Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

What I can say is that the Labour party would not have crashed the economy like the Conservatives did. We would not have inflation at the record levels we have at the moment. We would not have the disputes we have at the moment because we would negotiate with the trade unions and find a settlement.

What protections are in place to prevent unscrupulous employers from targeting trade union members with work notices? Or is this legislation a licence for blacklisting? The Secretary of State is hiding behind warped misunderstandings of the International Labour Organisation’s statute book and misleading comparisons with Europe. The ILO says that minimum service levels can happen only when the

“safety of individuals or their health is at stake”.

Can he explain how that relates to the list of sectors in the Bill? This Bill also makes no provision for the compensatory measures the ILO requires alongside such regulations. Countries such as France and Spain may have minimum service levels, but they have not averted strikes there; both lose far more days to strike action than the UK.

This Bill is a mess. It makes no sense. It has more holes in it than the last Chancellor’s Budget, yet we are being given next to no time to scrutinise it. This legislation hands far-reaching powers to the Secretary of State to not just impose minimum service levels, but decide what those levels would be. The legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg has called clause 3

“a supercharged Henry VIII clause.”

Where is the consultation the Secretary of State promised? Where is the impact assessment? The Regulatory Policy Committee says, in a scornful statement today, that it has not even received it yet. So why have the Government given only five hours for debate on the Floor of the House?

Let us look at what this Bill is really all about: a Government who are out of ideas, out of time and fast running out of sticking plasters; a Government who are playing politics with nurses’ lives because they cannot stomach negotiation; a Government desperately doing all they can to distract from the economic emergency they have caused. We have had 13 years of failure, and working people of this country cannot take any more. What this whole sorry episode makes clear is that this country needs a Labour Government. The Conservative party has proven itself incapable of cleaning up its own mess, and the disruption of the past few months simply would not be happening under Labour.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

It is difficult to listen to the Secretary of State accuse workers who have devoted their lives to life saving, whether they are fire workers, doctors or nurses, of putting others at risk. As for the arguments that this is too expensive or too difficult, today Oxfam announced that $21 trillion went into the pockets of 1% internationally during the global pandemic. Does the right hon. Lady agree that there is enough money but it is just in the wrong pockets?

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Gentleman makes some important and valid points. In the past 12 months to two and a half years, we have seen the unravelling of the VIP fast-track lane for people linked to the Conservative party—that was a waste of billions of pounds that could have gone into investment in our public services. The public have seen 13 years of Conservative failure. Most of the public who are watching this debate today can ask themselves one question: do they feel better off after 13 years of the Conservatives? The answer to that question is no, unless of course they are in that 1%, with a WhatsApp number of a Government Minister.

Labour would have resolved these disputes a long time ago, by getting back around the negotiating table in good faith and doing a deal.

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[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

I am speaking as a Unison member and, prior to that, someone who was a member of the RCN since 1984. I am proud to have stood on picket lines recently with the RMT, the Communication Workers Union, the GMB and the RCN. My constituents are members of unions. They are workers and they form part of all the workforce who are engaged in industrial action at the moment.

I want to give the few Conservative Members remaining in the Chamber a bit of a reality check. It is not good enough for them to say that it is everyone else’s fault but theirs, when the fault lies fairly and squarely at their door. Let me be clear: it was not this Government that did the heavy lifting during covid; it was the doctors, nurses, firefighters, railway workers, postal workers, other key workers in supermarkets and many others. It was every key worker that the Tory Government now want to demonise and threaten. They are the heroes of the pandemic, but this Government now treat them with utter contempt. What kind of a thank you is it to say, “We are going to force you to work and we will not help you any longer”? They are striking for decent pay and minimum safe levels to prevent risk to life and limb.

The Bill purports to be about minimum service levels. If only that were true. Try telling that to the NHS staff with an impossible workload or the fire and rescue teams denied access to proven vital health and safety processes. Let us take nurses as an example. In relation to minimum levels, nurses in this country work with roughly two to two and a half times the workload of that recommended by the Royal College of Midwives and the RCN. The international comparisons that the Government have set out do not take account of this intolerable workload or of the fact that patient-to-staff ratio in other countries is significantly better than it is here.

The Government pretend they are being responsible but they are being anything but. They complain about affordability, but I mentioned earlier the amount of money that has gone into the hands of the 1%. It is not $21 trillion; it is $26 trillion. All the while, the Conservatives partied and profiteered throughout the pandemic while those key workers were on their knees. The people of the UK are on their side, and striking is the only means they have to stem this vulgar neo-conservative tide of greed and restore dignity to their lives.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

I was elected to this place on a prospectus for Scotland’s independence, which is a completely legitimate argument. When the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), who is no longer in his place, made his remarks about the value of democracy, they rang rather hollow in my ears. Although I respect England’s democratically expressed right to vote for Brexit and withdraw from the EU, I do not accept, as the Government and Opposition Benches do, that holding Scotland’s democracy hostage is somehow acceptable—it is absolutely not. The legislative process being considered this evening has been conducted without the consent of the Scottish people. It has not been consented to by our Parliament and it was not consented to in the referendum that was held. Although I do respect the right of withdrawal from the EU, it is disingenuous, at the very least, for the very people who embraced withdrawal from the EU to deny Scotland the right to withdraw from this Union.

Secondly, part of the agreement between the Kingdom of Scotland and England that led to the treaty of Union was that any law change should be to the “evident utility” of the people of Scotland. That is set in the articles of Union, and I see nothing in the Bill that is for the evident utility of the people in my Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency. Scotland entered this Union through the coercive influence of the English Alien Act 1705 and the financial enticements of Scottish MPs who were bought and sold for English gold, to the outrage and consternation of the Scottish people. There was rioting in the streets and the Act of Union was burned in various towns.

Scotland’s 62% vote in the EU referendum in 2016 is often dismissed, as our history is often dismissed, as irrelevant to the modern era because we voted as one country. But the Act of Union 1707 created one state; it did not create one nation. Scotland is a country, and it has always maintained its identity as a country, even with the UN. From the declaration of Arbroath to the claim of right, it is the people of Scotland who are sovereign, not a Parliament and not a regent. That is a fundamental difference between Scots law and English law. Scots law is underpinned, in the common law, by the claim of right, whereas English law, and many other jurisdictions, is underpinned by Magna Carta. There are two Unions—there was the Union of the Crowns and, 100 years later, there was the political Union—but there was never a territorial union. Scotland is a separate and distinct people and country. The importance of the claim of right was best demonstrated most recently when King Charles acceded to the throne and had to swear to uphold the claim of right.

Despite some of my former colleagues being elected in 2016 on the basis of offering an independence referendum if Scotland were taken out of the EU against its wishes, subsequent elections have happened and no referendum has been brought forward. Despite pronouncements in this place and tough words in other Chambers, no referendum or preparations for a referendum have been forthcoming. Scotland has now been taken out of the EU against her wishes.

[Pete Wishart]

I do not know if the hon. Gentleman is not paying attention, but has he not noticed, and does he not recognise, that there is going to be a referendum in November next year? I know that Alba represents about 0.7% of all voters across Scotland, but at least they could start to pay attention.

[Neale Hanvey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and if he paid attention he would know that the last poll put us on considerably more than 0.7%, which I know he loves to trot out on Twitter along with his usual offensive messages.

