Plastics Recycling

Debate between Geraint Davies and Vince Cable

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Vince Cable]

For a start, it would help if we had a properly, clearly defined hierarchy of plastic products. Some are clearly necessary, highly desirable and beneficial, while others are utterly trivial, wasteful and costly to the environment. If that hierarchy was clearly established by scientific inquiry and promoted by Government, that would be helpful to local authorities.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept the simple economic fact that if the cost and price of plastic were higher, less would be consumed and produced? It is therefore incumbent on the Government to introduce a tax system on plastic that differentiates between less recyclable versus more recyclable plastics, bans the worst and taxes the less bad—or taxes them all—so that people move to more cost-effective, sustainable alternatives.

[Sir Vince Cable]

That is right; it is basic market principles allied to the environment. The Government announced in last year’s Budget that they would proceed with that. There is a consultation, which we will no doubt hear more about from the Minister.

Jobs and Work

Debate between Geraint Davies and Vince Cable

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I was going to talk about zero-hours contracts later, but since the right hon. Gentleman has asked me the question, I will try to explain. There are very different estimates of zero-hours contracts. The ONS gives very different figures from other surveys. They range from roughly 2% to 4% of all jobs. It is worth mentioning this in passing. The shadow Secretary of State has been quite modest about his own contribution. He has been in correspondence with the statistical authority, which rebuked him for being misleading in terms of the trend in zero-hours contracts. It is a significant problem, and in a few moments, I will come to how we want to address it.

Let me move on to the underlying question in relation to zero-hours contracts and to what the Opposition are trying to say about living standards. What has always surprised me in these debates is that people are surprised that living standards fell in the wake of the financial crisis. Let me rehearse some basic facts. In the 2008-09 crisis, the British economy contracted by over 7%—more than any other major economy. It was the worst shock to our country—worse than in the 1930s. It was only after the first world war that we had a comparable hit to our economy. It was an enormous disruption, with massive implications for people’s jobs and living standards. It did happen under the last Government. It was not entirely their mistake, but it was on their watch and they had a substantial responsibility for it.

That contraction of output inevitably translated into people’s living standards, and median wages in real terms contracted by about 7% as a result of the crisis. That has been the impact on living standards. It is clear. What is different from previous recessions is that the people at the bottom end of the scale have been protected by two things: first, the minimum wage—there is cross-party consensus on that, which I welcome—and, secondly, tax policies that led us to lift large numbers of low earners out of tax altogether.

Let us look at what the combination of those factors has meant and the work of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. It makes the point that the contraction in real take-home pay for people in the bottom 10% was 2.5%. For the people in the middle, it was 6% and for the people in the top 10%, it was 8.7%. That was an essentially progressive response to a major economic crisis. Of course there are still major inequalities of income and wealth. We acknowledge that, but that relates to the top 1%, rather than the top 10%.

How do we strengthen the minimum wage system, which my colleagues and I fully buy into? We decided earlier this year to increase the minimum wage faster than inflation—a 3% increase, the biggest cash increase since before the recession. The Low Pay Commission has issued guidance to secure improvements to the real minimum wage. We accept that one of the main challenges—which the last Government did absolutely nothing about—was enforcement. We inherited a system in which the maximum fine per company was £5,000. Under this legislation, we will strengthen it to £20,000 per worker—a big step up in taking seriously sanctions in respect of the minimum wage. We now have a naming and shaming regime in place, and 30 companies have been named since it was initiated a few months ago, and as a result of much more active intervention by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, we have increased by a factor of 38% the amount of arrears identified and paid to employees. All the things that the shadow Secretary of State is calling for are now being done.

Let me address the specific issue of zero-hours contacts. It is a problem, but let us get it into perspective. Although there are wide variations in the estimated number of zero-hours contracts, we are talking probably about between 2% and 4% of jobs. Of course we do not want people in that type of employment to be disadvantaged, but many take up such employment voluntarily, and particularly for students and older workers, it is an attractive system. For some, however, it is exploitative and as a result of our consultation—one of the biggest that the Government have undertaken, with over 36,000 people responding—it was very clear that there were some points on which action needed to be taken, and we are going to take action on exclusivity.

[Geraint Davies]

Does the Secretary of State accept in principle that if the Government converted a £20,000 a year job into two £10,000 a year jobs, with the higher tax threshold, he would be moving from tax payment to zero tax payment, and that this inflexibility and zero-hours and part-time work are contributing massively towards the increasing debt we face under his Government?

