Budget Resolutions

Jo Churchill Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

rose—

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

rose—

[John McDonnell]

The hon. Member for Taunton Deane was first.

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[John McDonnell]

I will come back to the hon. Gentleman.

The number of people sleeping on our streets has doubled since the Conservatives came to office in 2010. More than 3,500 people were forced to sleep on the streets last year. Some 80,000 households are living in temporary accommodation because councils simply do not have anywhere to house them. I repeat: in the sixth richest country in the world, there are more than 120,000 children without a home to call their own, living in temporary accommodation. That figure is up 60% since this Government have been in power. That means children are being brought up in places that are often not safe, having to share communal bathrooms and kitchens, and being robbed of a normal family life and childhood. We have seen this in our constituencies. Ministers do not seem to understand the strength of anger felt by many on the Labour Benches at the fact that our constituents are being forced to live in overcrowded, unsafe and inadequate housing.

The Government had the opportunity to deliver the funding that would build the homes we need. Only a third of the £44 billion announced yesterday is genuinely new, and there is no extra Government investment in new affordable homes. This Government’s record of failure on housing will continue to blight the lives of hundreds of thousands of people trapped in overpriced, inadequate housing.

[Jo Churchill]

I was working in the construction industry in 2008-09, so I watched its decimation at the tail end of the last Labour Government. Nobody sprang to our aid to keep people in work in the industry. This Government had to start from the get-go. We have built 217,000 houses this year, which is nearly double what was built in the last period of the Labour Government. The Labour party walked away from the industry at that time, so it is wrong for the right hon. Gentleman to stand there and say it supported us.

[John McDonnell]

I ask the hon. Lady to re-examine the history of that period. I point her to the Kickstart programme, which was developed by the Labour Government to enable building to happen in the public and private sectors. I understand what she is saying; she is right that that time was an immensely difficult period for the economy, and that many people suffered, but her party supported the policies to deregulate the banks that brought about the speculation that resulted in the economic crisis in this country and elsewhere.

Thousands of people are trapped in poverty. The Child Poverty Action Group estimates that as many as 1 million children could be pushed into poverty as a result of cuts to universal credit. The introduction of universal credit has been a disaster that has pushed many thousands of people into despair and, in many cases, outright destitution. Food bank charities have reported that they have gathered an extra 2,000 tonnes of food to cope with demand as a result of the introduction of universal credit. The Trussell Trust reports that the use of food banks is up 30% in areas where universal credit is being rolled out. Yet the amendments offered by the Chancellor yesterday and mentioned in the statement today are so feeble as to strongly suggest that he and this Government simply do not grasp the scale of the problem.

Hon. Members need to know what this poverty means for children in our society. It means not having a winter coat this winter and being left behind when the rest of the class go on a school trip. Last year’s reports showed that thousands of children are going hungry during school holidays. The Chancellor did nothing yesterday for self-employed people, second earners, lone parents or disabled people, all of whom have seen their living standards suffer particularly acutely under universal credit. He failed to mitigate the £3 billion a year cuts that were slashed from the universal credit programme by his predecessor, and he failed to address the impact of the social security freeze in universal credit, due to push millions into poverty.

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[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

I welcome the Budget, particularly on R and D, the enterprise investment scheme and small and medium-sized enterprises, which I hope to be able to address next week.

Today I will concentrate on housing. I am encouraged by the ambition we showed yesterday, and now we need to focus on delivery. It is a sad fact that the average age at which people now enter the housing market is 37, and half of people in their 30s do not expect to own a house like their parents have, so there is work to do.

Some 217,000 houses were built out this year, compared with the woeful 75,000 built out during the last year of the Labour Government, but arguably this is not about more council houses, more of this and more of that; it is about the industry, about housing authorities and about all of us working to deliver what people want, which is homes. No matter a person’s tenure, they want a roof. The important thing is that we get the right homes for people, that we get the right quality of homes and that we get homes where we need them. I am pleased to see that we are looking for density, particularly on urban sites, because that makes a great deal of difference in ensuring that people in cities are near their place of work.

I am also pleased to see that the Homes and Communities Agency will become Homes England, and the £44 billion of capital funding, loans and guarantees is most welcome. The acknowledgement of the importance of small builders is also welcome because they have largely disappeared from the construction industry. Their need to be able to access finance has been acknowledged with a further £1.5 billion for the home building fund and £630 million for the housing infrastructure fund.

We want homes to have quality and to be well designed. We would also like homes to have electric charging points, which the Chancellor spoke about. We want to use R and D and innovation in building. There is no reason why we should not be using robotic bricklaying machines and modular builds, where accessible and appropriate, to ensure that we get on with delivering these houses in a smart way so that we put roofs over people’s heads.

More houses should not mean lower quality. The all-party parliamentary group on excellence in the built environment is considering the possibility of a new homes ombudsman, because 98% of all houses that currently come to market have some sort of snagging issue. I hope to talk to Ministers about that as the idea develops.

There is also £170 million coming into the skills agenda through the industrial strategy, which is most welcome, with another £34 million going into innovation and training. It would be great to see construction colleges at every large construction site, with large house builders basing a training centre at the centre of each large site that could later be redeveloped and used as a community centre.

We need all sorts of approaches to development if we are to build this number of houses. Construction is now a high-tech industry, and it should not be thought of as the preserve of boys at the back of the class who perhaps cannot add up. I would like to see a higher degree of attention on delivering quality training in this area.

We need road and rail infrastructure to connect new housing developments. Overspill from the west-east Oxford-Cambridge corridor will undoubtedly come upon us in Bury St Edmunds. Houses are very expensive in my constituency, and they are often out of reach of people in an area where average wages sit below the national average. I would like us to concentrate on having a planning system that looks across the piece. The current two-tier system is not helpful. Bringing empty homes into use is something we are concentrating on in St Edmundsbury, but the problem is often about discovering ownership, rather than applying the council tax. I do feel, however, that applying the council tax levy will certainly add a bit of weight to encourage people to consider whether their house should be empty or not.

Given that we have little time left, let me end by thanking the Exchequer Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), for listening to me and my young constituent from the Suffolk Accident Rescue Service, and examining the accident rescue charities grant scheme. We were most grateful for being able to retrieve—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I call Alison Thewliss.

Economy and Jobs

Jo Churchill Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

It is an immense pleasure to talk about the economy in today’s Queen’s Speech debate, because before I entered the House, only two short years ago, my day job was creating jobs. We need to remember that our local economies are driven by people’s confidence in creating jobs, particularly in small businesses, which have not been spoken about much today.

Bury St Edmunds is a great place to do business with a thriving small business sector that is outpacing the national average. The Conservative party’s job is to drive quality jobs. I welcome this Queen’s Speech to inspire entrepreneurs—I have been employing people—but the shadow Chancellor’s picture was one of gloom, high tax, borrow and spend. That is not the right way to deliver jobs in any economy. Bury St Edmunds is in the top 20% of economically active constituencies and it reflects a sound economy.

The UK employment rate is nearly 75%. Unemployment is 4.6%—the lowest since 1975—but 690 people in my constituency do not have a job. We need to get them one. We are here to create the right environment and opportunities, and to break down barriers so that everybody can show their talents and abilities. The number of women in work is at an all-time high, which is to be celebrated, but the number of women-led firms is not high enough. We need to work hard to ensure that more women lead firms and become the entrepreneurs of the future.

