Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme

John Grogan Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Grahame Morris]

Absolutely. We owe a debt to the miners, and the Government have an obligation to them— a moral obligation. They obviously have the financial resources to discharge that debt, and to give retired miners and their widows and dependants some dignity.

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

May I take up my hon. Friend’s point about the moral obligation? Does he remember that when the Prime Minister first stood on the steps of No. 10 Downing Street, she talked about dealing with injustices in our society? Would it not be appropriate if, during her last few weeks in office, she asked officials and Ministers to think again and look at the independent analysis conducted by the National Union of Mineworkers, which suggests that a 90-10 split would be much fairer?

[Grahame Morris]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oral Answers to Questions

John Grogan Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman would raise fiscal matters, when some of the fiscal decisions taken in Scotland recently have further diminished investors’ confidence. For Scotland to be the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom is a terrible signal to not only workers but businesses.

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

12. What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on support for economic development in Yorkshire.

[The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is a proud Yorkshireman, and he will know that we frequently discuss the economic success story that is Yorkshire and the Humber. It may be a little bit politically incorrect, but I am sure he is proud of the fact that in the first three years of the Conservative Government from 2010, Yorkshire created more jobs than the whole of France.

[John Grogan]

But given that economic growth in Yorkshire and the Humber has on average been about 1% since 2010, compared with 3% in London, does the Minister see merit in the proposals and the economic case for One Yorkshire devolution that have been presented to Ministers? It is backed by 18 local authority leaders, many of them distinguished Conservatives.

[Claire Perry]

I know my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government is reviewing the proposals. I see in his place the Mayor of the Sheffield city region, the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), who is doing a fantastic job. I say to the hon. Member for Keighley (John Grogan) that in the places where large-scale mayoralties are working well, such as the west midlands with Andy Street or on Teesside with Mayor Houchen, a cross-party proposal has been brought forward, bottom up, for the Government then to make a decision on.

Budget Resolutions

John Grogan Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) who spoke with great passion and knowledge about her constituency.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I do not know whether you watch Match of the Day 2 on a Sunday night, but the presenter always ends by saying, “2 Bad, 2 Good”, and they choose two bad incidents from that week’s football games and two good. I thought that I would adopt the same approach on the Budget—[Interruption.] No, I want to be generous and have the two good things.

Let me start with the two bad things. The first disappointment in the Budget is the lack of mention of Yorkshire devolution. Eighteen out of 20 councils, including many of the leading Tory councils in Yorkshire, God’s own county, have come out in favour of a One Yorkshire devolution deal. We desperately need it, and an economic case for it has been made to Government. We do not want to balkanise the county into four sub-regions. A lot can be gained in terms of skills, inward investment and exports if we can get a Yorkshire deal.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Treasury have traditionally favoured this plan more than the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. However, I would like to pass on my congratulations to the Minister for the northern powerhouse. He is on paternity leave and I understand that his second child was born in the last 24 hours. Hopefully, like many new fathers, he will come back a more mellow man and he will begin negotiations on One Yorkshire.

There is good news for Yorkshire today: Leeds has been chosen as the national base for Channel Four. All Yorkshire MPs will be rejoicing in that. It will be a great boost for the creative industry not just in Leeds, but throughout Yorkshire, and there will be celebrations throughout the county tonight.

One bad piece of news has been mentioned. No fewer than five Conservative MPs have asked for more money for their schools. I do not know what bright spark thought up the term “a little extra”, but they will go to their graves with that phrase. As we approach the Christmas season, it is like one of our loved ones giving us a pair of socks for Christmas. We look at them, and even though we would not say it, we think, “Is that all?” That is what many schools are thinking today. I advise Government Back Benchers that, if they are to rebel on anything, rebel on this, because it was the issue that got me a 249 majority at the last election and, unless the Government change their mind on this issue, it will be at the top of any leaflets that I put out if there is a snap election.

Let me turn quickly to two good items. It would be churlish of me, as deputy chair of the all-party group for pubs, not to welcome the freeze on beer duty, and not to welcome the rates measures, which will bring £120 million to pubs. I have an invite for you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and for any Members of the House. By fortuitous chance, we have a reception in dining room A, which I am hosting tonight, to celebrate Yorkshire beers, particularly Timothy Taylor’s beers in Keighley. All Members of the House are most welcome to join that celebration. Seven o’clock is well timed for the close of this debate.

The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) made a scathing attack on the Government’s record on carbon capture and storage. In Yorkshire, as in Aberdeen, in 2015 we were looking forward to a substantial project when it was cut. There is good news, however, not in the Budget in particular, but announced just before it—the Government are again looking at carbon capture and storage, and at two clusters of it. The two obvious clusters would be the two areas that lost last time: Aberdeen and Yorkshire.

