Budget Resolutions
John Hayes Excerpts(2 days, 2 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jonathan Reynolds
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for the question. The £2.5 billion investment will support thousands of jobs in the midlands, Bristol and across our country. The significance is that it is not just another public-private investment in an exciting area of the future. It is a genuine opportunity for a leading British firm to break into an incredibly lucrative market, which is currently dominated by two main players, where we could be significant in the future.
Last week, I visited the Rolls-Royce site in Derby with the Prime Minister and Chancellor to discuss this very issue: British industry, British talent and British jobs. Everyone in the House will be aware of how outstanding Rolls-Royce is on apprenticeships and opportunities for the next generation. It is excited about what the future holds for the UK, and the Government will work hand in hand with it to make its growth ambitions a reality.
We are backing British business not just through our industrial strategy, but by ensuring that we remain an outward and open-looking economy and that we stay true to the principles on which the modern British economy was built. We intend to reindustrialise our country, but we will not use punitive trade measures and tariffs to do so. In many cases, tariffs hinder businesses and hurt consumers far more than they help them. They are ultimately paid by our own people.
That is why the Government are using the Budget to suspend tariffs on more than 100 essentials, which will support farmers who import fertilisers and households who use heating oil; by lowering costs on products like baked beans, chocolate, marmalade and fruit, it will also support people with their supermarket shop. Government cannot reduce all the pressures on the family shop overnight, but we can use all the levers at our disposal to bring prices down, and that is exactly what we are doing.
While other nations turn inward, restricting trade with the rest of the world, we stand as a proudly internationalist country and global hub for trade and investment that is ready to deepen our partnerships with new friends and old allies—not least the European Union, which remains our largest trading market. That is the message we will be taking into the UK-EU summit later this month.
Our ambition is clear. We want to continue simplifying trade. We want to conclude negotiations on our sanitary and phytosanitary and emissions trading deals, which could add up to £9 billion a year to the UK economy and would be a huge win for small business.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman can reconcile what he has said about trade with the desire to reindustrialise, manufacture more in order to make more of what we consume. In an uncertain world, national economic resilience is more important than ever, and yet we run a huge trade deficit, which has grown year on year. Our dependence is on many countries who are not friends and could pull the plug on Britain at will.
Jonathan Reynolds
I agree with the sentiment put forward by the right hon. Gentleman, on one of the most substantive issues that the House must grapple with. There is no inconsistency in being proud of the services-led nature of the UK economy while recognising the essential contribution of advanced manufacturing. There are sectors of the UK economy that could gain from the current phase of innovation in artificial intelligence in goods; for instance, robotics could reduce our wage differential with low-wage economies and return industrial functions to the UK.
The basis of British industry will, however, always be export led—that is key in the automative or aerospace sector. I do not see a tension between strengthening our resilience and our domestic industrial capacity and being an outward-facing, internationalist country to the rest of the world. I believe the two things must go together.
I give the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) a specific example: our critical minerals strategy. We cannot reduce our dependence on other countries entirely, but we can reduce the degree of exposure to individual markets and use the levers of Government, through investing in tungsten or lithium mining in the south-west of England, looking at how the refining process works, and working with allies. It is a balance between the two things. I recognise absolutely the substance of the right hon. Gentleman’s question and its importance to this debate.
On the UK-EU summit, in addition to the premise of the deal we seek to strike, we want to make progress on electric vehicle rules of origin, steel tariffs and economic security, recognising that in many cases we share similar challenges. We face those challenges together, and we can overcome them together. To that end, the Prime Minister will say more later this year about options for our long-term relationship with the EU—one that strengthens our collective security and our collective prosperity.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
This Budget might be described as the “John Lennon Budget”—it expects us to imagine a better future. Actually, the Chancellor’s performance was more like a better Lennon lyric:
“Life is what happens to you
While you’re busy making other plans”,
because this Budget was long on platitudinous plans and short on decisive delivery. Leaving aside the self-evident exponential crisis of welfare spending—I say self-evident, but perhaps I should explain that benefits are due to hit £431 billion—there are three macroeconomic weaknesses in the Budget, which I will seek briefly to highlight.
The Prime Minister may say that he has to wait for the Milburn and Timms reviews, but while he is doing so and those plans are being hatched, 13.5% of all young people in the UK were not in education, employment or training in January to March this year. One million people aged 16 to 24 are without a job, training or education. To echo the comments of the hon. Member for Widnes and Halewood (Derek Twigg), this is a waste of talent on a scale that is a national scandal. The Budget represented a wasted opportunity to address those issues and, in particular, to build the skills that might enable those people to gain a necessary job. The failure to address that may become the defining characteristic of this Administration.
These are not new problems. I was the Skills Minister, as some people in the Chamber will know. I was well aware of the root causes of NEETs and how we might address them. We managed to reduce the number that we inherited in 2010 by almost 300,000 by 2015, and I was also able also to build up the number of apprenticeships to the greatest number in modern times: over 500,000. Since then, that number has dwindled. It is only by equipping people with skills that have economic value—skills that allow them to the best they can be—that we can also sustain an economy which is desperate for those skills.
What successive Governments have done instead is to import labour. Every time we import labour and every time we make it easier to do so, we displace the investment in our own workforce, both in the young people I described and in the existing workers who need to be reskilled or upskilled. The myth was perpetuated, largely by the Treasury—
Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Reform)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Suella Braverman
My right hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech. Does he share my disappointment and dismay with this fact—that, for every young Brit who is hired today, 27 young foreign workers are hired? Young people are being locked out of the labour market because of mass immigration.
Sir John Hayes
My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. Young people are being forced to compete with those foreign workers for a scarce number of jobs. The only people who support that policy are dim-witted bourgeoise liberals and hard-hearted plutocrats, because both of them glory in the idea of foreign labour. That foreign labour is edging Britons out of jobs and, by so doing, weakening our economy.
Daisy Cooper
The right hon. Gentleman surely has not missed the evidence that, since his party’s botched Brexit deal, it has become more expensive to do business in the UK, businesses are wrapped up in red tape, and many businesses have moved abroad, taking good, high-quality jobs with them. We have a NEETs crisis in this country, caused by many different factors. One of the reasons that there are graduates who cannot get jobs is because his party’s ridiculous Brexit deal has driven businesses abroad. If we get back into the single market and make doing business cheaper, those businesses will come back here and create jobs for British young people.
Sir John Hayes
I was going to address the issue of trade later, but the hon. Lady has encouraged me to do so now. The truth is that the balance of payments has been a neglected subject in this Parliament and for successive Governments for decades. We never sold as much to Europe as Europe sold to us, and that balance was out of kilter for the whole time that we were members of the European Union.
Sir John Hayes
No, I will not give way again, because there is only so much you can teach the Liberal Democrats!
The balance of trade figures was once a pivotal announcement in Parliament and for Governments. That has been forgotten as we have chosen to import more and more goods into this country, and to make fewer and fewer. The hon. Lady will recognise that, given that I represent a rural constituency that grows a lot of the food we consume, I am particularly sensitive to the fact that we have made ourselves dependent on foreign food imports. That is preposterous. We need to shorten supply chains and make ourselves more economically resilient. As the Prime Minister said, actually—
Sir John Hayes
I was about to make a point, but I will then give way once more to see whether I can teach the hon. Lady something more. As the Prime Minister said, we must remanufacture—we must build our manufacturing capacity again. Successive Governments have failed to do this. I do not claim any credit for any political party, and I certainly claim no credit for the Liberal Democrats.
Daisy Cooper
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely contradicting himself. He has simultaneously said that we need to shorten supply chains to improve our food security while defending the very trade barriers that prevent British importers and exporters from getting food to each other on a shorter supply chain. It was the right hon. Gentleman’s party that agreed the terrible trade deals with New Zealand and Australia that have put up food prices and undermined British farmers. Would he like to apologise for that? After 10 years, we are still teaching the Conservatives how damaging their trade deals were.
Sir John Hayes
I mentioned my record on apprenticeships. I was in the coalition Government when I was able to bring about that outcome, with the full support of Liberal Democrat Ministers. It was Vince Cable, actually, as Secretary of State, who understood the need to build skills and train domestic workers so that we were not dependent, in the way that I described, on European goods or goods from anywhere else in the world. We just need to make more of what we consume. It is not hard to work out.
I said that I would deal with one or two other things, and time is pressing. Productivity is a macroeconomic problem that has faced all Governments. Declining productivity over time means that we spend a great deal of money on things from which we do not get a great deal of outcome. Our productivity is worse than some of our key competitors. The Government need to focus on that; the previous Prime Minister and his Ministers said that they would, but there was little about that in the Budget.
To summarise, I think it was Disraeli who said, “Men are not the victim of circumstances; they create circumstances.” It is not enough to blame context for the failure to address the macroeconomic problems of skills, productivity and immigration. More must be done, and done soon.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Ind)
It will come as no surprise to hear that I will talk largely about Cornwall. This Budget brings welcome hope to Cornwall; we also have a bespoke devolution deal on a Cornwall-only strategic authority footprint, which respects our unique identity, and we do not face the futility of having a mayor acting in parallel to our single unitary authority. That fresh hope comes with £2.7 million of good growth funding, a share of the £150 million uplift to capacity funding, and local control of the new overnight visitor levy.
Cornwall welcomes millions of visitors, but our communities carry that pressure without receiving the investment needed to manage it. If properly designed, the levy could be a revenue stream that funds the infrastructure needed to unlock Cornish reindustrialisation and build fresh hope across our communities. The Government must recognise that if we have a single-foundation strategic authority, it is a pointless waste of taxpayers’ money to install an elected mayor in parallel, as an ideological quid pro quo for accessing extra funding and powers.
Sir John Hayes
Cornwall is similar to Lincolnshire in some of the challenges that it faces, particularly regarding the delivery of public services in a scattered rural area. Will the hon. Gentleman join calls for more action on heating oil? Many of his constituents will be dependent on heating oil, as people are in my constituency, but there is precious little about that in the Budget. I hope that we can create cross-party consensus that more must be done.
Perran Moon
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I remind him that there was a support package in the Budget, which I will talk about a little later.
I welcome the Government’s focus on fiscal prudence and economic competence, and their determination to crowd in private investment in order to rebuild our economy. Since 2024 the Government have doubled the fire power of our financial institutions to more than £200 billion. Cornwall has seen the value of anchor investment in our tin, lithium and tungsten industries. Additional capital for the national wealth fund sends a signal of confidence in Cornwall’s critical minerals and their contribution to Britain’s economic security and energy resilience.
Cornwall has vast untapped economic potential through our internationally renowned resources of critical minerals. The Conservatives ignored those resources and abandoned Cornwall, but this Government are taking welcome action to bring back Cornish tin mining and bring back fresh hope to our communities. However, the Government must go further and faster to ensure that these vast resources are not offshored by competitive nations, to the detriment of UK plc.
There is also a risk that Cornwall will be disadvantaged precisely because we have chosen a model of devolution that reflects our national minority status. A key offer for foundational strategic authorities has been business rates retention, but Cornwall council has had that since 2017. Mayoral strategic authorities can also access a £1.5 billion borrowing facility and negotiate strategic place partnerships with Homes England, but Cornwall cannot currently do that either. With 25,000 homes on the social housing register, getting the deal and its associated funding would be transformative for Cornish house building and we will not stop demanding that.
In Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, house prices have risen almost 18% in five years, compared with 6.4% across England and Wales. Young people increasingly feel that owning a home where they grew up is beyond their reach, so the first-time buyer ISA and the £4.7 billion Your First Home scheme offer fresh hope. Alongside the 100% council tax premium on empty homes, they could make home ownership possible again for a new generation of Cornish families.
On energy, this Budget fully demonstrates how this Government are on the side of remote communities such as ours in Cornwall. One in seven households in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle rely on heating oil, compared with one in 29 nationally. With heating oil prices up 82% since the start of the Iran war, the two-year suspension of tariffs on kerosene is welcome, but I hope that is a first step and not a final destination. The same is true for the £100 household energy payment for over 43,000 households in my constituency, the additional £100 million for targeted energy support, the commitment to abolish domestic gas standing charges and the extension of zero VAT on electricity to July.