This legislative programme gives nothing to Scotland, and it will undermine the preparations that the Scottish Government are supposedly making to rejoin the EU. We now know what the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill was for. It was to facilitate the destruction of the devolution settlement, and that cannot stand. Alba’s position is that Scotland should join the European Free Trade Association immediately after our Parliament acquires the competencies to sign international treaties and abide by them. That would give us access to the European economic area immediately, and give us free trade with the EU. It would also solve cross-border trade with the UK, because the UK already has an arrangement with EFTA. EFTA membership could be negotiated in weeks rather than the years that it will take for the EU process to complete, and which would leave Scotland in the wilderness. It is essential that EFTA is back on the table for the Scottish people to consider.

We would also bring forward a written constitution by which Scotland will govern itself, and work with the variety of groups that have already brought forward developmental pieces of work on that. We consider that a series of citizens’ assemblies would be much better placed than a Committee Room upstairs to consider the laws that apply to the Scottish people. When the people are free and independent, they must fashion the instruments with which they are to govern: the divisions of powers, the extent of those powers between the Parliament and the Executive, the franchise, the electoral system, the judiciary and its appointment, the relationship between Government, police and people, and the principles and values that describe us as the nation we want to be seen to be on the international stage.

The written constitution should start from the principle that the people are sovereign, in keeping with Scottish constitutional tradition. That would offer us greater economic and social stability than being shackled to a failing, visionless political Union and this tawdry Bill. It is incumbent on all independence-supporting MPs to act in concert through a constitutional convention, to define the means to take us out of this dreadful Union.

UK Diagnostics Industry and Covid-19 Recovery

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

I want to start by illustrating how important diagnostics and testing are, and nothing does that more clearly than the decision to discharge elderly people to care homes without testing. The Government’s answer that asymptomatic transmission was not understood properly does not excuse the fact that fundamental and standard infection control measures were not in place.

The Prime Minister said earlier that he wanted to create “high-wage, high-skilled jobs” that will drive economic growth across the United Kingdom. I will measure that soundbite against the Government’s performance and track record on the UK diagnostics sector. The domestic diagnostics sector should be at the vanguard of the world’s intellectual development, but the evidence does not support the Prime Minister’s claim that the Government support it. I will look at past performance in the early days of the pandemic and where we are presently as well as look to the future with the Government’s strategic plan and the opportunities that it could miss, to our shared peril.

My interest in the area is underscored by an NHS career spanning a quarter of a century in which infection control and management was a staple part of my responsibility. I understand the important elements of genomic and epidemiological surveillance. I first raised that with the chief medical officer in July 2020 and repeatedly explored testing with the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) when he was Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, focusing in particular on his exaggerated claims that lateral flow device tests were 99% accurate. My concerns have always been sincere. I am bringing my genuine clinical concerns to the Government’s attention yet again. This is not a political point, and I am not making a constitutional point, because many of the issues that I will talk about are as true north of the border as they are south of the border, and they are very serious.

There is an additional element to my interest in the case. My constituent Craig Inglis contacted me to express his concern about his investments in one of the diagnostics companies contracted by the Government to provide lateral flow devices, and he and many others watching the debate feel utterly betrayed by them because of events that I will set out in due course. The same is true of the diagnostics sector.

One insider told me:

“There is a lot of acrimony remaining, with many UK companies saying they would not respond to the UK Government if a similar crisis arose.”

Now, I do not believe that they would not. I think that they would, but the good will and trust has been severely damaged, if not completely broken.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this issue forward. Does he not agree that the methods by which we were able to roll out the vaccine strategy, making use of public facilities and spaces, is an indication of the capacity that already exists in the NHS? Does he not agree that the focus and time given to that successful roll-out must be used to assist the NHS to address the backlog and, even better, to address its efficient operation, which we believe, and I think the hon. Gentleman also believes, can happen?

[Neale Hanvey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He makes some really important points. The first point I make—and I have previously paid tribute to the chair of the Vaccine Taskforce and continue to do so—is that there were excellent strategies for the control of infection in terms of barriers, mask wearing and the like. However, a fundamental part of infection control is that we cannot pick and choose the bits we do. We have to do them all. And that has been sorely lacking when it comes to testing. It has not been robust. It has been lacklustre to say the least and it has been oversold. The hon. Gentleman’s point about the important role of diagnostics in moving the NHS forward and picking up the backlog is really important. I will touch on that very briefly at the end. This is such a huge subject that I struggle to get everything in, but the points he makes are really important.

In terms of where we started, Operation Moonshot was supposed to build domestic capacity, and there was, I think, genuine engagement with the industry. Certainly, from the conversations I had with industry and the UK Rapid Test Consortium, it was something they felt very keen to progress. However, it failed. I understand the challenge the Government faced and I understand the reasons why they went to the international market to secure lateral flow devices or any kind of tests. This is not about bad China or anything of that nature; fundamentally, it is about UK Government decision making and—I hate to say this, but it is true—profiteering in the sale of those devices.

The reliability and validity of the results of the lateral flow tests have been undermined by various different assertions. The Government’s original assertion was that

“lateral flow tests are accurate and reliable and have extremely low false positive rates”

and a specificity of at least 99.9%. However, leaked emails by the then Secretary of State’s advisor Ben Dyson cast doubt on that, estimating that as few as 2% to 10% of positive results may be accurate in places with low covid rates. The Government’s own evaluation, conducted by the University of Liverpool, found that lateral flow devices failed to detect two-fifths of positive PCR cases. They also missed a third of high viral load and highly infectious cases. Throughout that time, however, the Government were telling everyone that they were reliable, trustworthy tests that we could depend on. I recall one case where the daughter of a constituent had had multiple negative lateral flow tests and it was not until they insisted on getting a PCR test that they found out she was infected and that she had infected everyone around her. That was a mini-cluster that caused great concern.

Throughout this time, I worked with academics who have been absolutely fantastic. They wrote in the British Medical Journal and other respected journals, setting out those concerns. They are experts, but the Government at the time—I focus in particular on the then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care—did not listen to those concerns and did not modify the message.

Lord Bethell said in his infamous tweet of 15 March 2021 that Omega Diagnostics and Mologic were in line for an order of 2 million lateral flow devices per week by the end of May, promising jobs and security. Those assertions did not come to fruition. Like several companies, Omega has suffered big losses and has had to make significant changes to its operations. It had to sell its Alloa site and is looking to divest its remaining infectious disease portfolio. As part of the rapid test consortium, the UK Government committed to supporting the manufacture of lateral flow devices and other diagnostic equipment.

On 11 February 2021, Omega announced that it had agreed a contract with the UK Government. Colin King, the then chief executive officer, said:

“We are delighted to formalise our relationship with the UK Government and to utilise our lateral flow test production capacity to support the COVID-19 mass testing programme being rolled out across this country…The new financial year will see this growth opportunity realised, and will also see the full impact of COVID-19 antigen testing, and so we are likely to deliver substantial revenue growth…These are very exciting times for the business and I am delighted that we can play a part in supporting the UK Government’s national effort to control the spread of the Coronavirus.”

The Herald newspaper in Scotland had the headline, “Jobs boost as Scots firm Omega scoops up to £375 million government contract to produce ‘instant’ Covid tests”, but none of it happened. Despite those promises, significant barriers were put in place and have continued to be erected to the domestic diagnostics sector. In the case of Omega, additional manufacturing capacity was created to meet the demands of the UK Government, but they failed to deliver on the contract and promises. Instead of substantial revenue growth, the shares in Omega Diagnostics lost more than a quarter of their value when the Government pulled the rug from underneath them.

Some investors have lost substantial sums of money on the back of the UK Government’s promises and announcements on Twitter by Lord Bethell. They feel utterly betrayed, and understandably so. We have a situation where the UK Government failed to meet a commitment made in full public view and are now seeking to recover the costs of the readiness preparation for that expansion from companies such as Omega, despite them doing everything that they were asked to by the Government. The UK Government distorted the market with those decisions, so will the Minister commit to reviewing the impact of them on investors and industry?

