Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Grahame Morris]

Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which has pre-empted my further remarks.

I am trying to deal systematically with the Government’s objections to changing the split. The second point made by the Chief Secretary in her letter concerned the question of whether the surplus sharing arrangements represent fair recompense for the Government guarantee. In her letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent, she wrote:

“Thank you for also raising your views on the surplus sharing arrangements. I believe that these represent reasonable recompense to the taxpayer, both for the past investment in the Mineworkers Pension Scheme during the industry’s period of public ownership and for the risks they continue to bear through the government guarantee”.

There is no evidence that the current sharing arrangements can be considered fair or reasonable. Incredibly, the scheme was established, and the surplus sharing arrangements agreed, without any actuarial advice, as confirmed in written answers given to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East.

We know a lot more about the mineworkers’ pension scheme and the associated risks that it faces than we did in 1994. If the 50-50 split represented the risk in 1994, 25 years later the risk to the Government is marginal. After a quarter of a century, they have never made a single contribution to the fund.

In the context of efforts to set a fair sharing arrangement, the Minister will be aware of two reports commissioned by the National Union of Mineworkers. I thank the NUM, and Chris Kitchen and his executive, for that. The two reports were produced by First Actuarial, and dealt with the Government guarantee and the surplus sharing arrangement.

One of the reports suggested that a 90-10 split of future surpluses would be a fair return to the Government for the relatively low level of risk taken in providing the guarantee. The schemes have been tested, and I point out that they weathered the 2008 world financial crash without any need to fall back on the guarantee. I implore the Government to use that report as a basis for negotiation—or rather renegotiation—which can deliver for all interested parties.

The third point made by the Chief Secretary in her letter was this:

“Any changes to the surplus sharing arrangements could only be considered in the round with changes to the guarantee, but trustees have indicated that their members are happy with the guarantee as it stands”.

As previously stated, the benefit of the guarantee is not being questioned. We all accept that it has benefit and value. It has allowed the scheme to be ambitious in its investment strategy. However, we should not conflate support for the guarantee with support for the surplussharing arrangements. Members representing coalfield areas will have received emails from constituents referring to the MPS trustee for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, Ken Capstick, in which he says:

“I know of not one Trustee that would agree with the statement made by…Chief Secretary to the Treasury and it is a complete misrepresentation of the position of the Trustees.”

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

That is what we expect from Tory Ministers.

[Grahame Morris]

Absolutely.

The MPS winter newsletter states:

“Whilst the Trustees are and always have been supportive of any initiative that had the underlying aim of improving members outcomes, the Trustees do not have the power to make these changes without recourse to the Guarantor”

—in other words, the Government.

“We will of course continue to work in your interests across all aspects of running the scheme”.

Let me say this, earnestly, to the Minister. The trustees will be listening. They want to renegotiate the current sharing arrangements. If approached by the trustees, will the Government, as guarantor, negotiate those arrangements? If the Minister wishes to intervene now, I will take his intervention; otherwise I hope he will address that question when he sums up the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is a great privilege to speak in this debate. I want to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), who is almost my constituency neighbour, on introducing this debate. In Bishop Auckland, I obviously represent hundreds if not thousands of former Durham miners who are affected by this injustice. As other hon. Members have said, mineworkers did difficult and dangerous work. They built the wealth of this country for over 150 years, and we owe them a huge debt.

One of the things in the Chief Secretary’s letter that really jumped out at me was her claim that the scheme works for beneficiaries. It patently does not work for beneficiaries. She says that the guarantee of value for individuals is that there should be no reduction in cash terms in the overall value of the mineworkers’ pension. What that means is that people can and, in fact, do see reductions in the real values of these pensions. This is deeply unfair. The Treasury has had £4,438 million from the surpluses of the scheme.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Does the hon. Lady agree with me that in this debate, for once, the right hon. and hon. Members taking part in it are not asking the Government to put their hand into their pockets, but asking the Government to get their hand out of the pockets of the former miners and their widows?

[Helen Goodman]

Well, I think we will hear whether Treasury Ministers see it in quite that way at the end of the debate.

The other unfairness is that, as hon. Members have said, the 50-50 split is completely arbitrary. No reason has yet been given as to why the split should not be 70-30 or even 90-10. Another point worth bearing in mind is not just that the mineworkers contributed to the scheme, but that for many years miners were not well-paid industrial workers. I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) is not going to correct me, but my recollection is that, in 1972, the average wage of a miner was £26 a week. By no stretch of the imagination were people having a high standard of living, and the very least they can expect is that they and their families have a decent and dignified retirement.

Not only is this unfair, but it is also urgent. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) spoke beautifully about the impact on his family of the accidents and ill health that came with being a miner. In my constituency, the wards where the former miners live have a healthy life expectancy fully 10 years less than in other parts of the constituency. These are not one-off anecdotes; this is a whole systematic impact on communities.

My final point is that this is completely affordable. I think we have heard that the value of the pension to individual miners is now about £4,000 a year. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) said, the Treasury has grabbed the £4 billion, and having done this deal it is trying to hold on to it. I would like to set this in context. This is a Government whose Members are seriously considering electing as the next Prime Minister of this country somebody promising tax cuts worth £4,500 to everybody with an income over £50,000 a year. Surely if there is any commitment to justice in this country, before there are any more tax cuts for any wealthy people, the mineworkers should get their money.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Stephenson]

I certainly will. I think I have only two minutes left, and I was going to come on to exactly that point. I was addressing the question of what has been done to date.

