Industrial Strategy Consultation

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. What I would say to everybody is that we still have a lot of people standing, and we still have a lot of business. In order to get everybody in, can we have brevity, both in questions and answers?

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is right. The essence of our strategy has to be to support the ability of people to compete and to make life difficult for the incumbents. There are no cosy clubs for the incumbents, and the test of our support in sectors is whether it helps new businesses to emerge. That is extremely important.

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[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Last but certainly not least from the Opposition, I call the voice of Chester, Mr Chris Matheson.

[Christian Matheson]

I would hope not least, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies Alliance has calculated that there is an annual shortfall of 50,000 skilled engineers and that this will aggregate to about 800,000 by 2020. How does the Secretary of State plan to close that gap? While he is at the Dispatch Box, will he take the opportunity to scotch the recent press reports and confirm that all the steel in HS2 will be made at UK plants, including Shotton, where many of my constituents work?

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[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Last, but certainly not least, I call Steve Double.

[Steve Double]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I know you have been saving the best for last.

Many references have been made to mobile technologies and electric vehicles as growth areas for the future. They both rely heavily on batteries. Will the Secretary of State therefore join me in welcoming last week’s news that large deposits of lithium have been found in Cornwall? This creates a great opportunity to build on our mining heritage in Cornwall and develop new industries around the extraction of lithium. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that this industrial strategy is designed precisely to support industries such as this one?

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 21st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Coventry has two universities. A big concern following Brexit is that international students, in particular from countries such as India, are now looking at north America, given the difficulty they will have in coming to this country when they are treated as immigrants. They should be removed from immigration figures, because the benefits amount to just under £10 billion coming into this country. I hope the Government are taking that seriously.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is certainly testing my patience. It is one thing to come in and then ask a question, but it is another thing to stretch it into a speech. The hon. Member for Sheffield Central is being generous with interventions, but we do not want to get into a Brexit debate.

[Paul Blomfield]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I appreciate the intervention of my hon. Friend, because he is a strong champion of the two universities in Coventry and he makes, on every occasion, this strong point about the importance of international students. He is right. Many universities around the country will be in crisis if there is a significant drop in the number of international students. It will mean not only that their incomes will drop, but that many of their postgraduate taught courses, which are viable only because of the levels of income that are brought through our international students, will cease to be viable, cease to exist and cease to be available for UK students. It is a hugely important issue.

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[Paul Blomfield]

The Minister is talking about the affordability and sustainability of systems. Does he acknowledge that when the proposals to change the student funding system were put to this House back in 2012, it was on the understanding from his predecessor, Lord Willetts, that the resource and budgeting charge—the uncollectable level of student debt—would be at around 28%? That prediction was rubbished by many experts in the sector and from the Opposition Benches, and gradually, over the lifetime of the Parliament, the percentage went up into the 30s and the 40s, to the point where it became unsustainable. The unsustainability of the system that the Government created was then dealt with by imposing that burden on students by varying the charges and the deal on student loans in the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) described.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Short interventions, please.

[Joseph Johnson]

The estimation of the RAB charge is still broadly in that ballpark, with the current estimate being between 20% and 25%, so it is not substantially different.

On new clause 2, the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) suggested that an independent panel should approve any changes to terms and conditions for student loans. However, the key terms and conditions governing repayment of the loan are set out in regulations made under section 22 of the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998. The repayment regulations are subject to scrutiny under the negative procedure, which allows Parliament to call a debate on any amendments. It is right that Parliament, rather than an unelected panel, should continue to have the final say on the loan terms and conditions.

National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Friday 4th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nuttall]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We do not want to hear too much on that, because the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) is coming to the conclusion of his speech. Do not worry: five other Members wish to speak. I want other Members to take part in the debate. I would not want to close the debate down too quickly.

[Mr Nuttall]

I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I shall deal with the intervention fairly briefly. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) raises an important point, and I apologise for not going into as much detail on it as I perhaps should have. I said in an intervention that the Bill nowhere refers to volunteers. It is silent on the issue of volunteers. When I pressed my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell on that, he rather bizarrely started talking about the exclusions—the people to whom the Bill does not apply—but it does not say “a volunteer” anywhere in the list of exclusions. I think that volunteers are included in the Bill by definition, unless they are covered by the catch-all, get-out-of-jail-free card in clause 3(1)(d), to which I referred earlier. It sets out that a person is excluded under the Bill if they meet

“the terms of a definition set out in regulations”.

