Budget Resolutions
Nusrat Ghani Excerpts(5 days, 20 hours ago)
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Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. To accommodate all Back Benchers, the speaking limit is to be dropped to four minutes.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
Much of the discussion on the Budget has focused on the national level, and rightly so, but for my constituents the true test is whether life in Aylesbury and the villages feels any different—whether decisions in the Budget translate into thriving local businesses, stronger communities and more confidence in our futures. I was out knocking on doors at the weekend, and one lady said to me, “This town is miserable now, isn’t it?”, which always pains me to hear. She said that when she wakes up on a Saturday, she does not head into Aylesbury; instead, she will go over to Tring or Wendover, where she can park cheaply and easily, and find all the shops and cafés she needs. In some ways, she has a point. Over the last decade or two, we have lost many of the shops, pubs and cafés that we used to have, but I know that our town has huge strengths and potential, and this Labour Government’s Budget helps us to start to turn a corner.
The fact is that our towns do not thrive by accident. They rely on entrepreneurs who are prepared to take risks, family businesses that have served their communities for generations, and independent retailers that give our town centres their character and identity. These are not simply economic actors; often the same people are sponsoring local sports clubs and community events—I think, for example, of the long partnership between Xpress Labels and Aylesbury United—and they help young people get into work. If we are serious about the future of our high streets, we have to back those businesses to succeed. We have to do that nationally and locally, as Aylesbury town council does very well.
I have spoken to many businesses that tell me that business rates remain one of their biggest cost pressures, and the brilliant organisation Buckinghamshire Business First has also raised that issue with me. I welcome the decision to expand small business rates relief and take thousands more local firms out of business rates altogether. Across Buckinghamshire, 2,000 businesses will now be paying no business rates at all. That makes a real difference to small businesses that are trying to invest and take on staff. I also welcome the real-terms freeze in business rates for the next two years for all our retail, hospitality and leisure businesses. I know that the additional 20% relief for pubs, social clubs and most live music venues will be welcomed by many constituents who have written to me about these matters.
I welcome the focus in the Budget on support for entrepreneurs and early start-ups. We should be making it easier for people with a business idea to take that first step, which is why the decision to triple the tax-free trading allowance from £1,000 to £3,000 is important. Whether someone is testing a new business idea, turning a hobby into a source of income, or exploring self-employment for the first time, that measure helps to remove barriers and encourages enterprise. I am pleased to see the introduction of the young entrepreneurs allowance, to help young people trying to get into work. I also celebrate further support for female entrepreneurs in the Budget through the new scale-up programme for female founders, and the additional backing from the British Business Bank. We have many brilliant entrepreneurial women in Aylesbury—I think, for example, of Carys Dorritt at The Polka, a digital marketing agency—and we should absolutely be on their side.
Helping our businesses to flourish is just one part of the transformation that I want to see in our town centre and on our village high streets. From creating more spaces for young people to improving our green spaces, and from improving public transport to sorting out parking, there is much more to do, but backing businesses that are the beating heart of our towns and villages is a great place to start.
If anyone doubts that change is possible, they should take a walk along the High Street opposite Vale Park. For eight years, residents have been campaigning to remove the ugly and dangerous scaffolding that blocked the pavement on the main route into town, and I have been pleased to support them—and finally, last week, we won! You may ask, Madam Deputy Speaker, “What’s the deal with a pile of scaffolding at this late stage in the debate?” Well, what was supposed to be a temporary fix became, over eight years, a sign of how little Buckinghamshire council seemed to care about our town. But it has gone now; we have proved that we can start to change things, and I am hopeful about what is next.
Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)
I am always a little worried when Members cheer because I am last!
I join colleagues in recognising and supporting important measures in the Budget that will give people across Lichfield, Burntwood and the villages—the place I call home—valuable breathing space. There are 34,790 households across my constituency that will receive £100 directly into their bank account in January because of this Budget. That comes on top of the removal of VAT from energy bills, the return of the £2 bus fare, and the promise to get rid of standing charges on gas. Haulier businesses have also been supported by the delay to the fuel price escalator. We could go on and on and on. Any of those changes on their own will not be the end of the cost of living crisis, but I am already hearing from people back home who are so happy that this Government understand the importance of giving them that breathing space in their personal finances.
The changes to small business rates relief announced by the Chancellor in the Budget will mean that many businesses in our town and city centres and in our villages will be lifted out of paying any business rates at all, and many more will see a smaller bill. Fifteen premises in the centre of Sankey’s Corner in my constituency will be taken out of paying that bill at all—that is a huge number of shops that will now have more money to put back into their businesses and the community. I have been unable to get the total figure for how much will be saved there, but it looks like it will mean an investment into that community of anywhere between £50,000 and £100,000 per year forever. That is a real investment in a high street in Burntwood by this Government.
Similarly, of around a dozen shops on the high street in the village of Fradley, four will no longer be paying business rates at all and a further four will have their bills cut because of this Budget. On top of that, across Lichfield and East Staffordshire, some 764 retail, hospitality and leisure businesses will see their rates frozen in cash terms because of decisions made by this Labour Government.
I am pleased that the Government are pressing ahead with plans for devolution across Staffordshire and Stoke. While the previous Government pushed power and funding into the West Midlands conurbation and the East Midlands combined authority, they gave a cold shoulder to the county to the north. This Government are prepared to step up and give our county the powers, and drive the economic growth, to bring good jobs across our area. Just yesterday, I spoke to the principal of South Staffordshire college about the importance of getting these powers to where they need to be, so that our skills training can meet the needs of our local area, especially the rural areas of my constituency and the wider county. The economy needs workers, and ensuring that those workers have the skills they need is something that is so important to areas like Staffordshire. I am excited to get the decisions on skills made in the right places.
There are a few other points that I wanted to pick up, but in the interests of time I will turn finally to the mineworkers’ pension scheme and the British Coal staff superannuation scheme. The pension schemes for former coalminers and mineworkers have been poorly set up for so long, so I am very pleased that this Government have moved even closer to delivering the justice that coalfield communities—like mine, in Burntwood, Handsacre and the surrounding areas—deserve. The end of the Treasury grabbing half of the scheme surpluses should be applauded; the end of the standstill clause so that bonus pensions can be guaranteed should be applauded; and the previous return of the investment reserve to the people who earned it should be applauded. All those steps for communities should be applauded, and they simply would not have happened without a Labour Government.
However, there needs to be action on the last remaining piece of the jigsaw: the final reserve—the guarantor’s fund. The commitment from the Chancellor to move quickly on this, and the commitment this week from the Work and Pensions Secretary this to happen in weeks not months, have been really welcome, but we cannot wait. Miners have already waited for far too long. Every day, miners leave the scheme. Every day, we lose people. We cannot afford to wait any longer. We must push for them, because it is their money—they earned it—and this Labour Government need to do what we should always do: stand up for our mining communities.
Performance of Royal Mail
Nusrat Ghani Excerpts(1 week, 6 days ago)
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Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. We have a number of people wishing to contribute. To get as many people in as possible, there will be a speaking limit of four-and-a-half minutes.
Chris Curtis (Milton Keynes North) (Lab)
Like many others, I will start by paying tribute to our fantastic posties, particularly the one who delivers my mail to Richmond House—constantly reminding me, through letters from constituents, just how dreadful the service that they are experiencing from Royal Mail has become. I will not spend too long listing the many examples of atrocious service that Royal Mail has been delivering in my constituency, but let me give one example. A letter dated 7 July arrived on 4 August, five days after the recipient was supposed to have had an operation. Just in case that was not bad enough, Royal Mail also messed up on follow-up letters from the NHS about cancer checks. We have heard that Royal Mail is planning to get this service fixed by Christmas. I should like to know which Christmas, because in August one of my constituents managed to receive a very, very late Christmas card. I am not sure that we have got last Christmas fixed, let alone Christmas this year.
No one is going to argue that this is acceptable but, like many Members, I find it particularly frustrating that every couple of months or so I go to the delivery office and we have that conversation in which the people running it tell me that, yes, they have been facing challenges, but don’t worry, they are on track now. I go back two months later and it is just like groundhog day: we have exactly the same conversation. I am told, “Yes, there were problems when we last told you that we would fix them, but don’t worry, they are being fixed now.”