I began by saying that we owe the miners loyalty and respect, which includes being honest. In this case, the honest answer is that the current position, whereby the Government guarantee arrangements and split the surpluses, is a fair settlement. It is reflected in the fact that successive Governments of all political persuasions have retained the split currently in place.

[Helen Goodman]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Surely the Government cannot ignore a motion passed by the whole House following a Backbench Business Committee debate.

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer is that that is not a point of order, but it is open to the Government to do that. Whether it is politically wise is another matter. In the event that Members are disappointed, I feel sure they will trouble the Backbench Business Committee for further debates, which may continue ad infinitum. I am sure the Minister would not want to countenance such an unfortunate, even grisly, scenario.

Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. There is too much fear and not enough hope. If we look at the UK, the low-carbon economic sector is growing four times faster than the mainstream economy and we have 400,000 people—bigger than the aerospace sector—employed in green jobs. We can continue to see the global opportunities from investment. This is a massive opportunity. Not only are we saving the world’s ecosystems; we are creating jobs for the future. We know that 65% of those under 24 want what they call a green-collar job. They just do not know how many are out there.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

One way we can decarbonise homes is by using geothermal energy, particularly in former mining areas. The University of Durham has done a lot of research on this subject. Would the Minister like to come to learn about the research it is doing and consider how we can implement it?

[Claire Perry]

It would be a pleasure to come and visit. We have had several debates on geothermal heat, in particular from old mine workings. It seems only fitting that the blood, sweat and tears of those thousands of men who dug up the energy source of our first industrial revolution could somehow be reused by using hot water as another source of energy.

Climate Change Policy

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

I think that part of the challenge, but also part of the opportunity, is that this has to be a cross-Government process. We simply cannot sit and make policy around transport emissions without thinking about infrastructure. We cannot talk about energy without thinking about planning systems. There is therefore absolutely fundamental cross-Government agreement on this, as well as, hopefully, cross-party agreement. It is telling that, when we agreed to put forward our COP bid, which involves a not insubstantial cost, that was done with complete Cabinet unanimity, because everybody recognises the importance of this issue and how fundamentally every part of our economy has to change.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

At the beginning of her statement, the Minister said how good the Climate Change Act 10 years ago was because it put legal obligations on the Government. One of the interesting things Greta Thunberg said earlier today was that we needed to move from the politically possible to the scientifically necessary. The high point of political possibility was reached in Paris, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) pointed out, that is not enough—that is not delivering the goods. When the Minister goes back into the international arena, in Chile at the end of the year, will she think about promoting legal obligations and not just pledges at the international level?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Lady is right that we have to act as well as just setting out these warm words. One of the things we have been doing that is working is encouraging other countries to pass their own climate legislation so that they are not setting interesting, politically attractive targets and then all going off and having lunch. They are actually putting in law the sorts of budgets and reduction trajectories that we have had to enact. That means that Ministers have to stand up and have these uncomfortable grillings in front of people who know a lot more about the subject than they do.

Honda in Swindon

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

What I would say to my hon. Friend is that we are talking about Honda’s plant in Swindon and that most of its output is not diesel but petrol vehicles, which go all around the world. Automotive companies are increasingly reflecting the much more rapid global shift to new powertrains than was expected a while ago. I think advantage comes from being in the vanguard of that change, rather than being a laggard. That is why we, in the industrial strategy, are determined to make sure that we are at that leading edge and can be an example to the rest of the world.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

This morning a person who owns a firm in the supply chain wrote to me. He expressed his extreme dismay about the lack of a UK-Japan trade deal and he suggested that Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Ministers talk to the 56 Japan-based firms in the north-east. He also sought a more active industrial strategy. I know about the Secretary of State’s Faraday initiative, but were we to have some really big infrastructure investment for electric vehicles, we might grow the domestic market, which would enable us to sell more here and leverage more exports on that basis.

[Greg Clark]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) said earlier, we are the second country in the EU in terms of take-up of electric vehicles. I do not think the hon. Lady will find anyone in the industry who doubts the commitment my colleagues and I make to our industrial strategy and advancing that leadership. That is noted not just in this country, but around the world. As I said earlier, it is frustrating that the timing of this decision by Honda does not allow it to avail itself of some of the fruits of that strategy.

Nissan in Sunderland

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

The company gave its reason, and it said that it was owing to business conditions. One was the accelerating take-up of low-emission vehicles for which it has been one of the strongest proponents, and indeed it has an advanced position in that. It has been clear about that, but it did comment, as my right hon. Friend knows, that the context of uncertainty around Brexit was a negative factor. When an employer communicates that information as clearly as it has done, I think that we should act on it.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The jobs of many of my constituents will be affected by this decision. We all know that the Secretary of State is a man who does not want to see a no-deal Brexit, so can he explain to the House and the country why it is that in this morning’s Financial Times he said that the crunch point was the end of February when the big votes will be on 14 February?

