Finance (No. 2) Bill

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 17th April 2024 Commons Chamber

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

The amendment in my name sought to address the failure of the Bill to bring in tax measures to ensure the continuation of oil and gas activity in Scotland, including at Grangemouth oil refinery. Almost 90% of levy revenue comes from Scotland, but there is precious little by way of investment in that part of the economy. A good example of that is the UK Government’s denial of £80 million to save Grangemouth, while at the same time signing a loan guarantee of £600 million for INEOS, for activity in Antwerp and Belgium. According to the response to a written question from my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill), the UK Government have not even assessed the potential supply of that activity.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Come on—ask a question.

[Neale Hanvey]

Can the Minister not see the perversity of spending Scottish revenue abroad while jobs in Scotland are wilfully put at risk by this Government?

[Nigel Huddleston]

I could not disagree more with the hon. Member’s premise. If anybody has shown support for the sector, this Government have. We have shown huge support for the sector, in an appropriate and proportionate way, while also encouraging the industry to decarbonise. As I said, we are taking fiscally responsible decisions to extend the energy profits levy for one year. We are also providing confidence and certainty to businesses in the sector by legislating for an energy profits levy price floor. That is what is in the Bill. That will effectively abolish the energy profits levy if the six-month average for both oil and gas is at or below a set threshold. Doing so was the sector’s main ask in the 2024 spring Budget, and it could help to unlock around £9 billion in uncommitted investment spend, according to Offshore Energies UK, which welcomed the decision. I am sorry that he feels unable to welcome it as well.

Those measures will ensure that investment in our economy continues to grow. I will now outline some measures in the Bill’s property package. The Bill will cut the higher rate of capital gains tax on residential property from 28% to 24%, encouraging landlords and second home owners to sell their properties, which could increase revenues because there would be more transactions.

Loan Charge

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2024 Commons Chamber

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

I begin by thanking the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) for bringing forward this incredibly important debate. The issue has been live for far too long, and the damage that has been inflicted on thousands of ordinary workers—whether freelancers, contractors or temporary workers—and their families by the loan charge is distressing. The comparison that he drew with the Horizon scandal is real. This is a serious injustice, but what is different from the Horizon scandal is that at least the Horizon victims had the appearance of justice. It may not have been justice, but they had the appearance of it.

As the hon. Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) made clear, HMRC has persisted and acted as judge, jury and executioner with a ruthlessness that I cannot believe. I have been in meetings with HMRC and it has advised me, “We will never put people under enormous pressure. We will not take more than 50% of their disposable income to recover the costs,” but that is simply not true. The ferocity with which it has gone after my constituents and the amounts of money it has demanded are eye-watering—it is completely impossible for my constituents to meet its demands.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

A simple point occurs to me: the real similarity between the Horizon programme and this situation is that those who were prosecuted under Horizon and put in jail and so on had it put about by the Post Office that they were greedy people who had stolen money, so the public at first did not have any sympathy. Similarly, in this matter, HMRC has basically said that they were greedy people evading tax that other people then had to pick up and pay. The public still have not picked up on that. These people were not doing that—that is the key point—and breaking through that will get public support for something to change.

[Neale Hanvey]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that point. Not only were the victims of the loan charge victims of mis-selling; they are now the victims of HMRC’s pursuit of them for every penny they can possibly earn. That is not just now, but for future years, so that point is incredibly important.

It is important to remember that we had an opportunity a number of years ago to write off the retrospective element, with new clause 31 to the Finance Bill, which was supported by the loan charge and taxpayer fairness all-party parliamentary group. Unfortunately, because of the timidity of some Members, that new clause was not put forward for a vote. That is deeply regrettable.

It is important that I speak about my constituents, who are my main concern in all this. Four years ago, I spoke about the horrific plight of my constituent Doug Aitken, who was facing a bill of £500,000. To pay that off, he would lose his house and his car. As a self- employed person, he would lose his business, because he would be bankrupt. The Government simply did not listen. He was one of those who had successive completed and closed tax years that were reopened by HMRC, and he was being charged exorbitant, unjustifiable and unjustified rates for all the supposed earnings he had secreted away.

Today I want to speak about another constituent of mine, Alan Geddes, who has a disposable income of £360 a month. The payment demanded by HMRC from Mr Geddes is £783 a month for the next 12 years. That is not the only charge it is asking him to pay; it is also asking him to pay £50,000 up front.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Ind)]

The hon. Gentleman and many other colleagues across the House have made analogies in their excellent speeches between the horrors of the Horizon Post Office IT scandal and the scandal around the loan charge, which has affected so many of our constituents. I will share with him and the Chamber another analogy: is he aware that HMRC also uses an apparently bombproof system from Fujitsu?

[Neale Hanvey]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very interesting point to which I think Members from all parts of the House will pay close attention. I thank him for doing so.

Not only is HMRC asking for £50,000 up front, but it has put a £50,000 lien against Mr Geddes’s home. Although his disposable income has now dropped below £360 a month because of the cost of living crisis, HMRC has suggested that perhaps they should renegotiate his terms to bring the rate down to £361.13. However, to get that new rate, he needs to give HMRC another £50,000. Those other charges would then continue for a further 12 years. The question is: what planet is HMRC on? These shocking figures exclude interest being added to allow the payments to be spread over 12 years. It is clear daylight robbery.

Ministers in the Department have previously advised me that approximately 80% of the £3.4 billion that HMRC has recovered through disguised renumeration settlements between the Budget of 2016 and the end of March 2022 has been from employers. Am I therefore correct in presuming that that figure is £2.72 billion? Given that the sum that HMRC expected to be brought into charge from employers has already been exceeded, why did it need to pursue loan charge customers for 100% of the tax plus interest, plus accelerated payment notice penalties and plus inheritance tax, particularly when it was fully aware that customers had already suffered a 15% to 20% deduction on their earnings through the mis-sold schemes?

Additionally, I would like to learn why HMRC continues to pursue customers with loans from before December 2010, given that Morse already pardoned those with no open inquiries on the basis that the law was not clear. Those key factors could all be addressed, because HMRC has the facility to amend its settlement terms. It requires no legislation or change in the law. I hope that the Minister will ask HMRC to apply the same treatment to those who have already settled.

Members across the House have been screaming on this issue until we are hoarse. We have sent repeated letters, including ones sent by 120 MPs. We have had publications put out by the APPG and debates in this Chamber, but it is simply not enough. People are on the brink and in despair. If we are to prevent any more constituents from resorting to suicide, we must urgently deal with this issue and grapple with it in a way that was not done with the Horizon scandal.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank you for that guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will try to proceed through the comments, because I am keen to make a few more points.

The Morse review followed the normal process for such reviews, in terms of the secretariat and support being provided by Government Departments. I have heard the comments made today, but I do not believe a case has been made for another review. I always stand ready to listen, but I think that review stood up quite well. I do not think anybody has impugned the integrity of Lord Morse today, but that review was thorough and significant, and 19 of the recommended changes were implemented. It was a hugely impactful and very thorough review.

