Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Janet Daby Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 18th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I am sure many of us have received emails from constituents concerned about this process, or rather the lack of process. Thousands of pieces of legislation need to be reviewed and amended. I am sure our constituents would agree that it seems very undemocratic of the Government not to bring that legislation to the Chamber to be scrutinised, as legislation is processed in this place.

[Justin Madders]

My hon. Friend is right that we must answer to our constituents about what is going to happen with these rules. That is why we have tabled our amendments.

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Janet Daby Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner). It was somewhat inevitable that this debate would quickly become partisan, and she reinforced that.

I pay tribute to our hard-working frontline public sector workers. On Friday, I visited workers at the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust, who have not been on strike, and all credit to them. In the operational control centres, people have been working diligently, day in, day out, to manage, quite frankly, the many, many challenging cases.

This House will understand my particular interest in operational frontline workers, especially when it comes to the police, who cannot strike, and also fire and rescue workers and Border Force officers. Just last year, I was able to use existing Home Office budgets to provide the police with a pay increase. It was a 5% pay increase across the board and one of the largest settlements in the public sector. I accepted the recommendation from the Police Remuneration Review Body, and it was my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), who is in his place, who oversaw that settlement. That funding was vital because we on the Conservative Benches believe in our frontline public sector workers. We believe in giving them the resources that they need and the working conditions in which they can do their jobs, but within the affordability of the Government’s financial envelope, which is incredibly important.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Is the right hon. Lady aware that the Secretary of State’s own colleagues—the Secretaries of State for Transport and for Education—believe that the Bill will not solve the strikes?

[Priti Patel]

I say to the hon. Lady and to all Members in the House that we are facing fundamental economic challenges right now, and they have to be met within the financial envelope of this Government. That is a statement of the obvious. At the end of the day, the Government have a responsibility to ensure that certain levels of service are provided in key sectors and in our public services, and rightly so. The public expect that, and the Government have a responsibility to oversee that and ensure that these levels of services help to protect and safeguard lives, keep our country safe, support the economy and ensure that the British public—the silent, hard-working majority—can go about living their lives in the way that we all want to see.

Obviously, the current wave of strikes and industrial action is concerning the public; it is also counterproductive when it comes to delivering public services. We have seen the level of disruption that is taking place. It cannot be right that, in the 21st century, our great country and our economy are put at risk by strike action. We have seen that on our borders; border control is being weakened by strikes. Patients and those in need of essential medical care are facing disruption. That is not right. All of us have constituents. This is not about one constituency against another, or one part of the country against the other. We have seen commuters who cannot get to work. That is wrong. We have seen businesses and, in Essex, small and medium-sized enterprises, operating on tight margins—not glitzy corporations—now suffering because of the strikes. Again, that is not right.

I know that many workers—I think that we all know this—find the decision to go out on strike very difficult. They struggle when it comes to voting in ballots because of the options that are sometimes put in front of them. We also know that there are some in the trade union movement—we must recognise this and we have heard it already from those on the Opposition Benches—who are happy to go along with the disruption, which is not acceptable. Some get satisfaction out of this. I am afraid that we have seen that in the past. We have seen Opposition Members go on picket lines and cheer and make political points. That is not right, because, at the end of the day, it is the public who suffer.

Indeed, since 2010, we have seen the hard left and militants take action and co-ordinate strikes, and the public suffer. That is not right. Let us not forget that it was the Conservatives who, in the 1980s, stood up to the militant trade unions, and, importantly, introduced reforms.

Shale Gas Extraction

Janet Daby Excerpts

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The socialists do not like people being paid for things. It seems perfectly reasonable to pay people and, if we inconvenience them, to compensate them, and that will be part of the overall package if shale gas can be extracted.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Are the Government aware that fracking not only breaks a promise made to the public in the Conservative party’s 2019 manifesto, but will not cut bills? It is a grossly unpopular method, and a method that will warm our planet. Indeed, it is wrapped up in climate denial.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

It is actually none of those things.

Energy Price Cap: Residential Buildings with Communal Heating Systems

Janet Daby Excerpts

Wednesday 20th April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the energy price cap and residential buildings with communal heating systems.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I should declare an interest, as I live in a leasehold flat in a block with a communal heat network. I also represent a constituency with one of the highest numbers of multiple dwelling blocks in the UK, a number of which have community heat networks.