The other side of this issue is that the domestic diagnostics sector felt completely let down, but the Department of Health and Social Care found £3.7 billion to fast-track Innova-branded lateral flow devices with an eye-watering profit margin to middle men, taking a tiny UK firm run by a property agent and a shoe retailer from being £3,500 in debt to a £20 million profit in a year. That was all facilitated by an exceptional usage authorisation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency—more on that in a moment.

In contrast, UK companies have had to navigate their way through and overcome additional regulatory hurdles. The situation is best summed up by the industry body, the Association of British HealthTech Industries, which called on the UK Health Security Agency

“to remove the confusion and uncertainty surrounding the implementation of the Coronavirus Test Device Approvals process”.

The CTDA process is a hurdle that only domestic producers have to navigate. All the imported products that I have set out the problems and flaws with, from the Government’s study, have a free pass. They are not subject to CTDA; only the domestic market has to deal with that challenge. Innova and Orient Gene tests are exempted from CTDA, putting the domestic diagnostics sector at a significant disadvantage. Private feedback from the industry is that the procurement process suffers from a lack of progress, transparency and poor communication. Will the Minister say why the UK Government are purposefully disadvantaging the domestic diagnostics sector? Surely there should be a level playing field.

In the last Session, I asked the Government a simple and straightforward written parliamentary question:

“what the (a) number and (b) proportion of (i) PPE, (ii) lateral flow tests, (iii) PCR tests and (iv) other covid-19 testing equipment are that have been manufactured by UK based companies.”

The response was absolutely staggering:

“We are unable to provide the information requested for lateral flow device and polymerase chain reaction tests and other COVID-19 testing equipment as this information is commercially sensitive.”

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Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(David T. C. Davies.)

[Neale Hanvey]

How can such a basic statistic be commercially sensitive? No one is asking for information about the companies. I am certainly not asking for information about how contracts were awarded. I am merely asking for the number of Government-procured tests that were manufactured in the United Kingdom—not assembled, not put in boxes, but manufactured. It is a really important point.

Further back, on 8 April 2020, another tweet from Lord Bethell read:

“We’re backing a new business consortium, including @UniofOxford, to rapidly develop a home-grown, reliable antibody testing kit to determine whether people have developed immunity after overcoming the virus”.

Perhaps the Minister can tell me what the total amount of the Government’s investment has been in the domestic sector, and what has been the success to date. What volume of products has been made available by SureScreen to the NHS? When will the Government invest at the scale necessary to allow biomedical research to flourish and prosper, and successfully underpin effective partnerships among business, academia and the NHS?

Another important part of the issue is biomedical research. Before the 2020 autumn statement, there was a Westminster Hall debate about the Association of Medical Research Charities’ proposal for a life sciences partnership fund to help charitable research and sustain it through the pressures of the drop in covid funding. It would have been a drop in the ocean for the Government: £300 million was needed to sustain that research. There was cross-party support, and many of the medics on the Government Benches came and spoke passionately about the need to sustain the research portfolio, but the Government did not put in what was asked. There might have been £10 million in there—I could not say for sure—but that does not meet the needs of the research community.

The Academy of Medical Sciences has underlined the value of biomedical research and its importance to the economy and health of the population. Its campaign “What's it worth?” has concluded:

“Every £1 invested in medical research delivers a return equivalent to around 25p every year, for ever”—

so there is a 100% recovery from the investment within four short years, and we continue to accumulate value thereafter. The Academy of Medical Sciences is calling on the Government to invest 3% of GDP in research and development, setting 2.4% by 2027 as an intermediate goal. Will the Minister commit to seriously considering that request from this important and prestigious organisation?

One charity working in the research space, Action for ME, has said:

“Collaborating with the M.E. community could further support UK diagnostics research in their pursuit of tackling Long Covid”,

because there are clinical similarities between long covid and ME, and there is a real opportunity for further research in both fields.

I want to talk about the future. The rest of the world is planning a 10-year strategy to deal with the novel virus covid and its further mutations. The US has effectively cornered the lateral flow device market from the east—a very clear explanation of the difficulty that we had in the winter in securing lateral flow devices and probably PCRs. But covid is not the only novel virus that we could have to deal with, particularly as a result of global warming. Novel viruses and variants of Ebola and dengue fever are possible, and it is therefore important for us to have testing and diagnostic equipment that is sensitive to all those different eventualities. What we cannot do is ignore surveillance, which must be robust and effective. Testing and surveillance are the answer when it comes to protecting the nation from further lockdowns.

I have spoken to two innovative companies. I will not go into detail about them, but one is in Scotland and the other in England. Their technology and expertise could be lost to the United States because the United Kingdom Government are dragging their heels over their support for the domestic diagnostics sector. AI tests are particularly sensitive, and can be tailored to all these novel viruses. Once a profile is available, it can be deployed very swiftly. A new variant can be put into the system, the sensitivity to it can be built up, and the tests can then be deployed. However, that intellectual property is now at risk of being taken out of the country because the United States is so interested in the technology. That illustrates how important it is to value the science community that has got us out of a very nasty scrape.

It is clear to the industry that the UK is not preparing for any future pandemic. I myself am not convinced that the Government have learned any lessons from the current pandemic, and I do not know how they would incorporate such lessons in their planning for future pandemics. I know that some surveillance is taking place at the border, but it is not clear to me or, I think, to any other Members what that actually looks like. Are the Government considering implementing civil contingency planning and attaching it to a ministerial portfolio with responsibility to report regularly to the House and to Select Committees? Are Ministers being provided with civil contingency training and the decisions they must take confidently during any future pandemic?

The industry is focusing on how to establish a playbook of recommendations in the case of a future pandemic, and the UK Government must pay attention to the industry. It also hopes that the UK regulations for medical devices and diagnostics currently in development are flexible enough to cover emergency situations, so that we do not see a return to ad hoc regulations such as those on emergency use authorisation and coronavirus test device approvals, and to a distorted playing field. Mechanisms such as statutory instruments that put barriers in the way of the domestic diagnostics sector are damaging the sector and impeding its progress.

There is a need to find a way through these barriers, fostering new ways of working and ultimately finding solutions. That, surely, is what we all want to see. Realising the UK’s ambition to be a scientific superpower depends on valuing the scientific community. The future health of whole populations, both in the UK and abroad, relies on this investment. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out earlier, the domestic diagnostics sector is vital to tackling the NHS backlog, in relation to not just cancer but a range of other diseases. It is important for that capacity to be built up and ready to be deployed. The success of the UK diagnostics industry is critical to achieving all of this, and there is a huge potential for UK companies to break into international markets with novel approaches and new emerging technologies that will benefit patients at home and abroad, as well as exporting intellectual know-how.

There is no point in our crossing our fingers and hoping that covid has gone away. New variants are lurking in the background and they could strike at any time. We must have the diagnostic capacity to be able to switch on, almost immediately, both genomic and epidemiological surveillance.

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[George Freeman]

I have until half-past? I will not detain the House unnecessarily, but that means that I do not need to rush quite so much.

If we cast our minds back to January and February 2020, the truth is that we were confronting completely unprecedented national decisions and emergencies. There was no playbook for this. Sadly, I was unable to bring my expertise in this sector to the Government at the time because I was liberated from the burden of office on 13 February, in the Valentine’s day reshuffle. In fact, my last Government role was to attend the first Cobra meeting on what was then called the virus emergency.

