Budget Resolutions

John Whitby Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I do not want to say that the hon. Gentleman should listen a bit harder to the Chancellor when is giving a Budget, but he went into detail on that. I will expand on what the better regulation taskforce will mean.

Specifically on the employment rights agenda, we know that the Conservatives do not like it—that is not a secret—but I would simply say to the hon. Member that we have a manifesto commitment to address in particular insecurity in the workplace, including the 1 million people on zero-hours contracts. Let Conservative colleagues not forget that the premise of that particular measure is that where a person works a regular number of hours, they will receive, if they wish to, a contract for those hours—not additional costs. Additional costs are not present when someone get a contract that reflects what they are already working.

The rest of the agenda may not be popular with the Conservative party, but it is certainly popular with the country. And because of that agenda—[Interruption.] I know the Conservatives did not stick to their own manifesto commitments, but we will stick to ours. Because of that agenda, of course want to reduce burdens in other places; it is an entirely noble agenda and one that reflects the interests of British business. The hon. Member may be aware—the Chancellor did speak about this in the statement—that there is an aspiration to reduce business burdens by 25% over the course of this Parliament. That will be delivered through the new Better Regulation Executive. It brings together the power of the Treasury, the Cabinet Office and my Department to move us towards a more streamlined and proportionate regulatory system—one that spurs growth, investment and innovation across the country.

I also warmly welcome the Chancellor increasing access to finance for ambitious founders and entrepreneurs. In the Budget, he introduced a new founders relief to encourage a new wave of wealth creation. Founders and early investors will benefit from a 10% capital gains tax rate on up to £10 million of lifetime gains. Dom Hallas from Startup Coalition said:

“The chancellor has delivered the boldest action backing startups and scaleups of any government in years.”

Meanwhile, the trading allowance for people starting new ventures is being tripled from £1,000 to £3,000, and £700 million is going towards home-grown innovation, strengthening Britain’s sovereignty and ensuring that tomorrow’s technologies are developed and adopted right here in the UK.

On top of all that, the Budget gives the British Business Bank £1.4 billion of additional commercial equity capacity, allowing it to back specialist venture capital funds in strategic sectors and larger growth funds capable of writing the cheques needed to keep the UK’s fastest-growing companies scaling here. The package is expected to leverage around £4.2 billion of private capital and create 14,500 additional jobs. That builds on the landmark investments the bank has already made, backing businesses across the UK: from Optima Partners, the Edinburgh-based AI consultancy, to Pharos Marine, the Norfolk manufacturer of navigation aids for offshore wind farms and ports, to Oxford Space Systems, whose satellite antennas were launched into orbit earlier this year.

Our industrial strategy is also making a difference. It is an essential part of our ambition to reindustrialise Britain and back our own sovereign capabilities. It is delivering on industrial energy costs, reversing what we inherited from the previous Government, with the highest industrial energy costs in the developed world. We are slashing electricity bills by 25% for over 10,000 British manufacturers through the British industrial competitiveness scheme. We are cutting electricity costs for those businesses by up to £40 per MWh, bringing their costs closer into line with competitors across Europe, with eligible businesses also receiving a one-off additional payment in 2027 to cover the support that they would have been received if BICS had been in place from April this year, correcting years of Conservative failure.

We are channelling investment into the eight high growth-driving sectors of our economy, including life sciences and advanced manufacturing. The Budget confirmed over £1 billion of new life sciences investment, from Kindeva, Vertex and Convatec, backed by almost £70 million of Government funding. It gave the green light to a partnership that I am particularly proud of: a partnership with Rolls-Royce to develop its next generation of turbine engine technology here in Britain. This is the single biggest reindustrialisation opportunity that the UK has before it.

[John Whitby (Derbyshire Dales) (Lab)]

I very much welcome the investment in Rolls-Royce; many of my constituents work there. What impact will the investment have on opportunities for young people in Derbyshire Dales?

[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.

Small-scale Fracking Ban

John Whitby Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alison Hume]

I completely agree with the hon. Member. We must listen to our local communities, who are telling us loud and clear that they do not want fracking on their back door, in their beautiful fields or in the countryside.

