Water Quality: Sewage Discharge

Debate between Kelly Tolhurst and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I say to the hon. Lady and the right hon. Gentleman that, yes, the hon. Member has to give way, but you cannot permanently be stood there until somebody—[Interruption.] You do not need to give me any indications. I am telling you what the rules are and the rules will be applied. Secretary of State.

[Jim McMahon]

Thank you, Mr Speaker—we’ve 12 months yet. I will take interventions once I have made progress on this section. Hon. Members should not worry; their opportunity to defend the last 13 years in government will come—they should not worry too much about that.

At its heart, this speaks to whether families should have the right to live a decent and fulfilled life. People look to our seas, lakes and rivers for quality of life. They are the very places where people live, work and holiday together, and where families create memories, forge bonds and strengthen relationships by enjoying the beauty that our country has to offer. More than just the daily grind of work, it is about who we are and it is those moments together that make life worth living. But the truth is that the Tories are turning our green land into an open sewer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kelly Tolhurst and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 24th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst]

As I mentioned, we are investing £2.6 billion over the next three years in new spaces for SEND and alternative provision. We have also implemented £1.4 billion in high-needs provision capital allocations for local authorities, and £9.1 billion—an increase of 13%—in high-needs funding. The hon. Lady will know that we launched the Green Paper on SEND and AP back in March. We are currently looking at the responses and we hope to respond by the end of the year.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to her place. She inherits the Government’s SEND review, which has caused widespread concern among parents of children with SEND that the Government are seeking simply to reduce expenditure and erode the rights of parents and children to access the support they need. As the Chancellor trawls for departmental cuts to pay for the Government’s reckless economic experiment, can the Minister confirm that the SEND review will not be used as an excuse to erode further the resources that children with special educational needs and disabilities rely on?

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[Kelly Tolhurst]

I do sympathise with Brackenfield School’s predicament. Supporting children and young people with SEND to live fulfilling lives is of paramount importance. The local authority is responsible for deciding on the age range at a maintained school, but I share my hon. Friend’s concerns, and I will investigate what is going on.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

Covid-19 Lockdown: Homelessness and Rough Sleepers

Debate between Kelly Tolhurst and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)]

Is it not just so sad when we see homelessness and rough sleeping on our streets? One reason that I was so proud to stand as a Conservative party candidate at the last general election was our commitment to eradicate rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament. Homelessness is often seen as an urban issue, but it is very much a rural one as well. Conservative-led Dorset Council has reduced rough sleeping, though, by 39% up until 2019. I suggest to the shadow Secretary of State that maybe she asks the same questions of her own Labour-run Bristol City Council, where homelessness has increased by 20%—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. First, the question is too long. Secondly, it is not for the Opposition to answer the questions; it is for the Minister. Don’t take the Minister’s job away—it is not fair to her.

[Kelly Tolhurst]

You will have to excuse me, Mr Speaker; I fell down the stairs yesterday, so I am struggling to do the bobbing up and down.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I would like to praise the work of Dorset Council, which has been able to continue to reduce rough sleeping. We hope that we will be able to share information with colleagues in other areas to ensure that, where there is great practice and local authorities are taking great steps to reduce rough sleeping and homelessness, the lessons are learned throughout the country. We learnt a lot through the Everyone In programme, and I hope that those lessons will help us to develop policies.

Covid-19: Aviation

Debate between Kelly Tolhurst and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I recognise the importance of the aviation sector, particularly in my right hon. Friend’s constituency. The restart and recovery unit, which we set up within the Department, is working across Government, the sector, including the airlines, airports and ground handlers, and trade bodies, and looking at how we can do exactly that—get internationally agreed standard health measures. We are working incredibly hard to gain consumer confidence so that people want to travel again. We want to meet our objective of keeping people safe and reducing the spread of coronavirus while also trying to get the aviation sector up and running as quickly as possible.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Gavin Newlands, the Scottish National party spokesperson, who has 1 minute.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

Back in March, the Chancellor said he was working on a specific package of help for airports and airlines. We are still waiting for that support. Will the Minister press the Chancellor at least to follow the Scottish Government’s lead in giving the industry 100% business rates relief for a year? Will she also echo what the Chair of the Transport Committee said about the despicable behaviour of Willie Walsh and IAG? In the short term, we all understand and accept that the industry needs to reduce in size, but the manner in which Mr Walsh is choosing to do this should be illegal, if it is not already.

This affects the supply chain too. Sadly Rolls-Royce has today confirmed it intends to cut 700 jobs at Inchinnan in my constituency. The company is looking to offshore yet more work, despite having taken UK Government research and development money and job retention scheme money. The UK, but particularly Inchinnan, is being disproportionately affected. Are the Government engaged with, or have they offered any support to, Rolls-Royce to mitigate job losses? Finally, will the Minister join me in urging Rolls-Royce to engage meaningfully with the Scottish Government on supporting jobs at Inchinnan?

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[Kelly Tolhurst]

I have been very clear that the priority for this Government is to halt or limit the spread of coronavirus. It has to be accepted that we need to work to find those measures that will enable airlines to operate flights and passengers to travel safely, but also to stop the importation of cases as our infection rate is reduced. We are working hard across Government to find policy measures to achieve that, and that is what the quarantine policy is about.

[Mr Speaker]

In order to allow the safe exit of hon. Members participating in this item of business and the safe arrival of those participating in the next, I am suspending the sitting for five minutes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kelly Tolhurst and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 18th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Morgan [V]]

I thank the Minister for her reply. I know that when the Secretary of State met council leaders last week he spoke positively about the Government providing a package of support to secure the future of the ferry service. I look forward to the Department achieving that. The continuation of the Gosport ferry after this crisis is vital to the connectivity of communities along the south coast, but so too is tackling the climate crisis. As the fourth most congested city in the UK, Portsmouth faces some of the worst air pollution outside London. The Pompey Street Space campaign aims to give pedestrians and cyclists priority, widen narrow pavements and create commuter cycle routes to allow people to travel safely. What steps will the Department take to—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are going over to the Minister to answer.

