“Chapter 4A
Liam Byrne Excerpts(4 months ago)
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Justin Madders
The answer is in the Department’s press release, which cites Simon Deakin, professor of law at the University of Cambridge, no less. He has said:
“The consensus on the economic impacts of labour laws is that, far from being harmful to growth, they contribute positively to productivity. Labour laws also help ensure that growth is more inclusive and that gains are distributed more widely across society.”
I am sure that the right hon. Member wants to see that happen.
Amendments in relation to the rights in clauses 2 and 3 to reasonable notice of shifts and payment for short-notice cancellation, curtailment and movement of shifts will ensure that the rights work appropriately for workers whose contracts specify the timing of at least some of their shifts; provide that a worker is entitled to a payment from their employer only for a shift cancelled, moved or curtailed at short notice if they reasonably believed they would be needed to work the shift; and allow employers to disclose personal information about a worker in notices of exceptions, where appropriate and in accordance with data protection law, and ensure that the usual burden of proof applies where it is alleged that such a notice is untrue.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
The Minister will have seen the appalling evidence that the Business and Trade Committee took from McDonald’s, where the BBC investigation exposed allegations from hundreds of young workers who were suffering harassment, and even allegations from one worker of managers soliciting them for sex in return for scheduling shifts. The tightening up that he proposes is very welcome. When does he think he will set out the detail—[Interruption.] When will he set out the detail of, for example, the period of time that someone must work before being offered a zero-hours contract?
Justin Madders
I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee for his question. We are aiming to work on this once the Bill has passed this stage, and consultation will take place in due course. I have to say that the chuntering from those on the Conservative Benches really shows how they fail to appreciate the power imbalance that there is in some workplaces and the exploitation and harassment that arise from that.
Our measures on guaranteed hours, reasonable notice of shifts, and payment for short-notice cancellations seek to ensure that workers, often in fragmented sectors with little voice of their own, do not bear all the risk of uncertain demand. However, we recognise that there are cases where unions and employers, working together, may want to agree more tailored rights than the provisions allow, which would benefit both the workers and the employer given the unique context of that particular sector. Unions, businesses and trade associations have made a case for that flexibility in their meetings with us. We want to allow for that, while also providing a baseline for sectors where unionisation is uncommon or agreement cannot be reached. New clause 33 and associated amendments will allow employers and unions to collectively agree to modify or opt out of the zero-hours contract measures.
Like the other workers covered by this part of the Bill, agency workers deserve a baseline of security and access to a contract that reflects their regular hours. Many agency workers have a preference for guaranteed hours, according to survey evidence. We know that 55% of agency workers requested a permanent contract with their hirer between January 2019 and September 2020, according to the Department for Business and Trade’s agency worker survey. We are keen not to see a wholesale shift from directly engaged workers to agency workers as a way for employers to avoid the zero-hours provisions in the Bill.
New clause 32, new schedule 1 and associated amendments will narrow the broad power currently in the Bill and instead include provisions for similar rights to be extended to agency workers. Hirers, agencies and agency workers can then be clear where responsibilities will rest in relation to the new rights. These amendments reflect the call for clarity from stakeholders in their response to the Government’s public consultation on this issue. Given the important role that agency work plays in businesses and public services, we recognise the need to work with the recruitment sector, employers and trade unions to design detailed provisions for regulations that work—that is, regulations that achieve the policy objective of extending rights to agency workers without unintended consequences for employment agencies and hirers—and we will work on that in due course.
The Government have also tabled amendments in relation to dismissal and redundancy practices. This Bill will help employers to raise standards in relation to these practices, so that the vast majority of businesses that do the right thing by their workers will no longer be undercut by those with low standards.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. Before I call the Chair of the Business and Trade Select Committee, I want to make clear that I will then call Steve Darling, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson. Immediately after Mr Darling, there will be a six-minute time limit. I call Liam Byrne.
Liam Byrne
Thank you very much indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am going to be very brief—I will just make three quick points—and will do my best to salvage a degree of consensus from the conflict that has characterised this debate at its outset.
