Royal Mail

Debate between Emily Thornberry and Vince Cable

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

As I said a few moments ago, the average stake is estimated to be roughly £4,000.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Never mind what the independent report says, Mount Pleasant was sold off for two acorns and a button. It is a large development site right in the centre of my constituency. An independent viability report says that 50% of the site could be used for affordable social housing, but what are the developers saying? They are saying that they can afford only 12%. Boris has stepped in and will presumably come down in favour of the developers. If the Secretary of State is not prepared to apologise, will he at least condemn these greedy spivs?

[Vince Cable]

I am not sure why I am expected to apologise for a planning decision in the hon. Lady’s constituency that relates to an application made when the enterprise was under public ownership.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Emily Thornberry and Vince Cable

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

It is fair to say that our manufacturing companies have a great deal more influence and we agree with them. I would add one point: it is not just about manufacturing. A recent survey by CityUK suggested that 60% of banks in London are here because we are part of the single market.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

11. What plans he has to publish the Government’s planned register of companies’ beneficial ownership.

Tuition Fees

Debate between Emily Thornberry and Vince Cable

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

What on earth were top-up fees designed to achieve? They were designed to get graduates to pay instead of the state—that was the whole point.

[Emily Thornberry]

If the right hon. Gentleman could have his time again, would he be for or against student fees?

[Vince Cable]

In the context in which we are now operating—an extreme financial crisis—I am introducing a policy that is a great deal more progressive than the one Labour left behind.

There is a problem, and before I move to the specifics, I shall deal with where the Opposition are coming from, particularly their new leader. Last week, he told the press that he was “tempted” to join the student demonstrations. He has had three days praying in the wilderness, dealing with the devil and deciding whether he wants to succumb to temptation. I do not know whether he has, but if he does, and if he addresses the students, I have been trying to imagine what he will tell them. I think the narrative would go something like this: “We feel your pain. We feel your sense of betrayal by the Government and the Liberal Democrats. We have applied our socialist principles, and we are going to produce a fairer system and lead you to the promised land. What are we offering you? What is our policy? Our policy is delay.” The policy is delay—procrastination. There is a new mantra for the National Union of Students executive: “What do we want?” “Delay.” “When do we want it?” “Well, maybe next year—probably.” That is the alternative on offer.

I shall now deal with the core issue—the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen himself identified it: how do we finance higher education? The last line of his motion is the only one with any substance; it relates to money and the 80% cut in the tuition grant. That is a serious issue, so let us try to deal with it.

The right hon. Gentleman was an education Minister so he knows perfectly well that there are three separate funding streams for higher education: student support, research and tuition. When we look at the picture as a whole, we see that at the end of the Labour Government about 60% of all student funding came from the state and the other 40% came from the private sector, from graduates and overseas students. As a result of the changes we propose, approximately 60:40 will become 40:60. It is a mixed economy and the state contribution is being reduced.

The question is whether that number is right. Should it be more or should it be less? If the state is to contribute, where should the money come from? The issue we all have to face is this: when we came into government, and I came into this job, I knew that my predecessors were going to cut the Department that I lead by between 20% and 25%. That was the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ analysis, which has never been denied. It is clear from the logic of not having protected Departments that that would have happened. That was in a Department, 70% of whose funding goes to universities. If the Labour Government were not going to cut the tuition grant for universities, we have to ask where the money would have come from.

I shall set out the range of alternatives. A 50% cut in further education was one possibility; another was a 40% cut in science and another was a 45% cut in the innovation and enterprise budget. We know that the previous Government would not have gone down several of those routes; they committed themselves to increasing the science budget by even more than us. I think the Labour spokesman on science made that very clear at our Question Time last week. The Opposition were not happy that we had maintained the science budget; they want to go even further. At BIS questions, they constantly raise the issue of regional development agency funding—they want to spend more money on that. Where will the money come from? Is it from the cuts they were committed to?

There is a choice. We understand that. What could have happened, although the Opposition have been very quiet on the subject, is that instead of raiding the universities, they could have made drastic cuts in the further education budget. That was the real choice: the further education budget for vocational training for young people who do not go to university. It is almost certain—indeed, it was being put in place when I joined the Department—that cuts in further education were already in train. The right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen has quite properly spoken of the substantial increase in funding for universities under his Government, but he did not point out that the further education budget did not increase at all. I think it actually fell in real terms. That reflects Labour’s priorities.

Postal Services Bill

Debate between Emily Thornberry and Vince Cable

Wednesday 27th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman may be aware that my constituency includes the second largest sorting office in the world. The 2,000 employees there believe that they provide a universal service at a low price. The system is not broken, and they do not understand why it is being “fixed” by the attempt to privatise it. Why are we going ahead with this?

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Lady’s colleagues in the previous Government would have answered that question for her, because they acknowledged, as we do, that the system is broken. I will take her step by step through the arguments in the original Hooper report and in the updated version, which are common to hon. Members on both sides of the House.

The country that pioneered postal services in the 19th century has been left behind in the 21st century. The rise of e-mail and the internet has led to a dramatic fall in the number of letters that we send. The previous Government were well aware of that problem, and they commissioned an independent review of the future of the universal postal service chaired by Richard Hooper, which found that letter volumes were in structural decline, that Royal Mail was in great financial difficulty and that the universal postal service was under threat. The report’s conclusion was encapsulated in its title, “Modernise or Decline”. All parts of this House accepted the conclusion that the current system was broken; that relates to the previous intervention.

The company, the union, businesses and commentators all agreed with the Hooper conclusion that the status quo then was “untenable”. What was the status quo then is still the status quo now, and Richard Hooper is clear that Royal Mail is now in a worse position. How has that happened? The previous Government endorsed Richard Hooper’s recommendations and acted on them. They brought forward a Bill that the Liberal Democrats and our coalition partners supported. Sadly, it never reached this House, so the future of Royal Mail was not secured. That Bill would have allowed private sector investment in Royal Mail. It would also have enabled the Government to tackle the pension deficit, and reformed the regulatory regime for postal services. Those are all measures with which we agree, and they form the basis of this Bill. We agree with those measures because, as Richard Hooper says, they are essential if the universal postal service is to survive.

[Emily Thornberry]

May I make the point that the pension needs to be sorted out, sale or no sale, that regulation needs to be reconsidered, and that both those things can be done without the privatisation of Royal Mail?

[Vince Cable]

I shall come to the argument for not restricting private investment access in a moment. The simple point is that without private investment we will not get the capital investment that the Royal Mail needs to modernise. That is a simple argument, but I will develop it at length.