Many hon. Members have also made points about tackling promoters, and some individuals facing the loan charge feel rightly aggrieved at the promoters and enablers who facilitated the use of these schemes. Promoters of tax avoidance schemes are parasites on the tax system—let us be in no doubt about that. They cause untold misery to the people they tempt into using those schemes, which almost never deliver the tax savings that were promised. The Government have prioritised tackling promoters of tax avoidance schemes and have given HMRC additional powers to do so, as a result of which many promoters have stopped promoting those types of scheme. One individual involved in the promotion of schemes subject to the loan charge has already been convicted, and others are currently under criminal investigation for offences linked to the loan charge.

Through Finance Acts in 2021 and 2022, the Government also introduced powers that allow HMRC to take action more quickly against promoters. Those include the power to publish details of promoters of tax avoidance schemes and others involved in the implementation of such schemes. In 2022, for example, HMRC issued a penalty of £1 million to a promoter of disguised remuneration schemes, and provisions included in the Finance Bill currently progressing through this House will make it a criminal offence to promote tax avoidance schemes after HMRC has issued a stop notice under the promoters of tax avoidance schemes rules. I am very pleased to say that those measures are receiving support from all parties.

The Government also consulted last summer on measures to address non-compliance in the umbrella company market—again, many hon. Members have commented on that market today—including tackling the types of schemes we have discussed. We will respond to that consultation in due course, but I can let hon. Members know that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), the Minister for small business at the Department for Business and Trade, are already discussing what the next steps should be. In the meantime, HMRC will continue to use its full range of civil and criminal powers to disrupt the operations of promoters.

[Neale Hanvey]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nigel Huddleston]

Very briefly, and for the last time.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I really am getting anxious—we do need to move on very quickly. I call Neale Hanvey, if he can be brief.

[Neale Hanvey]

I will be very brief, Madam Deputy Speaker. One of the key problems we have is the inflationary costs that are added to the loan charges. Will the Minister at least commit to look at those costs that are added on to the taxable sums?

Cost of Living

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate the SNP on introducing this debate. It is an important issue, and I am inclined to support the motion, but it is far too polite and lacks real challenge and ambition. We want to begin to tackle the scourge of poverty and the Alba party’s plan would include an annual £500 payment to 500,000 low earning households in Scotland; increasing the Scottish child payment to £40 a week for 400,000 children in 250,000 households; extending free school meals to all primary and secondary pupils in Scotland; and, most importantly, writing off the almost £1.4 million of debt to local authorities from parents who cannot afford to pay. We would also double the education maintenance allowance from £30 to £60 a week for 16 to 19-year-olds in school or college, and introduce universal access to sports facilities for all children and young people under 18.

On a personal note, even all that is not quite enough, but it would be a start. The current crisis that we are experiencing is not an accident: it is the result of unfettered capitalism and an absence of social conscience in politics. Disaster capitalists have a playbook, and what has been happening in the UK over recent years follows it perfectly: create or harness a problem, privatise and profit, dismantle public services and hand over the resources of the people to the private corporations. Governments are responsible for that, and in Scotland we have rightly complained about that for many years with North sea oil and gas. The people have never benefited, although they got a few jobs out of it. Now, with the Energy Prices Bill, Scotland will get no supply chains or service jobs—nothing. The Scottish Government have replicated the mistakes of Westminster, selling off £350 billion licences for ScotWind for £700 million. Scotland will never benefit from that. The mistakes of Westminster should not be repeated by the Scottish Government.

We know all this is because of rapacious greed. People who accumulate money need to answer the question of how much is enough. As with all addictions, the need to feed the addiction is endless, and the impact on others is manifest. The UK Government put out the red carpet for the super-rich, the high earners, the non-doms, based on the fallacy that trickle-down will reach the poorest. Trickle-down is a neo-conservative lie: it does not happen. The rich accumulate and the poor suffer. As the indulged rich hoarded more through the pandemic, doctors, nurses, teachers, train drivers and many others were denied a liveable wage or a meaningful pay increase. That is made worse in Scotland because we have the political and economic dominion of a Parliament in which Scotland can never win a vote.

The robbery of our vast energy resources from fuel-poor Scots is an outrage. The Treasury gets £80 billion in tax profits from the current boom, and 124 billion kWh of energy will be supplied to England by 2030 for free. Scotland will never see anything in return from the UK Government. Just that energy alone has a value of £11 billion per annum, and Scotland gets nothing. The food banks in my constituency have gone from a monthly expenditure of £3,000 to more than £20,000, and they can hardly afford to keep going. The energy costs of the Fife Ice Arena in Kirkcaldy have gone from £3,000 a month to more than £35,000. I wrote to every energy giant in my constituency and all those who operate off the Clyde coast to ask for help: none of them offered a penny. They have eye-watering profits but would not offer a penny of help to the communities from which they profit.

UK Labour offers nothing better. It talks of pooling and sharing, but it is really taking and driving away. It wants to use Scotland’s vast energy wealth to cut the costs of English council tax. Scotland still gets nothing.

There is a real scandal brewing on energy. The costs being endured by people and businesses are front-loaded, with up to 70% commission going to the brokers who sign them up to suppliers. It is an absolute scandal, and none of it is declared to businesses and individuals when they sign up.

At the beginning of covid, the last Prime Minister but one promised there would be no profiteering, but the Government used the vehicle of VIP lanes to pass on billions to well-connected Tories. At the same time, the Government laid waste to the domestic diagnostic sector, doing dodgy deals through shell companies that suddenly appeared and then melted away just as quickly. Let us not pretend that we are all in this together. Stop the spin and tell the truth. Facilitating and celebrating greed is an affront to human decency.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I ought to declare an interest at this point: I used to prosecute tax fraudsters for HMRC before I came to this place. I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman and put my money where my mouth is when it comes to tackling those fraudsters.

On the income tax take, the top 10% by way of income paid 36% of all tax in 2020-21. We are proud of the fact that our distributional analysis for the autumn statement shows that decisions made at that fiscal event are progressive: the lowest income households will receive the largest benefit in cash terms and as a percentage of income, and will on average be net beneficiaries of decisions made on tax, welfare and amendments to the energy price guarantee.

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

11. Whether his Department plans to take further fiscal steps to support (a) households, (b) local authorities, (c) charities and (d) businesses with energy costs.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Jeremy Hunt)]

Merry Christmas to you and your staff, Mr Speaker; as your fourth Chancellor of the year, I sincerely hope that I am here this time next year to wish you merry Christmas as well.

The Government are very conscious that these are tough times for businesses as well as families. That is why in the autumn statement I announced, among many other measures, a package of business rates support worth £13.6 billion over the next five years, including a 75% relief for retail, hospitality and leisure properties. That will help thousands of businesses in Scotland.