I want to give some support to the shadow Chancellor for his attitude to tax. We need to be pragmatic. Today, however, the one thing that I disagreed with in the excellent speech from our Front-Bench spokesperson was that the Government side had given up—they have not. They will have to be prised from power, and we have to be careful what we say. I look forward to similar pragmatism as we develop our policies on public ownership of water—we need to pay proper compensation and to have a proper regulator—and on employee ownership. I chaired an employee owned firm, and we need to do better as we develop our policy.

Finally, there could be a snap election. Our party will need a European policy if we defeat the deal that comes before the House. That policy should be to put back the Brexit date to allow the new Labour Government to negotiate a new deal aligning ourselves to the single market and the customs union, with a referendum to confirm that deal.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Grogan Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Richard Harrington]

As the hon. Lady will know, because I met her the week before last, I am very conscious that Tata is in Port Talbot in her constituency. I promise that I will do everything in my power to ensure that Tata and other British steel companies, all of whom I meet regularly, are poised to act on these contracts.

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

14. What the timetable is for his receipt of the report of the carbon capture usage and storage cost challenge taskforce; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)]

I am delighted to answer this question and continue the conversation about carbon capture and storage that the hon. Gentleman and I were having last night. We are determined to deploy cost-effective carbon capture and storage at scale and in a way that helps to decarbonise both generation and industry. That is why we have asked the taskforce, the best minds in the country, and our CCUS council to convene. I am looking forward to receiving their report and acting on it very soon.

[John Grogan]

Does the Minister agree that the development of carbon capture and storage is crucial for much of British manufacturing and for the use of gas during the transition, and will she encourage innovation not just in technology but in finance, with both the Government and the fossil fuel sector contributing?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Gentleman might have been reading one of the report’s recommendations. He is absolutely right. We must deliver this in a way that is cost-effective and supports further innovation. I am confident that, with the taskforce’s help, we will have very good recommendations and ideas to move forward with.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Grogan Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

I am not sure I agree with that, partly because we have to get this right and make sure that there is a competitive market and that consumers do not feel that these things are being imposed on them. We should celebrate the fact that we have £300 million to take these pilots forward. Pilot projects are under way in Manchester, Sheffield and Barking, and I look forward to funding many more.

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

16. What steps he is taking to encourage the growth of employee-owned companies.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Richard Harrington)]

I should declare that I worked for the John Lewis Partnership for three years, from 1979 to 1982, and was therefore a beneficial owner of part of the company. That is not the only model to encourage employees, of course; share ownership is developing more widely as part of generally non-employee-owned companies. I look forward to the private sector making the business case for this model through the Employee Ownership Association, which is the representative body for employee-owned businesses.

[John Grogan]

Does the Minister agree that, taken as a sector, the UK’s 300 employee-owned businesses have higher than average productivity? Will he follow the example of the Scottish and Welsh Governments and more actively promote the sector, particularly to small and medium-sized businesses that are looking for a succession plan?

[Richard Harrington]

That is very interesting. I will look with care at what is happening in Scotland and Wales. We are generally in favour of employee-owned companies and companies with employees who have a share in them.

Draft Higher Education (Access and Participation Plans) (England) Regulations 2018

John Grogan Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 General Committees

[The Minister for Higher Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Higher Education (Access and Participation Plans) (England) Regulations 2018.

Mr Davies, may I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship? As this is my first outing in this job, I would like to take the opportunity to put on record that my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson), did a fantastic job, and I look forward to building on his work.

Widening access to higher education is a priority for this Government. Our reforms are ensuring that anyone with the talent and potential to benefit from higher education is able to do so. We have made good progress. The latest UCAS data show that in 2017, disadvantaged 18-year-olds were 50% more likely to enter full-time higher education than in 2009. There is a record high entry rate of 20.4%. In addition, 18-year-olds were more likely to enter full-time higher education than ever before.

However, we are not complacent, and there is more to do. That is why we introduced measures through the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 to make further progress on access and participation. They are designed to enable more people from all backgrounds to access higher education and to support their success. The measures are a vital part of our ambition to increase social mobility.

As of 1 January, we have established the Office for Students as the new regulator for higher education. It brings together the previous responsibilities of the director of fair access and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, to enable a more strategic focus on access and participation activities. It will, for example, allow greater co-ordination of Government funding for wider participation with the money that providers spend through their access and participation plans, which should ensure a greater impact on the ground. As Sir Michael Barber, the OFS chair, has indicated, the OFS will ensure that the sector meets rising expectations for student access and aims to transform expectations of what is possible.