The problem is very simple. I think I should lay that out, and then I want to lay out what I am asking the Government to do and hope to get a positive response from the Minister. Quite simply, we all know about the cost of living crunch and the increased price of energy bills, and of course the Government have put in certain measures to try to mitigate that, but constituents who live in residential buildings with communal heating systems—also known as heat networks—are not protected by the energy price cap as other energy purchasers are.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

In my constituency there are many Barratt homes that have district heat networks and I have continually raised that issue in Westminster Hall and on the Floor of the House. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is even more important that the Government introduce regulation to put protections in place for residents where they have these heating networks, given the fuel crisis experience that the country is going through and the increases in fuel costs?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. About half a million people, as an estimate, live in such blocks—not only new developments such as those that she has highlighted, but some older developments that would take a lot of retrofitting to get individual heating systems in place; but that is not the answer and I will come to that in a moment.

Corporate Transparency and Economic Crime

Janet Daby Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend will appreciate that the legislation proposed will set up a range of criminal offences. As is always the case with criminal offences, we will absolutely make sure that the people who are enforcing those penalties are properly resourced. I am very keen to work with him to make sure that we get this right.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has taken a similar question to this one, but it is very specific. Will he ask his party chair to conduct a review into the political donations made to the Conservative party and the links that these donors may have to the Kremlin?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I have answered this question before and I say, once again, that not everybody of Russian heritage giving money to any political party is an oligarch. I appreciate that the hon. Lady is not saying this explicitly, but the implication is that they are, and I reject the premise of the question.

Oral Answers to Questions

Janet Daby Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

As the current energy Minister and the former exports Minister, I agree entirely with my hon. Friend on the export potential of the Rolls-Royce SMR technology, which has the potential to provide levelling-up jobs precisely in areas such as north Wales, as he so ably urges.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Last week was the ninth anniversary of the death of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, a nine-year-old girl who died following an asthma attack brought on by toxic air on a busy road on the South Circular. Our towns and cities need low and non-carbon transport solutions. We all know that electric cars are expensive, but second-hand electric cars are seldom available, which means that each car needs to be purchased from new. The current maximum Government grant for part-purchasing a new electric car is just not enough.

[Greg Hands]

The death of the hon. Lady’s young constituent bears heavily on all of us as London Members of Parliament. I remind her that the principal responsibility for air quality in London rests with the Mayor of London. On the action that we are taking to encourage more low-carbon and zero-carbon vehicles, we have announced: the phasing out of petrol and diesel-driven cars; a big investment in our electric vehicle charging infrastructure; and a big move to hydrogen-powered vehicles. Work in these areas will see low and zero-carbon vehicles become the future of urban transport in this country.

Oil and Gas Producers: Windfall Tax

Janet Daby Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The reason I articulate and go through existing programmes and policies that have already been done is because hon. Members, such as the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry)—[Interruption.] She continues to heckle from a sedentary position. She absolutely refuses to acknowledge that the Government are doing a substantial amount and, as has been indicated, we will continue to look at what else we can do in the coming days, weeks and months ahead. We of course recognise that the immediate situation is challenging, but it would be remiss of the Opposition to refuse to acknowledge the significant immediate help and the long-term subsidy going in to support those who need assistance with energy costs. As I have said, the Government remain committed to working with all to see what more can be done.

Let us turn to the second part of the motion. As the House knows, taxation matters are dealt with by the Treasury. As hon. Members are aware, and as Governments of all colours have regularly reminded them from this Dispatch Box over many decades, all taxes are kept under review. Yet given that the Opposition want to couple the cost of living with fiscal matters such as this, let me say a few words about this particular rabbit out of the hat from the Labour party—its big idea; its solution to the problem. This money will no doubt be spent multiple times, as it always is, and on multiple causes in the multiple Opposition day debates ahead. This is the Labour party’s generous offer, to take the words of the right hon. Member for Doncaster North a moment ago, and its reason to be cheerful. I confess, following the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, that if this Miliverse is the reason to be cheerful, we should all be very gloomy. I am none the wiser about the ultimate purpose of what the Labour party proposes. Its objective is mystifying. Its aim is confused.

