Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

Most in the sector would agree that Oflog—the Office for Local Government—had a vague remit that was an expensive way of gathering data. In the end, if it were to be developed, we could risk mission creep whereby its remit would verge into the areas that local authorities so disliked about the former Audit Commission. We are trying to get the right balance between the early warning system that enables us to see which individual councils are under stress, and, importantly, noting any developing systemic threats or themes for which central Government might have to take much earlier action. We want to rebuild that early warning system.

However, we are absolutely clear that we are not replacing the Audit Commission. For one, it was hugely expensive, and we need to ensure that any money goes to the frontline of local public services. Honestly, councils do not need inspectors going in to mark their homework when they should be trusted to get on and do the job well. People understand what the National Audit Office is, so we hope that they will understand and see the benefit of a local audit office, and that it will be embraced by the sector.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Will the Minister set out how he expects local authorities such as mine in Buckinghamshire to absorb with such little notice multi-million pound impacts from significant changes to the social care funding formula, and the effects of the NICs rises on commissioned services and suppliers, particularly charities such as Mind, which will be greatly affected by the changes?

[Jim McMahon]

Again, the hon. Lady’s council will see a core spending power increase of 5%, and that is only this part of the settlement—it does not include extended producer responsibility or billions of pounds in other grants that will come. This is a genuine attempt to make sure we give councils the funding that is needed, and I think we have succeeded in a very difficult context, but it is a matter of fact that some councils’ local tax bases are stronger, for reasons that go back many years and, in some cases, many centuries. That is not because of the efforts of the local council—it is what it is—and for too long, councils in deprived communities with lower tax bases have done everything that has been asked of them. They have raised council tax to the maximum, so local communities are paying more and more, but increasingly they are getting less and less. They are seeing their neighbourhood services diminish.

There are tough choices, and we do not shy away from that. We have been very honest in the oral statement about the trade-offs that have had to be made, but the increase of 5% in the core spending power of the hon. Lady’s council will help deal with the issues she has raised.

Building Safety

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady has made a series of important points. I know that she has already been in touch with the Department, but I want to be more closely in touch with her. Our project team, Operation Apex, are making sure that we can do everything possible to ensure that the ultimate responsible owner is identified and takes on responsibility for the work to which the hon. Lady has correctly drawn attention. I look forward to working more closely with her to address precisely that issue.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for standing up for leaseholders, particularly young people who have just got on to the housing ladder. May I ask him to look again at sprinklers as a safety measure? They are required in many countries, and the fact that they are not required here has always perplexed me. I also ask him to ensure that the building materials used for social housing are subject to the necessary level of scrutiny. Developers often use lower-quality materials which create a greater risk to safety, and we need to protect social housing tenants as well.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She was an incredibly hard-working figure in local government in London, where she helped to ensure that the needs of those in social housing were understood. There are specific provisions in the building safety legislation introduced by the Minister for Housing, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), to address some of those questions about poor-quality material social housing.

Building Safety Bill

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Leaseholders have very little recourse and, from the announcements today, their passage of recourse remains incredibly uncertain.

Let me start with what is in the Bill. The first major change sets up the building safety regulator, a key recommendation of the Hackitt report. The regulator will oversee “higher risk buildings,” which have been defined as essentially over 18 metres. The Select Committee raised questions about whether the scope should be extended. The Fire Brigades Union says that 11 metres or four storeys would be a safer threshold, as that is the threshold that firefighters can reach with their ladders. The Secretary of State himself said last year that we should not rely on

“crude height limits with binary consequences,”

that do not

“reflect the complexity of the challenge at hand.”—[Official Report, 20 January 2020; Vol. 670, c. 24.]

The two-tiered system this Bill creates is particularly stark when we look at privatised building control, which will continue to operate below 18 metres. The Hackitt report recognised that choice over building control inspection is a major weakness in the current system, allowing cosy relationships to flourish between developers and the private inspectors they pay handsomely.

The regulator will be the building control body for taller buildings, but not for those under 18 metres, even where other risks could remain. The Government should think again about their arbitrary definition of high-risk buildings.

Secondly, this Bill establishes clear responsibilities for building safety throughout a building’s life, in a golden thread of information. Lack of transparency was a key issue identified in the Hackitt report. The Grenfell inquiry has exposed how some building owners belittled residents as troublemakers rather than keeping them informed about the safety of their homes. The new system must be fully open and transparent to residents and leaseholders.

The need for transparency extends to the testing regime, which the Hackitt report found to be opaque and insufficient. While the Bill sets a framework for the regulation of construction products, the Government have kicked the issue of product testing down the road. This must be re-examined.

Thirdly, the Bill sets up limited mechanisms to recoup costs from developers, through legal action and a levy. The principle of the polluter must pay should apply to the building safety scandal. Labour has long been calling on the Government to take stronger action against developers who cut dangerous corners.

Extending the period in which a developer can be sued is welcome, but residents in many buildings will not be able to take advantage. The relationship of leaseholders and developers is like David and Goliath. Legal action is uncertain, expensive and risky, requiring money that leaseholders simply do not have. It also requires that a company still exists to sue, yet many have disappeared. What is more, given what we know from the Hackitt report and elsewhere, in how many cases can all the blame be legally pinned on a developer, given the failures of the regulatory regime at the time? Very few, I would imagine.

Finally, the Bill makes some changes around the new homes and social housing ombudsmen. After significant delay, some social housing reforms have finally come through, but how will the Secretary of State ensure that the social housing regulator has real teeth?

Although there are things we welcome in the Bill that will improve building safety into the future, there are, as I am sure we will hear from Members across the House, serious concerns about what is missing and the way in which ruinous costs for remediation works will still fall on leaseholders. What began as a cladding scandal after Grenfell has now led to a total breakdown in confidence in most tall and multi-storey buildings. This has now become a building safety crisis affecting hundreds of thousands of people. Young, first-time buyers have gone bankrupt. Couples have put having children on hold. Marriages have broken down. Life savings and assets have gone. Retirements have been ruined. The mental health and financial toll is incalculable.

