Draft Product Safety and Metrology (Amendment and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2022

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2022 General Committees

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Latham. This statutory instrument raises yet more concerns regarding the Government’s post-Brexit preparedness and its cumulative effect on British businesses, given the continually delayed attempts to get product safety and the product safety regime right for the good of consumers across the country. Uncertainty, lack of clarity and no clear plan seem to define the Government’s approach to product safety post Brexit. I do not hold the Minister totally responsible—he is the fourth person in his position since September—but there is a serious point here: uncertainty inevitably incurs costs for businesses and reduces their ability to trade in the UK and across borders.

This is all on the back of a high-tax, low-growth economy after 12 years of Conservative Government failure. Recent research from UK in a Changing Europe has found that implementation of the UK’s new trade agreement with the EU has led to a sudden and persistent 25% fall in UK imports from the EU relative to the rest of the world. Ministers have already delayed the transitional provisions twice before. In August 2021, the implementation date was changed from the start of 2022 to January 2023. In June, the Government announced that they would delay some requirements of the scheme beyond the revised date. For a third time, we have a delay. Throughout all these delays, there is clearly no plan for what is next.

The Government have no choice but to extend these transitional provisions, and the Minister is right: it is in the interests of businesses, who otherwise face increasing costs and burdens throughout the transition. He hit the nail on the head when he said that this may raise questions about timescales, because it does. When there are questions about timescales, businesses have to deal with further uncertainty and there is a cost associated with that. My biggest concern now about the effects of the further delay is what is behind it. There does not seem to be a clear plan for how we move forward, when we will reach an end stage, and what the impact will be for business planning and for the product safety regime in the UK.

The UK’s departure from the EU has meant changes have been made to product regulations. As the Minister outlined, this includes the introduction of the UK conformity assessment marking to replace the EU’s CE marking. The UKCA has been operational in tandem with continued recognition of products meeting EU requirements and markings. As the Minister outlined, on 31 December 2022 these would cease to be recognised in Great Britain under the existing arrangements.

The statutory instrument will extend the transition period. It extends the option for manufacturers to use the EU’s CE marking to show that their products are regulation compliant until December 2024, thereby extending the provisions by two years. It also extends the time for labelling easements for products that comply with EU regulations but not UK regulations. Such products would be able to use UKCA marking until December 2027.

To be in such a position with the UK’s new regime, six years on from Brexit, is quite significant. The Government need urgently to provide clarity for the future. Clarity would minimise the uncertainty that can deter business investment—perhaps in new products, how those new products will be made or the standard those products need to meet. This is all part of how we need to lower the barriers that can impede British exports and slow down manufacturing. We want to see a regime that has the certainty to help develop and see the greater international collaboration that is necessary. It should also uphold clear standards on safety, fair trading and environmental protection, all of which command wide and deep support from the British electorate. Can the Minister shed more light on the Government’s plan and whether there will be further delay?

I would also welcome clarity about how the Minister is talking to businesses, as he referred to conversations with businesses and stakeholders. That point is important not just for these regulations, but for making Brexit work overall to support the necessary growth in the UK economy.

On news that the Government would propose the extension, the British Chambers of Commerce stated:

“BCC research carried out last year found that only 8% of business were in favour of getting rid of the current EU marking system, called CE, by the start of 2023, and 59% of businesses, affected by the decision, wanted to keep it. They see strong benefits in having a single system for testing and marking of industrial and electrical goods for business…Today’s push back is a welcome first step, but much deeper engagement with industry is still needed to devise a plan that works to avoid extra costs for both importing and exporting businesses, and consumers.”

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

The reason we are here, is it not, is that the Government negotiated a defective EU exit deal. We could easily have been included in the CE marking system, as Turkey and others are, and British firms could have been allowed to accredit using the CE mark, which they now cannot. If it is a British-registered marker, they have to use an EU-registered marker if they wish to export. It is the Government’s mess that has caused this and it could have so easily been different. We could have exited and still had all the benefits.

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks. He highlights that the situation that we, businesses and industry find ourselves in is caused not by Brexit but by the choices the Government have subsequently made and how they have made them. I am sure the Minister will think very seriously about how we deal with these self-made barriers.

There are other examples of where the Government have failed—successive Governments, I should say. I have lost track of how many we have had since 2019—

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Or this year.

[Seema Malhotra]

Let alone this year. This is a really significant point. There has been a failure to be clear and decisive, to make decisions and act pragmatically, to not be led by ideology and to look at what will make Brexit work for British businesses and consumers. The SI is symptomatic of a system that is failing.

The Minister will want to respond now that he can direct some of his work as a Minister in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The Government must look to alleviate those issues and work with businesses much more closely, especially in their talks. It is an issue if the Minister says that he is talking to business and industry, but businesses are going out to the media and saying that deeper engagement with industry is still needed just to devise a plan, let alone to implement it.

