Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateKemi Badenoch
Main Page: Kemi Badenoch (Conservative - North West Essex)Department Debates - View all Kemi Badenoch's debates with the Department for Business and Trade
(9 months, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberThe Government provide extensive business support for all businesses, including those in rural areas. As a Member of Parliament for a rural constituency, I am keenly aware of the difficulties that apply specifically to rural businesses because of their location. With other Departments, we focus on access to energy, and we work with the Department for Education on apprenticeships. We also have the British Business Bank’s recovery loan scheme, and the Start Up Loans company, which improves access to finance to help businesses to invest and grow. I believe that that package helps rural businesses.
The Secretary of State will be aware that the Sutherland spaceport could be a fantastic boost for local businesses. Equally, floating offshore wind in the North sea presents opportunities for the Wick and Scrabster harbours. To underpin that, we need the transport infrastructure. The public service obligation for Wick airport runs out in March this year, with no word from the Scottish Government on whether it will be continued—it would be a fatal blow if not—and then there is the abject failure to invest in the A9. Promise after promise after promise has been broken. What advice does she have for me?
I would ask the hon. Gentleman to speak to the SNP-led Scottish Government, who are responsible for much of that investment. It is a real shame that the SNP Government do not care about rural businesses or small businesses in Scotland. Office for National Statistics figures show that Scotland lost more than 20,000 businesses last year, and they were mainly the smallest businesses employing up to 50 people. However, I take his point about infrastructure. We have to look at that on a UK-wide basis, and I am prepared to look in a little more detail at what my Department can do to support him.
I think that my right hon. Friend is doing a great job for rural businesses. However, the Met Office, which is under her stewardship, is responsible for providing wind forecasts, which are particularly important given that the Orwell bridge was closed recently. I would like there to be more transparency and, specifically, for the Met Office to publish the wind speed on its app so that there is transparency for all businesses and the bridge is not closed unnecessarily.
That sounds like a significant issue. However, I am pleased to say that the Met Office is the responsibility not of my Department but of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. We can raise the matter with DSIT colleagues to ensure that they look at it as quicky possible.
The Department for Business and Trade has done a lot to bring foreign direct investment into the UK. Just last November, we raised £30 billion at our global investment summit. Specifically for north Northamptonshire, my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that his constituents can take advantage of the DBT national and regional investment teams, which work with local partners to provide support for foreign investors who wish to invest and set up in the region.
Recent inward investment into the Kettering constituency includes the Ball Corporation from the US building Europe’s largest and most modern aluminium drinks can manufacturing plant in Burton Latimer, creating 200 new jobs. Will my right hon. Friend congratulate and thank Ball for its confidence and investment in north Northamptonshire’s manufacturing economy, and encourage others to see Kettering—with its superb connectivity and motivated workforce—as an ideal location for further investment?
I am extremely pleased to be able to do so. I congratulate and thank Ball Corporation for placing its investment in Kettering. That is exactly the sort of investment that we want to see all around the UK: it is the levelling-up agenda writ large. I also thank all the officials in my Department, but especially my Ministers, who travel all around the world—including to the US—to promote the UK. We never talk this country down; we let people know that this is a great place to do business, and we are seeing the benefits of that strategy.
At the autumn statement, we announced the decision to extend the growth duty to Ofgem, Ofwat and Ofcom, alongside a series of reforms to the duty to hold regulators to account for delivering growth in the sectors they regulate. We are also currently consulting on proposals to strengthen the economic regulation of the energy, water and telecoms sectors.
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer, but on retained EU law reform, in the June to December 2023 reporting period there were only two regulatory reforms of note, which were on wine marketing and working time calculations; the rest were technical corrections. What steps is she taking to speed up reform of retained EU law to ensure that regulation works for business and enables growth?
I am glad that my hon. Friend read the report that I sent out this week on what we have been doing. However, I disagree that only two reforms of note have been delivered. We have repealed or reformed more than 2,000 measures. The Port Services Regulations 2019, which were not designed with UK ports in mind, are an example. We have also passed the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 and the Procurement Act 2023. I remind him that that list is what we are using the schedule for, and there are many other mechanisms in the retained EU law programme to deliver on that road map so that we improve our economy and make it more competitive by making sure that our laws are tailored to our economy.
In support of economic growth, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) cut £235 million from Environment Agency budgets when she was at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Rather than bringing economic growth, that served to bring sewage growth: sewage discharge doubled between 2016 and 2021. I was delighted to hear yesterday that the Government will adopt my Water Quality Monitoring Bill, but will they also restore some of the cut Environment Agency funding to bring back powers as well as duties?