[Neale Hanvey]

I may be professionally slanted on this, but one observation I made was that we had lots of very “academic” academics involved in the decision making at Cobra. There are some extremely capable and experienced senior nurses and emergency clinicians who deal with major incidents day in and day out, and they are the ones who understand how to run an emergency and where the gaps might be. I have a bit of a professional hero in Louise Boden. She was chief nurse at University College London Hospital and she got us through the 7/7 bombs and the Admiral Duncan pub bomb. Unfortunately I was on duty for both of those incidents, which was not pleasant, but it was important to have someone of that capability there, and I would gently suggest that the Government have someone with that kind of major incident experience in the room when planning these things in future.

[George Freeman]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Sadly, I was not a Minister at the time—I would love to have been—but I do not think it is a state secret to say that there were clearly mistakes made in that national emergency. That is why there is a proper and full inquiry. He has made some important points that need to be picked up, but I do not think he would expect me to give a running commentary here on the decisions that were taken. If we cast our minds back, there was a two or three-week period when we were worried that the lack of ventilators would be the great crisis. Innovative groups all around the country were stood up as part of the national challenge to try to design ventilators, with engineers working out how to do things. All that happened in very fast order, and all sorts of issues were raised and procurements flagged that we did not need in the end. I do not think anyone would say that it was a seamless process; it was a national emergency, and there were clearly many lessons to learn.

To deal with the hon. Gentleman’s bigger points—I will perhaps pick up the specifics in detail in a written reply—as a former Life Sciences Minister, I observe that the pandemic revealed that things that we had done seven or eight years earlier in the coalition Government had paid not just the four times return on investment that is traditional in this sector, but many times over that. The truth is that the reasons we were able to sequence the virus so fast were the launching of the genomics programme, which I was proud to have led back under the coalition, the accelerated access review we put in place, the parallel approvals process with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the early access to medicines scheme, and the setting up of Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre. John Bell and I suggested in 2016 that it would be a sensible piece of foresight to invest in vaccine manufacturing, which was clearly going to change. Of course, we had no idea that a pandemic would mean that that facility would suddenly become incredibly important.

Also important was the establishment of NHS Digital. One of the lessons of the pandemic is the importance of really good data and of both national and local data sets. As a Norfolk MP, I remember being frustrated that we did not have the granularity of data or the ability to do public health by cities or districts; it was instead by big, clumsy Government regions. There are all sorts of lessons there about how an emergency requires not only national implementation and measures but the subtlety of local control, empowering local experts on the ground who are best equipped to work out how to contain and control.

I want to focus on where I can add perhaps most value in this debate and on the hon. Gentleman’s points about the importance of the diagnostics industry. One of the great lessons of the pandemic, which has absolutely been taken to the heart of Government, is that we must recognise that globalisation will drive more and more infectious disease challenges. God forbid we have another pandemic of this type, but over the past 10 or 15 years we have had zika, Ebola and covid. It is likely that we will see more such things. Hopefully they will be local or regional, but if we are not ready to contain them, we could see outbreaks of disease.

Globalisation will drive the release of new pathogens, which is why pathogen detection is one of the technologies that I am putting at the heart of our three-year plan going forward. Indeed, I am working with the chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance on how we can ensure that we harness our leadership in genomics for broader pathogen detection across animal, plant and human health and make sure that we build that network off the back of the pandemic.

The hon. Gentleman made a more specific point that in the NHS, the care system and the life sciences industry—I say this as someone who spent 15 years in the sector before coming to Parliament—diagnostics was for years the slightly poor relation. Drug discovery and the pharmaceutical sector tended to raise the big money and have the higher profile, but the pandemic revealed that diagnostics is absolutely key to getting on top of the disease. The life sciences industry is moving to recognise that if we want to deliver real value and reduce the cost of disease, which is the real key to the economy and the health system, we need to build in diagnosis much earlier. That means both the easy diagnosis—if I may call it that—of easily detectable and treatable diseases and the deeper science of longer-term diagnosis of tomorrow’s conditions.

That is why, in the update to our life sciences industrial strategy that we set out last year, we have insisted on closing the gap over the next 10 years between the traditional dichotomy in Government—the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy sponsors the research and the Department of Health and Social Care does the procurement, licensing and approvals—to try to build a much more integrated model through which we focus on diseases in places and the patient pathway and bring diagnosis, treatment and prevention together around the eight disease missions. One thing I hope and intend that that will do is put the diagnostics industry at the heart of those missions; traditionally, it has been an industry that has tended to be about the black box that sits on the hospital ward, but these days it is becoming integral to the life sciences industry and to working out how to treat, understand and detect disease. Those missions are completely key.

Let me reassure the hon. Gentleman and other colleagues here this evening by saying that we are also investing heavily, in this next phase, in the mRNA technologies that are key to the next phase of detection and diagnosis, and in new treatments. VMIC, which we set up as an academic unit to work on future vaccine manufacturing technologies, suddenly became an urgent facility for onshoring during the pandemic. I am pleased that we have transferred VMIC into the hands of Catalent, a world leader in mRNA diagnostics, therapeutics and treatments. So we have established a much more robust national supply chain in dealing with both flu and other respiratory diseases, and other pathogens. Many of the lessons have been learned, but obviously there is more to do.

We have set out in our latest life sciences vision an £8 billion commitment to research, including work with the Medical Research Council, deep research on my side of the portfolio at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and putting some £4.5 billion into the Department of Health and Social Care and the National Institute for Health and Care Research. The NIHR, where we are talking about £1 billion a year, is the sort of engine of research under the NHS. Crucially, we have said that, at its heart, diagnostics has to be central to that landscape. I refer not only to the detection of influenza and other respiratory pathogens, but to molecular diagnostics, biomarkers and genomic insights into disease. That is because the NHS is a huge procurer daily of blood tests for individual conditions, as the hon. Gentleman knows well. If we properly integrate that, we will be building up a database of deep expertise in biomarkers and understanding the early signals of disease, and we can harness that to make the NHS much more of a diagnostics research engine.

The dream and aim in respect of those eight disease missions is that we will be able to mobilise patients much more quickly, through digital technologies, into trials. Patients, through charities, will be able to enrol in clinical research. Using that spine of the biobank and molecular diagnostics, we can start to give industry much quicker access to the patients who are on the frontline of the conditions we need to treat.

That should drive a virtuous circle, in which we detect earlier, treat earlier and attract investment, and ultimately, as the hon. Gentleman says, we move from a paradigm where the NHS, under cost pressures, is a low-price and often late procurer to a scenario in which it does not have to be a high-price payer because it is giving industry an even more valuable thing: access to patients, charities and disease and patient consent for research. The NHS’s role in this sector is, thus, as a research engine. I have made it clear to industry that we will never, in a publicly funded healthcare system, be the highest-price payer—it would not expect us to be—but that the promise I can make it is that we will move heaven and earth to be an earlier adopter, an earlier tester and the best place in the world for it to come to test and diagnose its new treatments, and get the data on which patients they work in. Industry will then be able to use that to go around the world and sell to other countries. That is the vision of the NHS as a 21st-century research engine.

North Sea Oil and Gas

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

The Chancellor outlined the disadvantages of a windfall tax at the Dispatch Box last Thursday, when he said that it was “superficially appealing” but probably counterproductive. He also said that oil and gas companies were paying corporation tax at twice the rate paid by other companies, and that taxing UK activity on something that is traded globally would probably cost UK jobs and drive up the price of retail fuel, and would certainly make the UK less energy-secure.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

I cautiously welcome this news. It will help to secure 100,000 jobs in the industry and in the north-east of Scotland, and I think that in the current political times it will help to deliver resilience to energy supplies not just here but across Europe.