[Greg Clark]

I do not quite understand the hon. Lady’s point, but I think that she might be referring to the fact that we should not regard the period until 28 March as the time available to us to negotiate. Manufacturers place orders for components with suppliers and they are doing so now. They have to buy components now and these decisions are being taken at the moment. Manufacturers that are exporting to the far east, for example, have to make decisions about what they are going to ship during the weeks ahead. We therefore do not have the luxury of waiting until 28 March; we need to conclude this matter very quickly.

Geothermal Energy

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential for geothermal energy resources in the UK.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Evans. I am pleased to have the opportunity to open this debate on what is a huge carbon-free energy resource for this country. I hope we can use the debate to highlight the potential of the resource and to encourage the Minister to act, so that we fully realise the opportunities.

In Britain, geothermal energy comes in two forms: that which occurs naturally in the geological structure in some places, and that in old mine workings. I first became aware of that when I was a trustee of Auckland castle, which sits on the Butterknowle fault. At that time, the trustees looked—I understand they are still looking—at the possibility of using the geothermal energy there to heat the castle, and perhaps for a district heating scheme.

The Butterknowle fault runs across my constituency. It is a geological feature where coal was mined from the time of the Romans to the mid-20th century. Now the coal is exhausted but scope for geothermal has been discovered. At a depth of 500 metres, the heat is 30° C, and at 1.5 km there are rocks of about 73° C. It would be really good to exploit that, particularly because some of the villages on the fault—Evenwood and Cockfield—are off the gas grid, meaning that fuel bills and, in turn, fuel poverty are high. I met a woman whose winter oil bill one year was £3,000. I know that such a system exists in Southampton, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), who was the leader of the council there when the project began—indeed, I think he was instrumental in beginning it—will tell us more in his Front-Bench speech about how that works. Maps show that there are considerable areas of the country where it is a possible source of energy.

The second kind of geothermal energy we have is warm water in old mine workings. At about 30° C, the water is generally not so hot, but it is nearer the surface and therefore easier to extract. The Coal Authority has completed maps of 23,000 former collieries and has a very good understanding of the geology, the engineering and the feasibility of such schemes. The former mine workings are treated as a £3 billion liability for British taxpayers, because they must be kept safe, but they could be turned into a massive stream of income for them instead. Durham University’s Durham Energy Institute, in particular Dr Charlotte Adams and Professor Jon Gluyas, has done, and continues to do, a lot of work on this, and it has shown that the scale of the resource is phenomenal. Currently in this country, 80% of people heat their homes with gas. Durham University believes that the deep geothermal—the geological—could provide 100 GW of power, which is 16% of the electricity we consume.

Turning to the mine workings, a quarter of homes in this country sit on the old coalfields—7 million homes that could use mine-water heat instead of gas. In business terms, that represents a business or a sector with an annual turnover of about £2.5 billion and profits of £250 million. The net present value of the resource is £72 billion—I am using these numbers because I know that the Minister is financially literate and will understand their significance—and the net present value of the profits is £7.2 billion, so the Minister should look to turn the current £3 billion liability into a £72 billion asset.

Furthermore, the heat source is virtually carbon-free. It is estimated that enabling a quarter of the homes in this country to move over to it would save between 10 and 15 million tonnes of carbon a year. The current warm water would supply heat for 100 years, but if pumping technology were introduced to recycle the heat, that period could be extended almost indefinitely. I am told that by Durham University, which says that to meet our next carbon budget, it is essential to decarbonise heat. The Government’s current strategy is to do that by shifting people from gas to electricity heating, but electricity generation is only about 35% efficient, whereas I understand that for geothermal the figure is 75% or 80%, so the loss during production, transmission and distribution is much less. Geothermal would, therefore, be a much better route to pursue to hit our carbon targets. Some 40% of our carbon emissions are produced by fuel for heating, so if we decarbonised a quarter of the country there would be a reduction in our carbon emissions of 10%. That would be fantastic. It represents a really large reduction that is really worth having, and it would give us more flexibility in other areas of life.

There are considerable other policy advantages of using the mines in this way. First, this source of energy would improve energy security. Geothermal energy is not intermittent, unlike wind and solar, and it would reduce our dependency on unstable foreign regimes.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I do not know if my hon. Friend sees Iceland as an unstable foreign regime, but another idea is to have an interconnector through to that country, which gains enormous power from geothermal energy. Would my hon. Friend say that that fits into her debate in some way?

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend has just inserted it into the debate, so it obviously fits. Yes, that is a country that is already using the resource, as are others, and I will come on to that in a moment.

As I said at the outset, there is significant fuel poverty in some parts of the country and using geothermal energy is a way of tackling that. The sector could also be a source of jobs, especially in the former coalfield communities, which still suffer economic decline and need regeneration—in 2004, the Department of Trade and Industry estimated that it could create a million jobs. That is a very big number, and it might not be as many as that. If we compare it, however, with the 300,000 jobs in the oil and gas sector, we can see that it is obviously a significant number of jobs. Moreover, the skills and supply chains used in the oil and gas sector would be similar to what is required for geothermal. It would provide a useful transition for those businesses as the North sea declines.