Fundamentally, the Bill betrays leaseholders who will still face life-changing costs for problems that they did not create and who are trapped in unsellable, uninsurable and unmortgageable homes, notwithstanding some of the Secretary of State’s announcements today, which I fear will do little to resolve the situation. Two Prime Ministers, his two immediate predecessors and the Secretary of State himself have all said that leaseholders should not pay. I agree—I think we all agree in here—so why does the Bill not say it? On at least 17 different occasions in this House, they promised, even to their own Back Benchers, that they would protect leaseholders. We heard during the passage of the Fire Safety Act 2021 that the Building Safety Bill was the place to do so, so where is it? It is not in there.

What is more, legal advice on what is in the Bill says that the betrayal of leaseholders is even worse. As drafted, the Bill bakes in leaseholders’ potential liability. Our legal advice is that clause 124 provides very little additional protections. Their legal opinion is that this Bill in its totality, including clause 99, makes it

“more certain that remediation costs will fall under service charges”—

and be passed on. So on the Government’s fundamental promise to leaseholders, the Bill fails. No wonder they are furious, and bereft.

Of course, I welcome the building safety fund; it is a good thing, and it could provide a solution for many buildings. I have to commend the Secretary of State on getting £5.1 billion out of the Chancellor—he seems to have better negotiating skills than his boss, the Prime Minister. It is a lot of money and it could go some way to resolving the situation if it is properly used, but I do not understand why his financial commitment is not being met with the same zeal and determination to give it proper effect. His approach has so far been blighted by inertia and indifference and is now beset by increasing costs, relying on those in the industry who have created much of this mess to get us out of it. I have to tell him that it is just not working. Even his own Back Benchers accused him of “shocking incompetence”, and I feel that that view might be spreading after today’s shenanigans with his statement.

Let me explain: the scope of the fund is way too narrow and the deadlines for applying too tight, and yet it is being administered far too slowly, with just 12p in every pound of the fund allocated. At its current pace, it will be 2027 before the fund is even allocated. And because there is no grip on the wider issues, as we have been discussing today—such as risk, cost, work quality, accountability and sign-off—nearly all multi-storey buildings are now affected. Even when cladding is removed, a new, ever-growing list of additional seemingly necessary works are added. This means that innocent and drained leaseholders are constantly at the mercy of a system, with no accountability and no confidence in it, with an industry unable to take on risk, cornering a broken market for works, arguing over responsibility and unwilling to insure, mortgage or step up, all the while leaving leaseholders carrying the can. That is why this crisis is now affecting so many and costs keep going up. The truth is that all sense of appropriate risk has gone out of the system. The Secretary of State has talked about that today, and I have heard him say it many times before, but I am not sure what he is doing about it. Notwithstanding what is in his statement today, I still do not know whether this will provide the transparency, the recourse, or the scrutiny that leaseholders need. He says that there should be a clear route for residents to challenge. What would that route be? How would it work? What teeth would it have? He said that there will be more guidelines. What are they? When will they be published? Can we see them? Will this really have the effect that leaseholders need it to have, because time is a luxury that these homeowners simply do not have.

This is not just about the one-off high remediation costs that homeowners are facing today; it is that insurance premiums have gone through the roof, service charges are rocketing, and the waking watch, which we have heard so much about, and other costs are leaving leaseholders paying hundreds of pounds a month extra already.

Recent Government guidance has made the situation worse. Their advice note from January 2020 effectively brought all buildings of any height into scope of the dreaded EWS1 form. After today’s announcement, is that now scrapped? Does that guidance note still exist? [Interruption.] I do not know whether it is in the statement. I did not read it in there. The Secretary of State is pointing to it from a sedentary position. If it is in there, people need to know that now so that we can discuss it, and we should have known it before this debate; it is a very important thing to know. If he wants to come to the Dispatch Box to tell us whether that January 2020 advice note is now effectively scrapped, he can do so, because it is essential that people know that.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lucy Powell]

If the hon. Lady knows the answer, I will happily give way.

[Joy Morrissey]

I am not completely positive, but it did say in the statement that the EWS1 form should not be required in buildings of 18 metres, which is a welcome change. Common sense seems to be prevailing in this debate now. I welcome that announcement. Does the hon. Lady agree that this is something that we have been campaigning on for quite some time and that it is a welcome change to the legislation.

[Lucy Powell]

Well, it is not actually legislation. The hon. Lady is wrong about that. Yes, of course, we would welcome that. The crucial words that she said there were “should not”, not would not, and that is a different thing entirely. We still need to know on what terms that will be enforced, what recourse would a leaseholder have, and to whom, and what teeth will they have in order to put that into effect. Is it legislation? [Interruption.] I think the Secretary of State is trying to tell me that it is going to be legislation. [Interruption.] Oh, it is just down to the lenders. I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman if he wants to explain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement that the EWS1 forms should not be required for buildings below 18 metres; lenders were insisting on EWS1 forms, despite buildings not meeting the proper criteria in the new guidance, so it is a welcome announcement. I also welcome the announcements in the written statement on working towards market correction with regard to the total risk aversion that we are seeing in the market from lenders and surveyors, and the absolute stagnation in the market.

However, I echo the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and by the Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), regarding leaseholders and the issue of clause 124. I would like to see much greater levels of legislation to support leaseholders. I am speaking on behalf not just of the leaseholders, but of the parents of leaseholders in my constituency—parents in Beaconsfield, Marlow, Flackwell Heath and Iver who have given their life savings to help support their child to buy their first home, usually in London. The children of my constituents are now stuck in homes that they cannot afford to move out of because of the spiralling cost of insurance and the cost to the leaseholder that has been incurred because of the building safety regulations.

I ask that we consider how to help leaseholders. These are Conservative voters and the children of Conservative voters, who are now frustrated and angry that they cannot move up the housing ladder. We need to consider a way forward for them and remember that they have done what we Conservatives say that we always want to do: enable people to buy a home and get on the housing ladder. We are blocking them from moving forward. I ask the Secretary of State please to consider further action to help and support leaseholders.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Matt Rodda.