If there are a couple of things that unite us across this House, it is that we all believe in fair play, and we all believe in an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work. However, the reality is that millions of workers in this country are simply not earning their fair share of the wealth that we produce together. If labour income were the same share of national income as it was back in the 1950s, something like £12,000 a year would go into the pay packets of every single one of the 33.8 million workers in this country. As such, following a decade that has seen 4 million people trapped in low pay and during which we have had a living standards crisis, it behoves each and every one of us to think more creatively and constructively about how we support workers in this economy to earn a good life for them and their family.
We on the Business and Trade Committee have the privilege of hearing from some of the best employers in the country, but we also have the duty of interrogating many firms that, frankly, have been letting down our country. I will highlight three examples, in order to illustrate some of the amendments that have been tabled in my name and in the names of other right hon. and hon. Members. They are not amendments that I wish to press to a Division; they are probing amendments, on which I think the Minister needs to provide the House with some answers.
I will start with McDonald’s, which I referenced in an earlier intervention. It is one of the most significant employers in our country, employing over 200,000 people. Some 90% of McDonald’s workers are on zero-hours contracts. On the day of our hearing, a BBC investigation by Zoe Conway, its employment correspondent, exposed the reality that hundreds of McDonald’s employees were contacting the BBC and the EHRC with allegations of the most appalling harassment. We heard about the case of a 17-year-old McDonald’s worker who alleged that she was being asked for sex in return for a manager giving her the shifts that she wanted—how on earth can that be acceptable in today’s economy? Yet when we put that point to the chief executive of McDonald’s and asked, “Do you think that the imbalance of power that has flourished in McDonald’s because 90% of your workers are on zero-hours contracts has anything to do with this litany of abuse, or with 700 workers contacting their solicitors to bring a case against McDonald’s?”, the answer was no. It was an absolutely extraordinary denial of reality.
We then heard from Evri, which, as many people know, is one of the most significant courier firms in the country, employing tens of thousands of people. Mr Hugo Martin came before our Committee to give evidence, and told us that all at Evri was sweetness and light. However, the Committee has now received hundreds upon hundreds of complaints from whistleblowers, alleging that they are being cheated and undercut, most recently through the rate cuts, the packet racket which is still persisting, health and safety abuses at work, intimidation, bullying and harassment. They are being told repeatedly that their shifts will be cut, or that they will be out of the door if they do not work six days a week. Our constituents are experiencing this completely unacceptable behaviour.
I must be careful about scope at this point, Madam Deputy Speaker, but we also heard from the company Shein, which could not even tell us whether the products that it made contained cotton from China. We were simply trying to understand whether workers in our country were being undercut by an abuse of modern slavery practices abroad.
I say to the House that although we may have our differences on the Bill, we must accept the reality that millions of people in this country—millions of the people we are sent here to represent—are being treated in a way that should be unacceptable in a 21st-century economy. What the good employers told the Committee, time and again, was that they supported the spirit of the Bill, although of course they had concerns about the detail, and it is good that the Minister is listening. What they did not want to see persist was the situation that they feared, in which the good firms were being undercut by the bad. We must have a level playing field in this country: that will be a necessity if we are to win a global race to the top.
My amendments 275 to 277 suggest alterations to the zero hours regime that the Minister has set out. I think we should abolish the definition of “low hours” in contracts. I accept the evidence that was given to us by Paddy Lillis, the brilliant general secretary of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, that retaining the definition creates a risk of loopholes that will be exploited by bad employers.
Amendments 278 to 281, which might be termed the McDonald’s amendments, urge the Secretary of State to put on the face of the Bill a definition of “reasonable notice” in relation to the moving of shifts and the compensation that should be entailed in the event of unreasonable shift movements. We need to ensure that our workers, particularly young workers, are never again subjected to the kind of abuse that we have seen unfold at McDonald’s. Those days must be consigned to the past.
New clause 80, which might be described as the Evri amendment, creates an obligation and duty for the Secretary of State to bring to the House, within six months of the Bill’s coming into the force, the final version of a review of the single status of workers. We heard compelling evidence from the director of Labour Market Enforcement, who told us that the Government, Ministers and civil servants could consult
“until the cows come home”.
