market enforcement asked us to do.

British Steel

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

I am very keen to work with the devolved Administrations to support the UK steel sector. Only this week I met the Secretary of State for Wales and a Welsh steel company to talk about support for the steelworks in that part of the United Kingdom. I am very keen to work with the Scottish Government to ensure that we have a thriving steel sector in Scotland as well.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend undertake to avoid halving both output and employment? That is what the last Labour Government achieved.

[Andrew Stephenson]

We have taken decisive action to support the UK steel sector. There are more things we could do, and I am keen to explore with industry what more we can do, but I agree that the challenges here have been going on for a number of years. This Government see the steel sector as fundamentally important to British industry, and we will continue to leave no stone unturned in supporting the sector.

Universities: Financial Sustainability

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore]

I welcome the measures we are putting in place to increase course innovation and flexibility within the HE sector. I passionately believe that that is the future and where we need to go. People may need to train and retrain across the course of their lives, so we will need course provision that allows people to access the HE market at every stage of their lives, right the way through their 20s and 30s. Two-year degrees are not a silver bullet—in fact, they were put forward in a Labour party amendment to the Higher Education and Research Act—but we have tried to ensure that they open up the market and we have encouraged more HE providers to take up two-year degrees. At the moment, they have been capped by the financial ability or the lack of financial ability to do so. Ultimately, it is £22,000 for a degree as opposed to £27,000. It is not necessarily an increase in fees; it provides people with an opportunity to study at a time of their choosing.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

What would make universities less financially sustainable than making them entirely dependent on Government finance, particularly if it is a Labour Government?

[Chris Skidmore]

Absolutely. If we began to return to a stage where universities are financed entirely by taxation it would not only put an increased burden of £12 billion on the taxpayer—an increase of about 2p to 3p on income tax rates—but mean that HE would have to compete with Government funding priorities on the NHS and welfare. Ultimately, we would return to student number caps and the situation we see in publicly funded universities in other countries where people struggle to find seats in lecture theatres. It is right that we have a sustainable financial system that protects students’ futures.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend has been a doughty campaigner on this issue and will know that we have contributed almost £20 million to the industrial strategy heat recovery fund, and the low-carbon heating technology innovation fund is also receiving funds of up to £10 million. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend’s principle. I am not convinced that a further consultation is required, but I am always happy to discuss it with her.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Is it fair to continue to subsidise solar panels by charging higher prices to other customers who could not possibly afford that investment?

[Claire Perry]

No, and that is why the intention to close the feed-in tariff scheme was signalled many years ago: it has cost to date over £5 billion and we have a legacy cost of over £1.5 billion to fund that scheme going forward at a time when the price of solar is tumbling. We know that many companies are bringing forward large-scale solar installations without needing subsidy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

How come we have been using exactly the same technology without difficulty, fracking at hundreds of sites, for years for thermal energy?

[Claire Perry]

My right hon. Friend makes a valuable point. It is said that fracking is this new thing, but in fact we have been doing it for many years, including using it to extract oil from sites close to both of our constituencies. It is a perfectly safe technology. We have to be clear, however, that we are doing this in an environmentally sensitive way. Of course nobody wants environmental regulations that they cannot defend to their constituents, but we are going through this calmly and soberly; we have excellent science and so far the process is delivering shale gas from these very exploratory fracks, which is something we should all welcome.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

As always, I commend the hon. Lady and her colleagues for doing such an amazing job, cross-party, in promoting the next iteration of Teesside as the centre of clean economic growth. I know that the Secretary of State has met the company. We are aware of the issues. We will continue to review this, but we will also continue to review the chance to have a low-carbon industrial cluster, which is the way to get the new investment and get the carbon down in the area she is so proud to represent.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

The price comparisons available to the public are not transparent and often unintelligible. Can the system be made easier?

[Claire Perry]

My right hon. Friend is always seeking advice on how he can cut his energy bills. I am delighted to see that, particularly as it is Green GB Week. There are lots of opportunities on the website to see what more he could do. The price comparison websites are getting better. One of the challenges is that they do not always show consumers who are in receipt of a warm home discount whether they might lose that. That point was raised by the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), who chairs the BEIS Committee, and we are working with it. We want that decision to be as transparent as possible. As somebody who has switched twice, both times using a price comparison website, I can tell my right hon. Friend that it is actually a much simpler process than it used to be.