[Neale Hanvey]

A very merry Christmas to you and yours, Mr Speaker, and a happy new year to boot.

My constituency of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath plays host to energy giants Shell and ExxonMobil; Seagreen and Berwick Bank wind farms, which supply 2.8 million homes in England with energy, are just off our coastline. In such a land of energy plenty, it is perverse that so many people live in poverty and that businesses struggle to survive. Kirkcaldy ice arena is the oldest rink in the United Kingdom and home to the Fife Flyers ice hockey team. It survived world war two, fire, the financial crash and covid, but in energy-rich Scotland it is struggling to pay its unavoidable energy costs. What targeted support is the Chancellor going to make available for energy-dependent companies such as the rink? Will he meet me to discuss how best to tackle the problem?

[Jeremy Hunt]

We have announced a package of support for businesses this winter worth nearly £20 billion; it will help businesses throughout the United Kingdom, including in Scotland. It includes special measures for energy-intensive industries. We will shortly announce plans that will take effect from next April.

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[John Glen]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady, and I am working with colleagues in different Departments looking at the challenges to help people back into the workplace. It is particularly difficult when people need support for such a range of needs and conditions. We must treat everyone as an individual and be ever more creative in the solutions that we bring forward. I look forward to working with her and colleagues in Government to try to assist in improving the situation.

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

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Jeremy Hunt)]

My Christmas wish for the economy is that 2023 is the year when we bring down inflation, and that means staying the course outlined in the autumn statement and giving people as much help as we can with the cost of living crisis. I am pleased that, yesterday, my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury was able to announce that we are freezing alcohol duty for a further six months.

[Neale Hanvey]

This morning, I met nurses on the picket lines outside St Thomas’s Hospital. They do not want to be there, the unions do not want them to be there and the public do not want them to be there, but we understand why they are: it is because of the Government’s inflexibility over pay. The Government have deep pockets for bankers and their bonuses, dodgy personal protective equipment and fly-by-night Prime Ministers who blow up the economy. I took the Chancellor at his word when I was with him on the Health and Social Care Committee. Now that he holds the purse strings, will he enter into discussion with the unions and unlock this untenable situation?

Energy (oil and gas) profits levy

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

My right hon. Friend puts it perfectly. These are significant changes for the industries concerned and one should not go about it in a wanton fashion. We have to try to carry the industry with us, which is why, for example, we have a very generous investment allowance in the North sea levy. As I said, I think the wider public support that but he is right that we have to go about it pragmatically to ensure that we balance the interests of investment with raising the revenue.

Let us not forget that that revenue is going to fund support for energy bills at an extraordinary level through the energy price guarantee, which the OBR now estimates will cut £900 from the typical energy bill this winter. Next year, with the new energy price guarantee, a further £500 will be cut. We are taking these difficult measures to be compassionate and help those at the bottom the most: earlier this year, the amount of energy support for the most vulnerable was £650; next year, it will be £900. We are taking serious steps to support the most vulnerable.

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

It is extraordinary to hear that response to the question about levying a windfall tax and those comments about the pragmatic approach that the Government took when the oil industry companies themselves were saying, “We’re happy to pay more tax. Take more money from us. We’re making so much money.” So the Government were incredibly slow to act.

[James Cartlidge]

It is extraordinary sometimes with the SNP—

[Neale Hanvey]

I am not a member of the SNP.

[James Cartlidge]

I do apologise—Alba.

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[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. The Chancellor used to be Health Secretary, and when he left that role he said that one of his biggest regrets was not fixing the crisis in social care. It is surprising that, now he is Chancellor, he seems to have forgotten that for some reason. The Government have turned their back on all the people who need that care. My hon. Friend is a doughty champion for his constituency and he is absolutely right to point out the everyday struggles of his constituents.

We know that vacancies are a huge challenge facing the NHS right now in getting waiting lists back down. The Labour party has a plan to fix that with the biggest expansion in medical training in history, including thousands more places for nurses. The Royal College of Physicians estimates that our entire NHS expansion package will cost £1.6 billion a year. We could fund all of that and have some money left over by scrapping non-dom status. Why will the Government not accept that? A leaked email from the Chancellor reveals that he privately supports Labour’s flagship health plan to double the number of medical school places. We have seen that email. Why will he not put that into practice?

[Neale Hanvey]

The shadow Minister is making a forthright and passionate contribution. If I may, I urge some caution around Labour’s current policy to limit or restrict the number of migrant workers that the UK relies on. I worked in the NHS for more than 25 years and, for the latter part of that, much of our recruitment for specialist staff was from abroad because of successive Governments’ failure to plan. Will she take that on board?

[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I will take that on board. When I was in hospital having my children, every single nurse who looked after me through a difficult labour was from abroad, and there has been a 96% drop in nurses coming to work in my local hospital. I absolutely agree with him; that is a fair point to make.

Speaking of children, I will turn briefly to childcare. There was no mention whatsoever of funding for childcare in the autumn statement. The lack of affordable options is keeping parents out of work—I am sure everyone recognises that—and having a devastating impact on our economy. Under the Conservatives, UK childcare costs have increased at twice the rate of wages, and for two thirds of families the cost of childcare is the same as or more than their monthly rent or mortgage payments. Those extortionate prices are simply unaffordable for many parents, and many people are being forced out of the labour market.

We know that 43% of mothers consider quitting work altogether and 1.7 million women are prevented from taking on more paid work due to childcare costs. That is terrible for productivity and detrimental to growth. Once again, whether it is NHS waiting times, cuts in rail investment or a lack of affordable childcare, the British people are paying the price for Tory economic incompetence through weaker public services.

The Tories have lost all claims to be the party of economic responsibility. The Conservatives have broken their own fiscal rules a total of 11 times since they came into government in 2010. They have spent 12 years weakening the economy, and they crashed the markets in the middle of a cost of living crisis, leaving working people like my constituents paying the price.

In government, Labour would do things differently. We would make fairer choices and treat taxpayers’ money with the respect it deserves. We would ensure that the single mother on the south Kilburn estate could buy her child a Christmas present, that the hard-working nurse could turn on her heating during the bitter winter months, and that the young carer I referred to could have three meals a day.

Our country is a great country. We have fantastic strengths. But because of the Government’s choices, we have been held back with 12 years of stagnant growth. It is clear that it is time for the grown-ups on the Opposition side of the House to take charge. It is time for a Labour Government.

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

It will be of little surprise that I intend to speak against the autumn statement, because it unjustly places the burden on the ordinary people of the countries of the United Kingdom. At the weekend, I was at a performance of a show called “Kelty Clippie” by the Kingdom Theatre Company. That performance took me back to a time when our mining communities took pride in their work, when our yards built rigs, when Rosyth was a substantial naval base and local businesses were able to thrive.

