Postmasters with Overturned Convictions: Settlement Funds

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I recognise the right hon. Gentleman’s work over the past 10 years and the conversations we have had on this. I just let him know that I very much hear exactly what he is saying. I totally empathise with what he is saying, and I will continue to work to that end.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for changing the policy. I have been a long-standing critic of past Governments and Ministers for not telling the Post Office to apologise and pay up, and I encourage him today to ensure that the Post Office apologises properly, and pays up quickly and generously.

[Paul Scully]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We will ensure that we lean into the Post Office to ensure that they deliver all compensation schemes quickly and equitably so that we can get this issue sorted out. The Post Office has acknowledged that it has done wrong, but the inquiry will detail the questions that it needs to answer over the next few months.

Bulb Energy: Administration

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

On a point of fact, the number is actually 22 companies, not 18, and I refer back to that—[Interruption.] No, that is the figure. That shows the incredible resilience of the systems that we have in place. We have the supplier of last resort, which has worked very effectively, and, as I outlined in my statement, we also have the special administration regime, which was designed precisely to deal with situations such as the one we are now in.

On regulation, Ofgem has launched a review of the retail market and how it operates. I will be directly involved in that and will study it very closely.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the global market and the situation we are in post covid; he and his party predicted record levels of unemployment and recession, and of course they were completely wrong—they were absolutely wrong. We are growing the economy stronger than any other country in the G7. We are also creating jobs and creating investment, so the right hon. Gentleman’s prophecies of doom were completely misplaced, and he is completely without any firm arguments over our response to what was a global pandemic.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

What action has the Secretary of State taken to ensure that, in future, there will be more UK domestic gas to replace unreliable and expensive imported gas, and what action is he taking to expand the capacity of our generating system for the days when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My right hon. Friend will know that this is the first Government in about 25 years or more who are firmly committed to nuclear power. He will understand that the Cabinet expenditure—the long-term commitment to nuclear power—will not necessarily bear fruit in a week or a month, but for the first time, we have made a very dramatic 100% commitment to increasing our nuclear capacity. That answers his point about security of supply overall.

In terms of gas, I am pleased to announce that I and the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands), are driving the North sea transition deal. The key to that is transition—about trying to transition to net zero while securing jobs and security of supply from gas in the UK Continental Shelf. These are things of which we are apprised.

Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

The hon. Gentleman is right, and we are looking at that technology, but I stress what I just said about deployment at scale. We need something that can be deployed at scale to provide the bulk of our electricity when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. We are always open-minded on other new technologies, but the most important thing is what can be deployed at scale. The measures in this Bill are critical for ensuring we have the option to bring forward further nuclear capacity.

Twelve of the UK’s 13 current nuclear reactors, representing approximately 85% of our nuclear capacity, are scheduled to close by 2030. Although Hinkley Point C is under construction, additional nuclear is likely to be needed in a low-cost 2050 electricity system. That is why we have committed to bring at least one further large-scale nuclear project to final investment decision by the end of this Parliament, subject to value for money and all relevant approvals.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does that not mean much more nuclear is needed if it is the preferred means of backing up wind? The new nuclear the Minister is talking about will not even replace the nuclear that is closing.

[Greg Hands]

I have good news for my right hon. Friend, which is that the regulated asset base model that we are introducing here can be used for further nuclear power plants, including small modular reactors and other key nuclear innovations. He will also know that, in the net zero review, we launched a £120 million fund for new nuclear innovations, which will allow us to increase our nuclear commitments and capabilities beyond the existing commitment to one new plant having its investment case in this Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

Labour believes that new nuclear has an important supporting role to play in the energy mix, alongside the decisive shift to renewables that we need to deliver the climate transition and secure our energy security. As set out by the Climate Change Committee, we need all the low-carbon power sources at our disposal to deliver the rapid and fair transition that is required.

