Energy Prices: Support for Business

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Margaret Greenwood

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman, as so often, raises a serious point. We are very conscious of the issues facing social housing landlords, particularly those with rather older housing stock that is the least energy efficient. There are important things to be done to help them make their housing more efficient, and there have been schemes available to do that. I am not sure I can promise a visit, but I would be delighted to discuss the matter with him further.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

Care homes in my constituency are facing soaring energy costs, as I am sure the Secretary of State will be aware. Care homes look after frail and vulnerable people, and it is essential that they are kept warm. I note his comments thus far on care homes, but can he assure us that there will be a real focus on ensuring their ongoing financial viability?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

This is of fundamental concern to His Majesty’s Government.

Shale Gas Extraction

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Margaret Greenwood

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The United Kingdom Internal Market Act is like the Koh-i-Noor diamond; it is one of the jewels of our constitutional settlement.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

My constituents will be extremely alarmed to hear the Minister’s remarks about the exploitation of dangerous fossil fuels. They have made it abundantly clear to me that they care about the environment, they care about the next generation, and they take climate change seriously, so I ask him, on behalf of my constituents: will he think again and ban fracking?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady refers to dangerous fossil fuels that people depend on for heating their water and their homes every day, that businesses depend on for being in business, and that people put in their cars to get around the countryside. We need to ensure that we have a sensible transition. Gas is fundamental to that. Simply wishing the world to be a different world will not be a successful policy.

Business of the House

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Margaret Greenwood

Thursday 20th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As I have said to other Members, I am always open to taking up specific cases with Ministers and Departments on behalf of individual Members in relation to their constituents. On the general point on ambulances, NHS England has given ambulance trusts an extra £55 million to boost staff numbers this winter, and the NHS has been supported this winter, including with £478 million as part of the enhanced hospital discharge programme, which frees up beds and therefore makes patient admissions at the front end easier. So considerable amounts of taxpayers’ money are being committed to helping the ambulance service, but, as I said, if there is a specific issue with a specific hospital on which the hon. Gentleman has not been able to get a satisfactory answer from the Department of Health and Social Care, my office will be more than happy to help.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

Woodchurch leisure centre and the libraries in Greasby, Irby, Hoylake, Pensby and Woodchurch are really important to the quality of life and wellbeing of thousands of people in my constituency, including many living in areas of deprivation, yet all are under threat of closure as a result of savings that Wirral Council is required to make after more than a decade of brutal funding cuts by Conservative-led central Government. I note the Leader of the House’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) earlier this morning, but will he remind his colleague the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities that when he came to office he said he wanted to

“raise living standards especially where they are lower”

and

“improve public services especially where they are weaker”,

and will the Leader of the House, as a matter of urgency, let us have a debate in Government time on the impact of central Government cuts on the provision of libraries and leisure centres?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

We will have a debate, if we do have one, on £4.8 billion—the largest ever increase in core funding in a decade—being given to councils, in addition to £3.6 billion being given to local authorities to help with social care reform, £45 billion committed to help local authorities support their communities and local businesses during the pandemic, and £12 billion of direct support to councils since the start of the pandemic. Local councils have a democratic mandate and are there to make choices. When the local council makes choices that Members do not like, that is not the Government’s fault; it is a decision of the local council.

Business of the House

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Margaret Greenwood

Thursday 6th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

There should be huge vaccine confidence. What has happened with the vaccine programme and the booster programme has meant that this country has been able to get back to normal faster than almost any other country in the world. My hon. Friend and I would particularly note that it is thanks to the fact that we are not in the European Union that we were able to move so quickly. I encourage him to indicate his own confidence in the vaccine and support the vaccine roll-out, because that really has been essential to our economic reopening, to the health of the nation, and to the ability of the NHS to cope with covid. Of course everything else will be looked at in due course, but the success of the programme is fundamental.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

Happy new year to you, Mr Speaker, and to everybody across the House.

Before Christmas, Virgin Care, which had contracts to deliver a number of NHS services, was taken over by a private equity firm called Twenty20 Capital. Yet we know little about the company’s priorities or strategic approach to delivering services other than the statement on its website that says that it looks for

“significant returns in 2-5 years.”

That will sound alarm bells for people working for it. What is more, the Health and Care Bill will allow integrated care boards to delegate functions, and even devolved budgets, to non-statutory bodies that could include such private equity firms. This has huge implications for patients and staff. So will the Leader of the House provide Government time for a debate on the impact of the Government’s NHS privatisation agenda, and will he ask the Prime Minister to come to this House and be straight with people in England by explaining to them that he is in fact dismantling the national health service as a public service and handing it gift-wrapped to big business? [Interruption.]

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am afraid the heckle from the back answered the question.