Regulatory Impact Assessments Bill

Debate between Esther McVey and Edward Leigh

2nd reading
Friday 20th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Above all, there has been no impact assessment for the poor people living north of Birmingham who live on the line, whose farms have been taken and who have perhaps been forced to give up a place that they have farmed for generations.

[Esther McVey]

I do not think there will ever be enough scrutiny of what went on with HS2. Is my right hon. Friend concerned at all that the cost went up from about £36 billion to—if Lord Berkeley, the Labour peer in the other place, is to be believed—£180 billion? Thankfully, it was stopped, but is my right hon. Friend concerned that an impact assessment was not done on those staggering changes of cost?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

It is just amazing how we walked into this disaster: how no one questioned why HS2 was so ludicrously over-engineered, with the trains running far faster than they do on the continent, for instance.

Before I end, I want to deal with a matter very close to where we are now standing: this building. The whole restoration and renewal saga of Parliament is an HS2 in bricks and mortar. There has never been any proper assessment of what we have been doing. I sat on the sponsor board and I have been dealing with this matter in various Committees for years. I am now on the programme board, which reports directly to Mr Speaker. Hundreds of millions of pounds have been sunk into making ever more complex and over-engineered plans for restoring and renewing this building. We should just have got on with it six years ago, but we still have not come to a final decision.

We are meeting on Tuesday—yet another meeting in which we are going to be asked, believe it or not, whether we should have a full decant. I have been arguing about this for years. We are still talking about going to Richmond House, if the House of Commons ever voted for a full decant, which is totally unsuitable. We would have to rip out the courtyard and knock down bits of a listed building. There would be years of argument, another public inquiry and more delays. This decant will not affect anybody who is now sitting in the House of Commons. It will not happen for years, but still we are returning to the same arguments. The delivery authority keeps returning to this; it keeps saying that it is cheaper, more cost-effective, and all the rest of it to have the full decant. However, we have got on with repairing Speaker’s House and Elizabeth Tower, and we are going to work on Victoria Tower. We should just get on with the work.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

As a former Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, what I hate so much in politics is that people are so casual with the expenditure of taxpayers’ money. I loathe that attitude. If it was their own affairs in dealing with restoration and renewal, they would just get on with the job. They would get various estimates and do what was necessary—the minimum necessary—to make this building safe. But because it is public money, we set up committees and create these huge bodies such as the one running HS2 and the one running R and R, with people paid huge salaries and making endless, over-engineered plans. It is frankly disgraceful.

[Esther McVey]

Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that, should the House decant somewhere else, it may be to an inferior Chamber? It may be not as secure or safe. In such an inferior Chamber, everything we are talking about here—full scrutiny, proper debates and being held to account—might be overlooked, just as how we were not holding the Government to account during the lockdown period, when we missed some debates and some votes.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

We all know how a Chamber is so important. We saw that through the extraordinarily anaemic debates we had during the whole covid period, when there was, frankly, an appalling lack of scrutiny of the Government.

The Bill is extremely timely. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, I cannot understand why the Government will not accept it, but I am sure that in a few moments this eminently sensible Minister will give it the green light.

Social Mobility

Debate between Esther McVey and Edward Leigh

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Esther McVey]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. We must ensure that we give those children the support that they need. I am delighted with the new university technical colleges that Lord Baker, Lord Adonis and Peter Mitchell are fighting for because they could provide people with a startling difference in their life. The timetable starts at 8.30 in the morning and ends at 5 o’clock. It does not matter whether someone comes from a difficult background or has a difficult home life, because they do their homework in school.

I know so many bright children who need an application for their education. For so long, we have learned a subject in isolation without really knowing where it is going. The university technical colleges are addressing that issue. Yes, they are academic, which is excellent, but the fact that they have a longer day and a longer week means that the pupils will have 30% extra time to do projects for companies and to mix with people whom they had never mixed with before, which goes back to the issue of those vital real life role models.

I am glad that we are at last having a discussion about going to university and encouraging people to ask, “Is that really best for me or is an apprenticeship better? Do I really need to get a job?” The Office for National Statistics reports that we now have more than 1.3 million graduates who earn less than the average wage for someone who has been educated to A-level standard. Did university really benefit those people, or did they feel pushed into going to university by quotas for schools? Did a lack of knowledge lead them on to that journey to university? Did university support them in the way that it should?

According to the recruitment agency Adecco, one in five employers says that school leavers make better workers than university graduates. It is crucial to be able to stop for just a second and think, “What is it that I want out of life? What can I do and have the support there?” We should not limit our options at a young age because we did not take the subjects that we would need later on in life. When I was at school, if we did not know what to do, our teachers would say, “Study science for as long as you can because you can do anything with a science O-level”— I am giving my age away now. If youngsters study science at GCSE or A-level, they can always do something. By the way, the lynchpin is chemistry, which is something that we are not always told.

University technical colleges are brilliant. I have read the JCB college booklet and seen what the very first university technical college in Staffordshire is doing. For the children, the experience has been life changing. Some were not doing well in school and feel that they have been given a second opportunity. A life sciences university technical college is coming to north Liverpool, which is associated with the university of Liverpool. Therefore, it will be linked with the university and with business, including Unilever, Novartis, Redx Pharma, Bristol Myers Squibb and Provexis. Hot on the heels of the Liverpool university technical college will be the Wirral university technical college. [Interruption.] I notice that the Minister is smiling there. All that is key.

I want to mention, as an aside, the significant effect that Brian Cox has had on the uptake of physics and maths, so much so that the president of the Institute of Physics, Professor Sir Peter Knight, has talked about the Cox effect. He has inspired new physicists and new mathematicians, so much so that applications to Surrey university this year for physics have gone up by 40%. I mention that because how we communicate our message is key. Brian Cox had a platform: television and the media. People found him exciting, innovative and interesting, and they went and did it.

[Mr Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. It is entirely up to the hon. Lady for how long she speaks, but there is only 10 minutes left for this debate, and she may want to leave some time for the Minister.

[Esther McVey]

Thank you, Mr Leigh, for pointing that out. I am just about to come to my questions.

I want to know about our communication strategy. How are we going to reach out to the kids whom we want to help and support, not just to the people who are already going to get it? It is key that we talk about it not only in policy—it is not just about words, but about deeds and actions. I want to mention the Speaker, who will hold an event for me on social mobility tonight, for 150 different people who have all turned their lives around, from business, drama and the arts. He is also giving Back Benchers a voice—he has introduced the Speaker’s parliamentary placement scheme, in which 10 people from different backgrounds are having a new look on life. I have one, and I want him to be known here: Luke Shaw Harvey from Stoke. He is working with me, and I think it is important.

How will we co-ordinate what we are doing? How are we following it through? How are we looking at the impact? What is our media strategy? How are we going to promote science to children? I see science as a great enabler for everyone. What are our careers advice and opportunities? How will we know about and promote the success stories, so that they are part of the cycle of social mobility?