It may be that, for some reason unknown to me, my hon. Friend thought, “I’ll leave this problem to the Minister to solve”—and there is a real problem in the Bill: what do we do with volunteers? I will not attempt to go down that path and sort out the thicket of problems that arise from the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset. There is a genuine problem with those who do a mix of things—who sometimes volunteer, and sometimes work in a shop, or a charity’s commercial arm. That point is not clear. It is quite likely that those sorts of issues will finish up in the courts and before the industrial tribunals. It will be a bun fight, and a money-making scheme for lawyers. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) is positively delighted by that.

I entirely accept that my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell is well intentioned in bringing forward the Bill. I have tried to draw out some of the genuine problems that I see with it, and I hope that on considering the arguments advanced against it, he will withdraw it. I will continue to oppose the Bill, and I urge the House to do the same.

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[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am sorry to intervene on my hon. Friend’s speech at such an early stage, but last year we established a tradition of congratulating the Chairman of Ways and Means on the brilliant way in which he carried out the lottery to ensure that our hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) came third in the ballot and had this Bill to introduce. Perhaps my hon. Friend would like to say a few words on that subject.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Let us assume that he does not need to, and we will get the lottery done shortly.

[Philip Davies]

There are so many things on which to congratulate the Chairman of Ways and Means that it would take me far too long to go through the list, so I shall refrain from doing so.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

May I offer a piece of advice to my hon. Friend, who I know is interested in making money in other ventures? Perhaps next time he would like to seek advice from the Deputy Speaker. I understand that I was one of the few people in the room when the ballot was drawn. Mr Deputy Speaker and I must be a lucky charm for that, so if my hon. Friend is looking for advice for his lottery numbers—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Being in the room has absolutely nothing to do with how the ballot is drawn. I put that on the record before anyone thinks that that is the way forward. Let us stick to the debate in hand, rather than the comments from various parts of the Chamber.

Living Wage

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Siobhain McDonagh]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. What the Minister has just said is legally and factually incorrect. The law states that if a company has a 90-day consultation with its staff about changes to terms and conditions, it can then issue a new contract. If a member of staff refuses to sign that contract, they can be sacked for another substantial reason.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

That is not a matter for the Chair, but the hon. Lady has put it on record for people to see.

[Margot James]

I think I will move on—[Interruption.] I do not accept what the hon. Lady has said. The 90-day consultation period ended with Marks & Spencer still having a few people not agreeing to the contract, and those people are still employed by Marks & Spencer. Also, 99% of employees have accepted the contracts. The other point that I would contest in what the hon. Lady accuses Marks & Spencer of doing—[Interruption.] I make no apology for trying to set the record straight. Hon. Members are free to speak in this House without fear or favour, and I make no apology for trying to set the record straight when I feel that a company, or perhaps an individual, in the outside world has been maligned unfairly. I make no apology whatever for that.

I shall conclude my remarks, because time is marching on. The national living wage has brought immense benefits to the workforce in this country and I am absolutely delighted that, for the first time in many years, wages have risen more than twice as much for the low paid as they have for those on average or higher pay around the country. That is to the credit of companies and workers alike, and for that reason among many others, I am delighted to support the whole notion of the national living wage.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I am pleased to have this opportunity to contribute to this important debate, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) for securing this time from the Backbench Business Committee. I am grateful for the many examples that she and others have brought to the House today. I do not in any way seek to diminish those examples when I say that the people I am about to speak about would probably bite your hand off if they were offered the terms and conditions that the hon. Lady and others have described. I want to talk about the pay levels and employment practices on offer to our seafarers that are all too common in the maritime sector in the United Kingdom.

The recent detention of two vessels operating in the North sea—the Malaviya Seven and the Malaviya Twenty in Aberdeen and Great Yarmouth respectively—lifted the lid on payment and employment practices that are frankly scandalous, and from what I hear from many of those who work in our merchant marine in the North sea, this is just the tip of the iceberg. These practices are much more widespread and there is much more to be found. To put it bluntly, if these practices were happening on dry land, enforcement action would be taken immediately. They would not be tolerated. Because they are happening at sea, however, they are somehow out of sight and out of mind. I hope that when the Minister speaks to representatives of HMRC, she will impress it upon them that that attitude has to change.