However, in my capacity as chair of the APPG on electric vehicles, I have some concerns about the signals we are sending to the automotive sector. The continued uncertainty over the zero emission vehicle mandate risks weakening investment in Britain’s position in export markets. Charging 20% VAT on public charge points penalises drivers without a driveway or a home charger. Although an eventual road tax for EVs is understandable, introducing it in 2028 through an unwieldy scheme risks discouraging adoption when demand needs to accelerate.
All things considered, this Budget is welcome for Cornwall. Each of the wins, from heating oil to energy bills, and from housing to devolution, comes alongside a vast improvement in the fundamentals of the British economy since the last election, despite strong global headwinds. The Government are restoring credibility and competence to the British economy, we are creating breathing space for our constituents, and we are rebuilding our reputation with our closest neighbours, our allies and our friends in the European Union. It is in the British national interest to do so. Rather than the withering disdain and distrust of the Conservative Government, this Government are engaging proactively, and I thoroughly welcome that.
Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Reform)
One million—that is the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training. Youth unemployment stands at 14%. That is a scandal and a crisis. Far from giving young people hope, this Budget throws them under a bus, frankly, because it is fundamentally unfair. We are losing a generation.
This Budget is unfair to the 16-year-old who has finished their GCSEs and wants to start working, but who faces zero opportunities to find an apprenticeship or learn a skill. It is unfair and offers no hope to the 21-year-old who has done the right thing and studied for a degree, but who has come out with a qualification that is not opening any doors and has instead saddled them with crippling debt and directed them to the welfare office to claim out-of-work benefits.
This Budget is also unfair to the British taxpayer, who currently lays out £22 billion a year in student loan payments. That is a taxpayer who will see hundreds of billions of pounds never repaid; a taxpayer who faces chronic shortages in our labour market, particularly in the NHS, construction and hospitality. We have a lost generation, and this Budget does nothing for our young people.
Sir John Hayes
My right hon. and learned Friend will know that we need to recalibrate our economy around the highest level of skills. Too many young people are directed into academic education—I use “academic” in the broadest sense—only to find themselves jobless, and too few have the opportunity to learn something vocational, technical or practical that would give them the chance to get a job and not take on huge debts.
Suella Braverman
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is exactly the point that I am about to make.
How did we get to this youth unemployment crisis? For the past 30 years, starting with Tony Blair, we have sold one promise to young people: that they need to get a degree, regardless of what it is or where it is from, and they will be set up for life. However, for so many young people today, that has been exposed as a lie. We have 700,000 graduates currently unemployed, some 400,000 of whom are claiming welfare. Average graduate debt stands at £50,000, average graduate salaries are falling, and graduate hiring is disappearing.
For many of those young people, it is not so much that they have taken out a student loan; they have been saddled with a life sentence. It is no wonder they cannot start saving, buy a house, get married or think of starting a family. They are being crippled by the system, and this Budget does nothing to support them.
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
This is a Budget that puts community first. It is a Budget for families, who will benefit from support on energy costs over the cold winter, and for much-loved high street businesses, with cuts to business rates. With the announcement of a Thames Valley mayoral strategic authority, it is a Budget that delivers devolution, so that decisions that affect Bracknell Forest and our wider region can be taken in our region.
I have heard from countless families across Bracknell Forest about the cost of living pressures that they face because of skyrocketing fuel and energy costs as a result of the war in Iran, so I strongly welcome the announcement of a new £2.6 billion energy bills breathing space scheme, which will provide £100 in direct support for over 30,000 families in Bracknell Forest, helping them to keep their homes warm this winter. I also welcome the extension of the 0% rate of VAT on electricity until July 2027, and the removal of gas standing charges so that people are charged only for what they use.
I know that the prices we have seen at the pumps in recent months are a huge source of anxiety for many across Bracknell Forest. I am pleased that the Government have recognised the pressures on motorists that have been caused by increasing fuel prices, and have extended the 5p cut on fuel duty to July 2027. They have also frozen rates, and made permanent the more generous mileage rates for both employees and self-employed people who use their own vehicles for work. These measures will have a real impact on households across Bracknell Forest, especially over the coming winter months.
Supporting households is an essential and extremely welcome priority in this Budget, but I also welcome the clear signals that this Government have given to local businesses. Wonderful local cafés, restaurants, pubs and shops drive our local economy, but I have heard from too many that are struggling in this challenging environment and that have been forced to consider raising prices or cutting staff. For that reason, I was delighted to see the Chancellor announce that he will increase the small business rates relief thresholds for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure properties, meaning that about 47% of all RHL properties in the south-east will pay no business rates at all.
Sir John Hayes
The hon. Gentleman is right about small businesses, particularly small retail businesses, playing a pivotal role in the health of communities, and that the Government have done the right thing in the way he described. However, those businesses are also suffering from online competition and edge-of-town or out-of-town development that is taking footfall away from town and city centres. Does he support a call for the Government to be tougher on edge-of-town development, so that we concentrate footfall where it is needed most?
Peter Swallow
Absolutely, which is why I welcome the measure in this Budget. It means a direct tax cut for over 250 small businesses in Bracknell Forest, directly funded by increasing VAT compliance on those online marketplaces. It is right that the small businesses that thrive on Crowthorne High Street in my constituency, and across Bracknell and Sandhurst, do not face unfair competition from the big online marketplaces. That is a decision that this Government have rightly made in this Budget.
This Government do not just talk about growth in every postcode, but recognise that our high streets are at the heart of achieving that growth. On that note, growth in every postcode means recognising the unique barriers holding back growth in every region of the UK. For the south-east, one of the biggest barriers to regional growth has been the slow progress of devolution. That is why I am delighted that this Budget also commits to a mayoral strategic authority for the Thames valley. Nobody knows the specific local and regional challenges we face better than our own local community, and no one is better placed to solve them. Devolution will bring more powers for Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Swindon, more funding for our region and a more joined-up approach on regional transport, skills and public services.
This is not just about local business. In the south-east, we can proudly say that we are home to some of our most loved and most critical national businesses from Waitrose, which has its headquarters in my constituency, to our defence sector whose contribution to the economy is estimated to be £3.6 billion in 2025. We are also home to one of our greatest and most innovative British assets—our life sciences sector. So I welcome the opportunities that a more regional approach to our economy will create. This is a Budget that backs our region to do what it does best, which is to drive growth across the Thames valley and the whole of the UK.
All these measures will strengthen our social fabric, boost our local economies and build resilient communities in these challenging times, but there is no community without security. As war continues to rage in Ukraine and the middle east, and as hostile actors swamp our information sphere and sow division in our society, we cannot afford to delay delivering the support we need for defence. That is why it is so important that the Chancellor has put forward a Budget that delivers fully on our commitment to fund the defence investment plan, and ensures we remain on track for the NATO target for defence spending to reach 3.5% of GDP by 2035. Alongside plans for a new multilateral defence mechanism and additional investment through the National Wealth Fund and the British Business Bank, this Budget treats our security with the gravity it deserves, after decades of underfunding by the Conservative party.
The Budget is a clear demonstration that this Government have listened to the concerns of families and businesses in Bracknell Forest, and have decided to act on them. It meets the challenge of today with pragmatism and the promise of tomorrow with ambition. I know it will not solve all the challenges facing businesses and families in Bracknell Forest, but gosh, it is a darn good start.
Dr Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
I welcome much of what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said in the Budget, but tonight I will speak of our NHS, for we will not grow our economy if we are not well.
Norfolk and Suffolk foundation trust is the mental health trust that serves my constituents, and it has been transformed thanks to its brilliant staff and inspired leadership—I thank all of them. Last week I learned that some of the teams have been early adopters of AI, using it to transcribe patient consultations. More time with the patients and less time staring at computers—imagine that!
Some of us remain suspicious of AI in healthcare, but who here has not asked their phone about a symptom or a medical worry? Many GPs already use AI-assisted triage to tackle the dreaded 8 o’clock rush. I am therefore pleased to hear that we will fund the technology that will increasingly shape our health service. Let us embrace it, not fear it.
I welcome the Government’s approach to healthcare, but much remains to be done. Too many of our patients are being asked to be just that: patient. We have record NHS staffing and resources since the pandemic, yet activity has not increased proportionately. Why is that? How much genuinely improves people’s health? We know that health depends on housing, wealth and much else besides. Falling life expectancy in some of our communities and the problems in maternity services demand urgent political attention.
I welcome the Chancellor’s announcement of funding for surgical robots, having heard how they are helping patients at West Suffolk hospital, but frankly, if I were asked where I would invest taxpayers’ money, my answer would be: in primary care and neighbourhood health centres.
Sir John Hayes
Of course I respect the hon. Gentleman’s professional expertise, which I do not share, but much of what he has said so far is counterintuitive. My constituents tell me that what they want from the health service is personal interaction—to form a meaningful relationship with a GP, surgeon or specialist. That is how trust is built, not through machines, AI and robots.
Dr Prinsley
If the right hon. Gentleman simply listens to the next part of my speech, he may be reassured. Let us build on GP partnerships and shift resources from hospitals to communities. We could have centres that are open in the evening, at which there are specialist nurses, mental health professionals and pharmacists. These would be places where the patients know their doctor, and the doctor knows their patients.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Emma Reynolds)
This Budget provides breathing space now and fresh hope for the future, which is the focus of today’s debate. I thank all hon. and right hon. Members across this House who have made contributions—not only today, but over the four days of the debate on this Budget—on the action we are taking in government to steer Britain through the global economic storms, kick-start good growth in every postcode, strengthen our national security and chart a new course for our country in the years ahead.
Many Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Barrow and Furness (Michelle Scrogham) and for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae), rightly stressed the challenges we are facing because of the storms in the global economy. We have heard a lot from Opposition Front Benchers—most of it hot air—but there was not a word of apology for calling on this Government to join the war in the middle east that is driving up energy costs, inflation and the cost of Government borrowing. We cannot wish away these global economic storms. Instead, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has set out a course to steer this country through them.
We have chosen to use some of the fiscal headroom established last year to absorb the impact of the Iran war and to protect the economy, British businesses and family budgets. As my hon. Friends the Members for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) and for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) rightly said, fiscal discipline underwrites every policy of this Government. We will meet the fiscal rules in full, and for the first time, in the third year of the forecast. Last year, borrowing fell to its lowest level in six years as a percentage of GDP, and it continues to fall across the forecast.
We will not take any lectures from the shadow Chancellor, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) or the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller). They like to claim that they were innocent bystanders who just happened to be Treasury Ministers at the time of the Liz Truss mini-Budget. We all know that they were the architects of the mini-Budget. The shadow Chancellor still maintains, and said as recently as September, that there were a “lot of good things” in the mini-Budget, and to this day the British people are paying the price for his failure. Liz Truss’s stint in office might have been short-lived, but the impact was long-lasting.
The contrast with this Labour Government could not be clearer. I am proud that the IMF has said that the UK stands out as a country where
“action to reduce debt and deficit has been taken decisively”.
It has said that we will have the lowest deficit in the G7 by 2029. As my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) rightly said, the British economy has proven more resilient than many predicted, including Opposition Members. Indeed, it has defied expectations. The Tories and Reform like to talk down our economy, but the fundamentals of the British economy are strong. Public investment is up. Business investment is up to its highest level in 10 years. Productivity has finally turned a corner, and we had the joint-fastest growth in the G7 in the first half of this year.
Sir John Hayes
The Minister talks about people talking down the economy, but the Joseph Rowntree Trust says that Labour is overseeing the sharpest fall in living standards in 65 years. I wonder whether she thinks it is wrong. If she does, how much are the Government overseeing in terms of declining living standards?
Emma Reynolds
The last Parliament was the worst Parliament on record for living standards. Since the last election, living standards have increased by 1.8%. I urge the right hon. Gentleman to read the executive summary from the OBR, which stated:
“As a net importer of energy, the rise in energy prices constitutes a negative terms-of-trade shock for the UK, which pushes up on inflation and lowers real household disposable incomes.”
Those are the global headwinds we are facing.