I am sorry that the Minister, in presenting the Bill, has chosen the partisan knockabout route, rather than giving it the serious consideration that it deserves. If we want to go down that path, we can reflect on the decade of dither and delay on the Government’s part, with mixed messages from the Conservative Government on new nuclear. The result is that, after 10 years, we have one half-finished nuclear plant, which is funded by a mechanism that, as the Minister himself accepts, is quite disastrous in terms of future prices. The record of this Conservative Government on new nuclear is frankly very poor. At last we have a Bill that might rectify some of that poor performance over the last 10 years. We need to support the need to finance new nuclear. We will scrutinise this Bill to guarantee fairness for bill payers, including protecting consumers against any potential cost overruns, protecting the poorest households, and scrutinising the balance between public spending and bill payers.

It is welcome that at long last we are coming to the key issue in nuclear power, which is how we build the power stations that we seek to place in the mix of low-carbon energy for the future. We know how not to do it, as I mentioned. We have already seen from the passage of building Hinkley C, and the disappearance of many nuclear projects and programmes, that the model that the Government have long stood for—that power stations should be built entirely by the private sector, and that private-sector security can be bought by price mechanisms that grossly inflate the cost of energy to the customer in the end—is highly flawed.

We are facing a last-chance saloon for new nuclear build that requires us to throw away those principles and start again, because most of the programme of new nuclear power stations that the Government have been envisaging over the past 10 years has been washed away. As late as 2018, there were possibly three consortia actively pursuing an interest in building five new nuclear power stations. These have progressively fallen by the wayside. Consortia have fallen apart, companies with an interest in financing projects have pulled out, and we are now left with one proto-consortium—effectively just EDF—building Hinkley C and with active plans to build a new power station at Sizewell. It is not only an active interest. Sizewell is designed to be effectively a clone of the plant that is currently being built so that it can start to build as Hinkley completes its construction phase and the workforce currently undertaking construction at Hinkley can transfer to the building of its clone at Sizewell.

We ought to add two other factors that will have a substantial bearing on how we proceed with building plants—or in this instance, a plant, because that is all we have under consideration right now. First, the consortium proposing to build Sizewell is not exactly champing at the bit to finance it. EDF has effectively mortgaged itself to the hilt in financing 65% of Hinkley C and has stated unequivocally that it is not about to do the same with Sizewell C. Secondly, we still have the arrangement in place concluded by the then Chancellor George Osborne to arrange a fast track into the heart of our nuclear programme for the China National Nuclear Corporation via a Secretary of State’s investment agreement to help fund Hinkley C power station to the tune of 35% of the upfront capital; 20% of the second in the EDF consortium’s programme, Sizewell C; and the big prize for the Chinese—control of the financing, build and running of a third nuclear power station at Bradwell in Essex, which is now unlikely, to the point of impossible, to happen.

It is likely that the Chinese will not be able to get their hands on a real nuclear power station all of their own and they will not be investing into 20% of Sizewell—indeed, the Government seem to have set aside £1.7 billion in the Budget to buy out their interest in Sizewell C. Labour has long warned that the Government are playing a dangerous game when they outsource the funding of critical national infrastructure to foreign Governments. We are now seeing the results of a decade of Conservative Governments doing exactly that, and mostly failing to get anywhere. There we have it in terms of the UK’s nuclear programme for the foreseeable future—only one plant in prospect for a start before the late 2020s.

[John Redwood]

The shadow Minister is very thoughtful on these matters. How much standby capacity does he think we need to back up the wind and solar that will be the majority of our generation in due course?

[Dr Whitehead]

Interestingly, the Climate Change Committee, which has looked into this matter in great depth, considers that in the overall long-term future make-up of our energy mix, about 8 to 10 gigawatts of standby power—therm power—is likely to be required in the shape of new or existing nuclear power stations. That is about the size of the difference with an overwhelmingly renewable but variable economy, with elements of firm power backing it up.

I have mentioned that one plant only that would be included in the suggested 8 GW to 10 GW is in prospect for a start before the late 2020s, because every other proposal has fallen away. However, it is not financed and is probably not financeable by private capital. It is only part financeable by a state financer, with which we do not now want to do business. Let us be clear before we go any further: this Bill is about finding a formula to fund and build Sizewell C power station. Whatever its generic pretensions, that is the issue we should be concentrating on. Even so, getting that plant going would cover most of what the Climate Change Committee considers is the presence in the mix needed.

