Debate on the Address

Matt Western Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

I want to begin by echoing the tributes paid to my constituency neighbour, the late Paul Flynn, who sadly passed away this year. He was an outstanding parliamentarian, a fantastic champion of Newport and a great neighbour to me. Although we have an equally wonderful successor in my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones), I know that Paul is in our thoughts, and it was lovely to hear those tributes.

The Prime Minister quoted Newport’s Goldie Lookin Chain earlier, which was one of the stranger moments in my time here—and I say that having been an Opposition Whip for the last couple of years. I will leave it to GLC to say how they vote, but if the Prime Minister has a free evening on 21 December, he may still be able to get a ticket for their 15th anniversary world tour of Wales concert at Newport Centre, courtesy of Newport Live; more dates are available.

It is clear that the Queen’s Speech today is a programme that the Government have no way of implementing before a general election, in the shadow of Brexit. My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (David Hanson), who made an excellent contribution, was right to say that we just do not know what on Saturday we will be voting on, and I say that on behalf of the steelworkers, the Airbus workers, the food producers and more in my constituency. But I cannot let today go by without mentioning a number of issues that are important to my constituents. There is much to say, but I will include the lack of a credible green deal to tackle the climate emergency; an economy that does not work for many in our country, with more children, families and pensioners living in poverty; and the lack of action for the 1950s-born women hit by pension changes, many of whom are in real poverty in my constituency.

I also want to focus on the Government’s lack of measures to support the manufacturing sector and the fact that there was nothing of note to say on steel. The Prime Minister spoke today of a “new age of opportunity”, and he has spoken previously about his vision for the UK to become the home of electric vehicles. As laudable as those warm words are, it is crucial that the Government act on that if we are to truly make the UK the home of electric vehicles. That should include a proper commitment to build a UK supply chain for electric cars.

That action needs to be fast, because on 2 September Tata Steel said that it would close Cogent Power’s Orb works in my constituency on 20 December. The works is part of the fabric of Newport and its history, having been there since 1898, and it employs 380 people on site. But this is not about the past; it is about the future. This is the only plant in the UK producing electrical steel. With investment, it could make electrical steel for electric vehicles, allowing the UK to have an end-to-end supply chain. If we lose this plant, we will lose that chance and have to import the steel for electric motors.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making such an important point about how crucial the Orb is in producing high-value steel. The UK has to have a future in the production of high-value materials, particularly steel. If we are to have a viable automotive sector with hydrogen-powered units and electric vehicles in particular, with Jaguar Land Rover, Aston Martin and others producing cars in this country, these sorts of steel are crucial.

[Jessica Morden]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He is right, and it is a point I will come on to make. These are speciality steels, and we cannot afford to lose the capacity to make them.

There is a plan to save the plant. Community union and its consultants, Syndex, are calling for Tata to reinvest money from the sale of Cogent Power Inc in Canada into the Orb and for the UK Government to help by investing £30 million. That would be just a small proportion of the total the Government have awarded Jaguar Land Rover, which is owned by Tata, which has secured a £500 million loan guarantee to help the company sell electric vehicles.

We need concerted investment in the electric vehicle supply chain. Orb can be a vital cog in the wheel. It can be part of the infrastructure strategy that the Government alluded to in the Queen’s Speech. If we did that, we could save the only electrical steel plant in the UK, which could and should have a bright future as demand for electric vehicles is only set to grow. Labour has said that we will accelerate the electric vehicle revolution with 2.5 million interest-free loans for the purchase of electric vehicles, a new requirement for the Government car fleet to be 100% electric by 2025 and action on the private fleet.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (IGC)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley), another Nottinghamshire MP; if nothing else, we are united in our determination to fight hard for the county that we are both proud to represent. I am afraid that I must disabuse him of some of his final comments about “getting Brexit done”. We hear many things said about Brexit, and most of it is inaccurate when it comes from those who still seek to make the case for the hardest form of Brexit—a no-deal Brexit. Even if the Prime Minister, notwithstanding tonight’s news that a deal is not possible in any event by Saturday, got a deal, and even if it passed through this Parliament—rather than there being the confirmatory referendum that I and many others would like—the idea that Brexit would miraculously be done, and that that would be the end of it, is for the birds.

If the hon. Gentleman and many other Conservative MPs had only applied themselves to all the great debates that have taken place in this Chamber, they would know why so many of us did not vote for the Prime Minister’s deal. I think that he did not vote for the deal until the final occasion; on the two previous occasions he chose to vote against it. But never mind that. If he had actually listened to the voices of those who, like me, voted against the former Prime Minister’s deal, he would know that one of the primary reasons we were so against it was because it did not actually tell us what our final relationship with the European Union would be. That deal was nothing more than a leap in the dark: a blindfold Brexit, as many of us called it. In particular, it did not settle that final trading relationship.

The Gracious Address, or the Queen’s Speech to use that parlance, is nothing more than a small box of sweeties put together and assembled to try to persuade the British people, particularly people in the midlands and the north, in the event of a general election, to vote Conservative on the back of apparently having delivered Brexit. In many respects, it is nothing more than a dog whistle to some of the most base of our prejudices and fears. In my experience, it will not deliver. In a moment, I will explain that, particularly in relation to crime, of which, as a former criminal barrister, I have some understanding. It was a very sorry speech which, to sum up its failings, offered no vision whatever. It did not even begin to embrace the many problems we have, Brexit aside, to look to the future and to offer hope, in particular to young people.

As we all know, if we do not have a good strong economy, we cannot do all the other things that we seek to do, whether that is to invest in our services or to invest back into our economy to make sure that our people prosper and that we can, in turn, pay for those services. Where was the reboot that our economy so desperately needs? Where were the reforms for business, which it has been crying out for now for a number of years? It was nothing more than spend, spend, spend. It is incredible that Conservative Members supporting the Queen’s Speech have the audacity to criticise the Opposition—rightly when they look to magic money trees that do not exist—when the Government are embarking on exactly the same folly: making promises to spend money that is not there. As we know, the Government’s own assessment shows that, whichever way you do Brexit, it will reduce our future prosperity and reduce jobs. That is the Government’s own assessment.

[Matt Western]

The right hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. She talks about prosperity. Does she agree that one of the great challenges and threats to us presently is the uncertainty being faced by small businesses? I am not talking purely about the uncertainty of Brexit, although that is a huge factor. We see declining consumer confidence and growing threats from the likes of the China-US trade war, which is having a wider impact on our economy. We should be doing more for small and medium-sized businesses, but there was nothing, was there?