So what is the purpose? Is it simply a money source? Or are we instead talking about the use of the tax system for something more fundamental? The right hon. Gentleman talks about the long term, but he should also recognise that short-term decisions are required. Either way, he should be clear about the position he argues for and its implications. If this is to be a money source, the best way to maximise that money—both at the time the Opposition presumably want to implement this, and then in the future when they inevitably come back for more money—is to maximise the amount of oil and gas coming out of the ground.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

The Conservative party has received more than £1.5 million in donations from companies and individuals linked to the oil and gas sector. Is it not the case that although some Conservative Members want a windfall tax to help their constituents, they and their Government are not prepared to stand up to vested interests?

[Lee Rowley]

What is the case with this Government is that we will take decisions in a proportionate and reasonable manner, rather than using Opposition day debates and the half-baked motions underneath them to make decisions as a result.

The right hon. Member for Doncaster North needs to be clear whether this is a money source. If it is, he will need to maximise the amount of oil and gas coming out of the ground. That exact principle of maximising economic recovery has been the building block of the approach to the North sea over many decades. If that is the case, the Labour party should be clear about that—we will welcome it to the reality-based community—and that the transition to net zero will take time and will require the use of conventional energy to get there. The right hon. Gentleman needs to understand the logic of his position.

The Labour party now appears in favour of encouraging as much activity on the UK continental shelf as possible so it can tax it. The Labour party needs to accept that oil and gas will be a significant part of the future of the UK’s energy supply for the coming decades during the transition, if only because it wants the money that comes with that. I presume that the Labour party will therefore immediately go out and proclaim to its friends and fellow travellers who shout about keeping it in the ground that that is not possible, advisable or practical, and that it has made a political choice to keep the oil and gas flowing because it wants the money that comes with it.

The Labour party will presumably be withdrawing its opposition to further exploration as a result, because if it is all about the money, the taxes and the spending, by default it also has to be about the exploration, the extraction and the production. That is the choice that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North has made in coupling the two propositions together as he has done in his own motion.

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[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

It is a real honour to speak in the debate. The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) said that the Labour party is not the party of business, and I refute that and disagree with him, considering that many businesses up and down the country are very worried about the increase in energy prices and how that will continue to affect them. In my constituency and across the borough of Lewisham, we have among the highest numbers of self-employed people in London, and they are well supported by the local council.

I support the motion, which is all about the cost of living and how it will affect families. We have a seen a global rise in wholesale energy prices that has already led to 27 energy suppliers going bust last year. Energy prices are at their highest levels for the last three decades. Customers have seen increases in their bills that have largely been protected by the energy price cap. The chair of the Lewisham Pensioners’ Forum, Bridgit Sam-Bailey, recently spoke on BBC News about her personal experience of rising fuel prices. She explained the misery of suffering in her home due to increases in fuel prices that she can no longer afford from her pension. She said that she often stays in bed to keep warm and only heats one room. She no longer has the financial freedom that she used to have. We have heard other such stories today, and they are indeed heartbreaking. Her situation is not unusual. So many other people are experiencing a diminished quality of life. Surely the Government do not wish that for our older generation. Older people should be treated with respect and dignity. Do the Government really view such experiences as acceptable?

Energy bills are due to rise again, and that will affect mainly older people, vulnerable people and low wage earners. Recently, I met a lady in her home who was wearing a winter coat and a blanket to keep warm. From the outside of her semi-detached house, nobody could identify the misery and deprivation that she was experiencing from poverty and lack of heat.

As for children and young people, the Government need to consider how being cold can affect children’s development and their ability to learn, play and grow. It does affect them. It is harmful to them to be cold and it is a sign of poverty. The rise in fuel prices is driving people and families deeper into poverty. When a child is in poverty, they experience deprivation. If that continues, their family becomes a family in need and they will go on to need support from social services and other public services, perhaps leading to a cascade of situations in which they will need support.

According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the most basic needs are food, water, warmth and rest. People’s most basic need for warmth is not currently being met. For some people suffering illnesses such as sickle cell disease, lack of sufficient warmth can bring on a sickle cell crisis and lead to hospitalisation, organ damage and, at worst, death. Other problems arise from damp and rot after prolonged loss of heat in the home, and those can also affect children. The Government must not bury their head in the sand. Deprivation of warmth is a serious issue.