I want to bring to the House’s attention the situation regarding two ferries that run lifeline freight services to my constituency from Aberdeen. The Helliar and the Hildasay are operated by Seatruck Ferries, but they are on contract to Serco, which operates the Scottish Government-funded lifeline ferry service. The RMT tells me that in 2014, when it last had sight of the contracts, some 20 ratings on the two ferries were being paid £3.66 an hour. The ferries’ journeys start in Aberdeen and finish in either Orkney or Shetland in the Northern Isles, but the company is able to pay that rate because it is deemed to be operating wholly outside UK waters. It beggars belief. It is wrong not only for the ratings, most of whom are probably Estonian nationals, but for UK seafarers whose jobs and livelihoods are being undercut by such employment practices. It is outrageous that a taxpayer-funded service is being operated in a way that undermines the opportunities of British seafarers to get working conditions and employment rates to which they would otherwise be entitled.

Seatruck Ferries recently said:

“Seatruck Ferries operates in a worldwide shipping market where NMW”—

national minimum wage—

“application in isolation would place the company at a serious disadvantage in relation to its competitors.”

It would appear that what it is doing is illegal, but, frankly, that is sheer sophistry. It is a scam that the Government could stop if they were minded to take the necessary action to stop it. That is why the point about the Government guidance on the application of the national minimum wage that I made in an intervention on the Minister is not just important, but extremely urgent. The practice may be bad, but from what I hear an awful lot worse is going on in the North sea on ships that have been chartered to the oil and gas industry.

I will not detain the House much longer because I do not have the time, but in evidence to the Energy and Climate Change Committee I challenged the chair and chief executive of the newly created Oil and Gas Authority to bring the operation of the maritime sector in the North sea within its remit, but they flatly refused. It seems to me as though they knew that there was something nasty underneath the stone and for that reason they were not prepared to lift it.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

The time limit is now four minutes.

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[Liz McInnes]

I believe that my party’s manifesto championed a decent standard of living for all workers. [Interruption.] I will have to go back to the 2015 manifesto and see what we actually said and get back to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I do not think that we will be debating the manifesto.

[Liz McInnes]

I have no intention of debating the manifesto, but I appreciate the warning.

The time is now upon us to commit to making work truly pay. I hope that the current Prime Minister will not fall short on her promise to make

“Britain a country that works for everyone.”

I will give the last words to Lynn, my constituent. She wants the Government to step in and stop Marks & Spencer, as well as other companies, reducing their employees’ rates of pay via benefits just so they can pay the national living wage. I hope that this Government will rise to this challenge and do the right thing for Lynn, and for workers up and down the country. What “party of the workers” could refuse that?

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[Patricia Gibson]

I will indeed.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Let me explain. The Minister had probably 18 minutes in which to speak. The Front-Bench speeches are down to six or seven minutes. It is not fair. It is up to Patricia Gibson whether she wishes to give way.

[Patricia Gibson]

On the basis of what you have just said, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will proceed so that others can get in.

In the light of all that I have said, how can we not conclude that the UK Government’s so-called national living wage is not a living wage at all? By contrast, the Scottish National party Government have long championed the payment of the living wage and they see the real benefits to our economy of treating working people much more fairly.

Paying the real living wage—not the pretendy one—makes economic sense for employers. It increases productivity, reduces staff absence and reduces staff turnover. All the research on this area bears that out. Some 80% of employers felt that their staff delivered better quality work after paying the living wage and 75% of employees agreed that their work improved after receiving it. We know that low pay is a driver of in-work poverty, so with around 20% of Scotland’s workforce still earning less than the living wage, there is still much more work to do. However, the UK Government’s so-called national living wage also creates problems because it discriminates against people under 25. People aged 24 do not have a cheaper lifestyle than those aged 25, so the distinction is false and spurious.

The real living wage pays all workers over 18 years old the same pay. I am proud that Scotland has the highest proportion of employees paid the living wage—some 79.9%. A job should help people out of poverty, not keep them there. It is important that we understand that a real living wage makes a real difference to the lives of working people. It ought not to be controversial that workers earn a wage that they can live on. I wish the UK Government would take a leaf out of the Scottish Government’s book. The Scottish Government have long championed the living wage, understanding that it is important and it is a matter of social justice that people earn a minimum standard of living, not a wee pretendy national living wage, as the Government try to tell us.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The two Front-Bench speakers have nine minutes each.