Since 2019, there has been a moratorium on fracking across the UK—a decision taken after Lancashire was rocked by an earthquake caused by fracking operations at Preston New Road. However, not all forms of fracking are currently covered by the moratorium. The Petroleum Act 1998 uses a fluid-based definition for fracking. Section 4B(1)(b) describes it as

“the injection of…more than 1,000 cubic metres of fluid at each stage, or expected stage, of the hydraulic fracturing, or…more than 10,000 cubic metres of fluid in total.”

The volume of liquid proposed for the Burniston site is under that threshold, so despite the intent of the plans being exactly the same—to explore for and to extract gas by injecting a substance into the rock at pressure to cause it to fracture—the current legislation actually allows Europa to do exactly what the moratorium should be there to block. It is clear that the volume-based definition has created a legal loophole for oil and gas companies to evade the Government’s ban on fracking and proceed to do so under a different name—in this case, “proppant squeeze”.

The Burniston application is not the first time that planning permission has been sought in England for proppant squeeze. Between 2016 and 2019, Egdon Resources applied several times and was eventually granted planning permission for a proppant squeeze in north Lincolnshire, with a hydraulic fracture plan approved in May 2021. In November 2024 another company, Rathlin Energy, also applied to the Environment Agency for permission to carry out similar work at West Newton, an oil and gas site in East Yorkshire.

There is no evidence that the volume of fluid used can accurately determine the risk of seismic events. However, the volume of fluid proposed for use at the Burniston site in my constituency surpasses the highest daily fluid amount in the week leading up to the 2019 earthquake that triggered the existing moratorium. Seismologists have warned that our country’s geology responds unpredictably to even small injections, under- scoring that any fracking has risk, regardless of fluid volume.

[John Whitby (Derbyshire Dales) (Lab)]

Parts of Derbyshire are threatened by fracking because they fall within the Bowland-Hodder basin. We have a complex limestone geography, historical mine workings and natural cave systems. Fracking could undermine sub-surface stability and cause earthquakes, as it has elsewhere. Reform is promising to end the moratorium on fracking. That threatens the character of our natural landscapes and would further pollute our rivers. The last time I looked, we were in the middle of a climate emergency and the last thing that we need is more fossil fuels. Does my hon. Friend agree that a national ban on all types of fracking is the only way to protect our landscapes and environment?

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. I will place this on the record: Mr Speaker deprecates prepared interventions. Interventions are supposed to be a comment on what is being said at the time. I understand that even Members from areas as far from Yorkshire and Derbyshire as Northern Ireland have constituency interests in this topic, but what you say really must relate to the debate.

Decarbonisation of Cement

John Whitby Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Whitby (Derbyshire Dales) (Lab)]

Cement may not grab headlines, but it quite literally holds up our country. Virtually every hospital, school, bridge and home is built using cement. Without a thriving cement industry, it will not be possible to deliver the renewal our nation needs and the 1.5 million homes the Government have committed to build.

Derbyshire is the proud home of Britain’s cement and lime industry. This critical material has been made there for generations, sustaining families, supporting our local economies and making the midlands one of our country’s great industrial powerhouses. Today, Derbyshire and neighbouring Staffordshire account for around 40% of all the cement and lime produced in the UK, and the industry supports more than 2,000 high-quality and well-paid jobs in our communities.

However, cement also produces significant carbon emissions, with around 7% of all carbon emissions globally coming from cement—more than come shipping and aviation combined. To put that in scale, in the UK, cement produces more carbon emissions than the entire city of Birmingham. We simply cannot tackle the climate crisis, safeguard our planet for future generations and deliver a net zero economy without tackling this issue.

At the same time, our UK cement industry faces increased pressure, with UK cement production now at its lowest levels since 1950 and imported cement making up an increasing share of the market. Decarbonisation should never mean deindustrialisation, and without action, we risk losing high-skilled jobs across the midlands and the north and an industry that is vital to our nation.

