Live Events and Weddings: Covid-19 Support

Julian Knight Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) on introducing this important debate—he is proving to be a considerable upgrade.

The National Exhibition Centre, on the edges of my constituency, is one of the most renowned venues in the west midlands and nationally, playing host to conferences and concerts alike. Last month, the NEC announced that it was cutting 450 jobs because of the ongoing uncertainty. That is the reality for so many events businesses in this country right now. Since March, concerts have become a distant memory. Sports clubs that would supplement their business by playing host to weddings found that even when they were briefly able to open in the late summer, their major source of income had been cut off. I know of one golf club that has lost almost half a million pounds in wedding business.

Nightclubs and jazz bars remain shuttered while the musicians, events staff, sound engineers and DJs who work so hard to bring us this top-notch entertainment are furloughed, made redundant or desperately trying to make up in other industries the money that they have lost. Frankly, there are not that many jobs going around if people are looking for alternative employment. Also, there are major blackspots when it comes to the self-employed—something that the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which I chair, has highlighted at length.

There are wider impacts, too. Would we have seen the likes of the much-missed Amy Winehouse had she not been able to perform those early gigs in north London? Emerging talent depends on live events and relies heavily on the income they provide to keep investing in their own talent.

The culture recovery fund is welcome money for the arts, and I recognise that the Government’s furlough scheme has been a lifeline for millions of jobs where businesses have been able to operate, but live events and their reliance on having large numbers of people in one place, often in an enclosed space, in order to make a profit, are inherently incompatible with restrictions for covid-19. The £1.57 billion does not even come close to touching the sides of the losses sustained this year, and it is to be divided between such a large number of diverse types of arts businesses, so live events need ongoing support to recognise their precarious position and clear timelines to allow them to prepare to reopen, such as “no earlier than” dates.

In normal times, those are profitable businesses, with events accounting for half of all inbound UK tourist spend, and for £70 billion in direct funding. My Committee has therefore called for bespoke sector-specific support. The Government have provided that for theatres and arts venues on the brink; they now need to do the same for live events.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Knight Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

T7. I am delighted to say that Solihull has one of the highest proportions of home ownership in the country. However, there is still real pent-up demand, particularly among the young. Will the Minister tell me what progress the Department has made on the midlands voluntary right-to-buy pilot?

[The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)]

My hon. Friend is a doughty champion for his constituents, including those who are tenants. He is right. We have had an enthusiastic response to the midlands right-to-buy pilot, with over 9,000 people applying for a code in the ballot. Over 6,000 of them have been given a code, and we hope that a significant number will come forward to seek the ownership they desire, funded by the £200 million being put towards the pilot.

Budget Resolutions

Julian Knight Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

As I said at the outset of my speech, we have had to make those difficult decisions and I know so many people have contributed to this—the British public up and down the country. This Budget is indicating how we are now turning things around and looking positively at what our country can be and what it can do, and how we should be optimistic about our future.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

I look forward to welcoming my right hon. Friend to Solihull on Friday. Has he seen the report in today’s Times that there has been a surge of activity in UK house building over the last three months, with the greatest number of new homes signed off since the global crash? Is the truth not that Britain is building again, and just because of this Government’s policies?

[James Brokenshire]

The National House Building Council figures published today are very encouraging about the levels of building activity. We must build the homes our country needs, and we are firmly putting in place a number of steps and measures to help deliver on that. I know there is more to do, but we should recognise that progress is being made. We need to continue to see everyone building across the economy, because as a country we have failed to build enough homes over the decades under successive Governments. As a result, the most basic of needs—a place to call home—is out of reach for many, particularly our young people.

That is changing, thanks to this Government. Since 2010 we have delivered more than 1 million new homes and helped nearly half a million families get on to the housing ladder through Help to Buy and the right to buy, and we are taking action to ban the unjustified use of leaseholds on new homes, crack down on rogue landlords, ban unfair letting agent fees and cap deposits, and end rough sleeping for good.

We should contrast that with the record of the Labour party; not only did housing become more unaffordable under Labour, but under the current Labour leadership it has consistently voted against the reduction in stamp duty, which has helped more people get on to the housing ladder.

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[Julian Knight]

I think that my hon. Friend is talking about productivity. Does he recognise that if we are to ensure that we have sound public finances in the future and that the debt-to-GDP ratio falls, we will need to increase our nation’s productivity, which means investing in the regions so that we bring up our national wealth?

[John Stevenson]

I completely agree—the central theme of my speech is exactly that. We have to recognise the success of the south of England and also make sure that other parts of the country are equally successful and drive the productivity goals that we all want.

There is a housing imbalance that we have to acknowledge as well. The south-east and the south are where we find housing pressures regarding demand and price. I shall therefore come on to how we can, I hope, address this, although I have to accept, acknowledge and support the initiatives that the Government have already brought in to help places like Carlisle. Tax cuts; raising the living wage above inflation; a job creation machine that is taking unemployment back to 1970s’ levels—these policies have helped the job security of the people of Carlisle, whose living standards have actually increased.

