Oral Answers to Questions
Elliot Colburn Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
I agree that payment for small businesses is very important, particularly when it is not done by larger companies that have the resources. That is one of the reasons why the Government have led the way to make sure that, when small businesses deal with Government, payments are made quickly and efficiently. The Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) is looking at a whole range of different things to ensure that we speed up the culture of late payments to small businesses, and he will be saying more about that very shortly.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Labour Members talk about helping businesses, but that is what you get with a Labour Mayor in London, bashing businesses. I would be proud to meet my hon. Friend.
Oral Answers to Questions
Elliot Colburn Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Graham Stuart
Well, there was there an attempted linkage to the question, but I do not think that made it any less pompous or, indeed, irrelevant.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
We are providing a £400 discount through the energy bills support scheme over this winter, as well as the energy price guarantee, which will support millions of households and businesses with rising energy costs, and we will continue to do so from now until April next year. That is on top of a further £800 in one-off support provided to 8 million of the most vulnerable households to help with the cost of living, and of course pensioner households can receive £300.
Elliot Colburn
The cost of living, and especially energy, is of great concern to my Carshalton and Wallington constituents. I welcome the Government’s action on energy bills, but I know from talking to many of my residents while out delivering my cost of living advice guide that, apart from the energy price guarantee, they are sometimes unaware of the additional support they may be entitled to, including from their energy provider and the Department for Work and Pensions, or the Government support provided through local councils. Will my right hon. Friend outline what steps he is taking to ensure that people are aware of all avenues of support that are available to them?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is quite right to raise this. Full details of the help available to consumers can be found on the Government’s Help for Households website, which people can get to from the gov.uk website. That covers my Department’s extensive energy support package and the additional help available, including through the Department for Work and Pensions, such as income support. In addition to the Help for Households site, we are communicating information on the support available to help with energy bills through suppliers, consumer groups and charities—and, it has to be said, through first-class MPs running events in their constituencies, who ensure that this happens—as well as through the media and
Support for New Adoptive Parents
Elliot Colburn Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 601323, relating to support for new adoptive parents.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. The prayer of the petition states:
“Ensuring statutory adoption pay is available to a self-employed parent in the same way that maternity allowance is available for self-employed new mums would promote an equal and fair society inclusive of all routes to parenthood. A parent taking statutory leave regardless of it being adoption or maternity should be both recognised and supported fairly. Expecting self-employed parents to take unpaid adoption leave whilst supporting their child during a critical transitional period is unfair. This current policy is not inclusive of adoptive families and to many, reads as an act of discrimination. I wish the Government to introduce an Adoption Allowance comparable with the Maternity Allowance for the Self-Employed.”
I thank the petition creator, as well as the multiple campaigners, parents, charities and organisations—including many who are in the Public Gallery—who have come forward to share their experiences of the adoption process, for reaching out to me and all hon. Members present to help us prepare for today’s debate. I also put on the record my gratitude to the Petitions Committee Clerks and the team behind the scenes for conducting an online survey to ask the petitioners about their experiences of adopting a child. As expected with a topic of this importance, there was a lot of passionate feedback from petitioners, which has helped us to better understand the policy on adoption. I am grateful for their assistance.
The petition has amassed almost 15,000 signatures, including 37 from my constituency of Carshalton and Wallington. On behalf of the Petitions Committee, I should explain that although the petition has not reached the 100,000-signature threshold that would normally trigger a debate in this place, the Petitions Committee has discretion to schedule debates of this nature. This topic is a perfect example of where we might want to use that discretion, because it is an issue that not many people come across directly. It might be a bit niche for some, but it is something that is very important. We therefore felt that it was important to bring it here today.
The issue of financial support for self-employed adoptive parents was raised by the Petitions Committee in our October 2021 report, entitled “Impact of Covid-19 on new parents: one year on”. The report expressed disappointment that the Government had not acted to close the disparity in access to support between employed and self-employed adoptive parents when it was first raised during the pandemic by the Committee’s report on new parents in July 2020. Our report also highlighted an apparent lack of departmental ownership of the issue within Government, with confusion over whether it sits with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy or the Department for Work and Pensions. Ultimately, we concluded that the
“benefits available to self-employed birth parents should be extended to self-employed adoptive parents”.
Before we delve into the detail, I want to set out the context in which we come here to hold today’s debate. There are around 1,870 children waiting to be adopted in England alone, and 52% of them—over half—have been waiting longer than 18 months. Our country currently faces a shortage of adoptive parents who have the right skills and background to meet the needs of the children waiting.
I welcome last year’s new national adoption strategy. As part of it, the Government’s vision was to ensure that:
“All adoptive children are found permanent loving families as quickly as possible where they will be safe and secure.”
The strategy stated:
“Prospective adopters from every walk of life are warmly welcomed and supported in a system that is never threatening or judgemental. Unnecessary barriers and bureaucracy placed in the way of those seeking to adopt are removed, systematically, across the country…Children and families get the support they need when they need it.”
In summary, our country faces an adoption problem, and the Government are taking steps to ensure that appropriate prospective adopters are supported to adopt a child in need, as per their strategy.
Women in employment having a baby are, of course, usually entitled to statutory maternity pay. For those not entitled—because they are self-employed, for example—there is the fall-back benefit of the maternity allowance. Employees who are adopting a child are also eligible for statutory adoption pay, which is modelled on statutory maternity pay. However, there is no equivalent for people who are adopting a child and do not meet the qualifying conditions—that is, those who are self-employed.
Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making some very good points, pointing out the importance of the Government addressing this issue. Will he reflect on the fact that the Government have proactively encouraged people to be self-employed over the past 10 to 12 years, and ever-increasing numbers of people are self-employed or on flexible contracts that mean they would be considered self-employed? Does he agree that the encouragement the Government have given to self-employment makes it all the more important that this issue is looked at as a priority?
Elliot Colburn
As ever, my hon. Friend is amazing in his psychic abilities, having seen ahead to where I will make that very point further on in my contributions. It is a very important point, and he makes it even more eloquently than I will.
In the Government’s response to our Committee’s report on this issue and to the petition, they restated that local authorities can already provide discretionary financial support to self-employed adoptive parents where affordability is a barrier to them taking time away from work. It is also noted that
“Prospective adopters…are also entitled to an assessment of their family’s needs”,
which could result in further offers of support including
“discretionary means-tested financial support, advice, information, counselling, and support services.”
In response to this petition, as well as a written parliamentary question tabled by the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell)—who is in her place—the Government also stated that support for employed parents have been prioritised, as they
“do not generally have the same level of flexibility and autonomy over how and when they work as self-employed parents do.”
