UK Steel Manufacturing

Debate between Gavin Williamson and Sarah Jones

Thursday 5th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head, as I would expect him to. We face many challenges, but the grid is at the heart and soul of so many of them. When we met industry representatives in opposition, it was top of the list for everybody, and my hon. Friend knows that many companies are saying to us, “We’ve been told we can’t get a grid connection until the late 2030s.” This issue is a priority for us, and we are tackling it and working at pace. We have a whole range of policies to speed up the grid connections, to prioritise what we deal with first, and to work with the companies involved to make sure that we are going at pace. Steel is incredibly crucial, particularly in Scunthorpe, and we have to get it right.

[Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)]

In order for most plants in the United Kingdom to make virgin steel, they need to be able to bring in coking coal. The Labour Government’s policy is to ban bringing in coking coal, which means that thousands of jobs will be lost. What is the Minister going to do to reverse that decision so that jobs can be saved?

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. As I said, we are looking at DRI and other ways of making virgin steel that mean we can both—[Interruption.] I am happy to have further conversations with the shadow Minister, rather than shout across the House at each other. I am happy to have conversations about how we can make sure that we both retain virgin steel production and adhere to our climate commitments.

Fly-tipping

Debate between Gavin Williamson and Sarah Jones

Tuesday 6th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Jones]

The hon. Lady makes another good point. We have seen, probably across the country, many areas where recycling centres have closed. If people do not have cars or if they struggle to travel, it is even more difficult for them to reach those areas. She is absolutely right. We could have a much wider debate about funding for local authorities, but I will focus on some of the ideas that some local authorities are using.

Under Newham Council and Keep Britain Tidy’s award-winning and innovative crime scene investigation approach, fly-tipping was cut by up 70%. Fly-tips were surrounded by bright yellow tape and left for a few days, to highlight their lasting impact on the area to perpetrators, before then being cleaned up. It was an imaginative approach and demonstrates the spirit that we need to combat a persistent problem. That is why the suggestions that follow are as much as possible aimed at utilising the powers that councils already have.

The first idea is mega-skips. Many people have told me that the accessibility of waste removal services and centres—the hon. Lady made this point—is a major barrier to bringing down levels of dumping. Nearly one in five jobs in my constituency is paid below the London living wage, yet services to dispose of bulky items of household waste are often expensive. On top of that, levels of car ownership in the borough are at record lows, putting recycling centres out of reach of many in our community.

One fantastic suggestion that I support is to replicate the mega-skip days run by Wandsworth Council, whereby skips are provided around the borough on certain days of the year so that residents can simply get rid of items for free. I hope the Minister will join me in encouraging Croydon and other councils to look at mega-skip days. Are they something that he would support?

The second idea is changing behaviours. Many who wrote to me were dismayed by the feeling that fly-tippers were getting away without facing any consequences. That is extremely understandable, given that official statistics show that Croydon is the second easiest place in the country to fly-tip and get away fine-free. Last year Croydon Council issued just 10 fixed penalty notices, despite recording more than 20,000 instances of fly-tipping.

[Sir Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. She raises a really important point about fixed penalty notices. So often people are literally dumping waste, especially in the countryside, on an industrial scale, costing local authorities across the country hundreds of thousands of pounds—indeed, millions of pounds. The deterrent is not there, so does the hon. Lady agree that increasing quite dramatically the fixed penalty notice that local authorities can charge the people they catch would help, but that we should also send a message to magistrates, so that people know that fly-tipping is not worth it, because when they are taken to court—as South Staffordshire Council has done—they will be hit with very hard penalties?

[Sarah Jones]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. If we look at the stats that I just cited—more than 20,000 instances of fly-tipping and only 10 fixed penalty notices—it is clear that people feel that they can get away with it. Of course we need more enforcement and appropriate punishment, when it is right to do that. This is a really pernicious, horrible crime, and the response in our courts should reflect that.

The promise that crimes will have consequences is central to our justice system. One idea that I think is interesting is Merton Council’s wall of shame, which puts that principle into action. The council uses its roaming CCTV to capture images of fly-tippers, and it puts those images up as posters around fly-tipping hotspots. Merton has only just started doing that, but it achieved seen results. Merton has even filmed, with the CCTV, people coming with their rubbish and looking at the poster and then walking away, because they realise that there might be consequences to their actions. What Merton is doing could be something that the Minister might look at on a more national scale.