Oxford-Cambridge Arc

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) for securing this debate, which is very appropriate for not only those from our county, but those from adjacent counties as well. I pay special tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), who is here to show solidarity and concern for his local residents. He is an MP, and our only Minister, who continues to put the needs of his residents first. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) and my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) for their contributions.

May I start by inviting the Minister for Housing, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), to take a special trip to south Buckinghamshire? There is no better way to understand the complexities of what we are discussing in this debate than to visit and see at first hand what things are like in places such as Denham, Iver, Beaconsfield, Gerrards Cross and Marlow. We would love to have the Minister, and I think he might enjoy the trip.

In addition to what my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe has already alluded to, I would like to speak about the Oxford-Cambridge arc, the spatial framework and what appears to be a top-down housing target. Housing numbers are clearly the primary objective for establishing the arc and a token account is paid, through various vision documents, to innovation, environmental improvements or other place-based factors. However, it is unclear why the arc would be a key enabler for these in preference to working on a cross-boundary basis with existing strategic authorities, as initiated by England’s Economic Heartland.

I mention England’s Economic Heartland because Bucks, and particularly south Bucks, has the highest level of entrepreneurs, small business owners and self-employed people in the whole country. We are an economic powerhouse, and we will be so particularly after covid and the covid recovery. We are very focused on economic growth, job creation and vital infrastructure in Bucks. The housing will follow that, but we need to get the fundamentals right.

Local communities fear—as do I, as the local MP—that when that is combined with the changes to planning regulation, proposed planning regulation or the use of the old housing need algorithm, we will not be able to cope with the housing numbers that are placed on us. That is true of places across my constituency, but Bourne End and other towns have already seen the effects of over-development where all strategic green space and common land have already been given over to developers.

The spatial framework is something that I object to. With the existing planning responsibilities, it is unclear, as it appears to insert an additional layer of Government direction on housing and potential economic development. The framework proposals would need to be incorporated into new local plans, or the plans would risk being found unsound. Without a democratic mandate and with the possibility of facing strong opposition from local groups and planning authorities, it is unclear how these proposals would move forward. We do not have the strategic oversight of the London plan or a mayoral structure that has devolved power, so who would be accountable for this democratically unelected right to impose on us?

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has put her finger right on the heart of it. In other areas where they have these grand regional plans, there is a regional identity and a democratic personification of that in a regional Mayor. We do not have that in the Ox-Cam arc, do we?

[Joy Morrissey]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Although I am not advocating any more devolved power, if people in London and the west midlands do not like the strategic framework, they can at least vote the Mayor out. That is not the case here, and we have some of the most economically valuable land in the country. Covid has only shown how valuable and desirable our part of the country is to live in. People want to move from London to south Bucks. My fear is that the housing numbers and the algorithm set will just meet the housing demands of London rather than meeting the needs of local residents, who are desperate for more infrastructure, GP surgeries, better roads, better wi-fi connectivity and the basic amenities already afforded to London residents. Again, I would welcome the Minister visiting and touring south Bucks to see the unique perspective and challenges that we face.

I ask the Minister and the Government to support the alternative Buckinghamshire approach. Buckinghamshire and its council are not anti-growth. It is accepted that housing growth will continue at already high rates. However, those targets should be determined at local level. Bucks, in co-operation with its LEP, Buckinghamshire Business First, and health partners already put forward to Government an ambitious recovery and growth proposal. Discussions on that have commenced.

We urge the Government to work with Buckinghamshire Council to progress this bottom-up, democratically driven approach, to accelerate jobs, infrastructure and economic growth, rather than follow top-down and imposed targets within the structure of the arc or strategic framework, without democratic accountability. We have seen examples of how well we can work together, because every single week those partners were working and talking together during covid, to deliver the covid response effectively for Bucks residents. I believe we can move forward with an economic recovery plan for Bucks and Milton Keynes.

I have a few questions for the Minister, based on concerns residents have continually raised with me, about housing numbers and demands. The concern from residents across south Buckinghamshire is that more people from London will come to Beaconsfield, Marlow and Gerrards Cross, and the vital housing of bungalow-style, single-storey homes for older residents or the children of Bucks residents who are desperate to get on the housing ladder, will not be provided. If a percentage of housing were allocated only to Bucks residents, that would go a long way in securing more local support on the ground.

Do the millions of homes mentioned as part of the arc factor into the existing extremely high housing numbers already proposed in Buckinghamshire, or will they be additional numbers imposed on us at some point? How up to date are the data that inform the supposed need for the arc in the first place, given that covid and Brexit have changed the numbers and demands for inner London, outer London and surrounding green belt areas? Is the demand still the same as it was before?

With yet more pressure being put on Buckinghamshire, we require more protection for our green spaces, which have been left, unlike in London, without the expected levels of protection. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe has AONB land, as has the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green). I have nothing, apart from Burnham Beeches, which is run by the City of London. I do not have a lot of common land that is protected. We do not have metropolitan open land, because that is an inner green belt protection.

There are basic statutory protections for existing green space that we do not have in my constituency. Most of our green belt land is agricultural green belt land, which is owned by independent farmers or the council. That is problematic for development because it can be sold off piecemeal, and whole areas of biodiversity and vital areas of green infrastructure will be lost for ever, because there is not strategic oversight or protection put in place on that land.

Many other members of the arc have that protection, but south Buckinghamshire does not. As the local Member of Parliament, I want to fight to ensure that existing green spaces, biodiversity and protection for the lungs of London are in place for future generations. The relentless expansion of development into the lungs of London will have a dire consequence, not only for Buckinghamshire but anyone in outer London who values decent air quality, lower carbon emissions and a better quality of life.

[Mr Baker]

My hon. Friend reminds me of a discussion we had about the way that housing is built. Will she agree that it is really important that, when housing goes in, sufficient green space exists through developments, so that people can still feel that they are getting the benefits of the environment and an environmental amenity, even in the places right where they live?

[Joy Morrissey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent point. I thank the Minister and Government for initiating new nature reserves and the rewilding of areas such as Buckinghamshire, where we need to preserve green space, while adding strategic housing development. I welcome those excellent proposals and I am looking forward to working with the Minister on how we can take them forward in the county.