The legislation places responsibility for access and participation on the OFS. That is a key part of its remit. We expect the new director for fair access and participation—a position in the OFS explicitly defined in legislation—to be responsible for overseeing the OFS’s functions on access and participation. They will be appointed by the Secretary of State and will report on access and participation performance to the other members of the OFS board.

Access and participation plans will continue to be a key mechanism for ensuring that students from disadvantaged backgrounds and under-represented groups can access and succeed in higher education. In future, any provider that is subject to a fee cap and wishes to charge tuition fees above the basic amount must, in line with current practice, have an access and participation plan approved by the OFS. Providers are expected to spend a proportion of the higher level fees on activities to support students from disadvantaged and under-represented groups to access and succeed in higher education.

Those plans will help to ensure that providers are doing all they can to widen access, to support the participation of students from disadvantaged and under-represented groups throughout their courses and to tackle drop-out rates. They will also support attainment of qualifications and progression into highly skilled jobs. That support across the student lifecycle is important as access is meaningful only if entrants go on to complete their courses and achieve good outcomes.

It is more than 10 years since access agreements were introduced. They have supported and encouraged numerous improvements in fair access and widening participation. In 2018-19, universities and further education colleges plan to spend through their plans more than £860 million on activities to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds and under-represented groups to access, succeed in and progress from higher education. Access and participation plans are designed to be a further improvement, by challenging providers to do more to help students from disadvantaged and under-represented groups to enter higher education, complete their course and progress successfully into skilled work.

Why are the draft regulations important? They will be vital to ensuring that a full legal framework is in place to enable the OFS to improve access and participation plans prepared by providers. They will not represent a major change from the current arrangements for implementing access agreements approved by the director of fair access, but will largely continue the existing way of working—with the exception that plans will now be required to consider participation, success and preparedness for progression from higher education, as well as access.

The draft regulations will provide detail to support sections 29 to 34 of the 2017 Act, which relate to the contents and arrangements for approving and varying access and participation plans. They do not cover monitoring or enforcement arrangements, but the OFS will be able to monitor ongoing compliance and has certain enforcement powers in situations where providers breach registration conditions.

The draft regulations will provide a framework for the process by which the OFS, through its director for fair access and participation, may approve access and participation plans with providers. They will also provide a system for review of approval decisions, such as in cases in which the OFS is minded not to approve a plan. The arrangements for the approval of access agreements are essentially those that have been in place—and been set out in regulations—since 2004. They have worked well, and our intention is to keep the process largely as it is.

One important improvement is the requirement for the OFS to take account of whether a provider has given its students an opportunity to comment and whether it has considered their views when developing its plan. This change was included in response to comments made in the House during the passage of the 2017 Act about the importance of ensuring students’ views are taken into account across our higher education reforms.

A separate impact assessment for the draft regulations has not been prepared, because a more general assessment was prepared for the 2017 Act’s introduction and has recently been updated following its enactment. In our view, moving from access agreements to access and participation plans should impose no additional cost on providers that charge at the higher fee limit.

Importantly, the arrangements for access and participation plans outlined in the draft regulations take account of institutional autonomy. The 2017 Act confers on the OFS a duty to protect academic freedom, including the freedom of providers to determine their own admissions requirements, when it performs its functions relating to access and participation plans.

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

I am listening carefully to the Minister’s argument. Before he concludes, will he say a few words about how the new arrangements might help mature and part-time students, who often come from disadvantaged backgrounds and whose numbers have plummeted in recent years, to the concern of all of us?

[Mr Gyimah]

As part of fair access, that is an issue that the OFS as a new regulator can look at. In some cases, there are broader issues affecting access to higher education that need to be considered separately, but for access agreements the OFS can look at the matter as well.

The draft regulations provide important detail that will allow providers to develop their access and participation plans in line with Government priorities. They will ensure that the OFS can approve plans in a fair and transparent fashion. I commend them to the Committee.

Industrial Strategy

John Grogan Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I do indeed. Many of us have had the pleasure of visiting Clacton and Frinton, whether as day-trippers or in some other capacity, in recent years and look forward to doing so again. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that tourism is a very important industry. The sector has in some cases been associated with lower levels of pay than other areas. Working with the sector, we want to see how we can invest in improvements in productivity, so it can be a much better paid sector than has been associated with it in the past.

