UK Steel Production: Greensill Capital

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab) [V]]

Investing in transport infrastructure such as the full HS2 route and a rolling programme of rail electrification is an excellent way to boost economic recovery and put the UK on the path to net zero, but the Government will be wasting a huge opportunity to safeguard and grow jobs in our steel industry if they do not use public procurement to support it. Will the Secretary of State commit to setting targets for UK steel content in contracts for major public works, and if not, why not?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Lady will know, as I have said at the Dispatch Box today, that we have a taskforce in BEIS chaired by my noble Friend Lord Grimstone. This is absolutely something that we are looking into, given the huge need we have and the huge demand for steel products in our infrastructure plans.

Vauxhall at Ellesmere Port and Battery Manufacturing Strategy

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend raises a crucial point. Clearly, without a successful roll-out of charging points we will struggle to meet the targets we have set ourselves. We have committed £90 million already to facilitate the roll-out of larger-scale charge point infrastructure projects across England for local areas, and we will continue to support that. I would be very happy to have a conversation with him about how we can best do that.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab) [V]]

The Chair of the Select Committee on Science and Technology could not have been clearer: for the British car industry to succeed in the growing electric vehicle market, protecting thousands of jobs, including here in the midlands, we must have UK gigafactories manufacturing electric batteries by the time the rules of origin change. How many UK gigafactories will we have by 2024? What specific steps is the Secretary of State taking to secure them?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

As the hon. Lady will have seen from these questions, we are looking at a number of sites. We are absolutely committed to having at least one gigafactory site, if not more—I think we need more than one—before the next election. I could not be clearer about our commitment to the transition and ultimately to reaching net zero by 2050.

Climate Change Assembly UK: The Path to Net Zero

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) and, indeed, to see hon. Members from different parties participating in today’s debate. Although it is timely, we are very much focused at the moment, of course, on the health crisis created by covid. Normally, I would have had a chance to write a speech, but today I am working from some very rough notes. While we are rightly focused on the health crisis that we face, not just in this country but internationally, the climate emergency has not gone away. Indeed, if anything, it bears on us even more.

The health crisis also gives us reason for hope and for learning. We have seen what amazing things can be achieved in a very short space of time when there is the will to do so. We have seen that people are up for almost unimaginable change when they really understand why it is needed. Parliament made a really important decision when it agreed that we would reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. We cannot afford to wait. In fact, if possible, we need to go even faster, and that is a call that I would make. If we do not achieve that, our planet will be irreparably damaged. Having made that commitment, the Government, and all of us as parliamentarians, must set out how we will get there and how we will reach those decisions. In making those decisions and setting out the steps, public support will be essential, and that is why the role of the Climate Assembly is so vital.

I am really proud that the Transport Committee, which I chaired at the time, was one of those Select Committees commissioning Climate Assembly UK, but we owe a huge debt of thanks to the 108 people who took part and actually made this process a reality. I saw for myself, on the first weekend they met back in January, what it involved. It was fantastic to be in the room as an observer and to see the energy and the interest that they showed in the expert information that was being presented to them, the questions that they asked and the participation. It was really excellent.

It is important to recognise the value of assembling a group that is truly representative of the UK population in terms of age, gender, educational qualifications, ethnicity, where they lived, whether they were from an urban area or a rural one, and actually whether they were really concerned about climate change or slightly sceptical about the whole issue. Too often, we find ourselves in echo chambers. We just listen to those who hold similar opinions to ourselves or hear from those who shout the loudest. The assembly’s work provided a rare opportunity to hear some of the quiet voices of people who had been given the information and had time to consider their recommendations. That is hugely valuable.

The assembly’s hard work has produced a really comprehensive report, as has already been said, and a set of 50 policy recommendations, covering not only how we travel but how we generate electricity, how we heat our homes and what we eat. Those are clear and consistent, and if we follow them, they will help us to get to net zero. I think that they are an absolutely invaluable resource to support our work here in Parliament and our decision making. The recommendations are not binding, and I think that is right. We can make different choices, but we cannot avoid making choices and taking action. The Climate Assembly based its recommendations on a comprehensive and balanced set of evidence, and it heard a range of views.