Hair and Beauty Sector Regulation
John Hayes Excerpts(3 days, 2 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Vikki Slade
In my constituency, one such barber is Mike Taylor of Bond’s in Broadstone. He recently created a retro-style, one-to-one barbering space, specifically recognising the role that barbers play in supporting men’s wellbeing and mental health.
Barbering and hairdressing are not just socially valuable but economically vital. The wider beauty and personal care sector contributes more than £28 billion to the UK economy and supports almost 600,000 jobs. These are jobs that cannot be offshored or replaced by artificial intelligence, and they drive footfall to our town centres. When people visit a barber or salon, they often spend money elsewhere on the high street too. They are anchors of our local economies in villages, market towns and city centres. For generations, hair and beauty has acted as a ladder of opportunity. It has provided first jobs for young people, offered flexible careers for parents and carers, and enabled thousands of people to build businesses of their own.
Following the introduction of my private Member’s Bill in September, I was contacted by Nova who owns NovaLux salon in Poole. She reminded me that when we first met 25 years ago, she was an apprentice at Karen’s Hair Design in Broadstone where I was a customer. I ran a business on the same high street. She trained, qualified, gained experience and, ultimately, has built a successful business of her own. Hers is exactly the sort of journey that this sector has made possible for generations.
Nova’s story is the story of hair and beauty, but she shared with me that professional qualified business owners who follow the rules increasingly feel that they are competing against businesses that do not. People like Nova increasingly tell me that the profession that they love is becoming harder to sustain. The concern I hear repeatedly is not about competition but about unfair competition.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
The hon. Lady is doing the House a great service. My late sister Joan was a hairdresser. She did an apprenticeship of exactly the kind the hon. Lady describes at the London school of hairdressing—before I was born, actually. She was proud of the skills that she acquired and then used for many years, but in recent years there has been the emergence of some extremely strange and, I would argue, dodgy barber shops, largely foreign, that I suspect have much less to do with hairdressing than with many other nefarious purposes.
Vikki Slade
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Indeed, the number of barber shops on our high streets has doubled in the last decade or so, and I am fairly sure that the number of us requiring a weekly haircut has not.
The point is not about competition but about unfair competition, alongside what are, it has to be said, quite impossible trading conditions.
Kinship Carers: Statutory Paid Employment Leave
John Hayes Excerpts(2 weeks, 2 days ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)
I will call Melanie Onn to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind Members that they may make a speech only with the prior permission of the Member in charge of the debate. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for a 30-minute debate.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the potential merits of statutory paid employment leave for kinship carers.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I am really pleased to have secured this debate, and I am grateful to the colleagues who have come to participate in it. Statutory paid employment leave for kinship carers is an important and pressing matter, not only to those in the Chamber but to thousands of households, and it goes to the heart of the Government’s aim to support families and ensure that no child is left behind.
When a child can no longer live with their parents, it is often grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings or close family friends who step forward to offer them a loving home. Across the UK, more than 150,000 children are growing up in kinship care, and many have experienced trauma, loss or significant upheaval. At precisely the moment they need stability and reassurance, the people offering them that security can find themselves facing an impossible choice between caring for a child they love and keeping their job. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care, I have heard numerous accounts from young people and carers of just how much of a difference a family safety net can make to a child’s life outcomes.
Kate Dearden
My hon. Friend is right to push me and my colleagues on this issue. I am unable today to pre-empt recommendations, as he knows. But I know how important this is and will keep him up to date with timelines and progress. He has my firm commitment today that we are moving at pace.
We are taking our time to review the evidence, but I can assure my hon. Friend that the Government are considering the issue and how best we can assure kinship carers holistically and across departmental boundaries. I hope that people watching today, including kinship carers, feel my commitment and determination. I know how importance this is; a week and a day can make such a difference to kinship carers’ lives.
That is why it has been really important for us to engage with as many people as possible and acknowledge the wider campaigns outside this room from trade unions, business representatives and employers, who are already going above and beyond. I thank them for it, as well as for highlighting the case for the current position and joining the calls that have been made in the Chamber today.
To conclude, I once again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes for raising the issue and giving us the opportunity to have this debate today. I also thank everyone for their engagement, here and outside this room, as well as our kinship carers, who are absolutely incredible people.
I am so moved and grateful every time I meet with them, and I know other colleagues are too. I hope they hear my commitment and determination to support them today and ensure that future support is practical, sustainable and focused on improving the outcomes for children and families. With that, I conclude my remarks and hand back over to my hon. Friend.
Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)
I do not think you get a chance to wind-up, Melanie, in half-hour debates, but as we have extra time, you can have 30 seconds.
British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme
John Hayes Excerpts(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lee Anderson
It is heart-warming to know that former miners are living out their final years in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. He is quite right; they need to live in dignity, and a fairer surplus sharing agreement would allow them to live a more comfortable life. Let us not forget that once they get the extra money, they will spend it in the local community.
I have to give credit to the Government for the investment reserve fund for both schemes. They made a promise, and they stuck to it—fair play. But we must battle on to get more justice for the miners, because they deserve it for the service that they have given to our great country.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
It is a delight to hear a Nottinghamshire voice; as the hon. Gentleman knows, I was an adopted son of Nottinghamshire for a long time. He is making a case for the nobility of labour, and that case is too rarely made in this place. Working men deserve the same respect as anybody who learned at a university, as I and many people here did. That nobility of labour is personified by the hard-working miners whom he describes, many of whom holidayed in Lincolnshire—and retired there, too, as he well knows.
Backing Business to Create Economic Growth
John Hayes Excerpts(5 months, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
Since being elected by the people of Bridgwater, I have sought to be a strong voice for local families, small businesses and community groups across my constituency. I am saddened that, during those two years, life has got more difficult for so many people. The cost of living is rising faster than two years ago, unemployment is higher and small businesses are struggling.
The reason for these problems is that this Government are making life harder for people who work hard and do the right thing, and too often they reward those who do not. Labour is taxing and spending and borrowing too much. It is taxing those who work, those who employ people, those who save, those who invest, those who create jobs, and those who build up a family farm or family business and want to pass it on to their children. It seems that the only people better off under Labour are train drivers and those on benefits.
Two years ago, my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) set out the borrowing plans of the last Conservative Government. We planned to borrow £323 billion in the five years from April 2024. This Labour Chancellor is planning to borrow £583 billion over the same period, which is an 80% increase—an extra £260 billion borrowed over five years. All that extra borrowing must be paid for.
Poor economic management and chaos within the Labour party mean that Britain is now paying 5.1% to borrow money for 10 years.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
King’s Speeches are partly about what a Government do, and partly about what a Government do not do. The omission in this King’s Speech is exactly as my hon. Friend suggests: a macroeconomic approach, particularly to productivity. This is a huge drag on our economy, and one might have expected further measures to be announced dealing with that macroeconomic problem, for it relates closely to the problems that he has set out in his speech already.
Sir Ashley Fox
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend.
The rate that Britain is now paying is higher than at any time over the last 20 years—in fact, it is the highest rate since the last time Labour was in office. Britain’s finances are in a precarious position precisely because Labour is doing what it always does: spending other people’s money like there is no tomorrow.
The Government announced a holiday tax in the King’s Speech. This will enable councils to tax holidays taken in this country even more than at present. Most people who take their holiday in Britain are British. They already pay VAT at 20% on their holidays, and Labour wants to tax them further. This will hit local businesses in Burnham-on-Sea, Berrow and Brean in my constituency. Many families who holiday in Somerset are not wealthy. A tax of £2.50 per person per night will take £70 a week away from a family of four. That is money taken out of their pocket that they cannot spend with local businesses.
It has been interesting to watch Liberal Democrats in Somerset squirming over their plans for a holiday tax. While their colleagues in Bristol and Bath have welcomed the tax, calling its introduction a victory for Liberal Democrats, those in Somerset do not quite know what to say. No doubt they will make their position clear before next year’s local elections.
Chris Coghlan (Dorking and Horley) (LD)
Last year I attended the funeral of my step-grandmother, Diana Faure Walker. I adored her, and I was so proud that she had been decorated in the war for her service as a nurse after D-day. She believed that Britain was a hope for the world. That was not naive idealism, but the resolve of the generation who won the war.
Today, liberal democracy in Europe is under threat from a dictator again, and too many of our generation are turning to fear. We are facing a Reform party Government, consisting of the same people who cost us £100 billion a year with the Brexit vote. Put them in government and the current chaos will seem like nothing. But there are still three years until the next election: enough time to set a new national mission, achieved with a new economic model to bring new hope. Of course we must restore economic relations with Europe, but we must also dramatically increase defence research and development to power economic growth and defend liberal democracy.
Academics now agree that the economic dominance of the United States is powered by public research and development, especially in defence. It was through American and British research and development that we learned how to mass-produce penicillin, which saved thousands of lives after D-day, yet for the last 30 years we have failed to use at scale the No. 1 policy to maximise growth. The Government have made some progress, but today we spend £22 billion a year on public research and development while the fastest-growing advanced economies spend double that.
The Government are rightly concerned about more borrowing, but we can remove most of the credit risk for defence research and development borrowing by issuing bonds jointly with our European and Canadian allies. We should follow the advice of Draghi, the former president of the European Central Bank, who urges the EU to reduce debt by borrowing for R&D at scale. Even with additional borrowing, the debt-to-GDP ratio falls as growth takes off.
Sir John Hayes
The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful point, which relates closely to an intervention that I made a few moments ago. If we are really to address the productivity gap, two things are essential: R&D, which breeds innovation to make our economy more efficient and effective, and investment in skills—particularly high-level skills, but skills across the board. Neither of those elements is emphasised in the King’s Speech. The hon. Gentleman clearly thinks they should be, and so do I.
Chris Coghlan
I entirely agree.
Imagine where scaling up defence research and development could lead our country. In three years’ time we could have a resurgent economy and Putin defeated. Together with our European, Canadian and Ukrainian allies, we could have defended liberal democracy. As I left my grandmother’s funeral, they played Fred Astaire’s “The Way You Look Tonight”, a song that she loved and danced to with British soldiers. The hope of that generation lives in us.
Gregory Stafford
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The hon. Member for Exeter talked about a battle of ideas, but those on the Government Benches seem to be totally devoid of any ideas that will actually get this country moving again. The ITEM Club forecasts around 160,000 job losses this year alone, with manufacturing, retail and construction expected to be hit the hardest. Unemployment has risen month after month and now stands at 5.2%. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs payroll data shows 110,000 fewer people in employment than when Labour took office.
In my constituency of Farnham and Bordon, in Haslemere, Liphook and the surrounding villages, there has been a 28% increase in the number of young people claiming unemployment-related benefits in a single year. This is the reality behind the rhetoric that comes from the Government: young people unable to get a foothold in work, businesses pausing recruitment, families feeling the squeeze in their bills, and high streets losing momentum.
The reason is not difficult to identify, and businesses across the country are telling us the same thing: Labour has increased the cost of employment, raised taxes and layered on regulation that is undermining confidence. The Employment Rights Act alone introduced more than 330 pages of additional obligations on employers. The Government’s own assessment acknowledged a cost of around £1 billion a year. Both the Federation of Small Businesses and the Institute of Directors warned that the legislation would reduce hiring and investment, which is exactly what we are seeing. What is the Government’s response? A regulating for growth Bill. It is like asking a vegetarian how they would like their steak cooked. The reality is that this is not the way to get growth.
At a recent hospitality roundtable in my constituency, one publican told me that there is now “no incentive to hire someone under 25”. That should concern every single Member of this House, but Labour Members simply parrot the Government’s talking points. They are totally detached from what is going on in the real world. The unemployment rate is now close to one in six among 16 to 24-year-olds, and I cannot believe that Labour Members are not being told this by their constituents. For many young people, their first job is the foundation for everything that follows—skills, confidence, independence and ambition—but too many are now finding the door closed.
Sir John Hayes
My hon. Friend is right about young people, and he will be as shocked as I am that over a million of them are not in education, employment or training. Much has been said about growth, but what matters is per capita growth—making all our people better off—and yet, to go back to my earlier point, there is nothing in the King’s Speech about investment in skills, which allows people to get their foot on the ladder, businesses to thrive and the economy to boom.