[Anna Soubry]

No. I completely agree. There was nothing for businesses of any size, or indeed in any sectors. I have listened to the debate over the past two hours. I remember the comments of the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who sadly is no longer in his place. He celebrated the successes of the manufacturing sector—he talked about pharmaceuticals, for example—yet nowhere in the Queen’s Speech is there any measure, not one, to mitigate what will happen if we leave the single market and the customs union. The just-in-time supply chains absolutely rely on, depend on and have been created from that single market.

Ironically, the single market found its greatest supporter in the former Prime Minister and former leader of the Conservative party, Margaret Thatcher. We all know that, without the single market and the customs union, our manufacturing sector—the 450,000 jobs, by way of example, in the automotive sector—will be particularly badly hit. There is no plan and no vision of how to mitigate the harm that Brexit will do to our society. It is about not just the manufacturing jobs, but what will happen to the 80% of our economy that relies on the service sector, as well as, of course, what I celebrate: the free movement of people throughout the European Union and the huge benefits that that has given to our economy. We have had no real plans there and no real solution.

Looking at the lack of investment, notably, in our infrastructure, as I said to the Prime Minister, I am concerned that there is no mention of HS2 phase 2b: the line that goes through my constituency, with the east midlands hub at Toton, and then goes up to Leeds. I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) is not in her place. I did not intervene on her because this is not really a debate about HS2, but HS2 is not just about taking people to London. In my constituency, it is about taking people up to Sheffield, to Birmingham and to Leeds, about providing the essential connectivity that is at the heart of a modern public transport system and about the ability to bring all these pieces together. HS2 plays a critical part in that. It provides the extra capacity and is an engine for growth. We know that, wherever those hubs exist—we have seen this from other examples in France and HS1—we find the new skilled jobs, the new exciting world of work, that can be built around that connectivity with all that it gives.

I pay tribute to the comments of the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden), who rightly talks about the value of investing in electric cars. She speaks with passion about her constituency and what that would mean for her. We certainly want people to use public transport, if we are going to achieve these hard targets that we have set ourselves for climate change, but we also need to make sure that our cars are electric. One per cent. is certainly not enough. When I was a Minister in the old Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, I sat on the inter-ministerial group for the electrification of vehicles. We had so many plans and ideas, looking at the development of battery research and the implementation of the chargers that must be put in over the full length of the United Kingdom, as my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said. None of this work has been done. Everything has been glued up with the process of Brexit. My fear is that, if we leave the EU, it will still not get any better because we will see the harm and damage that will be done to our economy.

Services rely on a successful and growing economy, but I do not think there is anything to encourage businesses to grow in this Queen’s Speech. Without those services being properly funded, we simply will not be making the investment that we have to make as a nation. One of the great joys of the time that we are in recess, especially in the September break—and about the only benefit of the unlawful Prorogation—is that it gives us all an opportunity to visit our schools and really put that effort in. That is one of the things that I did, and it is simply not acceptable in this day and age that, for example, Chilwell School in my constituency, which was built in the late ’60s—flat-roofed, under the old Consortium of Local Authorities Special Programme system—is not fit for purpose. That is not good enough. It does not inspire young people and does not help a school that is desperately seeking to improve its standards and to offer all children the greatest opportunity to reach their full potential.

I also went to Foxwood Academy, for children with special needs, which, again, was built in the early ’70s under the CLASP system. It has corridors that are not even wide enough properly to accommodate wheelchairs. This is a special school, with flat roofs. Again, it is absolutely not fit for purpose. The deep irony is that only last week we heard from the Government that they were spending £8 billion on no-deal Brexit preparations, which would provide 400 brand spanking new schools throughout the United Kingdom—schools that are needed.

The hon. Member for Mansfield talked about social care. He wrongly said that we do not work cross-party in this place: we absolutely do. Maybe the problem is that he has not taken part in that enough. For years now people have talked about the need to work cross-party to achieve real changes in social care for our elderly population and that still has not taken place. I suggest that there are still no plans in the Queen’s Speech. We are not meeting the needs of our elderly, or of those children and young people with special needs.

We need big, bold, imaginative government to deal with the challenges of climate change and we need rigour. The party that I have the pleasure of leading—a small band but nevertheless important—takes the view that the target for complete carbon neutrality should be 2040. That is the rigour that is now needed.

I know the clock is against me, but I am nearly done—

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

The Queen of our great country is a beacon of stability, of good sense and of serenity. It was a true honour to be in Parliament today when she delivered her Gracious Speech, and it is an honour to be in this Chamber to speak tonight.

I have been a Member of Parliament for two years, four months and six days—two, four, six—and I genuinely believe that the vast majority of people who go into politics do so because they want to make a difference. Where we see good things happen in our constituencies, we want to replicate them. Where we see bad things happen, we want to eradicate them. We want to move forward, and yet, for the past two years, four months and six days, I have often felt that we are going round and round in circles. Every Wednesday, when we meet for Prime Minister’s Question Time, it feels like yet another groundhog day. This week gives us a chance: a chance for hope, a chance to end that merry-go-round, a chance to get that first phase of Brexit done and move on—and people across the country are crying out for us to move on.

I voted remain, but I know it is vital for our democracy that we respect the fact that we gave people the vote, and we should deliver on that vote. However, I also know that the EU is our largest trading partner, and that many EU countries are our closest allies. No deal is not a good deal. It is not good for the UK, it is not good for the EU, and it is certainly not good for Ireland. I urge everyone who is involved in the negotiations today—I see that the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), is here—to roll up their sleeves, to work night and day, to be creative and to find compromises, and I urge everyone in the House to take the same approach. I say to certain Members—particularly the Leader of the Opposition, who just loves the chaos, and who wants more confusion because he is feeding on it for his own political gain—“History will not forgive you. I urge you to back a deal and end the chaos.”

We have just had our longest Session. The Queen’s Speech contains much positive news—news of investment in the NHS, in infrastructure, in schools, in the police and, of course, in caring for our environment—but sometimes, in order to appreciate where we are and where we need to go, it is necessary to look at where we have come from. I remember when, 10 years ago, the Conservative Government took over from Labour. Our country was suffering a massive economic failure. Our country had some of the highest levels of debt in the world. Our country was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Our country had run out of money. Reducing public spending was not an ideological mission; it was done because Labour had blown all the cash.

Rebuilding our economy meant supporting entrepreneurs, backing innovators, and making sure that we were at the forefront of some of the fastest-growing sectors—the tech revolution, financial services, science and research, and the space sector—because those were the sectors that were driving investment and creating opportunity. The harsh reality is that 10 years ago, 1 million young people were not in employment, education or training. They had been left by Labour on the edge of society, with no opportunity. Yet this year, in my constituency, 650 people started apprenticeships.

Ten years ago, one in five young people had no job; today we have record employment and record youth employment. Government do not create jobs, businesses do, but it is up to us to create the environment that allows our economy to flourish, and it is because of those policies that we are in the position today to give the opportunities offered in this Queen’s Speech.