Net Zero Strategy and Heat and Buildings Strategy

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his warm words of congratulation to the Secretary of State and for his intention to join us in showing real leadership. I agree with him that this should not be a particularly partisan matter. The UK as a whole country expects to see our politicians working together, particularly in the run-up to our hosting the vital COP26. I will deal with his various points in turn.

On power, it is worth pointing out the success that we have had on renewables. The right hon. Gentleman was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change up to 2010. When he left office, renewables were only about 10% of our power mix; now the figure is around 43%. Offshore wind costs have come down by two thirds. He mentioned nuclear, but I am just about old enough to remember the 1997 new Labour manifesto, which stated that there would be no new nuclear projects. It took Labour 10 years to do anything at all on nuclear.

The right hon. Gentleman called our investment in heat and buildings a modest one, but it is £4 billion. The difference between us is that we want to go with the natural choices that families make and to work with businesses, finding the natural point at which a homeowner needs to replace his or her boiler and to incentivise the take-up of a greener choice. He says that the £450 million investment is somehow inadequate, but I think that it will kick-start demand. Octopus Energy and others have said overnight that they think that they can make heat pumps at an equivalent cost to natural gas boilers by April 2022. I have confidence in the ability of British industry and British energy companies to innovate.

On energy-intensive industries, we have our £350 million industry energy transformation fund and we are speaking continually with the sector. We will keep the House informed on that. On nuclear, I have said that new money has been announced. There is the £120 million future nuclear enabling fund for optionality for future advanced modular reactors. Of course we are sticking to our commitment for a final investment decision on a further nuclear power station to be taken in this Parliament.

On hydrogen, the right hon. Gentleman is right to say that the German Government have done good work, through my good friend Peter Altmaier, the German industry and trade Minister, but the UK also has a world-leading hydrogen strategy, which was launched in August. We are aiming for 5 GW of low-carbon hydrogen generation capacity by the year 2030.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s final comment about 2030, our commitment is unchanged, but let us look at his commitment for a moment. [Hon. Members: “It was 2035.”] His leader, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), backed a 2019 manifesto commitment to go to net zero by 2030. Such a commitment would cripple the hard-won economic growth that we have achieved over the past 30 years through our steady approach of growing the economy and reducing emissions at the same time. Even the GMB has said:

“Nobody thinks 2030 is a remotely achievable deadline.”

The CBI has said that there is no credible plan to achieving net zero by 2030. This Government have the right ambition. This is a transition, and it is full of opportunities for jobs and low and zero carbon growth across the UK. The right hon. Gentleman should be backing it in full in the lead-up to Glasgow.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

If heat pumps and electric cars are going to help, we will need to generate all our electricity from green sources, so when will the Government commission the very large amounts of new generating capacity we will need to make them work when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine?

[Greg Hands]

I thank my right hon. Friend for, as always, putting his question very directly, which I have appreciated over many years in the House. I have mentioned our commitment to nuclear and our commitment to the gas sector as a transition fuel. Fortunately, at the moment, we are dependent largely on domestic gas production, in that 50% of our gas usage comes from the UK continental shelf while 30% comes from Norway. The point here is to ramp up our commitment to low and zero carbon fuels. That makes sense for the environment, for our economic security and for our diversification.

UK Gas Market

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 20th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me on to dangerous ground. Of course, any guarantee of that kind has a fiscal implication, which, as he will no doubt be aware, is also a matter for the Treasury. We are in constant discussion about that. I look forward to seeing him in his usual place at the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee on Wednesday. I know that he takes these matters very seriously, and I am sure that we will have a fuller discussion of these subjects then.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State talk to the industry urgently about having more gas storage capacity? We have tiny capacity compared with most advanced countries, and that would provide a buffer to smooth supplies and keep prices down if this turns out, as we hope it will, to be a short-term interruption to supply from Russia and America.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My right hon. Friend, with his characteristic acuity, hits the nail on the head. Gas storage is definitely an issue, but the fact he points out is that we do not know how long this spike in the gas price will last. We must not precipitate a rush or, through any alarmism, instigate panic. There is no cause for that at all, but clearly this is a situation that needs to be reviewed. I am very happy to speak to him about particular solutions. I know that he has various views on interconnectors, and I look forward to discussing with him very frankly the way ahead.