Gregory Stafford
My right hon. Friend is right. Per capita growth is down, and that is a shocking indictment on the Government.
Across our high streets and the hospitality sector, the pressure is becoming severe. To give some local examples, John from Birdies café in Farnham told me that his business rates are rising from around £290 a month to approximately £1,600 a month, and his energy bills have increased from £300 or £400 to about £,3500. As a result, he has already let a member of staff go.
Wey Hill in Haslemere is one of the areas most affected by business rates. The average increase in rateable values is 82%. That is entirely unsustainable for small shops—a butcher, a kitchen shop and a party shop. These are not enormous businesses. At the same time, retail sales are falling and confidence is weakening across the sector, yet the Government still do not appear to grasp the impact of their decisions.
In the King’s Speech, instead of backing enterprise, the Government are increasing the cost of employing people. Instead of reducing the burden, they are adding to it, and instead of restoring confidence, they are eroding it. Thirty-year gilt yields are at their highest level since the 1990s, and higher borrowing costs mean higher mortgages, higher debt interest and less capacity to fund public services. The Government are presiding over stagnation and apparently calling that a strategy. Good news: there is a different path, which we Conservatives laid out in our alternative King’s Speech. I say to the Ministers on the Treasury Bench that we are not precious about it; take every single policy and enact it, because we want the best for Britain. We will support them in every way we can, if they pick up those policies. They include reducing regulatory burdens on businesses, cutting energy costs by removing unnecessary levies, restoring domestic energy security by renewing North sea licences, and properly cutting business rates for high streets and the hospitality sector.
Jobs are not created through legislation, regulation or press releases; they are created when businesses are confident enough to invest, expand and hire. That requires lower costs, lower taxes, cheaper energy and a stable regulatory environment. Labour came in promising growth, but we have seen anything but. Unless there is a change of direction soon, the cost of this Labour Government to our country will only rise further.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Stamford) (Con)
I will begin with an issue where the Government have promised action time and again but have failed to act: solar mega-plants. If rural communities are to host nationally significant energy infrastructure, we must be compensated fairly for doing so. An entire parliamentary term has passed, and yet the Government have still not regulated mandatory compensation, despite promising to do so.
The consequences are real. In Rutland and Lincolnshire, a 2,100-acre industrial plant with 10-foot solar panels will fence in some of our villages on all sides for the next 60 years—a decision that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband) happily signed off on in his first 24 hours as Energy Secretary. Mallard Pass has subsequently been purchased by Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, a company with a global transaction value of $30 billion.
Last Friday, I convened a meeting with Quinbrook and the affected parish councillors from Rutland and Lincolnshire. I had to intervene just to get the executives in the room, and what they put on the table was an insult. They have refused to honour the promises made during the application process to pay per megawatt generated, reinterpreting it to mean only energy exported—a sleight of hand that will cost my communities £44,000 a year.
Let us put this in plain terms. A solar plant is estimated to generate annual revenues after finance and operating costs of £10 million to £15 million a year, and yet the company claims it can afford to give my communities only a paltry £96,000 a year.
Sir John Hayes
I am delighted to hear what my constituency neighbour is saying, because she is right; these careless corporates who have little interest in energy—and even less in the environment—are riding roughshod over the will of local people in order to impose huge plants on the best and most versatile land. As I said to the Prime Minister recently, this compromises our food security at the very time that we should be building greater economic resilience.
Alicia Kearns
My right hon. Friend is completely right. What is breathtaking about this offer of £96,000 a year is that in a previous meeting—in a statement the company now disavows—we were told that paying compensation any higher would make the project financially unviable. That is to say that a project generating £15 million a year would be made financially unviable if it upped its offer to £144,000 a year in compensation.
I wonder how Quinbrook’s investors and shareholders would feel if I asked them why margins are so narrow and whether they can have confidence in Quinbrook. I give notice today that if that offer is not substantially improved, that is precisely what I intend to do: I will name every investor and every shareholder on the Floor of this House, and I will write to them and ask whether they are comfortable with what is being done to my communities in Rutland and Lincolnshire.
Quinbrook is offering less than 40% of the rate being offered on comparable developments in the east midlands. In fact, the only national programme offering less than Mallard Pass is Cleve Hill, which—surprise, surprise—is also owned by Quinbrook. Over the two years of construction works, Quinbrook issued a good-will handout of £200,000 as a one-off donation—not for each year, but across the two. Some residents’ homes have already lost 70% of their value. My question is: when will the Government stand up for us? I intend to amend the Government’s energy independence Bill to make community compensation mandatory for solar developments and to backdate it, but the Government could act first.
The King’s Speech also contained no measures to ban SLAPPs—the use of aggressive, unfounded legal threats to silence whistleblowers. I will use parliamentary privilege today to expose one of the most stomach-churning examples I have encountered. I hope this will shame the perpetrator into silence and similarly force the Government into action.
The company, which is called Enough, sells self-swab rape kits to women and children, and it does so on the back of a series of lies: that the kits are admissible in court—they are not; that women are more likely to be raped than to get cancer—they are not; that 430,000 people are raped in the UK every year—they are not; and that owning of its devices will deter a man from raping you—as if it is my responsibility as a woman to stop a man raping me.
More than 40 sexual assault charities have urged against use of the kits. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has also spoken out against them. The Advertising Standards Authority is investigating the company, as is Trading Standards. The kits prevent proper evidence collection and stop perpetrators’ DNA being checked against police records. A case has already collapsed because of the use of one such kit.
In a debate on Times Radio, I told one of the founders, Katie White, that I had seen the threatening letters that Enough had sent to rape charities and young women across our country. When asked if this was true by the journalist, Katie said, “No, not true.” This was also a lie.
Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)
That was a very powerful and upsetting speech. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) for raising that issue. There is a lot to think about.
In a world of growing uncertainty, our country’s economic security has never mattered more, which is why I have to say I am delighted by the European partnership Bill in the King’s Speech. Right now, our rigid distancing from the EU is simply holding us back. It has piled costs on to business and has done nothing for ordinary people. If Members visit the Italian-Spanish deli on the King’s Road in my constituency, they will see that the shelves are half bare because the white van person who used to make buying runs across northern Europe cannot or does not want to do the paperwork any more. A drinks importer in Fulham is paying £100 to £150 extra per pallet. These are import businesses, but the costs fall on exporters just as hard, and small businesses can least afford the costs they now face.
Large sectors are also paying heavily for our rigid distancing from the European Union. British cars now have to meet a separate set of regulatory requirements just to enter European markets, and it is costing the automotive sector £600 million a year that they did not used to have to pay. In chemicals, leaving the EU REACH registration scheme and creating an entirely separate one has left the UK industry facing a £2 billion bill. In pharmaceuticals, British products are waiting for four to six weeks for batch testing before they can get into European supply chains.
Ten years ago, none of those costs existed. Why not? We all know the answer: because we and our European neighbours were in a single market together. Once outside that market, Britain became subject to all these new trade barriers, just like any non-EU country, which pushed up costs.
Indeed, in the food and drink sector, costs for British exporters have risen by as much as 20%. Since 2023, businesses have had to pay for over a million multi-page export health certificates just to trade with the EU, at a total cost of between £90 million and £210 million. Each certificate costs up to £200 quid. This did not used to be the case. A salmon shipment can then face sampling costs of £1,400 on top. The cost can be £1,200 for a consignment of beef or cheese. If you have got the forms even slightly wrong, valuable produce can be held at the border, or spoiled entirely.
Sir John Hayes
As you might know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I try to read a lot of fiction—I read two novels a month—but I sometimes think I do not need to, because what we are hearing now is a fiction about the European Union. In every Department in which I served as a Minister, I tried to encourage the procurement of British products and services, including vehicles. Every time I did so I was told that it was impossible because of EU regulations and rules, particularly state aid rules. That disadvantaged British businesses large and small. We have been freed from that now, which is why Ministers on the Treasury Bench can preside over a regime that procures British goods and services, and I know that every day they try to do so.
Ben Coleman
I am most grateful for that intervention, but it does not in any way even attempt to address the point I was making about the loss of money to this country through trade and the fact that so many businesses have gone under.
On state aid and product procurement, I will accept that one of the most unpalatable things that civil servants have always said, along with “commercial in confidence”, is, “No, we can’t do that because of EU procurement rules.” After the changes to EU procurement rules there was, even while we were in the European Union, a huge amount that you could do to prefer small and local firms, as I knew when I was deputy leader of my local council and got officials to do that. The civil servants you were dealing with perhaps should have looked again—
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Reform)
At the heart of the King’s Speech lies a fundamental misunderstanding of how economic growth is created. Growth comes from the grassroots, not central planning. It certainly does not come from Whitehall or European micromanagement and regulation; rather, it comes from everyday people in our constituencies who get up early, work hard and build businesses from nothing while incurring risks themselves. It comes from Governments getting out of the way of people’s lives and allowing enterprise to flourish.
In Romford, the entrepreneurial spirit is deeply ingrained in our community. Ever since King Henry III granted our market charter in 1247, our town has thrived through enterprise. My constituency has always been a town of market traders, small businessmen, shopkeepers and the self-employed. Napoleon’s remark that Britain was a nation of shopkeepers should fill us with pride, as our entrepreneurial spirit is the foundation of Britain’s success as a prosperous, free-trading nation.
Yet today my local high street, like so many up and down the country, tells a very different story. Successive Governments, and this Government in particular, have made it harder, not easier, to operate a successful business here in Britain. Only this Government could stand here claiming to back growth while simultaneously hammering employers with a tax on employment through higher national insurance contributions. The people of Romford made their views known very clearly on 7 May, with every single council seat in my constituency—all 23—being won by Reform UK. Ordinary working men and women have simply had enough. Watching their communities fall into terminal decline while the national Government effectively destroy people’s livelihoods is simply unacceptable.
Two of those Reform UK councillors, Diane and Russell Smith, are landlords of the Wheatsheaf pub—a family-run business started by Russell’s father. They are risk takers, and they are indispensable to our local economy. It was never their intention to enter frontline politics, but they could no longer tolerate watching their community fall into disrepair and seeing the so-called Government of working people fleece small business owners and local traders like them and make running a successful commercial enterprise intolerable. They are right.
Sir John Hayes
The hon. Member is right that the pubs, clubs, small shops and associations—the things that Edmund Burke called the “little platoons”—are what constitute civil society. Yet successive Governments, including this one, have capitulated to huge, corporate, multinational, globalist businesses. Nothing in the King’s Speech casts us in a separate, distinctive direction, and the hon. Member is right to champion those little platoons in a Burkean fashion.
Andrew Rosindell
The right Member is, as always, completely correct. Our nation’s success is built on grassroots entrepreneurial spirit, not bureaucracy, corporate control or Government regulation—and certainly not Brussels interfering with our affairs yet again, after we had a referendum in which the British people voted overwhelmingly to get out of a political union with Europe. Now, the Government want us to have a pathway to growth, apparently through closer alignment with the European Union. We do not yet know what the contents of the so-called European partnership Bill will be, but it is bound to mean more powers being stripped away from this place and the British people, with the introduction of so-called dynamic alignment—the regulatory straitjacket that will be imposed on us by Brussels. As the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) said to the Prime Minister only last week, the Labour party’s solution to growth is to make the UK a subservient rule taker from a foreign Parliament. That is unacceptable. The socialist solution is always more central planning, more spending and more bureaucracy. It failed in the 1970s, and it will fail again today.
What this country needs is not more Whitehall diktats or Government intrusion into people’s lives, but another 1979-style Margaret Thatcher revolution for enterprise—a period of national rejuvenation defined by cutting back state intervention and giving people back control over their lives. We must cut the waste and red tape strangling business, scrap IR35, and give our tradesmen, freelancers and small firms a fair deal again. We need to lower and simplify corporation tax to make Britain one of the best places in the world to build a business, instead of watching as the wealthy flee our shores.