Our country faces a cost of living crisis and a growing strain on businesses, with petrol, food and energy bills sky-rocketing. What will the Government do about that? What will they do to prevent further hikes in gas prices, as those can be prevented by the Government? According to the energy sector specialist Cornwall Insight, bills could rise by 46%, from £1,277 a year under the current price cap to £1,865 a year. When faced with a crisis, this Government shift the brunt of the burden on to the most vulnerable. To fix the social care crisis, they decided to increase national insurance contributions, which will disproportionately hit working families, young people and businesses trying to create more jobs. Despite pressure from those on his own Benches, the Prime Minister will not halt those plans.

Faced with an energy crisis, the Government now have an opportunity to break that trend and find sensible solutions rather than dipping into the pockets of those only trying to get by. As energy bills soar for consumers, natural gas operators in the North sea will rake in their biggest profits in over a decade. UK-based natural gas companies such as BP and Shell are expected to record profits of $20 billion. A one-off tax on those companies makes sense.

This is not unheard of; Thatcher introduced a windfall tax on North sea operators, as did Blair. Will the Secretary of State for BEIS do the same? Wales has stepped up to help those who are struggling, and France and Denmark are likely to follow suit, but we have seen dither and delay from this Government. I remind the Secretary of State that this all reveals how deeply unreliable fossil fuels such as natural gas are. Even natural gas in our backyard is tied to global prices. We need a safer long-term plan.

A green industrial revolution guarantees greater home-grown energy, decreasing our dependence on unreliable fossil fuels and better protecting us from external price shocks. Will the Secretary of State therefore also promise to increase capital investment in renewable technology in order to keep my constituents’ energy costs down, now and in the future?

Reducing Costs for Businesses

Janet Daby Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I am conscious of your warning, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I will give way to a couple of hon. Friends.

[Janet Daby]

Rising energy prices have been described as an existential crisis for small businesses in the hospitality sector. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government must offer support to businesses in paying their energy bills immediately?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

Very straightforwardly, yes. We will talk about some of the specific proposals that the Labour party has developed to help alleviate that pressure.

Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Bill

Janet Daby Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 24th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his speech and for introducing the Bill. Let me reassure the House that I hope to make a slightly more cohesive speech then the Prime Minister managed on Monday when he spoke to the CBI about the Government’s approach to business, but Members are welcome to intervene if I do start making car noises or talking about Peppa Pig.

We generally welcome the Bill, and it will be welcomed by retail businesses up and down the country, because it creates an arbitration process for disputes between landlords and commercial tenants on rent arrears caused by enforced closure during the lockdowns, and also the subsequent impact on businesses’ income and their ability to meet their outstanding rent demands, including outstanding service charges. It also restricts enforcement action for the recovery of rent arrears debt through the county courts for six months.

We accept the need for a fair arbitration process that deals with commercial rent arrears, and the need to ensure that that process works. There are some aspects on which we will seek further information, but before I come to them, I want to address the context in which this short and specific Bill is being introduced. Until this morning, we understood that it was to be a joint Bill between two Departments. It will not surprise the House to know that, as a shadow Levelling Up, Communities and Housing Minister, I shall be responding to the Minister as though he were the Communities Minister, because there are a number of aspects of communities and levelling up that I wish to address.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

My Lewisham East constituency has among the largest number of small businesses in London. Brilliant councils such as mine, the Borough of Lewisham, can only go so far in supporting small businesses, especially when their budget has been cut by the huge amount of 63% since 2010. What businesses across our country really need is the Government to see them through this very difficult ongoing period, and they need a recovery plan in place.

[Ruth Cadbury]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This Bill is specific and closely drawn and, as I will go on to say, there are a lot of other challenges still outstanding for businesses and the communities in which they sit that the Government need to be working on as well.

We of course recognise how tough the last 20 months have been for so many businesses and the pain of the pandemic has impacted across the economy, but it has been particularly hard on small businesses, especially family-owned businesses which are anchored in their communities—businesses that have spent years, even decades, doing the right thing such as supporting their staff and investing in their skills, and putting back into the local area. There are countless examples of businesses who have always done the right thing, and who saw a downturn after they followed public health regulations and they closed.