Fourthly, geothermal could help to improve food security. That warm water would facilitate horticulture in parts of the country where it does not currently exist. Fifthly, mines can be used to store heat and therefore to balance power across the grid. We would be developing an industry that could be a source of exports. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) suggests importing heat from Iceland. I do not know whether an interconnector across the very deep waters of the north Atlantic is feasible, but I know that in many areas of renewables, this country has done a lot of innovation and research and then not seen through the development. In the case of wind, we did a lot of the basic science and initial work, but the industry has flourished more in Denmark, Norway and Germany than it has here. We must stop making that mistake. We need a different approach for geothermal, because we could be exporting engineering services for geothermal.

Another advantage is that there is no nuclear waste with geothermal, which compares well with some of the other power projects being promoted. It also does not produce the environmental damage that fracking produces, yet in the Government’s 160-page clean growth strategy, there is not a mention of geothermal. I want to understand why that is. The strategy says that the Government wish to ensure that they can

“deliver affordable energy for households…decarbonising ‘harder to reach’ parts of the UK economy”,

particularly heating. The strategy says that it is important to have “concerted joined up working” across Departments. It wants to see innovation to minimise costs. I agree with all those things, and geothermal is a policy area where they could be put into practice.

I know the Minister well. When she puts her mind to something, she is a very effective operator. She is a formidable figure. Officials in her Department have told me that they have found her leadership on renewables inspirational. I know she is not a paper shuffler. I want her to pick up the baton and run with it, because I have confidence that if she wanted to, she could make a difference here. The time to do that is now, using the skills and know-how of the petroleum industry. I am going to give her a few practical suggestions as to what I would expect to see in a policy for geothermal.

First, the basic science is strong, but we need more demonstration projects. The Coal Authority needs more resources to do those, as well as to provide advice for commercial actors.

Secondly, in the medium term we should probably have regulation and a licensing system that would bring in money for the taxpayer. For now, it would be sensible to extend the contract for difference to heat. At the moment, it operates just for electricity. In the Netherlands, the Government introduced a form of risk insurance. In five years, the scale of their geothermal sector has doubled.

Thirdly and finally, my concern is that we should see reform to planning and building regulations. The resource is being lost and opportunities are being wasted. One of the studies that Durham University did was into some old mine workings in Spennymoor in my constituency. It found that it would be feasible to have a district heating system for a new development of 300 houses. The local authority had no powers to require the house builder to consider, let alone implement, sustainability factors or renewable energy sources.

We all know that the large national house builders want to minimise risk and maximise profits, which, on being interpreted, means that they are lazy and greedy. They are not going to innovate unless they are required to do so. It has been suggested to me that we need a return to code 6 for sustainable homes. That gave us targets for achieving carbon neutrality in house building. Just as with the transition from oil and gas, the time to reform the building regulations is now. We are trying to build a lot of houses, so now is the time to raise the standards.

Everybody knows that retrofitting is more costly, so this is the moment to raise the quality of the housing stock for the next 100 years. We are in danger of making exactly the same mistake that was made after world war two, when a lot of prefabricated buildings were built. If we are going to build a lot, we need to build high-quality buildings for the long term, not the slums of the future. I suggest to the Minister that she organises a seminar for the national house builders and experts in the field to educate them. Will she write to or meet her colleague, the Minister for Housing, the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), to persuade him that he needs to incorporate the changes into the building regulations? He is going to make big changes to the building regulations, so he may as well do a proper, comprehensive job.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on securing this debate. On the issue of asking the Minister to try to convene a seminar, does she agree that in doing that, it would be an idea to have mapped out the most productive areas and the likely benefit to be derived? That would act as a harbinger for extracting the maximum amount of benefit for the minimum amount of input.

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We need two maps. We need the map of the geological possibilities and the map of the former coalfields. The Coal Authority has done a lot of work on that. I am sure it has shared that with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but we need to give these things more currency than they have at the moment. It is also important that we have a national scheme. We do not want a system where builders are required to explore the possibility in, for the sake of argument, Derbyshire, but not in Norfolk. That will mean that they are encouraged to go and build in Norfolk, but not in Derbyshire. That is why we need a national approach. We need to go beyond a strategy to having a plan.

I thank Jeremy Crooks from the Coal Authority and members of the Durham Energy Institute and Durham County Council’s planning department. They have all helped me understand this important issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Whitehead]

I think that the hon. Gentleman is referring to vertical hole shallow geothermal ground source heat installations. They are perfect for rural homes, as he described. They will provide sufficient heat, from a relatively shallow penetration into the earth, for heat exchangers to heat a home to a regular temperature of 60°-plus. Although I do not think that that is an essential part of this afternoon’s debate—it is more to do with ground source heat pumps—the hon. Gentleman is right. It is a technology that I would strongly recommend for off-grid properties in which, in the past, the alternative heating might have been oil. It can absolutely reliably replace that form of heating. I join the hon. Gentleman in recommending to the Minister and the Government that efforts to secure the installation of ground source heat pumps for off-grid properties in rural areas would bear considerable fruit and ought to be strongly supported—rather more strongly supported, I suggest, under the renewable heat initiative than is currently the case.

I hope that I have set out the potential for geothermal energy, and stated how it can be done in practice and what its benefits are. I was leader of Southampton City Council at the time that the scheme I described was initiated, but provided that it had the resource, almost any local authority in the country could pilot and undertake such a scheme relatively easily. The main issue is how to raise the initial capital funding up front to get the scheme under way.