We must abolish inheritance tax, so that families can pass on what they have built through a lifetime of work. We must reform welfare, so that those who can work do work, but ensure that those who are vulnerable are genuinely cared for. We must reward effort, protect the vulnerable and, most importantly, bring back respect for the hard-working taxpayer. We need to cut waste, restore discipline to public finances, and spend where it helps working people and small businesses, rather than propping up the bureaucracy and needless white-collar workers. I want Romford to thrive again, but we can achieve that only if we stop treating small businesses like cash machines, and start treating them, rightly, as the backbone of our economy and the lifeblood of our communities.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
There is no more important issue for the country than the stubbornly low growth rate and the structural barriers to the growth, productivity, enterprise, innovation and investment that this country so desperately needs, solutions to which have defied successive Governments since the coalition and the political crisis that Brexit unleashed in 2016. It gives me no pleasure to highlight that, for my constituents in Mid Norfolk, the King’s Speech is irrelevant without real delivery on the ground. In Mid Norfolk, the small businesses on which we rely are shedding jobs; disposable incomes are falling; high streets in market towns such as Dereham, Watton and Attleborough are struggling; pubs are closing; farmers are moving away from farming food to take the Government incentives for solar panels and commuter housing estates; and public services are being overwhelmed by rising demand from new housing and an ageing population.
This is fuelling a surge in political anger, which explains a lot of the election results last week. Across Suffolk, Norfolk and the fens of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, rural deprivation, rural poverty and the disproportionate impact of high energy prices on the rural economy—where, according to Treasury figures, every cup of coffee, schoolbook, pencil, lesson and journey costs 20% more than in cities, yet rural areas are underfunded—are driving real anger, based on real grievances. People are now paying European levels of tax for American levels of public services, and they are fed up. Unless we—this Government, this Parliament, this media, this Whitehall—respect and understand the grievance and set out a truly bold plan to deal with it, I fear that the rich will continue to leave this country, that the middle classes, the engine of growth, will conclude that it is no longer worth putting the work in, and that the poor will turn to the black market and crime.
Sir John Hayes
For that to happen, Governments and Parliament must take back control, and successive Governments have divested themselves of that control by, as Simon Case said when he left office, giving more power to unelected and unaccountable bodies of all kinds and types. For the Government to act, they need levers to pull to make the kind of difference that my hon. Friend described, and Governments have less and less ability to do that, yet the King’s Speech does not address that fundamental need for a change of direction.
George Freeman
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. The King’s speech that my constituents loved was the King’s speech in Washington, in which he spoke for the very best of this country. My point is that it is in all our interests—I say this as a friend of mainstream politics and democracy—that we tackle this challenge more boldly.
I welcome the speed with which newly elected Labour MPs have realised the scale and urgency of the problem of public and voter anger, stubbornly slow growth, rising unemployment and demand for public services exceeding capacity, but they are in danger of going for the wrong prescription. What we need is a renaissance of enterprise and innovation across the public and private sectors. Convenient though it may be for my party politically, the idea that the answer is a regicidal political infighting crisis and a leadership contest in office is for the birds. Take it from me: my party has tested that idea to destruction, and we have all paid the price. We do not need a Labour party beauty contest. We need a Parliament and a Government that get more urgent about the many laudable things they have set out to do, but we do not have 10 years to deliver it—we have a couple of years.
If the Labour party knifes this Prime Minister, he will be the seventh who will have been got rid of because of the structural deficit. I remember, when I first arrived here in 2010, the brilliant Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies explaining what the structural deficit is, and it is worth repeating. The normal deficit is when a Government do not earn as much as they are spending; because the economy has taken a downturn, they borrow a bit to keep spending and then pay it back. The structural deficit is that bit of the deficit that goes up every year even when the economy is growing, and it is driven by four things. In 2010, it was being driven by welfare, public sector pensions, and—the big one—health, and debt interest was remarkably low. After the coalition, we had capped off the rise in public sector pensions, incredibly painfully, and we had capped off the rise in welfare, incredibly painfully. Health has continued to defy reform, and it is bankrupting the public sector. We are now spending more than 50% on health, welfare and social support. That is simply not affordable.
We cannot cut, borrow or tax our way out of this. The only way out is to grow, not through dumping cheap housing across the countryside, but by backing the industries of tomorrow.
Sir John Hayes
I might press my hon. Friend a little further. The other way of dealing with that is to improve productivity, as I said earlier. He is right, of course, that the cost burden is fundamentally important, but it can be made better through greater efficiency. Indeed, the Government themselves have said that, as successive Governments have, but we must put in place measures—very often, tough measures—to deliver that kind of productivity.
George Freeman
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. I will make a slightly different point, which is that there are huge opportunities for good growth in this country. Speaking as someone who has had a 16-year career backing the industries of tomorrow, whether it is in fusion, SMR nuclear technologies, agritech, bioscience, the bioeconomy on Teesside, or the satellite economy in Glasgow, we have an opportunity to turn these into the industries of tomorrow. I welcome the Government’s industrial strategy commitment to do it, but it is at 50,000 feet; we need to drop down to some more tangible and bolder policies to back those industries.
I know the Secretary of State gave a tub-thumping speech about the 1980s, but the truth is we have made a lot of progress over the last 20 years. I was doing my work as the Minister for Life Sciences, for agritech and for Science and Technology following in the footsteps of Paul Drayson and David Sainsbury. In life science, fusion, AI and quantum, we have built an unbelievably competitive economy, but other countries are moving fast. Our competitors are more agile. We are terrible at adopting technology in the public services. Our scale-ups are not getting the finance they need in the city. Kate Bingham in The Times today is right.
How do we unlock this? I want to suggest a ten-point plan for renewal. I support the Government’s ambition. I say this because if all of us fail, the Benches to my left of pub populists who are promising everything will win, and we will see even deeper disillusionment. I am calling in this speech for, first, real honesty of a 1979 scale about the extent of the emergency; secondly, bold devolution to the people, cities and mayors who know how to do it better—frankly, they could not do worse than Whitehall—thirdly, serious Whitehall reforms, so that we end the juvenile process of His Majesty’s Treasury playing Departments off against each other for funding, which in the end comes very late and is taken back; and fourthly, a serious backing for the innovation economy. I welcome the £20 billion of R&D, but how we allocate it is key. We need to allocate it in a way that attracts private investment. Fifthly, we need a bold revolution of tax incentives for enterprises—a new deal for new business. There should be no national insurance or VAT for a couple of years for someone starting a company and growing it. Sixthly, we need regulation for innovation. That is not just cutting regulations, but leading in setting the regulation. I welcome the Government’s work in setting up the Regulatory Innovation Office. We then have skills and patriotic capitalism. I do not think it is communism to get the city investing in British business. Boldness—
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
I am pleased to speak in today’s King’s Speech debate, with the theme “Backing business to create economic growth”.
I know from meeting businesses across my constituency in all fields—be it hospitality and retail, manufacturing, haulage, technology, agriculture and horticulture, or the creative industries—that they are ready, willing and able to play their part in achieving economic growth for this country. However, right now it is hard to see how that will be achieved given that businesses are being squeezed from all directions. They are facing rising costs, additional employer national insurance contributions, sky-high energy bills and a workforce who are struggling to get to the end of the month with anything left in their bank accounts.
Although my Chichester constituency is often described as “affluent”, the cost of living crisis is felt acutely there. In fact, last month a Resolution Foundation report entitled the “Slurp Index” looked at the ratio of average gross hourly earnings to Guinness pint prices. It concluded that in somewhere like Trafford, the average median hourly wage will earn someone just over four pints when they are getting a round in on a Friday, but in Chichester, it does not even stretch to two and a half pints, which would not make anyone popular with their co-workers. It’s halves for everyone in Chichester—I’m very sorry.
The high costs in Chichester are compounded by the fact that desperately needed improvements to the A27 have been removed entirely from the Government’s road investment strategy. Without investment, the road will continue to strangle regional trade and competitiveness for Chichester. It feels more and more likely that it is quicker to get around by sea than by the roads in my constituency.
That brings me to the clean water Bill, which aims to undo years of dissatisfaction with the water industry. Over the weekend, I joined the Surfers Against Sewage paddle-out protest. Ironically, we were told not to get in the water because a sewage outflow had discharged into the Solent and the water was not safe. It did not stop us from getting in and highlighting just how important our water is to us in the Chichester constituency, as Chichester harbour is a national landscape.
The legislation that the Government are bringing forward must deliver an overhaul of how our water industry is regulated, starting with the scrapping of Ofwat—a measure that the Liberal Democrats have been calling for since 2022. In the legislation, I hope that we will see many of the 44 amendments that the Liberal Democrats tabled at Committee stage of the Water (Special Measures) Bill, and which the Government chose not to accept.
One of those amendments included a statutory responsibility for water companies to measure the volume of spills they release, rather than the arbitrary measure of time, as doing so would accurately reflect the actual levels of pollution. This is vital, as the Environment Agency looks to enforce stricter targets at waste water treatment works around my constituency in sensitive areas that have seen high levels of pollution, like Bosham, Chichester harbour and the chalk stream River Lavant. There was discharge into the River Lavant for a total of 285 days in 2024—but that was counted as one discharge; we need to know the volume rather than the time spent discharging. This issue fills my inbox, because in Chichester are passionate about our rivers, coastline and national landscape.
Another key issue that residents raise with me is the behaviour of rogue property management companies. Chichester residents are living in properties where the verge is not maintained and saplings are dropped into holes in the ground and left to die, before being removed six months later for the whole process to start again. Residents describe management companies as faceless, with non-existent customer service except when they are told that their service charge is increasing exponentially. In some cases, that has led to residents moving from the homes they fought so hard to purchase, because they can no longer afford to live there. In the commonhold and leasehold reform Bill, the Government have the opportunity to tackle this issue head on.
Sir John Hayes
I met residents of Georgian Court in Spalding a day or two ago. They live in a McCarthy & Stone home, and their freeholder has put up their ground rent by around 100%. That is exactly the kind of thing to which the hon. Lady is drawing the House’s attention, and it must be dealt with in the Bill set out in the King’s Speech.
Jess Brown-Fuller
Regulating these companies effectively and putting a cap on excessive service charges, particularly when there is no evidence that the service is actually being delivered, would really change the game for a lot of people who feel trapped in their estates. I have met with the Housing Minister and shared my residents’ accounts with him, and I hope that the legislation being brought forward will start to address the issue.
As has been seen throughout the country in the recent local elections and current polling, the Government have failed to seize the initiative when it comes to the direction of the economy. People wanted change, but they are still left wanting. There was much in the King’s Speech that my constituents hope will make a difference to them, including in relation to the matters that I have raised, the police reform Bill, the ticket tout Bill or the European partnership Bill. However, given the record of this Government, many people will be quite rightly concerned that these reforms will once again be either U-turned on or fudged. I hope they are wrong, and I will of course continue to work for my constituents in Chichester to ensure that their concerns are properly represented.
Ground-mounted Solar Panels: Alternatives
John Hayes Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Edward Morello
My hon. Friend is 100% right. Wherever possible, we should generate and use on site. The problem so often—I will come to this point in my speech—is that the value of anything that is exported to the grid fundamentally underlines any kind of investment model when we are looking at on-site generation.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
I sent a note, which you were kind enough to mention, Mr Stringer, to apologise for entering the debate late, but I am delighted to be able to contribute.
The hon. Gentleman must surely know that renewables need to face the same tests of cost-effectiveness as all other kinds of generation. For example, the concentration of offshore wind, with very large turbines, a single point of connection to the grid and large amounts of energy, contrasts with the peppering of the country with onshore turbines in small numbers and with multiple connections to the grid. Similarly, putting solar on grade 1 land is just not sensible. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?
Edward Morello
I can certainly agree with the argument that putting solar on grade 1 land should be avoided wherever possible. The right hon. Gentleman may be interested in the recent report of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy on our adversaries’ attempts to cut subsea cables, and on the implicit danger of having so few connection points with such concentrated areas of offshore generation, as we have seen with recent Russian activity. I will happily pick up that point with him afterwards.
About two thirds of UK solar capacity is ground-mounted, but there are concerns about where developments are located, particularly those built on high-quality agricultural land. I echo the comments of the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool): I have never met a farmer, especially in West Dorset, who got into farming because they wanted to grow solar panels. Farmers want to produce food, but we must acknowledge that after years of pressure on farm incomes and pressure on them by this Government, some see solar as one of the few reliable ways to keep their farm operating.