While the discovery of North sea oil and gas promised an embarrassment of riches for Scotland, Gavin McCrone’s report that disclosed the fact was hidden by successive Labour and Tory Governments. Scotland’s economy and industry were subsequently dismantled. Oil and gas have kept the UK Treasury pumped full of cash, and Scotland’s industry has been decimated. I did not come here to dot the i’s and cross the t’s of Tory policy that has been rejected by the people of Scotland for all my life. I came here to argue Scotland’s case: the autumn statement places the burden on ordinary people. They already faced a cost of living crisis, but then we had the £30 billion cost of the incompetence of the former Prime Minister and Chancellor, who will now receive a stipend of more than £100,000 for blowing up the economy. That crisis is on top of 12 years of Tory austerity, and is not because of profligate public services. They are breaching the supposed core principles of free marketeers. Failure is supposed to self-regulate markets.

The public’s money has been used to bail out failing bankers. The public’s money is now bailing out failing energy companies, and the UK’s largest producer of—[Interruption.] Sorry, somebody keeps phoning me; I am going to switch it off. The UK’s largest producer of semiconductors was to be purchased by a Chinese company. That has been blocked by this Government. That is because it is an essential service, they say, and it cannot be foreign-owned, but many of the UK’s energy suppliers are foreign-owned. What is more essential a service than the provision of energy?

The autumn statement is not about fiscal responsibility; it is a frantic response to the utter incompetence of this Tory Government. There is one point on which I agreed with the Chancellor when he spoke—his slip of the tongue that this is the English Parliament. It certainly feels like it from my position. What place does Scotland have here? We have a smattering of Unionist MPs, but Scotland is shouted down from the Government Benches. Our people are ignored. Over the last nine months, £8 billion of North sea oil and gas revenue has flowed into His Majesty’s Treasury. The percentage share for Scotland was zero. The block grant gets tighter every year. The Scottish Government are pilloried. The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition at last week’s PMQs spoke about the renewables revolution and investment to deliver jobs and prosperity, but who for? Not for Scotland. The profits still flow to His Majesty’s Treasury and to corporate interests.

Energy for 2.8 million homes is cabled directly from Scotland’s territorial waters to England. There are no jobs for Scotland. There are no supply chain jobs. The yards sit idle. There is a continued plundering of our resources, and it sincerely saddens me that the Scottish Government replicated UK policy with the ScotWind licence, passing vast profits to corporate interests. A 25-year licence worth an estimated £350 billion was sold for a measly £700 million.

The autumn statement delivers nothing for Scotland. Scottish councils are losing out on levelling-up funds administered by Westminster. Despite the many risks of freeports for employment rights and protections, Scotland loses again. The Chancellor has failed to set out costed plans for how these freeports will operate, be funded and be essential to regeneration, job creation and trade with European and other overseas markets. This all shows that the empty promises of Brexit are exactly that—empty.

The Chancellor said that his priorities were energy, infrastructure and innovation, but Fife is losing out on all three. Where is the investment for direct ferry links from Rosyth to Europe, now that European motorways of the sea funding is no longer available? Where is the investment in renewables and the jobs bonanza we were promised to secure the future of the BiFab yards? Why are families across Fife and my constituency being plunged further and further into fuel poverty, forced to pay skyrocketing energy prices, extortionate standing charges and higher rates on prepayment meters or, sadly, forced into self-disconnection because they cannot afford to pay? There will be even less help from April next year.

One achievement of Tory policy over the last 12 years is the growth of food banks, and even they are under threat from this Tory Government. The Kirkaldy food bank is facing immense costs because need has increased vastly. Its monthly costs used to be around £2,000, but they are now approaching £20,000, and the food bank may have to close. Where will people turn to then?

The Government should be ashamed of this statement, which places the burden of their failures on the backs of the people. It is time for Scotland to take the full powers of an independent country. Our vast resources must be put to work for the common good of the Scottish people.

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[Imran Hussain]

The hon. Gentleman, who I normally have good banter with, tragically on this occasion illustrates the very point I make. His constituents expect him to scrutinise his own Government, who are not alleviating poverty even in his constituency. When he goes back to his constituency, I suggest he asks those questions of constituents and they will provide the answer to the question for him, which is this: it is his Government who for the past 12 years have made their lives a misery.

[Neale Hanvey]

The hon. Gentleman is making an outstanding contribution. Does he agree that gross greed and the deliberate exploitation of people lies at the heart of the fundamental problem we have in our society? We must talk about that, challenge it and eradicate it.

[Imran Hussain]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Going back to my opening lines, the reality remains that what this statement does—perhaps the surest thing it achieves—is further inequality, injustice and unfairness.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

The Chancellor of the Exchequer was asked—

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

1. What recent discussions he has had with (a) Cabinet colleagues and (b) stakeholders on the potential merits of zero-rating VAT on domestic fuel.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lucy Frazer)]

The hon. Member’s question is about the Government’s support for those who are struggling with the cost of living. The Government recently announced an additional £15 billion-worth of additional support, targeted particularly on those with the greatest need. Government support for the cost of living now totals £37 billion this year.

[Neale Hanvey]

VAT on domestic fuel continues to be levied on rising fuel bills while one in three Scots households live in fuel poverty. With 8% of the UK population, Scotland has 96% of the UK’s crude oil reserves, 63% of the UK’s natural gas reserves, 90% of the UK’s hydropower and 25% of Europe’s offshore wind and tidal resources. Scotland’s vast energy potential far exceeds the needs of our people yet we receive no revenue. Can the Minister tell me the true value of Scotland’s energy to the UK Treasury, and set out how the Government will service their massive debts when they can no longer fleece Scotland of its energy resources following a vote for independence in 2023?

[Lucy Frazer]

We of course recognise Scotland’s contribution to energy across the country and the fantastic industry that we have in Scotland, but the hon. Member will know that Scotland has a record sum this year in terms of money that comes through the Treasury, through the Budget and through the Barnett formula.

Cost of Living Increases

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the SNP for bringing forward this important debate, and I commend the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) for his opening remarks.

The front page of today’s Daily Record newspaper brings this shameful situation into sharp relief. While inflated Tory egos jockey for position in a power struggle for the worst of possible reasons, the cost of real-world inflation is being felt across these islands as millions struggle to fund the power they need to heat their homes. What a dismal situation it is where more than one in three Scots are already in crisis with energy costs soaring by up to 28%, but there are more price hikes and more pain still to come. This underscores the need for my Cold Climate Allowance Bill, and I hope the Government will give that due consideration in the course of this Parliament.

This debate is on the cost of living crisis, but for Scotland it could easily be cast as the cost of the Union crisis. Since 2014, the cost of the Union has been to rip Scotland from Europe against our democratic will, damaging our freedoms, impacting our economy and driving European friends away from their homes. It has seen the opportunities of our vast renewable resources realised abroad, while Scottish jobs have failed to materialise. We have suffered the bedroom tax, the benefit cap, the rape clause, universal credit cuts, and Ministers acting unlawfully, while obscene billions of pounds have been lost or written off on covid contracts and schemes. All the while, the Government have pursued a tax and cut agenda, punishing the poorest and the most vulnerable, yet it seems today that the anticipated rise in national insurance may be abandoned. If the Government know it is wrong now, then they knew it was wrong when they pushed it through.