We have heard all the statistics showing that Royal Mail is completely failing to meet the targets that it has set, although those targets have been lowered. We have also heard that prices have been rising at the same time. I think people appreciate the challenges that Royal Mail is facing—there has been a dramatic drop in the number of letters, from the 20 billion that we saw years ago to just 6.5 billion today—but there is something fundamentally wrong with the idea that every time Royal Mail fails to meet the standards required of it, our response should be to lower those standards until they become achievable.
When investors bought shares in Royal Mail, they knew that they were buying into a business with certain regulatory obligations attached. Those obligations were part of the deal. While circumstances change and regulations sometimes need to catch up with them, we cannot have a system in which shareholders get to enjoy the potential rewards of private ownership while the public are expected to accept an ever-diminishing service.
Even if this is a difficult problem to solve, solving it should start with an acknowledgment that the decision by the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition to privatise Royal Mail was a mistake. The argument for privatisation is normally that the discipline of the market will drive improvements in efficiency and service. If a company does a bad job, customers can go somewhere else, and the threat of losing those customers gives the business an incentive to improve. But, as should have been obvious at the time, that mechanism does not work with Royal Mail. If my constituents do not receive their hospital appointment letters, they cannot just decide to have them delivered by somebody else. They do not get to choose which postal network the NHS uses to reach them. We have lost the accountability that comes with public ownership, without securing the competitive pressure that is supposed to make private ownership work.
There is a much bigger problem with the way in which we regulate many of these privatised monopolies. In the short time that I have left, let me build on the argument advanced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) about the options for renationalisation, which is certainly something that I believe we should look into. However, this challenge goes way beyond Royal Mail. We now have a problem across our economy with unaccountable, regulated monopolies that simply do not work. If you speak to Ofcom—I may be the only person here who has some sympathy with Ofcom’s position—it will tell you that Royal Mail, like so many other regulated monopolies, such as the water companies, is in financial distress. We cannot use fines as a way to stop those companies being in financial distress, but we still need to produce an incentive for them to improve their behaviour. I urge the Government to consider more innovative ways than just using the fines and the regulatory model to incentivise better behaviour. For example, they should be looking at using—
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. We have had a few people withdraw, so we have a few more minutes on the clock; Back-Bench MPs now have six minutes. I call Sadik Al-Hassan.
Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
My constituency covers city and rural areas, and the villages I represent have the greatest problem with getting regular deliveries, and elderly constituents there who cannot rely on email are really struggling. Villages like Tean, Swynnerton, Oulton and Fulford must get the support they need, and it is interesting that you are experiencing the same issues in Staffordshire.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I am not experiencing these issues—well, obviously my constituency is, but I am talking about this debate—so I ask Members not to say “You” or “Yours” please.
Josh Newbury
I know that the Rugeley sorting office does not cover your constituency, Madam Deputy Speaker, or my hon. Friend’s constituency, but the story she tells about the particular difficulties of the service experienced by her rural constituents is echoed in my constituency. On Saturday, I held a coffee morning in Prospect Village, quite an isolated rural village, and I heard exactly the same concerns, so I am completely with her on that.
A constituent of mine—I will keep them anonymous because I do not want to put them in a difficult position—has shared with me some of the things that are happening to postal workers locally. I am told that overtime is rarely permitted, meaning that when a postie cannot finish their round, some of the post inevitably has to go back to the sorting office, where it builds up. Some workers are now doing what two postal workers would previously have done, with tracked parcels and first-class post taking priority. That inevitably raises questions about what is realistically expected of staff, and what happens to the letters that have to be left behind.
I am told that new recruits are being sent out alone very quickly, moved between unfamiliar rounds and put under pressure to meet targets, sometimes facing managerial meetings when they fall short. That is a considerable ask for someone who is still learning the job. In the past, new posties would spend months learning alongside experienced colleagues before being expected to manage a round independently. Many new starters leave within a short time, and I am told that the way some staff are spoken to by managers is completely unacceptable, with conversations that should be about helping people to improve instead leaving them feeling belittled or intimidated. I have heard stories of multiple managers waiting for posties to finish their rounds, only to tell them that they are too slow, even after they have faced wind and rain, or got held up by uncontrollable things like roadworks or livestock on country lanes.
Knowing a round takes time. Knowing that community, spotting when members of the public might need help and taking pride in getting the job done are all part of what made our postal service the envy of the world, and worthy of its royal moniker. What particularly struck me was my constituent’s description of postal workers as a tight-knit group who continue to look out for one another and pull together. That sense of solidarity is clearly still there, but it is being strained to breaking point by the pressure from management that workers describe and by the uncertainty around hours and rounds. I am also told that trade union reps are struggling to keep up with the number of staff seeking their help, such are the difficulties in many sorting offices.
Fixing the issues Royal Mail faces is far from straight forward. A lot needs to change, but that change has to work for the people delivering the post and those waiting for it at home. Given what all of us in this House are hearing, it falls to us to ask whether we are even on the right track. The consensus tonight is a resounding no. Royal Mail execs should meet with us here in Parliament, explain what is going wrong and set out what they will do to put it right. Our constituents deserve more than apologies and hollow promises. They deserve a reliable service and we need to see meaningful action, right now, to make that happen.
Dr Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
In the summer of 1914, as Britain was on the brink of war, Mr Asquith, 62, the Prime Minister, was having an affair with Venetia Stanley, 26. They wrote several letters to each other each day, for there were multiple postal deliveries daily, at a cost of 1d each, the equivalent of 62p today, although as we all know the cost of a first-class letter is now £1.80. Asquith sensibly destroyed the letters, but his letters to Venetia Stanley—all 300,000 words—were retained. When the writer Robert Harris wrote the novel “Precipice”, he invented her letters and used Asquith’s originals. That was an amazing work of a novelist’s imagination, for as we all know letters tell magical stories.
We have heard many passionate contributions. I will call out particularly the amazing contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery), who is no longer in his seat. We have learned that times have certainly changed for this essential service.
From Beyton to Stanton and from Honington to Rattlesden, villages across my constituency have one thing in common: a completely unreliable service. As we have heard, constituents are missing hospital appointments, bank correspondence and other important communications. Does the Minister agree that that is simply unacceptable? I agree completely with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), who is also no longer in his seat, that the solution to this issue is to renationalise the service.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the unenviable task of following my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley).
When I talk to my constituents, they regularly tell me that Royal Mail is failing them, and I know that the Minister, my constituency neighbour, will have heard the same complaints. The issue comes up in surgeries and when we knock on doors, and when letters eventually arrive at my constituency office, it comes up in them too. In a world where we expect things to improve, our postal service is going backwards. That creates anxiety, as people miss bills and NHS appointments, and it pushes people further apart when a postcard from a loved one is lost or a birthday message arrives late.
I know that the Minister shares the frustration and is working hard to turn things around. She understands, as I do, that places such as Calderdale often feel the consequences of those failures first. Over the last decade, people in towns and villages such as ours have seen the steady erosion of services that they once took for granted. We have seen that with our buses, banking, department stores and high streets, and people increasingly see it in Royal Mail.
Calder Valley does not have a single urban centre; it is a network of towns and villages that stretches from Todmorden and Hebden Bridge through Mytholmroyd, Elland, Ryburn and Brighouse and all the way to Rastrick. When organisations start cutting costs, communities such as ours are among the first to feel the consequences, and it is communities such as ours that often feel the most isolated. My older constituents are more likely to rely on the postal service; it is how many of them hear from their hospitals, the DWP, their bank and the local council. While the digitisation of public services has brought a huge benefit, it cannot come at the expense of those who cannot get online. They are some of the most vulnerable people in our society and the most likely to be affected when post does not arrive on time. A missed hospital appointment, an unpaid bill and interrupted energy supplies can have serious consequences through no fault of their own.
What happened to Royal Mail is the story of a failed ideological experiment. For years, we were told that privatisation and market discipline would drive up standards and drive down costs. Instead, my constituents have watched services deteriorate while accountability has become harder to find. There is no real market; my constituents cannot shop around for someone else to deliver their appointment letter or switch providers because their pension statement arrived two weeks late. Like the water industry, it is a service that people depend on but have no choice over. That is why it is so frustrating.