Next, I want to talk about having a strategy. As we have established, fly-tipping is widespread across the country. Croydon Council has focused on blitz clean-up approaches to hotspots, which is a good in itself, but I agree with the suggestion that I have had from many constituents that a more joined-up approach is needed. Each council—Croydon Council being one—should develop a fly-tipping strategy that explores the root causes of fly-tipping, identifies the hotspots in each borough, outlines what tools the council already has at its disposal, and produces a plan to deploy those tools to address the problem. Let me give one example of councils using the resources that they have. Several councils use their YouTube page to show pictures of perpetrators of fly-tipping—again, to try to shock people into realising that they are committing an offence and should stop.

I am grateful to have had this debate to highlight the pestilence that is fly-tipping, to commend community efforts to address it and to outline some ways to address it. Everyone deserves to live in a neighbourhood that they feel proud of. The levels of fly-tipping in Croydon and across the country are completely unacceptable. I am suggesting to Croydon Council that it set up mega-skip days to provide freely available skips so that residents can more easily get rid of unwanted items for free, that it set up a fly-tippers wall of shame—learn from Merton Council and publicise images of fly-tippers—and that it approach fly-tipping strategically. We need to use the enforcement measures and other tools that we have, look at what we can do in the online space, and develop a fly-tipping strategy to tackle the problem across the borough. We cannot and must not allow this situation to continue. We know that there are solutions. We know that things can be done. I want to see a future in which fly-tipping is drastically reduced, and I look forward to working with the local community, council and Government to clean up Croydon.

Awarding of Qualifications: Role of Ministers

Debate between Gavin Williamson and Sarah Jones

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. There would have been weakness and challenges whichever system we adopted. All four nations of the United Kingdom did everything they could do to ensure that there was the maximum amount of fairness for those students who were not in a position to take their exams as the result of a global pandemic.

On 16 August, Ofqual’s chair and the chief regulator advised me that the Ofqual board was minded to make a formal decision to revert to centre assessment grades for all students, or the calculated grade where that was higher. I accepted their view and the decision was announced on Monday 17 August by Ofqual and myself. Subsequently, the Department worked closely with Ofqual and the exam boards to ensure that GCSE results were revised and issued on the original results day of 20 August, and A and AS-level results were reissued on the same timescale.

The majority of awarding organisations that deliver vocational and technical qualifications did not use similar processes as those for GCSEs and A-levels, and those results were issued as planned. However, there were delays to some results where a similar standardisation process had been used, to allow them to be reviewed and reissued.

We took a range of actions to ensure that no young person would be held back from going on to higher education as a result of the grading changes. On 17 August, we announced the removal of temporary student number controls, which had been introduced for the coming academic year. We have also lifted the caps on domestic medicine, dentistry, veterinary science and teaching courses. We have provided additional teaching grant and funding for universities to support that.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

Throughout the summer, headteachers in Croydon were getting in touch with me with increasing alarm and concern about what they felt would be really bad outcomes for their children. What does the Secretary of State wish he had done better?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gavin Williamson and Sarah Jones

Monday 2nd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

Of course I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend. It was great to be able to join him at North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College and see the amazing work that is being done. I know that he is an incredible champion for all the schools in his constituency, and I look forward to working to find a solution to the problems that he has outlined.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

Like many parents up and down the country, I am looking at my phone every five minutes to see whether my daughter has got the place at her first-choice secondary school that we are hoping for. Will the Secretary of State send his best wishes to all the children in Croydon who are waiting to hear and let us know what he is doing in areas of high demand to ensure that people get their first choices?

Education Funding

Debate between Gavin Williamson and Sarah Jones

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend has long campaigned for a better and fairer funding settlement for Cornwall, and it is a great pleasure to be able to deliver that. I would be delighted to meet him and his colleagues in Cornwall regarding how best we can improve A-level provision in Cornwall.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

We have seen a 53% increase in school exclusions over the last few years—a 53% increase—and half of all those children have special educational needs and are not getting the support. The anger about that is a sign of distress. How on earth is a renewed emphasis on exclusion going to help those children when we need more money spent on special educational needs?

[Gavin Williamson]

It is absolutely vital to ensure proper discipline in every single school, but it is also vitally important that those children who need the most support have that provided either within their school setting or, if they are excluded, by ensuring proper provision is provided for them outside.