All of this is intrinsically linked to Scotland’s continuing position in the UK, yet nothing is more emblematic of the cost of the Union than the current Prime Minister, who stands rejected by his own Scottish party and its leadership. I have found that politicians generally fall into two groups: people who want to do important things and people who want to feel important. The Prime Minister takes self-importance to stratospheric levels of self-indulgence. If he had just one ounce of humility, he would surely die of embarrassment.

It was the Tories’ return in 2010 that brought me into frontline politics, because I knew it would be bad and that our communities would suffer, our economy would suffer, poverty and greed would rise, and compassion would fade into the shadows. I knew this because I remember when Thatcherism stalked the streets of Scotland, decimated industry, fractured communities, broke people and robbed them of hope. Toryism is the engine room of despair and the champion of injustice.

Of course the Prime Minister should resign, but what would this achieve? A Tory power struggle will not change the very real power and poverty struggle in Scotland one iota. Each and every one of us in Scotland should prosper from our vast natural resources, but instead those assets are handed on a plate to profiteering corporate interests, while our people are cold and hungry, and people turn to the oblivion of drink and drugs because hopelessness has replaced opportunity. I urge Scottish colleagues across the House to join my calls for the Scottish Government to begin a constitutional convention to consider Scotland’s future. This is the cost of the Union, and from my perspective there is only one clear remedy—the aspiration and hope of an independent Scotland.

Downing Street Garden Event

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I presume that the hon. Lady’s constituent, together with others who have been penalised for breaching the regulations, was either duly convicted or accepted their responsibility. If I may say so, she is prejudging the matter. She should wait for the result of the investigation, just as Malcolm presumably did.

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

There is an expression, “the buck stops at the top,” which is usually applied by people in leadership when they take responsibility. In April last year my 58-year-old friend Ray lost his battle with covid and died. We went to his funeral online via video link. In August my father passed away and I was fortunate enough to be in the room to hold his hand as he passed away. In the intervening months, I lost count of the number of conversations I had with families and council officers who were trying to negotiate more than six or eight people at a funeral. Will the Paymaster General please explain why the Downing Street social world is more important than those lives and the law of the land?

[Michael Ellis]

May I start by saying that I am very sorry for the hon. Gentleman’s loss of his friend and of his father? I think it would be only fair to challenge him on his point about what Downing Street staff think. Downing Street staff work very hard for the people of this country—[Interruption.] It would not be fair to characterise all the work they have done over the course of years in the way that he does. We do not want to prejudge what occurred on that occasion. The reality is that we should take the approach that, unless proven to the contrary, most people in public life, no matter what their party political persuasion, work in the public service and do the best they can.

Covid-19: Award of Contracts

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

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

While this debate is ostensibly about covid contracts, it is essentially about honour and the old-fashioned values of integrity, responsibility and prioritising the needs of those who we are elected to serve, making them our primary focus. I will look at three distinct areas of contracting where we as a Parliament find ourselves with this Government. First, I will consider the early contracting for personal protective equipment. I will then look at how hollow the Government’s “build back better”, “level up” and “take back control” slogans sound to the domestic diagnostics industry, which has been utterly abandoned and betrayed by the Government. Then I will consider the implication of the Government’s reluctance to take the advice of their own former vaccines taskforce chair, before considering where that places the UK in the context of the prevailing international strategic landscape.

The first issue is PPE. In 2020, I led a cross-party letter to the Prime Minister about the crisis engulfing the NHS as a consequence of inadequate supplies of PPE. It took until November 2020 for the signatories to receive a response. Throughout that time, the NHS remained in the grip of a shortage of PPE, and the National Audit Office conducted and published its investigation into the contracts for the provision of PPE during the early stages of the covid-19 outbreak. As a result, I submitted written questions to the Secretary of State asking which companies had been awarded contracts after being introduced through the alleged high priority lane. The response from Government asserted:

“The cross-Government PPE team considered that leads referred by Government officials, Ministerial private offices, Parliamentarians, senior National Health Service staff and other health professionals were possibly more credible and needed to be initially reviewed with more urgency. This was commonly referred to as a ‘priority’ or ‘VIP’ channel.

At the point of being prioritised these offers went into exactly the same…process”.

Sadly, that was wrong. According to Transparency International UK’s “Track and Trace” report, critical safeguards designed to prevent corruption were suspended. They identified 73 contracts worth more than £3.7 billion, equivalent to 20% of covid-19 contracts, between February and November 2020 that raised concerns about possible corruption.

By July 2021, all of the Government’s assertions would be for naught. When questioned by Members, the then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), responded with the claim that

“every single procurement decision went through an eight-stage process”.—[Official Report, 8 July 2021; Vol. 698, c. 1060.]

That assurance was a fiction. That same week, the Government revised their position, admitting that the eight-stage procurement process was not in place until the end of April 2020, and that contracts awarded before that date had avoided such scrutiny.

There are many outstanding questions for the Government in that regard, some of them subject to legal action that remains sub judice, so I will observe the rules and leave such matters to the courts. But I repeat a request I have made before. If the Government have nothing to hide, why do they not submit to a full independent public inquiry that could exonerate them?

On testing, Operation Moonshot was heralded as a means to create a world-leading and largely home-grown testing capacity, but the programme failed to launch, never mind get to the moon. In late 2020, Moonshot was subsumed into another costly fiasco—NHS Test and Trace, which was set up in May 2020 with an opening budget of £22 billion, with a further £15 billion, totalling £37 billion, over two years. What of the UK testing capacity? To date, I know of only one UK company that has been able to navigate the ever changing maze of validation. Yorkshire-based domestic diagnostic firm Avacta Life Sciences is just one of the many UK diagnostic companies that claim to have a world-beating product that is certified for use in Europe but not in the UK. Omega Diagnostics in Alva, Scotland was one of the two companies publicly promised contracts. On 15 March 2021, in a now infamous tweet to UK firms Omega Diagnostics and Mologic, Lord Bethell, then Innovation Minister in the Department for Health and Social Care, publicly promised diagnostics contracts, with the hundreds of jobs necessary to fulfil them. Those UK companies were subsequently abandoned without explanation.

The Government must explain to the domestic diagnostics industry, including to those who made investment decisions based on Lord Bethell’s public commitment, how that was allowed to happen. What action has been taken to address that disgraceful, damaging and market-distorting behaviour from a UK Government Minister? It is beyond comprehension that regulatory barriers have since been erected to further frustrate the ambitions of domestic providers while simultaneously ensuring continued UK dependency on companies based in China.