I want to say a couple of things about the transport recommendations. I obviously welcome the assembly’s support for extra investment in low-carbon buses and trains and better public transport services, cheaper fares and investment in walking and cycling. I am delighted that the Government have already decided to act on the recommendation and brought forward the ban on new diesel and petrol cars to 2030, but I was disappointed that hidden away in yesterday’s spending review was a 15% cut in next year’s walking and cycling budget. I hope that when the delayed transport decarbonisation plan comes through, it does not disappoint us.

I would like to say more about road pricing. It is interesting that there was a wariness on the part of assembly members around that issue, so although I am glad that we are having a debate about it, we need to think about how we address the impacts on low-income households as we develop the policy.

Sale of New Petrol and Diesel Cars and Vans

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) on opening the debate and the hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) on his speech.

Our 2018 Joint Select Committee report on air quality began by setting out the impacts of air pollution, and they bear repeating. Some 40,000 lives across the country are cut short every year, with an annual cost to the UK of £20 billion. The health of babies, children, older people and those with existing medical conditions, including lung problems and asthma is put at great risk. We noted in that report that successive Governments had failed to act and violated our obligations to ensure safe, clean air to breathe. Of course, air pollution is just one of the environmental challenges that we face. I welcome the recognition in this place that we face a climate emergency, but it demands urgent and radical action to end our contribution to global carbon emissions. It is therefore particularly timely for us to debate the Government’s plans to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.

Road transport is responsible for 80% of NOx emissions—air pollution—at the roadside, and 65% of the emissions come from diesel and petrol cars and vans. While there has been a significant reduction in overall greenhouse gas emissions, that is primarily as a result of changes in energy generation. Progress on emissions from transport has been stuck in the slow lane. Not only have transport emissions not fallen in recent years but they rose between 2013 and 2017, and the sector is now the UK’s largest generator of greenhouse gases, making up 27% of the total. Even though individual cars are becoming more fuel efficient and reducing their individual emissions, that is far surpassed by the increase in the number of vehicles on our roads, which is getting higher and higher.

The case for action is clear. The Government’s plans, however, are sadly lacking. The joint report welcomed the commitment to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, but the target date of 2040 is not ambitious enough. It is too distant to produce the step change that is needed in industry and local government planning and, as my hon. Friend has said, it lags behind the commitment made by other countries and car manufacturers. Norway has committed to selling only zero-emission vehicles by 2025 and a host of other countries have set the target of 2030. Even Scotland is on 2032.

The target is about banning the sale of vehicles. We know that the replacement of the whole vehicle fleet would take 10 to 15 years. If we aim for the end of the sale of vehicles only in 2040, we will have no hope of meeting zero carbon by 2050. Are we really prepared to wait 15 years after the end of the sale of vehicles to eliminate those vehicles that emit polluting carbon from our roads? I do not think that we are.

If we are to change the set-up, industry needs clarity on what will be required and when. There is undoubtedly an opportunity to move more quickly, as the Committee on Climate Change has recommended. The National Infrastructure Commission has called for a similar ban on the sale of new diesel HGVs by 2040. It is a real challenge to decarbonise our freight sector, but we should go faster and further where we can and we need more research on how we can do that.

Setting a more ambitious target of 2030, 2035 or even sooner is not enough in itself. The Government must also take steps to ensure that that target is met and that they have the policies to support businesses and people in the switch to cleaner vehicles. We know that many consumers are confused—the RAC’s motoring survey has confirmed that—so clear guidance is needed. There are simple options such as vehicle labelling, which is very welcome and should be extended to, for instance, the second-hand market.

As has already been said, we need a rapid roll-out of charging infrastructure. The Government should work with National Grid in relation to electricity demand, and liaise with local authorities to identify the barriers and take steps to overcome them. Of course, the Government are themselves a major fleet provider, and are able to ensure that their fleets consist of cleaner and greener vehicles. However, as we start demanding that people use electric vehicles and do so rather more quickly, we should be conscious of social justice, especially when we know that clean air charging zones are being introduced in some of our most polluted towns and cities. The Government must act to help those who are least able to afford to replace polluting vehicles with ultra low emission vehicles. They should consider the role of scrappage schemes, and target support at low-income households and small businesses.

I must sound a note of caution about the limitations of this debate. Electric cars and vans are not a panacea, and they are not the whole answer to air pollution or the climate crisis. First, even electric cars’ brakes and tyres produce dangerous particulates that have an impact on health, so simply changing to a cleaner vehicle is not the answer. Secondly, cars are not the only issue. I have to say that in our air quality report, we largely neglected to consider the rail network. While it is not a significant contributor at a national level, we know that emissions from diesel trains pose a serious problem in stations and depots. The Government have talked about decarbonising the railway, but they are also still talking about bi-mode trains, which, when they are not under the wires, are simply diesel trains.