First, there is the record investment in our NHS. We know that the NHS needs a long-term vision. In Chelmsford we need more GPs, but that is why we have built a new medical school that is already training them. And we know that a long-term plan needs to come from the bottom up, which is why I am so pleased that the NHS long-term plan is written not by politicians but by physicians and frontline health professionals, and our Queen’s Speech gives us the opportunity to turn that plan into reality.

Before coming here I helped to finance infrastructures all over our country, all over Europe and all over the middle east and Africa, and infrastructure in this country is creaking. As I said in my maiden speech, people in Chelmsford spend too much time in traffic jams and on delayed trains; it is a waste of their time and it is a waste of our country’s productivity. I am honoured to chair the all-party group on infrastructure in this place, and I am pleased to see the national infrastructure strategy right at the heart of the Queen’s Speech.

In my constituency of Chelmsford we have many excellent schools, and I am constantly impressed by the standards of their students and the dedication of their teachers. Our schools have been under pressure in Essex: costs have increased and the number of pupils with special educational needs in my county has gone up by nearly 22%. Budgets are strained, and I am pleased that the Queen’s Speech gives that vital boost to our education, levels up the funding and gives the extra funding for special educational needs.

On crime and policing, it is no secret that over the past decade Essex police were under-resourced, but in the past two years moves have been made to rectify that, thanks to the Government’s changing the funding stream and to our excellent police, fire and crime commissioner, Roger Hirst, who has made it possible for us to already be recruiting 368 more police, with another extra 135 promised by the Essex Home Secretary just last week. We have city centre policing and more power for police, and in this Queen’s Speech we are also going to be making the extra effort to protect the most vulnerable in our society, the victims of domestic violence.

Finally, I want to talk about climate change. Our country has reduced emissions faster than any other large economy in the world. We are the first major economy to set net zero in our law; we are leading the world on renewables, especially offshore; we are leading the global fight against coal; and we are leading the global work to protect the poorest countries on our planet. We are also now leading the efforts to protect the world’s oceans: this tiny island is going to be protecting a third of the world’s oceans within the next decade.

Of course there is more to do.

[Matt Western]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Vicky Ford]

No, we are short of time so I will not take any more interventions.

Of course there is more to do but this Queen’s Speech allows us to improve air quality and water quality and restore habitats for wildlife and plants, as well as fight back on plastic pollution. I am standing here having listened to the leader of the Scots Nats say he wanted to fight single-use plastic while staring across the Chamber at the single-use plastic cups that they have chucked under their seats. We need to take action for our planet. There is only one planet, we cannot replace it and we in this country are leading the world’s efforts to protect it.

This Queen’s Speech gives us a unique opportunity; let’s not squander it.

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[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to take part on the first day of our consideration of the Queen’s Speech, which was more about a political programme for the forthcoming general election than about how this country is going to be governed. Sadly, the Brexit morass that will envelop us all will carry on, regardless of what happens on Saturday and whatever happens by the end of this month. I wish, however, to start on a conciliatory note and something I am pleased to add my comments on. I refer to the commendation of our late friend Paul Flynn. Paul helped me enormously. He always said I would become an MP and he proved to be right, and he came over to Stroud to help me on numerous occasions. I owe him so much and he is clearly someone we all miss on this side of the House, and I hope the whole House will feel the same.

The Queen’s Speech is significant not so much for what was in it—as I said, there was a lot of politicisation—but, sadly, for what was not in it. It contained no mention of the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign, whose tragedy this whole House has to face up to at some point. It contained no mention of housing, which is the key issue for many of us in terms of how public service has to deliver much better. It did contain a mention of animal welfare, but it was minuscule compared with where we need to be going on animal welfare. A genuine animal welfare Bill is required, yet we are now talking about trophy hunting just as we talked previously about ivory bans, both of which are important in their own right but not what we should be doing, which is looking for a much more comprehensive approach. Many of our constituents vote on the issue of animal welfare and they feel we should be taking things forward much more quickly and radically.

[Matt Western]

My hon. Friend is making some powerful points. I believe he is alluding to the fact that this Queen’s Speech seemed almost tokenistic, in that it was almost like a shopping list of ambitions and touchpoints of things that the Government and Prime Minister felt to be important. How can there have been no mention of something as crucial to what is needed out there as housing, given that we have homelessness and rough sleeping at record levels, with people desperate and dying on the streets?

[Dr Drew]

That is what we should have been prioritising in this Queen’s Speech, along with the abolition of universal credit, which has proved to be a monumental mistake. There was nothing wrong with the concept, but the delivery of UC has caused such hardship, in all our constituencies, and it is beyond reform. We have to get rid of it and start with something different.

The Prime Minister, in defence of the Queen’s Speech, talked a lot about one nation. I know the Conservatives like to talk about themselves as the one nation party. Sadly, the way things could turn out means we could be facing one nation, because the other three parts of the United Kingdom, for various reasons, no longer seem to want to be part of this one nation. I really worry about the level of English nationalism, which is now driving the Conservative party. We have a fundamental problem and I agree with the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) that we need radical constitutional reform, and that includes devolution in this country of England, where we have failed to do anything to deal with the centralisation of power. That is a fundamental reason why people voted for Brexit; they did so because they feel disconnected from the way in which decisions are made. That comes into the need for a fundamental rethink, with votes at 16, electoral reform and unitary authorities, to which she alluded. As someone who spent 28 years on a parish and town council, I am pleased to say that that means taking power to the first level of government—it is not the lowest level. That is important, because people can then see what is happening in the communities.

Brexit has caused huge divisions, but it has also led to this Government wasting the past year. I regret and resent the fact that we will not be having the Agriculture Bill and the Fisheries Bill back—we did not even get as far as the environment Bill. All those are fundamental pieces of legislation that should have been enacted over the past year. We may disagree about what was going into those Bills. We had a critique in Committee, but, sadly for those who served on it—I led on behalf of the Opposition—the Agriculture Bill disappeared last November, never to be seen again. That does nothing other than cause disillusion. Farmers are asking, notwithstanding the uncertainty over Brexit, what policy is going to be in place if we crash out. More particularly, even if we do not crash out, we will need an agricultural policy that is understood and that takes account of the idea of public money for public goods. We need to see that in practice and see how it will work. At the moment, we just have a huge void.