We are asking more and more of our countryside. We want it to produce food, support biodiversity, generate renewable energy, capture carbon, provide housing, and support tourism and recreation. We need guidance to identify where solar is most appropriate, steer it away from the best agricultural land wherever possible, and encourage dual-use schemes that allow land to generate energy while still supporting farmers and nature—
The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) on securing it, particularly because I unfortunately missed his Adjournment debate, which I heard was one of the most enthusiastic Adjournment debates we have ever had on this topic. I was delighted to hear him repeat much of that same speech, because I did of course read it in Hansard. The map joke was there in the Adjournment debate, and it was there again today. We appreciated it all the same, and it was great to hear it in person. I thank him for securing the debate, and I genuinely thank him for the enthusiasm he has shown for floating solar. I will come back to that in a moment.
I was also pleased to hear the hon. and gallant Member say that he believes in climate change. That should not be breaking news to anyone, but when we hear Conservative Members stand up and confirm that science is in fact science, it is none the less a relief to me. I was delighted to hear that. However, the challenge—and I will come back to this point—is that, as much as there is a recognition that climate change is a threat, there is also a distancing from any of the actions that would help us to tackle it, and that is simply not a sustainable position for anyone to hold.
If we think about food security, water security and national security, all of them would be put at huge risk by not tackling the climate crisis. This is a very real challenge for us to deal with at the moment. That more dangerous and insecure world is exactly why we are embarking on the clean power mission.
Sir John Hayes
While the Minister is on the subject of science, would he turn his attention to agronomy? He will know that only around 15% of the land in the United Kingdom is grade 1 and 2. Much of that is in the east of England and, indeed, in my constituency in Lincolnshire. Lincolnshire has been targeted by solar developers, with countless large solar plans in the offing. Will the Minister recognise that those two things cannot be squared? We cannot have the most productive and versatile land being used up for solar at the cost of our food security.
Michael Shanks
I was going to come to the trading of statistics later in my speech, but let me do it now, because there is a fundamental point around the disingenuous trading of statistics on land use. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) made a valiant effort at trying to correct that, but let me give Members some sense of this. At the end of 2024, ground-mounted solar panels covered an estimated 0.1% of the total land area of the UK. Even if we achieve the ambitious targets that we have set out in the clean power action plan, they will be expected to cover 0.4% of the total land area and 0.6% of agricultural land. That is if we achieve our hugely ambitious targets.
The arguments that I will make in this speech are exactly those that the previous Government made when they spoke from the Dispatch Box. There was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Energy Minister who spoke about the dramatic rise in global energy prices following the invasion of Ukraine, the urgency of building a renewables-based system, and how critical it is for us to meet our 70 GW target for solar in the UK by 2025— the previous Government’s target was a fivefold increase.
The now shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), pretends that that was not the Conservatives policy for 14 years, and we now hear a litany of ideas—roadside solar, rail solar, floating solar—but none of them was driven forward in the 14 years that they were in government. Forgive me if I think that it is a little bit rich for them to be oppositionist, not having driven any of it forward when they were in government.
Social Enterprises and Community Ownership
John Hayes Excerpts(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)
Order. I see that lots of Members are bobbing. Given that I am going to call the wind-ups at 5.22 pm, Opposition spokesmen will have five minutes each and the Minister will have 10 minutes. You will appreciate that time is limited, so let us try to get everyone in. I suggest speeches of about three minutes.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)
Order. Members are getting two minutes each. Let us try to get everyone in.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. Many of our communities have felt left behind, with their concerns about the places where they live often going unheard, so I welcome the steps that this Government have taken since July 2024 to address that imbalance. They are giving power back to local people through programmes such as Pride in Place, which is investing £20 million in the communities of Whitburn and Blackburn in my constituency.
The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 has been in place for more than a decade, but it has not quite delivered what was hoped. Although the word “empowerment” is enshrined in the name, that has all too often stayed on paper. Ultimately, when austerity is the driver of local community ownership, that undermines the chances of success, but when it is driven by community aspiration and ambition, proactive uptake can make a real difference to a community’s renewal and can breathe new life into our high streets and town centres.
One such example is the Low Port Centre in Linlithgow. The building was declared surplus to council requirements in 2023, but by early 2024, what had started out as a project for a group from St John’s church in Linlithgow had quickly evolved into an endeavour that attracted businesses, community groups and volunteers from across the town. They secured the building and converted it into a centre for small businesses, innovators, charities, the church itself and the Linlithgow reed band. There is even accommodation there. They identified what the residents and the town needed and how their collective endeavour could deliver for everyone. That needs to change from the exception to the rule. The UK’s Government’s commitment to enshrine co-operative values in their effort to increase community ownership will support exactly that.
Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)
I am discouraging interventions generally, but that was delightful. Carry on.
Leigh Ingham
The Oxleathers is not just a pub; it is a social hub in one of the most deprived areas of Stafford, hosting community events and bringing neighbours together. We do a great local quiz there, and it provides a space where people who might otherwise feel isolated can connect with others. That really matters, because when we talk about regeneration, growth or economic development, we can overlook the simple truth that communities are built around places where people come together. It is those assets that have disappeared over 14 years of austerity. Community enterprises are social infrastructure. They create pride in place, belonging and resilience.
Across Europe, energy security is becoming one of the defining challenges of our time. The events unfolding in the middle east show us how exposed households and businesses are to fossil fuel markets. I want to share an international example that I find interesting. Over the past decade, Spain has invested heavily in renewable energy and community-driven regeneration. That shift has helped to reduce the influence of gas prices on electricity bills and has made the country far less exposed to the volatility of international energy markets. That makes a massive difference, because when communities generate their own energy, they not only reduce emissions but gain control.
That exciting opportunity is now emerging in Highfields and Western Downs, because the Oxleathers—the same community asset that has been saved by local residents—is now likely to play a key role in a community solar energy plan for the area. That community has some of the highest levels of fuel poverty in Stafford. For us, community energy offers a different path. Imagine a local pub, already the heart of a neighbourhood, becoming part of a local energy network where solar generation helps to power community facilities and local ownership means that the benefits stay local. That is what social ownership can do.
We are talking about giving communities the tools to shape their own economic future. If we want towns and villages across the country to thrive, empowering communities through social ownership must be at the heart of our approach.
Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)
The new community right-to-buy model has been transformative, and community ownership is at the heart of what we do in Stroud.
What I have noticed, and other Members have already pointed out, is that each organisation has to go through the same learning process to get funding. And the other thing I have noticed is that a lot of local people are willing to put funds into community ownership, but they need some sort of guarantee that those funds are safe. There is a role for some regional support in that regard.
Just in the last week, the Stratford Park lido in Stroud has been threatened with closure. I know that local people hope that local government will be able to step in and offer support. If that does not happen, though, community ownership will provide a guarantee for this much-loved community service.
As many hon. Members have pointed out, there are many pubs—including in the Stroud area—that are now moving towards community ownership, simply because capitalism does not work very well in rural areas, but assets such as pubs are deeply valued. I will mention the Rose and Crown in Nympsfield, which was recently bought by the community. I have a personal interest in that pub, because it is about 2 miles’ lovely walk from my house and I am really glad that it has remained open. Community energy is also crucial. We have a scheme now whereby solar panels can be put on schools; we are trying to get community energy in every school in our area.
However, I have campaigned for the environmental right to buy to be part of the community ownership model. I know that the Government have committed to issuing some statutory guidance, so I would like to hear some more from the Minister about that guidance. Strengthening our small towns and villages means giving actual powers to communities so that they can purchase crucial parts of our society.
Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)
Excellent. Thank you, everyone, for being so disciplined with your speeches.
Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)
Minister, will you leave a couple of moments for Jo Platt to sum up?
Carbon Budget Delivery Plan
John Hayes Excerpts(11 months, 3 weeks ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)
Order. I see that quite a lot of people want to speak. I will not set a time limit, but if you can be disciplined in how long your contributions last, that would be very helpful.
Dr Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
It is a real pleasure to speak in this debate, and I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for securing it. To be honest, I am a bit disappointed that the Secretary of State did not come to the House to make a statement about the carbon budget delivery plan, especially given that the previous one was in breach of the Climate Change Act 2008, and given the urgency of the UK’s meeting not just its statutory domestic climate targets but its international obligations under the Paris climate agreement.
It is obvious that UK climate action has important domestic and international ramifications. We are holding this debate while COP30 takes place. The UN has warned that the goal of a 1.5°C limit is fragile. According to the UN Secretary-General, the current plans put forward by nation states to cut emissions will put the world on a pathway to 2.3°C of global warming if they are fully implemented, and yet the UK’s new carbon budget delivery plan will fall short of our own commitments under the COP process, via our nationally determined contributions. The delivery plan is looking to achieve 96% of the cuts for the 2030 NDC and 99% for the 2035 NDC. That does not even reflect the fact that the UK’s NDC commitments themselves fail to take account of the scale of ambition needed to tackle the burning reality of the climate crisis, in line with what the climate science demands, and to reflect the UK’s historic responsibilities—and therefore moral obligation—to take a fairer share of the global need to cut emissions.
The Government’s carbon budget delivery plan is absolutely better than previous versions—let’s face it, it was a low baseline—but it is still wanting, both in global terms and in terms of facing the climate reality. That needs to change; even more ambition is required.
The hon. Member for Sheffield Central talked about the warm homes plan and the wider need for investment, particularly in the housing sector. We must ensure all our homes are fully fit for the future. As she said, it must be recognised across Government that climate action is absolutely central. It is not just about tackling our carbon emissions; it is also a really important way to tackle inequality and generate a resilient, jobs-rich economy that will secure long-term prosperity for us all.
There are of course things to welcome in the carbon budget delivery plan, including tougher energy standards for the private rented and social rented sectors, welcome signals on heat pumps and so on, but to make our homes really fit for the future we need to think even bigger. We need to minimise embodied carbon in the housing sector, and maximise on-site energy generation, biodiversity in the construction of new homes and resilience in things such as flooding and overheating, which is crucial in tackling the impacts of the climate crisis, which is hitting harder and harder. Every new home—especially every new social home—must be built to the highest standards.
We urgently need the warm homes plan. It is deeply concerning that there are rumours that the Government are seeking to rob Peter to pay Paul by taking money away from the warm homes plan—that crucial long-term investment in insulating our homes and making them fit for the future so that people have cheaper bills. We must not put a short-term sticking plaster on bills. We need both, not one or the other—[Interruption.]
Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)
Order. There is a Division in the House. We will suspend for 15 minutes, and when we return Ellie will draw her speech to its conclusion reasonably speedily.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)
About six people want to contribute, so they each have about four minutes. I will not make it formal, but I know I can rely on you not to let me down.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)
Order. I said four minutes a speech. This is partly a debate about targets and figures, Barry, and the difference between four and nine is five.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see another Hayes serving in the Chair, Sir John. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for securing this debate. When we talk about the carbon budget delivery plan, we are talking about progress towards a cleaner, fairer and more secure Britain. With COP30 getting under way properly, we know the consequences of breaching the 1.5° limit: there will be more people exposed to extreme heat, higher sea levels, increased food security risks, the extinction of species, a loss of virtually all coral reefs, and the spread of climate-sensitive diseases on a greater scale. We cannot allow that to happen.
Although we are tackling this issue for global reasons, it is clear that there will be benefits at home. Clean energy is the route to faster and more resilient growth. Analysis by Oxford Economics for Energy UK shows that we can add up to £240 billion in value to our economy by 2050 if we increase our ambition. The faster we move now, the more our economy will work for working people and the more good, secure jobs we will create.
I am particularly pleased that the Government are setting up Great British Energy with £8.3 billion of funding going into large-scale solar, offshore wind and grid-scale battery projects. I am also pleased to see today’s announcement by SSE of £33 billion of investment to unlock secure and affordable clean energy, and to support our economic growth. That is proof that when we invest in the green economy, we see investors returning that.