Let me say one or two words about what the Government ought to be doing—in addition to the constructive and sensible suggestions made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland—to start using this resource. Capital grants will be required up front for the essential drilling of the well. The Government have underwritten several such schemes in various parts of the country to the tune of about £2 million a time, and we should extend the availability of those initial grants. Currently, the money available through the non-domestic renewable heat incentive is not sufficient to get those schemes under way from a capital point of view. As far as deep geothermal is concerned, the RHI currently provides 5.38p per kWh. That does not compare favourably with funding for ground source heat pumps, which comes out at 9.36p.

At the moment, the incentives to get such a scheme going properly in any area are not sufficient. That is particularly unfortunate; geothermal energy ought to be considered a different form of renewable energy, because of its known longevity. When we invest in a geothermal energy plant, we are investing in a capacity that will give us free energy for 120 years—we cannot say that about pretty much any other renewable energy source, except possibly the Swansea tidal lagoon. I therefore think that the criteria under which geothermal energy is considered should be based on that kind of payback and that kind of timeframe.

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend tempts me down a path that will be familiar to many colleagues. His point raises the question of whether it is appropriate to use the same Treasury discount rate for something that is so long-run as we would for a project that would last for 25 years. That would be another way of squaring the circle.

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point—that might be her seventh recommendation for the Minister this afternoon.

In conclusion, all hon. Members who have contributed to this debate have made clear their support for the potential of this form of renewable energy, and they have given examples from various parts of the UK. I particularly applaud the Scottish Government’s initiative to bring forward real funding for geothermal schemes, and I hope that in the not-too-distant future Southampton will no longer be the only geothermal plant in the entire United Kingdom that operates in the way I described. There are glimpses of progress here and there, but it is by no means continuous or anywhere near to fulfilling the enormous potential that geothermal energy offers.

My request and suggestion to the Minister is that she might like to come to Southampton and have a look at the little wellhead in the Toys R Us carpark and the shed in which the scheme is housed, so that she can see for herself just how much comes from that little site, how much good it has done for a whole community and city, and how much good it will do for many years to come. We should consider geothermal energy in that way, and if we do, we will go a long way towards understanding how good it could be for the UK. I hope that we will then put our resources where our hopes are and ensure that geothermal energy has a bright future in the UK, just as it already does in other countries.

The hon. Member for Falkirk said that 66% of Iceland’s overall energy requirements come from geothermal energy. Indeed, a project called IceLink is currently considering the possibility of an interconnector between Iceland and the UK, in partnership with National Grid and Landsvirkjun, the state-owned generator in Iceland. That is a real possibility for the future. We could be in the position of having home-grown geothermal energy and bringing into the country someone else’s geothermal energy to complement that, so that together we would have a completely carbon-free source of energy that would last the UK for a century. I think that is a prize to be worked for.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman]

I am pleased that we have had this debate, and I am grateful to all hon. Members who have taken part, because the subject is extremely worthwhile and important. I am grateful to the Minister for her positive attitude to geothermal. She does not need to worry: we shall come back to her and pursue this, because geothermal is important and could be very productive for this country.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered potential for geothermal energy resources in the UK.

Retail Sector

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is right. We all want to celebrate the success of retail in Britain and we all want to do what we can to further advantage it. In fact, the number of people employed in retail in the UK has grown substantially over the past 20 years, from around 2.8 million in 1996 to 3.1 million in the last full year for which figures are available, an increase of nearly 300,000 jobs.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

When I went to talk to my local jobcentre, it complained about the way the supermarkets treat their workers. My local jobcentre says it is grossly unfair and unreasonable to give people short 12-hour or eight-hour contracts. Is the Secretary of State confident that the increase in the number of jobs is an increase in full-time equivalent jobs, or is it just chopping up jobs that would previously have had a reasonable number of hours?

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Lady raises an interesting question. She will be interested to know that the trend over the period is towards more full-time jobs taking the strain from part-time jobs. The hon. Member for Salford and Eccles mentioned that part-time employment is valued by many people in the retail sector, but a higher proportion of jobs in the retail sector are now full time than in 1996.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am very pleased to be able to speak in this debate, because 4,000 of my constituents work in retail. There are now more shop workers in my constituency than there were miners 50 years ago, although I have some questions about the quality of some of those jobs: the short hours, the low pay, and the constantly changing shifts that are forced on people. I found it very ugly to hear that people were given short shifts to, as their managers said, keep them hungry for extra hours. The problem is that in my constituency people are going to food banks—they are literally being kept hungry.

We need to look at bank holidays. It would be really good if Boxing day was a bank holiday, alongside Christmas day. Christmas day is often ruined for many shop workers, because they have to get up so early on Boxing day to rush in and reorder stores in time for the sales. [Interruption.] It is not a statutory bank holiday for people who work in shops.

High streets are very important and they can have a very significant impact on people’s wellbeing. In my constituency, a large number of people are working in a new out-of-town development in Tindale Crescent. The truth is that Shildon, Bishop Auckland and Spennymoor are all seeing a fading away of their town centres. There are good butchers and good bakers, but the overall picture is one of decline. There were a lot of closures after the post-crash recession, but we thought that things would come back. They have not come back and they continue to decline. If I may say so, I thought the Secretary of State’s opening speech was verging on the complacent. The question is: why are these shops closing and what is to be done about it?