I welcome the fact that the issue of mental health is in the Queen’s Speech, and hopefully a Bill will subsequently come forward, but there is a problem. Like many other Members, I go around my local schools—I have been to 40 schools in the past year—and besides funding and staff stability, the third issue that all schools raise with me is their children’s mental health. It is now at a stage where it is a crisis. We must not underestimate how bad things are. Of course, it is about not only the children but their families. We have a significant problem, even in Gloucestershire, with off-rolling. A lot of it has to do with parents who do not believe that their children can get special needs provision in the normal system, but it is also about the way parents can take their children out of school into so-called home education. There is nothing wrong with home education in theory, but they are not then educating their children, who are being taken out of school more as companions than in the context of a parent-child relationship. That should be addressed by proper investigation and, in due course, the putting in place of a proper legislative context.

My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), who is sadly not currently in the Chamber, talked about air quality as a key issue. I hope that will be addressed, either through the environment Bill or in its own right. I shall just add to what he had to say the significant issue of incineration, which leads to small particulates that have an enormous impact on the health of children in particular. We have never investigated it, and it should be paramount in the way we try to drive up air quality. Yes, of course traffic is seen as the major cause of the huge issue of our deteriorating health standards, but there are other parts to it. The disposal of waste through appropriate means by getting rid of it in a non-polluting manner is crucial, as is not creating it in the first place.

That brings me to the biggest loss in the Queen’s Speech: the failure to address climate change properly. The target of 2050 is far too late. Earlier this evening, I had the opportunity to go along to a meeting of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, at which three experts, including the former chief scientist Sir David King, basically argued that we are not anywhere near meeting the obligations in this country, let alone in the wider world. Warming of 2° will cause climate change catastrophe. We need to understand that, which is why I am proud to stand by my constituents. As many Members know, Extinction Rebellion came from Stroud. Many of my constituents are out there at every moment in time, and I am happy to help them wherever I can. I also pay due regard to Polly Higgins, the creator of the campaign on ecocide who latterly became a Stroud constituent. We need to look at ecocide and the implications—there is an opportunity for Members to come to a briefing this week—of how we can pass a law that means we will not leave a worse situation to our children and particularly our grandchildren. We should feel desperately keen to avoid doing that at any cost. Let us listen to the scientists and the campaigners, and let us do something in this place, rather than talk about it.

In conclusion, I am pleased that the Domestic Abuse Bill has been carried over and will hopefully see the light of day. Let us make sure that the legislation is not watered down and includes action such as banning sham marriages. We must make sure that it is not just linked to immigration and human rights but stands in its own right. The Opposition will debate the Bills as they come forward and seek radically to improve the legislation. We will make sure that there is an alternative. We heard earlier that it was all about the previous Government’s failings in power; I argue that austerity was a political programme. We are now coming to the end of austerity. It was such an unnecessary and punitive way for any Government to try to deal with the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. If we have come out of austerity, now is the time to see the real changes that are desperately needed, so that we have a more humane society that addresses issues such as housing, education and health, as well as trying to deal with the morass of Brexit. More particularly, we need to deal with climate change.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew), who, as always, made many excellent points. I support the Queen’s Speech, which I thought was absolutely tremendous, and congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) and for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) on their excellent speeches. I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, because that is a traditional thing that one has to do.

The most important point facing my constituents at the moment is, as always, tuberculosis in cattle. I keep coming back to this matter because—the hon. Member for Stroud mentioned the animal welfare element in the agriculture Bill—of the need to tackle this disease, and the issues that are hitting farmers time and again in the countryside. They all come down to the failure of the skin test to correctly identify infection in cattle. There is good news: a new test, the Enferplex TB test, has been approved by the World Organisation for Animal Health—or the OIE. It is an antibody test, and it is more reliable and more accurate. It will genuinely give us, as a nation, the opportunity to find the disease both in cattle and in badgers and to correctly identify it. Until we can do that, the progress we make will never be as good as it should or could be.

There is also work under way on enhanced skin tests and DNA in blood tests, but neither of those are approved by the OIE. The OIE does not approve any old test. It is a respected, proper international body and we need to know what the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is doing to make sure that these tests are adopted and that the fight against tuberculosis is successful.

I have farmers complain to me time and again of the heartbreak of watching their beloved animals being put down. To make matters even worse, they then get a message saying that, during the test later, there was no sign of infection in the animal. Those tests can take up to six months to culture but, by then, of course, my constituents are unutterably miserable and have been treated appallingly, so we need to move on. We need to use science to help to fight this horrible disease in cattle and to ensure that the badger population, which is healthy, is protected. The culling has been proven to work. The peer group review and the science add up. If you do it properly, you can reduce the incidence of outbreaks in cattle and, of course, that is good not only for the farmers and the cattle, but for protecting the healthy population of badgers.

[Matt Western]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very important point about some of the challenges that are faced in our rural communities, particularly by our farmers. When I speak to farmers in Warwickshire—there are very few in my constituency—they are very vocal about the concerns about TB. I have learned that one of the challenges that they face, or that we face, is that so many of these tests are undertaken by specialist vets, who are often from the EU—from eastern Europe. If we do not have that skilled migration coming from eastern Europe, the delivery of vets and their supply to rural communities will be under threat.

[Bill Wiggin]

That is a very good reason to have a better test and to win the battle against the disease, and then we will not need to do so many tests because the cattle will be clean.

Preparations for Leaving the EU

Matt Western Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I think it would, and, to be fair, the attitude of EU member states and others towards the proposition that we have put forward would, I hope, be warmer and more flexible if they knew that it had support across the House. The hon. Members for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) and for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) issued a cautious welcome to the deal, as did the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock). If that were the view of those on the Opposition Front Bench, it would be better for the whole country.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

May I pick up the point about this being a comprehensive summary? There are two sentences referencing border inspection posts, which will seriously impact our food and fish exports. There will be only nine, as I think the Secretary of State understands. That will lead not to hundreds of certain certificates being issued, but to tens or hundreds of thousands. Does he agree that we do not have the capacity in our local authorities or the vets to service that?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The key thing is that we will be taking a continuity approach towards the flow of goods into this country. We will not be administering checks for the EU when EU businesses export to us. The EU will, of course, impose checks under its acquis, although the French authorities, for example, have ensured that the border inspection posts for shellfish will be in Boulogne-sur-Mer. That means that fish caught in Scotland on Tuesday can be on sale in France on Wednesday without any impairment.

Prime Minister's Update

Matt Western Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady was going so well. I thought she was going to say that she would vote for a compromise deal, and I hope she will think of that, because that is what her constituents would want.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Three weeks ago, thousands of people up and down the country protested against the suspension of Parliament, including 600 good people in Warwick and Leamington incensed by that decision. Now we know, as a result of yesterday’s Supreme Court judgment, that we were deceived, the people were deceived and even the Queen was deceived.

One of my constituents has described the Prime Minister as the “Wizard of Uxbridge” such is his great illusion and deception. He wishes for a general election. Come the day, may I invite him to Warwick and Leamington to help me in my campaign to get re-elected?

