Covid-19 Update

Mike Wood Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Many people were sceptical about whether the sunset clauses would ever be triggered, so I congratulate the Prime Minister on responding to the clear evidence by bringing plan B to an end. However, as covid will be with us for a long time to come, will he ensure that regional Nightingale hospitals maintain the surge capacity necessary to deal with any future variants, so that they do not put unsustainable pressures on our NHS and we do not have the kind of restrictions that we have seen over the past two years?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is completely right. We need to learn the lessons of the last two years. We need to make sure that if we are, heaven forbid, attacked by another variant—a more lethal variant than omicron—we have different ways of dealing with it, and we have resilience built in to the NHS and into the way we handle it. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health will be setting out our plans for how to live with covid, irrespective of what kind of variants we encounter.

G20 and COP26 World Leaders Summit

Mike Wood Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I do not know what planet the hon. Gentleman has been on. He is totally wrong. This Government have helped to cut the UK’s emissions of carbon dioxide by almost half from 1990 levels, which is an astonishing thing to have done. We have the most ambitious nationally determined contribution of any country in the EU—78% by 2035 on 1990 levels—and we are doing it through all the measures that he knows. Has he not heard about what we are going to do on zero-emission vehicles or what we are doing on our power emissions? I think he needs to look at what is happening. Yes, of course there is more to do. As for green bonds, we issued one the other day and got £10 billion out of it—so just keep up.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

As well as cars, the world will need clean, smart urban transport if we are to meet the climate challenge. Companies such as the one behind the Westfield PODs in Dudley South are developing products that can succeed, thrive and help us to decarbonise, but too often the regulatory framework lags behind the innovation. Will the Prime Minister work with Ministers and our international partners to develop international type approval standards so that these products can succeed and we can decarbonise transport on an urban level as well as lead on personal cars?

[The Prime Minister]

I agree 100%. I am looking forward to seeing the Westfield PODs and their means of conveying human beings around, although I cannot quite imagine what they are. What we want in this country is regulators for growth, and for green growth. We need a much more proactive approach that engages with brilliant ideas like that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Wood Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have every sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s constituent—[Interruption.] I certainly do. I have every sympathy, but what I think is unfair is that people such as her are placed in a position of unnecessary anxiety about their homes when they should be reassured.

I sympathise deeply with people who have to pay for waking watches and other such things. I think it is absurd. But what people should be doing is making sure that we do not unnecessarily undermine the confidence of the market and of people in these homes, because they are not unsafe. Many millions of homes are not unsafe—and the hon. Gentleman should have the courage to say so.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

The new police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands has chosen to cut back on stop and search across the region. Can the Prime Minister confirm that while stops and searches must be proportionate and not discriminatory, they remain an important part of keeping our streets and communities safe?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, I certainly agree with that. It was a point that I raised recently with the Labour Mayor of London. We agreed on many things—he was very much out of line with the current Labour policy on lockdown, for instance—but I certainly thought that he was wrong about stop and search. We need to make sure that stop and search is part of the armoury of police options when it comes to stopping knife crime. If it is done sensitively and in accordance with the law, I believe it can be extremely valuable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Wood Excerpts

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

We have tried to operate the protocol in good faith, but the problems are significant and they are growing. The hon. Lady should be concerned about the fact that the Northern Ireland Executive noted that, from January to March, about 20% of all of the European Union’s checks were being conducted in respect of Northern Ireland, even though Northern Ireland’s population is just 0.5% of the EU as a whole. It is unacceptable, and those are the sort of problems on which she ought to focus.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

9. What steps the Government are taking to increase opportunities for small businesses to bid for Government contracts.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Steve Barclay)]

We are increasing opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises in a variety of ways, from transparently publishing contract pipelines to simplifying the bidding process. Those measures are working. The latest procurement figures show that £15.5 billion was paid to SMEs to help deliver public services. That is the highest since records began in 2013 and a £1.3 billion increase on the previous year.

[Mike Wood]

Dudley South has many fantastic firms doing innovative work, particularly in world-class advanced engineering, but, too often, the size of Government contracts mean that only a handful of multinationals are able to compete. Will my right hon. Friend do everything that he can to ensure that public procurement contracts are advertised in the smallest chunks possible so that Government and public services can take full advantage of the talents in our SMEs?