The Government’s commitment to further progress on narrowing the gender pay gap is welcome, as is our lead on the national living wage. We must be attuned to something that the Labour party often is not—that wage costs are often the highest costs for a business. It is often the case that the more a business raises wages, the lower its profit margin and, therefore, the lower its corporation tax return. All the talk saying that everything can be solved by corporation tax rises is nonsense. We must have an eye to what we force businesses to do. A constituent of mine in her early 60s said, “Please do all you can to stay in power for the next year to give lots of people job security.” She is paid only just about the national living wage but she says that she would rather earn that in a steady job than be on jobseeker’s allowance. She said that she is not poor and she is not the rich elite, but she looks to us to provide security.

We need to ensure that the climate is right and that people have the right skills so that employers and employees thrive. I am pleased that the industrial strategy is bold and follows growth. It is good that we should invest 2.4% of GDP in research and development. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) said in her excellent maiden speech, we need to look to the future, not back to the past. We need to ensure that we actually inspire when we see opportunities, such as in our further education colleges. I want West Suffolk College in my constituency to be one of the leading institutes of technology, driving opportunity and connecting business. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) said, strong entrepreneurial leadership from our local enterprise partnerships, councils and colleges will drive prosperity.

We have a positive economic message. We want a thriving economy. I do not want our children paying off our debts. I want them to own houses, have great jobs, raise families and have careers.

Parking Places (Variation of Charges) Bill

Jo Churchill Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 3rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

No. I think it is clear that if a local authority decided that raising charges was appropriate, it would be able to do so under the existing procedures, although consultation would be necessary, and, obviously, the authority would be answerable to its electors. Any authority considering increasing car parking charges must carefully consider the overall impact, not just whether it will get a couple of thousand pounds extra from a car park. The Local Government Finance Bill Committee this week heard evidence—the Minister was present—from the Federation of Small Businesses about the impact that increasing car park charges can have on town centres and on businesses. Local authorities will in future have 100% retention of business rates, and if a town centre is not regenerating and does not have people shopping in it, that will hit the bottom line as much as not getting an extra 10p from each car that parks in the car park.

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is talking about giving councils the flexibility to lower prices in order to stimulate high streets, yet areas that are highly stimulated by an event—a celebration of Shakespeare’s 400th birthday, perhaps, this year—might wish to direct drivers to a park-and-ride, for instance, to avoid an absolute blockage in the town centre. Many of us have great events in our towns. May we have a temporary uplift, deterring people from parking in the town centre while an event is going on, and reduce it afterwards? This amendment sounds a little heavy-handed, if my hon. Friend does not mind my saying so.

[Kevin Foster]

I do not think my hon. Friend’s intervention is heavy-handed at all; it is right that we discuss probing amendments to Bills robustly on the Floor of the House. There is already some provision in this regard. My own authority, Torbay, held the Torbay airshow last year. It was clear that one of its car parks would be very congested, so to avoid undue congestion it closed the car park for the day of the airshow but arranged for to be booked via a separate means. The solution met the need on the day, but if it was put in place more widely and challenged there would be a question about whether it was the right way to proceed. It was just a fix for the day.

If a council is going to look to take money out of large events in the manner suggested—for a market day-style event—it should go through a proper consultation process. One way of ensuring that large crowds do not come to events is for people to attend, park in a car park and feel they have been ripped off for parking; traffic congestion reduces the following year, because no one comes back. There is clearly a balance to be struck. It is great to have events that draw people into town centres. I am the Member for Torquay and Paignton, and most days of the week my town centre has problems with lots people wanting to park and shop, causing congestion; that is quite a pleasant problem to deal with, compared with the issues of the decline of the town centre that we have seen over the last 30 to 40 years.

I believe in local democracy. Councils do need to have the ability to decide to increase parking charges, and ultimately be accountable to voters for that. We can all think of instances of a council controlled by our party deciding to make a quick buck out of car parking, but paying the price for it at the ballot box shortly afterwards.

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[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), I have a slight problem with the intention behind this new clause because it strikes me as a bit of a blunt tool, as I will explain. In my constituency there is The Dog at Norton. I am not sure whether I have a Dog and Duck, but Bury St Edmunds is the home of Greene King and I have the Dog and Partridge. I have quite a lot of pubs, and I am racking my brain.

In Bury St Edmunds I have a vibrant town that bucks the trend, and in that I see a problem with the bluntness of this amendment. The amendment would be perfect in Stowmarket, Needham Market and my other market towns, where we must do everything we can to increase the vibrancy of the high street—we need that flexibility—but I assume that the whole point of the Bill is to give us flexibility. It strikes me that the amendment is trying to do what we do so well in this House, which is to pin our arm behind our back and write legislation that does not do what we first intended and is less flexible than we want.

[Kevin Foster]

I respect my hon. Friend’s comments about the strength of Bury St Edmunds, but in other parts of the country, and certainly in England, we have councils that view their town centre as a bit of a cash cow, which is really hurting the economy. That is why we need to be clear and make sure that a council’s arm is behind its back. This is about reducing parking charges, not varying them upwards.

[Jo Churchill]

Surely my hon. Friend takes my point that local councils are, in the main, the people who should be deciding this. We have a very confused landscape. In Stratford-on-Avon, as he mentioned, the town council owns the car park. In two-tier authorities, the county council often owns car parks in towns that do not have the ability to flex the charges and use the money for their locality, as happens in ours. In such a situation, variation might happen, but because somebody else is setting the rules, it is not driven by the people in the locality who want the outcomes that he seeks.

I would welcome the creation of local accountability that gives people within borough councils or district councils in two-tier authorities the ability to set the rates and collect the revenue. At the moment, it is a longwinded process, in that it takes two years to apply for various changes in legislation, and so on. In Bury St Edmunds, a town of 40,000 people, there were 550 long- stay car park uses and 1.387 million short-stay car park uses last year.

We have problems in the medieval grid, and I was pleased to see the masterplan come out this week. It says that we will have a policy of using varying procedures to stop the off-street parking that blights so many people’s lives, particularly in the medieval quarter of the town. We must provide solutions and give local councils the ability to set the right solutions, and the masterplan encourages a blend of “pedestrian first” measures to restore and keep the medieval grid for pedestrians, tourists, shoppers and residents. The small grid, which is not only beautiful but historic, needs attention to make sure that it is not blighted by parking. I agree with my hon. Friend that we have a vibrant economic environment and that people need to park for work. Luckily, we have a wonderful tourist attraction that draws people to the town, but other market towns very much need the flexibility to vary parking charges.

What concerns me is that, with this amendment, we might be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. As my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) said, the amendment seeks to do what is already in the Bill.

[Kevin Foster]

There are already provisions for local authorities to increase parking charges if they wish to do so, and my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) said that councils have done that. All I am seeking to do with the amendment is to limit the new powers in the Bill to reducing parking charges. The existing powers to increase car park prices via the normal consultation processes will still be there.

[Jo Churchill]

Fine, but that takes me back to my earlier point, which is that that is already in the Bill. Are we not just adding a bit of jam to the cake?