We could put off the consultation about the different definitions of “worker” for ever and a day, when what we need to do is end the kind of abuse that we see at Evri now. Ensuring that these loopholes are closed so that bogus self-employment is no longer a loophole through which bad employers abuse honest workers: I should like to see the Minister step up to that requirement.
New clause 81, which we might call the Shein amendment, requires the Government to update the Modern Slavery Act 2015, and section 54 in particular, to ensure that the employment rights granted in the Bill are not undermined by companies operating in this country that are abusing this legislation. At the time the Modern Slavery Act was world-leading legislation, but we heard clear evidence from companies such as Tesco that this country risked becoming a “dumping ground” for bad products produced by workers exploited abroad. We cannot allow this country, which led the abolition of slavery, to be a country in which we have second-class protections against modern slavery in the 21st century, and I should therefore welcome a commitment from the Minister on when the Act will be updated.
We welcome some of the Government amendments, particularly the enhanced protection for agency workers and the action on umbrella companies. Both are recommendations in the Committee’s excellent report, which I commend to all Members. I hope that, as a result of this debate, we can salvage some consensus. The Bill will go through today, and this will be the biggest overhaul of employment rights in the country. We must ensure that it lasts for the future, and the more we can do to bring a cross-party consensus around that simple idea that all workers—all constituents—in the country should have the right, the power and the freedom to earn a good life for themselves and their families, and the sooner we can do it, the better.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Department for Business and Trade
Liam Byrne Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
I put on the record my profound thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for making time for this debate, and to the Liaison Committee for some of the arrangements that have made today possible.
The Prime Minister has underlined time and again that growth is the No. 1 priority, so I am grateful that the House has agreed to put the Department for growth, together with its accounts, under the microscope today. In readiness for today’s debate, my Business and Trade Committee has taken the precaution of talking to hundreds and hundreds of businesses up and down the country, to trade unionists and to consumer groups, and has laid in the House a report on what we heard from literally thousands of voices. In a way, that is what these accounts and estimates, and the Minister, should be judged against when we consider this matter today.
Let me make three points quickly to get the debate started. I start with the point that struck me hardest when we were listening to business voices up and down the country: for all that divides us in this House, there is a terrific unity of purpose in the business community in this country—unity not only about the possibility of becoming the fastest-growing economy in the G7, but on what we need to do to hit that target. The overwhelming majority of businesses want Ministers do more to grow the markets into which they sell. They want to see an ambitious reset with the European Union, fast-tracking of the free trade deals with Switzerland, the Gulf Co-operation Council and India, and for us to do absolutely everything possible to avoid the peril of tariffs from the United States. However, they also want to see a complete transformation in the way in which we use public procurement to support businesses in this country. Minister after Minister has said from the Dispatch Box, “We will do more to buy British.” Well, it is time to actually deliver on that promise.
Secondly, businesses want the right workers for the roles that are available. Pretty much everywhere we went, the challenges of getting the right workforce were the No. 1 priority of the people we heard from. It is true that we heard a lot of concern about the rising costs of business. People are worried about the impact of the Employment Rights Bill, the national minimum wage changes and the national insurance increases all coming at the same time. However, I heard businesses say that they could live with that if they saw the rapid development and publication of a growth plan, along with the comprehensive spending review. I regret the fact that that has kind of moved sideways, because given what this extremely hard-working Minister is doing with the Employment Rights Bill, it would have been in his political interests for his colleagues to table that industrial strategy and growth plan sooner rather than later.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I appreciate a fellow Harlowian giving way to me. Does my right hon. Friend agree that part of employment is about skills, and one way the Government can support businesses is by ensuring that young people have the skills to succeed in business and in all workplaces?
Liam Byrne
My hon. Friend is 100% right. We heard businesses say to us loud and clear that they wanted radical and bold changes in the way that the skills levy was organised. The Government have moved to introduce flexibilities, and business want them to go further, faster.