It is therefore essential that we invest in new technologies and make the UK, and Derbyshire in particular, world-leading producers of clean, green cement. Many of these technological innovations are already being pioneered right here in Britain. For example, Cambridge Electric Cement has developed a means of recycling used concrete back into cement, and the Institution of Structural Engineers notes that nine British-based cement innovations are working to take captured carbon and store it within the concrete itself.

I was also pleased to recently meet with Coolbrook, which is developing a heater that will heat air up to 1,700°C without burning fossil fuels. That would allow cement plants to replace the fuel used for burning with electric heating and reduce the amount of CO₂ produced by between 30% to 40%. I encourage the Government to do all they can to support those emerging technologies and to use their research and development funding to ensure that such exciting innovations become commercially viable.

However, even if we reduce emissions from energy to zero, two-thirds of cement emissions are the by-product of the chemical process used to produce cement, and these emissions cannot be cut without carbon capture and storage. That means that even if all the exciting developments I have mentioned succeed, we cannot achieve zero-carbon cement without carbon capture and storage. Indeed, the fact that carbon dioxide is created as part of the chemical process used to make cement means that only carbon capture can eliminate the majority of emissions from its production.

To be clear, these projects have nothing to do with prolonging the use of fossil fuels. It is entirely about ensuring that we can safeguard this vital and important industry and protect the secure, high-quality, unionised jobs that are rooted in local communities such as the Hope valley. Without carbon capture and storage, we either have to stop producing cement or we fail to decarbonise—neither is an option that we can afford.

That is why Peak Cluster is so important. Based in the Hope valley, it is the world’s largest cement decarbonisation project, with the potential to decarbonise 40% of the UK’s cement and lime production. Under this project, carbon produced in Derbyshire through the production of cement will be captured and transported to Morecambe Net Zero, which will repurpose the Morecambe bay gas fields into a permanent and secure carbon storage facility, capable of storing more than 1 billion tonnes of CO₂. That is a real example of how a just transition can protect workers and communities while reducing carbon emissions.

This world-leading innovation will also deliver major economic benefits for our country, supporting more than 13,000 jobs and attracting around £5 billion of private investment. It also has the potential to remove more than 3 million tonnes of CO₂ each year, equivalent to a quarter of all the emissions created in Derbyshire and Staffordshire every single year.

That is why I was delighted that, in July, the National Wealth Fund announced that it would make its first venture into carbon capture and invest £28 million in Peak Cluster. This historic step demonstrates how the National Wealth Fund can play a major role in crowding in private investment and create the good, clean jobs of the future. It is estimated that every £1 of public investment in the project will deliver £4 of benefits. This is an economic opportunity that we cannot waste.

However, the job is not done yet. The investment from the National Wealth Fund is hugely welcome, but it is only the start. For the project to reach final investment decisions and unlock billions of pounds in private capital, industry needs one thing above all: certainty. At present, there is no clear route to market for carbon capture and storage projects beyond the track 1 and track 2 clusters. Without a defined framework for projects like Peak Cluster, private investors are left in limbo, which risks stalling progress just when momentum is building. We have seen too many examples in the past where projects received initial support from Government, only to stall because the next stage of policy never followed through. This cannot be another one of those cases.

I have two specific questions for the Minister. First, will he confirm that the Government will establish a clear route to market for industrial carbon capture projects beyond track 1 and track 2? Establishing a clear route to market would give investors and operators confidence that a final investment decision on Peak Cluster and Morecambe Net Zero will be made within this Parliament. The sooner that is done, the sooner businesses will have the certainty needed to invest, and the sooner all of us will benefit from the growth that such investments will deliver.

Secondly, will the Minister commit to introducing a contract for difference-style model for carbon capture to ensure that projects like Peak Cluster have the revenue certainty needed to attract private capital? Contracts for difference played a key role in enabling the widespread growth in renewable energy, and can also play a major role in supporting the growth of carbon capture technology. However, investing in clean cement here in the UK will be of no use if our builders import more polluting cement from abroad. The amount of imported cement has tripled over the last 20 years. Not only does imported cement have a higher carbon footprint, but the use of such cement undermines our British industry. The Government’s announcement that they will introduce a carbon border adjustment mechanism is therefore very welcome news, and demonstrates that this Labour Government will not allow our industrial industries to be offshored.