This is not just another company; Royal Mail is part of the fabric of this country. Its origins can be traced back to the 16th century. It maintains our iconic red post boxes and the local postmen, who we all value, but in recent years Royal Mail has been treated like a commercial asset, rather than a public service. The Opposition spent years picking through some of our most valued institutions in the hope of making a quick buck, with an ideological trust in the market without properly considering the long-term consequences.
My constituents are looking for evidence that things are changing. Life is stressful enough, and we should not have to worry about whether an important letter will show up on time. I welcome the determination that the Minister has shown in holding Royal Mail to account and tackling the legacy that we have inherited, but the truth is that for far too many people in Calder Valley, things are still not good enough.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call Andrew Ranger to make the final Back-Bench contribution. Other Back Benchers who have contributed to the debate should make their way back to the Chamber.
Andrew Ranger
The hon. Member makes a really good point. That is definitely something we need to investigate, because it is probably a very valid point.
Postal services remain a lifeline for those who do not have digital connectivity, and any failures disproportionately affect the most vulnerable. As has been acknowledged across the House, Royal Mail is facing difficult circumstances. Letter volumes have fallen dramatically over many years and parcel volumes have grown significantly. That reflects changes across the world. Royal Mail is operating at a loss and faces significant structural challenges.
All that being said, understanding those challenges cannot mean accepting poor service. One of the most concerning issues raised with MPs by postal workers and their representatives is the widespread perception that parcels are increasingly prioritised over letters, and constituents say the same. That is despite assurances to the contrary. I have constituents who see parcels arriving promptly, on time, delivered by Royal Mail when they were supposed to be, but not letters.
Serious workforce concerns are also being reported. As we have heard, there have been retention problems due to changing terms and conditions, reports of 400 postal workers leaving the organisation each week, a culture of intense monitoring and an increasingly difficult working environment. It is clear that Royal Mail cannot provide a high-quality service without a motivated and stable workforce. At the same time, serious questions remain about the long-term sustainability of the current model, in terms of the universal service obligation, the delivery of letters, and the regulatory model.
My constituents and everyone else’s want three simple things: they want their letters delivered on time, they want transparency when things go wrong, and they want accountability from both Royal Mail and the regulator. Too often, MPs are told that performance is improving while residents continue to experience delays. Too often, complaints disappear into automated systems without satisfactory answers, and too often, local concerns are met with generic responses rather than meaningful action.
As has been said, Royal Mail occupies a unique position in our national life. It is not just another company; it is a vital part of the UK’s social and economic infrastructure, and it remains a public service even though it is a privately owned company. That is why this matters. I urge the Minister to continue engaging with Royal Mail, Ofcom, workforce representatives and consumer groups to develop a long-term vision for postal services. Any future reforms must protect the universal service obligation, while recognising the needs of communities, supporting a sustainable workforce, and ensuring that no part of the country is left with a substandard service. I wholeheartedly agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) on some of the options that he presented about a possible future for Royal Mail.
Our constituents do not expect perfection—they understand that times change and markets evolve—but they do expect that when a letter is posted, it arrives when it should. That is not an unreasonable expectation; it is the foundation of trust in a service that has connected communities for generations.
Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)
I thank the hon. Members for Redditch (Chris Bloore) and for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) for securing this very important debate.
As has been highlighted, the post is not a nostalgic luxury. For millions of people it is how the hospital tells them when their appointment is, how the banks send their statements, and how they find out about their benefits. People need to know that their post will arrive on time so that they can go about their lives. As the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) eloquently put it, it is also about that human connection in a world where we feel disconnected. I am sure that many Members know the impact of a handwritten note, especially to constituents who are having a difficult time or facing difficult issues. It really does make a difference.
We also know, as so many Members have highlighted, that the posties are working hard to get us our post, but Royal Mail is letting them down. I have so many incredible posties, but I would like to give a special shout out to postman Paul. Members would not be surprised to think that Postman Pat had jumped out of the TV and arrived in Tring with Jess the cat in tow, because Paul delivers not only letters and parcels but joy to residents and visitors alike—a special thank you to him.
In Harpenden and Berkhamsted, I have Gordon and Evina from Jersey Farm who told me that they had gone 10 days without a single letter—so many Members have highlighted this—and then their postwoman arrived with a bundle of 12 or 13. Among them was an invite to my local surgery which—just as the hon. Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) highlighted—had already happened. They had already complained about the postal service. They raised the issue with me too and I continue to raise it, but the problem has not been fixed. It clearly goes on.
Another constituent in Jersey Farm, Irene, had no post for seven days and then 35 items in one go, including a new debit card. She also had to face severe delays in receiving a letter relating to a recent hospital appointment on how to take certain medicines. When people such as Irene and her husband rely on letters about regular medical appointments, there cannot afford to be delays. A constituent in Sandridge said that they are lucky to get one delivery a week—the House has highlighted that, unfortunately, that is quite a good delivery service—and that should not be happening in 2026.
Those are not isolated stories. They are happening up and down the country. Citizens Advice found that over Christmas 16 million people had letters delayed. I cannot remember which Member it was who asked at which Christmas this issue would get sorted out, but it is a very good question. We have 5.7 million people who have suffered serious consequences, including missed health appointments, fines and benefit decisions. A third of people who use Royal Mail recognised exactly what Gordon and Evina described: no post for several weeks and then five or more letters landing at once. The sorry saga of Royal Mail delays has been going on for far too long and people are rightly furious. Royal Mail is simply not delivering the service it is required to provide. It has missed both its first and second-class targets every year since 2021-22. Last year, just 75.7% of first-class letters arrived the next day, against a target of 93%.
The regulator has not got a grip. As the Business and Trade Committee put it:
“Ofcom is failing as the statutory regulator of the postal service”.
It could not even tell Parliament how many letters were arriving late. Instead of holding Royal Mail to account, Ofcom lowered the bar. It cut second-class deliveries to alternate weekdays and relaxed the targets. The Liberal Democrats warned at the time that this was letting Royal Mail off the hook. In the first three months, Royal Mail missed even those lower targets. It now says it will not meet them until April 2027.
Somehow, people are paying more for less. A first-class stamp now costs £1.80. In 2022, it was 95p. That is seven price rises in four years for a service that keeps getting worse. Many have highlighted that parcels are getting delivered but I would also highlight, as someone who ran an online business and whose mother had an online business, that products are also sent in letters. Something that has not been touched on much is the impact this situation is having on small businesses. I know this from first-hand experience. The cost is extortionate and with small margins it is killing a lot of businesses. The terrible service is also killing small businesses, when they have to compete with online services such as Amazon. This is a key service for people and businesses, and they do not need excuses; they need action.
Will the Minister commit herself tonight to consulting on new powers and teeth for Ofcom? Will she ask Royal Mail to publish performance levels for every delivery office, so that residents such as those in Jersey Farm and the many others mentioned by Members can judge for themselves? We must hold Royal Mail’s owners to their promises and fix the frontline. The Government say that they have secured legally binding commitments from EP Group to invest enough to deliver the universal service. When the Minister does meet Royal Mail, will she put the failing delivery officers at the top of the agenda, ensure that the agreements with postal workers are kept, and report back to the House with a timetable?
When post does not arrive, people miss appointments, pay fines that they never knew about, and lose faith that anything works. Christmas, Royal Mail’s busiest time of the year, is only weeks away, so this must be sorted out before then—but we all know that it will not be, and we will keep standing up for residents until it is.
Let me again thank all our wonderful posties who will be working so hard to deliver. We must ensure that Royal Mail does not let them or our local residents down.
Kate Dearden
I thank my right hon. Friend for the work that his Committee has done on this issue for his constituents and people across the country. I am aware that his Select Committee has written to Ofcom—I thank him for raising the issue again today—to seek further information about its plans to improve services. I met Ofcom last week, and I will continue to work closely with it. I will pragmatically consider any requests for additional powers, as we heard from the Secretary of State, where those are needed to support improved outcomes for constituents and customers across the country. We will be pragmatic about any requests, and I am meeting with Ofcom again soon to hear further.
In the meantime, I expect Ofcom to use the full range of tools at its disposal to secure a more reliable service for users. My right hon. Friend knows that I will continue to hold Ofcom and other regulators to account. On that point, in my recent meeting with Ofcom, I raised colleagues’ concerns about data on Royal Mail’s performance masking serious local issues. I have also stressed that the review over the coming months must take into consideration the wider challenges and the staffing, resources and workforce changes.