However, there are a number of concerns about this approach that need to be better understood, and in my view, the approach should be rethought. First, while local authorities should consider making payments equivalent to the maternity allowance to self-employed adopters, there is no legal requirement for them to do so—it is merely guidance. This creates inconsistencies across the country, because a particular problem for prospective adopters is that many search for an adopted child through national agencies rather than local ones, and indeed many local authorities are combining their adoption pathways. I have also heard from multiple adoptive parents that the guidance is unclear and confusing, including unhelpful signposting on the gov.uk website. That is not a surprise, considering the issue of departmental responsibility that I touched on earlier.
Secondly, linked to the first concern, inconsistencies in funding create uncertainty for families hoping to adopt. Conversations with social workers and agency staff are limited to ifs, buts and maybes, and financial planning therefore becomes difficult, if not impossible. There was agreement among the majority of respondents to the Petitions Committee’s survey that access to adoption support needs to be simplified, with multiple complaints about the role of local authorities. Of course, the very nature of the process of adoption is uncertain, but adding further stress and uncertainty to that process may not be the best policy to ensure stability for the newly adopted child and their new family.
Thirdly, the Government’s understanding of self-employment when it comes to adoption seems outdated and unrealistic in many cases. As part of my research for this debate, I heard from a prospective adopter who is self-employed. Unfortunately, like so many others, that individual is unable to hit the pause button on their work whenever they feel like it and press play again when they are free. The individual in question works full time, teaching in a school, and has the same amount of flexibility as an employed teacher. One of the key takeaways from the Petitions Committee’s survey on this issue was that adoptive parents feel they need more time to bond with and care for their child than the average birth parent. That is, of course, understandable, because adopted children have often suffered trauma from years of neglect and loss.
The survey found that just 61% of self-employed adopters were able to take time off work following adoption, compared with 78% of employed workers. Furthermore, 95% of self-employed adoptive parents agreed that more financial support would allow them to take the time off they needed to support their new child’s adjustment to their new family and new life. Contracts and work patterns have changed a lot in recent years, but adoption support has not reflected that. Self-employed adopters need support to take leave from work, so they can put time into ensuring their new child is safe and settled.
Fourthly, coming at this from a Conservative point of view, I feel the Government should be supporting and encouraging entrepreneurialism rather than repelling people from it. There are currently 4.8 million self-employed people in the UK, making up to 15% of the workforce. That is a 12% increase since 2001 and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) said, we are doing much to encourage people to become self-employed.
The self-employed are our country’s business owners, job creators and wealth creators. They are the backbone of our economy, and we need them. We have debated support for the self-employed many times, and I led debates in this place on support for the self-employed and business owners during the covid-19 pandemic. Throughout the peak of the pandemic, like many Members of this House, I was contacted by dozens of constituents who were unable to receive substantial financial support, many of whom were self-employed.
Finally, the Government’s position on support for the self-employed is not consistent with the aims of the national adoption strategy. One responder to a Petitions Committee survey on this issue explained how they had changed jobs shortly before adopting and, as a result, could not adopt a child for the first six months that they were in their new post. Self-employed adopters are penalised and children are waiting longer in care.
I absolutely support the aims of the Government’s national adoption strategy, which states that prospective adopters from every walk of life should be supported, including the self-employed. The vision is to ensure that all adoptive children are found permanent, loving families as quickly as possible—unless, of course, their prospective parent is self-employed, or so it seems.
It is difficult to gauge the full extent of how many individuals, children and families are impacted by this disparity. Nevertheless, I hope this debate will highlight the need to address it and pave a path that will ultimately unlock future adopters and support the creation of safe, loving and happy families.
In my research for this debate, it sounded very much like this is a loophole that no one had noticed. I seriously hope the Government see things in the same way and will look to close this loophole as soon as possible. I draw my remarks to a close, as I know other Members are eager to contribute. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments and hope he is able to address the five concerns I have raised, as well as the many other concerns that will doubtless be raised by other Members.
Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)
If people wish to contribute with a speech, they must stand at the appropriate times so we can see that they wish to speak. Thank you so much.
Elliot Colburn
Thank you for calling me to sum up, Ms Ghani—I promise that I will not take the remaining half-hour to wind up the debate. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for taking part in this important debate. I reiterate my thanks to the petitioners—not only those from Carshalton and Wallington but those from around the country—and to those who have made the journey here today to watch this debate from the Public Gallery. Most importantly, however, I thank those who do one of the most selfless things anyone can do, which is to adopt a child in need—I forgive the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), for mispronouncing my constituency, given that he is one of those people.
I hope that the Government will commit to go away and look again at this issue. I was pleased to hear that there will be further opportunities throughout this Parliament to revisit it, and I seriously hope that it will be given the attention it deserves. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Holly Mumby-Croft), who articulated the point so well, I was surprised when I learned about the current situation. I thought, “Surely this can’t be right. This seems like a weird anomaly to me.” I do not believe that the policy has got to that place intentionally. It sounds like an anomaly that was created when legislation went through, and no one saw the glaring gap until we reached this point. I hope that there will be a chance to look at this issue again and hopefully to close this loophole. I really do not believe that the cost to the Exchequer would be very much, but the return on that investment in our children will be huge and well worth it.
I hope we can all bear in mind that this is ultimately about those often vulnerable children who need long-term loving families. I hope we can get the bureaucracy out of the way to give them just that.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered e-petition 601323, relating to support for new adoptive parents.
Sutton Decentralised Energy Network
Elliot Colburn Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
Colleagues in this House will have heard me speak many times about the problems facing residents living in New Mill Quarter in Hackbridge and the issues surrounding the Sutton Decentralised Energy Network, or SDEN. Before I go on, may I particularly welcome that it is this Minister who is on the Front Bench? The Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), will know much of what I am about to say, as my constituency neighbour and as the MP for the second half of Sutton, which we both represent.
For the benefit of the House, I would first like to go over some of the background to SDEN. It was set up in 2016 and is still wholly owned by Sutton Council. It was set up to provide heating and hot water to properties, as part of a heat network, across Sutton but also neighbouring boroughs. The energy for this project was to be generated by the Beddington energy recovery facility—in other words, an incinerator that is the largest polluter in the London Borough of Sutton. Put simply, the incinerator will burn waste, and the energy produced will provide heating and hot water to nearby properties.