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

This has already been a passionate debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) on moving this probing amendment. I hope I can convince him and my other hon. Friends, many of whom are here today, that he does not need to press it.

No amendments were moved in Committee on Wednesday, so the Bill was reported to the House unamended. This new clause is a somewhat late entry in the race.

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[Jo Churchill]

Is that not, in a nutshell, why we do not need to press this new clause? We are talking about flexibility and the fact that in Stowmarket councils can charge £1 for two hours, and that in Bury St Edmunds councils reduce their fees on a Tuesday afternoon. This is about local solutions to local issues to stimulate the high street.

[David Tredinnick]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who has been a great champion not only on the matter of parking charges, but on the cause of cancer. I am very pleased to serve with her as an officer on the all-party cancer group.

For clarity, I will make it absolutely clear what these two clauses do. Clause 1 provides government with a power to make regulations that simplify the procedure for lowering parking charges. At present, councils must give 21 days’ notification in the press, and place signage in the car parks—something to which I have not yet referred—if they want to lower their charges. The private sector, however, can take a business decision to lower them without going through that process. This clause would simplify the requirement and give councils the flexibility to reduce their charges, thereby putting local authorities on an even footing with the private sector. My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay has not picked up on that point, but he might like to do so now. I am sure that he would have mentioned it had he thought of it.

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[David Tredinnick]

I have a good recollection of those events, and the Bill is not about raising charges; it is about lowering charges and raising consultation levels. That is the soundbite; that is what the Bill is all about. That is why I ask my hon. Friend to withdraw his new clause.

My hon. Friend talks about private car park owners who wanted to ratchet up charges in Cornwall. My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), who is not here today, has had her own issues with car parking. My hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), who also is not here, has had such issues and held a successful debate on them in Westminster Hall the other day. There was so much in the newspapers and so much media hype about what would happen and the pandemonium that would be caused by the huge number of people who would go to Cornwall to watch the eclipse, which totally blocked out the light of the sun for about a minute, that nobody actually turned up. As my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay will recall, the numbers were way down and quite the reverse of what was expected happened. Councils might therefore make provision to reduce charges, but then suddenly realise that there is no need to do so at all, rather than waiting for 21 days and losing revenue. In that situation, the opposite applied.

I shall conclude my remarks fairly soon, but I want first to refer to what the Federation of Small Businesses told me yesterday. Apart from generously congratulating me on negotiating the narrows of the rivers to get to this point with a private Member’s Bill, it says that it is wholly supportive of the measures in the Bill, that it will be an additional tool for the Government to support local small businesses and ensure that they and their customers can park, and that is why it is very welcome. The FSB’s research shows that seven in 10 small firms think that parking is a priority for the future of independent shops. It says that independent retailers in town centres are the engines that help to make the UK’s local communities what they are. In its report, “Going the extra mile”, it found that small businesses are overwhelmingly reliant on roads, with nine in 10 firms—about 89%—placing a high value on the network. With so many small businesses relying on the road network, it argues for greater investment. Well, that is predictable. Its final point is that consultation with businesses is required before local authorities increase the cost of parking. That is exactly what clause 2 will provide.

[Jo Churchill]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is particularly pertinent in rural communities and small market towns, where a lot of the trade has to come in from villages and so on, and that we need to aim for accessibility and the ability to control prices to facilitate businesses, which we want to survive because there is nothing sadder than a dying high street?

[David Tredinnick]

One is always looking for help in this place, and my hon. Friend almost makes my closing remarks for me. We are talking about a simple three-clause Bill that has been reported by a Committee without amendment, that seeks to allow councils to reduce parking charges without consultation but that insists on consultation if they want to increase charges.

Before I sit down, I should like to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay that he has proposed a helpful new clause. He clearly feels passionately about the issue, as it impacts his town, and he is right to come to the Chamber and get us to scrutinise it in some detail, but I hope that I have been able to give him the reassurance that he requires. I look to my hon. Friend the Minister to flesh out any points that I have not made and give the Government’s approval. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay and will resume my seat.

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[Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)]

I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) on achieving his goal of a measure that is incredibly simple but makes a lot of common sense. The importance of the Bill should not be underestimated, though. Over the past five years, Derby City Council has made about £20 million from parking charges and fines, but instead of that money just being focused on parking, the Bill will enable us to consider what we should be doing with it for the city and its regeneration, so that we can make it easier for people to come in and use our city wisely.

The aim behind the Bill, rightly, is to provide flexibility. Trying to get people coming into our cities more often is particularly important. The Great British High Street awards have been mentioned, and the cathedral quarter in Derby won the high street of the year award last year. We are very proud of that. The way we did that is not to be underestimated, because we had the challenge of a new centre that had been built 10 years ago, offering parking and shopping in one place, which had taken business away from other parts of the city. Now, we are working on regenerating two other parts of the city, and parking plays a significant part in that. I want to encourage flexibility for councils so that they can have cheaper parking in certain areas one Saturday a month, for instance, or free parking at night or for an hour in the morning, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) mentioned. The Bill provides a great opportunity for such things to be considered.

The work of the business improvement district in Derby, which I have spoken about before, should not be underestimated. It has the challenge of getting people who would normally prefer convenience shopping to take advantage of places outside the shopping centre. One way in which it can do that is by providing reasonable and convenient parking. People will then think of those areas as somewhere for destination shopping, where they can park readily in the knowledge that the cost will be reasonable, get out of their car and do their shopping. We can help small businesses by doing that and encourage a two-centre shopping experience rather than the one-centre experience that seemed dominant at one point.

In Derby, we take great advantage of the use of events. For instance, we have the Derby Festé, which is really well attended, with people performing in the streets, and Christmas markets and farmers markets. With those events, we are trying to regenerate an area of Derby for people to enjoy and seek entertainment. Clearly, these events need a parking offer to make attendance more attractive. Otherwise, people tend to park at the shopping centre and then not leave to visit other places for their entertainment. The Bill is a great opportunity to respond to local need.

We must encourage people to walk between destinations. The cheaper offer at shopping centres means that people tend to park and then stay there. With a cheaper offer outside the centres, say in the cathedral quarter or St Peters quarter, people might park there and then explore other parts of our great city, including the Market Hall, where they can experience the delights of the Derby pyclet, which I can recommend to hon. Members. For those who do not know—[Interruption.] Yes, it’s a flattened crumpet.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker), I was in retail for over 30 years. The value of retail to our economy is not to be underestimated. The Federation of Small Businesses has highlighted that parking charges are one of the main factors discouraging shoppers from visiting traditional high streets. It is important that we regenerate our traditional high streets, including the independent retailers, and get people using them again, and variable parking charges could definitely encourage that.

As mentioned, there is an issue with online shopping. We have to make it as easy and attractive as possible for people to visit our high streets and cities, instead of shopping online and having the items delivered to their door. Derby—like many other city centres, I suspect—is trying to boost not just its daytime economy but its night-time economy. It would be lovely to see people walking along our high streets, taking in some café culture, and enjoying the richness of our cathedral city.

During my time as an MP, I have taken part in small business Saturday each year and done short shifts in some of our local shops. We must do everything we can to get people into these shops. If they can park easily, we can get them through the doors, and then they will see the unique and interesting offer.