Make UK stated in response to the extension:

“Given this is the third time this has been delayed, we need to ask why the Government is still ploughing ahead with the plans which are only adding costs and extra bureaucracy”.

In addition, a membership survey carried out by Make UK in May this year found that three quarters of respondents wanted the UK to continue to recognise CE marked goods. I would be grateful for clarity from the Minister on how we are moving forward and on what timescales. We want to see all our businesses able to manufacture their goods, to export and import them, to serve the British market and to do all that with certainty.

The Minister will know as well as I do that businesses plan ahead. They plan ahead as to what they are producing, and they must design those products. They also have to order materials. There is an even more serious situation in the supply chain, with problems affecting materials for production and so on. A year or two ahead is very much in line with what businesses need to plan. Businesses in my constituency have talked to me about the issue, including one that exports to 70 nations across the world with its fine manufacturing of steel products, and clarification from the Minister would be extremely helpful.

I want to raise a final point about product safety in general. Concerns have been raised by businesses and, in its latest report, the British Toy and Hobby Association conducted sample testing of 40 toys from third-party sellers via the marketplaces of four of the largest online platforms: Amazon, eBay, Wish and AliExpress. Of those 40 toys randomly selected for testing, 100% were illegal to sell in the UK and 90% were found unsafe for a child to play with, after failing independent safety testing against the UK toy safety regulations.

The British Toy and Hobby Association’s successive reports span four years and more than 550 toys, so that indicates an ongoing problem, showing that there is a level of non-compliance and that unsafe toys are being sold by third parties through the online marketplace supply chain. It is unacceptable. In its recent report, the BTHA has said that the current system is not working to prevent unsafe toys entering the UK market. The BTHA is calling on the Government to close that gap through legislative means before a child is seriously injured or killed by an unsafe toy.

The Government said they would publish their product safety review in spring 2022 outlining how they will regulate the safety of products sold via online marketplaces to protect consumers from harm by unsafe toys. The publication of the review has been delayed several times during the year. As well as highlighting the Government’s reckless unpreparedness for Brexit, the SI also highlights yet another moment when the Government should be taking broader action on product safety in this country, but are not. When do the Government plan to publish the product safety review, which was first promised for spring of this year?

The SI is symptomatic of a Government that are failing to make Brexit work for our businesses and the people of this country—a Government who have become complacent on the issue of product safety standards for consumers, including children. I would welcome assurances from the Minister on the issues I have raised, and answers to them. I look forward to a complete response that outlines the Government’s plans to ensure that there is clarity and a timeline for what happens as we go forward.

We have a common interest in these issues, which need to be tackled because, in the current low-growth environment, that situation does not help any of us. Anything that can be done to address the barriers to good, effective, increased and safe trade absolutely need to be addressed, and that leadership has to come from the Government.

Shale Gas Extraction

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I should be absolutely delighted to meet my right hon. Friend to discuss that. It is something that the Government are looking at. We are very enthusiastic about examining all possible sources, and I think that floating offshore wind is potentially a very good one. We want to establish whether we can expedite offshore wind projects so that they happen faster and we have supplies coming in. We need to be considering—and we are considering and discussing with other countries—how we can expedite carbon capture and storage and move towards hydrogen. The long-term issues are ones that we are focusing on and dealing with, but we have many years of needing gas, which is why I welcome my right hon. Friend’s support for this announcement.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is this Government who have made onshore wind less economical, it is this Government who have made solar power and panels less economical, it is this Government who blocked wave and tidal power in the Swansea bay, and it is this Government who have failed to invest; and now they are trying to cover it up with a fracking giveaway for which there will never be any local consent. Will the Secretary of State—and he has been asked this numerous times—confirm that people in local areas will have a say through a local referendum, and that the result will be binding?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

This Government have only been in office for about a fortnight. I know that they have been busy and have not quite managed to do everything that the hon. Gentleman suggests. As regards local consent, I refer him to the answer that I gave some moments ago.

Energy Update

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

I thank the hon. Member for that question because many consumers, up and down this United Kingdom, are dependent on heating oil. They are off the gas grid and heating oil is the principle means of heating their home. We need to be keenly aware of that, as the Government are.

It is worth recognising that there is a competitive market for heating oil. I often speak with the UK and Ireland Fuel Distributors Association, which is a trade body, and with consumer groups in relation to heating oil. Obviously, prices have risen; they are closely related to the price of kerosene, for example, which has been quite volatile this year.

I remind the hon. Gentleman that households that have an electricity charging point will benefit from the £400 payment, and others will benefit from the payments to the more vulnerable, so it would not be right to suggest that those who use heating oil are not recipients of Government assistance. There is also the £1.1 billion home upgrade grant, through which the Government have committed to improve funding for energy efficiency and clean heating upgrades for those dependent on heating oil and other liquid fuels.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Some 60% to 70% of our energy is domestically produced. The price of producing it has not increased at all, so 60% to 70% of the bill increase is theft by the energy companies charging international rates to domestic companies. It is time we had wholesale market reform, to ensure that domestically produced energy is sold at production prices and not inflated prices for fat cats in the City.

