Business of the House Debate

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Department: Leader of the House

Business of the House

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts
Thursday 3rd February 2022

(2 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The right hon. Lady cannot expect me to speak in favour of abortifacients.

Jonathan Gullis Portrait Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
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The levelling-up White Paper that was launched yesterday will see Stoke-on-Trent become an educational investment area and get multi-million pound funding to bus back better, adding to the £56 million from the levelling-up fund, the £17.6 million Kidsgrove town deal, the £29 million transforming cities fund and the 550 new jobs from the Home Office. There are also the powers to compel rogue and absent landlords of high street shops to fill them and to increase fines when heritage and history is allowed to rot. Does my right hon. Friend agree that Burslem and Tunstall, which he has visited, deserve a future high streets task force?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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I did indeed visit. I got to try some of Margaret’s famous vanilla custards at the Tunstall indoor market and she gave me supplies to eat on the train back to London. Stoke-on-Trent already receives support from the Government’s high streets task force, which announced its first tranche of bespoke expert support last year. It is staggering the delivery of its expert support to a total of 152 selected local authorities over the period 2021-24, but my hon. Friend is a brilliant campaigner for any cakes that are available.