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

Given the important chapter in “Industrial Strategy” about devolution, will the Secretary of State agree to meet the 17 council leaders in Yorkshire from all parties who are advocating a “one Yorkshire” devolution settlement, so they can work in partnership with the Government to deliver an effective industrial strategy for the county?

[Greg Clark]

I would be delighted to do that. It is a mark of the strategy that it points to the success of decisions made locally and having clear local leadership. There have been, and continue to be, discussions in Yorkshire on the best arrangement, but I am very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues.

Retail Energy

John Grogan Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

It is possible—and it is the practice—that companies, large and small, on the basis of their purchases in the wholesale market, can make offers to consumers in the competitive side of the market. Nothing will change that. Companies can offer attractive deals and have the same prospects—in fact, growing prospects, as we roll out smart meters—of access to customers who are engaged with the market.

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has placed some emphasis on the roll-out of smart meters by 2020. How does he react to the figures published in The Daily Telegraph over the summer revealing that in the case of some companies, fewer than one in five consumers were accepting the offer of a smart meter?

[Greg Clark]

I do not recognise that figure. It is a fact that smart meters are being offered to every household in the country, and I think it is important that as they are rolled out, their benefits—not least the ability to secure lower prices—are made very clear to people.

Clean Growth Strategy

John Grogan Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

As we set out clearly in the document, we think that gas, particularly its lowest carbon form, absolutely has an important role to play in our energy mix. That is why a renewed focus on and investment in CCUS is important.

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

I welcome today’s announcement about carbon capture and storage. Should I tell the regional dinner of the Yorkshire and Humber CBI, meeting in Leeds tonight, that there is fresh hope for the most ambitious carbon capture and storage project ever in this country—the White Rose pipeline project, which is backed by many in God’s own county?

[Claire Perry]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take back a positive message about the opportunities for businesses in Yorkshire and the Humber from the clean growth strategy and urge those CBI members to bring forward their ideas, so that we can capture them, make the investments and create the thousands of good jobs that we need.

Blacklisting

John Grogan Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Chuka Umunna]

Absolutely—I could not agree more. I will outline some of the things people have done and matters on which they have campaigned for justice. Blacklisting is the shady, underhand practice of sharing information on workers without their knowledge and then systematically denying them employment on the basis of that information. The practice first hit the headlines in 2009, when the Information Commissioner’s Office raided the premises of a disreputable organisation called the Consulting Association. When it raided that association, it found a blacklist of more than 3,000 construction workers. The association was funded and used for years by more than 40 of the country’s biggest construction firms to vet employees.

The association, set up in 1993, was the successor to another disreputable organisation called the Economic League, which I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) will mention later. The construction companies fed the association detailed information about workers without their knowledge. Whenever the companies made hiring decisions, they checked applicants’ names against the association’s list. If they were on it, they were usually refused work—they were denied the abilityto do their job and provide for their family.

Essentially, the system facilitated systematic victimisation and denial of work simply because workers had raised legitimate health and safety concerns in the past or because they were a member of a trade union or a political party. It was, and still is, an outrage. The nature of some of the information held about people on the list—their religion, national insurance number, car registrations and so on—strongly suggests that the data were collected with the collusion of the police and/or security services. That is why it is entirely fitting that the Blacklist Support Group members, many of whom are here, have been granted core participant status in the Pitchford inquiry into undercover policing.

Those who suffered and are victims now have three principle routes of redress. The Employment Relations Act 1999 (Blacklists) Regulations 2010 now outlaw blacklisting, but they came into force too late for those who suffered at the hands of the Consulting Association. The Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 stops people being discriminated against on the basis of being a member of a union, and the Data Protection Act 1998 can be used against those who abuse and misuse people’s personal data. The late Ian Kerr, who was chief officer of the Consulting Association, was fined a paltry £5,000 after the ICO’s raid because only later were fines levied under that Act substantially increased.

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

My constituent Sandy Macpherson of Ilkley was one of the plaintiffs in the recent case. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is now a strong case for making blacklisting a criminal offence with strong sanctions, including big fines and possible imprisonment in the worst cases?

[Chuka Umunna]

I wholeheartedly agree. My hon. Friend talks about litigation, and in July 2014 Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Costain, Kier, Laing O’Rourke, Sir Robert McAlpine, Skanska UK and VINCI plc, which were all involved in blacklisting and in funding the Consulting Association, established a compensation scheme for individual workers affected by blacklisting and made an apology of sorts for what happened. However, their scheme was established unilaterally without agreement on the terms with the trade unions representing workers. Other firms that were part of the hall of shame involved with the association such as the Amec Group, Amey, BAM Construction, Morgan Sindall and Taylor Woodrow did not sign up to the scheme.