Industrial Strategy

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. May I suggest to Members that if we work around eight minutes, everybody will get the same?

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[Mr Baker]

I hope that the Minister will join me in celebrating this country’s excellence in not only manufacturing, but research in Formula 1. We have a number of teams in the UK. We are also the world’s second biggest aerospace manufacturer after the mighty United States. We do tremendously well, and Opposition Members are far too downbeat.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I welcome interventions, but when Members see the speaking time drop down to five minutes, they will understand, won’t they?

[Joseph Johnson]

Another globally competitive sector is satellite technology, with a quarter of all satellites launched into space currently being made in Stevenage.

Science and advanced manufacturing are, of course, not the only examples of excellence. We can point to other parts of our economy such as financial services, accountancy, law, consulting and creative industries that also set the global standard. We have worked hard over the years to make Britain one of the best places in the world to start and grow a business. We are creating a business environment that supports growth, by encouraging long-term investment and a dynamic economy with open and competitive markets. That has included backing business by cutting corporation tax to 17% by 2020, slashing red tape by a further £10 billion and making major investment in the UK’s research infrastructure.

We have a strong base to build from. The question is how we can make the most of it, but we are not starting from scratch. Previous industrial strategies have seen success in particular sectors. Our challenge now is both to build on our competitive advantage and to identify and support the sectors that can drive future growth. This is not about picking winners, which hon. Members have urged against, nor about propping up failing industry or bringing old companies back from the dead. We must be open and ready for new competitors and open to welcome new disruptive industries that may not exist anywhere today but that will shape our future lives. It is about identifying industries that are of strategic value to our economy and supporting and promoting them through policies for trade, tax, infrastructure, skills, training and R and D.

It is hugely important that we take a local approach to strategy. Governments are fond of quoting national figures—I have already quoted some myself—on economic growth, productivity and employment, but the truth is that economic growth does not exist in the abstract; it happens in particular places when a business is set up, takes on more people or expands its production. The places in which businesses operate are a big part of determining how well they can do. We must recognise the strengths of areas across the country, including the midlands engine and the northern powerhouse. We have a strong framework in place to do that, such as through local enterprise partnerships or, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), our network of universities and our enterprise zones.

Through our science and innovation audits across the UK, led by local areas, we are mapping research and innovation strengths and infrastructure to identify and build on areas of greatest potential in every region. Such strengths are too often overlooked outside the golden triangle of London, Cambridge and Oxford. Through our catapults, the sectoral centres of excellence based across the country, we are supporting innovation where UK businesses have the potential to be world leading and to address local disparities in productivity.

Helping all parts of the country contribute to national success is key to our planning and a cornerstone of our approach. What is needed in each place is different and our strategy must reflect that. That is why many of the policies and decisions that form our industrial strategy will be not about particular industries or sectors, but cross-cutting. For us to succeed in the future, we need to have the right infrastructure—roads, rail, broadband and mobile—to connect businesses to their workforce. New infrastructure such as Crossrail is about to open, but we still have bottlenecked roads, overcrowded trains, and broadband and mobile coverage that needs upgrading.

We also need to upgrade our skills base. We need a rising generation of young people who are not only better educated than those of our competitors and their predecessors, but also better trained.

On schools, we have announced £67 million for the next five years to recruit and train an extra 2,500 maths and physics teachers, and to upskill 15,000 existing maths and physics teachers. We need to make sure that vocational education, especially in engineering and technology, plays a much more prominent role in our country than it has for many years now. We also need a modern system of corporate governance, too. The Prime Minister has also already made it clear that we will look at that area, including further reforms on executive pay, as part of the Government’s work to build an economy that works fairly for everyone, not just the privileged few.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I ask Members to take up to seven minutes, to try to get everybody in equally.

Fourth Industrial Revolution

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I praise my hon. Friend for securing this extremely important debate. I suspect that we will come back to this subject many times in the coming decades, if not centuries.

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the important things that we in the House need to begin to think about is a change to patent law? The UK has the principle that the first to file secures the rights. On that point about SMEs, does he agree that “first to invent” is surely the best way for securing a patent? If there is a wait for the first to file, we give an advantage to large companies that can afford to file many patents.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Mr Tugendhat, interventions are meant to be short. If you want to make a speech, I will put you on the list, but keep interventions short.