I will continue to raise the concerns, including those that lots of colleagues have mentioned. I am grateful to those who took the time to meet Ofcom directly the week before last to reflect constituents’ concerns, particularly parcel prioritisation, which we have talked about. I have heard about that at length from colleagues. Ofcom has confirmed that it is considering the role of the alleged prioritisation of parcels over letters as part of its ongoing investigation into Royal Mail’s performance in 2025 and 2026. I expect Ofcom will publish its findings in the coming weeks. Ofcom will be in no doubt about Members’ concerns following the meeting it had with them directly, today’s debate, the Westminster Hall debate and the concerns expressed by the Select Committee. I thank all colleagues for continuing to engage with myself and Ofcom on what they want to see and what they expect to improve.
On improvement, while there were some encouraging signs in the first quarter of this financial year with the roll out of the delivery model, that is only the start. Reflections clearly vary across the country on the impact of the roll-out, given what colleagues have said, and Royal Mail needs to turn this into sustained improvement that our constituents can rely on. That is why it is critical that any issues with the model between the workforce and management are resolved urgently.
I welcome the positive announcement by Royal Mail and CWU earlier today, which demonstrates a shared commitment to improving service performance, supporting the workforce and ensuring that the company is well prepared to meet customer demand over the Christmas period. That includes restarting the roll-out of the new USO delivery model, albeit over a slower timescale to account for the Christmas peak period.
To ensure that our constituents get the service that they deserve, it is critical that this engagement continues. The Secretary of State and I will be meeting with both Royal Mail and CWU next week to seek updates on progress. I know that postal workers have valuable insights on operations and thoughts about how things can be improved, and I am grateful for colleagues raising the reflections of the posties they have interacted with and met. It is important that they are also on board with any changes.
Hon. Members know that improving working conditions and standards for workers across the economy is important to me and this Government. The postal sector needs to work for consumers, businesses and workers. I am aware of concerns about the treatment and status of workers across the postal sector. The current employment status framework can leave very vulnerable workers without core and basic employment protections and rights.
Last week, along with some colleagues who are in the Chamber, I attended an interesting discussion on work and employment in UK parcel delivery with Sheffield University management school. That discussion aligns with the Government’s recently published consultation on proposals for targeted reforms on employment status, which will seek to address many issues—particularly around bogus self-employment—that colleagues have raised today; we discussed those issues at the roundtable, too.
I will move on to Royal Mail’s communication with colleagues. While local operational issues are for Royal Mail’s management to explain and address, I know that many hon. Members—as has been raised in this debate and beyond—are dissatisfied with the level of engagement that they have had with the company’s leadership. It is crucial that Royal Mail meets with Members of this House, listens to their concerns and sets out clearly what it is doing to put things right. That is the least that our constituents deserve.
I know that Royal Mail’s chief executive will now be meeting a number of hon. Members in Parliament next month, and I will continue to reflect Parliament’s concerns in my engagements with him—in particular, detailed information on local data and assessments of what is happening at constituency level. In my first engagement with the chief executive, I said that I would take seriously every complaint that is raised directly to Members via their constituents. As a constituency MP, I can share in the reflections and frustrations that colleagues have raised; when we receive those complaints, it is important that we have as much information as possible available to us—and early on. I would like to see that in a more proactive form from Royal Mail.
In addition to engaging constructively with Parliament, it is important that Royal Mail also listens to the concerns and suggestions of its workforce, who work so hard to deliver post across the nation. I welcome engagement, whether through formal or informal channels that are currently in place, such as the Q&A sessions that Royal Mail has introduced, or more directly from staff to senior leadership, but I urge Royal Mail to also to continue to listen to its workforce through their recognised unions and reps. The expertise and first-hand experience of the workforce must help to shape improvements.
Some Members also raised the idea of linking any further price increases to improvements in quality of service. I understand the frustration when people see prices rise but do not see the improvement in services that they rightly expect. Every pound matters to our constituents who are still struggling, and our constituents need to see the value as well as the reliability. Considerations around pricing regulations are a regulatory matter for Ofcom, which is considering this very issue as part of its consultation on pricing and affordability, which was launched on 16 October and will close on 27 November.
Our priority for Royal Mail has been scrutiny of the takeover and securing important undertakings to support the financial sustainability of the company and the long-term provision of the universal service obligations. Colleagues have given careful consideration as to where the Government can continue to play our part—some in quite significant detail—and I am grateful for all the contributions this evening. I commit to continuing to engage with all colleagues in the Chamber on the progress of the quality of service with Royal Mail. Colleagues know that, alongside the Secretary of State, I am meeting with the leadership next week, and we will always be happy to update colleagues following those discussions.
Royal Mail’s performance has not been good enough. Our constituents know it, the Government know it, the House knows it and Royal Mail knows it, so we will continue to engage with Ofcom, and Royal Mail, its owners and its workforce. But people do not want excuses—they want their post delivered on time. Ultimately, that is the only test that matters. It is a test that Royal Mail must pass, and it is the test that this Government will continue to hold it to.
I will conclude by once again thanking our incredible posties across the country. This is not a reflection on them, their hard work, and their service to our constituents and our communities. We are committed to bringing all parties to the table to resolve the issues that we have discussed today, because Royal Mail is a national institution that we want to protect long into the future and an essential public service that our constituents rely on. I thank all colleagues for bringing their voices and those of their constituents to the Chamber today—I hope that they have been heard loud and clear. I look forward to working with all colleagues going forwards.
Mineworkers’ Pension Schemes: Nottinghamshire
Nusrat Ghani Excerpts(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I do not require to be thanked, because I am not speaking in the debate.
Steve Yemm
I thank my hon. Friend for that recognition. It is important that we recognise those campaigners who are still fighting. I have to say this to every one of them: you have made a difference and a lot of what I am about to describe would not have happened without you.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nusrat Ghani Excerpts(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Jonathan Reynolds
Obviously, the immediate activity is supporting the affected employees throughout the consultation period. My hon. Friend will know that the use of the powers of Government—the powers of the state —to make sites available quickly for inward investment to the UK has always been a priority of mine. He is right to say that the National Wealth Fund has already made a nominal allocation to Grangemouth. Other programmes in the industrial strategy, such as the strategic sites accelerator, are all about trying to improve the pace at which we can take advantage of the investment opportunities the UK is presented with. I promise him that I will remain in close consultation with him, and of course with the Secretary of State for Energy and Net Zero.
Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
It is British Beauty Week—I can see you have been celebrating, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I am sure the Secretary of State has been, too—but it is tough out there for our salons. The industry lost one in five employees last year, which is the largest loss of any job type in the UK. Many will have been young people starting their careers in the industry, and few salons can afford to employ and train them because they are getting hammered by the jobs tax, soaring business rates and higher utility bills. What hope is the Prime Minister offering them?
Jonathan Reynolds
I notice the hon. Lady did not go first on British Beauty Week to me, but to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and that is fair. British Beauty Week is an important moment, not least to celebrate the contribution of the sector and the, I believe, over 5,000 new apprentices starting in the sector in every corner of the UK this year.
The hon. Lady in effect asks what the big economic story in the UK is, and I would say that the hope comes from the fact that, despite the challenges that exist in the global economy around the world, the economy under this Government is clearly performing more strongly than it did for 14 years under the Tories. My proof points for that are that wages are rising faster than prices and, crucially, that GDP is rising not just overall, but per head, as opposed to the modest increases under the Conservatives, which were really from population increases and large-scale immigration. An economy performing more strongly is in the interests of every business. On the opportunities for young people, there are the tax and fiscal incentives I have mentioned, with the further agenda coming through the Milburn review.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
Youth unemployment stands at 15%, and in London that figure is 25%, while 700,000 graduates are out of work. Retail and hospitality are cornerstones of the everyday economy, providing vital employment, driving local growth and creating thriving town centres. However, average employment costs have increased by 11% since Labour took office, which disproportionately affects sectors that traditionally offer entry level jobs. Policy decisions taken by this Government are making it impossibly hard for businesses to provide young people with their first foot on the career ladder. Will the Secretary of State acknowledge the damage being done to young people, and will Ministers ensure that, as they implement secondary legislation under the Employment Rights Act 2025, they balance the rights of employees fairly with the needs of businesses to provide jobs for young people?
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Back-Bench MPs can only come in if the question is about Jodrell Bank observatory. [Interruption.] I call the shadow Minister.
Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—the renationalisation of the railways is not working. [Laughter.]
The Drayson partitions exist to ensure that costs which the UK must meet and cannot change, such as international subscriptions that give us access to scientific facilities, are treated separately to costs that we have control over, such as grants funding. With the Science and Technology Facilities Council given a flat cash settlement, but with international subscriptions rising with inflation, the STFC now has less money to spend on actual research, leading to world-leading scientific research being dropped and to the closure of facilities such as Jodrell Bank. Can I ask the Secretary of State who made the decision to disregard the Drayson partitions?
Chris McDonald
I agree with the hon. Member’s point about the need for Britain’s discoveries to be scaled at home rather than abroad. I am taking an end-to-end approach on that, starting with scientific discovery and hopefully ending with large companies listed on the London stock exchange, supporting businesses throughout that process. UKRI and Innovate UK are doing great work in that area, supported by the increased role of the British Business Bank.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee.
Dame Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister to his new role as well as this Government’s emphasis on driving growth through innovation in every region of our country, as recommended by my Committee’s recent report, “Flying Blind”. It was called that because it identified a lack of data and information about the factors that drive growth and how to measure success in our regions and across clusters. The report called for a dashboard. Will the Minister tell me what progress has been made on that dashboard, and has he looked at the Cambridge x Manchester Partnership baseline report, which identified a number of indicators, including company stock, funded count, and disclosed funding by employee band?
Jonathan Reynolds
Everything the hon. Gentleman has said sounds hugely attractive to me. He has clearly already engaged with Government to some degree, but I will follow up on his question and see what we can do to support his local area.
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
May I start by thanking the Secretary of State for his very measured and intelligent thoughts about the GDP growth rate? I lament that some others in his Government seem almost complacent about the International Monetary Fund’s increasing GDP growth expectations from 1% to just 1.3%, putting us second in the G7. Does that not show a certain lack of reality in the Government? What we should be looking for is GDP growth of more like 2.5%. The G20 is averaging 3.1%, and we are 14th in the G20. Does the Secretary of State recognise that over-regulating, over-taxing and charging too much for energy is holding back our great entrepreneurs and businesses, who could be delivering the GDP growth that this country really needs?
The Minister for the Future of Work (Kate Dearden)
I know all too well the devastating impact that rogue traders can have on constituents, having had similar discussions in my own constituency and with many colleagues across the House too. That is why my Department supported the independent furniture and home improvement ombudsman’s new approved code and payment protection scheme, backed by independent dispute resolution, to help hard-working families identify trusted traders and ensure that people can spend their money with greater confidence and security.
We remain committed to supporting the Competition and Markets Authority and local trading standards in their ability to impose penalties via the courts. This Labour Government are delivering everyday fixes to protect families and give them room to breathe.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. We need to move a bit faster, so questions and answers must be shorter.
Bill Esterson
My constituent Joanne paid £11,000 for a new kitchen. Her house was left in a terrible state and she was unable to get the builder to return to rectify the substandard work. It also turned out that he was associated with 21 other companies mostly in the building trade, many of which have been dissolved. The Minister mentioned quite rightly the new code for the home improvement sector, which will give confidence to consumers and support to reputable traders. Is more not needed to go after the cowboy builders to ensure that constituents such as Joanne can get the remedy that they so need?
Kate Dearden
My heart sank when I heard the news, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, not only for raising this today, but for all his work in the sector on behalf of his constituents since first coming to this House. I spoke with the chief executive of Carlsberg Britvic yesterday, and I know that the proposal to close the brewery has not been made lightly. He reassured me that the team at Burton have shown exceptional commitment, skill and professionalism, and have made an enormous contribution to Burton upon Trent’s proud brewing tradition. This proposal is not a reflection on them or the quality of their work. Consumer tastes are constantly evolving, and this proposal reflects the particular long-term challenges relating to cask ale, which I have spoken to my hon. Friend about, and on which I will continue to work with him closely. I know that this will be a concerning time for workers at Marston’s. We recognise the impact that these proposals may have on those workers, their families and the local community as the company begins consulting, and I look forward to discussing this further with him.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
The hospitality sector provides around 300,000 jobs for young people every year and contributes £96 billion annually to the economy. Despite that, the Government continue to hammer it with a series of blows, to the extent that the sector has the highest effective tax rate of any sector in the economy, paying the equivalent of 82p in taxes for every £1 of pre-tax profit made. That eclipses the 50p average rate across our economy’s 11 main sectors. What steps are the Government taking to tangibly lower business costs, so that hospitality businesses can employ more young people?
Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)
The Minister for the Future of Work (Kate Dearden)
I thank my hon. Friend and Labour colleagues for their work on this. I agree that the Royal Mail service has been unacceptable for too long, and that the pace of improvement must increase, and my constituents share exactly the same frustrations. The Government expect Ofcom to use its full range of existing tools to secure better outcomes for postal users, and I will continue to work closely with it and with colleagues in the House to deliver that.
Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
The Secretary of State confessed last month that business leaders have urged him not to return to the political uncertainty around our relationship with the EU. The Prime Minister has now completely ignored him, and them, and says that the UK could pursue a customs union or a single market, or go all the way back in. He clearly was not in the 2017 to 2019 Parliament; he has barely been in this one. Will the Secretary of State tell businesses what the Prime Minister’s preferred option is?
Jonathan Reynolds
I recognise the specific issues in Brighton, and what the closure of R-Bar and Charles Street Tap will mean for Brighton’s LGBTQ+ community. The Government recognise the needs of hospitality. We have talked in this Question Time about lower business rates, and about the doubling of the employment allowance. Of course I want to work with my hon. Friend, and I am grateful to him for raising this issue directly with me. No one ever turns down a visit to Brighton, so we will see if we can get that sorted.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
On Monday, the Prime Minister joined the Liberal Democrats in acknowledging that refusing to countenance closer UK relations with the EU would be a “dereliction of duty”, yet the Government remain committed to their red lines. Joining the single market and a new UK-EU customs union could boost UK GDP by at least 3.6% and result in around £27 billion a year in extra tax revenue. Does the Secretary of State agree that refusing to cross those red lines, while knowing the damage that Brexit continues to cause businesses up and down the country, is in fact a dereliction of duty?
Jonathan Reynolds
Those are obviously dramatic figures —I assume that they have happened through revaluation. I will endeavour to get the hon. Lady in contact perhaps with the Treasury, rather than this Department, to support her constituency.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
On Tuesday, the head of MI5 warned that AI could help terrorists to develop bioweapons. In the Select Committee, OpenAI and Anthropic told us that statutory AI safety controls are now essential. We are blessed to have the AI Security Institute in this country, but it is no longer enough. Will Ministers confirm that we will have Government amendments on Report of the Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill to ensure that we have statutory AI protections to keep this country safe?
Greenhouse Gas Removals Sector
Nusrat Ghani Excerpts(4 months ago)
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The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
May I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) on securing a debate on this important topic? I thank him for all his engagement on this and many other issues, and for his leadership on the energy transition. In the rising noise in and outside this place against facts on the climate crisis in front of us today, it is genuinely a relief to have conversations with him about what we can do about the reality. On that, he makes a hugely important contribution to the House. In all my engagements with him, I come away having learned something new; I thank him for that.
I will start where the hon. Gentleman started: by recognising that we cannot put off our response to the climate crisis to tomorrow. We are now living through extremely hot weather caused in part by the action that we did not take to tackle the climate crisis. While this is one of the hottest summers that we have lived through, it is almost certainly one of the coldest summers that we will live through, so every single step we can take to tackle this crisis should be taken.
We absolutely need greenhouse gas removal technologies to reach net zero and to tackle the climate crisis. Such technologies give us a not just a huge opportunity to balance the residual emissions from hard-to-decarbonise sectors, but—as we have said throughout all of the work the Government are doing on the clean power mission and beyond—an exciting opportunity to grow our economy and secure new investment into the UK. When I say that, I mean all parts of the UK, including Northern Ireland, which the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) rightly always challenges me on. This is not just the Government’s view; it is firmly the view of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and our own independent Climate Change Committee. That is why we are looking ahead and investing in these technologies.