The first issue is the shift to online sales. The Government have failed completely to set a level playing field on tax. John Lewis raised this problem at least three years ago. There should be a turnover tax for Amazon, Google and other big online retailers. I agree with the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) that we should move to that urgently.

The second problem is the very significant fall in wages across the British economy between 2007 and 2015—a 7% drop in real terms. We are not going to get back to pre-crash levels until 2024 and earnings are down £1,400 per person. That is bound to have an effect on what people can spend. In my constituency in County Durham, cuts to child benefit, tax credits, employment and support allowance, jobseeker’s allowance and disability allowances are all having a very serious impact on my constituents’ incomes. Obviously, they have less money in their pockets to spend. Moreover, the Government keep telling us that employment is rising. In my constituency, the increase in unemployment in the past 12 months has been 29%. We are not being compensated for all those wage cuts with extra jobs.

A third issue affecting the modern high street was raised by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry): the unequal roll-out of broadband and the lack of access to wi-fi. This is a problem for the shops themselves and it makes town centres particularly unattractive to young people who like to be able to communicate using social media when they go out and about. The Government’s ineptitude in rolling out broadband equally, without notspots, across the country is a real problem in Shildon, Spennymoor and Bishop Auckland.

The fourth problem is cuts to public services. My constituency has seen the loss of a driving test centre, a magistrates court and a tax office—all from Bishop Auckland town centre. The next thing to go is the registry where you can get married. The swimming pool in Shildon has gone. A sixth form is going in Spennymoor, which means young people after school will spend their time and money in Durham city instead. We need a conscious strategy for these towns. When public services are always centralised in cities, it denudes small towns of the life that then has a positive, second-round effect on shops and retail. When the footfall to other public services drops, fewer people are there to go shopping.

The private sector is no better. Many hon. Members have complained about bank closures. We had another depressing meeting yesterday with RBS. Barclays is closing a branch in Spennymoor. HSBC closed the last branch in Shildon. That is bad for shops and bad for small businesses. I would like Ministers to look at changing competition rules, so that banks can share branches in small towns. At the moment, the banks want to be able to run on their current branding. Ministers rely on competition. There is a market failure and we need to put the public interest first. I would like to see a change in the competition rules.

Many hon. Members have spoken about the problem of business rates. Beales in my constituency closed for precisely this reason. Hon. Members have spoken about the importance of compulsory purchase. I agree completely. We could have had a much speedier redevelopment in Spennymoor had the council been able to compulsorily purchase the private Festival Walk in Spennymoor town centre.

I do not want to leave hon. Members with the idea that good things are not going on in the towns in my constituency. Auckland Castle in Bishop will be a fantastic tourist opportunity and the 1825 celebrations in Shildon of the Stockton to Darlington line will enable us to make the most of the heritage action zone. There are pluses as well as minuses.

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[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to follow all the other Members who have spoken.

May I take you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on a journey to Redditch? I do not know whether you have ever been there—

[Helen Goodman]

Of course she has. It is a marginal. [Laughter.]

[Rachel Maclean]

I am sure that you went there back in 2010, Madam Deputy Speaker. Those were happy days, with former colleagues. You will have seen the wonderful traffic-free roads that lead to Redditch. It is a new town, which was built in a moment of hope to accommodate people who were moving out of Birmingham and from elsewhere in the country. They wanted to come to Redditch to build a home. You will drive smoothly to the town centre, because there is no traffic holding you up: you can go straight past the islands. When you reach the town centre, you will park your car at the Kingfisher shopping centre. You will walk through that wonderful shopping centre, which is privately owned and very well run, and is doing a lot of work to attract new retailers. It is an example of excellence in our town centre.

Unfortunately, however, when you leave the Kingfisher shopping centre, Madam Deputy Speaker, you will go out into the old part of the town, where you will observe a scene almost identical to the one described by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn). You will see boarded-up shops and graffiti—not the trendy kind for which people pay good money, but the kind that we really do not want. You will see underpasses leading nowhere, the sort that you do not want to go through. That is a great shame, and it affects people’s impression of the town. They are passionate about Redditch, they love it with all their heart, but they want it to compete on a level playing field with other shopping centres that are only 10 or 15 minutes’ drive away, in Solihull and Birmingham.

At present our town centre is struggling, partly because, unfortunately, the leaders of Redditch Borough Council—sadly run by Labour, until the local elections last month—have not grasped the many opportunities that are at their fingertips to improve things for local residents. The Conservative-run county council went to Redditch and asked its council, “What is your vision for your town?” A number of successful, thriving towns in the rest of Worcestershire are using Government funds to make improvements. One example is Hereford, with its university of technology, its specialist area. Another is Kidderminster, with its incredibly successful ReWyre partnership which is driving investment in the town. Before that, it was haemorrhaging people because no carpets are made there any more.