The most important point, I think, is that air pollution and carbon emissions are not our only challenges. Inactivity and obesity are huge public health challenges, and congestion is a blight in nearly all towns and cities. We could move from dirty, polluting traffic jams to clean, green traffic jams, and that would not be right. We need more people to get out of their cars and on to public transport—this is Catch the Bus Week, and low emission buses have an enormous role to play—but we need even more people to be walking and cycling. Some 60% of journeys of one to two miles are undertaken by car, and that has to change if we are serious about securing a happy, healthy future for our country. Yes, we need cleaner vehicles, but we need so much more.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Andrew Stephenson)]

I pay tribute to all hon. Members who have contributed to today’s debate, especially the mover of the motion, the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), who eloquently set out the joy of driving an EV and spoke about the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee’s work in this area; the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), who chairs the Transport Committee and has considerable expertise; and my hon. Friends the Members for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) and for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), who also played important roles on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee inquiry into electric vehicles last year. I am also delighted that the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) was able to contribute, never missing an opportunity to remind us that the Nissan UK car plant is in her constituency. I will try to address many of the points that were raised in the debate, but given the time constraints, I hope Members will accept that I will have to limit the number of interventions I take in order to allow time for the next —very emotional—debate on assisted dying.

The dangers of climate change are helping to drive a revolution in road vehicles, and everyone who spoke today shares the Government’s ambition that the UK should lead the way. We can all be proud of the fact that on 27 June, the Government set a legally binding target for the UK to achieve net zero by 2050, making us the first major economy in the world to legislate for a net zero target and continuing a proud tradition of leadership when it comes to tackling climate change. Achieving that target will mean working together across political lines and encompassing all parts of society. We will need clear, considered strategies, backed up by action.

Let me be clear from the outset that the Government and I share the ambition of all colleagues from across the House to have all new vehicles delivering as many zero emission miles as possible, as fast as possible. As has been said, the current targets are that by 2040, all new cars and vans will be effectively zero emission; and that by 2050, almost every car and van in the UK will be zero emission. We set out clear steps towards achieving the 2040 target in our strategy “The Road to Zero”, which was published almost exactly a year ago. We believe that 2040 is an ambitious but achievable target, which represents the right balance between environmental ambitions and deliverability, recognising the need for a period in which industry can develop the necessary products and we can address some of the barriers about which hon. Members have talked at length today.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Does the Minister recognise that it takes 10 to 15 years to replace the fleet completely? If we do not end the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles until 2040, we will simply not be able to decarbonise transport by 2050. How will he address that issue?

[Andrew Stephenson]

I will come on to that, but I think we are making good progress on a range of fronts, although significant barriers remain. Our wider commitments on climate change have been bold, and we have achieved a faster reduction in our carbon emissions than any other country in the G20 has done. There is no reason why we cannot go faster than the targets that we have set ourselves. Meeting those targets requires an adequate supply of ultra low emission vehicles, a strong consumer base and a fit-for-purpose infrastructure network.

Government cannot deliver our ambitions alone. At the heart of our strategy is a commitment to working in partnership with industry, business, academia, environmental groups, devolved administrations, local Government, consumers and international partners. We need new charge points in homes, workplaces and public places. The consumer experience of public charging needs to be improved. The system must be easy to use, affordable, efficient and reliable. That is why we passed the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018, which allows us to regulate further in this area; that is why on Monday the Prime Minister asked OLEV to undertake a review, setting out our vision for a core national network of rapid charge points along the country’s key roads; and it is why we are encouraging people to charge at home overnight, both on and off street.

On Tuesday this week, I attended a roundtable convened at 10 Downing Street with companies such as Jaguar Land Rover, LEVC, Tesla, PSA and the National Grid to discuss how we can best build on our core infrastructure network for electric vehicles in the UK. Those who were present were supportive of Government schemes, such as the up-front £500 off the cost of installing a domestic charge point; the provision of grants to businesses for workplace charge points; and the provision of grant funding to local authorities to install charge points for residents who lack off-street parking. We accept that we need to go further and faster; for example, by ensuring that all new homes are electric vehicle ready. We will soon consult on requiring every new home to have a charge point where appropriate.