[Steve Barclay]

My hon. Friend raises a very legitimate point, and, in short, yes we will. To encourage the issue he highlights, we require public buyers to divide contracts into more accessible lots, or to explain why they cannot, so that tender requirements can be matched to smaller business specialisms. I know that he is a champion for Dudley South and that is exactly the sort of measure that will help businesses in his constituency.

Health and Social Care

Mike Wood Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I know that the Labour party wants to nationalise everything, which would be typically insane since the vast majority of care is provided by the private sector. What we are doing is lifting people’s wages with the national living wage, investing in training and putting half a billion pounds into progression of the caring workforce, and we will also make sure that local councils get the funding they need to support a fair cost of care.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

When people cannot get an appointment with their GP they often turn to hospital A&E departments, or miss out on early intervention which places greater pressure on our health system further down the line. As part of his plan for the NHS to recover, will the Prime Minister make sure that everybody can get face-to-face appointments with their GP without further delay?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is completely right and speaks for colleagues across the House: we need to reform the system so that GPs see the right people at the right time and in the right numbers.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Mike Wood Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

I, too, thank the Chancellor for delivering a solid a Budget statement in very challenging times. His achievement is reflected in the fact that the official Opposition party ran out of speakers well over half an hour ago, so little was there to say in response.

The Chancellor had three primary tasks today: first, to provide immediate support to protect the jobs and livelihoods of the people in our constituencies while the impact of this pandemic continues to be felt so sharply; secondly, to lay a framework for rebuilding and the recovery as part of the road map to reopening; and thirdly, to level up—to rebalance our economy away from over-reliance on a small number of sectors in a relatively small part of the country. He achieved that in today’s Budget, seemingly leaving the Leader of the Opposition with very little left to say—although, being the Leader of the Opposition, that did not seem to prevent him from taking a long time to demonstrate the fact.

The immediate support for people’s jobs and livelihoods is clear. The extension to the job retention scheme will help 5,300 of my constituents in Dudley South, and I am pleased to see that the support offered to self-employed workers is being extended to cover some of the more recent entries into that part of the labour market.

As we start to reopen and rebuild, the support that has been put in place for so many of the parts of the economy that have been hit hardest by lockdown and the pandemic, particularly retail and hospitality—the restart grants; the freeze on VAT for hospitality and tourism; the freeze on duties, cancelling the index-linked duty rises; and the extension of the business rates holiday—is extremely important for major employers in our constituencies.

Finally, on levelling up, the Leader of the Opposition spoke about the last 10 years. Actually, under the last Labour Government, Dudley’s gross value added relative to the rest of the country fell from 78% in 1997 to a really quite woeful 64% in 2010. Since 2013, we have started to address that, and it has started to increase; in the five years before this pandemic, salaries in Dudley rose more quickly than anywhere else in the country. I am pleased that Dudley has been identified as a priority area for the UK renewal fund and the levelling up fund, investing in our people and our infrastructure.

Covid-19: Road Map

Mike Wood Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Take-up is accelerating among all those groups, but the hon. Member is right to say that it has been slower in some groups than in others. That is why we have rolled out the network of community champions. However, it is also important for him and for all of us to champion the uptake of vaccines across all our communities in our constituencies.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con) [V]]

The vaccine roll-out has been more successful than even the most optimistic of us could have predicted in December. While the Prime Minister is clearly right to insist that this road map must be irreversible so that we do not risk a further lockdown, will he ensure that, if vaccinations prove to be as effective as we all hope, the Government can continue to review whether later stages might progress more quickly as long as the numbers of deaths and hospital admissions continue to fall?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point, which I am sure will have occurred to many other colleagues and people up and down the country. I have given the reason for the interval between the dates I set out: we need to be certain about the impact of the relaxations we are making, with the four weeks plus one that we need. The other point is that I think people would much rather have a date they know is as certain as it can possibly be at this stage to fix on and work towards rather than more uncertainty and fluidity.

EU Exit: Negotiations and the Joint Committee

Mike Wood Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Yes, and that was an admirably Unionist intervention from the hon. Gentleman .