Sprinting to net zero does not just boost growth; it also protects growth. We saw what happened when the last Government failed to plan for resilience. Volatile international fossil fuel markets sent our bills soaring and made our growth sputter. Typical household energy costs nearly doubled in a single year and all our constituents are still living with the cost of that. Millions of people were pushed into fuel poverty and energy bill debt remains at record levels. Indeed, when the last Government finally acted, they did so at huge cost, spending £94 billion of taxpayers’ money. That crisis could have been prevented with sustained investment in energy independence and efficiency.
We should be going as fast as we can on net zero because another such crisis could be prevented with clean home-grown energy. The Office for Budget Responsibility has warned that a fossil fuel price shock could cost us between 2% and 3% of GDP in the 2030s. We cannot afford such a shock to be inflicted on our constituents all over again.
The delivery plan faces several other challenges. We know that there are opponents who have chosen an anti-jobs, anti-science path that would spell disaster for our economy, our security and our planet. Too often, net zero has been treated as a political football. Deadlines have been delayed, targets have been softened and certain voices have claimed that our targets are “impossible” to meet. Indeed, there have even been threats to rip up green contracts, undermining investor confidence when our constituencies need investment in jobs in the green economy so that we can lead from the front. To all those who resist home-grown renewables or reject British-built nuclear, let me be clear: they are undermining our security, driving up our bills and holding back growth. That is bad for Britain and bad for our planet.
Our national security is our energy security, so I do have to speculate about some of the opposition to net zero. When I see that 92% of Reform UK’s post-2019 funding is linked to or comes directly from donors tied to fossil fuel interests, polluting industries or climate science denial groups, it makes me wonder. Similarly, we know that the leadership of Reform UK’s pick for First Minister of Wales was a paid Putin propagandist. Why is Reform UK so keen for Britain to be addicted to Russian-dominated fossil fuel markets? Our energy security comes in many forms.
We also know that despite all the political noise, the markets and the public remain firmly committed to clean energy. Among Fortune Global 500 companies, net zero commitments have risen from 8% in 2020 to 45% last year. Some 70% of the UK public support the net zero target, compared with just 18% who do not, and 65% of the UK public want more renewable generation, while only 7% disagree with increasing renewables. Polling by the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association found that 68% of people are uncomfortable with their pensions or savings being invested in companies that harm the environment.
Let me be clear: the Conservatives and Reform UK will lock Britain out of the race for green economic leadership. People up and down our country will lose out. However, Britain can no longer be held back, because the race for the jobs and industries of the future is speeding up, so we must go all-in on clean energy.
This is a critical moment. Global insecurity is driving insecurity at home, and many people feel ignored and left behind. While the world moves at speed, our politics remains stuck. People are hungry for change, but if this Government do not deliver it, others will—and that worries me.
Our task as a country is to lead in this era. It is not to defend the broken ways of doing things, but to create new methods to give people the stability and pride that they crave, and a country that is on the up once again as it leads the global race for green investment. We cannot afford to leave our country to those who will cosy up to Putin by indulging the fossil fuel markets and volatile prices that come with them. That means taking on vested interests, and restoring control of our energy and our economy. The dividing line in politics must be between the disruptors and those who defend a status quo that is working in nobody’s interest.
We know that net zero is the economic opportunity of a generation. Our net zero economy grew 10.1% in 2024. Net zero foreign direct investment was up 46% last year, reaching £20 billion, and 95% of major financial firms—representing over £1 trillion in turnover and £200 billion in green investments—say that they would increase UK investment with greater policy certainty, unlocking up to £100 billion. Is there policy certainty in scrapping the Climate Change Act or threatening to rip up the green contracts that the Government are delivering?
Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)
Order. Can you bring your remarks to a close, otherwise no one else will be able to get in?
Tom Hayes
I apologise.
The capital is waiting, public support is strong and technology is ready. What is needed is yet more policy certainty, clarity and courage. We have seen so much already, but there is more to do. Net zero should not be a political football. It is a strategic national mission, the UK’s growth story and a foundation for jobs, competitiveness and resilience.
Susan Murray (Mid Dunbartonshire) (LD)
I will do my best. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for securing the debate and bringing attention to this matter.
Although some may deny its impact or severity, climate change represents the greatest modern threat to our planet. The data is clear. If we continue down our current path, millions of lives will be lost and our way of life will be changed forever. We have an opportunity to show the world that there is an alternative path to save lives and avoid catastrophe.
Steps have been taken to create a Britain at the forefront of climate action, but there are still gaping holes. Although we have enormous capacity for green energy production through wind, tidal and solar, we do not yet take full advantage of it. My constituents in Mid Dunbartonshire demand that we act faster. We must take the opportunity to produce wind turbines domestically; less than half of the wind turbines operating in the UK contain any British component. Instead, we ship turbines in from countries such as China, undermining their green credentials and costing British jobs.
We are not moving fast enough to upgrade our grid, meaning that we are restricting the energy output at some sites for as much as 71% of the time. At the same time, we seem to be ignoring the potential of community energy and local projects to take pressure off the wider grid and to provide cheaper bills to British people. It is clear that although we have incredible potential, we need to move faster to exploit it.
The Government must place decarbonisation at the heart of the UK’s industrial strategy. The net zero sector is growing three times faster than the overall UK economy and jobs in the sector pay almost 15% more than the national average. If we want good, long-term jobs for British people, we must look seriously at green energy. We can create manufacturing jobs producing the technology, jobs working on the grid, jobs working on offshore sites and many more, but only if we take climate change seriously. That means ensuring that workers and communities in sectors such as North sea oil and gas are not left behind as the industry declines, but supported to move into new, clean industries. Even if all our energy came from renewables we would need oil and gas for the foreseeable future, but it makes no sense to import gas, which is four times as polluting as local production.
The Liberal Democrats would introduce a carbon tariff to level the playing field and minimise carbon emissions. The skills already built up in Scotland’s energy sector are the skills that we need for offshore wind, grid upgrades and new green technologies, but there is an urgent need to invest in more skill training and housing if we want the sector to thrive, grow and build new sustainable jobs and communities.
The Government have listened to the Liberal Democrats before on green energy. I urge them to do so again to help create a cleaner, fairer future for our children, and across the world.
Mrs Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for securing this important debate. I will take this opportunity to link the national Government ambition of the carbon budget delivery plan with the local government ambition of Wolverhampton’s green innovation corridor.
The benefits of the clean energy economy are well reported and evidenced: creating energy security, lowering household bills, protecting our environment and building good local jobs. For too long, global price shocks driven by conflict and market volatility have hit my residents’ pockets. By investing in home-grown clean energy—from offshore wind to solar and local generation —we are keeping more of our energy and money right here in the UK. That means greater control over prices, and a fairer, more stable energy system for households across the country.
In the west midlands, Wolverhampton’s green innovation corridor has every potential to build our industrial past into a green industrial future. By connecting the University of Wolverhampton with a local manufacturing base and skills training for the industries of tomorrow, it can create local opportunities for great jobs of the future.
What does that mean for my constituents? First, it means jobs. The green innovation corridor is set to deliver over 1,000 skilled roles including apprenticeships for young people, retraining for experienced workers, and graduate opportunities. Secondly, it means investment and regeneration. The corridor will breathe new life into old brownfield sites, creating new workspaces and better connectivity, so that investment flows into local businesses, communities and shops. By linking our local ambition with the national carbon budget delivery plan and by backing the green innovation corridor, we are supporting jobs and households in Wolverhampton and Willenhall.
Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)
Well done for keeping to time. I am calling the Front Benchers at 5.28 pm. I call Jim Shannon—you have a minute and a half.
Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)
Thank you, Minister; that leaves a moment or two for Abtisam Mohamed to complete our discussion.
Significant Energy Infrastructure Projects: Suffolk Coast
John Hayes Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)
I will call Jenny Riddell-Carpenter to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. Other Members should be aware that they can contribute only with the prior permission of the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. Sadly, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up the debate, because we have only half an hour.
Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (Suffolk Coastal) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the coordination of Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects for energy on the Suffolk coast.
Suffolk Coastal is central to the UK’s energy ambitions. It is often said that up to 30% of Britain’s future energy is expected to be generated in, or transmitted through, my constituency. Suffolk Coastal is home to nationally and internationally important landscapes, including national landscapes, sites of special scientific interest, the Suffolk heritage coast and wetlands that form part of the east Atlantic flyway migratory bird route. Those are not simply scenic features; they underpin local economies and nature-based tourism, and they are vital to national commitments to biodiversity and environmental protection.
As the Minister will be aware, the nationally significant infrastructure projects that I will refer to are being delivered within a small, 10-mile radius, and sit in the heart of those national landscapes, including in nature reserves run by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and on important national sites. They stretch from LionLink in Walberswick, which is just south of Southwold, down to Sea Link in Aldeburgh, then next door to Sizewell C, which is Europe’s largest energy project, and link into proposed converter stations in Friston and Saxmundham. Some of those projects have consent while others are going through the process as we speak.
What is remarkable—it is the point of the debate—is the lack of co-ordination between the plans. No attempt has been made to plan for the cumulative impact of the projects or to consider how better to co-ordinate them. In fact, in March 2024, National Grid published details showing that it has no intention to co-ordinate LionLink, led by National Grid Ventures, with the more advanced Sea Link project, led by National Grid Electricity Transmission.
Jenny Riddell-Carpenter
I know that my hon. Friend has been passionate about this since his arrival in this place last year. I look forward to the Minister’s response to that point, but yes, I do agree; in fact, I will come on to some of those themes later.
There is an opportunity to set up an overarching body to ensure that the many competing schemes, whether already consented, within the development consent order process or in the pipeline, are properly co-ordinated. The body could be departmental or independent from the Government, but it would operate under the direction of the Secretary of State. Although the then Department for Business, Innovation and Skills consulted on the concept of a future systems operator for electricity, that does not go far enough or quickly enough. There needs to be oversight of the cumulative impact of all NSIP schemes in an area. The failings that arise in the absence of such oversight are evident in many areas of my constituency, but are perhaps best highlighted by the case of Boden Farms.
Boden Farms was subject to compulsory purchase of land to accommodate Sizewell C’s development phase, and work has begun on a new relief road on the farm’s former land. The farmer has been told by National Grid Ventures that it, too, will need to access his land in order to lay cables for LionLink. It cannot tell him where, when or if it will be made subject to a compulsory purchase order, but it can tell him that in a year or maybe two it will be digging up the very same land that is being worked on right now by Sizewell C, including, most likely, parts of the new relief road that is being built as we speak.
I am very concerned by reports that the only plans LionLink has ever received for the link road are the ones the landowner provided himself. Surely, that cannot be right, but it is not a one-off; this story is repeated across my constituency, in every parish where lines are being laid or work is being planned. That is in no one’s interest—not the community’s, not nature’s and not even the developer’s—so I tabled an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that would have made it a legal requirement for energy developers to co-ordinate their work.
Farmers from Woodbridge to Leiston, and parishes from Friston to Walberswick and Yoxford to Peasenhall, all ask the same thing: why are these projects popping up with no co-ordination, and why is there no legal requirement for them to work together? It is our communities and our environment that have to endure the cumulative impact of all this.
Developers are also failing to put proper mitigations in place or to listen to the concerns of local residents, which is having a real impact. Farmers have told me of issues engaging with energy developers when they have raised objections to cables being buried to a depth of less than 1.8 metres on their land, in breach of electrical safety guidance, leaving them unable to use the land for arable farming. Energy developers have been unwilling to engage, which means that land risks being taken out of arable food production permanently. In laying any cables on active agricultural land, developers should guarantee that arable farmland will be safeguarded for future farming use, and I tabled another amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that would have made it a legal requirement for energy developers to lay cables to a minimum depth of 1.8 metres.
The depth of cables is an issue not just for farmers, but for offshore shipping. Members will appreciate that I have shipping lanes off the coast of my constituency, and the Harwich Haven Authority has told me that it is concerned that energy developers must do more to engage with it to ensure that cables are buried at a sufficient depth that projects do not compromise navigational safety. The Sunk area around Harwich Haven is a vital and highly complex shipping zone. Any offshore developments must be planned with strict adherence to safety requirements.