Last year, in our carbon budget and growth delivery plan, we set out how the UK will continue to reduce emissions in a way that lowers bills and secures good jobs, including developing and deploying GGRs at scale. We forecast 0.7 megatonnes of engineered GGRs deployed in 2030, with that figure increasing exponentially to 21.8 megatonnes by 2035. We are laying the groundwork now to support the massive growth that we expect to see in the 2030s, because, as exciting as these technologies are, they are new, and it will take a comprehensive and holistic policy framework to get us to where we need to be.
I will set out six steps, many of which will respond to the points made by the hon. Gentleman. The first is providing support to incentivise private investment through a contractual revenue support mechanism. That is the GGR business model, designed to stimulate private investment in GGRs by providing revenue support under a contract for difference mechanism. It aims to capitalise on growing demand for high integrity GGRs in the voluntary carbon market and, in the longer term, in the UK emissions trading scheme, designed to enable the deployment of GGR projects at scale in the UK while ensuring at all times value for money for taxpayers.
We are employing similar approaches to support energy from waste, with carbon capture and storage through the waste industrial carbon capture business model and large-scale bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS, through our power BECCS business model. We are also exploring the case for financing GGR technologies not reliant on CO2 transport and storage infrastructure, such as enhanced rock weathering and CO2 mineralisation in building materials, as we recognise that there are a number of benefits to a diverse portfolio of GGR technologies. No decisions have been made on the particular intervention or mechanism.
I want to reference the point that the hon. Gentleman has raised with me before and he raised today as well on the British carbon bank, or the idea of some kind of revolving fund. It is a serious idea that we will look at carefully, because we recognise that there is a real benefit to having that portfolio in place. We have already invested money, as I will come on to, but looking at interventions like that is important. We will continue to engage with him and the wider sector on how that could work.
Secondly, we are introducing a new standard to ensure that investors and the public have confidence in these technologies. To complement the business models, we have commissioned the British Standards Institution to develop methodologies under an official UK GGR standard, and that is expected to be published next year. This is about making sure that carbon removals are genuine and verifiable, and having a standard in place so that we can objectively assess the viability and suitability of projects applying to the business model.
The BSI development process generates high-integrity standards and benchmarks, bringing together industry specialists, academics and policymakers from across relevant sectors to produce a consensus-based final product. It is an example of a strong point made by the hon. Gentleman: everything we need to make this work is already here in Britain. The academics, the industry specialists, the skills and the capabilities are all here, and we just need to look at how we capitalise on those resources as quickly as possible.
Thirdly, we know that carbon capture, usage and storage infrastructure is critical for enabling some of these technologies, and we have been committed to deploying CCUS at scale. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer) about the need to capitalise on investment that we have already made, and to continue down that path by investing in these projects. In October 2024, just a few months after we took office, we made a significant funding commitment of up to £21.7 billion over 25 years to kick-start the CCUS industry here in Britain. GGR projects have been able to apply to the expansion of the HyNet and East Coast clusters through the HyNet Track-1 expansion process, the Teesside selection process and the non-pipeline transport pathfinder process—all very catchy names. I can already confirm that the HyNet Track-1 expansion includes two GGR projects that are in the negotiation phase of that process.
Fourthly, we are investing in innovation. For many of these technologies, there is research that still needs to be undertaken and there are breakthroughs that are waiting to be made. We have already invested over £80 million through the direct air capture and greenhouse gas removal innovation programme and the UK Research and Innovation funded greenhouse gas removal demonstrator programme and its co-ordinating hub.
The carbon budget and growth delivery plan committed to launching a series of cleantech innovation challenges that target mission-critical innovation. These will set specific, measurable, time-bound goals for innovation, co-owned with industry, which will mobilise public and private sector investment and focus policy efforts on creating the necessary market pull for new technologies and, in the process, de-risking those investments into new innovations.
That leads me to the fifth point about how we stimulate market demand. We want to engineer GGR projects to generate high-quality carbon credits that can be sold on high-integrity negative emissions markets, and so we will maximise the opportunity for the voluntary carbon markets to channel private finance into those GGR projects. At COP29, we launched six principles for voluntary carbon and nature market integrity to guide organisations into taking voluntary action towards nature-positive and net zero goals.
When we consulted on those principles with stakeholders, they highlighted that, in order to unlock the full potential of the voluntary carbon market, there is a need for greater clarity on the definition of high-quality carbon credits and how credits could be used in corporate net zero claims. Alongside the Governments of Singapore and Kenya, we are leading development of the Coalition to Grow Carbon Markets to strengthen corporate demand for high-integrity carbon credits, and anyone and everyone is welcome to join that coalition.
Our long-term ambition is for a competitive negative emissions market, underpinned by demand in the carbon market and the UK emissions trading scheme. We have signalled our intention to include GGRs in the UK ETS. Last summer, the ETS authority published a response to the consultation on the inclusion of GGRs in the ETS, setting out further details on how we will do this.
Finally, we are considering the findings of the independent review into GGRs that we commissioned last year under my noble Friend and all-round GGR and general energy expert and nerd, Lord Whitehead, who did fantastic work. I can assure the hon. Member for West Dorset and the House that that review is certainly not gathering dust on my desk; I have been flicking through it far too much for it to be gathering dust. I can say to the hon. Gentleman that the review includes many interesting and useful conclusions. We are taking time to go through them in detail, but we aim to publish the response this month. I am sorry that that is not quite an exact date, but I hope it is close enough.
I hope that the steps that I have outlined today will reassure the House that this Government take the future of GGRs extremely seriously. We know that these technologies will be essential to reducing our emissions while growing the economy on the road to net zero by 2050, and that is why we are acting now. I want to conclude by coming back to the point where the hon. Gentleman started. It is absolutely critical that we rebuild, where we can, the consensus on acting on the most existential crisis that this planet faces. The climate crisis is not some future threat that we can have a theoretical debate about now and worry about later; it is a very real and pressing threat, and GGRs will play a really important part in addressing it. The Government are determined to make that happen, and there is an economic opportunity if we get this right as well. I absolutely commit to working with the wider industry, with the hon. Gentleman and with everyone else who has an interest in this fascinating subject in order to make this work.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Unless I am misunderstanding him, the Minister has committed to making a policy announcement this month. There are only a few more sitting days, and he will know that Mr Speaker does not take lightly policy announcements being made outside the House; this House is where those announcements should be made for scrutiny by Back-Bench MPs. No doubt the Minister’s staff will be scribbling that down.
Question put and agreed to.
Commonhold and Leasehold Reform: Managing Agents
Nusrat Ghani Excerpts(4 months ago)
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Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)
I thank the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) for securing and leading this important debate. I pay tribute to the work of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee under her leadership, which generated a 159-page report containing a series of recommendations. I am conscious of time, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will not comment on the remarks made by Members from all parts of the House, but I extend my thanks to all those who made considered and important contributions.
The Opposition support leasehold reform. As we have heard many times, there are approximately 5 million leasehold properties in England and Wales, and it is clear that the leasehold system comes with problems and requires change. For too many leaseholders, the costs just keep piling up. In 2023-24, the average ground rent paid by a leaseholder in England was £304. Alongside that, there was a 5.8% increase in the annual service charge, taking the average annual cost to nearly £3,000. In London, those costs are even higher, with an average of £412 charged for ground rent and service charges sitting at about £8,000 in some modern high-rises.
Even at their highest, the costs continue to rise, bringing more uncertainty for leaseholders. Service charges in particular can rise astronomically, leaving leaseholders having to pay thousands of pounds more than they ever intended or believed they would pay, and some flats virtually impossible to sell. On top of that, for too many leaseholders, the costs they pay come with no transparency about how their money is spent, how spending decisions are reached, and who signs off on them. Lack of clarity around these costs is a problem that policy makers cannot ignore.
Knowledge of these problems is not new. In 2018, the then Government established a regulation of property agents working group under the chairmanship of the noble Lord Best. The group examined the key issues impacting leaseholders and the need for reform in the sector. The group issued its report in 2019 and proposed a new regulator and regulatory regime, and a new enforcement system. Neither the previous Government nor the current one did a great deal to bring that about. Seven years later, we still await any meaningful Government action building on the recommendations of the report, and the draft Bill is silent on that issue.
