Business of the House

Debate between Mark Spencer and Alec Shelbrooke

Thursday 21st July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

Let me start by joining the hon. Lady in congratulating the Lionesses on their performance last night. To come back from one-nil down and win in extra time is a huge achievement, but I will say no more because I do not want to jinx them in the semi-final.

We have had a very hot week. All week I have been hoping for a little cloud to shade me, and then along comes the hon. Lady, our own little cloud of doom. She is becoming the Eeyore of the Chamber, casting shadow wherever she goes. She needs to be a bit more upbeat and enthusiastic. I think she has fundamentally misunderstood the British people, with her rampant pessimism. There are undoubtedly challenges, I acknowledge, with the global energy and food price increases and with post-pandemic backlogs, but what our constituents want is this Government and our plan.

Labour Members want to sit there and snipe, but they offer absolutely no solutions. We are putting £39 billion of support into our NHS, which they voted against. We are putting in £35 billion of rail investment, as well as £96 billion through the integrated rail plan, and all they want to do is stand on the picket lines with their union paymasters. I want to thank the hon. Lady and her colleagues for binding the Conservative party together by offering us the chance to have a vote of confidence in the Government and getting us all in the same Lobby. Only the leader of the Labour party could inspire the Conservatives as much as he does.

We are getting on with the job. We are supporting families with the cost of living, with £37 billion of investment this year alone. Over 2 million public sector workers will be given the highest uplift in their wages for nearly 20 years. Unemployment rates are close to a 50-year low. We are delivering historic funding to our NHS. We are recruiting 20,000 police officers, with 13,500 already in place.

Finally, as we get to the Sir David Amess debate this afternoon, which the brilliant Deputy Leader of the House will respond to, I know that all Members will want to add their thanks and best wishes, along with the shadow Leader of the House, to all the staff who have helped us: the civil servants, Clerks, cleaners, catering staff, Hansard, the broadcasting team, and everyone else I have missed. If I may, I will flag up the team in the Tea Room, who brighten my day every day.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Declare an interest!

[Mark Spencer]

Most importantly, I thank my brilliant civil servants in the Office of the Leader of the House, who have been very helpful and supportive.

I wish everyone a restful summer recess, as we go back to our constituencies. It is important to put on the record that MPs do not go home and rest; MPs from across the House will be working hard in their constituencies, despite what the Daily Mail might imply. I hope that all MPs get a bit of rest this summer and come back refreshed in September.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Before I ask my question, I make the House aware that I am a member and vice-chairman of the all-party parliamentary groups on Argentina, on Latin America, on Formula One, on Gibraltar and on surgical mesh, and I am a member of the APPGs on cricket and on the BBC.

The Committee on Standards recently published its report on APPGs, suggesting a range of measures to regulate them. Do the Government support those measures, and if so, do they have a preferred recommendation?

[Mark Spencer]

The Government welcome the thoughtful report and recommendations on APPGs by the Committee on Standards. While the regulation of APPGs is a matter for Parliament, the Government welcome measures that provide proportionate regulation of their functioning and appropriate transparency about their financial support. I acknowledge that this does need some work. If I may be so bold, Mr Speaker, I will write to you and to the Lord Speaker—I think responsibility lies at both ends of the building—on my right hon. Friend’s behalf to ask what you could do to help us move this forward. I put you on notice, Mr Speaker, that that letter is on its way.

Energy Prices

Debate between Mark Spencer and Alec Shelbrooke

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

The motion’s opening line states:

“That this House believes that soaring energy bills are driving up inflation”.

No one can argue with that. There has been a massive increase in energy bills, and before we continue with the debate, we should assess the reasons for that. All the independent financial analysts recognise that there has been a double-digit inflationary rise in energy bills, and that has spread to the economy. We live in a dangerous world, where there is much instability. The European Union recently approved sanctions on oil exports from Iran. All that has a knock-on effect on energy prices in this country. It is important, when setting the scene for the debate, to understand why energy prices have increased and that the Government can do something, but not everything.

In the summer I was in the United States when Michele Bachmann amusingly commented that she would reduce the price of fuel back to $2 a gallon. Perhaps that is why she has polled only 5% in the primaries—one simply cannot say, “We’ll reduce it back”: that flies in the face of dealing with the world crisis. There has been discussion for many years—certainly when I was at school, but it is now coming to the fore—about whether we have reached peak oil. Whether we have or not does not matter because the markets believe that we have reached that position.

There has been a 30% increase in energy demand in the recent past. As the Secretary of State pointed out, there are forecasts, but the further into the future they go, the more unreliable they are.

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition said that the previous Administration had not made enough progress, and he was Energy Secretary at the time. Is my hon. Friend as relieved as I am that we now have a ministerial team that is taking action to deliver real change, not only on lowering prices but on securing our energy future?

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am most grateful for that intervention. Half the problem with such motions is that they ignore the facts that I outlined in my opening remarks and simply state that everything is the fault of the existing Government. Many people feel that the Labour party likes to be in perpetual opposition—my constituents certainly feel that, and I see nothing to disprove the theory. The right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) was very clear about the reforms that she wants to make, so why was she not clear when she was in government only two years ago? Perhaps the comment about window dressing goes a lot further than we thought.

Of course, we are trying to move forward in our proposals for energy consumption in this country, and the Secretary of State is right to say that we have bitten the bullet on how to generate energy. Let us be honest: we are in a coalition and we know that the Liberal Democrats had views on nuclear power. They held a perfectly acceptable view in their manifesto, and I greatly respect the work that the hon. Member for Wells (Tessa Munt) has done throughout her life as a member of CND—they were her beliefs, but we had to move forward.