“Chapter 4A
Debate between Matt Western and Greg Smith(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Greg Smith
The hon. Lady makes a point that she made in Committee. It was good to debate with her and others in Committee—we had a genuine and robust debate. What I am arguing for is flexibility and a recognition of how the employment market and our economy works in real life. To treat everything with one universal rule will be a disaster for our economy. I fear that it will result in fewer people in work and fewer jobs in the economy, and it certainly will not deliver the growth that this Government pretend they want to see.
Matt Western
Does the shadow Minister not accept that it is due to the expendability of employees in the workplace that we have such a poor rate of productivity in this country, particularly compared with France and Germany?
Greg Smith
I greatly respect the hon. Gentleman, and we have worked together on a number of issues in recent years, but I do not accept his point. Is there room to improve productivity? Of course there is—there is room to improve productivity across all sectors all the time; we would not grow the economy if we could not do that. However, the Bill takes a sledgehammer to crack the proverbial nut. Applying a universal rule for all will not deliver what the hon. Gentleman nobly wishes to achieve in the economy. As is often the case in politics, the thing that divides us is not the end goal or the point we want to get to; it is the means of getting there. I do not think the Bill will deliver what he wants to achieve. He looks like he wants to intervene again. I want to make progress, but I will give him one last go.
Matt Western
The shadow Minister is being very generous. I am making a simple point: it is less motivating and of less interest to a company to invest in machinery and plant if it can ultimately change the structure of its workforce or expend them through fire and rehire. That is what is holding us back, and that is why we have a 20% deficit to France and Germany in terms of productivity.
Greg Smith
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, but I do not see businesses out there that want to expend or get rid of their workforces, or disinvest in them, and he is giving a very pessimistic outlook of the way that the business environment runs in this country. Businesses want to innovate. They want to grow and employ more people. They want to make more money. Making money is not something people should look down their noses at—it is a fundamentally good thing that creates wealth, grows the economy, and increases the tax base to pay for the services that we all want. I do not share the hon. Gentleman’s view of the world when it comes to the Bill and the point he is trying to make.
Listed Places of Worship Scheme
Debate between Matt Western and Greg Smith(2 months, 1 week ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) on bringing this important debate to the attention of the House. The stakes are high if the scheme is discontinued, and it will put immense pressure on a small number of volunteers to keep those precious places of worship in good order.
Churches are not just places of worship. In my constituency, Holy Trinity church in Prestwood hosts a monthly breakfast between services, as well as toddlers’ activity groups and regular clubbercise sessions. St Mary’s in Long Crendon hosts choral evenings, mother and baby groups, orchestral events and—very importantly—a beer festival. Without critical restoration work, and the grant scheme making it possible, churches risk losing their vital place in the wider community.
At the 800-year-old St Mary Magdalene church in Great Hampden, fundraising started in 2018 for £300,000—excluding VAT—with restorative paintworks alone costing £50,000. The VAT relief afforded through the grant scheme was so critical to the project that, in its absence, fundraising would continue to this day; work would not even have started. The rector and her team have even arranged a loan facility to cover the time it might take to claim the VAT refund because they could not raise the funds to cover that element of the cost. In the rector’s words,
“The project would not have been possible without the grant scheme.”
I have also heard from St Mary’s church in Princes Risborough, which alongside St Peter’s church in Ilmer, has benefited hugely from the grant scheme, allowing both improvements and the maintenance of the building. In the coming months and years, substantial building works will be required that will benefit both the church and the community. Without the grant scheme, those simply will not happen.
In Great Missenden, the church of St Peter and St Paul provides a valuable service by providing a community space in the adjacent Oldham hall for activities supporting the village’s Church of England school as well as for the church itself. The treasurer has made it clear to me that the enhanced efficiency in planning for major works that the grant scheme allows for has been a great help to the church and the wider community in recent years.
I have given just a snapshot of how critical the scheme is to my constituents. When the Conservatives were in government, the scheme was renewed every year. We see and appreciate the value to communities of the vital and multifaceted roles that churches have, both in bringing people together and symbolising the proud history and traditions of our rural towns and villages. I hope that is foremost in the Minister’s mind when he, hopefully, delivers good news in his winding-up speech or in his written ministerial statement later today.
Matt Western (in the Chair)
Due to the constraints of time and the number of interventions, after the next speaker we will reduce the time to two minutes each.