[Mr Mak]

My hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) makes a strong case. A strong legal regime, especially in respect of intellectual property, is certainly key to making Britain a world leader in the 4IR. I thank him for making that point, which is one that Dream 3D, the business in my constituency, is very well aware of. Its success has been predicated on protecting the work that it has produced. It is no surprise that its clients already include Rolls-Royce, Land Rover and Pinewood Studios. That said, larger businesses of the sort that my hon. Friend also mentioned can bring scale and expertise to innovative processes. Havant-based defence contractor Lockheed Martin, for example, has used its big data expertise to develop a new system called Mailmark that helps Royal Mail to track parcels more efficiently as the e-commerce economy grows.

It is clear that by embracing these new disruptive 4IR technologies, we can create new jobs, deliver new services and generate new economic growth. It is also clear that the countries that are best able to take advantage of the 4IR are those with nimble free market economies, low taxes and a competitive regulatory environment. I hope that the Minister, who I congratulate on his appointment, will confirm that the Government will continue to focus on pro-enterprise policies that will make Britain a world leader when it comes to starting and growing a business, particularly in the new 4IR economy.

I can offer three suggestions as the Minister and his new colleagues develop our new industrial strategy. First, the economic benefits of the 4IR must be shared throughout the country and not just concentrated in London or the south-east. Regional investment funds for 4IR technologies should therefore be made available to promote regional hubs that will stimulate growth and innovation outside the M25. I see local enterprise partnerships as key partners and potential funders in this process.

Secondly, Government should use their procurement power to buy British when it comes to 4IR products. Advanced economies such as Israel already play a key role in helping new sectors to develop, and our Government should do the same. Finally, Britain must continue to invest in its digital infrastructure, which is as essential today for our future economy as railways were in the age of steam. This should include a new phase of the fibre optic broadband rollout and 5G mobile internet. I commend those suggestions to the Minister, and draw his attention to a forthcoming report from the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Free Enterprise group of Conservative MPs, which will set out more.

We should be clear that, while the 4IR will certainly bring economic benefits, it will also cause societal challenges, but by shaping the way in which the 4IR evolves, we can tackle these issues head on. For example, as automation increasingly substitutes for human labour, the displacement of workers by machines could result in short-term unemployment, especially in low-skill or low-wage sectors of the economy. The Government certainly have a role to play in dampening the downside effects of the 4IR, principally by bridging the gap between short-term unemployment and long-term prosperity, primarily through welfare, education and training policies.

We should be clear that the technology that I have talked about and the disruption that it may bring is not an external force over which we have no control. All of us in this House have a duty to be responsible and to help guide its evolution, so while Britain must grasp the opportunities of the 4IR, we must also shape and direct it to reflect a future and economy that involves our common objectives and shared values.

As the fourth industrial revolution gathers pace, we in Britain should embrace it, encourage its growth, harness its benefits and shape its evolution. We must act now to ensure that our political and economic structures are fit for purpose. From continued investment in digital infrastructure to reform of our welfare and education policies, the Government have a key role to play. At the same time, we must address the 4IR’s shortcomings, making sure that no one is left behind as we reshape our economy and society. This new industrial revolution must consist not of changes that happen to us, but changes that work for us all.

Throughout our history, Britain has adopted a pro-innovation approach to technological developments from farming mechanisation to domestic labour-saving devices. We have never allowed fears about the future to stunt our economic or social progress. We soon realised, for example, the folly of requiring early cars to be preceded by a man carrying a red flag, and we must adopt the same forward thinking, pro-innovation approach when it comes to the 4IR because here in Britain we reach for the future rather than just yearn for the past.

Just as before, the new wave of technological change can bring about substantial benefits from greater productivity, new jobs and lower production costs, to more choice for consumers through new goods and services. I hope that the Government will take that proactive and positive approach by placing the fourth industrial revolution at the heart of its new industrial strategy. In doing so, we can usher in a new manufacturing renaissance, launch a new industrial era built on high-quality innovation and, above all, give Britain the head start it deserves in the global race for success.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. May I suggest to Members that they speak for up to 10 minutes? Let us try and ensure that everybody gets the same amount of time.