May I ask the Minister specifically about the £144 million discretionary fund? Many of my constituents are use remeterage, whereby their landlords have a commercial contract but they are remetered at a higher price and are ineligible for any support. Will the Minister write to councils to confirm that they must offer parity for those people, if they can show they use remeterage and therefore are not eligible for the £400 support?

[Greg Hands]

I might have to write to the hon. Member on the question of remeterage. The £144 million discretionary fund is supposed to be disbursed at the discretion of local authorities, in the right way. I think his question is more about heat networks. In the British energy security strategy, we announced that heat networks will in future be regulated by Ofgem—I say that on the assumption that he supports the Energy Security Bill that is making its passage through Parliament at the moment.

The hon. Gentleman’s point that somehow the UK can declare some kind of unilateral declaration of independence from global energy prices is, I am afraid, simply fanciful. Even Norway, which is one of the world’s biggest domestic producers and almost certainly the largest surplus energy producer in the world, is facing these same challenges of rising domestic energy prices. It is simply not possible for the UK to isolate itself from these global trends. [Interruption.]

Draft Electricity and Gas (Energy Company Obligation) Order 2022

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 General Committees

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. The first thing to say in response to the Minister’s excellent setting out of the provisions of ECO4 is that it is a good scheme. We welcome a number of elements of it, which expand and in many instances are different from ECO3. Above all, we welcome the fact that it is finally on the table today. I see that the order will apply from tomorrow, so it will finally be in place, and I will come back to that problem in a moment.

We certainly welcome the fact that ECO4 sets out increased collaboration with local authorities and other social housing providers, and the increased flex to 50%, which is a slow but sure move towards recognising that local authorities can play a central role in energy efficiency, retrofit and upgrade in properties. That will enable a lot more collaboration on the private sector between local authorities, social housing providers and ECO providers.

We certainly welcome the proposal to ensure that the most poorly rated homes—those in E, F and G—are now among the priorities for treatment, and we welcome the fact that putting them up two bands is on the table in ECO4. We welcome the increased budget from £640 million for ECO3 to £1 billion for ECO4. I have to say, however, that as welcome as that increase is, two aspects ought at least to give Members pause. The main one is that the budget increase will effectively be borne by bill payers, as we see clearly from the impact assessment. If I read it in its entirety, it sounds a bit strange. It says:

“The impacts of the policy shown above are not expected to be shared equally across society, with obligated suppliers expected to incur most of the costs presented in Error! Reference source not found.Error! Reference source not found.”

I do not know what that refers to. It goes on:

“ECO4 has a spend envelope of £1 billion per year, rising with inflation, until March 2026. Suppliers are in turn assumed to recoup the costs they incur from meeting their obligation from their gas and electricity customers.”

It is clear that the money for the increased budget will come from energy bill payers. What is not in the impact assessment, however, unlike some other impact assessments, is what that represents in terms of bills; my calculation is that it roughly represents a £4 increase on bills over the period. I would welcome the Minister’s view on whether I have that about right, or whether that is more or less than it should be. That fact is that it will go to bill payers. We ought to think about whether that is an appropriate way to do such things, particularly as we have such sky-high bills at the moment, and will have for probably the whole period during which ECO4 will exist.

Our view is that an ECO4 scheme should have been substantially better funded than even the £1 billion, given the work that is ahead of us, and also that the difference between what there was in ECO3 and what there will be in ECO4 ought to be taxpayer-funded, not funded by bill payers in general. We also ought to be clear that, welcome though a number of the measures are, they will in fact be only a pinprick on the overall problem in this country with energy efficiency, energy uprates and retrofitted properties. One example of that is the—albeit welcome—carved-out slice in ECO4; that is, the 10% set aside for solid-wall housing, with 90,000 treatments to be undertaken over the course of ECO4. In the country as a whole, we have 7.8 million solid-wall homes, virtually all of which need to be substantially uprated in terms of energy efficiency and as a priority, because they are, by and large, in the lowest energy efficiency categories in the country.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have many such properties in my constituency. It looks like beautiful Regency grandeur from the outside, but it is poor-quality housing on the inside, which is cold, damp and miserable for many of the tenants, who do not even have direct electricity or gas suppliers, but rather have secondary energy suppliers via their landlords. Does my hon. Friend agree that these measures are far too small in their application and that the Government need to adopt a street-by-street strategy, whereby they assess every house along every street, and develop an individual plan for energy efficiency for each of those houses? Without that, these measures will just deliver nice things and not the ambition that we need.

