Jobs and Business

Debate between Meg Hillier and Christopher Pincher

Friday 10th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I hope that it will. We shall see. However, there is certainly an argument for deregulating, and as the hon. Gentleman surely knows, the Bill will need to do what it says on the tin.

The Queen’s Speech also refers to measures to support intellectual property. If we are to focus on and support the extremely important design businesses in our country, we need to help them to protect their intellectual property from countries and businesses that would rather borrow, steal and copy knowhow than buy it.

I hope that the measures will help my constituent Mr Ken Clayton, a photographer who fears that changes proposed, he says, by civil servants will mean that photographs on Facebook and on BBC websites will be automatically stripped of their metadata and will become “orphan works”. As a result, he says,

“individuals and companies will be free to use such photographs with no reference to the person who took the photographs and will be able to license them without any payment to the photographer.”

I hope that when we come to debate the Bill, Mr Clayton will be reassured by it.

The Secretary of State, who is no longer in the Chamber, made a very balanced speech about immigration and the role that it plays in relation to jobs. Although the last Government created many jobs—some 1.5 million, I believe—a staggering 98.5% were soaked up by migrant labour. If we are to get the many people in the country who are trapped in dependency back into work, or in many instances into work for the first time, we must not only reform welfare so that it will always pay to work, but deter those who may wish to come to this country and provide a low-cost alternative, which would be a cost to our work force, and would put a strain on our infrastructure, services and housing, which would be a cost to the taxpayer.

I hope that, while the Opposition may ask some searching questions when the immigration Bill is debated—as they have tried to do this morning—they will support it in the end. I think that if they do not, they will find themselves on what the broad mass of the British people consider the wrong side of the argument.

The Secretary of State referred to the importance of infrastructure. I am pleased to note that the Energy Bill is to be carried over. After a decade of neglect, it is essential for us to invest in our energy infrastructure—in power stations, especially nuclear stations, and in the transmission infrastructure that conveys energy around the country. It is important for investors to see that both major parties in the House, and indeed our Liberal Democrat coalition colleagues, support the regulatory system.

[Meg Hillier]

The hon. Gentleman has made a good point, but does he not agree that the withdrawal of some of the potential funders of our future nuclear provision was partly caused by wobbles in the coalition Government on this issue? Has he any stronger messages for his coalition partners?

[Christopher Pincher]

That is rather rich coming from the hon. Lady, given that for years there was no proper investment in our energy infrastructure and a moratorium on the building of a fleet of new nuclear stations. I hope that the time that it has taken to get the Energy Bill into this House and then into the other place is symptomatic of a desire on both sides of the House to build a robust Bill that will stand the test of time. We need it to make clear to investors that the regulatory changes we have made and the framework we have established will not change, and that they can put their money behind it.

I also hope that the Bill will help the shale gas industry and bust the myths surrounding it, because shale gas is capable of creating create new jobs in our country. Providers such as Cuadrilla say that they want more than an end to the moratorium, which has in fact now ended, and a new licensing round, which is to take place. They also want the Government to support their reasonable planning applications. That will mean we do not have so much wrangling about planning, so that exploratory drilling can be done to find out whether we have beneath our feet 200 trillion cubic feet of shale gas—perhaps there is more—which will be enough to cater for our needs for a century. That would help reduce our exposure to the volatility in international hydrocarbon markets, and would mean we had stable energy prices for domestic consumers and businesses, which would be good for jobs.

I will not end my speech without mentioning High Speed 2, to which the shadow Secretary of State referred, calling for the project to be implemented more swiftly. There will be time enough to discuss the hybrid Bill and its provisions. There is no doubt that the development of HS2 as a major infrastructure project will create jobs—if we shift concrete up and down the country, we will create jobs—but I trust the Government will also recognise the jobs and businesses that may be damaged by HS2: those that are in its direct route. In my constituency there are many such companies and businesses, including Joy McMahon’s racing stables, Packington hall farm and manor, which has been managed by the Barnes family for generations, and Jonathan Loescher’s accounting businesses. These are all small businesses, and they are all now blighted by the proposals to build that railway line. I therefore hope the Government will introduce their HS2 paving Bill swiftly and ensure that it contains clear, quick and commensurately generous compensation measures so that such businesses in my constituency—and in that of my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant), who spoke eloquently and passionately about HS2 yesterday—are properly compensated.

With that caveat, I shall conclude by saying I welcome the job provisions in the Gracious Speech. They will contribute to the development of a more modern and flexible work force in this country. They will ensure that we have the skills for work and the right attitude to work, and I trust they will bring forward another army of entrepreneurs who want to work for themselves.

Energy Bill [Lords]

Debate between Meg Hillier and Christopher Pincher

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier]

The point is that this Government are removing Warm Front, and there will be nothing for the fuel poor; this Bill will not deliver for them.

The challenge is great. As the Secretary of State said, 27% of all UK emissions come from our homes. All Members are committed to an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050; there is cross-party agreement on that. However, during the Bill’s passage in the other place Ministers were offered opportunity after opportunity to make their proposals clearer, to introduce proper measures of accountability such as an annual report, and to safeguard consumers, but they rejected those offers of help, and we have not heard any further detail throughout the entire 45 minutes of the Secretary of State’s speech today.

Other Members may have longer memories, but I do not believe that this House has ever been asked to vote on the Second Reading of a Bill in which so much of the detail is unclear or not worked out. We are being asked to buy a massive pig in a poke, and that is simply not good enough. At the very least, the Secretary of State should concede the need for evidence sessions for the Bill, so we can shed some light on its murkier aspects, but he has refused to do so. As a result, Members will not have a single opportunity to discuss the Bill outside Committee. Today, the longer the Secretary of State’s answers were, the less we learned. [Interruption.] No, those are my words.

The key question this afternoon is whether the Government’s proposals meet the challenge. Sadly, my confirmed conviction is that they do not.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

The hon. Lady seems to turn disappointment into an art form. Is she not aware that many people are very disappointed that under the Government with whom she served fuel prices and the number of people in fuel poverty went up, and she did nothing about it?

[Meg Hillier]

I am sure the Secretary of State would be delighted if he had the power to control fuel prices, but now may not be the time for a lesson on the global oil economy.