Fuel Poverty

John Redwood Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con) [V]]

I support the Government’s aim of making a major reduction in fuel poverty, and I admire the Minister’s enthusiasm for the task and her wish to share with Parliament and to listen to good ideas from across the House.

There are three ways to tackle fuel poverty. The first is to help people have more efficient appliances and warmer homes so that they need to burn less fuel. The second is to cut the price of fuel itself. The third is to help people find better-paid jobs and give them encouragement in ways to boost their income.

We first need to work through the Minister on these plans and projects so that more homes can be upgraded and people do not have to live in damp and cold surroundings. How right she is about that. I ask her to make common cause with me in approaching the Treasury, because now that we are free to choose what to put VAT on and what to take it off, can we please have a Brexit bonus for those in fuel poverty by taking VAT off all those things they need to buy in order to improve their homes? Why are we still charging VAT on insulation materials, boiler controls and a whole range of green products that are necessary to lower a home’s fuel bill and improve its warmth and fitness for purpose? That would not be too big a charge on the Treasury, in terms of lost revenue, but it would be a great win for both the Government’s green strategy and their fuel poverty strategy. A bit dearer would be tackling the price of fuel directly by taking VAT off domestic fuel in its entirety, and that too I would welcome, because I think that fuel is expensive in this country and electricity is becoming very expensive.

I also urge the Minister to look at electricity policy generally. Time was when we had a great three-legged strategy for electrical power. The first leg was that the Government were responsible for ensuring that we could always generate all the electrical power we needed in Britain for ourselves, with a decent margin of spare capacity in case a large power station went down or there was a sudden surge in demand during a very cold winter. We do not seem to have that any more. I urge her to take action as soon as possible to commission the electrical power that we are going to need, because we do not wish to be dependent on unreliable and potentially very expensive foreign sources for import, should we get into difficulties with the amount of power we have available.

The second leg of the strategy was to go for cheap energy, because that is the way to get industrial recovery and revival, and to get more people out of fuel poverty because they can afford domestic fuel. Again, we seem to have dropped that leg. We seem to be opting for rather dearer fuel. We used to believe that the fuel supplied should always be the cheapest, whereas now, for various reasons, we often opt for a dearer way of producing electricity, or we opt for an apparently cheaper way but we need a lot of back-up capacity because renewables can be interrupted. We need to look at the charging mechanism and try to ensure that, with our overall new mix of energy, we can get cheaper power.

Then of course we also always had green imperatives, which are very necessary, and it is particularly important that clean air is central to the whole ambition, and that wherever we are burning fuels, we do everything we can to avoid dust, soot and particles emerging into the atmosphere, because they are not pleasant for any of us.

Boosting personal incomes is probably too wide a subject for the limited time of this debate, but let me just say that levelling up must be about encouraging people to go on their own personal journeys. It must be about making available the educational opportunities, training opportunities and promotion opportunities, within public bodies and throughout the private sector. It must be about working with people so that they see that if they are low paid today, they have a reasonable prospect of being better paid tomorrow.

Cheap energy can underpin all of that, because if we went for more cheaper energy, supplied domestically, we would have a bigger industrial base, because energy is often a much bigger cost than labour in a modern, fully-automated factory. That would create more better paid jobs to go alongside the factory; I am thinking of all the things that need to be done to design, market and sell on the products that the largely automated factory can produce. So please, Minister, let us make common cause with the Treasury, do more at home and create more better paid jobs at home. Let us understand the role, in all our ambitions, of having enough electrical capacity producing cheap power here.