The first phase of this project was to provide energy to New Mill Quarter, which is a new build estate in Hackbridge. It is still partly under construction, but when it is completed it will total approximately 800 properties. Residents started moving into New Mill Quarter in 2019, but since then they have been absolutely plagued by problems, with a number of issues surrounding technical aspects of SDEN as well as management by Sutton Council causing financial and mental distress to the residents who live there. I would like to go over some of the issues they have been facing in more detail.
The first and most important issue has been the extremely regular blackouts that have occurred. One resident tells me that, since 2019, they have had a total of 26 heating and hot water blackouts, and two incidents that required call-outs from the London Fire Brigade because of problems to do with the technical nature of SDEN. Until fairly recently, SDEN promoted its services as “100% 24/7 resilient”, but as residents living at New Mill Quarter can attest, the service is anything but resilient, as they continue waking up to freezing cold homes on a regular basis. I was particularly shocked at a meeting, which the council tried and failed to block me from attending, when it was claimed that residents should not have expected it to be 100% resilient, despite the marketing material claiming that it was, as this was clearly just a promotional piece of literature. I personally fail to see how this does not fall foul of the law, but I do not have time to go into that right now, so I will move on.
The regular blackouts have been particularly difficult during covid-19, as of course people were ordered to stay in and work from home, but many of them suffered regular outages of their heating and hot water while they did so. For most of us, hot water and heating blackouts would occur very infrequently—once in a blue moon—if the boiler is on the blink or a heat system does not work. But for residents in New Mill Quarter, it really is a daily guessing game as to whether or not they will wake up to have any heat or hot water. Many residents are having to pay extensively for additional or alternative heating devices, but in response to this, SDEN has only offered residents a pitiful compensation package of just £54.
The second issue with SDEN surrounds the pricing model. The council was again so keen to keep information about the pricing model quiet that it took freedom of information requests and a ruling from the Information Commissioner to even get hold of it. What it actually revealed is that residents in New Mill Quarter are indeed paying above average energy prices, despite claims from SDEN that they are on parity. The pricing structure of SDEN is split into two categories: a variable rate, which is the usual daily rate; and the standing charge, which covers maintenance and repairs. Based on the pricing model that has been provided by SDEN—finally—the New Mill Quarter Residents Association has calculated that the costs were likely higher than the market by £2.9 million across the entire estate over the term of the contract.
The final issue—again, potentially one of the more important parts of this—is that residents can do absolutely nothing about this. They are trapped by the infrastructure that is there, because properties in New Mill Quarter do not have individual heating sources such as boilers or heat pumps. They cannot vote with their feet and switch energy providers, so ultimately SDEN has a monopoly on energy in New Mill Quarter, and residents are tied into a 25-year contract that they cannot get out of.
Since becoming the MP for Carshalton and Wallington, I have basically had to deal with SDEN issues since day one, so I have been curious to look at whether these were exclusive to SDEN, but sadly it appears they are not. There are other case studies from across just the capital here in London. I hear that the Pembroke Park estate in Hillingdon has suffered failures, as have the Oval Quarter in Lambeth, New Festival Quarter in Tower Hamlets and multiple estates in Southwark, all of which have suffered hot water and heating outages. But nothing in my research comes even close to the absolute shambles presided over by Liberal Democrat-run Sutton Council.
Thanks to a motion in Sutton Council by the Conservative group, an independent review into the financial model of SDEN was conducted. The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy conducted the review over the summer, and its findings were nothing short of shameful. It concluded that Sutton Council had made false assumptions in its financial modelling to gain approval for its heat network. It was essentially a fake news business document. The model falsely included 75 dwellings that do not exist and funding grants that were never obtained. The report concluded that SDEN was “not financially stable”. To improve the financial resilience of SDEN, the report suggested two things: increases in the tariffs charged to customers, who are already paying above the market rate for energy prices; and, revising the funding available from the taxpayer to pick up the pieces.
The second thing I want to look at is the fact that SDEN is dependent on the Beddington incinerator to operate, but that creates a paradox. SDEN claims to be a low-carbon energy provider, but SDEN was used as a condition to get approval to build an incinerator, which is the largest polluter in the borough. Those two statements just do not add up. The heat network relies on the burning of waste to keep it going, yet the Lib Dems are claiming that they can increase recycling rates this way. Incineration is not conducive to our net zero targets, and it is the Government’s policy to phase out incineration in their waste minimisation strategy.
As recycling levels increase, along with “reduce and reuse”, the amount of waste that the borough produces, and the amount of waste that other boroughs send to SDEN to burn, will inevitably reduce. That can mean only one of two things: either SDEN will have to import waste to the Beddington incinerator to keep it operational, or the incinerator will become obsolete, as there is no waste to burn, and therefore homes will be left with no source of heating. I do not think the latter is likely any time soon, because the operators of the Beddington incinerator, which was approved by the Lib Dem council in 2013, are now looking to expand its capacity. They are applying for an increase in the amount of waste it can burn, and much of that will be imported from outside the borough. More waste equals more vehicle movements, equals more incineration, equals more air pollution, equals more carbon emissions.
To add insult to injury, there has been a complete lack of any understanding, empathy or action from the Lib Dem-run council, including the Lib Dem councillors representing the area, which may explain why it seems most of them are jumping, like rats leaving a sinking ship, rather than daring to face their electorate for re-election in May. The Lib Dems are still touting this scheme as a huge success—as proof of their competence and a demonstration of how well they run things. If this is how they run things, it is no wonder that more and more lifelong Lib Dem voters are telling me that they simply cannot put them back into the council in May.
This is where we need the Government to try to help. This relatively new form of energy is almost entirely unregulated, so new consumer protections are needed. I welcome the work that BEIS is doing to regulate heat networks. I support the decision for Ofgem to act as the regulator, with Citizens Advice acting as advocate for customers and the energy ombudsman responsible for resolving disputes. We need regulation and consumer support as soon as possible. To reach our net zero ambitions, heat networks are set to increase by 800%—that is a lot of growth in a short period of time.
To protect and help current and future heat network customers, regulation needs to be expedited. People are trapped in homes, unable to sell due to the well-known issues with heat networks. The regulators need to have enough bite to resolve the issues that customers are experiencing, including, importantly, providing compensation for historical complaints, ensuring that these projects can be future-proofed.
Some problems are yet to be addressed. In the case of SDEN, there have been failures by the public sector local authority and the private sector developer/energy provider, which needs cross-departmental support. Sutton Council, as I have already said, established this heat network under false pretences and has failed to manage its finances, so I would be grateful to hear how BEIS and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities can work together to ensure that rogue and incompetent local authorities are not failing consumers and to prevent them from conducting these projects without legitimate financial models. Wider conversations need to be had about how we can liberate the heat network market so that they are not monopolised, to the detriment of customers trapped in long-term contracts.