[Jo Churchill]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the small independent trader adds to the richness of our high streets, which is what small business Saturday is all about? In these shops, one often finds an offer not necessarily found on the internet and also gets that personal service, which is worth having. We must encourage anything that can be used as leverage to attract people into our towns or cities.

[Amanda Solloway]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. As I mentioned, Derby has just won the Great British High Street award, partly because of the unique offer in places such as Sadler Gate, in the cathedral quarter, where a group of designers have got together to offer goods, all individually designed, and are taking it in turn to sell those products in their shop. It is very innovative and inspirational and draws people in because it is not something found in the shopping centre. That is good way forward.

The private sector has an important part to play.

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[James Morris]

As I said earlier, the Halesowen chamber of trade has done a huge amount of work to increase footfall in the town, and it should be at the front and centre of consultation on the proposed parking charges regime. As my hon. Friend says, those voices in our constituencies need to be heard.

The Bill will not necessarily prohibit any increase in charges. Occasionally it may be necessary to increase them if overhead costs are rising as well, especially in car parks that require access to machines and staff. The purpose of the Bill is to ensure that the impacts on towns are fully considered, not to prevent increases.

On-street parking is often subject to the same level of increases as off-street, although the costs of providing parking spaces are nowhere near the same. As other Members have pointed out, that can make local residents feel that they are a cash cow enabling local authorities to plug a financial hole. A balance needs to be struck. This is not a one-size-fits-all situation, but the Bill will make it quicker and easier for local authorities to do the right thing. It will also give local authorities the flexibility to incentivise the use of car parks which are currently underused. Spaces that they are paying to maintain are sitting idle, which does not benefit either local authorities or shopping centres. Empty car parks can become a magnet for antisocial behaviour and crime. It is important for local authorities to be able to respond to declining numbers quickly, and in the best interests of the local area.

[Jo Churchill]

My hon. Friend makes a salient point. Car parks that have fallen into disrepair, or are hardly used, can indeed become centres for antisocial behaviour, which means that there is a double disincentive for people to visit towns.

[James Morris]

I entirely agree. We must not allow that to happen. Making car parks full and making them places where people want to go is critical to town centre regeneration and the creation of a good retail environment.

I also welcome the Government’s move to look at further reforms to the local government transparency code to ensure that motorists can see at first hand a complete breakdown of the parking charges that their councils impose and how much they raise. There has long been a suspicion among drivers that parking charges and penalties are being used to increase the amount of money that local authorities can spend. Local authorities have no legal powers to set parking charges at a higher level than that needed to achieve the objective of relieving or preventing traffic congestion, and this Bill will make local authorities more mindful of this fact.

In the 2013-14 financial year, councils received just under £739 million from on-street parking and £599 million from off-street parking. The income received varies widely from council to council. The Broads, for example, did not receive any income for parking, whereas Cambridgeshire County Council received over £3 million from on-street parking. In total, councils in England made net profits of £660 million and £343 million from penalty charge notices. My own local authorities, which cover Halesowen and Rowley Regis, have recorded nearly £500,000 between them in profit from parking charges. Local people want, and deserve, to have faith that this money is being used properly.

Under the last Labour Government, revenue from parking increased from £608 million in 1997 to £1.3 billion by 2010. Such parking enforcement has undermined local high streets and I am grateful to the Government, who have since made many efforts to rein in these over-zealous and unfair rules.

In recent years, I have supported the Government’s action on tackling higher parking charges and aggressive parking enforcement which have caused considerable distress for thousands of motorists. I congratulate the Government on the measures they have introduced to stop parking charges being used as a stealth tax, including introducing new grace periods and stopping the industrial use of CCTV spy cars. Therefore, I believe it is in the best interests of my constituents, and those of local businesses and high streets, that this Bill, very ably introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth, be enacted.

The link between parking charges and the health of British high streets cannot be underestimated. These changes will make it easier for local authorities to lower their charges to promote economic vitality in our town centres, and, importantly, ensure that if an increase is to be considered, the right steps are taken to make sure that it is properly considered. I believe that these are the right measures to help our local high streets, bring assurance to motorists and inject a much-needed incentive to revive town centres and high streets in my constituency and across the country.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) on introducing this important Bill. For as long as I represent the constituents of Thirsk and Malton, I will be a champion of small independent businesses. Everything we do in terms of regulation, taxation and infrastructure should consider the needs of small businesses, and in particular try to create the level playing field with large business that we absolutely need to encourage the success of the local small independent retailer and business. Small independent businesses account for about 60% of our private sector-employed workforce and about 50% of our private sector turnover, so they are hugely important.

I must draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Our estate agent business has about 190 small, independent outlets around the UK in various high streets and market towns. We do not particularly rely any more on footfall, so that is not a big issue for us in terms of car parking and people coming to town or city centres, but it is a big issue for the general health of our towns, villages and cities in helping to ensure that we have a vibrant and healthy sector in our high streets and town centres.

We started our business in 1992, and it grew and we became the market leader in our town of York, which is where our first business started. We thought, “This is going quite well. We’re doing okay here. Our business is starting to prosper.” Three or four years later, however, another very good independent started up in York city centre, and started to take market share off us. We had to look very carefully at the business we were operating and what we were doing, and we started to work harder again. It made us focus on what had made us successful in the first place.

That is a small illustration of the importance of small independent businesses. It is not just about the fact that they are at the heart of communities and about the fact that they provide better service, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) said; it is also about their dynamics and the commercial realities of business. Small businesses hold big business to account. Wherever we have a big business monopoly—big businesses tend to monopolise the big out-of-town shopping centres—quality is often not as good. An extreme example of that is BT, which is a private sector monopoly, and we all get letters and complaints from constituents about the lack of quality from private sector monopolies, so we need a balance. This nation quite rightly has many good big businesses—my business aspires to be a big business—but we must ensure that the small independent business sector is vibrant. That is why this Bill is so important.

I have experience of some really bad local government car parking policies, and I referred earlier to the policy in York, where we started our first business. York is not in my constituency, but it is just down the road and many of my constituents work in York or have businesses there—our head office is still in York. The city council had a policy of selling off important city-centre car parks, which created revenue for the council and generated section 106 contributions from the developers of those car parks, but that led to more demand for and pressure on the remaining car parks and the charges were increased. It costs £2 an hour to park in the centre of York—a ridiculous figure that deters people from going into the centre. At the same time, the council granted planning consent for out-of-town shopping centres with free parking, and there are four such centres around York—a town of 200,000 residents. Local businesses were not consulted about that. In the conversations that did happen, there was panic from some independent retailers in the centre of York, but the council pushed ahead anyway, much to the detriment of those city-centre retailers.

There are some more positive examples in my constituency. Hambleton District Council has an innovative policy in some of its towns, such as Thirsk, where the council allows people to park for an hour in the market square. People get a ticket from the machine and stick it in the window, but they do not have to pay anything for an hour’s free parking, or they can pay 60p and park for two hours. That has created shopper turnover in the town centre, which is exactly what businesses want. They want people to come in and shop in that short shopping cycle. It is easy for people to go for lunch or just shop for a short period without having to go home and get their money to put in the machine—unless they want to pay to park for longer.