The UK has let developers lead the conversation and the strategy. We have ended up with a mismatch of proposals, in the wrong place, with no co-ordination and no desire to think of better alternatives. Other countries are stealing a march. Holistic network design criteria are adopted and adhered to in North sea countries including Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. As a result, they choose brownfield sites at the outset for their energy infrastructure hubs and, in doing so, manage to avoid adverse impacts on communities and ecologies.
Places such as Zeebrugge and Rotterdam industrial zones are chosen for building substations, with space to build future projects, including hydrogen storage. Those projects are co-ordinated in order to minimise needless damage, maximise efficiencies and move at pace. For the same reasons, energy developers in the UK should be required to pursue as a first option brownfield hubs where multiple projects can co-exist without any adverse impact on nature.
We need to create a legal duty for developers working in the same area to exchange information, seek opportunities for shared infrastructure, reduce cumulative impact and align timelines. A framework of co-ordination, co-design, community benefit and compensation would mean that communities, town and parish councils and the Government could see the whole picture, not just the smallest of fragments. So many of my constituents are devastated by the cumulative impact that these energy projects within a 10-mile radius are having on nature, and no one organisation has ever looked at it.
We can get this right. If we do, we can deliver on our climate ambitions and protect nature at the same time, but it will require greater leadership, oversight and scrutiny, and greater emphasis on making sure that we co-ordinate, plan and implement a clean, green energy revolution that is strategic and not just whack-a-mole. It must be rooted in knowing the land and the geography, and not in the whims of the developer. Getting this right now will mean better protections for our natural environment, better safeguards for our local communities and a lasting legacy for the next generation.
Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)
I call the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State—no, I am underselling him. I call the Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
UK Internal Market
John Hayes Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered barriers to trade in the UK internal market.
I am pleased to have been granted this debate. I do not have much luck securing debates in Westminster Hall, but I thought that perhaps nobody else would apply for a debate at the end of the last day before recess. I think I guessed right, so we have a debate on this very important issue.
This debate is about the disruption to the UK internal market. My remarks are not based on the political stance that my party has taken against the Brexit arrangements agreed by the last Government and continued by the present Government; they are based on a report by the Federation of Small Businesses, an independent body interested only in the concerns of its members, that does not look exclusively at Northern Ireland. Indeed, the report is based mostly on responses from businesses in England, Scotland and Wales—only 14% of responses came from businesses in Northern Ireland. The impact on the internal market is a UK-wide concern.
The report found that the Windsor framework is not protecting the market. There are considerable barriers, whether customs paperwork, European Union rules and laws applying in Northern Ireland, physical checks, delays in the delivery of goods, the labelling of goods not for EU use, or business-to-business parcels now being subject to customs procedures. As a result, many businesses have abandoned Northern Ireland. Indeed, the report highlights that 34% of small businesses that previously traded with Northern Ireland have now stopped, saying that the regulation has made it far too expensive to trade with Northern Ireland.
Some of the regulations are ludicrous. One business wrote that some of the requirements are little short of farcical. They have to state that their goods have not been imported from Iraq, even though they were made in Great Britain. Others have been told to fill in forms to make it clear that canes imported for use in road construction are not being used to torture anybody. Businesses find themselves facing that kind of nonsense, and as a result they are abandoning Northern Ireland.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Is not the real problem, as identified by the FSB and articulated by the right hon. Gentleman, that there is an unholy alliance of Eurocrats and bureaucrats, of separatists and globalist corporates, who are acting in a way that is injurious to the interests of small and medium-sized businesses that trade across our United Kingdom?
Sammy Wilson
The right hon. Member is absolutely correct. I will talk about some of that bureaucracy later in my speech.
Fifty-eight per cent of businesses have faced significant or moderate difficulties, including rising transport costs, significant disruption to supplies, stock shortfalls, shortages, loss of sales and increased bureaucracy and costs, as well as the drain on their finances because of the payment of taxes and duties that take a long time to be repaid.
Of the companies surveyed, 61% said that they had experienced negative consequences as a result of the Windsor framework. Significantly, despite what the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland would try to tell the House, only 2% said there were any positive benefits. More worryingly, 56% either said that they are “not confident” or only “slightly confident” about what will happen with their trading relations with Northern Ireland, and 29% said that they are likely to have to stop supplying to Northern Ireland in the future. That is on top of those companies that have already stopped.
In fact, one company said that it was now more difficult to trade with Northern Ireland—that is, bring goods from GB into Northern Ireland—than it is to trade with Australia and the USA, which is why it would stop trading with Northern Ireland.
What has been the Government’s response to all this, as it is well known? I am pleased that the FSB has now independently verified what we have all known anecdotally, as constituency representatives. I suspect that the Minister will say, “Oh, but we are doing our best. We have put in support mechanisms. We have the trader support service, we have HMRC guidance.” I hate to tell the Minister that the survey shows that 78% of businesses say the support is either “poor” or “very poor”—in other words, useless. The report says,
“a similarly high proportion found access to the support difficult. Businesses frequently cited confusing or inconsistent guidance. As one NI manufacturer put it, navigating new customs paperwork via the Trader Support Service often feels like a ‘guessing game’.”
It is a joke of a system. The defence is, “We have put in support mechanisms.” Well, they are not working.
The second argument—and we have heard the Secretary of State make it repeatedly—is, “Oh, but you have other benefits. You have access to the dual market. You have the benefits of being able to sell into the EU, which companies in GB cannot do as freely, and to sell into the GB market.” We know now that the GB market is not accessible, and that supplies are not coming through.
As far as the dual market system is concerned, when businesses were surveyed, 88% said that the opportunities were not explained—they did not know what the opportunities were—and 64% said that they did not even understand what the opportunities were. They said that it seemed like the Government were making no effort to promote the great benefit that was meant to be the result of the Windsor framework. I suspect that the reason why the benefit has not been promoted is because, as many of the companies said, it is more in theory than in reality. There is no real benefit.
Of course, the latest argument is, “Well, the new sanitary and phytosanitary agreement with the EU will smooth it all out.” Every time I hear that argument, if I am at home, I look down into Larne harbour from my study window and see that, despite the promises that the SPS agreement will do away with a lot of these checks, there is a border post being built—I can see it clearly from my study window. £140 million is being spent on it, and only last night, the local council was asked to sign a memorandum of association to ensure that it supplies staff for that border post until March 2029.
Even if the SPS agreement were to do that, it covers only a very small part of the trade. All of the customs requirements, duty payments, checks, delays and parcel post will still be affected. EU regulations, affecting many businesses because the EU has different standards, will still apply.
The one thing I hope I do not get from the Minister today is the same complacency, disdain and “I couldn’t care less” attitude that Northern Ireland experiences from our Secretary of State, whose attitude has been little short of disgraceful. Pontius Pilate-like, he has washed his hands of it all. If anything, he acts more like an EU emissary to Northern Ireland than a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I can see that you are getting a bit uneasy, Dr Huq, but I notified the Secretary of State that I am angry at the way in which he has treated Northern Ireland, and he knew I was going to make these remarks this afternoon. In fact, I think I spelled them out to him.
Let us look at some of the Secretary of State’s comments. When my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) recently raised a statistic from the FSB survey in the House, his attitude was, “Well, if some of the businesses can trade with Northern Ireland, why can’t the rest of them? It is up to them to decide where they want to trade and where they don’t.” When someone who is meant to be standing up and fighting for Northern Ireland takes that kind of attitude, I despair about whether this issue is being taken seriously.
In a recent letter to me, the Secretary of State indicated that, as far as he is concerned, the main thing is to ensure that we “faithfully” pursue the Windsor framework because the EU is getting angry that some of the regulations may not be fully implemented. Here we have damaging regulations for Northern Ireland, and the Secretary of State’s response is, “Well, I have to stand up for the EU. Northern Ireland businesses? Let them paddle their own canoe.”
I know that others wish to speak, and I am pleased that so many have stayed on the last day. I do not want them to miss out, so this is the last thing. What do we need? I could go through many of the options that we have proposed and that the Government have dismissed, but I ask the Minister for one simple thing. All the paperwork, all the regulations, all the delays and all the checks are founded on one thing: that goods entering Northern Ireland from GB are regarded as at risk of going into the Irish Republic, contaminating its economy in some way and breaking EU rules.
Custard, the stuff we heat and pour over apple tarts or put into trifles, was deemed to be a dairy product, but it was not required to be labelled until phase 3 of the labelling requirements. However, the EU decided that perhaps custard should have been regarded as a product at risk, so it changed the labelling requirements. One of the big supermarkets had custard in its supply chain, and the EU bureaucrats decided that this custard must be hunted down—“We cannot have it coming into Northern Ireland and finding its way into the Irish Republic.” Lorries with mixed loads were stopped and searched. The offending custard was hunted down, discovered and exposed. That delayed the lorries, which did not reach the depot in time, so their goods could not be broken down and distributed to the various shops. It affected the supply chain and the supply of shops in Northern Ireland.
Here is the irony: the supermarket did not have any shops in the Irish Republic. The offending custard was okay one day, but not the next, because it did not have a label that it did not require the previous day. There was no evidence that anybody was dying from eating this custard in Northern Ireland or anywhere else, but the supply chains for a major supermarket in Northern Ireland were disrupted.
I am sure many Members could tell story after story about how the regulations are having an effect. What is it all down to? It is down to goods presenting a “risk”. What risk? We do not know. A simple change could be made so that goods are deemed at risk only once they leave Northern Ireland and go into the Irish Republic or elsewhere. The Road Haulage Association and Federation of Small Businesses have asked for that. It is not beyond the wit of man to ensure that happens. After all, all the companies that are selling these goods have VAT returns. HMRC trusts those companies at the end of the year to declare how much VAT they owe. If the goods have gone out of Northern Ireland, they do not have to pay VAT. Why can that VAT return not be used to follow the goods to where they eventually go? There is much disruption to trade, though not to all of it.
I am sure Members will talk about the inequity and constitutional implications of EU law applying to Northern Ireland, but one simple change can be made. Rather than kowtow to the EU, or be afraid that the reset with the EU might be disturbed if we ask for something simple, I ask the Minister to consider that one simple change, which many businesses have said would restore their ability to trade freely within our own market, selling goods that are not at risk. It would be of immense help to the small businesses that are the backbone of our economy.
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
Thank you, Dr Huq. It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship. I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) on securing this last debate before the summer recess on this important topic. The UK’s internal market, forged over centuries through the Acts of Union, is the bedrock of economic prosperity. We are indeed stronger together, and the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 has provided what should be a robust foundation for economic cohesion and non-discrimination.
I accept that challenges remain, and we have heard about them today. I thought the example—the illustration —of custard, visual metaphor though that was, was important. I regret the imperfections of the Windsor framework, and this Government with their reset have the potential to use their equities to significantly improve some of those arrangements in the UK internal market, should they so wish. The right hon. Member for East Antrim drew attention to the work done by the excellent Federation of Small Businesses, highlighting the very real problems and concerns.
Sir John Hayes
My hon. Friend, with typical generosity, says that we are all trying to get this right. I established that that is largely true, with the possible exception of the EU itself. There are those in the European Union, stung by the wise decision of the British people to leave that awful body, who have never really accepted that decision and have made life as difficult as possible—both for this country and for the businesses described by right hon. and hon. Members in this debate.
Andrew Griffith
As ever, drawing on his extensive experience in this place, my right hon. Friend makes exactly the right point. We do not have time to revisit all the imperfections of the Brexit deal imposed upon us by a recalcitrant European Union, which turned out to be a very false friend.
We should hear from the Minister, and I want to afford him as much time as possible. But my party will of course support anything that removes frictions and reunites the territorial integrity of the whole United Kingdom. We want every small business to benefit from that frictionless relationship with the rest of the United Kingdom. Our Union depends on that single indivisible approach and the sort of practical solutions that we heard about, such as trusted trader schemes and utilising HMRC’s already extensive data collection and reporting framework to improve the operation of our internal market. That should be something that every Member of this House seeks to do. The Government have given up things like British fishing for 12 years; I hope that we continue to see in return some real progress on this issue.
I thank all hon. Members, and congratulate the right hon. Member for East Antrim on highlighting the issue. With your permission, Dr Huq, I will give the rest of the available time to the Minister.