SDEN has been a catastrophic failure. It was founded on fantasy, it is not working and now local residents are going to be asked to foot the bill for this vanity project. At the heart of this are residents trapped with nowhere to go. They cannot change provider because of the monopoly of heat networks such as SDEN, so we need tougher regulation. We need the energy price cap to apply to heat networks, and when things go wrong we need compensation and assurances that incompetently run councils, such as Lib Dem-controlled Sutton, are not the final arbiter.
The Lib Dems are not going to help these residents. They just do not care. I hope that the Government can step in with tougher regulations to protect SDEN customers from the disaster that they have been left with.
Fireworks: Sale and Use
Elliot Colburn Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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Derek Twigg (in the Chair)
Before we begin, I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when not speaking in the debate. This is in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. I remind Members that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test twice a week if coming on to the parliamentary estate. This can be done either at the testing centre in the House, or at home. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated, and when entering and leaving the room.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 319891, relating to the sale and use of fireworks.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. The petition before us, entitled “Limit the Sale and Use of Fireworks to Organisers of Licensed Displays Only”, states:
“Current legislation allows for public use of fireworks 16 hours a day, every day, making it impossible for vulnerable groups to take precautions against the distress they can cause. Better enforcement of existing law is insufficient; limiting their sale & use to licensed displays only is necessary.
Restrictions on the sale & use of fireworks has huge public support and is backed by several human and animal charities. Limiting the sale & use of fireworks to displays only, by introducing licensing via local authorities, would help to protect vulnerable people and animals from the distress and anxiety caused by unexpected firework noise & pollution. Legislation that balances people’s desires for firework displays, and individual rights to not be distressed throughout the year, is needed now.”
The petition closed with 301,610 signatures, including 306 from my own constituency of Carshalton and Wallington, and I am grateful to the petition’s creator, Julie, for taking the time to speak to me before today’s debate to set out why she created the petition. It is great to see so many colleagues present to take part, and I know that many wanted to get into the debate but could not, including my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie), who has done a lot of work in the area. I wanted to make sure that the contributions of those Members were also put on record.
The debate has become something of an annual event. I remember being in Westminster Hall to debate the topic last year, and I believe that the Petitions Committee has held a debate on the issue every year for the past five or six. The Minister, as a former member of that Committee, will remember those debates full well. The fact that every year more 100,000 people sign a petition asking for very similar things, and we come to this place to debate those things, demonstrates—as the petition says—the significant public interest in the topic. I am sure that many colleagues will share their experiences of the emails and social media messages they have received over the past few days, ranging from those that are totally opposed to any change in the law whatsoever to those that would like to see fireworks banned altogether —not just for private use, but for any use at all.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
I was at a constituency event yesterday evening and was approached by constituents about the debate, including one, Sharon, who has a family member who has autism. The unexpected, random and unpredictable nature of fireworks going off when they are not anticipated causes that person real distress, and other constituents who are military veterans have contacted me to express the same concern. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that those kinds of issues need to be considered when we are taking steps to minimise the use of fireworks outwith proper displays?
Elliot Colburn
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I expect that many colleagues will mention the impact that fireworks can have on animals, but we often forget that people are equally affected. That needs to become a central part of this debate; it should be considered, so I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention.
Because of the great public interest in this topic, I decided to set up a survey—as I know many colleagues on all sides of the House have done, either this year or in years prior—to gauge my constituents’ views more widely. The response was something of a surprise, and has been quite phenomenal, so I hope the House will give me leave to go through some of those responses. I checked just an hour before today’s debate began, and the Facebook post that I created has received over 1.2 million hits, has been shared 12,000 times, and has attracted 75,000 responses. I asked those 75,000 respondents for their thoughts on four different topics, and I will very quickly go through their responses.
I began by asking the respondents if, like the petitioners, they agreed that fireworks should be banned other than on set days of the year; 10% said no and 88% said yes. Secondly, I asked if they normally looked forward to bonfire night; 19% said yes and 78% said no. Thirdly, I asked if they supported a complete ban on fireworks, other than for organised events; 9% said no and 89% said yes. Finally, I asked pet owners specifically about the impact of fireworks on their pets, and whether they were afraid of fireworks; 15% said no and 83% said yes. Of course, I must add the caveat that the survey was no official consultation—it was a Facebook post that went a bit viral. However, I hope that that snapshot of public opinion and the views expressed will help colleagues understand the issue.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing such a vital debate. One person who responded to the survey and has campaigned vigorously on the issue is Richard Smith, from my constituency. He is a veteran and has served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland. He is not a killjoy, but the effect of post-traumatic stress disorder on him and many of his comrades is a significant factor. He welcomes the debate but, more importantly, he would welcome action from Ministers.
Elliot Colburn
I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing that to our attention. Would he pass on the Petitions Committee’s thanks to his constituent for his engagement with the debate? I will touch on that issue later.
I recognise and accept that there are strong views on both sides of the debate. The hon. Gentleman just used the word “killjoy”, and I was called that by a journalist just this morning. I confess that I sometimes find myself very torn, as I am sure many hon. Members are and will discuss later. I admit that I enjoy a good fireworks display. The Minister, who is my constituency neighbour, will know very well the amazing fireworks displays that have been put on in Carshalton Park by Carshalton Round Table over the years. Many people see fireworks as good fun and are not keen to see further bureaucracy come into their lives, preventing them from enjoying themselves. My natural instinct has always been against banning things, and I share concerns, which I know the Government have raised in response to the petition before, that restrictions could lead to a rise in black market sales and illegal usage and create problems with enforcement. I appreciate that a number of measures have also been undertaken, but I will let the Minister touch on those in his reply and not steal all of his material.
On the flip side, the petitioners’ arguments are incredibly persuasive. As I am sure we will hear throughout the debate, my dog Willow, like so many dogs, is absolutely terrified of fireworks. She spent most of Saturday night cowering and hiding in a corner. As we have heard from hon. Members, fireworks can also be incredibly distressing for people living with autism and for veterans suffering from PTSD. That is why many animal and veteran charities and organisations have echoed the petitioners’ calls for restrictions on sale and use.
I have also received a number of emails, as I am sure many colleagues have, with the most dreadful photos showing how letting off fireworks can go badly wrong, where people or animals have suffered horrific injuries or property has been damaged. After all, we must remember that fireworks contain combustible and explosive materials.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend aware that there is a particularly regional nature to the issue? In the north-east, in County Durham, we are one of the top two places in the country for arson and arson of vehicles. The knock-on effects of fireworks are not limited to those on animals, which are very serious, and to road safety and antisocial behaviour, but relate to some of the criminal issues he is highlighting, which can lead to real damage to people and property. Does he understand that that is probably one reason why my constituency was in the top 9% in the country in terms of respondents to this e-petition?