We also heard business say that there is a good environment when it comes to start-up finance, but a terrible environment in this country for scale-up finance—I will return to that in a moment. People want much stronger relationships between universities and businesses, and we in this country still do not have something like the Fraunhofer institutes in Germany, which have as their slogan that they are the research and development departments for the Mittelstand. Where those knowledge transfer partnerships work, they are good, but they need to be far more prevalent. Finally, we heard businesses say loud and clear that the planning system needs a complete overhaul. The infrastructure in this country is terrible, and we must drive down energy prices; right now, many businesses are being priced out of doing business because our energy prices are sky high.
For all our differences, there are important points on which we can agree. We on the Business and Trade Committee will continue to judge Ministers against many of the things that we heard from the business community as we travelled up and down the country, and I will flag up two or three points that we want to zero in on.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
My right hon. Friend’s point about energy costs and opening markets chimes with everything that the ceramics industry is telling me about what it is facing. He is right about the need for growth, and as well as being a wonderful Chair of the Committee, he is a doughty campaigner against inequality and inequity. I am sure that he will agree that we need to ensure that the benefits of growth are felt in every community, be it in Birmingham or Stoke-on-Trent, and particularly in those communities that sadly, under the last Government, did not get the benefits they deserved.
Liam Byrne
My hon. Friend is an extraordinary champion for the city he represents, and for the industry that has made that city great over the centuries. He is absolutely right: when the industrial strategy is published, we must understand whether it is driving growth and better wages, and whether it is transforming people’s ability to earn a good life in every corner of the country. We cannot again have the situation that we had over the past 10 to 15 years, where 70% of the growth and wealth in our country has been concentrated in London and the south-east. We must genuinely level-up this country and pull together a cross-party consensus, to the extent that we can, on the changes that are needed. Why? Because if we can get that cross-party consensus, we can redesign the economic institutions in our country in a way that is sustainable for the long term.
I wish to flag three issues that pose questions to the Minister who is asking us to agree the estimates today. First, there is a real worry in the small business community about whether it will be adequately supported by some of the changes that the Minister is helping to drive through. We all know that what has bedevilled our economy for a long time is a long tail of underproductive, often smaller, firms. If we are to raise wages, raise the rate of economic growth, and become the fastest growing economy in the G7, we must transform the productivity rate of a lot of our small firms. How will new technology be diffused through supply chains? How can we ensure that small and medium-sized businesses have support in deploying new technology that could change their business?
Rosie Wrighting (Kettering) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his chairmanship of the Committee. Given the Prime Minister’s recent announcements, and our increased defence spending, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important to support small and medium-sized defence enterprises?
Liam Byrne
My hon. Friend is a brilliant member of the Committee, and she makes a brilliant point. We know that we must come to a strategic culture and defence mindset in this country, so that our industry can innovate as fast as the battlefield changes. We all know that there are defence manufacturers—drone manufacturers in particular—that struggle to get the working capital that they need to fund and grow their businesses, month by month. We will have to change the way that we support smaller businesses, and that means transforming access to finance.
Time and again, the Committee has heard about business leaders being brought in once a firm gets to a particular size, and it being snapped up and shipped out, in particular to the United States, because we do not seem able to supply equity finance or debt finance of between £50 million and £500 million. We have to think anew about how we ensure that the British Business Bank, the National Wealth Fund, the private sector and the proposed changes to pension funds work together to completely revolutionise access to finance for businesses in this market. In the estimates, there looks to be a welcome £414 million increase in funding for the British Business Bank. Although it is hard to decode the accounts, it looks like about £127 million of that is provision for bad debt. Will the Minister clarify that? The Committee will continue to press for us to completely transform access to finance, including through an inquiry that we will launch later in the year.