[Jo Churchill]

The situation is similar in my constituency, which is also near to a larger town—Cambridge in my case. The circumstances in the larger towns are different from those in small, rural environments around small market towns. We want to generate throughput so that traders can survive and so local people, who may be unable to shop without getting in their car, have the same choice as those who live near a town.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My hon. Friend makes a good point and I could not agree more. We are looking for a symbiotic relationship between the local authority and businesses. There already is a close relationship. The local authority benefits from the success of businesses—retail or otherwise—in its town, but that conversation is sometimes not as comprehensive as it needs to be. The relationship sometimes lacks understanding. The provisions of this Bill about consultation when there is a change to car parking charges and the ability to lower car parking charges without going through a detailed process are why it is so important that we take the Bill through.

My town of Malton is another good example. Unusually, most of the shops, houses and car parks in the centre are owned by a family estate, the Fitzwilliam estate. It is in the estate’s interest for the centre to be a vibrant commercial environment, so, as well as investing heavily in the town and in improving the shops, it gave two hours of free parking in the town centre car parks. That has developed the fantastically vibrant commercial activity we see in Malton.

Malton has been tremendously successful and very clever. A guy called Tom Naylor-Leyland set out to develop a brand around Malton, which he calls Yorkshire’s food capital. The Malton food festival is a fantastic weekend, and hon. Members must consider coming—it is a wonderful weekend to attend. It is vibrant, with music and a beer festival. There is some of Yorkshire’s finest food, and Yorkshire is the finest place for food, as Members can tell. The food festival has been a wonderful success story, and the town has regenerated on the back of it. It has to be seen to be believed. There is a symbiotic relationship between the car park owners, the town centre owners and the businesses, with a deep understanding between the three.

A lot of coach parties come to see the wonders of Helmsley, a fantastic market town. Richard III, the last king of the house of York, had a connection with Helmsley castle, as well as with Richmond castle. As the Minister said earlier, Helmsley was successful in the British high street awards, winning best market town on the back of the fantastic efforts of the town’s traders and local authority. Coach parking charges were introduced in one of its car parks, which deterred coaches carrying 50 tourists from coming to the town. Local people went to the council and campaigned on that issue, and they got the parking charges removed, which brought the coach parties back to the town. That is a good example of how businesses and local authorities, working together, can have a positive effect and foster a deep understanding of some of the challenges of running small independent businesses.

Those are positive examples, but we have heard others. According to the Royal Automobile Club, £756 million was spent on charges and penalties for parking in car parks across the UK in 2016, which is up 9% on 2015 and up 34% on 2010. That can be a tax on shoppers, and it can also be a tax on businesses. Businesses are paying rates and want service from their council yet, as we have heard, they are seen as sitting ducks or golden geese, or as both at the same time. We should make sure that we look after those golden geese and not treat them as sitting ducks because, ultimately, shoppers and businesses will vote with their feet.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Churchill]

It is my pleasure also to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) on bringing forward what is—unusually in this place—a simple Bill with a simple aim that affects a great number of people.

I welcome the fact that it is easier for local councils to sort out their car parking, but I want to speak a little bit about enabling them to have a sense of place. That is a really important factor, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) alluded, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris), who said that we should not be looking for a one-size-fits-all solution. A sense of place is about local authorities understanding their locality, including businesses, residents and the people who visit the town. Our towns are changing, which is why local authorities need flexibility.

In the town of Bury St Edmunds, residents live near businesses and tourist attractions, and a vast number of tourists visit. As I mentioned earlier, we have getting towards 2 million short-stay parking slots each year in a town of some 42,000. That shows the popularity of the town, but it also shows that we need to have local flexibility and accountability. A very different situation exists down the A14 in Stowmarket, which is also in my constituency. Stowmarket has a less vibrant town centre, so the local authority will need to apply different measures to accommodate its businesses and stimulate a vibrant economy that is right for the town. As my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) said, the provision is about building communities. It is about people having the time to go into town centres and actually enjoy where they live.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about the different types of town in her constituency. Is not the point of the Bill to require local authorities to work alongside businesses in order to develop the right strategies—for parking or other things—so that those businesses can make the best of their opportunities, no matter which conurbation they are in?

[Jo Churchill]

Absolutely—I could not agree more.

Bury St Edmunds has a 6% retail occupancy rate, which, as my hon. Friend will know, is very low—in fact, it is 50% of the national average. Bury St Edmunds won the award for the best Christmas fair anywhere in the country this year. It has a plethora of things we can enjoy. It has its own cathedral. Tonight, I hope to attend a performance of “Northanger Abbey” at the Theatre Royal, which is one of the only regency theatres in the country. All of that is fantastic, but there are also great things in Stowmarket and Needham Market. However, these places are different, and we need to understand how the Bill can address that.

There is one thing I would like to ask the Minister, and perhaps he can write to me if today is not the time to tease it out. In my area, I have a county council, a borough council, a district council and three town councils. Very often, it is only the fact that those councils work well together that facilitates solutions, despite the complexity involved in different authorities owning different car parks. For example, when Stowmarket Town Council wished to have a cheaper parking rate of £1 for two hours, that was facilitated through collaboration with the district council. Sometimes in these multiple tiers, we have a complexity that even a simple instrument such as this Bill may not address. There might be a little more work to do to deal with areas where things are not as simple as in a unitary authority or a metropolitan authority so that those areas can have conversations that facilitate changes to their local environment—to their car parking—more quickly than is possible at the moment.

That is particularly pertinent in places such as Bury, where we have the contra-problem to a lot of towns: we often do not have enough car parking spaces. It would be really good if these places could drive issues such as the funding of multi-storey car parks, which would allow us to have more parking so that our town centres are not sclerotic. When our town centres are blocked—hopefully, that is what the Bill will address—it is my residents who suffer. When people park somewhere in the town without thinking, residents cannot access their houses. Permits are good, but they stop people parking for business, and that is what I mean about this issue being about the whole environment.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I agree with the hon. Lady. I think there are still issues with the Bill. Does she think, like me, that it should perhaps not have had its Third Reading today and that we should have spent longer in Committee ironing out some of these issues?

[Jo Churchill]

No, I do not. The beauty of this Bill is its simplicity, and that is why I would like it to go through today. However, as with most things in this place, we live in a fast-moving environment, where things constantly change around us.

My point to the Minister is that, where we have a complexity of local government, with different authorities having responsibility for car parking, we should perhaps look to address that as we go forward.

[Kevin Foster]

Does my hon. Friend recall, like me, that the Bill had its Report stage earlier today? That would have been an opportunity for anyone who had objections to the wording of the Bill to make some changes, and I suggested a new clause myself.

[Jo Churchill]

Indeed. I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. A plethora of people have spoken to the Bill today, but there has been somewhat of a dearth of Opposition Members not only saying what benefits a simple Bill such as this could bring but challenging it, as it would be appropriate to.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am listening to the hon. Lady, and I think she is pushing her luck. A lot of Opposition Members are very, very angry about the fact that the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) is being talked out by her and her friends on the Government Back Benches today. If she wants to do that, she can play games, but will she please not criticise us?

[Jo Churchill]

It was merely, I felt, a statement of fact.