I of course acknowledge the support that the Government provided for businesses during the pandemic —bounce back loans, VAT deferrals, rates relief, the furlough scheme, and the rents-based schemes—but too many businesses missed out on many of these schemes: those refused loans because their bank was not on the Government-approved list; or supply-chain businesses to sectors such as hospitality whose customers were required to close but they were not. They missed out.

Despite the relief schemes, many are still struggling; loans and VAT deferrals still have to be repaid, and those not yet making a profit are still required to pay their bounce back loan. Labour has sought to amend the rules so that a business has to repay its loan only when it is making money. The pain has been particularly hard on small independent businesses and family-owned businesses, which are anchored in their communities, and many sectors—such as the arts and events, and, particularly in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), travel and tourism—still face great uncertainty for months and years ahead.

On businesses that could not cope and had to close, in too many areas there are now vacant windows; there is no demand to take on the vacant premises. Of course the pandemic is not solely to blame for retail premises remaining vacant for long; the change in our shopping habits towards more online and less in-person has a major part to play, and in areas where a large proportion of people are impacted by the triple whammy of rising costs of living, the cuts to universal credit and the permanent or temporary loss of jobs, it is no wonder that retail businesses are particularly struggling when too many people have not enough money left over in their pockets at the end of the month.

The commercial rent arrears built up for businesses that had to close during the lockdowns are only one part of the challenge facing businesses across the country, so although we welcome the Government’s taking action through this Bill, there is still so much more that they could do. For a start, they must address our outdated business rates system, under which similar sized shops pay vastly different rates and revaluations.

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[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate. I welcome the Bill but want to echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) by raising a series of important questions about how it will operate, in particular whether the Government’s desire to set up the arbitration work so quickly is realistic given the pressure on the business and public sectors at this time. I also want to draw the Minister’s attention to a number of related points that I wish were dealt with in the Bill, in particular physical retail businesses being treated fairly in comparison with online businesses.

At the outset, I want to put on record my support for our small businesses: they are the lifeblood of our economy and it is vital that all political parties support them. As the Reading and Woodley MP, I am currently running a campaign asking our residents to nominate their favourite small business, and I encourage other colleagues to do the same, because it is important for us to show our support for the small—and indeed the large—business sector after what the country and the world have just been through.

I would like to raise the issue of retail in Reading, and to encourage the Minister to look into the wider issue of the balance of Government policy in favour of online retail versus physical retail. As a London MP, he might know that Reading is the retail centre for central southern England. Retail generates thousands of jobs in our community, many of which are highly skilled, long-term jobs. People enjoy their work deeply and are passionately committed to retail. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth rightly said, the role of retail in place-making and establishing vibrant town and city centres is fundamental. I would like to ask the Minister, when he responds to the debate and in his further consideration of the Bill, to remind the House of the work that the Government are doing to level the playing field between online businesses, which seem to have so many advantages these days, and physical businesses. Physical businesses are referred to in the Bill, which deals with the issue of rent arrears, but I believe that there is much more work to be done and I urge him to address that when he speaks.

In particular, I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to an issue that I have mentioned to him before, and for which I believe he has some sympathy. That is the need to have physical bank branches in local centres. This issue has been raised in relation to rural communities, but it is also an issue in many urban and suburban areas and in larger villages.

[Janet Daby]

My hon. Friend’s comments are also pertinent to my area, where we have seen so many local banks close. That has caused a great issue for people in my local community, because they now need to travel further to different parts of the constituency and the borough, and the queues are longer. For older people and people who find it difficult to move around freely, this adds an additional burden, as well as having to wait longer in the queue. I am really frustrated by it. It is a serious issue when local banks have to close, because it has such an impact on so many people in our community. The Government really need to see what more they can do to support local banks. I really hope that local banks are listening to my hon. Friend’s speech and to what I have just said.

[Matt Rodda]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. She has stolen part of my speech, but she has done so very graciously.

Branch closures are an issue in suburban areas, as the Minister knows well. Travel times can be considerable at busy times of the day, and there are access issues for elderly and disabled people. Another important point that I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) would have made had she had the chance is that many small businesses are still receiving their takings in cash and they need to bank that cash safely. They want to be able to go to a physical bank to do that. I understand that the Department is doing some interesting work looking at pilots for shared services for banks in rural areas, and indeed there is a pilot in Essex. Perhaps the Minister can update the House later when he speaks on this important issue. It is of great concern to many local small and medium-sized enterprises in Reading, Woodley and many other areas across the country and I hope that he will be able to address it. I also hope that he will encourage the banks to work together to ensure that there is interoperability of IT systems and other back-office functions so that they can support each other and support our small businesses. They really should be focusing on this important issue at this time.