I would like to see a focus, particularly in Buckinghamshire, on biodiversity and on protecting the wild spaces, waterways, ancient woodlands, marshlands and meadows of south Buckinghamshire. The economic, ecological and environmental vandalism of proposals, done piecemeal, by predatory development, forgets the key and most beautiful part of living in south Bucks—the green space, the rolling hills and the quality of life that residents choose to have. Perhaps it is further from London and a longer commute, but residents are paying the price because they want to have that green space. I cannot express the value that every resident in Buckinghamshire places on that green space. They will fight to the death to maintain it and save it, not only for their community but for future communities. I as their MP will do the same.

I hope that the Minister will continue to look at alternative ways of incorporating new innovation that the Government is proposing for environmental biodiversity. First, the Government could perhaps include the Colne Valley Regional Park and Burnham Beeches in an expanded AONB or a national park, or they could find another way of providing additional protection when more housing demands are being put into the local area. If those things can be done in tandem with a locally led approach that values the opinions of residents in the county, we can move forward in a positive way, meeting the demand for housing but also preserving our green belt and green space and to build the infrastructure that we vitally need for the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Very easily, Sir Edward. It is a pleasure to have a chance to contribute, and to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) on securing the debate. If I may, I shall start with one of the points that he raised. Coming in as a Member of Parliament in 2010, we thought we were burying regional development agencies in the east of England, one of which was the East of England Development Agency. However, if one looks to the origins of the Oxford-Cambridge arc idea, essentially it is a regional development corporation idea: it stems from 2003, during the Blair period. It was given body and voice by the 2017 National Infrastructure Commission report by Lord Adonis—another leading figure of that period of government.

The first—and fundamental—question that has been raised by other Members during the debate is that this is a plan for an area that has no cohering identity. I almost feel like an interloper, Sir Edward. Before your inclusion of me in the debate, I felt like an interloper anyway, given the strong Buckinghamshire feeling about the debate —and all praise to Buckinghamshire. I am proudly from Bedfordshire and represent North East Bedfordshire. However, that makes the point, does it not? Essentially, this is not some grassroots, built-up, passionate call for helping our region to develop and unifying us into an identity that can have meaning for people on the ground—our local residents. No, no: this is a Blairite top-down plan, to be imposed on people in the region whether they like it or not.

I say “whether they like it or not” because, rather sadly, the spatial framework, which my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) spoke about, takes that additional step forward. It says that the arc’s 23 local planning authorities cannot continue to plan separately because

“planning at the local level for homes, business space, infrastructure and the environment is not integrated, and is unable to take an Arc-wide view.”

Well, my constituents do not want local planning to take an arc-wide view; they want it to take a local view—a neighbourhood view. The Government need to understand that the question that has been posed today is, how is that going to work when there is an absence of democratic accountability?

It is worse, because the spatial development framework goes on to say that all local plans must conform to the spatial framework, including the requirement that housing needs are met in full. Out of the window goes any discretion on housing growth targets. They must be met in full. For local authorities in my constituency, who are already achieving growth rates in housing well above the national average—my constituency is already growing at three times the national average—having a top-down target imposed with no discretion on local authority housing growth seems to me to raise major questions about democratic accountability.

Let us go to the two fundamental points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe. Where did this come from? Was it a plan for housing or a plan for economic development? If it was a plan for housing, let us get to the rub of the 1 million houses. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister will say in a few minutes that the 1 million housing target is not a target. I know he will say that, because he has told me that in a debate, and it will be welcome to hear. The truth of the matter is that that target at the time included more than a quarter of a million extra houses that were going to be placed into the Oxford-Cambridge arc because that aspiration could not be met in London. It is an important point of principle of this Government to ensure that the housing needs of areas such as Greater London are met by regional authorities themselves and not displaced to other areas.

On housing growth, I would like to hear from the Minister what balance the Government will be able to provide for housing growth with the pieces of infrastructure that people care about. We have heard about expressways and railways, but what people care about in terms of infrastructure is: can I get an appointment with my doctor because my child is sick? Can I get my son or my daughter into a good local school? That is what people want to hear across the Ox-Cam arc and in the rest of the country. I know that the Minister and the Government are committed to that, but that is where our priorities should lie when we think about what to do with this particular region.

If the plan is an economic one, let us remember what the basis of it was: that somehow, by connecting or improving the connections between two major universities and other universities—of course, I would say Cranfield is also a major university, but let us say Oxford and Cambridge—we would unlock economic growth. That is the state-driven answer to how we unlock growth: “We can connect it.” So let me ask the Government: where is the international example of that having worked in practice? Can they name one example anywhere in the world where countries have joined universities to create economic growth? I bet they cannot, because most countries understand that we create economic growth around centres of educational excellence. We focus on the centres of educational excellence and build out that network of localities and business parks and innovation around where that core of academic excellence is. That is already happening in Cambridge, it is happening in Oxford, and it can happen around Cranfield. That is where the Government’s focus with the Ox-Cam arc should be moving.

There are some shared interests. There is the opportunity for more growth in housing. The Minister is absolutely right to focus on the core fundamental Conservative principle that everyone at every age should have the opportunity to own a home. That is something that we all want to do, and we want to do it in a way that is supported by local communities.

On the infrastructure, my colleagues from Buckinghamshire have already said bye-bye to the expressway, so we will have an expressway from Cambridge through Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes, and then we can stop off and get on—I do not know what they have in Buckinghamshire—perhaps a dirt track until we reach Oxfordshire, and back on the expressway again.

Heaven knows what will happen to the railway line. I know that the people of Cambridge are up in arms about it, and I know there are questions in North East Bedfordshire about it. If those transverse cross-country pieces of infrastructure are called into question, should we not have a rethink about how this interlacing, connecting Ox-Cam arc strategy would better be replaced with a central specific focus around certain areas for development there? There is probably more of a community interest between the good people of Buckinghamshire and the good people of Oxfordshire, and there might be a good common interest between the people of Bedfordshire, Milton Keynes and Northamptonshire, rather than saying that people in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough should somehow feel an affinity with the people of Oxfordshire and Berkshire.