While we are considering this Bill, it is, as others have said, incumbent on us to look at where we are going in future. My town council in Bury St Edmunds, in order to help ameliorate some of the problems around the car parking situation, has usefully recruited a police community support officer, Emily Howell, to regain control over the civil parking enforcement from the police, because that is a problem in the town. She has single-handedly authorised over 100 civil parking orders in her first few weeks, including, amusingly—or not—for the leader of the town council, who recruited her. She is delivering greater monitoring powers to local councils in exercising local parking management. I hope that this Bill will add to that as we move forward.

Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal

Jo Churchill Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you as Chair, Mr Flello. So did I. It is very good for us, I understand.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and the other members of the Joint Committee, who worked very hard in the lead-up to this debate. I also congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Hon. Members will know what my hon. Friend is like: he is blustering and blarneying and very frustrated about this, so it is great that he has had the opportunity to secure the debate. He is right to do that, because the report was published in September 2016.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House have been talking to me, and it goes without saying that all hon. Members are concerned about the immediacy and urgency of the work. They are also concerned about costs, and they note that other events and priorities may be occupying the Government’s mind. However, we come to this debate with a background of reports. We have the very good report from the hon. Members who served on the Joint Committee, and the Public Accounts Committee is also considering this matter, although it may not report until March. We also have the Treasury Committee report. Without doubt, whether for engineers, architects or whatever, the costings from September will be different even from the costings now. The hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara) is right to be concerned about that issue. My view is that the debate will clarify all that. The important issue for our side is that hon. Members have a say. That is the key thing. All these questions and concerns can be aired with new information—against the background of the information from all those reports.

The right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) mentioned Canada. I had the opportunity, with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, to visit Canada. Quite by chance, we were taken to the mock chamber that the parliamentarians there had and, in the best tradition of “Blue Peter”, I have here one that I made earlier—a picture of it. Obviously, it cannot be read into Hansard, but it does give a nice flavour of what can be done, if hon. Members want to see it later. It is a beautiful chamber. All of us may feel very comfortable debating in this Chamber now, but if we were given a chamber in the Department of Health that had desks, we would realise how good it would be to debate like a proper, modern Parliament and we might even not want to come back to the old Chamber. Canada’s temporary chamber is not just in a courtyard. It is a beautiful building and, engineering-wise, it shows what can be done—a visit to Canada might be in order.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda always reminds me that there are no options; he says, “Don’t tell people there are options. There is only one option.” The main thing is that Members should have a say. I am pleased to hear that some of the work has already been done. I was going to raise the issue of asbestos in the Chamber; again, not sitting in September might be an option to deal with that. The subject of fire has been constantly raised.

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. The House has a register of known asbestos, but a large body of evidence suggests that asbestos is riddled throughout the work that has been done. There are 98 risers in this building and all are thought to hold asbestos. The health and safety and fire aspects of why we should decant are compelling to me. The fact is that we are allowing the general public and our staff to work where there is a chance of asbestos and silica dust. If anybody has seen someone die of mesothelioma, they will know that it is not a pretty sight. We have no option, on those grounds alone.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I have to say, gently, that it is the tradition to be in the room at the start of the debate, but I take on board that, particularly given her previous role, she understands the medical reasons—I have a cough today and it is difficult to breathe—and she mentioned the terrible condition of mesothelioma.

I want to knock another myth on the head. Again, I am not an architect or an engineer but Members should understand that although we may be moving out of the building, we will not actually be moving off the estate. We will still be around and will not be leaving the parliamentary estate. I am pleased that the work on the cast-iron roof is also being done.

The Joint Committee was tasked to look at this, and has fulfilled its remit, but Members are right to be concerned about costs. We had the same debate when the Labour Government decided they wanted to put money into the Olympics and there was a lot of chuntering that it was going to be too costly. In the end, sadly, there was a change of Government and we did not get the benefit of how brilliant the Olympics were and how, under the Olympic Delivery Authority, everything was done to time and, to a certain extent, cost. The hiccup, as the Deputy Leader knows, was the security—we finally had to get public service in, rather than G4S. We need to be careful that Members are not excluded from the delivery authority. The key point for me is that Members should decide and the only way they can do that is if we have the debate. The one main thing I would ask the Deputy Leader is that we have the debate as soon as possible, based on the information that the other Committees are looking at.

A building is only a building with people in it. It is nothing without people in it. Whatever we decide to do, and if there is only one option, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda suggests, we need to take that decision. However, we need to take an informed decision because, in the end, MPs are always blamed when things go wrong and, rightly, we will take responsibility for that. We need to do this on an informed basis, with everybody abiding by the result.

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Michael Ellis)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Flello, and to close this debate. There have been powerful contributions, if I may say so, from all Members who spoke today. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on securing the debate and on his service on the Joint Committee. I also commend the service of all the other Members—most of them are here—who served on it. The House owes a debt of gratitude to the members of that Committee for the intensiveness and seriousness of their work. It was, I believe, a year of hard work. I know that the hon. Gentleman in particular enjoys the history of this place and has written about it.

As has already been said, this is one of the most recognisable and renowned buildings in the world. That is in part because of its architecture—the grandeur of Victorian Britain combined with the historical depth and resonance of Westminster Hall. In part, it is because of what this place represents. The United Kingdom Parliament is for everyone in this country, and it is precisely because Parliament and the Palace of Westminster belong to the British people that we as parliamentarians have a responsibility to ensure that it is preserved for future generations. It is also an edifice that sends a powerful message around the world representing, as it does, the strength of democracy. We are ultimately its custodians for generations to come. People love this building, hence, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) mentioned, it is visited by nearly 1 million people a year. It is one of the few structures around the world that is recognised the world over. Our generation must accept responsibility for the active steps that are needed to preserve it.

We have reached a point where make-do-and-mend is simply not an option. That approach has already been taken and has led to decades of under-investment, which we are now forced to confront. Much of our infrastructure is well past, and in some cases decades past, its life expectancy for its planned working life. Most of the systems put in place in the post-war refurbishment, which was the last time there was a major renovation, were meant to last only a few decades and have now lasted twice as long. Since then, the backlog of maintenance has steadily grown, in part because those working on the structure cannot be entirely sure where all the pipes and wires lead. It will no doubt surprise some, particularly perhaps those outside this Chamber, to know that in some instances the authorities here have to cut a wire and wait to see who complains that the electricity has gone off, or block a pipe and see where there is a later complaint. We do not know, necessarily, where everything leads.

In a sense, Parliament’s maintenance team have been so good at their work that they have been victims of their own success. Members have tended not to be troubled by the headaches that the team face on a daily basis that are mostly hidden in basements, voids or the vertical risers, which have been referred to and of which there are nearly 100 spread across the building. Often, we see only a small proportion of the true scale of the work that takes place every day to keep this Palace going. Again, that is testament to the dedication with which those workers work in difficult, and sometimes dangerous, conditions, particularly because of the presence of asbestos in so many locations around the building.

Yet the task is steadily becoming too great even for those make-do-and-mend measures and the ongoing renovation measures that have been happening for so long. Decades of under-investment mean that the risk of a major fire, flood or other catastrophic failures increase every year. For example, parts of the sewerage system were installed in 1888 and are still in use. The costs of avoiding the inevitable eventual calamity or major emergency, if we do nothing, are also rising. As the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) mentioned, we are facing rising ongoing annual maintenance costs, which reached almost £50 million last year.