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Indeed, I was going to finish talking about what we would like to see by saying something along more or less precisely those lines. In the long term, we need to adopt a wholesale, locally organised and locally run, street-by-street and house-by-house arrangement, rather than what has happened with the ECO schemes in the past and still now, whereby individual houses are picked out by individual suppliers and are treated. That wholesale treatment, which my hon. Friend has rightly described, is still nowhere in view for these schemes.

My hon. Friend will know from his experience of solid-wall homes in his constituency that they are expensive to treat and need whole-house treatment. Indeed, that is reflected in the estimates for this ECO scheme. He will also be concerned to know that, in general terms, if the 90,000 treatments are discharged according to the calculations in the scheme, then we will reduce the number of homes that are outstanding for treatment by the huge proportion of 1.8%. That is to say that 97% of solid-wall homes across the country have not been treated, so 95% will still remain untreated at the end of the ECO4 period. This is a good scheme in its own lights, but it woefully falls short of what we need over the next period for serious retrofit in this country.

But my question, and what I take issue with, is this. Why are we sitting here on 18 July, passing into law—as I hope we will—the rules for a scheme that started on 1 April? Anybody with any experience of these sorts of things will know that it is a rather good idea to have the rules in place before a scheme starts. In this instance—despite what the Minister said about some of the “shutting the stable door” measures retrospectively undertaken in the interim, when ECO4 was not in place—suppliers and contractors have not known what they would be remunerated for, what they would not be remunerated for, or what risks their companies were taking in undertaking actions.

A lot of suppliers, particularly smaller contractors, have simply downed tools on measures to be carried out under ECO3 or ECO4, with an estimated 50,000 measures that could otherwise have been undertaken being lost over the period. For small contractors and suppliers, having to do all that work at their own risk, without knowing what the rules would be, or whether or when they would get their money back, was not something that they could stand.

That question was put to me by a number of suppliers some while ago, when ECO4 was still in development. As a result, I asked the Government a number of written questions about what would happen. Would there be a smooth transition and would the rules for the scheme be out in time? I must say, the answers I got were systematically evasive—and, as it turns out, systematically wrong. In answer to a question that I tabled on 25 November, the Government said:

“The current scheme ends in March 2022, followed by a successor scheme (ECO4). The publication of the government response to the ECO4 consultation is planned before the current scheme ends”.

That was wrong; it came out after the scheme ended.

I asked the Minister whether he would ensure that there was no gap between ECO3 and the start of ECO4 in April 2022. The Government’s response was that

“the Government consulted on extending the Energy Company Obligation…Scheme from 2022-26. The Government will issue a response in due course. ECO4 will commence once the Government has sought parliamentary approval. The Government will endeavour to ensure that there is a smooth transition between the end of ECO3 and the start of ECO4.”

Getting rather desperate, in May 2022—two months after the scheme was supposed to have started—I asked when the Government would lay the rules for the scheme to work. The answer was:

“The Government is working quickly to lay regulations.”

We now know that “quickly” means two months, because that is where we are now.

Of course, the Government were unfortunately rather clear with me about what would happen to suppliers who had undertaken work between the end of ECO3 and the start of ECO4 in the hope that they might get some sort of recompense for it. The answer was:

“The Government does not fund or reimburse suppliers to meet their obligations under the Energy Company Obligation. ECO is a supplier obligation, and it is up to suppliers how they dispense their obligation and recoup costs from energy bills.”

It is up to suppliers, when they do not even know the rules on whether they can get that recompense in the first place.

Finally, very late in the day, on 15 June, I asked why the Government had still not published the rules to implement the energy company obligation. The final answer was:

“The Government expects to lay regulations for ECO4 this month”,

meaning in June. Here we are, on 18 July, looking at those regulations.

Right down the line, the Government have got it wrong on what they said the progress on this was, and got it fundamentally wrong on the elementary task of ensuring that rules are in place before a scheme starts. That has made a real difference to retrofitting in this country, and it is a real difference that I fundamentally deplore.

It should have been within the competence of the Government to organise these rules in such a way that the scheme could progress reasonably fairly and seamlessly, and if they could not do so, it should have been within their competence to tell people why it was not happening and what the reasons were for it. None of those things has happened.

We have heard, I am afraid, a rather Panglossian version of these events from the Minister this afternoon, who says that, yes, people can get recompense now for work they have undertaken; it will score. However, they did not know that at the time because the rules were not there.

It has been a shambles. I hope the Minister will be able to say this afternoon that he is sorry for this shambles, and perhaps also explain—because I have been unable to get an explanation so far—why it has been such a shambles, why the rules are so late and why, as a result, the scheme was hampered in the way that it was. Finally, perhaps he could solemnly promise that this will never happen again in any schemes that he is involved with in future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Hands]

This has been a good-natured and well-informed debate. I did not hear any opposition to the scheme, so I welcome the support of the Opposition parties for what the Government are doing. I will try to answer as many questions as I can. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test asked why the obligation is set low, but I disagree that it is set low. A £640 million scheme increased to a £1 billion scheme is a 56% increase—quite an ambitious increase.