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, although I missed his last point. Absolutely, the Gosport ferry provides an important service for the local community to navigate their way around the peninsula. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I met the council leaders. We have spoken to the organisation, and my officials are working with the councils to find a suitable support package for the operator in order to maintain that service.

Businesses: Late Payments

Debate between Kelly Tolhurst and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and recognise his particular interest as my predecessor in this post. He is absolutely correct: prompt payment is a particular concern for small businesses, and some large companies alter their payment terms. We are seeking views on giving the small business commissioner more powers because he acts for small businesses that have struggled with getting prompt payment. Currently, his powers are not binding; we feel that if his powers were binding, that could be part of his suit of armour in tackling late and non-payments.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I call the Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, Rachel Reeves.

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker.

When our Select Committee looked into this issue, many small businesses insisted on giving evidence in private, so worried were they about retaliation from the big businesses that they supplied. Larger businesses, including Morrisons, Aldi and WH Smith, are not signatories to the prompt payment code, while Boots pays suppliers at a discount for the privilege of their being paid on time. The power imbalance is so great now between bigger and smaller businesses that. I urge the Government and the Minister to look again, make the prompt payment code mandatory and bring down the period to a benchmark of 30 days.

Rural Post Offices

Debate between Kelly Tolhurst and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 13th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank my hon. Friend for his point. He is right in what he says and I recognise that. I was going to come on to this later, but I will respond directly to his point now. The Government are the sole shareholder in the Post Office. It is right that we work with the Post Office, challenging it where necessary, and with constituency MPs and the community to make sure that we can deliver the right services for the community. As I always do when speaking about post offices at the Dispatch Box, let me say that we are committed to working with MPs and their communities, and we will continue to do so in order to maintain the branch network we have and to try to serve communities as best we can.

Outreach and mobile services are highly valued by the communities they serve, as they offer all the same services as bricks-and-mortar branches. They have been successful in taking key services such as everyday banking to customers, giving them vital access to cash in areas where there are no bank branches nearby. The Post Office directly contributes towards the costs of those outreach services, in conjunction with the postmaster running them, whose parent branch benefits from the transactional income accrued from the visits to outlying communities.

My hon. Friend raised important points about the specific challenge of running a post office in communities where seasonal trade and variation plays a significant role. I know that the Post Office listens to the community and the postmasters in St Ives by taking a more flexible approach to opening hours requirements across the year. That will allow branches to be more sustainable through the leaner, off-peak seasons, when their post office and associated shop has fewer customers. As he said, the issue was taken up by Lord Gardiner in his meeting with Paula Vennells, the Post Office’s chief executive officer, on 4 December. I understand that there will be a follow-up meeting with her in the constituency in the New Year to discuss this and other matters further. I am confident that this ongoing, frank and sustained engagement is the right way to proceed, so that the issues can be understood and a solution be provided for the benefit of postmasters, businesses and residents of St Ives.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to clarify some misconceptions about the Post Office’s franchising programme, particularly the assumption that franchising means closures and the downgrading of services. Those criticisms are misplaced. Post Office branches are not closing, but are being franchised, either on-site or by relocating to other high street locations. Franchising is nothing new; almost 98% of post offices across the UK are successfully operated by independent businesses and retail partners. Moving the directly managed Crown offices to retail partners has been instrumental in reducing losses in that part of the network.

My hon. Friend raised an important point on postmasters’ remuneration, especially for everyday banking services. As these services have developed and increased, I know the Post Office is looking at ways to better recognise the effort required of its postmasters for banking transactions. In fact, the Post Office has recently notified postmasters that their rates for banking deposits have been increased this year. I understand that the Post Office has now entered negotiations with banks on the next banking service agreement. The Post Office has reassured me that it will do all it can to ensure that postmasters are better remunerated for the vital services that they offer. I should add that the Post Office is picking up vital services in areas that banks have left. It is right that the Post Office does its best to make sure the banks accept the responsibilities involved and the work that post offices are doing on behalf of those communities and, we hope, properly remunerate them.

My hon. Friend also raised an important point about postmasters who cannot exit the business because of the absence of alternative operators to take over their branch. Although that is an operational matter, I assure him that the Post Office is taking it very seriously. As of November 2017, there were more than 450 branches of that type across the network. To help the remaining postmasters, the Post Office has extended the network transformation resignation timeframe to March 2020. That means that all parties can continue to work together to ensure that no communities are left without the invaluable post office services that they rely on. The postmasters affected will continue to receive both fixed and variable remuneration throughout that period. Where solutions are found, the postmasters concerned can leave while still qualifying for their leaver’s compensation.

My hon. Friend raised some particular issues relating to his constituents. I am not aware of some of the detail of those cases, but we are meeting in the new year, so I look forward to discussing those points and seeing how we can move forward.

I reassure my hon. Friend that all post offices across the network, including rural branches, are of the utmost importance to the Government. We recognise their value and importance, and we will continue to honour our manifesto commitments so that post offices can thrive and remain at the heart of our rural and urban communities. I thank my hon. Friend again for making his points, and for his hard work in support of access to post office services for his constituents. I assure him that I will continue to work with him and the Post Office to make sure that the constituents of St Ives receive the post office service that they deserve.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I am sure the House would like to wish all postal workers the best for Christmas and the new year, and to thank them for getting the parliamentary mail through.

Question put and agreed to.