UK Steel Production: Greensill Capital

John Redwood Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

On procurement, I want to relay to the hon. Lady that we have constructed in government a UK Steel and BEIS Procurement Taskforce, which met for the first time only a couple of weeks ago, on 12 March, chaired by my noble Friend Lord Grimstone. We are absolutely committed to seeing what we can do to make sure that we have a strong steel industry in this country that will support the huge infrastructure needs that our country has in the next decade.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con) [V]]

I strongly support all the measures that the Government will be taking to ensure that public orders concentrate on UK-made steel, where that is possible, but what further measures can the Secretary of State take to ensure that energy prices are realistic and competitive? If we have very dear energy in this country, it will be a major problem for our steel industry.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to point to electricity and energy costs. I am in regular contact with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to see what can be done, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) said, to address that problem.

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con) [V]]

Of course I welcome the idea that we should do everything we can to promote greater science and better technology. Our country has a fine history and tradition of scientific breakthroughs and scientific excellence in our universities and our scientific societies. We also have a fine tradition in technology, with entrepreneurs developing new industrial processes and new products and making great breakthroughs that have benefited humanity widely, and of course we should do everything we can to support that. There may well also be a gap that this body can fill between all the methods we have of backing science and technology, and I wish it every success.

In his introductory remarks, the Minister pointed to the recent great success of universities, companies, medics, scientists and Government in coming together—here and elsewhere, but particularly here—on the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine. Why did that work? Because there was a very clear, defined task. There was great excellence and expertise already in companies and university science, and the Government helped to bring that together, to pump-prime the process and then to provide very large orders, as did other Governments and health services around the world, to make it worthwhile and to defeat the virus.

Now, we hope that do not have too many of those concentrated needs, but that model worked without ARIA, so this body has to define something a bit different from that. I notice that MPs are already discussing the adequacy or inadequacy of its resources, by which they usually mean money. I do not think it is possible to have any idea of what would be a good and realistic budget for it until talented people have been appointed to run it and have set out what it is trying to do. The first thing the Government need to do, therefore, following the success of this legislation—I am sure it will pass quite easily—is to appoint really great people to lead this organisation who just have that feel, that touch and that intelligence to judge risk, to sense opportunity, to see where the niches are and to define the unique breakthroughs and areas where this body can make a serious contribution. As some have said, a scattergun approach is probably not going to work; trying to do too much across too broad a spread would require a lot of good fortune. This body will need some targeting.

ARIA then has to work out how it commercialises whatever it produces. The UK has had a century or more of plenty of breakthroughs and technical innovations, but in quite a lot of cases we did not go on to commercialise and exploit opportunities, and we allowed others around the world to adapt patents or take the underlying principles and develop their own products, making many more jobs and much more commercial success out of these things than we did. The leaders of this body therefore need to ask how they will commercialise the ideas, how big a role that will play, and at what point they will work with commercial companies that could come in and take advantage.

That leads on to the issue of security. I do not think British taxpayers want to spend more money on blue-sky research and interesting technical ideas only to see them taken away, perhaps resulting in many more products for the Chinese to export back to the United Kingdom. What we want is that integrated approach, where the ideas that the Government have helped to pay for through this body, working with universities and perhaps with companies, can go on to be commercialised and add to the stock of wealth and jobs and make a wider contribution to the human position.

I suggest that the Government link the development of this body to the work that they have started to do, and they need to do much more widely, on national resilience. I am an admirer of what President Biden has set out to do in the United States of America on supply chains. He has a very ambitious programme—a 100-day programme for targeted sectors and a one-year programme for all the sectors of the US economy. It is looking at what America can do better, at where America needs to fill in gaps in her knowledge and understanding of patent, designs and specifications, at where America needs to put in new capacity to avoid shortages or more hostile powers interrupting her production processes by withholding import, and at where the Government machine can use intelligent procurement, appropriate grants and interventions to work with the private sector to have a much better supply chain, creating more jobs and providing national resilience.