[The Prime Minister]

I cannot prophesy exactly what my itinerary will be in the course of the general election campaign, but I cannot exclude the possibility that I may indeed pay a visit to the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, where I think his opponent has every possibility of success.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

That point is duly noted. It is a very serious point. I do not want to add to it, but suffice it to say that although I do not know the Cox family anything like as well as the hon. Lady or many other Members here present, I do know members of the family. I have a strong empathy with the objectives of the Jo Cox Foundation, and indeed I am in touch with the family from time to time, including currently in relation to upcoming events, so I am not unsighted on the issues. I do not think any of us in this Chamber will ever forget or entirely overcome our horror, revulsion and distress at what happened to a wonderful human being and the most dedicated of public servants. She was murdered for what she believed, for the values she held, and for her effectiveness in campaigning for them. We do not in any circumstances ever want to witness a repeat of that.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Could I ask your advice on how this could be extended to the responsibilities of our media and the Independent Press Standards Organisation? They do have a really important role to play in how this gets reported and the language they use. We think back months ago to the headlines, “Traitors”, “Enemies of the people” and so on towards our judiciary and towards people in this place. Is there a mechanism by which we can engage with IPSO to ensure that that language is not repeated?

[Mr Speaker]

I would rather not deal with that now on the Floor of the House. I am well aware of IPSO and well aware of complaints that have been made to it from time to time, and colleagues will have their own view about that. There are hugely important issues here. On the one hand, there is an enormous premium, and rightly so, on a free media—a vigorous, outspoken, sometimes extremely irreverent and, from individuals’ or parties’ vantage points, hostile media. It is much better to have that than to have a media that is state controlled. On the other hand, words do have consequences, and it is very important that people in positions of authority or capacity to influence opinion, frankly, operate at a level that reflects their influence and their responsibility. I think this is something that it is better to discuss further outside the Chamber and that Members can raise with the relevant Minister if they so wish. But I am not insensitive to what the hon. Gentleman has said.

Priorities for Government

Matt Western Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he is doing to work with manufacturing industry. I give him my absolute assurance that we will do everything we can to protect just-in-time supply chains. As he may know, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is now in charge of making those preparations. I am sure that he would be only too happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and the representatives that he mentioned.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister famously said “F*** business” in the context of Brexit. Does he not accept that communities such as mine depend on manufacturing such as JLR? By logical extension, does he mean f*** my community?

[The Prime Minister]

People across this country will have heard me mention the JLR investment in Birmingham three times already today. It is a measure of this country’s success that it continues to attract such fantastic investment from JLR, and indeed from other car companies, and that is because we have cut corporation tax, whereas the Labour party would put it up to the highest level in Europe. That is the risk posed to JLR and to many other businesses around the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Matt Western Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the work that she did as Leader of the House and for her work on the inter-ministerial group looking at that issue. Beyond that, the issue of early years is a cause she has championed for some considerable time, both before and since she came into this House. I am proud that more than 850,000 disadvantaged two-year-olds have benefited from the free early education places that we introduced in 2013. Our social mobility action plan sets out a clear and ambitious plan for the early years, closing the word gap at age five, and we want to ensure that where a child gets to in life depends on their individual talents and not on their background. We will continue to work with my right hon. Friend and others who rightly put a high value on the importance of the early days in a child’s life.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Q5. My 18-year-old constituent Sian and several of her fellow students have just completed their German A-level. Sadly, due to cuts to the school’s teaching staff, they had to teach themselves for the last two terms. By contrast, the local private schools still have German teachers in place. At a time when some would turn their backs on Europe, does this not also suggest that the injustices that exist in this country are burning brighter than ever in our education system?

[The Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have been putting more funding into our schools and ensuring that the distribution of that funding is fairer—fairer—across the country. As I just said in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), I want to ensure that every young person can get as far in life as their talents and hard work will take them,

One Public Estate Programme

Matt Western Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered One Public Estate.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing me to bring forward this debate. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Paisley.

I have secured this debate because I believe it is important to review programmes and policies and, as far as I can see, there has been very little scrutiny of the One Public Estate programme since its launch some six years ago in 2013. It was launched by the coalition Government, largely in response to their priority of reducing the deficit. Although I acknowledge that ambition, my great fear is that we are witnessing a wholesale asset stripping of the public estate with very little public or central Government scrutiny.

However, I appreciate that the programme’s aim was just as much to seek to join up central Government, local government and other partners to make better use of public assets and their land. The idea was that by public partners sharing space, running costs could be reduced and surplus assets sold to generate money or released for other purposes to create new jobs or homes. In fact, the programme had three core aims: to create efficiencies, generating capital receipts and reducing costs; to create local economic growth, creating new jobs and homes; and to deliver more integrated, customer-focused services, providing citizens with better access to Government.

My interest in securing the debate was motivated by my own time as a councillor on Warwickshire County Council, and by a local project involving new offices for Warwick District Council, my local authority, which I believe could have made use of the One Public Estate programme. It is also motivated by my wider interest, which many will know of, in housing issues and particularly social housing. I will outline the aims of the programme when it was first launched, provide my own assessment of its success and perhaps unpick some of its failures, particularly in relation to housing.

Launching the policy in 2014, Francis Maude, who was a Minister in the Cabinet Office in the years 2010 to 2015, outlined the impetus for the programme thus:

“In the absence of a comprehensive, coordinated strategy, central departments and their arms-length bodies all did their own thing.”

He continued:

“They did it without talking to each other and without thinking about their local partners.

Because no one was looking at the bigger picture, departments would take on expensive new leases when government freeholds remained under-used—or where local authority accommodation was available just down the road.”

I will come back to that point and illustrate it with a local example. Later in my speech I will also return to what Mr Maude was saying in 2014, as I think his words were particularly significant. They are certainly eerily apposite to the case of Warwick District Council, my local authority, and its proposed self-described new headquarters building in the centre of Leamington.

There was merit in Mr Maude’s approach, and I applaud his thinking at the time. For example, the notion of providing services in one place as opposed to several could better serve the public by providing easier access to local government and other public services. The obvious example would be a jobcentre sharing space with a council’s welfare and housing team.

In its initial trialling in 2013, the programme focused on 12 councils. It has since expanded rapidly so that just over 300 councils now participate, representing 95% of all English local authorities. The One Public Estate programme also works with 13 Government Departments and hundreds of health and blue light organisations. It works by providing a combination of central Government grant funding directly to partnerships, which have to bid for it, and expertise that local authorities and other public bodies do not always possess.