We have also seen the Government’s northern powerhouse initiatives. I commend the work of the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), who is responsible for the northern powerhouse and takes a very positive and active approach to his role. The city growth deals also benefit various parts of the country. The Government’s borderlands growth initiative has been extremely welcome and well supported right across my region. Indeed, five councils are actively working together and have made a very positive submission to the Government. I look forward to reaching the heads of agreement in the new year and seeing some decent finance going into the region to help to support growth and productivity.

I believe that we can achieve so much more, however. Devolution is a Conservative principle. We want more powers devolved down to the regions—tax-raising powers, but also more responsibility for local government. We should be proactively promoting the unitisation of local government so that we have unitary authorities up and down the country. I am a great supporter of elected mayors. We have had success in that regard in the north of England, and I would like to see it spread right across the whole region. To take Cumbria as a simple example, we have seven councils and 400 councillors for half a million people, which is a completely ridiculous situation that is badly in need of reform. The difficulty is that while everybody in Cumbria recognises the need for reform, they cannot agree on what that reform should be. That is where central Government can help by giving a lead.

I want the Government to start to think more radically. Thinking about education, should we be saying to all schools in the north of England that they should become academies? We need to make sure that skills initiatives are locally based so that they are relevant to the local economy, not necessarily the national economy. The industrial strategy should be beefed up, for example so that we have a far more robust energy policy—again, that is very relevant to Cumbria. Should there not be financial incentives so that people who want to invest look to the regions and the north, rather than always to the south and London? How can we alter capital allowances, the planning laws, VAT, rates and national insurance to incentivise people to invest in the north? Of course, infrastructure spending can improve the economic performance of the regions. In my area, an application has been put in for housing infrastructure funding that would unlock the possibility of 10,000 new homes.

If businesses invest in the north, people will move to the north—they move to where there is economic activity. That would spread wealth and create a more balanced economy. People will move to the north rather than the south, relieving housing pressures down in the south. We will then have a stronger economy that produces better public services and a more balanced country. Government policy has recognised much of this, but I encourage Ministers to be more radical in recognising that local government can be a driver of change and a positive influence. I will certainly support the Government in taking a far more radical approach.

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[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden).

I had the dubious pleasure of reporting on nearly 20 Budgets and countless pre-Budget reports in my time as a journalist. Gordon Brown used to stand at the Dispatch Box with his clunking fist and talk about golden rules, fiscal balance and investing for the long term, and the horror show was always in the Red Book. As a journalist, I knew that to see what was in the Budget I had to look in the Red Book.

For days now, journalists across the country have been poring over the Red Book looking for holes similar to those they have found in many other Budgets over the years, but they have failed to do so because the Chancellor has adopted what I would call—pardon the pun—retail policies to address some of the major issues that people in this country face. For example, in 2015 my constituency was the only place in the country with increased footfall in the town centre on the year before, but that was reversed in 2016-17. Our main shopping centre, the Touchwood shopping centre, is now having to invest in the night-time economy, and for the first time I am starting to see empty shops on the high street, so the change in business rates is hugely welcome.

Another of my local high streets, in Shirley—a long, 1960s, straight-line, very old-fashioned high street—is being redeveloped through the intermingling of community resource and people living and being brought into the local area. For example, we have extra care living and other such developments, as we look to a future that is designed not specifically around retail, but around how the high street interacts with our lives. The retail fund of £675 million is therefore hugely welcome.

The right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) made a mainly good speech, which was perhaps too focused on social housing. We need to look at housing in the round. We have to increase the supply of housing in this country. For years, housing has been distended, which in many respects has damaged our economy. That will happen even more now that house prices are so high, because houses have become so unattainable. We therefore need to increase supply.

We have to admit that a deficit of 82% is still too high. It leaves us less able to face a global recession, but we made a decision in 2010 that we would basically try to follow a middle way. We get out of that through productivity—the other way would be inflation, which none of us wants. Productivity is the only way in the long term, and the Budget develops that.

Non-Domestic Rating (Nursery Grounds) Bill

Julian Knight Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I am delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), and I want to add my comments on what is a very precise Bill. Although it relates to plants, it is not in any way flowery; it is a tight, neat little Bill that very much that does what it says on the tin—or, we might say, on the plant pot.

The Bill exempts from non-domestic rates buildings that are, or form part of, a nursery ground. That is highly significant for our highly professional and essential horticultural industry, which does not often get as much attention as it deserves. The horticultural industry supplies many fantastic plants for the whole nation, and as the Minister mentioned—I am glad he referred to this—there is scope for the industry to increase.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her knowledge in this area; in fact, I think she was a TV star in the horticultural sphere for a short time. Is it not true that the changes in the Bill will make it much easier for plant nurseries to grow and be productive?

[Rebecca Pow]

Yes, and I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. One of the programmes my name was attached to was called “Loads More Muck and Magic.” It was a Channel 4 series and it was all about growing plants organically, which is terribly trendy now, so it was a bit ahead of its time—it was all ponytails and carpets then, though. It was filmed not far from my hon. Friend’s constituency at the Ryton organic gardens at Ryton-on-Dunsmore, which is still a terrific centre for organic gardening. The organisation there was called the Henry Doubleday Research Association, and it did a lot of great work on how to grow plants and what we should all do as growers at home.