[Joy Morrissey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. Alluding to the history between Oxford and my constituency, we were the first stop-off on the coach trip from London to Oxfordshire. The economic prosperity of Beaconsfield was built on providing meals, entertainment, hotels and livery to those making the vital trip from London to Oxford. There is that historic link, but my hon. Friend is right that the Oxford-Cambridge arc is not attributable to any of those historic qualities or natural linking that might be found in other regions.

Post Office Court of Appeal Judgment

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

No, indeed. We want to make sure that we can get these answers quickly for sub-postmasters who have already waited up to 20 years for a sense of justice. As I have said, statutory inquiries can take more than three years to get these answers. I want a report on my desk this summer to report back to postmasters, and Sir Wyn is getting the co-operation that he needs to get answers.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that postmasters provide the backbone of the Post Office and will he join me in thanking Jay Patel, the Patel family and Jaspal Singh who provide vital services to communities across Beaconsfield, Hedgerley and Burnham? Will he continue to fight for justice and compensation for those who have been exonerated and take on board the excellent suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) of looking at how we prevent these type of scandals from happening in the future?

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. I know that she is a champion for community services in her area. That is what the Post Office does—not only is it a business, but it adds social value, as Jay Patel and his family continue to do. That is why we need to get answers. That is why we need to get justice. It is to give existing and future postmasters the confidence that they can work in a great organisation that is offering that social value and supporting their communities.

Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con) [V]]

May I thank my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for the £280 billion package of financial support for businesses throughout the pandemic? I would like to offer my thanks on behalf of the 3,700 businesses in Beaconsfield that have benefited directly from Government loans throughout the pandemic. I also thank the Chancellor for protecting small businesses and hospitality. Small businesses have been the backbone of my constituency of Beaconsfield—we have more self-employed and entrepreneurs than anywhere in the country—and they want to get back to work and to be able to open up their businesses again. I believe, and may I suggest, that the best way to support our businesses post pandemic is with low taxation and a full lifting of restrictions so businesses, pubs and the local high street can get back to generating taxes and rebuilding our economy as quickly as we possibly can. May I also thank the Labour party for its support for such Conservative policies that even Thatcher would be proud of? Business rates relief and cutting VAT are wonderful Conservative policies, which I support so that we can give businesses a fighting chance to get back on their feet in the next year.

One of the most successful sorts of schemes that I would like to thank my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for are the grant schemes that councils have been administrating. Buckinghamshire Council has done an excellent job in getting this vital business support to our local businesses as quickly as possible; unlike some local authorities, it has given out all of its grant funding to small businesses. I ask Ministers for a commitment from the Government for further funding for councils such as Buckinghamshire Council to distribute to local businesses, which need that vital support in the coming months to make it to the end of lockdown. We just need a little bit more to get us over the line, to make sure that all of our businesses are able to open successfully and that we can see our economy restored.

Oral Answers to Questions

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

What plans the Government have to increase funding for local authorities in 2021.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

What plans the Government have to increase funding for local authorities in 2021.

[The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government (Luke Hall)]

We are increasing funding for councils in 2021-22. Through the local government finance settlement, we are making an extra £2.2 billion available to councils, with an average cash increase of 4.5%—a real-terms increase. We have also announced £3 billion of covid-19 support for next year, taking our total direct support for local government in responding to the pandemic to more than £10 billion.

[Luke Hall]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and the way in which he has consistently and constructively raised this issue with me and Ministers in our Department. Leicestershire will see an increase of 5.5% in its core spending power next year and receive more than £11.5 million to deal with covid pressures. The Government certainly agree that we need an updated and fairer method for distributing funds within local government. I hope he understands that this year we have had to focus on supporting councils through the pandemic, but once this is over we will revisit our shared priority of funding reform. In the meantime, we have substantially increased the rural services delivery grant to £85 million, its highest level ever, which will support the delivery of services in places such as Leicestershire. I am, of course, happy to continue meeting him in the weeks ahead.

[Joy Morrissey [V]]

May I thank the Minister for his covid cash for councils? Will he confirm that the Government will ensure that councils have the financial support they need to respond to covid-19 and support their local communities? In places such as Bucks, particularly, our council is doing a fantastic job but there is a lot of concern about whether it will have the financial support to carry on throughout the pandemic and make sure that care is taken of all the residents.

[Luke Hall]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. She is right to say that councils have done an incredible job in responding to the pandemic. We have provided an unprecedented package of covid-related support for councils, which is now worth £10 billion over this year and next year. It includes £1 billion of unring-fenced funding, as well as support with lost income from tax, sales, fees and charges. Buckinghamshire will benefit from more than £54 million of covid support this year and £11 million for next year. Councils are the unsung heroes of the response to this pandemic and we are standing squarely behind them.

Homelessness and Temporary Accommodation

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) for her very compelling speech and for the personal accounts of her constituents. All Members have experience of similar emails and one-to-one encounters, so I thank her for raising this important issue. I also thank the Minister for the Department’s commitment during the pandemic to tackling rough sleeping and trying to end it across England. We have had the highest commitment in funding that I can remember to tackle the issue during the pandemic and enable local councils to house those who are sleeping rough, so I thank the Minister for that.

The hon. Lady’s excellent speech was about the conditions of temporary accommodation, and I want to focus on temporary accommodation for families. As she said, this is particularly a London issue, given the high cost of living, the high population and the lack of affordable and social housing. It is something that I saw at first hand in my previous roles, when I worked as a community outreach worker. I saw families who were living in rat and cockroach-infested multi-dwelling homes with other families. It was a London issue that I saw over and over again.

I have visited other parts of the UK, including the west midlands, to look at best practice in places where we have tackled this problem proactively. Something that I noticed in the west midlands was the approach of linking housing to employment. Andy Street, the Mayor of the west midlands, has done an excellent job of providing housing, employment opportunities and transport. As housing is a devolved matter, mainly to the Mayor or local authorities, it would be worth the Mayor of London looking at how he can support families who are trapped in temporary accommodation.