[Jo Churchill]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Flello (in the Chair)]

Order. With the greatest respect to the hon Lady, you really cannot come into a debate while the wind-ups are taking place and expect to take part.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jo Churchill Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Simon Kirby]

The City of London is a very important financial centre and we fully intend it to remain as such. Clearing is an important element of the negotiations, and we will do all we can to retain London and the UK as a financial centre of excellence.

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to support regional infrastructure development.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

In the autumn statement, we prioritised additional high-value investments, specifically in infrastructure and innovation, that will directly contribute to raising Britain’s productivity. The Chancellor announced a new national productivity investment fund of £23 billion to be spent on housing, transport, digital communications and research and development over the next five years. Local enterprise partnerships will receive £1.8 billion of growth deal funding. This will go towards the projects needed to bring about economic growth in local areas, including new homes, transport improvements and supporting businesses and people to access the skills they need.

[Jo Churchill]

I welcome all those measures to boost productivity and particularly to turn attention to infrastructure and the specifics for the east of England given yesterday. However, given the strategic importance of the A14 trunk road linking Felixstowe port with Cambridge and the rest of the country, as well as its significance to 80% of businesses in Suffolk, does the Minister agree that further improvements to a road that he knows well are vital to productivity?

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend is right—it is a road that I know well. We certainly agree that the A14 is a critically important part of the network. We are investing £1.5 billion for a major upgrade to cut congestion on the A14, including a new 21-mile road between Huntingdon and Cambridge, and only yesterday my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary was able to go there to witness the start of the work.

Savings (Government Contributions) Bill

Jo Churchill Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 17th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I welcome the Government’s sentiment of encouraging people to save. If I may make a little progress, the hon. and learned Lady will get a fuller response in due course.

The Opposition have serious concerns about both policies under the Bill and a number of questions, with which I hope the Minister can assist. The Labour party warmly supports the Government’s principal aim of encouraging saving. Many working people in Britain are not saving enough or not saving at all, and that is storing up a multitude of problems not just for their personal finances, but for the public purse. The helpful House of Commons Library briefing states that 28% of people say that they have no savings at all and that 38% would struggle to pay an emergency expense of more than £500. In addition, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation surveys on poverty and social exclusion consistently find that between a quarter and a third of households say that they are unable to make regular savings. In the most recent survey, which was conducted in 2012, 32% of households gave that answer.

It is therefore right for the Government to examine methods and structures that will encourage saving, but I am sure that the Minister agrees that they must also address the root causes of this low saving trend. Will she examine carefully the reasons why many people do not save at all? Is it because they are splashing out on fancy cars and extravagant purchases, or is it because wages are too low and the cost of living is too high to get through the month for some people, never mind whether they have a bit of spare cash at the end of the month to put into a savings plan?

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree—this is perhaps unlike some of the measures brought in by Chancellor Gordon Brown—that it is important to keep products as simple as possible? It is also hugely important that they are transferable—a Help to Buy ISA can be transferred into the lifetime ISA—and complementary.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

Indeed. Products need to be explained as simply as possible and there needs to be a commitment from the Government that there will be an adequate advertising campaign to avoid any ambiguity about a product. I shall shortly come on to some of my concerns about the specific products to which the Bill refers.

It is important to examine the fact that those who live in more deprived areas or areas that do not have access to a healthy range of high street financial services are often more financially excluded, having limited access to reasonable lending facilities. This in turn leads many to rely on extremely high interest lending facilities such as payday lenders, which are often the only lending facility available. In many cases, that initiates a cycle of debt and sucks any possible savings surplus out of the monthly pay packet. It cannot be lost on the Minster that for some time now food banks have been reporting surges in the number of people in full-time employment who are accessing them. This in itself may suggest that many people have no spare cash to live on day to day, let alone to save.

These problems bring me to the Opposition’s main problem with the Help to Save scheme that the Bill introduces. We wholeheartedly support moves to encourage saving for a rainy day, but in many cases the idea that those on universal credit and working tax credit have a spare £50 at the end of the month is extremely optimistic. People can barely make ends meet, as the Government found out last year when there was a cross-party backlash after they tried to take thousands of pounds from the recipients of much-needed tax credits. The transition to universal credit will arguably leave people in an even worse position.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Jo Churchill Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

I, too, would like to congratulate the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) on her new position.

I want to speak narrowly to new clause 3, tabled by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield). The new clause would amend the regulations that currently mean that a claimant who is moved from the old disability living allowance system to the new personal independence payment award must wait 28 days after a decision before receiving the new benefit. Those regulations allow a claimant who is moving to a lower award to adjust to their new financial circumstances by receiving the old award for a period of time, which is extremely welcome.

The unintended consequence of the regulations, however, has been that some of the most disabled and vulnerable people in our society, including those who are terminally ill, are being forced to wait almost a month, and sometimes longer, to receive the extra money they need to meet the costs resulting from their illness. That situation most commonly affects individuals who have become entitled to additional money through PIP because their diagnosis has become terminal.

I am grateful to Macmillan Cancer Care for the work that it has done in this area. Let us imagine a cancer patient, who is already receiving some support under the old DLA system because of their illness, and who receives a terminal diagnosis. They inform the Department for Work and Pensions about this, and the Department makes a decision about their eligibility for additional financial support as a result of their terminal diagnosis. I am pleased to say that that decision should be made within six days—a target timescale that was introduced precisely in recognition of the fact that those who are terminally ill are in particular need of timely assistance.

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

I, too, have seen the Minister to push this point, to ensure that the vulnerable—particularly the terminally ill—do not fall through the cracks as they transition from the DLA to PIP. I thank the Minister for listening, and I look forward to receiving confirmation of how we are going to ensure speedy payments and minimum waits for that group, as I have been assured will happen, so that those people can get their funds in advance. All these things help, and it is not right that they should have to wait. I am grateful for being listened to.

[Graham Stuart]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention, in which she has succinctly made my entire speech for me. She sets an example to all of us in how to convey an argument as briefly as possible.

If a decision is made within six days—which is a good thing—why must an individual then wait 28 days to receive the additional financial support that it has already been decided they should get? That financial support could help them meet the costs of the sudden onset of daily living needs or mobility needs that can accompany a terminal diagnosis. There are examples of people missing out on, in some cases, hundreds of pounds. People miss out not only on the additional money through PIP, but on other financial support such as free car tax, premiums in means-tested benefits and other passported benefits, because eligibility for those benefits kicks in only when the additional PIP starts to be paid. It cannot be right that an individual who has a life expectancy of less than six months is being forced to wait a minimum of 28 days—perhaps one sixth of their life expectancy—for vital financial support on which they depend.

At the heart of this Government’s welfare reform programme is a commitment to protecting the most vulnerable people in our society. The context of today’s debate, given the tough financial decisions that are having to be made, is one of a transformation in the work opportunities, employment chances and life chances of so many people across our society, so that they can try to escape the labyrinthine mess that was left behind by the former Labour Prime Minister and Chancellor. That is what we are trying to do—create a society in which everyone, including the disabled, can be looked after properly. That is why I believe it is entirely in the spirit of these reforms to amend the current regulations so that anyone who transfers from DLA to PIP due to a terminal diagnosis is paid the additional support promptly and does not have to wait 28 days. It is not a large group, but it is a group of some of the most disabled and vulnerable individuals in our society.