Elliot Colburn
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing that to my attention; if I did not understand before, I certainly do now. One reason petitioners keep bringing the topic back is the problem with the current enforcement measures, which are either not enforced properly or are insufficient to deal with the issue. After all, fireworks contain combustible and explosive materials. There are alternatives available; there are quiet or silent fireworks and even non-explosive things such as light-up drones.
I know the Minister will want to cover the existing legislation, enforcement and public awareness campaigns, so I will not steal his material. I will draw attention to the work that the Petitions Committee has done in the past in recognition of the strong public interest. This is why, following the three petitions that have been formerly debated in Westminster Hall, the Committee produced a report in 2019. I will admit that the investigation concurred with the Government of the time; introducing a ban or taking “drastic action” on the sale and use of fireworks was not supported by the Committee. However, it did make a number of recommendations to Government. In their response last March, the Government made a number of commitments. These included: instructing the Office for Product Safety and Standards to develop a fact-based evidence base; inviting stakeholders to share information that may not have previously been publicly available; better education and public awareness; engagement with animal welfare groups about proactive steps that pet owners can take; and a number of other points. On the first point, I understand that the OPSS has since published its evidence base. However, it would be useful to get an update from the Government on the commitments they made in response to the report, and the progress that has been made since.
Given the significant interest in this area of policy, as evidenced by the regularity with which we come here to debate this topic in Petitions Committee debates, I wondered whether the Government have considered a larger exercise in gathering public opinion and consultation. I am sure we will hear more from our colleagues in the Scottish National party about the Scottish Government’s two consultations in the area since 2019. That work north of the border has led to the establishment of a firework review group, whose recommendations are being considered by the Scottish Government following a second public consultation. Will the Minister speak to his opposite number in Scotland and consider undertaking a similar public engagement exercise better to understand public opinion and inform policy in this area?
It is clear that the issue is not going to go away any time soon. There is significant public interest and strong views are held on all sides; I would be very surprised if we were not back here next year debating the issue once again. I look forward to hearing colleagues’ contributions and the reply from the Minister about the action that has been taken. However, for the reasons I have given, the status quo does not appear to be tenable. I do not think that is fair that we continue to come here year after year, have the same debate and repeat the same arguments. I would argue that that could erode public trust in the Petitions Committee system, which is designed to give people a voice in this House. It is not fair to the petitioners, or to the constituents who contact us year after year, that we just go round in circles without exploring the matter in greater detail. I believe that further work should be undertaken, and that it is to the public that we must look to find the way forward.
Through public consultation, the Government could better understand and engage with the concerns about the impact that fireworks have, particularly on animals, people with autism and those living with PTSD. There are also concerns about losing a source of enjoyment; there is a balance to be struck. I am sure that the significant number of people who took part in my survey—in just a few days and in uncontrolled conditions —demonstrates that if a proper public consultation was to take place there would be a significant amount of public involvement. That would allow the Government to do a full and detailed analysis of responses, which could inform policy going forward. Can the Minister take this suggestion back to his Department and report back to the Petitions Committee about whether such an undertaking would be possible? I appreciate many other colleagues want to speak, so I will bring my remarks to a close. I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate.
Derek Twigg (in the Chair)
As so many Members wish to speak, I have to impose a three-minute limit on speeches; that will give us the best chance of getting every Member in to speak. I will cut Members’ speeches off at three minutes.
Elliot Colburn
Sadly, time prevents me from going through the contributions made by all right hon. and hon. Members. However, I thank the 11, I believe, Back-Bench Members who joined us in the debate. I think we have represented the petitioners well. Again, I thank Julie, the petition creator, for taking the time before the debate to brief me on why the subject is so important. I thank right hon. and hon. Members for sharing their reflections and stories from their constituencies. We have heard about the wide-ranging and worrying impact of fireworks on our constituents, which reflects why we have had this debate six years in a row, and why we will no doubt have it again. On that basis, it is important to find a way forward.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered e-petition 319891, relating to the sale and use of fireworks.
Ethnicity Pay Gap
Elliot Colburn Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Stewart Hosie (in the Chair)
Before we begin, may I encourage hon. Members to wear masks when they are not speaking? This is in line with the current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. Please also give one another and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 300105, relating to ethnicity pay gap reporting.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for expressing an interest in this afternoon’s Petitions Committee debate. The e-petition is entitled “Introduce Mandatory Ethnicity Pay Gap Reporting”. Let me begin with the text of this petition, which states:
“Much like the existing mandatory requirement for employers with 250 or more employees must publish their gender pay gap. We call upon the government to introduce the ethnicity pay gap reporting. To shine a light on race/ethnicity based inequality in the workplace so that they can be addressed.
Currently there is a lack of data available in gauging the ethnicity pay gap in the workplace. Introducing these measures will allow employers to be held accountable in closing the gap where there is disparity. In order to achieve a fairer workplace publishing this data is one of the next steps to knowing how extensive the issues are from a race and ethnicity perspective and not just through the lens of gender.”
The petition closed with 130,567 signatures, including 355 from my Carshalton and Wallington constituency. At the outset of today’s debate, I thank the petition creator for taking the time to talk to me about why they started the petition. I also thank organisations such as NatWest, Lloyds and Barclays, which took the time to speak to me about their experience of ethnicity pay gap reporting in their own organisations—I will talk about that later. I also thank the independent statistician Nigel Marriott for his very helpful briefing note and his thoughts, which Members can view on his website.
There have been many calls in support of ethnicity pay gap reporting, and that request is not something new or born out of this petition; it has been around for some time. Reporting in March 2021, the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities also found that pay gap reporting is a potentially useful tool. But if we cast our minds back to 2018, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) was Prime Minister, she launched a consultation on this issue, and the stated aim of the consultation at that time was to help employers to identify barriers and enable a fairer and more diverse workplace. That move was welcomed at the time by both the CBI and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, along with businesses, charities, academics and others.
All of these, including the petition creator and those who briefed me prior to today’s debate, made the case that ethnicity pay gap reporting, much like gender pay gap reporting, could help businesses to understand their workforce better, identify barriers to equality and create action plans to tackle those barriers. And of course it would help to inform Government as to the reality of pay gaps and enable them to consider the actions that they can take if needed.