We are already in a strong position. Government funding and leadership, alongside private sector investment, has supported the installation of more than 20,000 public charge points to date. That includes more than 2,000 rapid charge points—one of the largest networks in Europe. We want to build on that and encourage private sector investment to build and operate a self-sustaining public network.

Overall, we are investing nearly £1.5 billion between 2015 and 2021 to support ultra low emission vehicles and address the barriers to uptake. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) mentioned, we have grants available to offset the up-front cost of ultra low emission vehicles, which currently cost more than petrol or diesel equivalents. As an incentive to make the switch, our plug-in grants offer up to £3,500 off the purchase price of an electric car, up to £7,500 for a taxi and up to £8,000 for a van. We are also funding the development of new cleaner technologies. With £300 million of funding from OLEV, we are supporting vehicle manufacturers, technology companies and academia to deliver a major programme of research and development in the UK.

I am pleased to say that a year on from the publication of our strategy “The Road to Zero”, we are making progress against our ambitions. In 2018, the UK was the second largest market in the EU for ultra low emission vehicles, and there are now more than 200,000 of them on our roads. We are also building in large numbers—last year, one in five electric cars sold in Europe was made in the UK—and I am proud to say that Europe’s best-selling electric vehicle, the Nissan Leaf, was made in Sunderland, as the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West mentioned.

Let us not forget that this sector is hugely important to the UK economy: with a £77.9 billion turnover, it directly employs 165,000 in manufacturing alone. As someone from the north of England, that is particularly important to me. Manufacturing is still a major employer in my constituency, with companies such Wardle Storeys, part of Uniroyal Global, employing more than 150 people in Earby, making automotive components. That is why I am keen to see the industry’s rapid evolution, rather than revolution, supported by our automotive sector deal, which was published last year. As I speak, the Automotive Council, which I would have attended were it not for this debate, is meeting just down the road.

It has been a real privilege of my role to see at first hand some of the technologies and innovations that are already delivering for us on the Road to Zero. Just last week, I visited the BMW Mini plant in Oxford, and I have also visited Bentley in Crewe; the Advanced Propulsion Centre in Coventry, where I got to sit in—they would not let me drive it—the first all-electric Aston Martin, which will be built in St Athan, south Wales; and McLaren in Wokingham. We are supporting innovation in the sector, with the Advanced Propulsion Centre, the Faraday battery challenge and the connected and autonomous vehicles programme, focusing on the key technologies that will drive the global transition to low-carbon mobility and form the basis of future vehicle supply chains in the UK.

Battery technologies are of course integral to the market, which is why we have committed more than £270 million to the Faraday battery challenge, to ensure that the UK builds on its strengths and leads the world in the design, development and manufacture of electric batteries. In May, I announced additional funding for the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre in Coventry, a project in which we have so far invested more than £100 million and which will provide a stepping stone in our ambitions for a gigafactory in the UK. The Government and industry have committed around £1 billion over 10 years through the Advanced Propulsion Centre, to fund the research, development and commercialisation of the next generation of low-carbon technologies and keep the UK at the cutting edge of low-carbon automotive innovations.

We have reached the tipping point with the ULEV market and made a strong start on the Road to Zero, but we cannot be complacent. The closer that we can work together across Government, manufacturers, innovators and industry, the quicker we can make that transformation and allow future generations to enjoy the benefits of cleaner air, low carbon emissions and a thriving low emission automotive sector.

Net Zero Carbon Emissions: UK’s Progress

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I totally agree. There is always a danger that we get called a nanny state, but if nannies are good enough for people on very large incomes—naming no names—we should provide the nannying for people with less money.

It is encouraging how, in some ways, the public have got ahead of politicians, such as with the rise of flexitarianism. We are all trying to eat less meat because of our knowledge, particularly about processed meat and the risks from nitrites. What does a net zero diet look like? What does a net zero city look like? We will have to start mapping out these big changes. Where we lead, other countries will quickly follow.