Redditch used to be a centre of needle manufacturing, but what did the local Labour leadership come up with? I am sorry to say that the best it could come up with was the £800,000 that it spent on paving a yellow brick road on the high street. What good does that do in the face of all the challenges so eloquently outlined by Members in all parts of the House? What does it do to drive investment into our town centre? What does it say to the new business investors, the entrepreneurs who are putting their life savings at risk? There is, for example, Rees Café, which serves the most amazing vegan brownies. There is Heaphys Menswear, one of the oldest independent retailers in Redditch. There is Sew Fab, which purveys wonderful sewing kits—not that I have time to sew. What does that say to them? It does not give them a vision of hope for a town centre. It is just blocks on a road. It is absolutely useless.

That is the tragedy of the Labour council, but now we are turning over a new leaf. People really want to see Redditch thriving. Our whole message to the people of Redditch is that we need to—and can—unlock Redditch. It will take time—we appreciate that, but we need to work together. We need to create an environment where local leadership is welcoming people into the town and encouraging entrepreneurs to thrive. That is what we need in Redditch, and not this approach from Labour with a lack of imagination and no vision for our town.

This has been a great opportunity to have this debate and to make points to the Minister. On business rates, in common with others, I really welcome the work that he has done, which I believe will see £2.3 billion of business rates being saved by our local businesses, but please can we keep that work up? Businesses up and down the country are going to welcome that.

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[Bill Esterson]

That is a very good point, and it has also been made by other Members today. Where is the strategy, not only for retail but for our towns, and for our high streets in particular?

[Helen Goodman]

There isn’t one!

Higher Education

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

The simple fact is that universities and students need these regulations to be implemented. I am not sure that the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) mentioned the contents of this statutory instrument once in her remarks. They are transitional. The regulations are entirely sensible and intended to fill the regulatory gap that has been left following the abolition of the Higher Education Funding Council for England earlier this month. They enable the Office for Students and UK Research and Innovation to take on the statutory functions of the Higher Education Funding Council for England and of the Director of Fair Access to Higher Education between now and July next year, after which the new regulatory system will be functioning.

Given that the hon. Lady spent her opening speech talking about the details of the OfS, it is fairly obvious that Labour Members’ opposition to these proposals has nothing to do with this statutory instrument at all. They have been vocal about their reservations on the OfS, and that is fine, but voting down this measure will not change that. It will simply wreck the regulation of universities for the next 15 months, and it will be the students who suffer as a result. This is about the transition. It is a dry SI about the process; it is not about what we are transitioning to, a decision which has already been taken. Labour’s opposition to this SI is therefore totally misjudged. It is almost as though Labour Members saw the words “higher education” in the title of a piece of legislation and thought, “We can bash the Tories on this subject.”

If the regulations are annulled, students will ultimately lose out. They would no longer have vital protections to address concerns about governance, quality or financial sustainability in their education. They could face increased fees, because it is only these regulations that ensure that a cap on student fees remains in place.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

My understanding is that the Office for Students is supposed to protect students’ interests. One of the things that students are most worried about is that, whereas the Bank of England charges bankers 0.5% on loans, the Student Loans Company will charge them over 6% next year. Does the OfS have the power to cut that interest rate in the interests of students?

[Ben Bradley]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, but she totally misunderstands this legislation, which is not about the Office for Students or its powers. The Government have launched a review of higher education funding to find out whether what she suggests is something that we can or should do. That will be important going forward, but it is not what this SI is about.

The Opposition have talked repeatedly about standing up for students, continually claiming to be the voice of students and discussing their plans to abolish tuition fees, and yet here they are risking the cap on fees by opposing the regulations. Let us not forget that the Opposition do not have the strongest record on keeping education promises. Before the election, the leader of the Opposition said that he would “deal with” existing student debt. Afterwards, however, he told Andrew Marr that he did not make that commitment, that he would not write the debt off, and that he was unaware of the size of the debt. He made promises without knowing the full facts and ultimately realised that he could not deliver them.

The Opposition talk about tuition fees preventing people from going to university, but the truth is that more disadvantaged 18-year-olds are going to university under this Government than ever before. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds were 50% more likely to attend university in 2017 than they were in 2009 under Labour, and our results on this kind of social mobility compare favourably with other countries, such as Scotland where higher education is free.

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[Helen Goodman]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ben Bradley]

I am going to crack on and finish because I am nearly done.

Moving on from fees, without this agreement there is a risk that universities will not receive crucial grant funding. These transitional regulations enable the OfS to allocate £1.3 billion of teaching grants. Without this legislation, there would be no means to give out those grants and no provision to offer access agreements to support disadvantaged students in the next academic year.

I understand that the Opposition have reservations about how the OfS board has been set up and about appointments to it, but this is not the place to raise such issues. Those decisions have already been made, and their actions risk—[Interruption.]

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[Alex Sobel]

I was here in July when we debated the statutory instrument on the fee cap, so SIs do come to the Floor of the House. The Office for Students needs to operate properly and enshrine academic freedom. That is what we need, and that is what the motion would achieve.

[Helen Goodman]

A bit of learning and growing by Government Members would be helpful. Does my hon. Friend agree that we cannot amend SIs? We can only vote them down, and then the Government must table another one. We did not invent that process for this occasion.