The purpose of the funding is to cover up-front costs associated with getting a project under way and to unlock those potential assets, for example through remediation works on land that could be used for housing. One Public Estate has also formed a partnership with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to jointly administer the Government’s land release programme, which is designed to release land for 160,000 homes on Government land and a further 160,000 on local government land by 2020. That was formulated back in 2017.

There have been some successes through the programme. In my assessment, the aims of One Public Estate are, in the main, laudable. As someone who spent part of my career bringing change to an organisation, I wholeheartedly support the programme’s aim to rationalise the use of public assets to reduce the cost to the taxpayer, and to provide Government services in a more joined-up and accessible way. In fact, shortly after the programme’s national launch, I proposed a “one Warwickshire estate” programme as a county councillor. I could see that the county and district councils in my community could make much better use of the land and buildings they owned to serve each other’s needs.

Across the country, there have clearly been some successes, albeit limited ones. The most impressive is that to date the programme has created 5,700 jobs, and the latest phase is expected to create a further 14,000 new jobs. That is a tangible benefit for people up and down the country. To date, it is estimated that running costs associated with partner projects have been reduced by £24 million, and the new phase is expected to save taxpayers £37 million in running costs. However, I point out that, while any saving to the taxpayer is positive, £24 million over five years is relatively small beer compared with the overall cost of Government.

There are individual cases that will bring big benefits to their local communities. Looking through the various materials available on the programme, I see the development of public sector hubs, if done in the right way, as a positive step forward. The West Suffolk partnership is currently developing such a hub, which will have space for a school, leisure facilities including a swimming pool and health centre, children’s centre, public library, jobcentre and citizen’s advice bureau, as well as space for Suffolk police, West Suffolk Council and Suffolk County Council. That will surely benefit how the local community interacts with the public sector, and the project is expected to reduce running costs by £4 million to boot.

Another example is in Cornwall, where the police, fire and ambulance services have co-located in a new joint headquarters in Hayle, saving £500,000 a year on running costs and releasing two sites for redevelopment. The new facility has enabled the emergency services to reach many more people within the target response time. Since the success of that first tri-light co-location, Cornwall partners have progressed to a number of further blue light property co-locations and piloted emergency services collaboration, with tri-service offices being rolled out across the county.

I mentioned that Warwick District Council, in my area, has been seeking to build itself a new office. I do not believe that is necessary, because there is ample vacant or void space in the county council offices, just two miles up the road. I will come back to that a little bit later.

There have also been failures of the programme. Perhaps the greatest failing of all has been the wholesale disposal of public land, ignoring the greatest crisis of all—the need to deliver much-needed public housing. That is my greatest concern because, to paraphrase, “They don’t make land any more,” and, together with its people, public land is a community’s greatest asset.

We are in the midst of a serious housing crisis: 277,000 people are homeless and 1,157,000 households are currently on the housing waiting list. There is a clear and urgent need to house people who are at the sharp end of this crisis, but we also hear from older constituents who are renting privately and unable to afford their rent—a problem that will only increase. It is estimated that by 2040 up to one third of 60-year-olds will be renting privately. We also know that many younger people are trapped in the private rented sector.

One of the major barriers to providing housing is land. Sky-high land prices are preventing local authorities from gaining access to land to build on, and those prices are incentivising cash-strapped councils to sell off the land they own rather than build on it.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He talks about social housing, and there are five major cartels in this country that the Government should tackle. They get involved in what I call land banking, for want of a better term: they get outline planning permission, and then they sit on the land until it becomes more valuable. Then, of course, house prices in the private sector go through the roof. Does he agree that that is one of the big problems that should be tackled?

[Matt Western]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point: this is an oligopoly, with just a few players controlling our land. I increasingly see local authorities coming to arrangements with the big players and developers, and that prevents land from being used wisely to deliver the sort of housing that we need.

With such a colossal social crisis before us, we should use all suitable public land to build high-quality social rented council housing, without exception—not 50% here or 40% there, but 100% of such land. I fear—with good reason, it seems—that the One Public Estate programme was designed more to incentivise the public sector to sell its precious land as part of a national asset-stripping programme than to use the opportunity so afforded to design in a more efficient delivery of public services or facilitate the building of social rented housing, which would be of most social benefit to most communities.

A relatively small number of homes have been delivered by the OPE so far: just 303, which is a failure in itself. Overall, the land released will enable the building of a further 2,550 homes, with an estimated 10,000 more homes over the next five years. It worries me that I cannot find the data on how many of those homes will be social rented, or even affordable—I suspect most are not—or how much of the land has been released to local authorities to build council housing; I suspect most has not. It would be helpful if the Minister provided the data today.

I do know, however, that the Government’s estate strategy revealed that around £2 billion has already been generated from selling more than 1,000 buildings in the last four years, with £164 million in capital receipts from land and property sales raised as part of the OPE. How much of that land could have been suitable for delivering the social rented council housing we desperately need? In truth, any such need, or means of facility to meet that need, has been fundamentally undermined by the prevailing attitude that public sector assets and land are best released to the private sector. I think it is fair to say that that was the view of what is now seen as a surprisingly neoliberal coalition Government. In the speech that I referred to earlier, Francis Maude went on to say that

“we want to release property back onto the market”,

and that the Government

“identified assets which could be released between now and 2020, generating £5 billion for the taxpayer.”

To be fair, it appears that this Government’s priorities have changed from those of the coalition Government. The Prime Minister has claimed that austerity is over, although the public are yet to see any evidence of that. She has also claimed that she wishes to solve the housing crisis, naming it the Government’s No. 1 domestic priority. Indeed, the borrowing cap has been reformed so that councils can begin building council housing at scale again, but a cap should never have been imposed in the first instance. I therefore urge the Minister to look again at how the One Public Estate programme operates, in terms of releasing public land, and to shift its priorities so that public land that is suitable for the development of social rented council housing is prioritised for that purpose, instead of being flogged off to the highest bidder.

The defence estate optimisation programme provides a very good example of the potential of OPE, but also its failings. The Ministry of Defence currently accounts for 2% of the UK’s land mass. The Government recognise that many of those sites could be better used, particularly for housing, and the Ministry of Defence therefore plans to release around 90 of its most expensive sites before 2040, potentially releasing land for 55,000 homes. That relies on linking up the Ministry with the relevant local authorities and providing them with the up-front cost and expertise needed to make the most of the release of those sites. The OPE is well placed to fulfil that role; indeed, it is already involved in discussions relating to 12 of the sites.