My hon. Friend makes the good point that this Bill looks very much at the beginning of the plant chain when people take seeds and grow them—that exciting germination and propagation process that grows up plants, which can then be handed through the chain. I will go into that in more detail shortly, but it is an area that people forget about, even though it is such a valuable part of this important industry.

Although this is a great industry and it is highly valued, it is quite difficult to put an exact value on the horticultural trade. For example, estimates show that the whole gardening industry—that category is very wide, and would include garden tourism and events such as the Chelsea and Hampton Court flower shows—is worth approximately £16 billion to the economy and employs 300,000 people.

Normally, however, the best measure of an industry’s contribution to the economy is gross value added. I am not an economist—I am sure that most of my colleagues are much more knowledgeable about this than I am, particularly the Minister, who I know is very good with his figures—but I believe that GVA measures the value of an industry’s goods or services to the economy, excluding any goods or services used in production. However, that breakdown of statistics is not carried out for the horticultural industry. If it were, we would have a much better figure to show just how important the industry is. Should the Minister ever move to the Treasury—he may well do, given his mathematical brain—he might like to look into that GVA anomaly. That would be incredibly helpful to the nation as a whole, particularly in the light of Brexit. It is hard to grow an industry and attract the investment that it needs if we do not have the exact figures relating to that industry. You might think that I am digressing, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I think this is an important point.

[Julian Knight]

I do not think that my hon. Friend is digressing at all. In fact, she has made a germane point in mentioning the 300,000 people who work in the industry. Does she agree that if we can get people to plant more and get them really interested in horticulture in ways such as this, we could get a great deal closer to self-sufficiency, not only in food but in plants?

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend is a man after my own heart. I do not know whether you are a gardener, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am—

Building Safety

Julian Knight Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for welcoming Dame Judith Hackitt’s work.

I and the Government very much understand the situation that leaseholders are in. It is obviously a very difficult and distressing situation for many people—we understand that. I do not accept that what I and others have said about owners’ moral duty is falling on deaf ears. There have actually been a number of instances in which we have got involved and some of the private owners have listened. They do not wish to be public about that—that is their choice—but at least they have listened and helped the leaseholders. I want more to do the same. I am keeping the issue under review and looking to see what more we can do.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

We all in the House have been deeply moved by the dignity of the survivors of the Grenfell Tower disaster, the bereaved and the volunteers. Many of us have also had casework and individuals come to us with concerns about where they live. Will my right hon. Friend commit to continuing to do absolutely everything in his power to ensure they get the help, support and justice they deserve?

[Sajid Javid]

I am very happy, once again, to make that commitment. The work continues each day in my Department and across Government through the ministerial group set up to help the survivors of the Grenfell disaster. I am very happy to re-emphasise that commitment to my hon. Friend.

Parking (Code of Practice) Bill

Julian Knight Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 2nd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Greg Knight]

It is only common courtesy in business to respond to correspondence. I expect the code of practice to have a requirement that where someone challenges a parking notice, whether it be the car owner, the car owner’s solicitor or the car owner’s MP, the parking company is obliged to respond, and within a reasonable time—I would say 14 days.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for being so generous in giving way. Does he agree that these parking companies often indulge in what I term confusion marketing in the car parks they manage? There are signs that say different times and days, and when Members of Parliament point out these quite fundamental problems in their systems, the companies often write off the fine but do not rectify the original problem.

[Sir Greg Knight]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In some cases it appears that confusion is designed to ensure that a parking ticket is issued against the unsuspecting motorist.

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[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

I was going to regale the House with a whole litany of complaints, but everyone will be happy that I am not going to do that because Members from all parties have shown their unanimity on this issue. There is unanimous support for the Bill, and I completely concur with my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight).

Much of my postbag and email inbox is taken up by correspondence on this issue, about which more than 10,000 people a year now seek advice and guidance from Citizens Advice. Enough is enough. Firmer regulation is long overdue. The technology is often a problem for the more elderly people in my constituency, along with issues such as eyesight, signage and access to telephone numbers.

There is a clear case for a unified code of practice being really useful. Currently, any given parking operator could be regulated by either the British Parking Association or the International Parking Community, each of which imposes separate and different codes of conduct on its members, so a degree of digging is involved just for a resident to find out to what rules the company they have a dispute with is bound, let alone for them to find out how to hold the company to account.

A unified set of standards will make it much easier for ordinary citizens to learn their rights and take action against unscrupulous parking operators, by making the information easy to find and universally acceptable. That will make it faster and simpler for the likes of Citizens Advice and the staff in our offices to help people who approach us about parking issues, and I hope that it will also allow more people to find out on their own what they need to know.

Although failure to meet the new code of conduct will not be a criminal offence, the Bill will ensure that such a failure may lead to a parking operator being refused access to DVLA data. I hope that will effectively put such an operator out of business in that respect. I strongly support the Bill and am very pleased that it will hopefully be given its Second Reading.