The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun tried to pick holes and asked about inflation. Well, I have news for him: inflation is not anywhere close to 56%. I remember back in the 1970s that it did get into the high teens and to 20%, but we are not anywhere close to that, thankfully. He asked whether the scheme should be more ambitious. I remind him that ECO is only part of the help available. We have other Government schemes designed to improve the energy efficiency of homes, which is why this Government have such an excellent record on that.

I have to correct what I said earlier. I said that, in 2010, 10% of homes were rated A to C on energy efficiency. I checked my own notes, and it is not 10%, but 14%, so I may have been doing the last Labour Government a slight disservice. It is not, I am afraid to say, a quadrupling of the number of homes well rated under energy efficiency; it is in fact only a tripling, so I apologise. Perhaps I have been giving too much praise for the Government, but I none the less think that a tripling in the last 12 years is a record to be proud of.

The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun is right that ECO adds to bills, but those who benefit will of course get reduced bills for many decades, which it is important to understand. It is not a simple redistribution from non-vulnerable bill payers to other bill payers. It assists vulnerable bill payers in energy-inefficient homes to get their homes to be energy-efficient, thereby saving them a considerable amount of resources over many years. We are also providing direct help with the £400 energy bills support scheme and other measures introduced by the Treasury this year.

I am glad the hon. Member for Southampton, Test praised the co-operation with the private sector, housing associations, the NHS and local authorities. It is a whole-of-Government effort to improve the energy efficiency of our homes. He said there was an estimated £4 on bills a month, but the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun was correct: the estimate is £37 per annum—about £3 a month. I have said that it is not the only scheme available. We have £6.6 billion deployed over the course of this Parliament on energy efficiency schemes, including the £450 million boiler upgrade scheme, the social housing decarbonisation fund, the home upgrade grant, which I have already mentioned, and the public sector decarbonisation scheme, as well as the VAT reductions announced by the previous Chancellor earlier this year.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Is not part of the problem the myriad schemes that the Minister has outlined? For the normal person in the street, who lives in a shared house where part of it is owned by a person in poverty, another part is owned by someone else and another part is rented, it becomes so difficult for people to match these schemes up and get them in line at the right time, particularly when the Government do not issue guidelines on how the money should be spent for months on end. Is it not better for the Minister to go away and think of a universal scheme to start to tackle those problems, rather than this piecemeal effect?

[Greg Hands]

The hon. Member raises an important point, but an energy consumer does not have to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the available schemes. The important thing is that the Government provide that assistance, in some cases via energy suppliers, local authorities or social housing providers. If he wants to write to me to suggest which schemes he might seek to abolish in favour of putting it all in one scheme, I would happily receive such a representation.

The hon. Member for Southampton, Test said the solid wall insulation minimal requirement should be higher. ECO4 will focus on the least energy-efficient properties and, as I mentioned earlier, we have introduced a requirement for a minimum of 150,000 band E, F and G private tenure homes to be treated. Most of those will be solid-walled homes and we estimate that around 75% of total scheme spending will go towards improving them to band D or better. We believe the current solid wall minimum strikes the right balance between giving certainty to the supply chain and giving them the flexibility to treat homes in the most important way. The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown sought a street-by-street approach—an area-based scheme. We expect area-based schemes to happen as installers involved in ECO also deliver under the home upgrade grant, the social housing decarbonisation fund and the local authority delivery scheme. We already know of installers planning to work in that way.

The hon. Member for Southampton, Test asked why the scheme was delayed. It is worth stating that ECO4 is the most significant reform since the scheme began nine years ago. We have had to ensure that it is fit for purpose until March 2026—it is important to get that right. This has presented new challenges in policy design, modelling and legal drafting. As I have already mentioned, however, nearly 33,000 measures have been installed since 1 April and registered with TrustMark. We expect that number to rise by several thousand because, obviously, there is a time lag between installation and registration. That is not a bad rate. This is a scheme of 450,000 households over four years, so that is roughly 110,000 per annum, so the fact that in three months, 33,000 measures have been installed shows there has been no discernible impact on delivery from the change from ECO3 to ECO4.

The hon. Member read us a long chronology of parliamentary questions and the different points he has made. I will never forget in my first year in Parliament when I asked a point of order to the Speaker. I read out a long chronology relating to a then Labour Minister, who had failed to provide an answer. The then Speaker—the glorious late Michael Martin—replied to me with just one word, “Persevere.” That was all he said to me. I will not urge the hon. Member to persevere. I say to him that at the end of that long chronology, he was not actually able to demonstrate that there had been any deficiency, that anybody had been damaged or that any measures had not been delivered as a result of ECO4 coming in three months after the scheduled end of ECO3. We covered it due to the extension of ECO3 and the bringing forward of measures in ECO4. That has been solved, and the hon. Member should join us in celebrating those 33,000 measures that have been installed just in the last three months.