My hon. Friend is right that we need to examine the livestock sector and work out how we cut its emissions globally and at scale.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and she makes an important point about the way in which individual behaviour needs to be complemented by Government policy. That is particularly resonant for me today, because today I have got rid of my car and have become entirely reliant on walking, cycling and public transport. I am able to do that only because Nottingham has invested significantly in public transport. Is it not really disappointing that transport is one sector that is not pulling its weight at the moment? There has been little change in the level of transport emissions since 2008. Do not the Government need to get their act together to enable more people to make greener choices?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I appreciate the importance of the hon. Lady’s point, but, sadly, her intervention is too long. And I am sure the Chairman of the Select Committee will soon be drawing her remarks to a close.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

2. What steps he is taking to support people in insecure work.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

8. What steps he is taking to support people in insecure work.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

9. What steps he is taking to support people in insecure work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Clark]

Two thirds of workers on zero-hours contracts say that they do not want any more hours and that they are content. On the break in service, the hon. Gentleman will know that that relates to one of the recommendations of the Taylor review that we have committed to implementing.

[Lilian Greenwood]

It has been almost two months since the Minister announced that workers on zero-hours contracts would get the right to request a stable contract. There are 65,000 people in the east midlands whose main job is on a zero-hours contract; our region has the highest percentage of people on these contracts, according to the Office for National Statistics. That means tens of thousands of people vulnerable to unfair treatment at work, uncertain about whether they can afford to get through the next week, let alone plan for the future. In this HeartUnions Week, the TUC is rightly calling for a ban on exploitative zero-hours contracts. When will the Government act to tackle insecurity in the workplace, rather than just tell workers to ask nicely for a permanent contract?

[Greg Clark]

The Taylor report, and indeed the Select Committee, considered the recommendation that has come from some sources to ban zero-hours contracts. The Taylor report concluded that banning zero-hours contracts

“would negatively impact many more people than it helped.”

The joint report by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee and the Work and Pensions Committee found that people on zero-hours contracts preferred to have that flexibility, for the most part—[Interruption.] That was the evidence given to the Committee. The hon. Lady will know that we have committed to bringing in the right to request a stable-hours contract.

Nissan in Sunderland

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

Of course, it depends on the terms of trade that are negotiated. Clearly, being a member of the European Union unquestionably allowed Nissan and others to trade without thinking about tariffs or impediments. We need to secure a deal that allows us to continue to offer Britain as a place of innovation and skills, and a place that can be confident in exporting to the rest of Europe.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

This weekend’s news clearly demonstrates the damage of continued uncertainty about our future relationship with the EU. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has been warning for many months about the very grave dangers of a no-deal Brexit, but in recent weeks numerous Nottingham employers, including Paul Smith, East Midlands airport and Siemens, have all contacted me to raise exactly the same concerns. The Secretary of State has just admitted that a no-deal Brexit would be ruinous, so when does he think the Prime Minister is going to recognise the damage that she has done by insisting that no deal remains a real option, and instead act to protect jobs and investment by ruling it out?

[Greg Clark]

I hope that when the hon. Lady has been having her discussions with those employers, she has listened to what they have said. The SMMT, for example, has been very clear that in order to avoid the consequences that she talks about, it is necessary to accept the deal that has been agreed. The SMMT said that it is “a positive step” that should be backed. The chief executive of Siemens in the UK has also commended the deal. So if she wants to avoid the disruption that I agree would be caused, she needs to listen to the other part of what people say to her and follow their advice in that respect too.

Crown Post Offices: Franchising

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Lisa Nandy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; that is a story I hear over and over from colleagues around the country. Behind those losses is a loss of spending power in our towns. Over several decades, good jobs have been lost and replaced by minimum-wage, insecure work. Young people have left and there has been a significant loss in the working-age population. The jobs that remain do not pay enough to sustain our local services. We have felt the anger from those areas in recent years, so why do the Government allow this process to continue?

WHSmith employs its staff on part-time contracts at the minimum wage, whereas post office counter staff typically earn £21,000 a year. It matters for the viability of our town centres that people are paid properly, and for the health of our nation that people are treated properly. In my view, this failed economic model was one of the direct causes of the heavy leave vote in constituencies such as mine. It has caused justifiable anger in our towns, so why is that failed economic model being employed?

Surely, if Government mean what they say about listening to those who have been left behind and about trying to reinvigorate our high streets, they must abandon this plan right now and seek an alternative. All the plan means, as the Communication Workers Union puts it, is that post offices are on

“a path of managed decline”.

For the 800 or so staff facing transfer or redundancy, I suspect that this will be the final straw. The vast majority of staff who faced franchising were not subject to the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 in either of the last two rounds of transfer. Workers in Wigan tell me that it has been a tragedy to watch services run down over several years. Some of them have worked for the Post Office for decades, but this is the final straw.