I also ask that the Minister consider the high cost of temporary accommodation in urban areas. Between 2018 and 2019, councils spent more than £1 billion on temporary accommodation. That explosion in expenditure has been fuelled by a chronic lack of genuinely affordable social housing, and that is particularly true in London.

This is an incredibly complex issue to tackle, and as I said it is the devolved power of the Mayor. Unfortunately, the expansion of permitted development rights has inadvertently led to the creation of some low-quality and unsuitable accommodation—

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order.

London’s Economic Recovery: Covid-19

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Friday 23rd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for granting time for this Adjournment debate, and I thank colleagues who are in the Chamber; I am conscious that it is the Friday afternoon ahead of recess.

Reviving the London economy is critical, clearly for London but also for every single person in this country. London contributes a massive 25% of all tax to the Exchequer. Two small London boroughs—mine, Kensington and Chelsea, and neighbouring Westminster—contribute 10% of all business rates in the entire country, and London contributes £436.5 billion of gross value added. If we take the gross value added of Scotland and Wales and double it, then we get to London’s number. Ensuring that the London economy functions is important for people in Northern Ireland, the north-east of England, Scotland and Wales. It is critical.

Sadly, the London economy is suffering—in particular the central London economy. I think that there are two principal reasons for that. First, people are not commuting into work, and they are not coming in for cultural and social events at places such as theatres and restaurants. Secondly, there has been a massive decline in international visitors to our city. Let me take those in turn and look first at commuters.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Many people commute from Beaconsfield into London, and although we are not part of London, we benefit tremendously from the London economy. I thank my hon. Friend for being such a champion of London and its economy, because consumers and commuters who travel into London benefit just as much as those in inner London. I thank her for securing this important debate.

[Felicity Buchan]

I thank my hon. Friend for her kind words, and she makes a very important point. This is in the interests not only of London but of those who commute into London.

Let us look at the numbers. Morgan Stanley commissioned a survey in September comparing going back to work in the UK versus in France. In September, 34% were back to work in the UK, whereas in France the number was 83%. I have looked at the latest Greater London Authority data specifically for London, and only 41% are back in work—less than half of the people.

A second issue is the perceived lack of confidence in public transport—a lack of confidence that is quite wrong, to my mind. I hear that a lot from my museums, for instance, where footfall is dramatically lower. They attribute it to a lack of confidence in public transport. We need to get that confidence back, and we need to encourage people to come into central London. That is why I opposed so strongly what the Mayor of London did in extending the congestion charge to seven days a week and increasing it to £15. On the subject of the Mayor of London, he consistently talks down our great city. His job should be to inspire confidence, not to breed fear and nervousness.

Let me move on to international visitors. VisitBritain believes that numbers are down 74% on last year, which is a hit of more than £20 billion to the London economy. Again, it is all about confidence. We need to get those visitors back.

Clearly, London is in tier 2 measures, and I want to say how much I welcome the announcement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday to give additional support to constituencies such as mine that are in tier 2. I would also like to thank the Chancellor for his enormous financial support package across the country, greater than £200 billion. At the very beginning of the crisis, in the Treasury Committee, I called for a big, bold and decisive package of support, and, goodness, we have delivered that.

On the margin, I would say that London has not benefited from the support package as much as some other areas for very technical reasons. Grants to the hospitality sector, for instance, were given on the basis of having a rateable value of less than £51,000. Commercial property prices in my constituency are three times the national average, so businesses in my constituency with comparable cash flows and size to those in the rest of the country were not getting the grants that people in other constituencies were benefiting from. There is a similar case with the holiday on stamp duty. Clearly, that has been terrific throughout the country in giving people a holiday on property prices of less than £500,000, but just because of an accident of geography the average house price in my constituency is £1.25 million. Even in my ward, with the cheapest housing prices, the average price is £510,000. Very, very few of my constituents have benefited from the stamp duty holiday.

I also want to put it on the record that I am very concerned about the Government’s announcement that they will abolish tax-free shopping come 1 January. This might seem like a very esoteric subject, but international visitors to central London are critical for our economy. They spend a huge amount of money not only in our shops but in our hotels and restaurants, and they are highly mobile. If we make it less attractive for them to come to London by effectively putting a 20% increase on the cost of their goods, they will simply go to Paris or Milan. Especially as we are leaving the EU, we need to project an image of global Britain and to be encouraging international visitors. For the sake of the London economy and our high streets, hotels and restaurants, we need these spenders back.

However, let me look forward in a constructive way, because it is very easy to talk about the problems. How do we get the London economy going again? If there is one word I keep coming back to it is “confidence”. We need the confidence of commuters and the confidence of international visitors. How do we get that confidence? First, we have to get the virus under control: we need to get our numbers below 100 and to get the R rate down. If we do that, London can go back into being a tier 1 region. I would urge the Government to make that review as soon as the health statistics allow. We need to get London into tier 1 because London is the engine of our entire country. I would also strongly recommend that the Government review the 10 pm rule, again as quickly as the health statistics allow, because we need to support our hospitality sector.

We all need to work together collectively to get that confidence back and to reclaim London’s position as the finest capital city and the most prosperous capital city in the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joy Morrissey]

Does the Minister agree that we need a Mayor who cares about London’s economic recovery and actually fights for it, rather than putting in place measures that restrict not only economic growth but the number of people coming into the city, such as the London-wide congestion charge? We need a Conservative Mayor who can take a new economic approach that will revitalise London in the coming months and years.

[Paul Scully]

Clearly, yes. I want Shaun Bailey to be in post after May to help shape the recovery. We have been working collegiately with the Mayor, the Greater London Authority and the boroughs, and indeed with colleagues in this place, in relation to the structures and work that we have put in place, but that kind of working also needs to be replicated in public. They cannot be sitting on a letter criticising the Government and pointing the finger elsewhere, as we have seen from the Mayor and other people. What they do in public and in private is so important, because what might seem to be a good short-term political campaign is terrible leadership for our capital city, which contributes so much to the rest of the country.