Moreover, by allowing suppliers to overdeliver against their ECO3 targets—referred to as carryover—at least 40,000 extra measures were delivered earlier than they otherwise would have been. We have engaged with energy suppliers, and the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun asked about the supply chain.

Employment Agencies and Trade Unions

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jane Hunt]

I understand that the hon. Gentleman will be speaking later.

Employment businesses will still need to be satisfied that the workers they supply are suitably qualified and trained.

Alongside that change, we will increase the levels of damages that a court can award in the case of unlawful strike action. It has long been the case that employers can bring a claim for damages against a trade union that has organised unlawful strike action. The upper limits to the damages that can be awarded are set out in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, and are based on the size of the union that organises the unlawful strike action, but the damages regime has not been reviewed since 1982, so the limits are significantly out of date. As a result, the deterrent effect that Parliament intended has been significantly reduced. The Secretary of State is using powers granted to him under section 22 of the 1992 Act to increase the existing caps in line with inflation. In practical terms, that means that the maximum award of damages that could be made against a union will increase from £10,000 to £40,000 for the smallest unions and from £250,000 to £1 million for the largest.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Minister think it is right that the cap on any fines issued by the Electoral Commission for fraud if it was found in the Conservative party is lower than what she is proposing for trade unions? Does she think it is right that fines are higher for trade unions than for preserving the democratic functioning of our country?

[Jane Hunt]

I thank the hon. Member for his question. I will, in fact, move on.

This is a proportionate change, because we are simply increasing the amounts to the level they would be at had they been regularly updated since 1982. We are increasing the limits in line with the retail prices index, which is a well understood measure of inflation and is the same measure for other employment legislation. By increasing the limits on damages in line with inflation, we are sending a clear message to trade unions that they must comply with the law when taking industrial action.

Strikes should only be as a last resort and should only ever be called as the result of a clear, positive and democratic decision of union members. The key point is that unions that continue to comply with our trade union law will be completely unaffected by this change. The changes we are making will ensure that our trade union and agency laws remain fit for purpose. We are giving businesses the freedom to manage their workforce and empowering workers by giving them more choices about the kind of assignments they can accept. We will continue to protect an individual’s right to strike where proper procedures are followed, while ensuring that trade unions are deterred from taking unlawful industrial action.

I beg to move that both instruments are considered by this House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to say from the outset that I was an agency worker and I continue to be a very proud trade unionist.

I also want to start by welcoming the Minister to her new position. And what a fitting debate for her to start with. Over the last week, dozens of Government Members found themselves forced to work in intolerable conditions, answering to a boss who only cared for himself and not their interests, so they withdrew their labour—and they achieved some change as a result. So, they do understand the right to strike; they just seek to deny that right to others. The Minister now finds herself, much like agency workers under the regulations she proposes, filling in at short notice as a desperate last resort, with no time to prepare, in an organisation reduced to chaos.

It just does not work. The shambles of this Government disproves their own theory. The regulations are not just utterly wrong in principle, but totally impractical. They promised no new policy while the Prime Minister clings to his desk by his fingernails, but it appears that they have made an exception in this case, ripping up decades of national consensus. The proposals are anti-business and anti-worker. They will risk public safety, rip up workers’ rights, and encourage the very worst practices. Above all, they will not prevent strikes; they will provoke them. It is hard not to believe that this is what the Government were after and their whole intention all along.

The proposals are simply “unworkable”—not my conclusion, but the conclusion of the body that represents agency worker businesses, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. It is not hard to see why. We already face severe labour shortages, in part caused by the decisions of this Conservative Government. There simply are not the agency staff to cover industrial action. The right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) asked the Minister about the impact. The Government have their own impact assessment, which they rushed out this afternoon. It estimates that only 2% of working hours lost to strikes would be covered. I met the REC last week, and it was very concerned that the Minister’s predecessor was simply not listening. I believe that to be the case. This proposal is anti-business. It threatens good agency worker businesses’ reputations, their relations with their staff, and, as the Government’s own impact assessment found, will cost employers thousands of pounds in familiarisation costs.

But there is also a far more insidious side to the proposals. There is a risk to safety, both to workers themselves and the public. The proposals could see agency workers recruited on the hoof and squeezed in to cover highly skilled roles. Take the recent rail strikes, which the Minister mentioned in her opening speech. They saw skilled workers such as signallers, guards and maintenance staff walk out. In case the Minister did not know, it takes a year to train a signaller. Where are the temps who can operate 25,000 volts at control centres or signal 140 mph high-speed trains? How could the travelling public have any confidence in their safety? The public should absolutely not be put in a position where that could happen.