I am sure that colleagues from across the Chamber will go into greater detail about the benefits of pay gap reporting throughout their contributions, so I will not steal everyone’s material in my opening speech, but I would like just to draw attention to an example of an existing system of pay gap reporting in the UK, which of course relates to gender. In a blog post published by the London School of Economics in March of this year, it was found that gender pay gap reporting has been effective in its aim of narrowing the gap. The difference between men’s and women’s pay had shrunk by just under a fifth during the relevant time. It has affected employers because, according to the blog post, female workers
“show a strong aversion to high pay-gap employers, suggesting that organisations have felt compelled to make changes in order to attract and retain workers.”
One would hope that the same would apply in the case of ethnicity pay gaps. When speaking to some of these organisations, such as the three large banks that I mentioned in my opening remarks, it is very clear that this reporting has taught their businesses a lot and has helped to inform their action plans to create more equal workplaces. However, as the Government identified in their response to this petition, it is true that there are some complications to the reporting that will need to be overcome before proposals can be brought forward. Those have been very ably explained by Nigel Marriott in his briefing note, and I will touch on a few of them. I must stress that they are not arguments against ethnicity pay gap reporting, but an identification of what the Government will have to consider before making any proposals.
The first thing to mention is that, while it might seem easy to go straight to gender pay gap reporting as the template for ethnicity pay gap reporting, it is not as simple as replicating that, for several reasons. Gender pay gap reporting is supported by the fact that it is largely binary—not exclusively so, but given how big that discussion is, we will save it for another day—and more or less evenly distributed across the country, whereas the ethnicity breakdown in the population can alter drastically depending on where someone lives and can be made up of a much larger number of categories. That then presents a number of data protection issues, because data of that kind must never inadvertently reveal the identity of the person it reports on. For example, a small business in a predominantly white community could inadvertently reveal information about employees’ pay for just one of their employees.
Then there is the difficulty of how to disaggregate the data in the first place: what categories or descriptions should be used, and how do people truly reflect their employees’ wishes and how they prefer to be identified? That is made all the more difficult when we consider the issue of disclosure, as it is estimated that something between 5% and 40% of employees do not disclose their ethnicity.
Again, these are not arguments against ethnicity pay gap reporting, but it is important to raise these problems here and consider how we can overcome them in order to bring forward proposals. It may be that we look only to businesses with more than a certain number of employees, or report on an industry rather than at individual employer level. As my hon. Friend the Minister and I are both London MPs, I might suggest to him that London is the perfect place to trial such a scheme before rolling it out countrywide.
Either way, I hope the Government are considering this matter carefully. I note from their written response that they will look to publish their analysis of the 2018 consultation later this year, so any further information on the date of that publication and any plans to bring forward proposals would be very welcome. I will end my remarks there, Mr Hosie, and hand over to the rest of my colleagues.
Elliot Colburn
I think I have half an hour, Mr Hosie, but you will be relieved to know that I will not take it all.
Elliot Colburn
I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions to this Petitions Committee debate, and I thank the petitioners for allowing us the opportunity to discuss this important topic this afternoon. The key theme in a lot of Members’ contributions was the importance of getting good data and creating evidence-based policy as a result, which is absolutely what we want to see. Of course, skin colour should not be a predeterminate of pay, and that is what we all want to see tackled in this country. I look forward to hearing more from the Department about the response to the consultation and the next steps, as I am sure the petitioners do.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered e-petition 300105, relating to ethnicity pay gap reporting.
Oral Answers to Questions
Elliot Colburn Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Paul Scully
The answer to this question is to go to the Coventry and Warwickshire local enterprise partnership growth hub. There are 38 growth hubs around the country that are one-stop shops to get access to that. We are helping SMEs navigate the business finance landscape through those growth hub networks as well. Our detailed business support webpages provide advice for businesses of all sizes across the UK.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kwasi Kwarteng)
I would like to say that over the last few weeks I think we have gone through a trying time, but two things have really stood out as remarkable successes. The vaccine roll-out continues to go from strength to strength. Something like 60 million jabs have been administered across this country, which I am pleased to say is a world-beating target to have reached for a country of our size. On the back of that, we have managed to hit the dates in the road map. On 12 April, we opened up in the way we said we would, and then we looked at the data and we were able to do so again on 17 May. This has provided business with a huge degree of support and a measure of certainty ahead of a summer reopening.
Elliot Colburn [V]
Carshalton and Wallington residents, particularly those living in New Mill Quarter in Hackbridge, have been suffering at the hands of the Lib Dem-run council-owned district energy network called SDEN—Sutton Decentralised Energy Network—leaving residents without heating and hot water, some more than a dozen times in just six months. I know BEIS is keen to ensure that residents such as these are not victims of shoddy operations, so following the closure of its consultation last year, what steps is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that district energy networks are regulated?
Kwasi Kwarteng
It is an excellent question. My hon. Friend and I corresponded about this and spoke directly about this when I was the Minister of State for Energy. I am very pleased to tell him that we are committed to regulating the heat networks market within this Parliament, and we will bring legislation forward at the earliest possible opportunity. It is clearly a really important thing to be doing, and he and his constituents can rest assured that we are acting with due speed.
District Heat Networks
Elliot Colburn Excerpts(2 years, 12 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)
I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the hybrid arrangements. Members who are participating physically and virtually must be present at the beginning of the debate and stay for the entire debate. I remind Members who are participating virtually that they will be visible at all times, not just to each other, but to us in the Boothroyd Room. If Members have any technical problems, they should email the Westminster Hall Clerks’ email address. I ask Members who are attending physically to wear masks until they are speaking. I call Elliot Colburn to move the motion.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con) [V]
I beg to move,
That this House has considered district heat networks.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time in Westminster Hall, Ms Ghani. I am grateful to the Speaker’s Office for granting me this debate, as some of my Carshalton and Wallington residents, particularly those living in the New Mill Quarter development in Hackbridge, have been adversely affected by district heat networks. In my efforts to support them, I have encountered many issues.
For the benefit of the House, I should briefly explain what a district heat network is. They are designed to take energy from a local energy source and distribute it to consumers through a series of highly insulated pipes. A common source of the energy is incinerators or so-called energy-from-waste facilities, as their proponents like to call them. That is the model used in my constituency.
When the Lib Dems gleefully secured the incinerator in Beddington that they fought so hard to deliver, one of their most common arguments was that the waste heat from the incinerator would be used to heat local homes. The idea was that highly insulated pipes would be laid, water would be heated at an energy transfer station, using heat from the incinerator, and sent along the pipes to residents’ homes, providing a reliable and supposedly clean heating source at a reasonable price, all run by an arm’s length company called Sutton Decentralised Energy Network—SDEN—which is wholly owned by the council. The reality is a system that has been dogged with failure, residents being ripped off and the complete absence of any action or even empathy from the council. I will expand on that point later.
