Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nicholas Brown and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 19th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

T3. The National Grid’s main east coast electricity cables cross the River Tyne overhead and act as a constraint on trade on the river, the more so since commercial demand now asks for higher and higher offshore structures to facilitate renewable energy. My hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon) was able to put that point to the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions on 22 January 2020. The Prime Minister replied that“we will do whatever we can to ensure that it is sorted out as fast as possible.”—[Official Report, 22 January 2020; Vol. 670, c. 297.]That was widely welcomed on Tyneside by me and my colleagues as well as local industry. Would it be possible for me, my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside and my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) to have a meeting with the appropriate Minister to take the Prime Minister’s urgings forward?

[Mr Speaker]

I remind hon. Members—I know that Chief Whips and Whips do not know—that topical questions are meant to be very brief.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Nicholas Brown and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 9th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that these proposals will result in young people from deprived backgrounds being penalised and discouraged from going to university? No student should have a debt around their neck at the very time they want to make progress in life.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

May I just offer a little help to new Members? You cannot just walk into a debate and intervene straight away. You need to listen to the debate for some time before intervening.

[Mr Brown]

In fairness, Mr Deputy Speaker, I took the intervention, but I accept what you say.

There is an issue for those who rely on working families tax credits and who are in relatively low-paid jobs in the north-east of England. Let us take the example of a lone parent with two children who is working 16 hours a week on the minimum wage. Once both changes have come into place, the Chancellor’s living wage announcement makes up about £400, which is just under half the £860 that person would lose from the tax credit change. I listened to the earlier exchange between the Front-Bench teams. I take into account what was said and accept that it might ameliorate the position; none the less, the change is shown in the Red Book as a saving to the Exchequer, which means that it is money that my constituents get now but will not be getting in the future.

The reduction in the employment and support allowance to jobseeker’s allowance levels will not help anyone find a job; it just makes them poorer. The public sector pay freeze of 1% for the next four years is on top of a public pay policy that saw a freeze for two years from 2011, then below-inflation settlements of 1% up to the current financial year. This will be the longest sustained public sector pay freeze ever, and it is just not fair on the workers, especially the low-paid public sector workers. The benefit tapers have been narrowed, and on top of all that there is the benefits cap itself. I am not against the cap in principle, but reducing it from £26,000 to £23,000 in London and imposing a lower regional ceiling of £20,000 outside London is harsh on the English regions.

The Chancellor has burdened housing associations with an unwanted right to buy, which is good for the few but not for the many. Local authority housing stock is still burdened by the bedroom tax, which is not just unjust but actually counter-productive in communities such as my own constituency where a private one-bedroom bedsit in Jesmond costs more to rent than a two-bedroom council flat in Walker. Yet full housing benefit will go to the one-bedroom flat, and those in the two-bedroom local authority-owned flat will be penalised by £8 a week. I do not see how any of this helps the north-east. Certainly, it does not help to make work pay.

In some parts of the country, it may be reasonable to argue that employers should pay better wages rather than rely on the state to top them up, but the danger for the north-east is that those who rely on working families tax credit will not be able to get extra hours at work to make up for the shortfall in their weekly income and will not be able to get a pay rise because there is not sufficient profitability in the business for that to be sustained.

Local Growth White Paper

Debate between Nicholas Brown and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 28th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. May I suggest very short questions and quick answers? That would be very helpful.

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

What the Secretary of State has announced today is very wrong. One NorthEast did a good job for the north-east of England. How can he justify some form of new localism when he is centralising every major decision in his Department and has been completely unable to answer the question of what will happen with residual assets and residual liabilities? Will he be far more specific on that point than he has been in answer to the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith)?