No one in this House can pretend that they are ignorant on this issue. We saw the consequences when P&O Ferries replaced its experienced workforce with agency crew earlier this year. That decision led to 31 separate safety failings. Vessels were suspended and a ship literally lost power in the middle of the Irish sea due to an inexperienced crew. At the time, the Secretary of State for Transport told the House:

“No British worker should be treated in this way… we will not allow this to happen again”.—[Official Report, 30 March 2022; Vol. 711, c. 840.]

The Prime Minister told us that

“we are taking legal action…against the company concerned”.—[Official Report, 23 March 2022; Vol. 711, c. 326.]

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Is this not an exploiters’ charter that is deeply anti-British? This is from an anti-British party that has abandoned British workers, reducing their rights in work and allowing either agency workers from abroad to be brought in to undercut staff, as happened with P&O, or agency workers to be exploited when they are forced to cross picket lines. This is anti-British worker, is it not?

[Angela Rayner]

On the P&O workers, it seems to me like the company broke the law and the Government implied that they were going to do something about it. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how that legal action is getting on. Will the Prime Minister keep the promise that he made before he loses office? Can we assume not, judged by today, because the very practice they condemned, they now want to legalise and encourage? This is an absolute disgrace.

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am pleased to see the amendments that would lower the threshold to 10%. In the prelegislative scrutiny of the Registration of Overseas Entities Bill, the Government indicated that they were willing to lower that threshold through secondary legislation. Has the hon. Lady received word from the Government that they will now honour that promise that they made to us only a few years ago?

[Alison Thewliss]

I have not received that assurance from the Minister, but I would be glad to do so. The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) and I served on that Bill Committee together, and a lot of the evidence that was given at the time still stands today. Many of the things we were warned about, such as shifting things into trusts, have happened, and the Government need to act on the warnings that they were given.

Turning to schedule 4, the register proposed in the Bill is not as transparent as the Scottish register, which will come into force on 1 April. Transparency International and the Chartered Institute of Taxation have said that the UK Government could learn from Scotland on this. As I say, Scotland’s register of persons holding a controlled interest in land in Scotland goes live on 1 April, and I would like to thank Jennifer Henderson, the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland, and her team of experts for taking the time to meet me last week to discuss this.

Transparency International has warned that this Government’s proposed register could not be as transparent as Scotland’s because the legislation as drafted does not require the disclosure of the ultimate beneficial owner of the property, but rather the disclosure of the beneficial owner of the overseas entity that in turn owns the property. Scotland’s register notes, per piece of land, who the beneficial owner of the land is. For example, it notes which companies have land registered to them, and who has significant control of those companies. I am sure that I could draw a diagram that would explain this better than my description, but my understanding is that if a holding company has five or six different pieces of land for three oligarchs, the Scottish register would show which oligarch each piece of land belonged to, but that the register as laid out in this Bill would not. I ask the UK Government to consider taking a lesson from Scotland, to speak to Registers of Scotland and to review changes such as this, so that we can properly understand who owns what.

The Chartered Institute of Taxation said that

“if the government’s aim is a public register of ownership of land it does not achieve this”.

It also said:

“The UK Government may also want to look at the Scottish approach which is to reveal the person who has ‘significant influence or control’ over the owner or long-lease tenant of land and property in Scotland.”

According to the Scottish Government, this means that

“it will be possible to look behind every category of entity in Scotland, including overseas entities and trusts, to see who controls land.”

Further to this, I would be grateful if the Minister could provide the clarification that the Law Society of Scotland has asked for on the way in which the two registers will interact, on how any disputes will be resolved—including on what is registered and what takes precedence—and on whether any additional resource will be provided directly from the UK Government to Registers of Scotland so that it can continue this work.

It is vital that Companies House reform does not slip off the agenda. We would have pressed new clause 4 to a vote, had it not been so similar in intention to the official Opposition’s new clause 7. It is unfortunate that all we are getting on Companies House will be a White Paper. We have already had extensive consultation on this, and we know the problems. They are obvious, and the Government have no excuse for not acting on them today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

It is a real pleasure to speak after the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge). We have worked together on so much, and we have worked on this legislation for a long time.

I will talk about new clause 2 when I come to my comments on whistleblowers, but the main thing I want to talk about is amendment 64. Many hon. Members have spoken about the danger of asset flight. In reality, we know it is happening already; people are not going to wait for this legislation to come into effect to try to hide their money. Whether the transition period is 18 months, six months or 28 days does not really matter, because the individuals in question can move their money around so quickly that much of it will have happened already.

I have supported amendment 16 in the name of the official Opposition, but I would like to think that my manuscript amendment 64, which I am very grateful to Mr Speaker and the Deputy Speakers for selecting, might be more effective. There are some other important amendments that have been tabled, such as new clauses 28 and 29, on freezing orders, but the difficulty with those new clause, as I said in my earlier intervention, is that we cannot freeze something that we do not know exists. That is very difficult to do. We need to look behind the curtain at who owns the assets. That is obviously what this Bill does; it is primarily about transparency and being able to see who owns what.