My central point is that this relatively new form of energy production is almost entirely unregulated. When residents have problems, they have very little in the way of consumer protections or rights. I hope I can persuade the Government to fix that. The Government have already launched a consultation into the networks, which I contributed to, and have made space for discussions about the networks in the design of the Green Heat Network Fund. The consultation describes the heat networks as “central heating for cities”. When someone’s central heating breaks down in a traditional home, one family is affected. When a heat network breaks down, the entire network is affected, impacting hundreds or even thousands of people. As the consultation states, a heat network
“avoids the need for individual heating solutions in every building.”
Therefore, it encounters problems that will impact every building jointly. That is why there needs to be greater consumer protection.
I want to draw focus on several key themes today. The first is reliability. There have been extended delays in the SDEN system going live, meaning residents were until last month being provided with heat by the back-up boilers, which have proven less than reliable. By my count, judging from the contact I have had with residents from New Mill Quarter, in the past year, there have been nearly 20 hot water or heating outages, including over the cold winter months, leaving people without hot water or heating and putting vulnerable people at risk. On two occasions since December, the hot water and heating blackouts have required a call-out from the London Fire Brigade due to problems in the back-up boiler room.
The situation is not confined to Hackbridge. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy heat networks consumer survey of 2017 found that a greater proportion of heat network customers experience loss of heating compared with customers not served by these networks. A report by the Competition and Markets Authority showed reliability concerns as a consistent theme of customer complaints on heat networks, particularly citing unplanned interruptions.
I am guessing that most of us live in a home heated by a boiler. For those who do, breakdowns are a rare occurrence. For New Mill Quarter residents, they are very common. Even if those of us who live in a home heated by a boiler are dogged with problems, we can vote with our feet, and switch provider or change our system and replace the boiler. That option is not available to those living in a district heat network. Residents in Hackbridge were sold a system that they were told would be 100%, 24/7 reliable. There are marketing documents to prove that. [Interruption.]
Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)
Order. I believe all hon. Members present have a proxy vote, so there is no need for us to suspend for a Division in the House. Please continue.
Elliot Colburn
Thank you, Ms Ghani.
In a public meeting that the council tried—and failed—to keep me out of, despite my calling for it in the first place, residents were told that they should have somehow known that 100% did not mean 100% and that, inevitably, there would be problems. During that same meeting, residents expressed how they could never get through to someone when an outage occurred, were never updated and had no recourse to compensation because there were no obligations on SDEN to do anything, due to lack of regulation. The meeting ended with residents very unhappy, having received no answers and a pitiful compensation offer that did not make up for the stress and concern caused by the constant outages. Nor was there any hope that things would get better; indeed, outages continued well after the meeting took place.
The second issue I want to address is customer satisfaction. Residents in New Mill Quarter experience higher than average heating bills. I conducted a survey of those residents to acquire evidence of their experience. Some 71% of residents told me that their bills were a lot higher than before they moved into New Mill Quarter; that figure rose to nearly 100% when including those who said their bills were somewhat higher.
The pricing structure of SDEN is split into two categories: a variable rate, which is the usual cost of daily rate and usage; and a standing charge, which covers maintenance and repairs. However, the New Mill Quarter Residents Association calculated that the pricing model that SDEN uses as a basis for its costs is nearly £3 million higher for the estate than the next available alternative over the contract term. I can hear the Liberal Democrats shrieking at me—incidentally, they were so keen to keep information about the pricing model quiet and out of the public eye that it took freedom of information requests and a ruling from the Information Commissioner to get that information out of them. They would say that the costs are high because they include things such as insurance and system maintenance, and that is something that we mere mortals who have a boiler must pay for separately. But the numbers just do not stack up. There is evidence to suggest that residents are being completely ripped off. Some residents are looking into private litigation, and I do not think it beyond the realms of possibility that the matter is investigated by a series of Government Departments. Things are that serious.
The overall customer satisfaction with district heat networks is also in question. I detailed the service issues on the estate, which I will not repeat. It is worth noting that, on average, district heat network customers have lower satisfaction rates than customers of more traditional forms of heating. Despite being used as a flagship example of a nation embracing heat networks, Sweden has the lowest heating satisfaction of all five European countries surveyed in a recent 2021 study. The country has a history of consumer distrust of district heating operators, due to fear of being taken advantage of in a natural monopoly.
Potentially one the harshest elements of the district heat network for residents in New Mill Quarter is the totally restrictive and monopolistic nature of the project. There are no boilers in the properties, so there is no ability to switch energy providers. SDEN is the only option. The fundamental market freedoms that have helped make our country thrive are being denied there, and elsewhere in other district heating networks. There is no incentive for SDEN to help reduce the high energy bills, because there is no threat of their customers switching providers.
New Mill Quarter residents are trapped in high energy bill contracts. When I asked residents as part of my survey if they would like to change providers, 91% said yes and the remaining 9% were unsure. Not a single person wanted to stick. When asked if they were aware of SDEN and the obligation to use it when they moved in to their new property, 35% of residents said that they were not, and 13% were unsure. It is clear that many residents were not aware that they would be trapped in the scheme before they moved in, and an overwhelming majority would support freedom in the market to choose.
I am a Conservative because I believe in the principles of the free market. Competition and choice have been shown consistently to drive down prices while driving up reliability. Monopolies have no incentive to do either, because there is no chance of their losing their customer base. Of course there are other natural monopolies in the UK, such as water, for example; but those negative impacts are mitigated through tough regulation including an industry regulator, and consumer protections.
The final point that I want to make about the networks, at least in Hackbridge, is that the project was doomed from the start, owing partly to a faulty business model. The freedom of information requests and Information Commissioner’s Office complaints have revealed that SDEN was built on the back of a complete fantasy in terms of its financial and business modelling. That is probably why the council worked so hard to keep it secret. SDEN is not making any money. In fact, it is in a dire financial situation, and residents are the ones being asked to pay the price. It is really an issue of the customer base.
SDEN is still, even now after all the problems, being touted as a massive success of the delusional, out-of-touch and uncaring Lib Dem-run council. We were told that the incinerator would mean a district heat network that would power potentially thousands of homes, even with the potential to retrofit existing properties to connect to it, giving residents a so-called greener energy alternative. In truth, that was never going to happen. The logistical nightmare of getting the pipes laid and the infrastructure in place even to heat the New Mill Quarter new build development, which is an estate of just over 800 homes, was cripplingly expensive. So it was only ever really going to be an option for new builds, and it only really happened in New Mill Quarter because as the crow flies from the estate to the incinerator there are no obstructions in the way, so laying the pipes was relatively easy.