I would also like to draw the Minister’s attention to some related points, some of which have been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth. It is important, as we consider how to support small businesses at this difficult time, to look at the issue in the round and consider other aspects of support that the Government should in my view be offering. First and foremost, there are small businesses, many of which are micro-businesses, that missed out during the pandemic, and I would like the Government to look again at the issue of those businesses that were left behind. They include those that were set up in all good faith at the start of the pandemic but did not have three years of accounts and were therefore unable to claim any support. There are a number of other worthy and worthwhile groups that deserve further attention from the Government, and I ask the Minister to address the matter when he speaks later. This is a matter of huge significance to many of my constituents. I have had constituents in tears while speaking to me about this issue on the telephone, but unfortunately I was unable to offer them any help because of the limitations of Government policy.

In addition, I would like the Minister to speed up the work on business rates. We are calling for the current system to be scrapped. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) has spoken powerfully on this issue. It is deeply unfair that physical businesses are being asked to pay high levels of business rates while other competitor businesses in out-of-town locations or online are not being asked to pay the same level of business rates. That cannot be right, and it is not fair. I hope that the Government will address this point, and that the Minister will address it later today.

I would also like to pick up on the importance of rail and other transport infrastructure. The area that I represent is very lucky to be the western terminus for Crossrail, and we are already seeing enormous transformational change across the Thames Valley—and, I am sure, in Kent and Essex as well—as better rail connectivity brings people into town and city centres. Many towns and cities are being rebuilt significantly because of this investment, and if this is good enough for the south of England, I hope the Minister will urge his colleagues to think again about HS2 and the number of cities and towns that have been left on one side as a result of the Government’s announcements earlier this week.

We can see the benefits of the infrastructure in our parts of the country, and we would like other towns and cities around the country to share in the regeneration renaissance that comes from sound investment in public transport leading to better connectivity. That investment spurs retail and the leisure and hospitality industry, and it is also crucial to sectors such as IT and other knowledge-based sectors of the economy. We have huge growth in that area in the Thames Valley, with businesses relocating to Reading purely because of its connectivity, and I urge the Minister to treat the north of England in the same way that previous Governments, including the Labour Government prior to 2010, treated the south.

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[Sarah Olney]

That is exactly right, and it is the point I am trying to make. Every context and every business is different. The business owners will have faced different challenges, and the environment in which they trade will have faced different challenges. The hon. Gentleman has already spoken about hospitality businesses facing significant challenges, and it is difficult to see how we can have one set of guidance that covers the viability of every kind of business of every size and every sector.

[Janet Daby]

In that same vein, small businesses, and even large businesses, have seen a surge in energy costs and product costs. Does the hon. Lady agree that there is increasing financial pressure on businesses?

[Sarah Olney]

I absolutely agree. We see a maelstrom of different pressures on businesses at the moment, and many of my retail businesses are experiencing difficulty in getting stock for a number of different reasons, many of which will be familiar to Members. There are increased energy costs, and we are still facing quite an uncertain Christmas.

Hospitality businesses across the country are keen to open their doors to Christmas parties, but there is still a lot of uncertainty about the public health situation, which will prevent many of them from being able to make the revenue they would expect. That will obviously have an impact on their ability to pay their debts. As the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) said, it is not just their rent debts; they have VAT bills, rates bills and loans to repay. There are so many different debts mounting up as a result of lockdown, and there is still a great deal of uncertainty, coming from a number of different sources, on whether businesses can count on the revenue to service all those debts. There are a lot of pressures facing businesses.

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[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to wind up this debate, although I am sorry that the Minister has both had to open and close.