The final fear that I wanted to flag, which is coming through loud and clear to Committee members, is that the Government just do not work for business in the way that they need to. We have heard over and over again about one Department doing something that completely undermines the work of another, or one regulator doing something that completely undermines what a different Department or regulator is trying to do. We do not yet see anything about how we can knit Government together in a wholly new way in either the Green Paper on industrial strategy, or any of the commentary about the estimates. In the good old days, when I was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, what we were beginning to test—
Liam Byrne
Well, there was an awful lot more money than there is now. We certainly did not have a debt interest bill of £100 billion a year, which is what the bill has risen to, and why so many difficult choices are having to be taken. At that time, we were beginning genuinely to consider how to create single, pooled funds that came together from different Government Departments. A challenge for us in the House is that we have to reflect on the fact that we reinforce silos in Government, and do not reinforce joined-up Government. This estimates debate is a good example: we are considering the accounts of the Department for Business and Trade, but in an ideal world we would also have here Ministers from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Treasury, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and a couple of other Departments, and we would ask those Ministers how they were working together to deliver a joined-up offer to our business community, because businesses have not got time to muck around and deal with all the red tape; they are trying to build a business.
Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way—he has given way a few times already. When I speak to businesses in my constituency, I pick up that young people who want to remain in the most rural communities simply cannot get to the jobs that they want to get to, and that businesses in rural settings have real trouble accessing a lot of the help that he refers to. Does he believe that one of the particular sins of the past 14 years is that the business climate has been unfriendly to business, and particularly unfriendly to small rural businesses?
Liam Byrne
My hon. Friend is right, but we have to look to the future. We have to understand how Government will connect together and ensure a transformation in regional transport and connectivity. So many parts of our country are bedevilled by a lack of internet connectivity, so they cannot access the kind of applications that might give them access to artificial intelligence, for example, or to international markets. They cannot get access to the internet full stop. We have to think boldly about how we join Government together in a revolutionary way.
Finally, I wanted to mention the Post Office. When we look at these accounts in the round, we see a 44.8% increase in the amount allocated, taking the figure up to nearly £6 billion a year. That is partly driven by £444 million for the British Business Bank, but it is overwhelmingly driven by about £1.3 billion extra for the Post Office. The good step has been taken of increasing funding for the Post Office compensation scheme, but that money is still not going out the door fast enough. I accept that that has improved, but the Committee will return with some tougher questions for Ministers in the light of their response to our recent report.
My final point, which I urge on both the Minister and his colleagues in the Treasury, is that we cannot transform the Post Office into the organisation it could be by drip-drip-dripping the funding for modernisation through to it. The Post Office needs a proper five-year to 10-year funding plan so that it can genuinely become the organisation that it could be. When these accounts were published by the Department, they were qualified and late. I know that civil servants have to work hard to iron out a number of problems, and we have asked the permanent secretary for monthly updates on how he is doing in bringing the kind of clarity that this House should expect. I thank the civil servants and the Department for the extraordinary work that they do; they are absolutely mission-critical to the hopes of so many of us in this country and to our becoming the fastest-growing economy in the G7.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I will have to put Back-Bench Members on an immediate five-minute time limit, which may well go down in due course.
Liam Byrne
This has been an excellent debate. Let me once again say that I am incredibly grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for ensuring that we could spend time together debating the issues at stake. We heard some brilliant speeches from across the House. In a way, my ambitions for the debate were satisfied, because I wanted to ensure, after our report on the priorities of the business community, and having secured this debate, that we actually heard business voices in this Chamber, and in the corridors of power. We do not give enough time, space or attention to business voices, and to hearing about the challenges in boardrooms and on shop floors. If we did that a little bit more, it would surprise us how much consensus there is in this country about the big moves forward.
This is for the economic historians among us. We have to recognise that we are at one of those moments in history that occur every 30 to 40 years. We have a series of geopolitical shocks, and then we have a big, agonising debate about whether the country is in decline, whether it is all going to hell, or whether there is a different way forward, in which the country rallies together and chooses to build a different kind of sovereign capability. Inevitably, that has consequences for the kind of state that emerges. We went through this in the 1980s, the 1940s and after world war one. We have to conduct that argument now at a moment when it is clear that the United States—that great power, that great ally of ours, that built the multilateral system beginning in 1944 in San Francisco and then through to the end of world war two—in the words of Joseph Chamberlain, is a weary titan no longer able to grasp the orb of its fate. We have to recognise that for those of us who support that multilateral rules-based order, we will have to step up. That will be difficult and expensive, but it will bring new opportunities for business growth and, crucially, for our constituents to earn a good living.