I am grateful for the support of many people on manuscript amendment 64, including my hon. Friend—he should be right honourable—the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), the Government’s anti-corruption champion. We have worked closely on this, and as soon as we looked at the Bill we thought, “There’s something missing here. Clearly, these people are going to move this money around very quickly to make sure it’s not touched.”

I think this amendment probably does something, although I am not a lawyer—I looked at this over the weekend and I did not have any legal input, so I cannot say it is totally fit for purpose and I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say about it. He has engaged on this issue all the way through and been willing to discuss with me, as we did yesterday, what we can do to close this potential loophole. The amendment would simply require beneficial ownership to be registered with Companies House, which links into the Land Registry’s requirement to ensure that something is properly registered with Companies House before it allows a transfer or a sale to happen. Without the Land Registry doing that, of course, people cannot sell or transfer a piece of land or property.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very good speech on the importance of that relationship between the Land Registry and Companies House. Does he agree that the requirement still to pay to access the Land Registry dims the light that is shone, rather than enhancing it, and that making it an open registry, with Companies House as an open registry as well, would aid the process of light-shining?

Oral Answers to Questions

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support for our pubs. It is important that we save our pubs one pint at a time; they play a crucial role in our high streets, our communities and our wellbeing. I am working, through the hospitality recovery strategy, to champion pubs at the heart of our communities, many of which have been supporting the vulnerable during the pandemic. We will showcase the value of the excellent work of pub landlords to make venues covid-secure, including with good ventilation.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

My nightclub in Brighton, Revenge—[Laughter.] It is not mine personally, although I do like to frequent it. It has seen a 60% fall in its patronage because of the latest variant. It is really struggling, but it has been told that it is not eligible for the latest round of grants because it has received previous grants, including the recovery grant. That is a real problem for our night-time economy and for many businesses. Will the Minister confirm that any business in the night-time economy or hospitality sector is eligible for the latest round of grants that he has released?

[Paul Scully]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his reference to that aptly named nightclub in Brighton. Clearly, opening nightclubs is a big challenge because of ventilation, but they are eligible for discretionary grants: councils have £100 million for discretionary grants to support them.

A Green Industrial Revolution

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

My hon. Friend is spot on. We have an opportunity now to show on the world stage that we really mean business when it comes to tackling climate change. We need to lead the world, and not just in terms of the industries we support in the UK. We need to lead by example and encourage other countries across the world to take as robust action as I hope we will do over the coming years.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making some good points. Does she agree that another advantage to the early adoption of a zero-carbon target is that we can lead the world in the products we have developed and sell them around the world? When we left government in 2010, we had set a target for passive house standards for all buildings by 2015. One example of Government failure in this area is that this Government removed that law, meaning that new houses are not currently being built to passive house standards. We are falling behind in new builds and environmental standards, and should be calling on the Government to address this. They should be ashamed of what they have done.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

My hon. Friend is right. It is important to note that markets are incentivised by robust targets, but that targets alone are not enough. They need to sit alongside a robust industrial strategy that supports our industries, all the way through from our steel sector to our automotive sector, so that they are capable of delivering the change at the pace that is required.

Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

I am having a flashback to my old job as rail Minister. The hon. Lady’s constituency is a beneficiary of some of the big investments we are making, such as in the wind turbine factories located up there. We always need to balance cost, carbon and competitive advantage, and it was the case that we could deliver those benefits to passengers with those bimodal trains, which obviously have much lower CO₂ emissions than if they were full diesel, and I am sure her constituents welcome that investment.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

The point of declaring a carbon emergency is to take action immediately, not in 2025 or 2030, so why are we not changing the planning rules so that all homes have to be carbon neutral now? Why are we not ensuring that all new buses on our streets are non-carbon emitting? These things are possible.

A thousand people have been arrested on the street in order to raise this issue in the House and in the country. Does the Minister agree that it is not in the public interest to prosecute those people? They should be getting awards, not prosecutions.

[Claire Perry]

I thought there might be a bit of Mace-waving coming on with that passionate speech. I will leave the question to my hon. Friends in the Ministry of Justice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I do agree with that analysis and with what my hon. Friend has said. The conclusion of the panel in that completely independent report was:

“To ban zero hours contracts…would negatively impact many more people than it helped.”

It is right to ensure that there is an ability to request a stable contract and that people are not banned from working for different employers, but to remove these contracts all together would be against the practice of many employers, including councils.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

16. The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers continues to receive evidence of seafarer pay as low as £3.60 an hour, including on UK-registered vessels. Employers in the ferry sector are continuing to reflag their ships. When will the Government take action to ensure that the national minimum wage provides a basic safety net for seafarers’ pay, including on international routes?

[Greg Clark]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. In the last few weeks, I have been discussing with the trade unions how any loopholes that might be being exploited should be closed. It is the intention of everyone across the House that the law should be obeyed and that workers should be paid a fair rate for their work.