The Post Office faces pressure from the loss of traditional services such as letters and from falling Government revenue, but it is by no means without assets. Last year it announced profits of £35 million. That should have been the catalyst to retain experienced and well-paid staff and expand into new areas—in France, La Banque Postale, established a decade ago, made a profit of €1 billion in 2016—but instead, it has cut staff and branches and awarded the chief executive a 7% pay rise. Behind the latest wave of closures is a story of greed, exploitation and carelessness with the social fabric and economic heart of our communities.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful speech. Nottingham city centre post office is incredibly well used and very busy. When that transfers to WHSmith—the Post Office is not interested in what local people have to say about that—a lot of the staff will not transfer but will choose to leave. The post office will lose some of those experienced staff, who probably have a very good relationship with existing customers. On behalf of all of us who face a post office closure in our towns and cities, does she share my concern that that is a huge problem and a dereliction of the service we have come to expect?

[Lisa Nandy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but it does something else: it prevents the Post Office from being able to adapt, change and build new strategies for survival in the future. A lot of the staff standing on the cold street outside the Crown post office before Christmas told me that in recent years they had come to believe that what was happening was a deliberate strategy to run down our postal services, to the point that they are no longer viable or sustainable. That would be a shameful thing for the Government to preside over, without acting. Those staff, our towns and our communities deserve so much better than that. I ask the Minister today to place a moratorium on the franchising programme and to bring together stakeholders for a conversation about how to grow the business and make the Post Office fit for future challenges, rather than selling off one of our most valued public services to a failing retailer.

The Minister has consistently told us that it is not the place of Ministers to intervene, but perhaps she will take a leaf out of the book of her colleague who presented a petition to the Commons urging the then Business Secretary to instruct the Post Office to halt post office closures and listen to the people. That was back in 2008, and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) was absolutely right. If the Prime Minister recognises the role of Government in protecting this publicly owned national asset, then surely so must the Minister.

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[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) on securing this important debate.

Crown post offices, like the postal service itself, are at the heart of our communities. Up and down the country, post offices are hubs for local people and their neighbourhoods. They bring people together, they connect people, and at a time when community institutions, from pubs to community centres to libraries, are closing at record rates, we need our post offices as never before.

I pay particular tribute to the post office staff serving my constituents in Croydon North. I had the opportunity of visiting the Post Office depot in Factory Lane just before Christmas; I repeat here, on the record, the thanks I offered the staff there for the fantastic job they do for the rest of us all year round, not only in the very busy Christmas period. It is sad in the extreme that, instead of protecting these vital and publicly owned assets, the Government are complicit in what my hon. Friend calls their managed decline. It is particularly galling for the public that they are paying more while getting less. The costs of getting rid of staff and refurbishing the franchisee’s stores are met by the public, but they all lead to a reduced service.

It is a tragedy to see our postal services being run down in this way. Fewer counter positions means more time spent queuing, especially at busy times of the year such as Christmas. The loss of post offices presents particular difficulty for older and disabled people who are less able to get around—particularly, as we heard earlier, if new facilities are situated above ground floor level—and overworked staff have less time available to offer help and advice to customers who may need it.

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about people with mobility difficulties. One of the issues that has been raised with me is that of people who have other conditions, perhaps neurodiverse conditions, who find the overload of being in a busy shopping centre particularly difficult. Does he think that has been properly recognised in the proposals to franchise into shopping centres?

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend makes an important point; clearly that has not been taken into account at all. My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan referred to an attempt to site a post office in a retail outlet called Bargain Booze. How inappropriate is that for many people—children, for instance, who might be going to a post office to use its services, but are walking through aisles of cheap, low-quality alcohol? That is entirely unacceptable.

Pubs Code 2016

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Bailey]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I know that many tenants feel that this procrastination over resolution is playing into the hands of the pub companies, and that it is, in some cases, deliberately designed to drive up expenses and deter anybody from making such applications.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I want to ask a question on behalf of the Nottingham branch of the Campaign for Real Ale and its pub protection officer, who wrote to me about this issue. The point they make is that the process of obtaining a market rent only option is massively complicated and virtually impossible for an unsupported tied tenant to use without expensive legal support. Does my hon. Friend agree that if the legislation is to be useful, it must be easily accessible?