Harland & Wolff
Liam Byrne Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
Congratulations to the Secretary of State. This is excellent news for the people of Appledore and of Northern Ireland and for workers across the Harland & Wolff supply chain. He might want to confirm that the peril of providing a Government guarantee was the possibility of entailing a huge payout to a US-based hedge fund, which was the largest creditor for Harland & Wolff. What is happening to the contract value for the FSS deal? It was priced at about £1.6 billion. Has that contract value now gone up? Crucially, what does the Secretary of State envisage for Harland & Wolff after that enormous contract is safely and soundly delivered?
Jonathan Reynolds
I thank the Select Committee Chair for his kind words. I am delighted that we have been able to secure this future for Harland & Wolff. His assessment is right that the largest creditor to Harland & Wolff when we took office was Riverstone, a significant US hedge fund. He is right to say that had we gone ahead with that Government guarantee or loan, there would likely have been no real return to the taxpayer—no guarantee of jobs, shipyards or ships being built. That money would have gone to the creditors. Actually, in the commercial market-based solution that we have been able to broker, all creditors have behaved responsibly, but, understandably, if anyone thinks the Government will come along and give them free money, they will hold out for that option. That was why it was so important to make that decision early on to secure this far better outcome.
On the specific question, and I should have directed my answer to the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), there is no change to the UK-based content of the contract. As I said in the statement, there have been some changes on commercial terms, although they are relatively minor based on the overall value of the contract.
On the future, I can tell the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne) that the deal we have brokered guarantees not only all four yards, but the jobs in the Belfast yard for three years and jobs in the three other yards for two years. We therefore have a chance not just for new investment coming into those yards, but for the long-term future to be secured for a pipeline of work and energy and defence contracts, which is a vibrant and successful opportunity for the future.
Post Office Redress and Funding
Liam Byrne Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
I welcome much of the Minister’s statement today. Redress is being paid out faster, but the truth is that 70% of the budget for redress has still not been paid. The Select Committee will be supplying its advice on how we make that faster in a report that we will release on new year’s day. The Minister has set out details for the House about the Capture victims who have been identified. Does he believe that many of those victims were convicted? If they were, would it not be right to have those convictions automatically overturned, in the way that we have done for other victims of this appalling scandal?
Royal Mail Takeover
Liam Byrne Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
I welcome the statement made by this hard-working Minister. I take it from the announcement that Mr Křetínský has cleared the investment screening tests that the Cabinet Office is responsible for. It would be useful to have that confirmed.
Let me press my hon. Friend about the universal service obligation. Is it his intention that beyond the initial five years he will seek six-day delivery and a universal service obligation in place for Royal Mail for as long as His Majesty’s Government retain the golden share?
Justin Madders
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for his comments. The golden share is to deal with tax residency and headquarters being domiciled in the UK. Obviously, there will be discussions about the universal service obligation. We know that this is a fast-moving market, and that will be for determination by Ofcom some time next year.
Stellantis Luton
Liam Byrne Excerpts(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
This is indeed a hard day for Luton. I welcome what the Secretary of State shared with the House, and the review of the zero emission mandate that he announced. In that review, I hope that he looks again at the perversities of the regime that he inherited, which could involve petrol engine makers in this country transferring credits to companies like Elon Musk’s Tesla, and to Chinese EV makers. If we really want to ensure a level playing field, why do we not reverse the decision of the last Secretary of State, follow the EU Commission and launch anti-subsidy investigations into Chinese EV makers? The Trade Remedies Authority is ready to go—it just needs the Secretary of State to give the green light.
Jonathan Reynolds
I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee, including for the exchanges that we had in the Committee evidence session yesterday. He is right that because of the position we inherited—the issues with the flexibilities in the policy and the fact that no domestic producer is on track—the transfer he described is effectively the problem. That is why I say that decarbonisation cannot mean deindustrialisation. It is precisely what we inherited that we are critiquing. We do not want to undermine the transition in the way the previous Prime Minister did—anyone in industry in the sector could tell Conservative Members how disastrous that was—but we need to give a breathing space, and ensure that the policy has none of the perverse incentives that he described.