For the short-term recovery, it is so important that we show people what Transport for London has done, and what our retailers, publicans and restaurateurs have done, to make sure they will be safe. It is about confidence, but beyond that it is also about joy. What do I mean by that? I mean that when people go to a pub and find that getting a pint is too onerous, because of all the structures that have been put in place, they will go back home and have a bottle of wine and a ready meal, as so many did during lockdown. We need to get them back into central London not just one time; we have to make sure they want to come back time and again, to enjoy everything that London has to offer.

Clearly there is work to be done on the medium term. Businesses, particularly in retail and hospitality, are talking about business rates, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington explained so eloquently, and about tax-free shopping and the effect on international tourism. They are also talking about rents. There is a certain amount of business structure that needs to change. A number of landlords, in the suburbs as well as in central London, are sitting on empty properties with an artificially high market rent, purely to keep their shareholder valuation at a particular level, and that is not good for high streets. How can we work with landlords and tenants to find a better balance that works for our local areas so that we do not hollow them out?

My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) talked about the Mayor. I sometimes get the sense that he does not care whether he is the Mayor of London or the mayor of Gotham City; he just wants to be the Mayor. What do I mean about Gotham City? We run the risk of hollowing out the west end if we do not get the recovery right. If we have only the ultra-rich and the people on low incomes who service the city, but not the people in the middle who provide so much of the community and spend, London will not be the same as it was before.

There is so much that we are doing, such as the Chancellor’s winter support plan, to make sure that we preserve as many businesses and jobs as possible, while also moving to those long-term structures, whether a green recovery or the smarter use of digital in the centre of town, and building up the skills we need for the jobs that are yet to be created as we move towards a new economy. We have the new normal, with masks, one-way systems and hand sanitising—hands, face, space—but we are moving towards a new reality, with permanent behaviour change baked in. We need to recognise that and address it. It is about greater use of flexible working, recognising that people are not going to travel into London in the same way they did. It is about reduced use of cash, and different way of shopping. We need to be ahead of the game.

Conservative Members are always talking about levelling up the whole country, and that is so important. How does London play a role in that? Well, before lockdown I went to see the mixed-use regeneration at Battersea power station. The steels are made in Liverpool and are painted in the midlands, and the bricks are sourced from Gloucestershire. We are providing jobs all around the country for such projects, which also benefit London. The electric black cabs that go around town, which we need to return to the likes of Bishopsgate—some of the Streetspace initiatives are actually penalising not only black cab drivers, but disabled users of cabs as well—are made in Coventry. There are 2,000 people there making electric black cabs. There is also our culture sector in the centre of town. High House Production Park in Thurrock makes a lot of the production work for the Royal Opera House. The more that we can get that back, the more that we are creating and sustaining jobs around the country.

We need to level up London, so that it is not just an economic recovery, but a social one too; they feed into each other. The obvious example is Canary Wharf; if I stood at the top of One Canada Square, I would be among some of the richest people in the country, looking down at Whitechapel, which is one of the poorest areas. My hon. Friend the Member for Kensington speaks for and campaigns in her constituency, which also has a diverse community, with Ladbroke Grove on one side—the birthplace of one Shaun Bailey, who we were speaking to earlier—and Kensington on the other. Some people outside London only think of the richer part of Kensington.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I want to look at the clauses. On clause 28, it is proposed that “Scotland” be left out. On clause 29, amendment 29 would insert that following a legislative appeal from all the devolved powers, we would have a consultation before any changes. On clause 35, it is proposed that prior to publishing any information, the CMA must consult all Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Ministers and the devolved Administrations. All these amendments seem to have one thing in common: they are asking for all consultation on how we move our internal market forward to be done with the devolved powers in the United Kingdom. Many in the House have raised the issue of who will be holding the CMA to account. We here represent the entire United Kingdom. We are elected to represent all parts of the United Kingdom.

[Alan Brown]

Is the hon. Lady therefore confirming that Westminster should take sovereignty over the devolved Administrations and the will of the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments?

[Joy Morrissey]

Absolutely not—that is not what I am saying.

[Alan Brown]

That is what I heard.

[Joy Morrissey]

Let me clarify for you. An internal market is something that is brought together historically. When we look at successful internal markets of the past, where have they been successful? We can look at the single market within the EU and at the 13 original colonies in the United States. They were 13 separate entities that had no regulatory system and were bound together by an internal market that allowed for free trade and the movement of goods and services. This Bill is not a political Bill—it is an economic Bill to enhance our competitiveness with the world. It is not to detract from the powers of Scotland—it is to make Scotland stronger through the power of free trade within the internal market.

I have been listening very carefully to what hon. Members across the House have been saying and the points that you have been raising, and I am very sympathetic to your cries about a lack of democratic representation. That is why I voted to leave the EU: for the very reason of the lack of democratic representation by the European Commission, which oversees the single market.

[Joanna Cherry]

Is the hon. Lady aware of the Sewel convention? If so, what is her objection to amendment 29, in the names of my hon. Friends?

[Joy Morrissey]

Amendment 29 states:

“Following legislative approval from all devolved administrations”.

Are you asking for all the devolved Administrations to be represented at the federal level?

[Joanna Cherry]

The Sewel convention, which was put on a statutory footing—before the hon. Lady was a Member of the House, but many of us who were at that time will remember it—states that this Parliament will not normally legislate in respect of devolved matters without the consent of the devolved Administrations. That convention exists. It is on a statutory footing, so what is her objection to amendment 29?

[Joy Morrissey]

I would argue that this is not an infringement of your rights or those devolved powers. This Bill is about enhancing all of our abilities to work in a single internal market to allow goods and services to flow freely. My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) mentioned glasses being made in one part of the Union and then being put together in another part. We have this so that we can frictionlessly move goods and services through the United Kingdom without tariffs and restrictions. There has to be a system through which that federal system is united, in terms of the economic objectives that we are setting, making ourselves globally competitive.

[Stephen Doughty]

rose—

[Joy Morrissey]

I will not give way—I will make some headway and then give way in a moment. When we talk about the internal market, we are talking not about a political objective, but about an economic objective—to remove regulatory obstacles from more goods and services in the UK so that we are able to trade freely among ourselves and make ourselves globally competitive. We are removing the technical, legal and bureaucratic barriers to allow its citizens to trade and do business freely, for its citizens to enjoy products from all over the UK.