Will the Government commit themselves to taking three actions in parallel to help to save the planet as well as saving jobs? First, will they attach a zero-carbon obligation to each new licence underpinned with fiscal and fine regimes? Secondly, will they accelerate just transition approval for the Acorn carbon capture and storage cluster? Thirdly, will the Minister meet me to discuss how to support the development of carbon capture technologies at sites such as the Mossmorran Natural Gas Liquids and Ethylene plants in my constituency?

[Greg Hands]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for taking a slightly more constructive approach than his Scottish National party colleague, the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn). He is right: we can save the planet and save jobs at the same time. He called for a zero-carbon obligation, but I suggest that he should wait to see the results of the consultation on the climate compatibility checkpoint; he will have heard what I said earlier about how the UK Government are supporting carbon capture, utilisation and storage; and as for meeting him, of course I will do so.

Offshore Renewables Wind Sector

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered securing employment and community benefit in the offshore renewables wind sector.

It is pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. Today is St Andrew’s day, Scotland’s national day, when Scots at home and abroad celebrate their native land. There should be much to celebrate, as our nation has been blessed with natural bounty. Sadly, that bounty has not always been used for the benefit of the Scottish people. Decades ago, oil and gas were discovered off Scotland’s shores, as they were, across the North sea, off Norway’s. However, although Norway now possesses, from the proceeds, a fund for future generations that the world rightly envies, Scotland has seen its assets stripped and child poverty soar. Areas that should have been revitalised were instead deindustrialised. Nature’s bounty, which should have provided for all, was taken by the few, and what should have transformed our nation was squandered by Thatcher on smashing the unions and by Blair on waging illegal wars.

However, nature’s good fortune has seen another bounty come Scotland’s way, and once again the country has been blessed. For long, our geography was an impediment, seeing us distant from markets and facing additional costs, and our climate was a bind or even a danger, as last weekend’s winds displayed. However, our geography and climate are now also a natural bounty and blessing, offering opportunities and advantages held by few others. Onshore wind is well-established, wave and tidal energy are being developed, and offshore wind offers huge potential.

The Prime Minister has stated that he wants the UK to become the “Saudi Arabia of wind”. Indeed, the wind blows around the shores of the British Isles, as elsewhere, but Scotland has 25% of Europe’s—not just the UK’s—offshore wind potential, and it is off Scotland’s shores that the real boon is located. Where is the benefit for our country and communities? Where are the onshore jobs that should follow in its wake? Where are the industries that should be lured to locate and invest here? Moreover, where are the benefits for communities where the turbines can be seen from, are serviced by or where the energy comes ashore? What will accrue to them?

In many ways, East Lothian is a microcosm of Scotland in regard to this energy bounty. The Seagreen field is coming ashore at Cockenzie, as well as Neart na Gaoithe at Thorntonloch and Berwick Bank at Branxton, near Torness. These are not one or two turbines, or dozens, but hundreds. It is not only the numbers, but their size that is hugely impressive. These offshore turbines are almost 50% bigger than those sited onshore that people currently recognise. The power generated by them is massive too. It is claimed that Berwick Bank alone will boost Scotland’s renewable energy capacity by almost 30%. Such is its scale that Berwick Bank alone will be capable of powering 5 million homes. That is just under the population of Scotland, but more than double the number of Scottish households.

For Scotland is blessed with a surfeit of energy, as it had and indeed still has with oil and gas. It is capable of providing for all our own needs, but also providing for others beyond our borders. That is not just south of the border, but beyond the shores of these islands as it is a global energy market now. Having lost out on its oil and gas bounty, Scotland must not lose out on its offshore wind. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. It is why there must be action.

Scotland and its communities must benefit. Jobs must be created in providing for offshore wind generation. Work and industries must spring from being the point where the energy lands and where energy costs should be cheaper, and where it should be logical and economical to base a business. Communities that will face some disruption from the siting of the turbines offshore or the construction of transmission stations onshore must see tangible benefits from the wealth that will flow through them.

Sadly, that has not been happening, which is why the debate is required and the issues must be urgently addressed. I accept that not all responsibility or culpability rests with the Minister or his Government—although much does; I accept that the devolution landscape sees energy reserved, but planning devolved. Similar divides apply to industrial and fiscal policy. Accordingly, I do not exculpate the Scottish Government, who have failed to use their powers or demand the powers that are necessary. Their failure to deliver manufacturing jobs at BiFab or Arnish is shameful, but many more levers rest with the UK Government, which is why they too must act.

East Lothian may not have the yards, but Fife and almost every major Scottish estuary most certainly has. Scottish yards should be booming, building the turbines that are required. Some were shipyards, others came along through oil and gas installations, but all of them exist and others could be established. The skilled workforce is there, and it is crying out for this work and these jobs. The orders should be going to these yards, although I accept that such is the number of turbines required that not all of them could be constructed in Scotland. But as it is, only a few are being built in Scotland and most will be built south of the border in England, or abroad. That is simply not acceptable.

The UK Government are funding offshore wind manufacturing in Teesside and on the Humber. Around 1,000 people are employed at Siemens in Hull, and 750 people are employed at GE Renewable Energy on Teesside, with even more people indirectly employed in other jobs. They are providing for the Dogger Bank wind farm and other developments off the coast of north-east England. Good on them, I say, but where is the money for our yards and where are the jobs for the wind farms off our coasts? Levelling up seems to stop at the border.

Moreover, as the energy comes ashore, how will Scotland benefit? At the moment, there is cabling work going on at Branxton and in East Lothian. A cable is being constructed to take the energy directly from East Lothian to Redcar, in the north-east of England. A similar cable south is planned for energy coming ashore further north in Scotland from offshore wind farms located further north in the North sea. It is one thing sharing a bounty with others; it is quite another to be exploited and to see our natural resource being taken, with little benefit accruing to our land or our communities.

As well as the turbine manufacturing jobs, where is the onshore industry that should be springing up from being near to where clean and cheap energy is landing? Such industry will not locate in Scotland if the energy is just being cabled south, yet that seems to be what is planned.

Also, where is the benefit for the communities? One place in Scotland that did benefit from oil was Shetland. There, the council negotiated a small payment from the companies landing the oil at Sullom Voe. That impeded neither exploration nor extraction, having been set at a modest rate, which was a boon for communities without being a burden for developers. As a result, Shetland has facilities—such as schools and sports centres in small communities, and bus and ferry services—that larger and urban communities in Scotland can only look at and envy.

At present, onshore wind turbines attract community benefit from developments. Even a single turbine or just a few turbines onshore can see individuals and communities benefiting. But as it was no doubt never imagined that turbines would be sited offshore, no such system exists for offshore turbines. Why not? Surely communities are as entitled to benefit from those turbines that are off their shores as they are from those located on their land.

I know that communities on both sides of the border have entered into arrangements with developers, but two aspects remain outstanding and they must be addressed. First, community benefits should apply whether turbines are onshore or offshore; requiring such payments to be made to communities should be statutory and not made through guidance, or simply being voluntary or discretionary for the operator.

Secondly, the rate to be paid should also be set nationally and the money should be paid to the local council or community. It should be for them to decide where and on what they wish to spend their money; they should not be handouts from a developer, subject to the developer’s whim or fancy. Shetland shows that it can be done, and the benefit for Shetland’s communities shows why it must be done.

In summary, I seek to ensure that Scotland benefits from the renewables revolution off its shores, as it failed to do with the discovery of oil and gas. The North sea bounty must come to Scotland this time. First, what steps will the Minister take to ensure that funds are available to develop turbine manufacturing in Scotland, and to ensure that contracts for fields off Scotland’s shores go to local yards, as is happening in north-east England?