I hope that the agency will look at what we can do to ensure that we make our weapons and defence requirements, as the new policy suggests that we will do more often. It should look at how we can grow more food and make sure that we have more of our own fish so that we have fewer food miles and more national resilience in the food chain. It should look at a series of industrial areas where we have in the past been very successful to see where we can improve the technology and add to the UK capacity to produce.

My suggestion to Ministers is that the first task is to get really excellent people; the second is to work with them on defining realistic and achievable objectives; and the third is to ensure that the agency is properly resourced—£800 million might be the right amount, but if the agency comes up with really worthwhile things that look as though they will work, we will want to back it with more money. If it was not getting very far, I think a number of MPs who say that they do not mind failure would become rather more critical. This will need quite a lot of ministerial and parliamentary supervision. I wish the agency every success, and I look forward to hearing to more detail about what it is trying to do.

Exiting the European Union

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I have declared my business interests in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. May I reassure the Opposition that I wanted to make a few comments in this debate, and I submitted a request to participate on my own initiative? I have not received any message from the Whips, either before or during these debates, that I should not make a few remarks. With the permission of the House, I will exercise that democratic right.

I understand that there is a parliamentary game going on and that the Opposition want to extend this debate because there are some other things that they do not want to discuss, but that is a matter for them. Oppositions are quite entitled to use what time is available for their own purposes.

[Alan Brown]

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the game is not on the Government’s side, given that they have withdrawn all their speakers, except for his good self?

[John Redwood]

On the contrary. As I have just explained, there has been no pressure to withdraw my application. Some of my right hon. and hon. Friends who thought that they were going to speak in the debate have reread the proposal and realised that, given the incisive eloquence we would hear from the Minister, there was absolutely no need for them to come to the Chamber and duplicate and triplicate that. I have been foolish enough to think that I can add something to the Government’s case, because I support the measure. The fact that my right hon. and hon. Friends seem to have better things to do shows that they are 100% behind the measure, and just want it to be passed as quickly as possible as they attend to their other duties as busy MPs.

So why do I support these regulations, and why are the Government doing this? The first reason is to take back control. That is what millions of people voted for, and many of us are very frustrated that it still has not happened. As the Minister stated clearly, this is about ensuring that, from 1 January, we in this House, on behalf of the British people, can decide for ourselves within international law what the rules shall be on tariffs, quantitative barriers, restrictions and inducements to trade—and how right that is.

I always find it so disappointing that the Opposition, who now say that they understand the spirit of Brexit and have embraced it, do not believe that they can come up with any single improvement on the great body of European law that has been forced on us over many years. I am more optimistic. Working with the talent on the Government Benches, I can see lots of ways of improving on European law. It can be better, not worse, and more rather than less in the right areas. Surely our trade policy should be geared to the interests and concerns of businesses that back this country by investing and creating jobs in it.

[Stephen Doughty]

I raised a serious point in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) about the Falkland Islands. Does the right hon. Member agree that the UK family is a large one, including our overseas territories, and we ought to be backing the fishing fleet in the Falkland Islands that are trying to export squid and calamari to the EU? Will he join me on a cross-party basis in urging the UK Government to address the concerns of the Falkland Islands?

[John Redwood]

Of course I hope we can do things to help the Falkland Islands, as we have over many years. They are clearly part of our family, and blood and treasure have been shed to ensure that they are part of our family, so I above all think that we should do all we can.

From 1 January, we in this House can do the things that are in the power of an independent country. We cannot instruct the EU when we are out of it any more than we could when we were in it. There have been a glittering array of failed issues that we put to the EU on which it did not sympathise with us. We had a series of Governments who were so broken backed that they only ever accepted things that the EU wanted to do and did not try to do anything that we wanted to do, which is why it got so frustrating as a member of that body.