I want to recognise some of the contributions to this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) and the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) raised the important definition of viability and the considerations around it. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) mentioned how we need to make sure that all our businesses are supported through the pandemic and into the recovery, which will continue at different paces for many businesses. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) also talked about the wider context and about supporting and championing businesses, which Small Business Saturday will be doing in the run-up to 4 December. It was eye-opening to be out with them in Southampton earlier this week. This is important in the context of what we are discussing today.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) said at the beginning of the debate, Labour supports this important Bill, although we are surprised it has taken this long to introduce it following the announcement in the summer. We need to talk about the context because the growing cost of business will have an impact on how businesses pay back their rent. We have had an important set of contributions on the urgent need for reform of business rates, which the Labour party has also called for, and for it to be considered alongside a much fairer taxation system to bring in a much more level playing field between online businesses and businesses in our communities.

We are having this debate in an important week, as we know that business needs the Government to be on its side—perhaps the Minister will not be able to say anything about that. That is an incredibly important part of how we go forward and work towards the recovery—we are just at the beginning of that. The Prime Minister’s embarrassing speech to the CBI at the start of the week was an issue because confidence in the Government is knocked when the Prime Minister does not give a speech that suggests they understand the challenges businesses are facing and the crucial nature of getting the recovery right to make sure that it is sustainable.

The Bill will legislate for a binding arbitration process to be used where business landlords and tenants cannot agree on how to deal with outstanding rent arrears. It also expands on existing restrictions on enforcing business rent arrears to ensure that they cannot also undermine the arbitration process, which will be in place for six months from Royal Assent. As we have heard from hon. Members, the covid pandemic has hit businesses hard, affecting disproportionately those at the frontline in our high streets and communities, which have been forced to close or restrict trading from March last year.

Labour recognises the need for a fair arbitration process to deal with commercial rent arrears. That is why we will scrutinise the legislation in detail in Committee, having raised some of those broader concerns today, to ensure that the proposals are effective and accessible, and fairly balance the interests of relevant parties. Our principle is that no otherwise viable business should face the significant burden from rent arrears without due arbitration and a burden-sharing process. The guiding principle must also be focused on fairness and on the long-term interests we have in British businesses and supporting them to provide much-needed employment across the country.

Labour has also called for the Government to help ease the covid debt burden faced by firms across the country by creating a British business recovery agency. The reason why we would want to convert the bounce back loan scheme into a student loan-style arrangement is so that businesses would have to start repayments to the British Business Bank only when they are making money. It is important that we have an integrated set of policies on business recovery so that we do not deal with one aspect while there are crises in other areas of life for businesses.

[Janet Daby]

My hon. Friend is closing this debate brilliantly. Does she agree that this week we have been reminded of how much businesses need a responsible Government, who take speeches to the CBI very seriously?

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution. I had referenced that and she makes the point powerfully; it is important that we have a Government taking their responsibility to business seriously and showing the nation that they are doing that. The Prime Minister’s speech did more for the sales of Peppa Pig than for supporting business recovery across our country.

Rent debt is a heavy burden for landlords and commercial tenants, and we need a solution that will be in the interests of both. This is a big issue and although we do not know its full scale, the Bill’s impact assessment—the Treasury analysis—notes that the total amount of deferred rent liabilities could be about £9 billion by March next year. That is why we need a policy solution that is fair, fast, trusted, affordable and accessible, so I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us how confident we can be that the system will be in place and what the next steps will be to ensure that.

Labour also called for action on rent debt and the wider business costs in the summer. The Minister will know that before then. I had met UKHospitality, the British Beauty Council, the Federation of Small Business, the Night Time Industries Association and many of those stakeholders to discuss the ongoing commercial impact of covid. Those stories, which he and I still hear, showed the strain on and perseverance of those who have fought against the odds to keep going. As has been highlighted by the 3 million excluded campaign, far too many had been excluded from Government support and still struggle.

Luke Hersheson, a renowned hair stylist who is backing the “Save Our Salons” campaign, said earlier this year:

“In March this year my salons will have been closed for 260 days out of 365. Running a business for more than two thirds of a year with no income at all is incredibly challenging. When the tap is turned off salon businesses are still paying landlords, they’re still paying utility bills, insurance costs and subsidising furlough pay.”

That is a powerful statement about how businesses were struggling and yet were still wanting to do their bit in the community and support, at the frontline, our communities in getting through covid.