Secondly, what will the Minister do to ensure that Scotland benefits from job creation where the energy comes ashore, and not simply see the energy cabled south and the benefit enjoyed elsewhere?

Thirdly, what will be done to end the discrimination against Scottish sites caused by the absurd contracts for difference pricing regime that prejudices Scotland and will be referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey) in his comments?

Finally, will the Minister meet me to discuss how communities, whether in Scotland or elsewhere in the UK, can benefit from offshore wind as they do onshore wind through a regulated regime, and a set fiscal regime that will benefit those communities? This is a huge opportunity for Scotland. Our nation lost out on the benefits from its oil and gas; it must not lose out on this renewable windfall.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

rose—

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I had not been informed that the hon. Member wished to speak. Has the hon. Member informed the mover and the Minister?

--- Later in debate ---

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I would like to thank and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill) on securing this important debate. On St Andrew’s day, it serves as a poignant opportunity to consider how right can prevail over might. Might and power can be used to silence and incarcerate, such as in the case of Craig Murray in Scotland, who tastes freedom once again this St Andrew’s day.

However, power and control can also be utilised to either stymie or enable the potential of a people and of a nation. My Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency has a proud history of industry and endeavour, from the world-renowned Adam Smith to the linoleum factories of Nairn, and the Francis, Seafield, Kelty, Benarty and Cowdenbeath pits, to name just a few. Our folk do not fear work; indeed, they relish it.

In my youth, our folk worked doon the pits, on the ships, in the shipyards and on the docks of Methil, Burntisland and Rosyth, building rigs, servicing the naval fleet and working offshore. It was great industry, but this was crumbs from the table. From the Thatcher and Major Governments who put profit and privatisation before people at every turn, who put tax cuts for the wealthy before the financial security of a people, to the Blairite disaster capitalist adventure of illegal war-making in the middle east, and moving the Scottish maritime boundary, making 6,000 square miles of Scotland’s waters English.

I often hear Members from the Government Benches, and indeed Government Ministers, crow about our how our campaign for Scottish independence is a grievance. Well, they are right, and it is a fully justified grievance. All the evidence needed exists in the UK Government’s own archive, in the shape of the McCrone report that Scottish economist Gavin McCrone presented to the Heath Government in 1975, which revealed how North sea oil would make an independent Scotland as prosperous as Switzerland.

The facts show that Scotland has been robbed of the embarrassment of riches that North sea oil and gas could have provided to her people. We just have to look to Norway to see that reality. Why should the Scottish people believe a single word that any Westminster Government utter when history provides every bit of evidence necessary to demonstrate how easily false promises and vows can be discarded and broken?

Instead, we have escalating child poverty; a pernicious and vicious welfare state; and threats to the little control we do possess through Trojan horse policies such as the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. None of this is helped by a supine devolved Government who seem to have given up on even talking a good game. The people of Scotland deserve so much better than this.

Just off the Fife shore, a green industrial revolution is taking place, but all that my constituents can do is observe. It has delivered no meaningful employment to our communities, and the only announcement to date from this Government was more crumbs from the table in the shape of offshore jobs for service engineers. That lack of ambition is sadly reflected back from organisations such as Renewables Scotland, which claims that Scotland has missed the chance to lead the charge on renewables and can only hope for domestic service engineer jobs. This is scandalous. Scotland is being plundered yet again, while our people suffer real harm as a consequence of the acts and omissions of their supposed Governments.

Scotland is replete with natural resources that, with focus and investment, could lay the foundations for national prosperity, as the transition towards a greener, more sustainable future gathers pace. Fife’s skilled workforce, proximity to offshore development sites and established fabrication facilities mean that the kingdom is perfectly placed on the Forth estuary to be at the forefront of the marine and green energy revolution. Harnessing the established and potential assets on all shores of the firth of Forth is key to enabling Scotland to end its dependency on fossil fuels and establishing a thriving, green energy-based economy.

In the context of the climate emergency, there is growing evidence that political, public and corporate priorities are beginning to align. Thus, a compelling case now exists for Scotland to further its ambitions towards a prosperous, zero-carbon economy. For this to be truly realised, any such prosperity must seek to build tangible local results, such as high-quality employment, world-leading research and development, and a national prosperity fund. We must not allow the Scottish people to be denied the benefits of an energy boom by remote or disengaged Governments again.

My constituency has the potential and is bursting with ambition. Brexit has neutralised the excuse of state aid, but there has been no change to contracts for difference and no conditionality on local employment or supply chains. Transmission costs are driving investment away, so there is a need to rapidly consider viable alternatives, such as microgrids, which generate and deliver energy locally, creating jobs and driving community prosperity.

In the green energy revolution, Scotland is again well positioned to benefit and lead the charge. With less than 1% of Europe’s population, Scotland possesses 33% of Europe’s carbon storage potential, 25% of Europe’s offshore wind resources, 25% of Europe’s tidal energy resources and 10% of Europe’s wave energy potential, but yet again it is Westminster that stands in our way.

Scotland’s oil and gas sector has been unbelievably badly managed by successive UK Governments and we cannot allow this opportunity to be squandered by yet more Westminster Governments that see Scotland’s wealth as something to be exploited, rather than stewarded and safeguarded for future generations. Only by taking full control of our future will the renewable sector reach its full potential, so our people can lift their gaze and realise their full potential.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Order. The Minister needs a reasonable amount of time to finish and he was unaware that you were going to speak in this debate, Mr Hanvey. Can you conclude now please?

[Neale Hanvey]

I am concluding now and I have fewer than 50 words to say.

I do not expect a particularly constructive or useful response from the Government, but that is okay because any indifference, dismissal or vague commitment serves only to strengthen the argument in favour of independence as a route to prosperity. Scotland’s natural wealth will be one of the key foundations of our future prosperity as an independent nation. There is much work to do but opportunities galore for Scotland, for Fife, and for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Hands)]

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill) on securing this important debate.

We know that renewable electricity generation is essential to the decarbonisation of the power sector and the UK’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reach net zero, which was recently discussed in Scotland at COP26 in Glasgow, which I was delighted to attend on behalf of the UK Government. Offshore wind will be a vitally important tool in creating the low-cost, net zero energy system of the future.

We can be enormously proud that the UK offshore wind industry has already made great strides, in terms of both the production of major turbine components and their deployment, moving from installing about one turbine every week to about one every single day. Turbine sizes have grown by 700%, from 2 MW to 15 MW. Alongside this, the costs of offshore wind have fallen dramatically since 2015. The first contract for difference allocation round cleared at around £114 per megawatt-hour. In the last round, in 2019, that fell to less than £40 per megawatt-hour. That is a reduction of around two thirds to 70% in the cost of offshore wind. It has been a resounding success, and we expect both the increasing scale of turbines and cost reduction to continue.

I agree with the hon. Member for East Lothian that it is absolutely right that local communities should benefit economically from major new manufacturing infrastructure projects. We want to see thousands of people all over the country working in new green, high-quality jobs in our renewables sector. Therefore, the Government are investing heavily to support the offshore wind sector, from innovation to the manufacture of major wind turbine components, all the way through to the deployment and connection to the grid.

Let me deal with a few of the points raised. I will first stress that these decisions taken by the UK Government have brought huge benefits. When I was at the Treasury in 2015, a lot of the decision making behind contracts for difference was controversial. Working with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, as it then was, we thought that the CfD regime would lead to a big boost in the UK’s renewable energy and, by scaling up, would reduce costs, both of the energy produced and that of building the infrastructure. We turned out to be right on that.