It is about taking back control, and I urge everyone here to be more optimistic about the powers of this House. What is the point of someone being a Member of Parliament if they do not believe that they can improve on anything in the inherited corpus of EU law? Why do the Opposition, on the whole, say, “Everything EU perfect, everything generated in this country rubbish”? It is not plausible, and it is against the spirit of the Brexit majority in this country. They want us to get a grip and do better. If we do not do better, they will change us. That is the joy of Brexit—they, at last, will get back control over us. If the law went wrong in the European Union, it did not matter who was in the Government. Even if they threw the Government out, nothing changed, because the EU would not change the law, whereas if we get the laws wrong, the public will know what to do—they can throw Ministers out.

[Alex Cunningham]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[John Redwood]

I am not giving way, because I have a couple of points to make, and I am conscious that many Members wish to make speeches.

[Lucy Powell]

Where are they then?

[John Redwood]

There are clearly Members on the Opposition Benches wishing to catch Madam Deputy Speaker’s eye.

The second point I want to make is that this is about our balance of trade and our balance of payments. One of the tragedies of our membership of the European Union over nearly 50 years was how we transformed ourselves from an industrial country with a strong farming and fishing industry into one that had been badly damaged by the rules and tariffs that the EU imposed on us and our trade with the rest of the world. It was asymmetric and very cruel.

We lost a large chunk of our motor industry in the first decade of our membership—I think it halved—and we lost a lot of our steel industry. We moved from being a net exporter of fish to being a heavy net importer, with much of our fish taken by foreign vessels and foreign industry. We have lost a lot of our self-sufficiency in temperate food, because the common agricultural policy did not suit us. State aid, cheap energy and so forth on the continent helped places such as the Netherlands to outcompete us on salads and flowers, for example.

We have a big job to do to rebuild ourselves as an industrial, farming and fishing country that is capable of cutting the food miles, cutting the fish miles and delivering more to ourselves and to our own plates through import substitution. I hope that from 1 January, if not before, Ministers will use these new powers to review all the restrictions and rules about trade and tariffs and create a British model that is better and fairer to Britain, so that “made in Britain” means something, and more is made in Britain and willingly bought by British people. It is very difficult for the Opposition to oppose that, although they will doubtless try to, because they always want to sell Britain short and to build the EU up to greater heights. None the less, outside this Chamber there will be great relief to know that at least some people in Parliament wish to see a revival of British fishing, British farming and British industry and to understand that the rules of trade and the skewed subsidies and tariffs against the rest of the world have been extremely damaging to people who want to build businesses and farming activities in the UK and that it is time for a reversal. I wholeheartedly support this measure. I want to take back control and I urge more MPs to get into the spirit of it, and, instead of cavilling and criticising every move that this country wishes to make to be independent, contribute to the debate about how we can be better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amanda Solloway]

Apologies, but I will not be giving way.

As I have made clear, the SI is not a precondition for divergence, nor does the SI itself introduce any diversion from current laws. I have set out today, however, the importance of this SI for ensuring that we are not faced with legal challenges that seek to keep us in line with EU regulations. This will ensure that we have the freedom to regulate in Great Britain how we see fit, considering the impact on businesses and consumers, while ensuring that UK product safety remains one of the strongest in the world.

We have engaged with officials across all the devolved Administrations, sharing drafts of the SI and taking them through the changes as appropriate. Consent has been received from the Welsh and Scottish Governments as some of the changes are subject to devolved competence. The SI will not impact on Wales’s and Scotland’s ability to regulate those that fall under these areas of devolved competence. Articles 34 to 36 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union will still apply in Northern Ireland by virtue of the Northern Ireland protocol. It is therefore not necessary for this SI to extend to Northern Ireland.

[John Redwood]

Will the Minister give way?

[Amanda Solloway]

Apologies, but I am not giving way.

Coming on to business participation, since the summer the Department has been rolling out an ambitious series of readiness events for businesses and has published a range of guidance, including on this requirement, on placing goods on the market from January 2021. Let me once again stress that this SI itself does not—

National Security and Investment Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 17th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I have declared my business interests in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I support the idea of Ministers having powers to prevent foreign acquisitions where security matters are of concern. I trust that Ministers will want to ensure that all the other transactions that do not pose those security issues will go through smoothly, easily and quickly for obvious economic reasons.