Ensuring that viable businesses are able to survive into the future is part of the responsibility of the Government. Members have discussed how small businesses are the backbone of our economy. We see that in all our constituencies—my constituency has more than 5,000 small businesses. We know that the almost 6 million small businesses across the country account for 99.9% of the business population, three fifths of employment and about half of the turnover in the private sector. As the Minister alluded to, many that will be affected and which may need to draw on the scheme in this Bill may well be women-led businesses and ethnic minority-led businesses. Perhaps he will tell us how he is going to make sure that the opportunities provided by this legislation will be known about by those who might need them. How is the ability to seek a reference for arbitration going to be made known to businesses at the frontline in our communities, so that they do not get to the end of six months of struggle and find that it is too late? It is crucial for our recovery to make sure that that is understood and we have that ongoing partnership between the Government and business large and small. We are going to need that to make sure that our economy starts to fire on all cylinders, which is what we want to see, in a recovery that is sustainable. We want to start to see a recovery that generates the profits and then the taxes to sustain our economy.

The challenge of dealing with rent debt that has accumulated is particularly acute because businesses are also having to deal with a wave of rising costs. Government incompetence led to Britain being harder hit than other countries by the supply chain crisis, ongoing issues and steep rises in energy prices. Those are huge blows to businesses as they approach Christmas, which should be the time when they are hoping to claw back profits in order to make up for stresses earlier in the year. The cost-of-living crisis has also seen consumer confidence knocked, as we know. Last month, it dropped to its lowest level since April, thus reducing consumer spending in all our communities. That has been compounded by the inexplicable decision by the Government to cut universal credit for 6 million families in October—returning just a small part of that was not good enough. In my constituency, this will take £18 million out of the local economy. The Government’s jobs tax, which the Opposition oppose, is also due to come in right at the time when debt protections ease and businesses are expected to pay back costs they could not afford during lockdown.

The Minister will be aware that all of those compounded pressures will cause a potential crisis for businesses come next April. We know that not all sectors of the economy will recover fast. That point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth. Aviation, travel and tourism, and parts of hospitality will recover at a slower pace. These measures are set to be in place for six months from Royal Assent. It will be helpful to know how Ministers plan to review whether an extension of a further six months will be required and how they will bring those considerations to the House.

The Bill strikes an important balance between the duties of tenants and of landlords and builds on the code of practice for commercial tenancies that was announced in the summer and revised most recently in November. Will the Minister respond to the points raised about how the viability of businesses is to be determined? A key task for arbitrators under the Bill will be to assess how viable businesses are. There are some relevant comments in the code of practice, but the Minister will understand the Opposition’s concern about what qualifications we can expect arbitrators to have so that they can make that assessment. How will the panel of arbitrators be pulled together? What will be the criteria for and what scrutiny will there be of their capabilities? What does the Minister really mean by “a viable business”? Over what time period will viability be assessed, given that different sectors will continue to recover at different rates? Has the Minister considered a simplified appeals system in case there are disagreements about arbitration decisions? Will he comment on the consistency of the arbitration framework? There is currently no great detail on it and there is a risk that different arbitration bodies and arbitrators will take different approaches to cases, resulting in inconsistent decisions.

Businesses are facing a difficult and now costly recovery from the pandemic, with rising costs coming downstream. I am sure the Minister will want to assure the House that he will make sure that the arbitration process is affordable. What plans do the Government have to make sure that the fees do not preclude access for those who need support?

The Bill is welcome, but it is narrow in respect of addressing the overall issues that businesses face and will continue to face as we recover from the pandemic. It will be a slower recovery for some sectors than for others. The Bill provides necessary support for businesses with their rent debt if agreement has not been reached, along with an arbitration process, which must be fair and implemented quickly. If the Conservatives really cared about business health, they would use this opportunity to go much further in the provision of support in respect of business rates reform and the other costs and supply-chain issues that are hitting businesses and consumers hard.

Gas Prices and Energy Suppliers

Janet Daby Excerpts

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

No, not ahead of the process. However, most of these prices are at or just below the price cap, and that is fundamentally what will protect consumers in this period.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

This Government are responsible for families facing a cost of living crisis due to the triple whammy of rising gas prices, looming tax rises, and cuts to universal credit. Will the Secretary of State finally acknowledge and accept that it is completely and utterly immoral to cut universal credit?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

What I do acknowledge is that there has been a quadrupling of the gas price, and that we have an energy price cap that will protect customers from such spikes. Schemes such as the warm home discount will also protect the most vulnerable customers. That is what I acknowledge.