[Alex Sobel]

My hon. Friend has been here far longer than me and it is good to know that lots of Members are learning about the statutory instrument process as we speak. I knew we could not amend an SI in the same way as we can amend primary legislation, but I am sure this is not going to be the end on this SI if the motion is defeated tonight. The Government may come back with a better offer, given the opportunity.

In conclusion, I just want to touch on the previous appointment to the regulator. On the marketisation of education, the Government chose to appoint their chief cheerleader in this transformation, Toby Young, a figure so abhorrent to the sector that he barely lasted a week. That is where we are with the governance of the OfS. Today, we have our opportunity to start the fightback to get ourselves an Office for Students that is fit for purpose and to curb the Government’s enthusiasm for a consumer higher education market. We can start the journey back to universities as places where people want to go to grow and learn, and where people are not simply going to a sausage factory for this Government’s failed policies.

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[Mr Gyimah]

The remit of the OfS is already very broad. I passed the letter on to it for comment, as an independent regulator, and it is right for it to respond to the hon. Gentleman. I agree, however, that there is an issue around student wellbeing that needs tackling, whether via the OfS or via another route. It is something that we should be alive to. The Chairman of the Education Committee and the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) mentioned the role of further education, in particular. I assure them that the Secretary of State’s first set of strategic guidance to the OfS set a very clear expectation that apprenticeships must be taken into account whenever the OfS exercises its functions, and that apprentices must be represented within its widening access and participation activity. I note the points that have been made about the composition of the board.

However, the key point is that there is no going back. HERA has established the new Office for Students, which regulates in a very different way by imposing terms and conditions on providers that want to be on its register, and only registered providers can benefit from their students having access to student support. The OfS is already operational, and there is no going back. HEFCE has already been abolished, as has the Office for Fair Access. Both ceased to exist on 1 April, and annulling these regulations does not change that. That ship has already sailed, and neither of these bodies can be resurrected without primary legislation. The OfS now has important responsibilities for access and participation and is already pushing higher education providers to make greater progress through their access and participation plans for 2019-20.

[Helen Goodman]

The Minister and I have corresponded about the impact of the recent strike on students and the fact that universities do not really have a financial incentive to settle the strikes because they get the tuition fees in and save money on the lecturers’ pay. A further question I have about the OfS’s remit is whether it will have the power to order the institutions to pay the students compensation.

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady makes a perfect case for the OfS. The reason why the OfS could not have intervened in the recent strikes is that it did not exist statutorily at that point, but were the OfS to be in place, that is exactly the sort of issue it could take on and champion on behalf of students. That is why we have brought this legislation forward.

Let me absolutely clear about the effect on students and providers alike if this motion is carried. First, students’ fees will be uncapped. While the amount of fees that students can be charged is set out in separate legislation, these transitional regulations ensure that until the new regime goes fully live on 1 August 2019, a cap remains on student fees. Without these regulations, students’ fees would be completely uncapped. That would happen immediately, and it would be the Opposition’s fault.

Overnight, there would be no legal barrier to prevent students from being charged the same fees that providers charge to international students. What would that mean for students? In 2017, international students paid between £10,000 and £35,000 annually for lecture-based undergraduate degrees, and for undergraduate medical degrees some providers charge up to £38,000 per year. Simply put, a vote to annul these regulations is a vote to allow tuition fees to be increased without any upper limit.

Without fee caps, we lose access plans, because it is the incentive of being able to charge students up to the current higher fee cap that drives providers towards agreeing access plans. Without fee caps, that incentive is removed. Many Members in the debate have commented on the importance of access, especially to our elite universities, but a vote to annul these regulations is a vote to remove the key tools currently used to boost access and participation. We need an orderly transition to the new regulator.

Taylor Review: Working Practices

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

I can reassure the hon. Lady that Matthew Taylor has recommended that we take the issue of holiday pay seriously and ensure that it applies to all workers who are entitled to it. The Treasury will be taking forward those suggestions.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Minister is right to say that the transfer of risk is at the heart of the problem. Drivers at AO World in my constituency are classified as self-employed but treated as employees without rights. Is there anything in the Taylor report that would end the practice of fining drivers every time there is an accident?

[Margot James]

Perhaps the hon. Lady would like to write to me with more details because this is the first time I have heard of that particular practice. It certainly sounds wrong, and I would be delighted to consider it further within the powers that currently exist.

Opel/Vauxhall: Sale to PSA Group

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I am looking forward to meeting the hon. Lady with her colleagues later today, but I do not think that is the right way to think about what has been proposed between the two companies today. It is a transfer of the assets of GM in Europe to PSA. What is needed is activism and alacrity on every one of these investments. I make that commitment to the hon. Lady with respect to Ford, and when we meet later today we can talk about what is required in terms of those discussions.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State knows that the efficiency of the plants is down to the industry and the policy is down to him. Does his activism go so far as he having yet instructed his officials to have conducted an impact assessment of the impact on the automotive sector of leaving the customs union?

[Greg Clark]

As the hon. Lady well knows—I can tell from her smile—what she asks applies to the debate in general about our negotiating position. Of course, as a member of the Cabinet I am a part of the discussions about our negotiations, but she will know that, in terms of the automotive and other sectors of the economy, I will do what I can to ensure not only that we get the best deal in our negotiations, but that we are a competitive force in the world whatever the result of them.