Furthermore, builders must also be incentivised to use cleaner, greener cement, and this will only be done if there are clear incentives to do so. It is therefore time for us to legislate to ensure that all developments report on how much carbon is released through the production and use of construction materials. Mandatory embodied carbon reporting is needed to drive down the emissions released from construction. Mandatory reporting would provide consistency to the construction industry, which must currently deal with a patchwork of local regulations, and reporting would also help stimulate the growth of lower-carbon building materials. Only sufficient demand will enable low-carbon technologies to develop at scale, and this demand can only be achieved through appropriate regulation.

The EU has plans to introduce mandatory embodied carbon reporting from 2028, and to set project limits on embodied carbon from 2030. When we left the EU, it was made clear that we would not reduce our environmental and climate standards, and I encourage the Government to align with the EU. The introduction of embodied carbon requirements in the EU also means that if we fail to decarbonise cement in the UK, our cement industry could be locked out of such markets, as builders will be required to use only low-carbon products in construction.

It is time once again to forge our future

“in the white heat of technology”.

By acting now, we can safeguard our historic industries, support our Government’s mission for growth, and deliver a more sustainable and greener world. It is time to be ambitious and to back British industry. It is, after all, desirable that the materials that build Britain are made in Britain.

I finish by returning to Peak Cluster. After all, whatever other positive interventions we make, simple chemistry means that we cannot cut the majority of emissions from cement without carbon capture. If we do not invest now, we will simply kick this can down the road, allowing other countries to move ahead of us and develop this emerging industry before we do. Today, I once again encourage the Minister to invest in jobs, British industry and decarbonisation. That can be done only if we establish a clear route for carbon capture projects not included in track 1 and track 2, and I encourage the Minister to establish such a route as quickly and urgently as possible.

Closure of High Street Services: Rural Areas

John Whitby Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I commend the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for securing this important debate. He and I know the importance of retaining a physical high street in our own highlands and island communities—the most rural in the country. It is their very rurality—the distance between towns, islands and villages—that makes it so important that we retain high street services in the towns we have.

It is not all decline, of course. In the main town in my constituency, Stornoway, the construction of a £50 million cruise ship terminal by the Stornoway port authority has given a new dynamic to the town. There are now more coffee shops than there are butchers in Stornoway. Although I cherish the memories that the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross told us about of buying broken biscuits from his local shop, he must recognise that although times have changed, in the heart of our towns and villages there are older institutions: the butcher—there is a choice of three in Stornoway, and I will not say which one people should buy their Stornoway black pudding from, because they are all good—the crofters store, Tommy Nicolson’s the newsagents, and, as there should be at the heart of every town, the post office.

It is the plight of the post office network, and plans by the Post Office to change or downgrade the Crown offices or the directly managed branches, that I wish to highlight today. I am extremely concerned about the potential closure of the main post office in Stornoway. That move comes as part of a wider announcement that 115 post office branches, which remain Crown offices or directly managed branches, are being considered for closure or moved to a franchise model. Our main branch in Stornoway is extremely valued by islanders—it is a beautiful building that is over 100 years old and in the heart of the town centre.

[John Whitby (Derbyshire Dales) (Lab)]

On the point about longevity and heritage, Wirksworth Heritage Centre—a key community space and cultural asset in Derbyshire Dales—has recently had to close because of economic pressures. Does my hon. Friend recognise the specific challenges facing cultural and heritage sites on rural high streets?

[Torcuil Crichton]

I do. I mentioned that the building in which in the main post office—the Crown office—in Stornoway is housed in is beautiful and over a century old. Although I understand that the Stornoway post office may itself be retained, it may be converted into a franchise and moved elsewhere. That would have a detrimental effect on the town centre. The post office is right smack in the middle of town and easily accessible. It is, ironically, next to a closed TSB bank branch—the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross highlighted the problems of banks closing across the United Kingdom.