Given the recent shortage of test kits, I welcome the wider interest in this matter today, but it is beyond comprehension that the Prime Minister should stand at the Dispatch Box and accuse anyone else of running down the UK diagnostics industry when that is exactly what his Government have been doing for two years. This is not just my opinion but that of many in the industry and their investors, who have looked on in disbelief at the Prime Minister’s comments this afternoon. It is the Prime Minister who does not have a clue what is going on. Not only do tests have to secure Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency approval, but they now have to pass the coronavirus test device approvals process while Chinese imports are completely exempt. It is an utter disgrace that the Prime Minister does not know this. If MHRA acceptable usage rules were good enough for overpriced imports at the start of the pandemic, why is not full MHRA approval sufficient for these domestic tests?

In the case of Omega and Mologic, test design and validation is not really the issue. They were contracted to manufacture lateral flow devices to the Department of Health and Social Care’s specification. It was the Department’s responsibility to supply a test design to Omega for manufacture and not to supply one for approval. That makes the Department’s betrayal of Omega all the more disturbing. What is going on? To add insult to injury, the Department is now pursuing Omega for £2.5 million because of its own failure to progress the contract. According to Omega, it would have had to capacity to deliver 1 million to 2 million tests per week had the contract gone ahead, and Mologic could potentially produce even more. Does the Minister accept that had the Government followed through with this contract as planned, we might not be so vulnerable to global pressure on tests and reagents? Does he agree that this must change, and change immediately?

Those who have been following this matter, most from beyond the Chamber, will know that I have been raising concerns about testing capacity and quality since July 2020, when we had a unique opportunity to get ahead of the curve. From my July 2020 questions to Professor Whitty about how we build capacity, to my repeated challenges to the then Health Secretary over inflated claims of the accuracy of lateral flow test devices, my concern has always been genuine. That concern is no better illustrated than in the words of Lord Bethell in an official letter of 11 December 2020, in which he stated:

“We are not currently planning mass asymptomatic testing; swab testing people with no symptoms is not an accurate way of screening the general population, as there is a…risk of giving false reassurance. Widespread asymptomatic testing could undermine the value of testing, as there is a risk of giving misleading results.”

That view was supported by the Government’s own evaluation, which found that the Innova lateral flow device missed 60% of infectious cases, including 30% of the most infectious, yet it was given unwarranted confidence by UK Government and the devolved Administrations.

UK industry insiders tell a sorry tale of ever-moving goalposts, and no clearer did that become than with the introduction of the coronavirus test device approvals regulations last year. This legislation protects underperforming imports and creates additional hurdles, barriers and costs for domestic manufacturers. In practice, it means that they can secure MHRA approval but only sell into Europe. The only conclusion I can come to is that the UK Government were, and still are, actively and deliberately sidelining their own industry and innovation in favour of cheap imports, with massive mark-ups for profits for middlemen.

It is not just the UK Government. The Scottish Government have bought into the whole debacle despite having Alva-based Omega Diagnostics on their doorstep. This has been a four-nation approach of abject failure. What about new technology beyond lateral flow devices? Lateral flow devices have a place in testing, but, like PCR, their use is limited and imperfect, and we need to plan for the future. We cannot afford to get this wrong. I have engaged with two artificial intelligence diagnostic firms, AI Diagnostics and MediChain, both developing state-of-the-art AI tests north and south of the border. Both are being ignored by the UK Government, but not by the rest of the world. How can it be that the rest of the world sees the value of UK domestic diagnostic products, both lateral flow devices and new tech, but not its own Government?

As a constituency MP, a fundamental part of my job is to bring investment, jobs and prosperity to my constituency, which I do actively and with growing success. Is that not the job of Government too, especially one whose stated objective is to build back better and take back control? The world is clamouring for lateral flow devices and the market has been cornered by countries with far deeper pockets and much more nimble politicians than the UK. Like Nero, however, the UK Government have fiddled while they burn the domestic diagnostics industry down. It is utterly shameful. If exceptional usage agreements could be found for completely discredited Innova tests, which the United States Food and Drug Administration said were fit only for the trash, why can the UK Government not provide approval for domestic diagnostics providers now to secure domestic production and supply capacity?

On vaccine procurement, I will focus on Valneva, the vaccine company based in Livingston, Scotland. The former chair of the UK vaccines taskforce, Dame Kate Bingham, set out in her evidence to the Science and Technology Committee just before Christmas that the UK Government’s decision to cancel the contract with Valneva was “short-sighted” and “problematic on various counts”. In her Romanes lecture on 23 November at the University of Oxford, she said that the decision was “inexplicable” and

“set aside the need to build resilience in the UK’s pandemic preparedness capability through a…flexible state-of-the-art manufacturing plant…able to manufacture vaccines to any format as might be needed”.

Dame Kate told the Science and Technology Committee that the aim of the contract was to provide the UK with “flexible, state-of-the-art manufacturing capability” that could give the UK the edge over other vaccines, given Valneva’s unique ability as a whole virus vaccine to readily adapt to emerging variants. She said:

“By cancelling the contract, we lose that capability.”

In her Romanes lecture, she also remarked:

“Some might consider this behaviour as acting in bad faith.”

The chief executive of Valneva, Thomas Lingelbach, said that the Government threw it “under the bus”. The Scottish newspaper the Sunday Mail’s reporting on the issue has been second to none.

What happened to Valneva is nothing short of a scandal. The contract was pulled just before the phase 3 trial results were published, causing the share price to halve, but the results showed the vaccine to be highly effective and safe. It is the only inactivated adjuvanted whole virus covid-19 vaccine candidate in clinical trials in Europe. Inactivated vaccines are a well established, tried and tested technology that has been used over the last hundred years to vaccinate billions of people, including for seasonal flu, hepatitis A, polio and rabies. The Valneva vaccine could therefore play a vital role in tackling vaccine hesitancy among certain groups concerned about novel vaccine technology. It is also cost-effective compared with existing alternatives.

At best, the decision to cancel the contract exposes the economic and public health incompetence at the heart of the UK Government’s covid planning. At worst, it shows an act of wilful and malicious economic vandalism that has placed the existing jobs of the Livingston workforce in the balance and put a potential further 200 jobs at risk.

This is a company that did everything it was asked to do by the British Government, and more, only to have the rug pulled from under it. If that was not bad enough, its integrity has been impugned by accusations of breach of contract which may, according to Dame Kate Bingham, be designed as a means to avoid paying costs incurred up to that point—costs incurred at the request and for the convenience of the UK Government. No wonder she concluded:

“Is this really, all in all, an example of industrial strategy of which the Government can be proud?”

Despite everything that has happened, the UK Government still have the opportunity to do the right thing. They can restore the contract, secure existing and future employment, and safeguard a cutting-edge state-of-the-art facility and manufacturing capability for the benefit of the people—not just in Scotland or the UK, but across the world.

One advantage of the vaccine is that it would allow the UK to meet its humanitarian responsibilities by supplying vaccines to COVAX without the need for a complex cold chain infrastructure. The European Commission, the Government of Bahrain and, more recently, Scottish Enterprise are in advanced discussions with the company to provide a grant of £20 million. They have shown faith in Valneva, and it is high time that the UK Government did the same.

