Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gavin Williamson and Mark Pawsey

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

It was a Conservative Government who introduced the sports premium, and it is a Conservative Government who are ensuring that £320 million is going out to schools so they can ensure that youngsters have the kind of activity they want to see. Returning to school, yes, is incredibly important for the learning that all children benefit from, but it is also about the physical health they will get from being back at school. We are backing this with that money and ensuring there are great sports activities in all schools right across the country.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to allocate grades to home-educated students who were unable to take public examinations as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gavin Williamson and Mark Pawsey

Monday 25th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

In our spend on defence, it is important that our armed forces get the best, and in respect of naval propulsion systems that means the low-vibration motors produced by GE Energy in Rugby. Does the Minister agree that it is important to maintain that capability in the UK?

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend has raised this issue a number of times. I, along with the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), who has responsibility for defence procurement, have also met him on this. We are working closely with GE to do everything we can to support the business going forward and this includes the enormous work that has been put into securing export orders as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gavin Williamson and Mark Pawsey

Monday 18th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

The Minister for the Armed Forces has already referred to the expertise of GE Energy, located in my Rugby constituency, in the manufacture of propulsion systems. Does he agree it is important to retain that capability as an important part of our manufacturing base?

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend and I have met to discuss this on a number of occasions, and my Department, along with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, is doing everything it can to help. We are working with GE to see if there are different ways to pull work forward. It is an important capability, and I would very much like to see the technology, which was developed in the UK, continue to be manufactured in the UK. We have been very successful in selling the Type 26 around the world, including to Australia and Canada, and it would be great for Rugby to get that benefit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gavin Williamson and Mark Pawsey

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point. The actual mental health outcomes of service personnel are exceptionally good, but there are service personnel and former service personnel who do need a bit of extra support. The investment of £2 million in the veterans gateway is aimed at helping and supporting veterans and service leavers to access the type of support that they best need once they have left the armed forces.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

2. What assessment he has made of the potential merits of using new and developing technologies to support the UK’s defence capability.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Gavin Williamson)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his time and for the opportunity to see the excellent Manufacturing Technology Centre in his constituency just the other week, which demonstrated to me that emerging technologies present greater opportunities but also more complex threats than ever before.

[Mark Pawsey]

In addition to the great work at the MTC, does the Secretary of State agree with me that an excellent example of new technology supporting military capability is the electric drive systems using anti-vibration technology being installed on our marine vessels, which were both developed in Rugby and built in Rugby, and does he agree with me that they represent a great future for British manufacturing?

[Gavin Williamson]

Such technologies do represent a fantastic future for British manufacturing. If we look at the success that the Type 26 has had not just with the eight Type 26 frigates that are going to be built in Britain, but in securing orders in Australia and Canada, we can see that it demonstrates this kind of technology is not only designed in Britain, but should always be built in Britain.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gavin Williamson and Mark Pawsey

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

We are working with our industrial partners on that, including Babcock, and looking closely at what the costs will be. I am unable to reveal those costs to the House at this moment, but that body of work is continuing.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

11. What steps he is taking to encourage innovation by defence suppliers.

Commercial Property

Debate between Gavin Williamson and Mark Pawsey

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Before making my remarks, I first declare an interest as set out in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I want to draw attention to the position faced by a constituent of mine, Mr Peter Summers, who visited my surgery a few weeks ago. For many years, Mr Summers operated a business supplying tyres from an industrial unit he had purchased. At 67, he sold his business but retained the premises, and invested in a personal pension fund. He spent some money refurbishing the building, and let it in 2005 at an annual rental of £35,000. In 2008, the tenant occupying the building went into liquidation and vacated the premises, leaving Mr Summers with some arrears and reinstatement costs of some £3,500, but since then he has been unable to find a new tenant.

In respect of the liability to business rates, Mr Summers enjoyed a period of transition for the first six months, from April 2008 to September 2008, but since then he has incurred a significant sum in business rates. In the six-month period from 30 September 2008 to 1 April 2009, he paid £8,628. For 2009-10, he paid full-year rates of £18,066, and for the current year he has paid £16,071. Over that period of two and a half years, during which he has received no services, his total expenditure has been £42,776. At a time when Mr Summers might have expected to contribute £35,000 a year to his pension fund, he has paid net outgoings of £18,000 a year, a difference of £53,000 per annum.

People such as Mr Summers recognise, in holding commercial property as an investment, that by virtue of the economic cycle, which can go up and down, there will be times when such a property may be vacant and there will be no income. Most investors in property must live with that fact. Mr Summers is prepared to live with it, but it strikes me as unfair that in addition to the loss of rental income, he must now bear a further loss in paying business rates when he cannot meet the sum from his income. He is effectively paying for services he is not receiving. He now faces the prospect of selling his industrial unit in a distressed market where prices have been forced down. The downward pressure has been caused partly by other investors’ concern that if they buy the property, they will be liable for the vacant business rate. Mr Summers came to see me to ask for my support in lobbying the Minister to rectify the position, which I believe is inherently unfair. I advised him that I was happy to do so.

The situation arose in consequence of a change to empty property rate relief that took effect in April 2008. For decades until then, the Government had helped struggling businesses through empty property rate relief. Shops and offices received an allowance of 100% relief initially and 50% thereafter, and owners of empty factories and warehouses received a 100% permanent exemption. The Government’s intention in reducing empty property rate relief was to provide incentives to bring vacant premises into use by encouraging rents downward. The change was intended to encourage property owners to re-let, redevelop or sell empty non-domestic buildings and improve competitiveness for all businesses, including small and medium-sized enterprises, in terms of property costs.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

I declare an interest as outlined in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Has my hon. Friend found, as I have, that the changes, combined with the difficult market conditions, mean that speculative development of office or manufacturing property has stopped? Many small manufacturing businesses are concerned about expanding or taking on extra premises, because if the market weakens, they might end up paying rates on empty properties.

[Mark Pawsey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. I will make that point later in my remarks.

On the Government’s original intentions, they recognised some difficulty with the proposals, and the position was changed slightly in the November 2008 Budget report to exempt from business rates commercial and industrial properties with a rateable value of less than £15,000. Regrettably, that is below the value of Mr Summers’s property.