On subsidies, the Trade Remedies Authority and the potential response from the UK, we have to bear in mind two things. First, under the system that we inherited, industry makes the application. I have powers to do that, as Secretary of State, but they have never been used, to my knowledge. Secondly, we must remember that the UK automotive sector is a world-class, export-led sector. If we were to go down any kind of protectionist route on principle, we would have to bear in mind what it would mean for the markets we sell vehicles into. If we sell 80% of our product abroad, we have to consider the international export position, alongside the domestic market position. If industry makes that request, of course that request will be followed up, in accordance with the way the system operates.
Future of the Post Office
Liam Byrne Excerpts(8 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
Today is the last day of the Horizon inquiry. I look forward to working with you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and with colleagues across the House to explore appropriate sanctions for those who clearly misled us as the scandal unfolded. I look forward to seeing the Minister and the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon South (Heidi Alexander), before the Committee on Tuesday 19 November to explore how redress payments can be paid faster.
It is surely right that we aim to grow the top line of Post Office businesses, which has to mean that high street banks contribute more to the core business. What steps can the Minister take to ensure this happens?
Oral Answers to Questions
Liam Byrne Excerpts(8 months, 1 week ago)
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Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
On Tuesday, we will hear from Sir Alan Bates and other victims of the Horizon scandal, which continues to deepen. In September, we learned that there will be 100 more convictions quashed than we originally thought, and yesterday the bill for redress went up by half a billion pounds. Have all the victims now come forward, and are there any gaps left in the schemes for redress?
Gareth Thomas
I welcome the decision by my right hon. Friend’s Select Committee to take a further look at the issue. It is a priority for the Department to speed up the compensation process. Victims are still coming forward, and we are actively looking at whether all those who come forward are covered by the compensation schemes. We have asked the Post Office to write to all those sub-postmasters who have not yet come forward to see if they are eligible for compensation.
Port Talbot Transition Project
Liam Byrne Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
I am not yet Chair of the Committee, Mr Speaker, but fingers crossed. I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement. I hope the whole House will recognise that what he has brought us today is not a set of sound bites but a strategy. In the long term, that strategy will benefit from a stronger cross-party consensus, so I hope that it can be the subject of a future Select Committee inquiry.
The Secretary of State puts his finger on the key issue: to safeguard the future of the steel industry, we need to de-risk the demand for steel in this country. What reassurance can he give the House about how we will use procurement and, crucially, the creation of a bigger offshore wind industry in this country to drive demand that will keep the furnaces going at Port Talbot and elsewhere? This country pioneered steelmaking; now we need to reinvent its future.
Mr Speaker
Order. May I say to Members, especially senior Members, that when they speak facing the opposite direction from where I am sitting, I cannot hear what they say? Please, speak towards the Chair. That is how we keep neutrality working as well.
Post Office Horizon: Redress
Liam Byrne Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Members should continue to bob if they want to be called. I am going to call everybody, as I know the Secretary of State also wants to respond to everybody. I call the previous Chair of the Business and Trade Committee.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
I add my congratulations to Sir Alan Bates and Lady Suzanne on what looked like a very happy day.
I welcome what the Secretary of State has set out for the House this afternoon. When our Select Committee reported back in March, we said that trust in the Post Office was fundamentally broken and that the appeals scheme needed to be independent. This is an important step in that direction, but sub-postmasters have told me this morning that there is still a problem with the time it takes to get offers back when an offer is contested. The claimant’s lawyers have a fixed amount of time to put in a claim; when that claim is contested, it is taking far too long for Addleshaws, in particular, to come back and provide a second offer. What comfort can sub-postmasters take from the Secretary of State’s announcement today? This whole House agrees that justice delayed is justice denied.
Jonathan Reynolds
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who will, I hope, see his work as Chair of the Select Committee reflected in this announcement—specifically, that we are setting the target to issue initial offers to 90% of claims within 40 working days of receiving a full claim. On the point of how that is defined, a full claim is one where, following legal assessment, it is deemed that it does not require any further evidence to assess the claim further. Once that is in, the targets, which his Select Committee rightly called for to make sure redress is delivered at speed, are part of this process.