[Jo Churchill]

rose—

[Graham Stuart]

My hon. Friend wants to give whatever remains of the argument in my speech, and I give way to her again.

[Jo Churchill]

I thank my hon. Friend. During the conversations to which I referred, I received confirmation that no one would lose those four weeks’ money, and that following the decision to award PIP new claimants would have their claim backdated, so I look forward to confirmation of such positive news.

[Graham Stuart]

My hon. Friend really does keep stealing my punches, because I too have met the Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People, and he was most sympathetic in listening to these arguments. There are technical issues that are going to be dealt with, but I will return to that.

The positive impact of such a change on the individuals who are currently affected by the rule would be immense. It would that ensure people could afford the support they need in the final few months of their lives. In Committee, the Government suggested that changing the regulation could mean that a case manager would not have sufficient time to consider the case. I do not follow that argument, because the 28-day rule applies once a decision has already been made, so it should not have an impact on the time taken to decide on a case.

Having spoken to the Minister, I know that he is listening to the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), myself and others across the House, and I hope we will get a positive response so that terminally ill people who are to see an increase in their financial support can receive it as soon as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Churchill]

This is only a minor point, but the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) said earlier that the minimum wage is £6.50, yet it actually went up to £6.70 on 1 October. Knowing how much we are paying people is the first step. A living wage is what we are driving towards so that people have more in their pocket—[Interruption.] At the moment the national minimum wage is £6.70, and we are driving it up to £7.20.

[Helen Whately]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

I am afraid that I did not catch the intervention by the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), but I am sure that she was not trying to mislead the House.

[Jo Churchill]

Indeed I was not, and I apologise if I did. I was merely trying to make the point that the current minimum wage is £6.70 and not £6.50 as was stated earlier. We are moving towards a higher-wage economy. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) is in the middle of her speech, and this is a debating point rather than a point of order, so can we please continue?

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend has expressed that beautifully.

I shall move on to the question of employment and support allowance. Again, hon. Members need to think about the overhang from the heavy industries and the impact that reductions in people’s income has on those individuals and on whole communities. I suppose this seems quite unusual to those representing a constituency whose casework consists of a lot of neighbour disputes and planning issues, and where only one person a week turns up with a benefits problem, but in a constituency like mine—a former mining constituency in an industrial area—the bulk of the casework is this sort of thing. The cuts Conservative Members are proposing to vote for tonight will have a devastating impact on the amount of money in the local economy, as well as being very unfair to people who are not going to be able to go back to work.

Finally, I want to make one observation on universal credit and lone parents. It is not reasonable to have the same conditionality for a lone parent with children under school age as for people in couples. The practicalities of looking after children are different for lone parents and for married couples. Ministers in the Parliament before last changed the rules so that the conditionality for lone parents was aligned to the tax credit system, and the period was 16 hours instead of 30 hours for people in couples. Ministers must help people balance their parenting responsibilities and their working responsibilities better.

[Jo Churchill]

I was fortunate enough to sit on the Public Bill Committee, and I also sit on the Women and Equalities Committee. That has shown me two things. I recently spoke to women in Oldham running a voluntary group, and the leader said to me she did not feel what we were doing was wrong, because she felt these measures helped marginalised minority women break out of the cycle of being kept in their homes, improved their English and helped them understand how their families interact with the wider world, asking women to find work and not rely on—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. The hon. Lady is making a speech, not an intervention, so I ask her to resume her seat.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Jo Churchill Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

Some on the Opposition Benches crow that we have stolen some of their policies, but surely, with just a dash of intellectual honesty, they should welcome this Budget. Perhaps if they stole some Conservative policies, one could argue—as I think the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) did on Sunday—they might earn the trust of the British people on running the economy. Because if any of those across the Floor of the House want to know what true austerity is, they need look no further than 2008-09. This country was in recession. People found themselves without jobs, without stable incomes and without hope. That is a legacy; that is austerity.

Instead of that, last Wednesday the Chancellor told us that our economy is now the fastest-growing in the G7 and will continue to be so. We have record employment, and the deficit and debt are coming down. May 2015 marked the British people’s belief that we were on the right track; 2010 marked their rejection of “Spend now, ask questions later.” The Budget we heard was what our economy needed and what the election mandated: a Conservative Budget, and I welcome it. Hard-working people across the country welcome it. A gentle nudge to make it more stable—that is what we do when we balance something: we give it confidence and certainty.

Our economy is still too unbalanced; however, I want first to add a few notes of caution to what was said last week, and I would like to ask my right hon. Friend the Chancellor what he is going to do to address these concerns. Our national living wage goes further than the SNP’s pledge to increase the minimum wage to £8.70 by 2020 and further than the Labour party’s pledge of an £8 minimum wage, but a number of my constituents have contacted me and said that such a steep rise will put a strain on their businesses. In particular, small shops and rural post offices will find it difficult. Many argue that the higher costs will not be paid for through redundancy, but through higher prices for the consumer. Many small and medium-sized enterprises are already working with minimal staff, and hope alone will not increase their turnover. My family-run local baker suggests that his wage bill will increase by 2020 by £2,000 a week. He is working—as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) put it, speaking from the back of the Chamber—that 60-hour or 70-hour week. Small business owners run this country and they work hard. [Interruption.] Let me tell the hon. Gentleman that they do pay corporation tax, if they make a profit, and we have helped them by taking it down to 19% and then 18% in 2020.

That family business has also raised concerns, as have many others, about differentials in the wage process. Things will need to be reflective in order to keep staff. It will be challenging to raise wages from £6.50 to £9, and productivity will need to increase, but—I say this to the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell)—it is those small business owners who will make highly productive, highly well-paid jobs. They do not grow on trees. Those businesses have to start as seed organisations; they have to start from small beginnings. We cannot just magic high-paid jobs out of the air.

A fairer society is a two-way street: fairness to those who have little, but also fairness to those who pay—those who make the jobs and pay the wages. There must be recognition that some SMEs may suffer. It will be challenging to keep people employed, and that leads me to the question: where do we find this extra money and who does it come from? It will be from small business and large businesses; and that is what this Budget did: it encouraged them.

My second area of concern is about the delivery of adult care. Many of my constituents are elderly; indeed, one of my wards has the highest longevity in the country, but a great number of people are required to care for them. Many of these carers are over 25 and occupy some of the lowest-paid jobs in our economy. They will receive the enhanced living wage. The care is essential—it keeps many constituents in their own homes, living independently and not putting a strain on the NHS—but adult social care is feeling the strain, as are private providers, and their ability to absorb costs is challenging. Where statutory obligations place pressure on businesses, adult care and nurseries providing childcare, to name but two—

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jo Churchill]

No, I do not have time.

I welcome this Budget, but I also welcome the fact that its aspiration is to be fairer. We should not forget who creates our jobs and who invests. Business investment is up by 32% since 2010. About 95% of all firms are SMEs, while 90% are micros. I need them to thrive, to take on apprentices and to invest. To encourage more entrepreneurs, we need those businesses to grow, which is just what this Budget will achieve. I ask the Government to keep giving businesses their support.