[Mr Bailey]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is one of the complaints, and I will be discussing some of them in a few moments.

Prior to the implementation of the legislation, subsequent Committees sought the industry’s agreement on a voluntary code, but subsequent inquiries demonstrated that the pub companies, despite paying lip service to a voluntary code, were actually not conforming to it and not making any progress on it. It was then in exasperation—almost desperation—that the Select Committee decided that enough was enough, and that it was time to implement legislation. Subsequently, the legislation materialised.

The key issue, above all else, is tied tenancies and the market rent only option. The argument is that tied tenants have to pay a disproportionate amount of money for their stock and other services, and that, as a result, the pub company gets a disproportionate share of the income arising from the premises. If a tenant seeks to go free of tie, the pub company will implement conditions in the negotiations that remove any financial advantage from that course of action. The legislation, by giving tenants the option of applying for a market rent only option, is designed to overcome that handicap. The way in which the process is being implemented is a matter of huge concern, and it needs further consideration by the Pubs Code Adjudicator and the Government.

The Pubs Code Adjudicator report in July 2017—bearing in mind that the legislation came in one year earlier, in July 2016—said that there were two overarching principles in the code. The first was “fair and lawful” dealings in relation to tied tenants. The second, which I have touched on, was the “no worse off” principle, which sets out

“that individual tied tenants should not be worse off than they would be if they were free of the tie”.

Eighteen months after the introduction of the pubs code and the Pubs Code Adjudicator, it is time to take stock and assess whether the objectives set out in the pubs code—I just defined them—are being met, and, if not, what needs to be done.

Before I do that, I have to touch on the controversy that raged over the appointment of Paul Newby as the Pubs Code Adjudicator. I will not dwell on the whole catalogue of concerns, but it is well known that there are accusations of conflicts of interests arising from his past employment with the valuers and surveyors Fleurets, because it had extensive interests with the pub companies, and from his personal investment in it. I said in the debate last January that unless he divested himself of that particular investment, then in no way should he be the Pubs Code Adjudicator because he had an obvious and transparent conflict of interest. He has not done so. Given that confidence in his commitment and impartiality is crucial to earning the trust of pub tenants, that must be of huge concern. I will come back to this issue in a moment.

He has had opportunities over the past 18 months to demonstrate his effectiveness; however, looking at his performance, we see that it is possibly a slight understatement to say that the implementation and the progress made under his supervision fall short of the level needed to achieve the legislative objectives. The first concern is the slowness of the adjudication process. Between July 2016 and March 2017, arbitration awards were made in only 15 of the 119 cases accepted for arbitration. In the cases specifically relating to the market rent only option, the figure was 12 out of 104. Later in the year, in August, the adjudicator published a market rent only verification exercise report, which demonstrates that of the total of 497 market rent only notices, only 11 were actually converted into agreed market rent only tenancies. Of the 130 arbitration cases listed on 31 July 2017, 79 had been delayed for more than three months, and 12 for more than six months.

Now I will come back to the point that I was making earlier. The slowness of arbitration is not the only issue; impartiality is also a problem. The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators has upheld four of the 12 challenges made by pub tenants to the adjudicator’s decisions. That demonstrates the lack of confidence of tenants in the industry in the robustness and impartiality of the way in which he is exercising the code. To have a one-third failure rate in such a key, sensitive position is absolutely unacceptable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

1. If he will make it his policy to allocate 3% of GDP on science funding.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Clark)]

The first section of our Green Paper on industrial strategy sets out our ambition to make Britain the best nation in the world for scientists, innovators and technical inventors. In support of this, we have announced an increase of £4.7 billion in public research and development funds, which is the biggest increase in support of science for 40 years.

[Lilian Greenwood]

In evidence to the Education Committee last week, Professor Arthur, the president of University College London, spoke not only of the huge sums flowing into UK research from Europe—through Horizon 2020 and the European Research Council, for example—but of the need for a system to replace the mobility of people, networking and the ability to work across multiple boundaries. Does the Secretary of State recognise that if the Eurosceptics in his party prevail and we have a hard Brexit, spending even 3% of GDP on science funding will not be enough to protect our global reputation for scientific research? What is he doing to stand up for the needs of this sector?

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Lady has two eminent universities in her constituency that are going from strength to strength. I agree that it is important that the best researchers from across the world come to our universities, and the Prime Minister said in her Lancaster House speech that that was a priority for our negotiations.