However, if we dig slightly deeper, we see that the opportunity for mass social rented housing programmes on that land is being totally missed. For example, St George’s barracks in Rutland is due to close in 2021, and the master plan that has been developed provides for 2,200 homes as part of a new garden village. The OPE programme was awarded £175,000 in December 2017 for project management, consultation, surveys and master planning of the barracks site—so far, so good. However, when we delve into the master plan, we see that only 30% of the homes will be affordable. Worse still, of those, 50% will be affordable rent, which we all know is not that affordable; 35% will be starter homes or other affordable home ownership products; and 15% will be rent to buy. It appears that none will be social-rented housing—a prime example of a fantastic opportunity missed for OPE and genuinely affordable housing.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I spoke to the Minister this morning before the debate. Does the hon. Gentleman believe it is important that there is a purpose behind the sale of any land, such as saving money when Departments come together? Equally important, as he outlined, is the need to ensure that, whatever land becomes available, there is a social housing requirement to give those who do not have the same assets the opportunity to buy or rent houses. In Northern Ireland, we had a suggestion—not a rule—that developers should set aside 10% of land for social housing. Does he feel that the Government should look at something more objective for the mainland, with land set aside in law for social housing? Does he think that might be a way of retaining land for social housing? People cannot get housing if we do not give them the opportunity to do so.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Order. If Members wish to make speeches, will they please make an application to do so? The Chair of the debate will happily accommodate them.

[Matt Western]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention—I think it was an intervention—and he makes a valid point. There is a huge need to legislate for this, as I have identified, with 1.2 million people in homelessness. We have a massive social crisis because of the land banking that is going on across the country, as my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) said. We saw that yesteryear with commercial land, when the big supermarkets just took up options, and now we see it with housing developers and home builders, who have a huge number of options across the country, in Northern Ireland and here on the mainland. They control the prices, the roll-out and the build of housing in this country, and they allow to be built what is viable for them, in view of the profitability that they want to achieve.

In Amsterdam, all housing projects have to deliver 80% social housing. Whether it is 10% or 40%, or whatever the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, we have to choose, politically, the right figure. I want the figure to be 100%, which is the way the Dutch authorities are looking to go in Amsterdam. That is what we need, because we have such a crisis. The Shelter report from January on the need for social housing identified that we need to build 3 million social rented properties in the next 20 years—155,000 every year for the next 20 years. That is why we should use all this land to realise its greatest value, which has to be in its social value, not simply in the financial receipt.

To summarise, let me be clear: I support the overall aims of the One Public Estate programme. It has been important in trying to achieve a change in the mindset of those in the various public sector authorities and our Ministries to try to deliver better outcomes. Its simple approach of seeking to establish a partnership model across the sector was, and remains, right. The simple idea of mapping the public estate and understanding, through audit, what is out there and what we have that local authorities and others can use; the establishment of a strong governance mechanism, with representation across the public sector, which is vital in driving delivery; and the engagement of public sector partners as early as possible, to ensure that a project meets the needs of local communities, are all creditable and right. When delivered effectively, it can produce savings to the taxpayer and, most importantly, improve local services, but I am absolutely not convinced that that is happening as widely or as openly as was originally hoped.

I can only draw on my own experience in Warwickshire and with my local authority, Warwick District Council, where there has been no real appetite to exhaust the options of sharing assets. We still have in Warwickshire a police headquarters and a fire headquarters, and both are on prime land. There is considerable opportunity for a master plan to improve the delivery of services while enabling the best use of assets for the public purse. The Suffolk example that I gave earlier is a positive example of what can be achieved.

I think, however, that there are examples across the country of asset stripping, and of the wholesale industrial sell-off of land. My fear is that there is not, through the Public Accounts Committee or through this place generally, proper scrutiny of what is going on, even though billions of pounds of public assets are in play. I would urge the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy to be more closely involved.

In my own investigations, I realised that one particular company was involved with my local council, Warwick District Council. Called PSP—Public Sector Plc—it is, I discovered, involved with 22 different authorities across the UK. I understand that it has not followed a procurement process, yet it is advising and involved in the disposal of these assets. Surely CIPFA and others should be looking at that. I believe that the Government Property Agency should be looking at it, and so should the Public Accounts Committee.

We should focus on the ambition, which is the utilisation of the assets for the maximum possible benefit in our communities, and on how we realise true social value. In practice, that means a shift in the programme from delivering as much money as possible—the highest receipt—through the sale of assets, to releasing land for local authorities to deliver the best services, the best joined-up practice and high-quality social rented council housing so that we can finally get to grips with our housing crisis.

I look forward to hearing the contributions of other hon. Members and that of the Minister, but I urge us all to think about our most pressing need, which is to deliver low-rent social housing. Only public land can deliver that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Western]

I thank the Minister; I was getting a little nervous that he was not going to give me enough time to respond. At one stage, I thought I might have a few minutes more, but it is no matter. I thank Members for their contributions, which have been of supreme quality. This has been a healthy and valuable debate, and I give my sincere thanks to my hon. Friends the Members for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell), as well as the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Jo Platt). I also thank the Minister for his comments.

It is quite clear that huge regional opportunities are being presented here; that is perhaps not an oversight, but something that there has not been enough focus on. That is one of the great learnings from this debate. This is also about the pace of what is being delivered across the various projects and the priority being given to the local economy, entrepreneurial development and opportunity, as well as the key priority of housing, whether social or other. As everyone will have heard this morning, my sincere priority, which is shared by Opposition Members, is greater social housing.

How have we got here? As has been discussed, there has been a 60% cut in local authority budgets, which has put those authorities under huge pressure. My thoughts are with all those who have had to endure those cuts and work to the best of their ability to deliver the services that our communities depend on.

What we have seen, not just through One Public Estate but more generally, is a huge sell-off of our public assets, the greatest since the 1980s. As someone who used to work in a finance department, my great fear is about the lack of scrutiny in the process provided for by the Government. There seems to be no central co-ordination, and I believe that this country is being asset-stripped on a previously unseen scale. The public are vaguely aware of what is going on; yes, billions of pounds are being released, but I am not sure that the Public Accounts Committee has got involved in this issue. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee should also look at this topic to scrutinise what is happening, including the involvement of private sector developers and house builders, and who is actually benefiting from those huge sell-offs.

My hon. Friend the Member for York Central talked about the test of public good, which is a terrific idea; it is something that should be learned from this debate. Likewise, we need to learn what is best practice for the delivery of health hubs around the country, as there seems to be a mixed approach in what goes on. The Minister is right about the one public estate, or lack of one, in the work being done in my local area. As I said earlier, “one Warwickshire estate” was accepted unanimously in Warwickshire, but somehow it has not been delivered with my local authority. There has been a lack of consultation with the public, and—going back to the test of public good—when we see more than 9,000 people in our local area signing a petition to say they are against a project, we have to ask, “In whose interest is that project?”