[Vince Cable]

That is attributing a slightly sinister train of argument to employers, which is not the case. There are many industries that have flexible working arrangements—and zero-hours contracts are only one form of flexible working—which the work force accept. The shadow Secretary of State talked proudly about his membership of Unite. I engage with the car trade unions, which accept that zero-hours contracts have quite an important part to play in the flexible working in the automobile industry.

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Geraint Davies and Vince Cable

Monday 11th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I will take one more intervention, then I will move on.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the Beecroft proposals about no-fault dismissal amount to a charter for intimidation and harassment, including sexual harassment? A boss could say to an employee, “Will you sleep with me?”, and if she said no, she could find herself sacked.

[Vince Cable]

That is going rather further than I would want to go with the argument or the evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

There are separate developments taking place that do not require primary legislation, and they will improve the quality of information available to shareholders. The Financial Reporting Council has responsibility for that, and I do not have the powers to direct it, even if I wanted to, but the quality of information is intended to improve, and we certainly want to see a range of information made available, including the aggregates that my right hon. Friend describes, as well as simpler and clearer information. That process is taking place in parallel with this Bill.

The Bill will improve the way in which competition is promoted and policed. The UK’s support for a free and open trading system remains fundamental to our economic strategy, and the steady pressure from competitive markets ensures that businesses boost productivity and consumers benefit. Our competition regime has been well regarded, but it can be too slow, and recently there have been some worrying criticisms about how it has managed cartel offences.

The reforms that I propose are designed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of competition enforcement, operating through a new competition and markets authority, backed by streamlined and strengthened powers. The current division of responsibility for the two phases of the markets and mergers regimes, between the Competition Commission and the Office of Fair Trading, can lead to a duplication of activity and the inefficient use of resources. Further, the time it currently takes to complete mergers, markets and anti-trust cases is often far too long, and that in turn imposes additional costs on business, including on those that pose no threat to competition.

Our reforms to the competition regime are designed to create a single, strong voice for competition and a one-stop shop for business; to create greater certainty for business, thanks to faster, clearer and, indeed, statutory time frames; to provide for more effective action to tackle anti-competitive mergers, including the discretion to suspend them; and to provide for robust action to tackle cartels, which can damage business and consumers alike, by removing, for example, the need to prove dishonesty. In addition, it will be easier for businesses to ask the new competition and markets authority to halt uncompetitive practices while investigations are ongoing. These measures go hand in hand with proposals, on which we are currently consulting, to allow businesses to take private actions to stop anti-competitive practices and to achieve redress.

Another aspect of our reforms relates to intellectual property rights, an issue that the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), raised a few moments ago. The modernisation of copyright is critical to investment in the UK’s creative industries, one of our most successful export sectors. Research by Imperial college and the Intellectual Property Office shows that annual copyright investment in artistic originals in film, TV and radio, books, music and art was about $5 billion, twice the original estimate. Spending on UK design amounts to almost £33.5 billion, and there are about 350,000 people in core design occupations of all kinds.

The sale of unauthorised replicas of classic designs, such as a lamp or a piece of furniture, means that firms that depend on design can lose out, so the Bill ensures that those designs that are also artistic works and, therefore, qualify for copyright protection will be protected for 70 years from the creator’s death, instead of for the current 25 years.

The Bill also creates an order-making power that will allow the Government to make any future changes related to copyright exceptions or exceptions to rights in performances. The practical consequence of that will be to maintain the level of criminal penalties, in which as I said earlier I have a personal interest, given that my private Member’s Bill introduced the current maximum penalty level of 10 years’ imprisonment

In addition, the Government have made a number of proposals in response to the Hargreaves review of intellectual property and growth and subsequent consultation. They are needed to ensure that the copyright system is fit for purpose in the digital age. It has been decades since the intellectual property regime was overhauled, during which time the world has changed beyond recognition. It would be negligent to leave unchanged a system suited to the cassette recorder in an era of iPads and cloud-based music services.

Primary legislation will be required for three of those reforms: the introduction of a scheme to allow extended collective licensing; one to allow the use of orphan works; and, finally, a back-stop power to allow the Government to require a collecting society to implement a statutory code of conduct, should it fail to introduce or adhere to a suitable voluntary code.