In closing, I want to draw attention away from the mistakes of the past and on to how we conduct ourselves and how this Government must conduct themselves going forward. Covid now looks likely to be a permanent fixture. How we plan for that future has never been so important. It is not good enough to lurch from one crisis to another. We need to develop and build resilience. That means that we must be self-sufficient in testing, vaccination and treatment. We need a plan not for six months, not for a year, or even for five years, but for the next decade. Other countries are planning that far ahead and we must match them. Those who develop novel technologies that adapt will come out stronger. Those who try to get by making a fast buck on dodgy contracts will suffer, which is simply not good enough. We have a responsibility to develop the intellectual property and ingenuity to sell to the world and grow jobs and expertise here at home.

As I mentioned at the start of my remarks, the UK Government need to rediscover the values of integrity, responsibility and prioritising the needs of those whom we were elected to serve. They need to step up and support the PPE, diagnostics and biological science industries and build that capacity and capability across these islands in the coming years. Failure to do so will not be forgiven.

[The Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)]

I am very grateful to be speaking in this Adjournment debate on covid-19 contracts and I congratulate the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey) on his success in securing this debate.

As the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, covid-19 has presented this country with one of the most unprecedented challenges that we have faced since world war two. It has been imperative for us all to work together and to do so closely throughout the pandemic. This Government recognise the importance both of the key role of the devolved Administrations, and of our working together as one United Kingdom. It is thanks to that close collaboration and co-ordination that we have been able, as a United Kingdom, to achieve enormous success in, for example, our vaccine roll-out programme, where we are leading the world, and I hope that he will recognise that.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned personal protective equipment. The reality of the matter is that, since 25 February 2020, we have secured the production of more than 16.5 billion items of PPE, the majority of which have either been delivered or are on their way and enable us to meet the future needs of health and social care workers. Since 9 April 2020, more than 5.4 billion items of PPE have been ordered through the e-portal. We have also established a safety stockpile of all covid-critical PPE, with a tremendous contribution from UK manufacturers, to ensure that we can continue to provide an uninterrupted supply to the frontline. We have done so despite the fact that pressure from almost every country in the world put enormous strains on supplies of PPE. Therefore, we are working extremely hard to ensure that resilience and sustainability is built into long-term planning for UK manufacturers. The PPE cell, as it is called, has now developed a UK-based supply chain for PPE, and that is a complete turnaround from the situation before covid. We have been building UK manufacturing capacity and we have been doing so by signing contracts with more than 30 British-based companies for the provision of 3.9 billion items of PPE.

[Neale Hanvey]

rose—

[Michael Ellis]

I will just make some progress, if I may.

There has been an enormous effort and an enormous success, despite considerable international pressure, in establishing those routes and chains and developing them to supply the vast quantities that have been required by this country. We have done that with the assistance of more than 30 UK-based companies, which should be thanked for their work and their efforts.

There is a high-priority lane for PPE, and the high-priority mailbox was set up at a time when this country and our citizens were in need of urgent help. Many suppliers and individuals were rightly passing on offers of support direct to local MPs, both Government and Opposition MPs, and passing on their suggestions to healthcare professionals, civil servants and anyone they knew. They were right to do so to both Labour and Conservative MPs across the House, because they were seeking to assist the national interest in what was at the time a national emergency. They were keen that the Government procurement effort should know what was available.

The mailbox at the time allowed MPs, Ministers and senior officials to direct those offers to a dedicated location. The high-priority lane was simply one way of helping us to identify credible opportunities for PPE procurement, so that frontline workers received the protection they needed as fast as possible. It was in the national interest, it was a good thing to do and people should be thanked for their help in that regard.

Ministers were not involved in the decision to establish the high-priority lane; it was an internal process, if hon. Members would like to know, led entirely by officials. In order to demonstrate our commitment to transparency, we said on 17 November that the Government would publish, and we did publish, details of the suppliers identified through the high-priority lane and those who referred them through that route.

[Neale Hanvey]

I reflect on the comments the Prime Minister made to me during Prime Minister’s questions on 18 March 2020, when I asked him whether the priority should be the prize of beating covid rather than patents and profits. Does the Minister not share my concern that there have been significant mark-ups on a range of products, from PPE to lateral flow devices, so that companies that prior to the pandemic were in deficit now enjoy enormous profits—in the multi-millions of pounds—for doing little more than purchasing and passing on products to the UK Government and trousering significant profits? Does that not disturb him?

[Michael Ellis]

I do not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of business as some sort of enemy of the people, which is what he is effectively saying. Profit is not a dirty word, except possibly to the extremists on the far left. The reality of the matter is that we have sought the support of UK companies and they have come good on that support. They have therefore assisted the British people and our national health service by supplying PPE when it has been needed, despite enormous international pressures and demands around the world for those supplies.

I am not going to get into any individual characterisation of any particular cases, because I do not have the facts that the hon. Gentleman contends available to me personally. As a general principle, however, we have sought assistance and we have received that assistance, and that has been in the national interest.

The hon. Gentleman mentions the National Audit Office report, for example. That report, “Investigation into government procurement during the COVID-19 pandemic”, which was published in November 2020, set out the facts relating to Government procurement during the covid-19 pandemic, covering the period up to 31 July. The report recognised that the Government needed to act with “extreme urgency” to procure large quantities of goods and services quickly, which of course is common sense, and

“frequently from suppliers it had not previously worked with”.

The NAO report that the hon. Gentleman mentions recognised that in a “highly competitive international market” we the UK had to deal with companies we had not previously worked with and we had to do so at speed, under considerable pressure. The NAO found “no evidence” of ministerial

“involvement in procurement decisions or contract management”,

so I hope he will read the report he has quoted.

I am conscious of the time, so I will make further progress. The hon. Gentleman talked about testing equipment. There is currently no shortage of lateral flow tests.

There is enough stock to meet demand across the range of distribution channels, but tests are made available via home delivery channels each day. If they are not available at a specific time, people are encouraged to revisit the site later as more become available. We are issuing millions of rapid tests per day via home delivery, with record numbers distributed in recent days. We must balance the demands on the delivery network carefully, as the hon. Gentleman will recognise, to ensure that PCR and lateral flow tests can be delivered to homes across the country. We have worked with Royal Mail, for example, to increase capacity for home delivery of testing kits to 900,000 a day in response to unprecedented demand, and to ensure that even more people can order PCR and lateral flow tests directly to their home. That is a monumental achievement, and the UK is leading the world in this area.

[Neale Hanvey]

That is not true.

