Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Luke Hall and Paul Scully

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)]

I was pleased to meet Ministers and the Prime Minister recently to talk about the importance of delivering the vital Government commitment to bring in neonatal leave and pay by the 2023 target that they set in their Budget two years ago. Work continues on finding a timeslot in which to take the measures through Parliament. Meanwhile, it is vital that Ministers in the Department continue to work on the required background measures, such as the guidance for businesses and for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, so that they are ready for introduction as soon as possible when we get parliamentary time. Can the Minister update me on the work that he has been doing to ensure that we are ready?

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for the impassioned work that he does on this issue—again, following his personal experience. He is right: we are not just standing still while waiting for parliamentary time. We are taking action to prepare for implementation once the legislation is there, including by having conversations with third sector stakeholders and business representatives. Officials have also spoken to HMRC about developing a system to implement the measures when we have the legislation.

Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Luke Hall and Paul Scully

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Luke Hall]

Q We are clearly moved to give 100% rate relief to many businesses with a £16 billion pot. Of course, I understand that some of the businesses you work with and represent will have been disappointed about where the line was drawn, so to speak. I just wonder, notwithstanding the point you made earlier in answer to the question about guidance, whether there is anything you would like local authorities to start thinking about as they start to draw up their own guidance schemes in response to some of the early challenges that have been faced by some of the businesses you will be working with.

Kate Nicholls: We would urge local authorities to work with us to identify themselves where the areas of greatest need are. One of the things that has frustrated a lot of our businesses is that there is a central message from Government, and it is not necessarily interpreted on the ground as fluidly as Government might have hoped. When you look at some of the local authority areas, we have had businesses that are clearly designed to be captured and covered by the support mechanisms that are available, but local authorities have often taken the view that if it is not directly specified in guidance and it is not a named company or a named type of business, they are precluded from using their discretion and being able to provide support to those businesses. That is the frustration that our businesses have had on the ground going forward.

It would be helpful if local authorities could be a bit more permissive in identifying the businesses that they know are hurting at a local level, rather than applying a prescriptive approach that says, “If your name’s not down, you’re not coming in,” or “Here’s a tick, you are covered.” That would help immeasurably in those businesses that tend to fall between the cracks because they are not clearcut: if you are a coach operator, are you a tourist business or are you not? A local authority should be able to understand its local area and know which ones are and therefore need to be helped, and which ones actually managed okay. Those are the kinds of areas in which we would like local authorities to use their own discretion, not wait to be told specifically by Government that they can help those businesses.

[Paul Scully]

Q Briefly, with my hospitality Minister hat on, and following on from that question, Kate, you will remember that Minister Huddleston and I wrote to local authorities asking them to use their additional restrictions grant before they access their top-up. Have you seen any evidence of any local authorities responding to that, either by giving more money to businesses on their books or by widening the base to fill some of the cracks that you are highlighting?

Kate Nicholls: There are a few notable exceptions, but you can measure on the fingers of fewer than two hands the local authorities and businesses we have been able to help that have had a positive response to that request. All too often, the response has been that the grants that we are talking about are closed, there is no more money, and they will get back in touch with the businesses if more money becomes available.

It is incredibly frustrating that you have this disconnect at a central level. We hear what is being pledged, and we hear and understand the work that is being done by Ministers to communicate to those local authorities, but the operators on the ground just get a “No”. Some local authorities have been more creative than others, and some have been more proactive than others, but generally speaking it has been a long, slow process, and it has been very difficult to get money out of the local authorities for the businesses that desperately need it. It has been too slow in being processed. We know, because of the work we are doing we are doing at a central Government level, that it is there and has been made available; it is just not cascading out.

Cystic Fibrosis Drugs: Orkambi

Debate between Luke Hall and Paul Scully

Monday 10th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for pointing that out.

[Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)]

rose—

[Paul Scully]

I am just about to conclude. My hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) made an interesting point. In order not to top the record, I will be finishing very soon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Hall]

It is absolutely devastating that we are having a debate in Westminster Hall again about an issue that still has not been resolved. I thank my hon. Friend for his commitment to it. He opened the previous debate, when the Chamber was completely full, and he has opened this debate fantastically well. Does he agree that the message that should go out from this debate is that a permanent deal must be agreed with Vertex as soon as possible? We cannot rely on buyers’ clubs or any other mechanism.

[Paul Scully]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

 Orkambi and Cystic Fibrosis

Debate between Luke Hall and Paul Scully

Monday 19th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)]

I am delighted to have a chance to speak in this debate, Sir Roger. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) for securing it. When it was initially scheduled by the Petitions Committee, they probably had no idea about how timely it would be three days after the announcement that a deal has not been reached. I thank my hon. Friend for his work. I know he has worked with the CF Trust to learn more about cystic fibrosis. I also thank the CF Trust for all the work it has done not only in setting up the roundtable and for spending time with me speaking about CF, but for what it has done to educate all Members.

[Paul Scully]

Because of the nature of the disease and the fact that there are only 70,000 sufferers around the world, the CF Trust has 99% of the entire clinical diagnostic information of sufferers around the world, which is a good resource to be able to feed back into future treatments. Will my hon. Friend pay tribute to that?

[Luke Hall]

Absolutely—that example highlights the positive work that the Cystic Fibrosis Trust is doing. I want to put on record my thanks and appreciation to all the parents and campaigners, whom I find completely inspirational. Not only are they parents, which is challenging enough in itself sometimes, but they are parents of children with CF, and on top of that they manage to find time to lobby their MPs, to get groups of people together, and to get support for petitions and debates such as today’s.