The Government’s proposals on extended collective licensing and on the use of orphan works are designed to make it simpler for users to use copyright works legitimately, while protecting the interests of rights holders. At the same time, introducing codes of conduct for collecting societies will provide valuable reassurance to the thousands of small businesses and other organisations, including creators, that deal with them.

The Government are finalising their response to the consultation on those three proposals, and if we decide to proceed we will want to move swiftly. The Bill presents an opportunity to do so, and I shall announce a decision on the matter as soon as possible.

[Geraint Davies]

How does the strength of law on copyright compare with that on patents? I am thinking of the international duplication of a copyright, such as on a chair, as the Secretary of State said, and how the law will be enforced internationally.

[Vince Cable]

I do not think that there is any link between patents and copyrights in this case; they are separate systems of law. The hon. Gentleman will know that in the European Union there is already a unified approach to patents and to copyright, but we are trying to ensure that in the UK context copyright protection is properly enforced. That is the purpose of the changes before us.

Higher Education and Student Finance

Debate between Geraint Davies and Vince Cable

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that if higher fees to attend the best universities deter poor students from going to them, the most able students will not go to the best universities and Britain will be the poorer for it?

[Vince Cable]

Yes, the hon. Gentleman is right. There is a real issue here, and it relates to the Browne review’s proposals for variable fees, which I made very clear we are still considering. Let me set out the argument. On the one hand we have world-class universities—four of the 10 leading universities in the world are in this country and we want to keep it that way—and they are making a very strong case for variable fees. On the other hand, however, if that were to be accepted large numbers of people from modest backgrounds would be deterred by highly priced courses at universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, and we see the psychological impact of that—it is very real. We need to weigh up those two factors. That is why, although I have come to the House with the firm proposal of our support for the £7,000 limit, we want to consider further how we might balance those two issues in relation to variability of fees.

Industry (Government Support)

Debate between Geraint Davies and Vince Cable

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Of course there are dangers, and I spelled out earlier the twin dangers that we have to balance very carefully. Lest the hon. Gentleman imagine that I have suddenly developed an enthusiasm for strict public sector discipline, I suggest that he read the pamphlet that I wrote the best part of a year ago, in which I made the case for dealing with the structural deficit rapidly and in a radical way. That is entirely compatible with the strategy that we are now adopting.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Vince Cable]

May I just finish this point?

It is clear that the Opposition’s response in the motion to the budget cuts and to the issue of imbalance is really not very serious. Let us examine a couple of other fragments from it. It talks about the “business-led recovery” that they seem to want. I wonder how many people are aware that 21,000 new regulations affecting British companies were introduced in the past 10 years—that is six per working day. How on earth were the previous Government hoping to achieve a business-led recovery when businesses were being prevented from growing? A survey published today by Infotec shows that one in 10 British entrepreneurs were contemplating leaving the country for tax and regulatory reasons. That is the legacy that we now have to address.

The motion also states that the previous Government were

“laying the foundations for the UK to be globally competitive”.

During their period in office, the competitiveness league tables—which are generally accepted—showed that this country fell from seventh to 13th. So that is what they meant by laying the foundations for us to be competitive.

Let me now turn to the vital industrial decisions about which several Labour Members are quite rightly exercised. A significant number of projects were signed up to before the election. Some were good; some were questionable. Many of them raised issues regarding value for money, affordability and other factors. Quite rightly and prudently, we are carrying out due diligence on those projects; we are working our way through them.

I can make one announcement today, however. It is right and proper that we should examine the decisions taken by the previous Government since 1 January, to ensure that they offer good value for money and are in line with the Government’s priorities. That is entirely legitimate. This need for re-examination is something that the automotive industry, in particular, understands and accepts. Equally, however, it has urged us to reach our decisions quickly, given the time that has already elapsed in considering the loan guarantee projects.

The Prime Minister confirmed this week that the Government’s support for the Nissan electric vehicle and associated battery plants would go ahead, and I am today able to announce that the Government have confirmed that a loan guarantee of £360 million will be offered to Ford, and one of £270 million to General Motors Vauxhall. This confirmation is, of course, subject to appropriate pre-conditions for our support being met, and to final decisions by the companies. We understand that GM is considering its next steps in the light of progress in obtaining funding from Germany, and I believe that it might not wish to proceed with our offer. However, the offer has been made and it is now confirmed. That is all I can say today. Decisions will be announced shortly on other specific projects.