However, it is not as if developers want to be connected in the first place. The council essentially had to strong-arm Barratt Homes into accepting SDEN and is now trying to force other developers in the borough to accept it too. On more than one occasion it has been caught with egg on its face because it failed to persuade others, including the local hospital, to become customers. That has caused real financial difficulty. Owing to the delays in getting connected and failure of the back-up boilers, in addition to failing to find new customers, the council has to foot the bill for the high gas consumption costs. That, in my opinion, offers a much better explanation for why residents’ bills are so high. It is not that hard to follow the money. The council has to pay a high cost for the gas and residents have high energy bills: put two and two together. Even now that the landfill gas engines at the incinerator site have been switched on, I have it on good authority that they are not enough to heat the homes in New Mill Quarter, so a lot of the work is still being done by back-up boilers. It is going to take yet another two years before the incinerator turbines come on line.
Looking to the future, even if the system was reliable, the incinerator was connected and working well, and prices were reasonable, it would not change the fact that the business model is still fatally flawed. There is something glaringly obvious coming down the line that I fear has been overlooked. That is the fact that the Government’s own resources and waste strategy calls for the phasing out of incinerators—or so-called energy from waste facilities—as a form of waste management, as we look further up the waste hierarchy. The less waste we produce and the more existing waste can be recycled or reused, the less necessary disposal through incineration becomes.
What happens then? The day will come when not enough waste will be produced to burn, and consequently power the heat networks. What, then, happens to the residents who get heat from them? The back-up boilers are not the answer, as has been demonstrated, because they cannot cope with the stress of maintaining an entire heat network. There can only possibly be two options. One is to import waste to keep the incinerator and the supply going, which means more vehicle movements and more pollution, and scrapping the fantasy that it is some kind of green alternative. The other is an expensive, time-consuming and in many cases potentially impossible retrofit of an alternative energy supply. The networks are not future-proofed at all and it may be 20 or 30 years away but the day will come when the failure to future-proof could lead to an even greater problem for residents down the line.
I have covered a lot of ground today, but I hope that I have demonstrated the seriousness of the problems facing New Mill Quarter residents, who feel ignored and abandoned by their ward councillors, the council at large and SDEN. SDEN’s problems are not unique, although I imagine some of the dodgy dealings might be. However, tougher regulation is clearly needed, as examples of what I have described can be found across the country. At the very least, consumers need to be given greater protections and there should be a regulator on a statutory footing, which must compel the pricing model to be on par with the market average. There should be a 24/7 helpline to report faults, a compensation package for every outage, the ability to escalate complaints to a higher organisation, and so on.
I also urge the Government to look at whether these monopolies are a good idea at all. The inability to choose a provider is not just unfair; we are also heading to a point where the source of energy might not even be available in a couple of decades. It is not fair of our generation to burden a future generation with tackling that problem. I urge the Government to let SDEN be a lesson in what not to do. Let us not resign residents in Hackbridge or anywhere else to this poor state of affairs.
Elliot Colburn [V]
I thank the Minister for her response. It is really reassuring to hear that the Government have heard my concerns and those of colleagues across the House and will take action in the form of regulation. I look forward to working with her constructively to bring that about and get it on the statute book, because it is really needed. If heat networks are to form a big part of our heating for the future, they must be regulated and have consumer protections. At the moment, residents in New Mill Quarter can only dream of living under a heat network that lives up to the standards expected in a normal home, let alone those of an innovative scheme for the future. I am grateful to the Minister and look forward to working with her.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered district heat networks.
Oral Answers to Questions
Elliot Colburn Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Kwasi Kwarteng
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have considerable plans for hydrogen production. We have a hydrogen strategy coming forward, and we have consulted on business models. I am sure that people in Ellesmere Port, and the HyNet cluster generally, will have a big part to play in the development of hydrogen production in this country.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con) [V]
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The proportion of residual waste sent to landfill, incineration and transfer stations that could otherwise have been recycled in England in 2020 is not available, I am afraid, but data on waste arisings are not structured around the material composition of waste streams. For both fossil and biogenic CO2 for energy-from-waste plants, national emissions estimates are based on an emission factor derived using the 2006 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change default factor for biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Elliot Colburn Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con) [V]
I warmly welcome the measures taken in this Budget. I particularly welcome the super deduction, especially as last month I wrote for The Times Red Box calling on the Government to break down barriers to a green industrial revolution through the tax system, including by cutting investment taxes to help businesses to buy new cleaner technologies. The super deduction, by reducing a tax bill by 130% for businesses that are investing, will indeed boost investment and help businesses to make the transition to cleaner technology. I thank the Chancellor for listening to those calls.
I want briefly to touch on the support for families and businesses in Carshalton and Wallington. Throughout this pandemic, I have had many discussions and roundtables with individuals and businesses in my constituency, including dealing with well over 12,000 pieces of casework. The immediate and short-term financial support measures have been welcome, but what I especially welcome in this Budget is the recognition that reopening and bouncing back will not happen overnight for many. Measures such as extending furlough to September, extending the 5% VAT cut for six months, extending universal credit and working tax credit for six months, two further grants for the self-employed, ongoing support for food and holiday activity programmes, providing food, essential goods and laptops to those in need, and new recovery loans, will help families and businesses through the final months of the pandemic and on the road to recovery.
I want to briefly mention three support measures. After leading a debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee, I warmly welcome the extension of the stamp duty relief, and I thank the Chancellor for listing to my calls to taper off the relief rather than stopping it overnight.
I also welcome the £700 million for arts, culture and sport. I hope that organisations in Carshalton and Wallington, such as CryerArts, Mitcham & Carshalton rugby club and Carshalton Athletic, will benefit.
Finally, I welcome the restart grants for hospitality, retail, leisure and personal care. Having held many meetings in Carshalton and Wallington with our independent stores, cafés, pubs, restaurants, hairdressers, salons and others, I knew the concerns they had about surviving to the point that they could reopen properly. I hope that this goes some way to alleviating those concerns. I would just add that I hope we can find a way of extending that support to the wedding sector—and I do not just say that as I am due to get married in July myself.
I thank the Chancellor for listening to many of the concerns that I have raised with him, and I welcome this Budget. I will continue to engage with families and businesses across Carshalton and Wallington to do whatever I can to help them through these last few months.