There is a wider concern. As Ministers have rightly said, this is not the debate to deal with all the other worries we might have about unsuitable foreign investors, but there is concern out there in the public that we do not want asset-strippers, we do not want large companies that come here in order to gradually close down the UK capacity to take out a competitor, and we do not want them to come in under cover of sustaining jobs in Britain only to take away the intellectual property and then later to discover that they are not so keen on the British business after all.

We do need those protections, but where Ministers are checking their defences on competition grounds as well as on security grounds, they need to ask themselves this fundamental question: why are so many of our assets sold to foreigners? There is, of course, one very simple reason: throughout this century, under all three types of Government we have had so far, we have run a massive balance of trade deficit with the EU on trade account, so we need to raise the foreign currency to pay the bills so we can afford to buy the tomatoes, the vegetables and the German cars and all the other things that we have been importing, not matched by an equal volume of exports to pay those foreign currency bills.

We see that it is having a bigger impact now on our long-term balance of payments situation. Before we ran this long series of huge deficits, we had net assets abroad, which meant that there was a big positive line in our balance of payments, which said that as a country we earned a lot more in interest and dividends from our investments overseas than foreigners earned on the investments they had in the UK. That has now been reversed, and every year now we have a very big deficit on the interest and dividends, because there are so many more foreign claims on us than we have claims on foreign assets.

This is a matter of concern. Ministers need to work on a series of economic revival policies that put much more emphasis on British people investing in Britain, so that we recreate more of that wealth in our own national hands and do not have the vulnerability, that need for foreign currency, which has been brought about by the current twin deficits—the trade deficit and now the deficit on investment income account.

I was very pleased to hear Ministers saying, rightly, that there are many great investment opportunities in the United Kingdom, so we need to deal with this paradox: why is it that foreigners can see them and are piling in with all their money to buy our best ideas, our best companies and our best properties, and why are more British people and British companies not able to do just that? The Government need to work with the British investors, British companies and British entrepreneurs to make it an even better climate for them to do the investing, as well as taking advantage of the foreign investors coming in and giving employment opportunities.

We need that entrepreneurial Britain, which grasps this opportunity and understands that we have a huge opportunity here to take out imports—to grow more of our own food, and to produce more of our own cars and more of our own products generally—so that we chip away at the very big balance of trade deficit, and in turn then generate cash that can be reinvested in the United Kingdom.

This Second Reading debate presents an opportunity to make the wider plea to Ministers that, as we recover from covid and the damage, we remember that £100 billion deficit that we were running in 2019 before covid-19 disrupted world trade and say that that is unacceptable: that means too big an increase in claims by foreigners on our country year after year. That is why we need policies to get the investment in, chipping away at the £20 billion deficit in food with the EU and at the fishing deficit and the car deficit, so that we are generating those jobs on British capital, and starting to reverse that net liability position that now disfigures our accounts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes]

I do, but the challenge in a democratic polity is ensuring sufficient accountability while maintaining that degree of flexibility. It is all much easier in less democratic countries—I use that term as gingerly and modestly as I can—which are not obliged to legitimise or justify what their Governments do. We are—rightly—so the Government are properly scrutinised and held to account. It is right, as my hon. Friend says, that we maintain enough flexibility to respond to the dynamism that I described. But of course, we need mechanisms in place to ensure that that flexibility does not allow the Government too much scope. That is why—this point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) and I emphasise it on behalf of the ISC—Committees in this place missioned to do just that need to play an important role. I know that the Government recognise that, and that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) recognises it.

[John Redwood]

Indeed. This issue—where does security end—is very difficult. If we look at the great wars of the last century, which we do not want to repeat, food supply was absolutely critical and was a great strategic vulnerability of our country.

[Sir John Hayes]

That is true. Vulnerability, of course, is also dynamic. That is why I emphasised, in intervening on my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), that the Government need to get better at assessing risk and modelling the response to it. This is what the Bill begins to do. It has been a long time in the making, but I emphasise that it is welcome because it begins to look at appropriate mechanisms for doing that. So it is certainly necessary.