[Michael Ellis]

I know that the hon. Gentleman wants to be critical, because he wants to be critical of the UK, but it is leading the world. One and a half million tests a day—we spent £37 billion on Test and Trace. We have increased deliveries by 100% from 120 million to 300 million in the month of December, and that is more than any other country in the world. We have tripled the supply for January and February from 100 million to 300 million a month, so the UK’s testing programme is the biggest in Europe, with over 400 million tests carried out to date—twice the number in France and more than four times the number in Germany. The split of the tests sent each day—PCR and lateral flow tests—varies according to demand for PCR tests.

[Neale Hanvey]

Will the Minister give way one more time?

[Michael Ellis]

I am conscious of the time. The hon. Gentleman had quite some time for his contribution, but I will give way to him a second time.

[Neale Hanvey]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again—he has been a great sport.

I have one short question about the volume of testing devices. Does he have any indication of what percentage of the test devices that he has touted as the greatest number in the world were manufactured here in the UK by domestic diagnostic companies?

[Michael Ellis]

In times of urgency, we wish to source from the most immediately available sources. I do not have the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, but no doubt it can be provided later in writing. It goes without saying that we would wish to do everything that we can to provide support, but also to deal expeditiously with urgent demand. As well as the rapid expansion in delivery capacity to people’s homes, the UK Health Security Agency has increased test availability at pharmacies and so on. We want to ensure that there is a reliable test supply over the coming weeks. That is the most important thing, and we are working to procure hundreds of millions more.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, what we have learned from covid-19 is how the UK Government can work strategically and at scale to save jobs and support communities across the UK. We are all on that side—that is what we want to do. I want to support people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and I am sure that he would want to support people in constituencies around this country, working alongside the devolved Administrations to keep every citizen safe. That is our priority, and we want to support people no matter where they live in the United Kingdom. No part of the UK could have tackled this crisis alone. The Government have provided £400 billion of direct support for the economy during the pandemic to date. The United Kingdom has delivered, and is continuing to deliver.

I would say in conclusion that I am grateful for the valuable points raised by the hon. Gentleman throughout his remarks, but the Government are taking decisive action to reform the public procurement rules to create a system that is simpler, more open, fairer and more competitive. We are working on that alongside the full inquiry into the covid-19 response, which will take place this year.

Question put and agreed to.

Government Response to Covid-19: Public Inquiry

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I want to focus my comments on page 1 of the report—in particular, the fact that the Government accept that there will be an opportunity to look back at some undefined “appropriate time” in the future. I raise the concern that at some “appropriate time” in the future does not deal with the problems that we know exist already today. That underscores the necessity of building public confidence in the decisions that we make in this place by holding an inquiry as quickly as possible. We already know from comments today that public confidence is waning and app usage has dropped off, and other compliance concerns have been raised. At no time is that more important than in the grip of a public emergency such as the pandemic.

The Government have repeatedly called for the House to get behind their plans. However, the message that they give has been mixed and the information that has been requested to enable Members like me to get behind those plans has often not been forthcoming. Observant Members will have noted that my efforts to seek transparency in respect of the surveillance and testing of covid have largely fallen on deaf ears. In July 2020, at nadir regarding the number of cases following the first wave, I first raised my concerns with the chief medical officer. More recently, I raised concerns about the sensitivity of Innova lateral flow devices to the delta variant—on 29 June and again on 6 July in a follow-up email. On each occasion that I raised my concerns with the Minister for Prevention, Public Health and Primary Care, the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), I was advised that information would be forthcoming, but I have still not received those data.

So concerned was I that I wrote a piece, published in The Scotsman yesterday, that raised the concerns on which I have not been able to get answers from the Government. Last night, The Scotsman took down that article after legal representatives of Innova intervened with quite wrong accusations that I was comparing lateral flow devices to PCR tests. I made no such assertion or comparison. Innova questioned the US Food and Drug Administration’s decision, which I will not go into, given the time I have, but which is pretty well set out in various articles, including in The BMJ.

That there was such action—when I cannot get an answer from the Government, when I have raised my concerns in this House, and when I have written a piece for a reputable newspaper and the contractors the Government are working with seek to shut the conversation down—is an unacceptable position for any democracy to find itself in. I feel I am being prevented from carrying out my role and that the Government are preventing me from properly scrutinising their actions. We need urgent action to change that.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

May I be one of the many to congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on being pinged into your position at such short notice?

Let me pick up on the remarks of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey) about his being unable to do his job. Collectively, Parliament is doing a great deal of scrutiny of the whole covid pandemic.

[Neale Hanvey]

I agree that scrutiny must be done, but if I cannot get a sensible answer from a Minister at the Dispatch Box, am given glib replies and am not provided with the information that I have rightly requested, that makes scrutiny almost impossible.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s frustration, but I have recently served on the Public Accounts Committee, I am Chairman of the Liaison Committee and I have served as Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and I see the Science and Technology Committee, the Health and Social Care Committee and other Committees of this House doing a great deal of really drilling-down scrutiny, so it is not as though no scrutiny is taking place.

I suspect that during this debate we will hear a mixture of the Opposition claiming it is an outrage that there is not an instant, fully comprehensive public inquiry lining people up against the wall to be shot and the Government saying there is not possibly any time for any of this. I have some sympathy for the Government’s position. A senior permanent secretary told me that Secretaries of State regularly complain, “Where is my permanent secretary?”, and it turns out they are preparing to go before another Select Committee. So much scrutiny is going on that is already almost impeding the Government in what they have to do.

We have to remind ourselves that a public inquiry is only a means to an end. The overriding aim of any public inquiry—this is a case in point—is that it should be part of a process that will restore justified public confidence in our system of government, which would satisfy the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. We must therefore prioritise: it is going to be an enormous undertaking. A lot of it should be set aside for the future and we should concentrate on what is most urgent.

What lessons need to be learned now to prepare better for the next pandemic, which could be imminent? Why was our response so slow to build? Why, like so many Governments around the world, did we continue to pretend that there was not going to be an impending emergency? That happened not just in this country but everywhere. What planning had been done and why did it prove so ineffective? What new, permanent machinery of government and capability does there need to be to address the failings so that early indications of a pandemic threat lead to timely and effective action? What parliamentary Committee should oversee all this and hold the Government accountable?

The role of Parliament is to stop the Government fudging the terms of reference, to guarantee the independence of the chair and to prevent the Government from kicking all the difficult issues far into the future. Under my chairmanship, we looked at the Chilcot inquiry. So often, inquiries are actually a means of delaying scrutiny and delaying a reckoning on the issues, as opposed to learning the lessons.

I just add that the public would expect wilful wrongdoing to be punished—backward accountability, I call that—but not an inquiry to apportion blame, least of all for party political reasons. What the public want is honest and open truth about what has happened, which will not happen if witnesses are seeking to avoid blame, so I fully support what my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) said about making sure that the inquiry is not about apportioning blame.

The purpose of an inquiry like this is to establish truth so that we can hold those in power accountable for what they will do in future to make sure things are better planned and turn out better. That is what I call forward accountability, and I think that is what Select Committee scrutiny in this House should be about.