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Businesses in Dudley South and across the Black Country trade with countries in every part of the world. Further to the earlier question from my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards), what support is available for businesses to understand the changes to customs and tax rules, so that they can prepare to take advantage of those opportunities as we become an independent trading nation again?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is the case that we are intensifying our communications campaign. On the Government Digital Service gov.uk website, the transition page outlines some of the information required. The Prime Minister and I are meeting business representative organisations tomorrow in order to reinforce that, but I would be very happy to talk to him and other colleagues in the west midlands, in our manufacturing heartland, to reinforce exactly what it is that we can provide businesses to support them to take advantage of these new opportunities.

Covid-19 Update

Mike Wood Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I must respectfully take issue with the right hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of the scheme, which remains internationally competitive. In France, it is 60% for some, 70% for others. In Germany, it is about the same. In Italy, they have an 80% provision, but there is a serious cap—a very low cap—-in Ireland; it is down at 60%. This is a highly competitive scheme, and it is one that I think is generous by international comparisons. On his point about evictions, nobody wants to see anybody evicted because of the hardship they have suffered because of coronavirus, and that is why we have extended the period in which landlords are prevented from conducting such evictions by a further six months.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Families across the country, in whichever of the new tiers, rely on childcare, whether formal or informal. Without it, key workers and those in the wider economy would be unable to work and many children would be unable to get to and from school. Will my right hon. Friend make sure that access to childcare, whether it is professional childcare or relatives and neighbours, remains available throughout this pandemic?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, of course. My hon. Friend is totally right about the importance of childcare. We remain committed to giving 30 hours of free childcare. The crucial thing about our measures is to keep the economy moving as much as possible.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Mike Wood Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith]

I would argue that the wards, which are obviously drawn by the Local Government Boundary Commission, do actually reflect communities to a great extent. If we are to go down the path of splitting wards, we will end up with the ridiculous situation, like we did at the previous review, where constituencies such as Port Talbot had a shopping centre in one constituency and the high street in another constituency. My new clause seeks to minimise the chances of such ridiculous situations occurring again. Under the current Bill, the Commission will struggle to respect the factors laid out in rule five, which, of course, Members will know, are the existing constituencies, local government boundaries, local ties and geography.

During the evidence sessions of this Bill, the secretariat for the Boundary Commission for England spoke about the difficulties caused by this small tolerance, which makes it

“much harder to have regard to the other factors…such as the importance of not breaking local ties, and having regard to local authority boundaries and features of natural geography.”

He said:

“Basically, the smaller you make the tolerance, the fewer options we have…The larger you make it, the more options we have and the more flexibility…to have regard to the other factors”.––[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies Public Bill Committee, 18 June 2020; c. 7, Q3.]

So while the Government keep saying the boundary commissions will listen to the views of communities in the drawing of the boundaries, some communities will literally be wasting their time putting forward those arguments if the restrictive quota will mathematically prevent the commissioners from respecting their views and the community ties.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

The hon. Lady raises the case of Port Talbot in a previous review. Does she not accept that this was actually one of the reasons why it should be easier for the boundary commissions to split wards, because the whole point of the Port Talbot proposals was that they have to come to those combinations because they are working with entire wards?

[Cat Smith]

I think in the case of Port Talbot it was the 5% quota that meant that that decision had to be reached. When we are talking about quotas, we know that internationally a larger quota is used and promoted as best practice for securing fair representation. Indeed, the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission’s code of good practice in electoral matters recommends allowing a standard permissible tolerance of an average of plus or minus 10%.

As the Minister knows, there is a consensus amongst respected experts such as David Rosser and Professor Charles Pattie who agree that the 5% rule causes significant disruption to community boundaries.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Wood]

The right hon. Member will remember that the Halesowen and Selly Oak constituency was dropped by the Boundary Commission in its revised proposals. Does that not show how an independent Boundary Commission can respond well to reasoned arguments—rather better sometimes than parliamentarians?

[John Spellar]

Why did it come up with that in the first place when it was clearly such a dumb proposal? Parliament was the necessary corrective to this. It said: “This doesn’t work”, and by the way Conservative Members were still in a majority at the time. What’s even more extraordinary, in this Parliament, where the Government have a clear majority, they still do not believe they could carry the day with their own Members. There is a danger of that. There is a danger that the bureaucracy of the Boundary Commission will not pay regard to local sensitivities or communities and we will end up once again with boundaries of which Governor Gerry of Massachusetts, the founder of the gerrymander, would have been proud.