We have land, and it is needed; the question is how the use of that land and those assets is prioritised. The fact that the land is being sold to private developers in a very opaque way, lacking transparency, is of the greatest concern to local people and communities. As I said throughout my speech and as others repeated in their contributions, there is a need for social housing, and the Government are missing their own target. Only 6,500 social rented properties were built last year in this country, which is a travesty given the huge housing crisis that we face. As was reported this morning, this country has the second greatest inequality in the world; only the United States of America is more unequal. As my hon. Friend the Member for York Central said in her speech, that inequality is evident in her constituency. There is no need for any more luxury apartments on the scale being proposed; we are denying ourselves social justice in our communities, and impacting on the economies of those areas.

We have heard that the Cabinet Office does not even monitor the delivery of these projects, or of the housing. We hear about hospitals existing on cramped sites. The Minister will be familiar with University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire and just how cramped and unfit for purpose its site is. We should be thinking much more in the round, as we should when it comes to the provision of libraries in our communities.

Thinking back to 2010 and the years before, the Labour Government had a series of regional development agencies across the country that provided great joined-up thinking about the delivery of infrastructure, healthcare, hospitals or whatever, and saw the big picture. My fear is that One Public Estate is much more on the micro level. Likewise, the previous Labour Government had regional spatial strategies for the delivery of housing, linked to those services and the infrastructure. Those strategies were done away with, which I think was a huge error of the incoming coalition Government in 2010. This is all about the bigger picture, but what are the priorities? I have repeatedly stressed the need for more social housing.

Finally, I once more thank everyone for their contributions; it has been a terrific debate about something incredibly important. Billions of pounds of assets have been disposed of. I thank the LGA and the House of Commons Library for their help and their contributions, and I thank you, Mr Paisley, for chairing.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

European Council

Matt Western Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman will see that support for the withdrawal agreement has been growing on this side of the House. As he knows, we are looking at whether we can find a point of agreement with the Opposition that will truly command a majority in this House, and enable us to get the necessary legislation through.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I thank the Prime Minister for listening to the House and working with the European Union to avoid a no-deal exit that would have cost manufacturing greatly. Jaguar Land Rover is centred around my constituency, and the loss of £1.2 billion a year would threaten its viability. Does the Prime Minister agree with the Secretary of State for International Trade that a customs union between the UK and the EU would be the worst of both worlds?

[The Prime Minister]

We are looking to ensure that we obtain the benefits of a customs union that have been identified in the political declaration, and we are continuing to move forward on that. On trade policy, we believe it is right to have a good trade agreement with the European Union for the future, but also to have good trade agreements with the rest of the world, and the ability to negotiate them.

UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Matt Western Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I rise in support of amendments (e), (i) and (j).

The Prime Minister has made a huge mistake. She has not sought to unify this country—to reunite us—but to reunite her party. Since 10 December, it has been abundantly clear that there is not a majority in this House for the Prime Minister’s deal. Three months on, she still insists it is her deal or no deal. Her approach has been flawed from the start, and it is what has led to us being in this humiliating, disastrous mess. Rather than reach out across the country and across Parliament, she asserted her infamous red lines and just focused on securing her legacy. Now we must exhaust other realistic options, in a short timeframe, to understand where there is a majority in this House for some form of Brexit. We owe it to this country, which has been misled not once but twice: first, by the promises of the leave campaign; and secondly, by the disingenuous claims of the Prime Minister that hers was the only way of delivering Brexit.

For several months, I have been making it clear that I believe it incumbent on those of us in this House, as representatives of a currently very divided nation, to work collaboratively to find solutions to this impasse, with the primary aim of seeking to heal these divisions. We must work to determine the forms of Brexit that are, first, realisable, and secondly, least damaging to the UK and to Europe. To enable this, it is essential that we extend article 50. As I said very publicly back in mid-November, we must do that, confirm it with the EU, and then decide which of the Brexit options has the most public support.

Let me be clear: yes, I support a public vote, as I have said before. This place cannot decide what form of Brexit we follow, and the public must confirm what they want versus remain. Today’s votes are all about achieving an extension to article 50 that will facilitate the right outcome that is in the best interests of this country. If won, we must then agree across this House the mechanisms for achieving this, and amendment (i) does that. Again, let me be clear: yes, I voted remain and I favour remain. As someone who sits on the International Trade Committee, it is obvious to me that coming out of the European Union on 29 March is the first paragraph of the first chapter of a very long book. It will last for eight to 10 years. For that reason, and, more importantly, with the ambition of trying to reunify this country of ours, and for the reasons of avoiding the economic catastrophe so well described by business leaders, the CBI, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the Federation of Small Businesses, we must extend article 50 and find majority agreement across this House.

UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

Matt Western Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gethins]

The Welsh Government do it. A minority Government must speak to the other parties and engage with the Opposition. We have a Government who are trying to run the show as if they have a majority of 100; for their information, they do not. They lost their majority at the last general election. We did not lose our majority at the last general election, but the Government did.

Let us not lose sight of where we are. It was the charlatans and chancers who backed vote leave on a blank piece of paper. They did not have the decency, courtesy or democratic accountability to put down what vote leave meant, and the Secretary of State was one of them. That is why we are in the mess that we are in today. It is a mess entirely of the Secretary of State and his colleagues’ own making, and one for which not only they but unfortunately the rest of us are paying the price, too.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

rose—

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

rose—

[Stephen Gethins]

I have taken some interventions from the Government side, so I shall take one from the Labour Benches.

[Matt Western]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the mess he refers to includes business confidence falling in the last four quarters—3.7% in the last quarter—and consumer confidence at its lowest ever since 2012?

[Stephen Gethins]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are seeing business confidence falling and investment falling. These things are matters of fact.

I will come to some more figures in a moment, but first I wish to talk about the UK’s standing in the world. People talk about democracy and the UK’s standing. They talk of unelected bureaucrats, but the greatest number of parliamentarians are the unelected ones in the House of Lords. That is not democracy. The European Parliament is elected, the Commission is accountable to that Parliament, and the Council is made up of the 28 elected Governments as well. That is a damn sight more democratic than this place is.

European Council

Matt Western Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I believe it was the case that the issue of the continuity Bill in Scotland was discussed with the Government at the time. The Government made clear their position in relation to that Bill and to this matter. There were discussions with the Scottish Government throughout the passage of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act and we have ensured at every stage that we have consulted and engaged with the Scottish Government and, indeed, the Welsh Government on these matters.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

We have endured months of obfuscation and prevarication, fudge and more fudge made in Maidenhead. The Prime Minister described perfect as the enemy of the good, but she will accept that good leadership demands a demonstration of the courage of one’s convictions. Prime Minister, we are in a serious crisis. Business demands action urgently. It is totally irresponsible and unacceptable to delay the vote until the weeks commencing 7 or 14 January. We need a vote now. If we do not have it before Christmas, please extend article 50 because businesses demand it.