There was also investment brought in by the UK Government. When I was at the Department for International Trade, for four or five years, I was going around getting investment into the UK offshore wind sector, particularly from European countries, such as Spain and Denmark, and companies looking to invest in this country. A key part of that has been to ensure that the supply chain also benefits the United Kingdom overall, including Scotland. About 60% or more of the supply chain is based in the UK. A lot of the key decisions have been the right ones taken by the UK Government.

The hon. Member for East Lothian raised a point about Wick harbour. We have seen that harbour revitalised by the development of the Beatrice offshore wind project. As more projects are developed north of the border, we expect similar benefits to be realised for other harbours. We heard from the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey), who provided a long history—a tour de force—that started with Ted Heath, moved through Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and ended with him describing the Scottish Government as a “supine devolved Government”. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the word “grievance” and said it was not one, but I think he is lumping grievance on to grievance. His latest grievance is with the Scottish Government, not just that of the UK.

Offshore wind has a central role in the Government’s decarbonisation and levelling-up ambitions. Developing the economic benefits that the UK derives from offshore wind took prime position in the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution, published this time last year. The 10-point plan also includes a target to deploy 1 GW of floating wind in the UK by 2030, as a stepping-stone to further growth through the 2030s and beyond.

The hon. Gentleman for East Lothian mentioned the potential of the sector, but it is not just the potential; it is the reality. The UK has the world’s largest installed offshore wind capacity—we are No. 1. As the Prime Minister says, we are the Saudi Arabia of wind. It is not just potential but a realised thing that is happening every day. We are not content with just 10 GW; we have a commitment to quadruple that over the next decade, to 40 GW. Scotland will play a massive role in that commitment.

Last month the Prime Minister announced up to £160 million in new funding to support the development of large-scale floating offshore wind ports and factories all over the UK. That follows on from the success of the offshore wind manufacturing investment support scheme, which has so far this year enabled the announcement of two major port hubs, and six offshore wind manufacturing investments, representing £1.5 billion in public and private sector investment, and set to support up to 3,600 jobs in deprived areas of the UK by 2030.

Scotland, as we know, has a very rich industrial heritage, and I am confident that the skills already present in Scotland, proven over the decades in the oil and gas sector, will be transferred into a world-leading capability in manufacturing for the offshore wind sector— a key part of our North sea transition deal. Yesterday I chaired the North Sea Transition Forum with the industry, Oil & Gas UK, the Oil and Gas Authority and the Scottish Government.

The point is that to make that transition means recognising the fantastic skillset. One of my first visits in this role was to Aberdeen, where I saw that skillset at first hand, working with a lot of the incredible universities—I visited Robert Gordon University, for example, whose transition unit is working on how we transfer the skills that have been vital for the UK as a whole and Scotland in particular for the past 50 years over to sectors such as offshore wind. The answer is that there is a lot of overlap between offshore hydrocarbons and offshore wind, but making that transition is a key part, and there are many people helping to deliver that.

That is why the North sea transition deal announced in March contains key commitments on skills, including a commitment from the oil and gas sector to develop an integrated people and skills plan by March 2022, to support the sector’s transition and diversification. Both Government and the sector have also committed to supporting the work of the Energy Skills Alliance. Its work will address, among other things, future skills demands of new energy sectors, all-energy training and standards and all-energy apprenticeships.

In particular, Scotland could benefit greatly from nascent technologies on the horizon. I mention floating offshore wind again, but just last week we announced a £20 million ring-fenced contract for difference fund for tidal. There is huge potential for Scotland to take advantage of its excellent geography. The same extends to parts of Wales and the Isle of Wight and other particular parts of the UK that have excellent tidal resources. We announced a ring-fenced pot within the next CfD auction for tidal energy.

[Neale Hanvey]

Will the Minister give way?

[Greg Hands]

I do not think I have time—I am afraid I only have one minute, and the hon. Gentleman got a pretty fair crack of the whip earlier, to be frank.

Floating offshore wind is an area that has already inspired huge interest from developers in Scotland—hardly surprising, given the rich deep-water resource and manufacturing capability in Scotland. It is no coincidence that the world’s two largest floating offshore wind arrays, Hywind and Kincardine, have been developed in Scottish waters. The Celtic sea is also a major development opportunity.

Decisions on how specific projects can deliver local benefits are generally a matter for developers—a point raised by the hon. Member for East Lothian. However, we want developers and operators to provide community benefits consistent with relevant guidance and good practice principles, building on experience in other renewables sectors.

This debate is testament to the strong cross-party agreement that we want to leverage the UK’s world-leading offshore wind sector, to maximise the economic benefits enjoyed by our coastal communities across the UK, including in Scotland. I close by thanking the hon. Gentleman again for securing this enlightening and important debate.

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

Net Zero Strategy and Heat and Buildings Strategy

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is a tireless advocate for Ynys Môn, particularly on the economy and jobs. Of course, Ynys Môn, the whole of Wales and north Wales will benefit from the new green jobs that this net zero strategy will help to foster. The new money announced today for the future nuclear enabling fund is for optionality for the future, so that we can make future decisions based on good information on nuclear. Obviously, that includes potential for sites such as Wylfa.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

The Minister talks, in effect, of crumbs for Scotland, the renewable energy capital of Europe, with a few jobs as technicians offshore, whereas my constituency is the fourth most impacted by the cuts to working tax credit and universal credit. We can couple that with the escalation of fuel prices, so I want to know: why do the UK Government insist on levying connection charges not to France or the Nordic countries, but uniquely to Scotland, driving away investment, jobs and ambitions for our green future and for an end to fuel poverty in Scotland?

[Greg Hands]

I did not quite understand the hon. Gentleman’s point about connectivity, but what I will say to him is this: Scotland is vital for the UK’s energy needs, both currently and in the future. On oil and gas, 50% of the gas currently consumed in this country comes from the UK continental shelf, and Scotland is vital for that. It is also vital for our future offshore wind capabilities, and other low-carbon and renewable energies. That is exactly the technology, capability and capacity that I saw last week in Aberdeen. Perhaps he might get a little more optimistic about Scotland’s future when it comes to energy, because I certainly am.

UK Gas Market

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Monday 20th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

It would be foolhardy of me to speculate at the Dispatch Box on what the gas price will be even tomorrow. If I were in a position to know what the prices would be at a later date, I would probably not be a politician; I would probably be a gas trader. That aside, however, I think we have to accept that the prices could be high for longer than people anticipate, just as they could fall very quickly. The marginal dynamics of these markets can shift extremely rapidly. Those of us who followed the oil price last year will have seen that we had an oil price of $20 a barrel, and that in the same year it reached nearly $80. There is a considerable amount of volatility in these markets, and it would be rash of me to predict their course.

As I said earlier, we are committed to nuclear, which is the third point in the 10-point plan, and that means not just large-scale nuclear, but small modular reactors as well.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

It is beyond doubt that Scotland is an energy-rich nation, but a quarter of our people live in fuel poverty. If the Secretary of State is a free-marketeer and is not prepared to see taxpayer support go into the market, does he not think it is time for a publicly owned energy company to be brought into being to help us through such difficult times?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I do not really follow the hon. Gentleman’s question. On the one hand, he is saying that I am a free marketeer, but then he is asking me whether I think there should be a state-owned energy company. I think I would avoid the latter outcome, in so far as I can, but as I always say in these things, we are looking at all options. I think that there are market-based solutions. I think that the industry will come together and that, with the Government and Ofgem, we can plot a course through this.

Charity-funded Medical Research

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

Thank you for chairing this debate, Ms McVey; it is a pleasure to speak in it. I thank the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies) for securing it and for his lucid and compelling presentation of his arguments.