At the same time, it would be much better to go back to many of the basic principles, such as the principle, where possible, of not crossing borough or ward boundaries. In urban areas as well, these places form communities. The hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) is right about the size of some of the building blocks. That is why, within boroughs and other areas, people might have to accept some temporary disparity, but that might be a better than having one MP representing part of a particular ward and another representing the rest. Equally, there is the problem of orphan wards, which we have in many areas of the boundary review, whereby one ward is in a constituency in another borough. Inevitably, the focus of the Member of Parliament will be on the main borough. It is unnecessary and gratuitous.

It all depends on whether people believe, as I certainly do, and many Conservative Members do as well, in the fundamental principle of individual constituencies with individual Members of Parliament, not proportional list Members. If people think that Members of Parliaments’ connection to their constituencies does not matter, that is fine—just have a national list. I fundamentally do not believe that—and by the way nor did the British public when they voted it down in a referendum.

Let us be clear: we want to ensure that parliamentarians represent their constituencies and their constituency interests, and that is why we need a parliamentary override and a slightly wider area of discretion, so that anomalies can be properly dealt with and responded to, rather than the artificial constructs the Boundary Commission is forced into—maybe sometimes it goes into them a little too willingly—instead of looking at the interests of localities, particularly in urban areas.

--- Later in debate ---

In conclusion, I support the Bill and I oppose the amendments. We have to trust our judiciary and the Boundary Commission. We have to trust the fact that this is business as usual when it comes to how we make legislation, how we pass laws and I commend the Bill to the House.

[Mike Wood]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and a very happy Black Country Day to you today. As a proud Black Country man it has been an honour to represent communities in Dudley South for the past five years. I hope to have the opportunity to do so for a number of years to come. Like many other constituencies in this country, the boundaries on which I was elected were last fundamentally altered ahead of the 1997 general election, based on electorates from the early 1990s. We are literally a generation out of date on the boundaries on which many of the constituencies in the west midlands were drawn up.

Like Members on both sides of the House, I am enormously fond of all parts of my constituency. I love every last ward and polling district of it. It would be a real wrench if any of it were to be taken out of Dudley South, but we also have to recognise that, like many of the Black Country constituencies, the current size of the constituency is under the quota whether it is based on 600 or 650. Many constituencies in the Black Country will need to take in additional areas and, of course, some will be divided between constituencies. I am as likely to find myself without a constituency to represent as any other Member of Parliament, but when we are considering fundamental constitutional reform such as this one it is not about whether I have a constituency to represent. This is not about me. This is about the wider electoral system. It must be a fundamental premise of our electoral system that constituencies have to be as close to the same size as is possible.

One of the very few upsides of this horrific outbreak and lockdown has been the opportunity to spend a little more time helping my children with their schoolwork at home. My daughter is in year 7 and she is studying the people’s charter of 1838—it was referred to by my hon. Friend for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson)—which includes the campaign for constituencies based on equal numbers of electors. Many Opposition Members —and possibly even some Government Members—consider themselves the natural heirs of 19th century radicals, but instead of picking up the torch of William Lovett and Feargus O’Connor, it seems they are choosing to put themselves on the side of those arguing for representation on the basis of acres of land and for the geographic extent of a constituency to somehow override the priority of equalising the number of electors represented within. That cannot be the right way. It was not the right way in the 19th century and it is certainly not the right way in a 21st century democracy.

There is a better way, one that has been referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell); we can make sure that equal-sized constituencies can be drawn up that properly represent local constituencies if the boundary commissions are encouraged to look more favourably at dividing wards across constituencies where the alternative would be unnatural constituencies or dividing communities. That was done in the west midlands during the last review and it is one reason why the proposals by the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar)—he is not in his place—for a Halesowen and Selly Oak constituency, for Sutton Coldfield to be divided and for various other strange things in the initial recommendations were not in the final recommendations. It was precisely because in only three wards across the whole of the west midlands are they able to divide across natural boundaries within those wards, which are amalgamations of wards, and therefore have more natural boundaries across the constituency.

Let me briefly touch on the issue of automatic implementation. The right hon. Gentleman said that, as Parliament, we instruct these independent bodies to go out and draw up rules, and therefore we should be able to decide whether to implement them and whether they are the right decisions. But we also instructed the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to draw up parliamentary pay and conditions. In the not-too-distant future, it will look as strange to people that we think we should draw the constituency boundaries on which we are elected—