When SNP Members raise concerns about state aid, I would imagine that they are referring to the EU structural funds or the EU development funds, the criteria for which have, in the past, benefited certain deprived areas in regions in Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom. I can understand how there would be concern, and perhaps something could be established to look at how that fund and the targets were set to help in disadvantaged and impoverished areas where the EU structural funds have helped to improve the livelihoods of people in the United Kingdom, and to look at how we move that forward. This is not a Bill to take any political power: it is to make us stronger economically. It is purely on the grounds of economics—

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the decisions being made in Shetland that if the nationalists get their way and there is separation of the United Kingdom following a second referendum, Shetland will seek to go independent itself? Therefore, not only are the nationalists seeking to break up the United Kingdom, they are seeking to break up Scotland.

[Joy Morrissey]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point.

[Stephen Doughty]

I do not want to break up the United Kingdom. As I have said, I am a Unionist and I want to see a functioning UK internal market. Does the hon. Member think it is respectful for her Government to give details of the Bill only the night before it was published to Welsh Government Ministers, who also want to see a functioning internal market and want to make sure our country functions effectively and economically in the way she suggests?

[Joy Morrissey]

I thank you for your point, but I wonder if you would find it respectful for the EU to threaten to put a tariff in the sea—[Interruption.] No, that is a completely valid point to raise. I find that to be disrespectful of our sovereignty and our ability to govern internally.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Joy Morrissey]

I will carry on. On that point, the EU’s threat to disrupt our food exports from mainland Britain to Northern Ireland as negotiating leverage fundamentally undermined our credibility and our sovereignty within the United Kingdom itself. The Bill will strengthen our ability to create—

[Kirsten Oswald]

On the point about credibility, does the hon. Lady think it is just possible that the reason that credibility has been lost is because of her Prime Minister disagreeing with himself rather than for any other reason?

[Joy Morrissey]

You say it was mentioned by the SNP earlier about wanting to throw off the bureaucratic chains and wanting to have democratic representation, but that is exactly why I voted to leave the European Union, and that is why I will fight to make sure that we have a regulatory system that has less red tape and that has representation. We talk about democratic representation, but we are representing the will of the people who voted for Brexit in one referendum and we are delivering the result. Scotland also—[Interruption.]

[The Temporary Chair (Sir Graham Brady)]

Order. Can I just remind Members on both sides of the House that these are very specific amendments that are being debated. We cannot go back to a Second Reading debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joy Morrissey]

Thank you, Sir Graham.

I will conclude by saying—

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Joy Morrissey]

I probably should make headway. I am trying to understand and sympathise with the amendments that have been tabled, but I do not feel that they are in any way needed to enhance what is in the Bill. I urge hon. Members to vote to keep the Bill the way it is.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. This Bill is difficult for the Scottish National party. It is offensive to our values, it is not our world view, and it is being introduced in pursuit of a project that Scotland comprehensively rejected. We are engaging in good faith, but we do not consent to this project. Scotland does not consent to the way the Bill is drafted.

However, I was not sent by the people of Stirling to showboat and walk away, or to grandstand and not try to find solutions. As is typical of all our amendments, we have tabled amendments 28 and 29 in good faith, and to insert into this dreadful Bill the principle of consent from the Scottish Parliament and other devolved Administrations. If we cannot do that, we seek to exempt Scotland from this madness. We are engaging in this process in good faith. We are working within the constitutional reality of the United Kingdom, and by rejecting the amendments, this House will prove, in full view of the people of Scotland, that the constitutional reality of the United Kingdom does not work for us.

I was sent here to try to find solutions, and amendments 28 and 29 do that. We believe that decisions for Scotland should be made in Scotland. It is a fundamental principle of devolution that, unless reserved to this place, decisions should be made by the democratically elected Parliament of Scotland. That principle was endorsed by the people of Scotland with 74% of the vote in 1997, and those Government Members who are keen on referendums should be aware that they are up-ending a deeply held principle of the people of Scotland.

As I have said, this Bill is a poor piece of legislation, and it did not need to be this way—that is what I find so frustrating. It is offensive morally, politically, even intellectually, but it did not need to be that way. We are open to negotiation and to frameworks. We respect the fact that we have left the European Union—we regret it deeply, but it has happened. As a solicitor by trade, I accept that a domestic legal construct is needed to replace the single market legislation of the European Union, but it does not need to be this abomination. We could do this better. Our amendments seek to make this bad Bill better. We will still not be keen or in favour of it, but it does not need to be the naked power-grab that it is.

Part 4 of the Bill seeks to replace 60 years of juris- prudence from the European Court of Justice and the European Commission, democratically overseen by democratically elected Members of the European Parliament, and member state Governments who are themselves democratically elected—60 years of expertise on how the single market and internal competition works.

[Joy Morrissey]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alyn Smith]

Oh please.

[Joy Morrissey]

I’m back. To clarify that point, it is actually the European Commission that oversees the single market, and it is that unelected body that oversees and creates the market framework—[Interruption.]

[Alyn Smith]

I thank the hon. Lady for that point. In my 15 years at the European Parliament I was always struck by how many unelected bureaucrats had been democratically elected by the people they served. It is great to engage with something that does not quite exist, such as the European Commission that the hon. Lady wishes did exist.

For those who are against unelected bureaucrats, I suggest only that they consider the reality of the Bill. The Bill replaces 60 years of jurisprudence, overseen by experts in the European Commission and the Court of Justice—be they democratically elected MEPs or democratically elected member state Governments—with a group of people who will be unelected. They will be appointed, but they have not been appointed yet. We do not know who they are. They will be operating a competition policy that has not as yet been revealed by this Government, who are so desperately negotiating with themselves that they cannot tell our European partners what they are trying to do. Those people will be operating with a budget that has not yet been shown to us, and with jurisprudence that does not yet exist. It takes a heroically Panglossian approach to think that that can be created in a matter of months.