For most of my career in the NHS, I was involved in the delivery and management of clinical trials, from surgical interventions, radiotherapy and chemotherapy to nursing and allied health professional research. This activity was conducted in the pursuit of improving cancer treatment and outcomes, but clinical trials are also essential in developing effective treatments for multiple sclerosis, myalgic encephalomyelitis, Alzheimer’s disease, arthritis, Parkinson’s disease, heart and lung disease, and many others. While we may all hope that we will not rely on this research at some point in the future, the progress that is so regularly made reassures us that we are often at the vanguard of effective treatments and care.

However, clinical trials do not appear out of thin air. They are underpinned by groundbreaking scientific discoveries that must translate from bench to bedside, where research initiated in the laboratory is safely developed for clinical use to provide direct benefits to patients. Such translational research evolves from basic experiments in the laboratory—at the bench—to pre-clinical research, before commencing study design, protocol development, and then starting the process of phased clinical trials.

I intend to focus my remarks on childhood cancer, but before I do, it is really important to me—I pay tribute to the words that have already been said on this topic—to mention other vital charities that have made enormous advances in care, but that have yet to receive any meaningful support during the pandemic. The worthiness of these charities—CLIC Sargent, Teenage Cancer Trust and of course Macmillan Cancer Support, to name but a few—is beyond question. Their specialised support is a lifeline to so many. Many other disease-specific charities are in a similar boat, so we must not forget them either.

Every single day across these islands, 12 families get the heartbreaking news that their child has cancer. Although I have participated in the breaking of such distressing news more times than I care to recall, as a parent I still cannot imagine how such news must feel. Despite the fact that much of my clinical and academic work focused on teenage cancer care, I still find the statistics shocking. About 4,500 children and young people are diagnosed with cancer each year, and although significant progress has been made in recent years in developing treatments—for leukaemia, for example—due to the often rare nature of cancer diagnoses at that age, it is still the most common cause of death in under-15s across the UK.

Covid-19 is having an unimaginable impact on charity fundraising—the lifeblood of the research process—and is putting vital treatment developments at risk. Medical research, development and innovation are an integral and vital part of the NHS and Scotland’s health strategy. Charities’ funding has been hit hard during the pandemic at a time when many of the causes they exist to support have come under additional pressures. It is therefore incumbent on the UK Government to ensure that the comprehensive spending review is not wasted on warfare but rewards the life sciences, which have been the only effective weapon in our armoury against covid. That must include supporting charity-funded medical research.

I recently spoke to Mark Brider, chief executive officer of Children with Cancer UK, an organisation that has raised more than £250 million since its creation in 1987 to support families and improve childhood cancer survival rates. The groundbreaking research it funds has led to the development of kinder, more effective treatments with fewer debilitating toxic effects. Childhood cancer survival rates for some cancers have subsequently increased from 64% in 1990 to 84% in 2017.

Children with Cancer UK has warned that it faces an income loss of about 40% as a result of the covid pandemic. It warns that, without additional support, much of its planned medical research will be cancelled, setting cancer research back by many years. It is not alone. A study this year revealed that charities in the UK are facing a £10 billion shortfall, and that as many as 10% face bankruptcy.

Members of the Association of Medical Research Charities are calling on the Government to commit to a life sciences charity partnership fund—a co-investment scheme that would provide a level of match funding from the Government for future research. AMRC charities play a vital and unique role in the UK’s research sector, funding 17,000 researchers’ salaries across universities, the NHS and other bodies. They invested £1.9 billion in medical research in the UK last year.

The covid-19 pandemic had an immediate impact of those charities, with a reported 38% loss in fundraising income, 34% of staff furloughed and 18% of spend on research in universities cut or cancelled as a result of the initial lockdown period. The long-term impact of covid-19 on AMRC charities looks to be just as devastating, with an estimated £310 million shortfall in UK medical research spend. It will take four and a half years to recover to pre-pandemic levels. Medical research charities did not benefit from the Government’s earlier package of support for charities, as medical research was considered outwith the remit of funding frontline services. It is vital that support for their work is included in the comprehensive spending review.

Charities have predicted that the shortfall could have a range of impacts, from preventing them from funding clinical trials and studies, to causing them to defer upcoming grant rounds and withdraw future funding. The British Heart Foundation has already announced that it has cut spending on new research awards by half this year, from £100 million to £50 million. Cancer Research UK has also reported cuts of £44 million in its research funding, and it says that 40% of charity-funded early-career scientists are considering leaving research as a result of funding concerns caused by covid. Without that support, CRUK could be forced to lose 1,500 researchers—more than a third of its research workforce. Already, 61% of charities have had to cut or cancel support for early-career researchers and skilled research roles.

Such a reduction in charity-funded research will have a major impact on the future skills pipeline of research and put early-career positions at serious risk. This means that the UK faces the creation of a lost generation of researchers and experts. Scotland and the other UK nations are world-renowned for research quality. Yet if medical research charities do not receive further financial help, the damage could be significant and, in concert with a hard Brexit, could cause irreparable damage to the sector.

Last month I wrote to the Treasury, supporting AMRC’s calls for the establishment of a life sciences charity partnership fund to support medical research charities. A total of 51 cross-party parliamentarians co-signed my letter, setting out the long-term consequences for the future of medical research and development without this urgent financial support.

We have called on the Government to provide at least £310 million in funding in the financial year 2021 to a life sciences charity partnership fund, to secure medical research for the next three years, thus preserving research charities’ vital and unique contribution to society and to the economy. That would be matched by funding from charities to secure the continuity of their research.

Establishing such a fund would not only safeguard medical research funding at this vital time, but ensure that the research institutions can continue to invest in talent and skills at a time when they are sorely needed. The fund would help contribute to a shared ambition to invest unprecedented levels in research and development across the four nations of the UK, and form a global hub for life sciences. Today’s medical research is tomorrow’s curative treatment. Collectively, medical research charities have saved millions of lives. Thanks to research, cancer survival in the UK has doubled since the 1970s, so that today two in four people survive their cancer.

In the pursuit of addressing the covid health crisis, we must be mindful that, in not delivering support in the form of the life sciences charity partnership fund, we inadvertently create a health crisis caused by stalling, or otherwise compromising, life-saving research from the bench to the bedside.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Tuesday 29th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

We have handed out £11 billion-worth of cash grants to businesses across the country. In terms of the underspend, the under-allocation varied by local authorities and how much money they could get to those businesses, which is why we need to have it in to reconcile. I work with the wedding sector. At the moment it is impossible to work through a system that makes it viable for those businesses to open beyond a certain number. However, they will be viable businesses in the future.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

What recent discussions he has had with (a) Cabinet colleagues and (b) the Scottish Government on the economic effect on businesses of the UK Internal Market Bill.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)]

Ministers have clearly set out the benefits to all UK businesses of ensuring that goods and services can flow freely across the UK. That is in Scotland’s interests, given that it exports more to the rest of the UK than to the EU. The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that I have spent about 12 hours on these Benches with the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), having discussions and debating this issue.

[Neale Hanvey [V]]

Businesses in my Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency and across Scotland benefit from not only the most competitive business rates regime in the UK but vital schemes such as the transition training fund, the inward investment scheme and a half-billion pound infrastructure plan. With the internal market Bill allowing UK Ministers to spend in devolved areas, what guarantees can the Minister give that such expenditure will not result in a consequential reduction in essential Scottish Government funding, putting such schemes at risk?

[Paul Scully]

Spending from the UK Government will be complementary to that coming from the Scottish Government. We want to add to that and to make sure that the UK economy can flourish. Scottish business will be at risk without the regulatory certainty of this Bill, so we want to prevent additional layers of complexity.