A spending review, where we can look at these things, will be coming up shortly, but I really have to challenge much of what the hon. Gentleman said. It is a misrepresentation to say that the issues going on with sewage are to do with the actions of my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss). This Government have been taking reforms through the Environment Act 2021 to improve the situation throughout multiple Governments, including the one in which his party, the Liberal Democrats, participated during the coalition. So it is very wrong to make that case.
As Secretary of State for Business and Trade, I am committed to ensuring the resilience of the UK’s critical supply chains. Last week, the Government published the “Critical Imports and Supply Chains Strategy” to help UK businesses build secure and reliable supply chains. Our 18-point action plan will help businesses to deal better with global supply chain issues from overcoming bureaucratic barriers to dealing with severe shocks caused by events such as the pandemic, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the attacks on the Red sea that have threatened a key route for global trade. DBT led the development of the strategy, which was shaped by the experiences of UK businesses. I was delighted that representatives of industry as well as key international partners joined us at the strategy’s launch at Heathrow airport, which is, of course, the UK’s largest import hub by value.
Mr Speaker, I wish you and the rest of the House a happy Burns night for this evening. Is it not a scandal that the only way to get the great chieftain o’ the puddin-race exported to the United States is by sending the vegetarian version? [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] Could not the Secretary of State put that into her 18-point action plan and get on and do something, or does she want to risk forever being known as a cowran, tim’rous beastie? [Laughter.]
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his esoteric question. We are continually removing barriers to US-UK trade, and we are trading with the US more than ever before. If he has a specific example that I can help with so that he can enjoy his Burns night, I would appreciate it if he wrote to me, and we will look at the matter in detail.
I cannot comment on the ongoing Northern Ireland political process, to which I am not a participant. However, it is clear that we retain the ability to diverge. I agree with my right hon. Friend that if we are to seize the benefits of Brexit, we need to find that comparative advantage over the EU in our regulations, otherwise there would be no point. I remind her that I was the Business Secretary who made sure that there was transparency, rather than an invisible bonfire, in what we were doing on EU regulations. I ended the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice on 1 January. We have a comprehensive deregulation programme, which I am pushing. I understand her concerns, and I will speak to colleagues across Departments to ensure that they are raised at the highest level.
It is really important for us to not misrepresent what is happening on steel. Our steel industry is not disappearing; our steel industry is evolving. We will continue to have significant steelmaking capability in the UK, including producing materials for the industries the hon. Lady talks about. But we should also remember that the changes to Port Talbot are part of the decarbonisation that all Opposition Members have been asking for. This is the biggest single emitter of carbon in the UK and this House voted to reach net zero by 2050. Everything we are doing is to ensure that we do that in a sustainable and sensible way.
Following on from the question by my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Holly Mumby-Croft), for the sake of clarity, can the Secretary of State confirm that it remains the Government’s position to ensure that the UK has the capacity to produce virgin steel here in the UK?
The Government maintain that we want to ensure that we keep steelmaking capability in the UK. At the moment, we import ore to make steel. When we talk about virgin steel many people assume there are no imports in the supply chain, but there still are, even now, and whatever changes we make will require some imports. However, we are making sure that our steel industry is more resilient than ever before, at a time when it faces oversupply from China and India. That is the real problem faced by the steel industry in all of western Europe. We do a lot with tariff measures, such as steel safeguards—
Please, do not do that. I called the next Member, so I expect you to sit down. It is topical questions, not free statements.
Order. The Secretary of State took advantage; I do not want the hon. Lady to do exactly the same.
I believe that this might be an issue for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, but if the hon. Lady will write to me, we can look at that specific case.
I am grateful to the Minister for working with me on the issue of button battery safety, and grateful for the ongoing commitment of the five working groups that were set up in 2022 following the tragic death of one of my constituents, Harper-Lee Fanthorpe, and the campaign for Harper-Lee’s law. Will the Minister meet me to discuss progress, and, in particular, how the guidelines drawn up by the Office for Product Safety and Standards can be made compulsory so that more deaths and injuries from button battery ingestion can be prevented?
I am sure that the Secretary of State shares my desire to revitalise our fantastic local high streets. Flitwick Town Council plans to do exactly that, but it needs support from the community ownership fund. May I urge the Secretary of State to look favourably on its forthcoming application?
It is good to see the hon. Gentleman working so hard for his community. The community ownership fund sits with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, but I am sure that if he makes representations to those in the Department, they will be able to give him a more substantive answer.
Will the Secretary of State look at the impact assessments of universities? The traditional universities are failing to meet the standards of sustainable development research, and Manchester, Huddersfield and Newcastle Universities are doing much better. Will the Secretary of State look into that, and push the other universities to do better?
This is a matter that sits with the Department for Education, but of course my Department takes an interest in all the innovation research that is going on, because it will help to boost the UK economy. I am sure that officials in my Department have been looking at those assessments, and will be able to provide details if the hon. Gentleman has a more specific question.