It is not the only thing that leaseholders have to wait for. In two years, the Government have not yet implemented the full measures promised in the Conservative Government’s Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024. The Government have said that they have their own plans for leasehold reform, but leaseholders have been told time and again to wait for a new Bill because of significant flaws in LAFRA. For two years, we have been told that primary legislation is required to fix the Act, but nothing has been done, and the draft Bill produced by the Government in January this year does not address the supposed flaws of the previous Act.
That prompts the question: where is that legislation and what is taking so long? Why are the Government proposing to bring forward a Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill that does not offer these fixes? If the eventual Bill remains in line with the previously published draft Bill, when can we expect the next Bill to address those changes? Assuming this Parliament lasts for a full term, we are now 40% of the way through its life, and we have had more Secretaries of State in that time than actual leasehold reforms.
The Housing Minister himself spent the end of his time in Opposition highlighting the need for speedy implementation of new rights for leaseholders, pressing the previous Conservative Government to
“give us a sense of the timetabling of some of the more important provisions in the Bill, because leaseholders watching our proceedings will want to know when the rights provided for by the Bill can be enjoyed.”
Well, he was clearly correct, so I wonder what the shadow Minister of that day would say to the Housing Minister of today. I believe he would ask the same question as me: if not now, then when? When can leaseholders expect to see their rights come into force?
At the end of January this year, the Government published the draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill. According to the draft Bill, leaseholders can expect a ban on leasehold for most new flats; a new commonhold system, including rules for mixed use, mandatory reserve funds and quicker debt recovery; a ground rent cap of £250 per year for many existing leases, which reduces to a peppercorn after 40 years; abolition of forfeiture and the introduction of a more proportionate court-based enforcement regime; and the repeal of rentcharge powers on freehold estates.
Perhaps most eye-catching of those is the much-touted ground rent cap, as the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee set out in her opening speech. The Opposition recognise the need to support leaseholders facing high costs, but while capping ground rent may sound like a silver bullet, for many leaseholders it might be closer to a damp squib. That is because ground rent is usually nowhere near the level of service charges, which can have a genuine and very real impact on a buyer’s ability to find a mortgage. For the many leaseholders burdened by excessive and unclear service charges and rising council tax, the ground rent cap is a mirage in a desert of higher council taxes, escalating service charges and poor building management.
While this move may have some marginal benefit to leaseholders, there could be ramifications elsewhere. Investors have expressed deep-seated concerns about the potential impact on investor confidence and faith in the UK system. That is because the UK has long been seen as a safe, secure and predictable place for sound investment, and ground rent investments, favoured by UK pension funds among others, have become an important part of that environment. The Government’s plans to unilaterally and retrospectively revoke key aspects of pre-existing ground rent contracts have rippled through our financial districts and risk significantly negative impacts on investor confidence, with a wider undermining of our economy.
The risk of freeholder insolvencies does exist and could be dangerous, as the Government know because their own impact statement lists freeholder insolvencies as a realistic cost that could have spillover impacts on leaseholders. If the Government get this wrong, there could end up being a significant, albeit unintended, risk to leaseholders—people with families and mortgages, or those living in their first home. All of this prompts the question: why is the Government’s focus on ground rent and not service charges? I hope the Minister will take the necessary time to address these very real fears and explain his choice.
As outlined by the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green in her opening speech, one of the main focuses of today’s debate concerns the question of the regulation of managing agents and the Select Committee’s recommendation that clauses providing for this are inserted into any forthcoming Bill. We have heard compelling arguments from hon. Members from across the House, and powerful testimonies.
With the Government’s plans for a wholesale market conversion to commonhold, this issue becomes all the more pressing. That is because in moving to commonhold, there is the prospect of responsibility for building safety and management for thousands of flats moving from professionals to residents. That might work perfectly with a dedicated, well-trained and attentive residents’ committee at the helm, but what about the multitude of buildings where that may not be the case? What happens when the roof begins to crack, the water starts to seep in and the lifts begin to break down? What happens when the sinking fund has been drained and the residents’ committee chair, who might be under mounting social pressure, is forced to cut service charges to unhealthily and impractically low levels?
If commonhold is to become the norm, we must ensure that the Government are not laissez-faire in how they implement the system. They must not blindfold residents who may sleepwalk into a situation in which their homes are under management without proper training, a strong mandate and adequate knowledge of building safety and flood risks. To guard against that, it may very well be that commonhold residents choose to hire a managing agent to care for their homes.
Managing agents exist today—some are good, and some are not—but, as I outlined at the start of my speech, many leaseholders have spoken about the bad experiences they have had at the hands of some agents. The difference between managing agents being appointed under a commonhold system rather than a leasehold one is that the managing agent’s client would be the homeowners themselves, not a distant freeholder. The residents themselves would have the power to hire and fire the managing agent. That is why the Committee’s recommendations are so important.
If there is to be a regulator, it must have teeth, as the noble Lord Best said in his 2019 report and implied again in his evidence to the Committee on 10 March, and as the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green said in her speech. If there is a regulator, it is absolutely crucial that it works as intended. It would need to have the requisite expertise, personnel and budget to discharge its duties efficiently. Lessons must be learned from the failings of other regulators, such as the Building Safety Regulator.
The Government are considering bringing their Bill forward and examining the Committee’s work. If the Government decide to heed the recommendations of the Committee, I hope the Minister will commit to working across parties and with the whole industry to ensure that the Government get it right the first time.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Minister Pennycook has agreed to give a short speech to accommodate the next debate.
British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme
Nusrat Ghani Excerpts(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
When I was elected nearly two years ago, the very first person to contact me was a BCSSS member. There are about 750 BCSSS members in my constituency, and the campaign has certainly been part of my heart ever since I was elected. I know that many BCSSS members will be watching tonight and listening to the debate, and I am sure that the stories you tell will ensure that they are—
Lee Pitcher
The Minister talked earlier about putting the wrongs right, and those decisions that will be made in the future will hopefully do just that, but once that is done, we want to make sure that they are future-proofed for everyone, regardless of what happens in the future. Will the Minister also commit to ensuring that once those wrongs are put right, that will continue, whoever governs in the future?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. You have had more than one intervention, Mr Pitcher.
Chris McDonald
Like my hon. Friend, I sincerely hope that these changes will permanently right the wrongs. It is important that we think carefully about moving as much money as possible out of the scheme, but also ensuring that there are sufficient funds to pay existing pensions.
Let me briefly raise the issue of the mineworkers’ pension scheme. The Government are taking a similar approach to both schemes. In 2024 they transferred the mineworkers pension scheme reserve, increasing pensions by 32%, but I want to reassure members of that scheme that I am also considering proposals for future arrangements put forward by their trustees. Those proposals could further enhance members’ benefits, and we are seeking to do that as swiftly as possible, while also managing the future funding risks.
Steel Tariffs
Nusrat Ghani Excerpts(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. May I ask the Minister to keep his responses short? Back Benchers should keep their questions on point as well?
Chris McDonald
I will endeavour to do so, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Let me say to my hon. Friend that I will do exactly what I have done since the day these draft measures were announced: engage with Members on both sides of the House and with all businesses. I hope Members will feel that I have endeavoured to do that. We have had had cross-party discussions and I have had many meetings with businesses, trade associations and individual colleagues, and I am determined to continue to do so.
Gurinder Singh Josan (Smethwick) (Lab)
This issue has raised a great many concerns in my constituency and across the Black Country. I have been working closely with my colleagues in Sandwell in particular, and we have had many meetings with local companies and communication with my hon. Friends the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) and for West Bromwich (Sarah Coombes).
Hadley Industries, a large employer, is already considering downscaling its number of employees. Pargat Housewares in my constituency, another large employer, is a significant manufacturer of pots, pans and bakeware—in fact, it is one of the largest manufacturers in the UK, supplying most of our superstores and exporting. However, steel suitable for kitchenware is not manufactured in the UK in significant quantities and at competitive prices. What advice would the Minister give you give companies that are facing a 60%—
Chris McDonald
I am familiar with the issue of kitchenware, which is very similar to some of the other issues that have been raised. If a particular kind of steel falls within a tariff area, not because it is made or could be made in the UK but because it is grouped in that way as part of the trade measures, the quota is designed to resolve that. If the business in question feels that there is a problem with setting the quota, I ask my hon. Friend to write to me. Alternatively, representatives of those businesses could come and meet my officials.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. If Members have prepared a long question, I suggest they cross most of it out.
Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
On Monday my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) asked the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, the hon. Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), about the impact of these new steel tariffs on the defence investment plan. His answer was not particularly clear, which surprised me, given the strong representations that both he and I will have had from the Plymouth Manufacturers’ Group. What conversations have the Minister and his colleagues had with the Ministry of Defence about the impact of tariffs on the DIP, and will he agree to meet me and the Plymouth Manufacturers’ Group?
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I am going to let colleagues in on a secret: I cannot read their minds. If you are not continually bobbing, I do not know whether you are uninterested or want to be called.
Ann Davies (Caerfyrddin) (PC)
May I ask about jobs? I appreciate that the Minister has answered a lot of questions about tariffs, but a lot of my constituents work in Trostre, which is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith). We have talked a lot about the £2.5 billion steel fund. Nearly two years later, sites such as Trostre are still waiting, with no commitments, no timelines and no certainty on investment. No answers were found in the steel strategy, which was published in March. Can the Minister give me a straight answer on when Welsh steel sites will see investment from the steel fund?
Chris McDonald
The right hon. Member is quite right that there is a 12-month review. I thank him for his engagement, particularly with Stannah Stairlifts, but also for his further suggestions to me privately about how we might manage the transition. I want to reassure him that I am looking very carefully at the ideas he has raised.
To be clear about this, I think everyone in this House believes in free and fair trade, and we all wish we lived in a world where there were no tariffs. UK Steel has welcomed these measures, but has also said it would prefer it if there were not any tariffs. Unfortunately, this is the product of the world we are in. I do not think this is “mucking about with tariffs.” Essentially, we are responding to the global trading situation, and trying to ensure we have a strategy for a viable UK industry.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call Sir John Whittingdale, who, after hearing the answer, may wish to get into the private Members’ Bills queue.
Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
Indeed. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can Minister state what assessment he has made of the grades of steel that are simply not produced in this country? What is his message to companies such as C&M Precision Ltd in my constituency, and all those mentioned this afternoon, that face an immediate increase in their costs, because they have absolutely no alternative except to import their steel?
Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill
Nusrat Ghani ExcerptsMonday 8th June 2026
(5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Act 2026 View all Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Act 2026 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 8 June 2026 - (8 Jun 2026)
Chris McDonald
I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue of the London Screw Company, and also for the discussion he had with me about that very company last week. It looks to me to produce an extraordinarily high-quality range of products, and certainly better than I normally find for my DIY projects, so it is my intention to patronise that company in future—we should all have more high-quality ironmongery, I believe. In a similar vein, if my hon. Friend writes to me with further details, I will ensure that my officials look at that matter, but in the first instance we would look to see whether those steels are made or could be made in the UK.
Unless there are any further questions about downstream steel producing, I will move on to address more of the shadow Minister’s comments. She talked about the public interest test in clause 2. Some of the amendments would limit the test exclusively to consideration of the three factors in clause 2, whereas amendment 23 seeks to expand them to include the prevention of closure or job losses in Wales. The inclusion of the three factors in the Bill offers some additional weight, and of course any assessment of an intervention will need to be considered against them. However, there may be a good rationale for an intervention that moved beyond that and did not sit squarely under those factors, so in our view it would be sensible not to bind the hands of the Government in that way.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
Steel provides vital materials for our national infrastructure, from defence to renewable energy, and creates thousands of jobs across the UK. The Liberal Democrats therefore welcome the action that the Government are taking to protect British Steel and ensure that the blast furnaces in Scunthorpe do not go cold, but we are clear that the nationalisation of British Steel must be a temporary step to rescue the business before it can be returned to the private sector. We believe in a thriving, privately run steel industry, supported and empowered by the Government through an effective steel strategy.
Although the Liberal Democrats support this step, the Government must provide more detail on the plan, including how they will find private co-investors who can help to modernise the sites and put the money in to help to create more jobs. They must also ensure that the key stakeholders, including industries that rely on steel such as defence, are properly engaged in and represented through the process. We cannot afford another collapse of British Steel in a few years’ time, and we must move on from interim short-term measures to create a robust long-term plan for the future of the plant and sustainable domestic steel production, with an emphasis on national security.
I wish to speak first in favour of amendment 1, which stands in my name. Fundamentally, it is about parliamentary accountability. If the Secretary of State is to exercise a significant transfer power, Parliament should, at the very least, be told why that action is necessary and in the public interest. The amendment would not prevent the Government from acting; it would simply require Ministers to explain their reasoning before exercising the power, providing far greater accountability and transparency. Requiring a statement to both Houses would help to ensure that the use of the powers is proportionate, justified and open to democratic oversight. The Government already argue that the powers will be used only where necessary. If that is the case, there should be no objection to setting out those reasons clearly before Parliament. Amendment 1 proposes a modest and reasonable safeguard. It does not create a veto or impose an onerous process; it merely asks Ministers to account for their decisions.
I wish to speak in favour of amendments 2 and 3, which seek to ensure that regulations relating to property transfers and share transfers are made subject to the affirmative procedure rather than the negative procedure. The transfer of property or shares by ministerial regulation is not a minor or purely technical matter. These provisions are the heart of the Bill and give the Government significant powers with substantial financial, operational and public consequences. Given the importance of such decisions, does the Minister not agree that it is entirely appropriate that Parliament should approve such regulations, rather than having to rely on the limited scrutiny afforded by the negative procedure? The affirmative procedure would guarantee a debate and a vote in both Houses, ensuring proper democratic oversight before the powers were exercised. At their core, amendments 2 and 3 are about reinforcing accountability, transparency and parliamentary sovereignty in the exercise of delegated powers, and I urge Members to support them.
New clause 2, which also stands in my name, would establish a stakeholder advisory committee to ensure that decisions made under the powers in the Bill included input from the relevant groups and those most affected. The exercise of principal transfer powers could have major implications not only for the steel undertaking itself, but for workers, local communities, supply chains and strategically important industries across the country. The proposed committee would bring together voices from industry, the workforce and local authorities, ensuring that decisions were grounded in practical expertise and real-world consequences. The inclusion of sectors such as defence and critical national infrastructure is particularly important, given the strategic significance of the steel supply to national resilience and economic security. A structured advisory mechanism would improve transparency, strengthen confidence in decision making and help to ensure that interventions are sustainable and effective. New clause 2 is about ensuring that the public interest is determined not behind closed doors, but with the benefit of broad expertise and stakeholder input.
I wish to speak in favour of new clause 3, which recognises that intervention in a steel undertaking cannot simply be about ownership or transfer powers in isolation. It must be about people, jobs and the long-term future of industrial communities. If the Government exercise these significant powers, they should be required to set out a clear strategy for protecting workers and supporting economic transition. Not only is the steel industry strategically important to the national economy; it is often central to the identity and prosperity of the local communities within which it is situated. Workers in these industries possess highly valuable and specialised skills. Any transition strategy should therefore prioritise the protection of skilled employment wherever possible. Where change is unavoidable, there must be a serious commitment to retraining, reskilling and redeployment opportunities so that workers are not left behind. New clause 3 would help to ensure that Government intervention was accompanied by a coherent industrial strategy, rather than being another short-term fix and crisis management.
Steelmaking is of vital strategic importance to the UK. It creates thousands of jobs across the country and is central to many communities, and we rely on it for essential parts of our national infrastructure, from defence and transport to clean energy generation and advanced manufacturing. Although the Liberal Democrats are supportive of the pace and urgency of the Government’s action to protect British Steel, nationalisation must be a temporary step, and the Government must ensure adequate transparency and accountability throughout the process. I therefore urge the Minister to support these amendments, to ensure that the legislation can deliver the necessary support to the steel industry, while balancing the needs of local communities and workers and ensuring that the necessary steps are taken to ensure thorough parliamentary accountability.
Luke Myer
As a Back Bencher, I will always fight for more funding to modernise our steel industry. What I do know is that the current owners of British Steel are not responsible owners. We saw last year the crisis that was created when they failed to provide sufficient supply to keep the blast furnaces running. We cannot allow the current situation to continue if we are to protect our domestic industry. This Bill is about having the powers to nationalise and ensure that the national interest is served. Whether there is sufficient funding is a question on which I will continue to push the Government.
We are not focusing today on clause 58, but the freedom to make the necessary fiscal decisions to support operational stability and competitiveness is fundamental to the sunset clause we are discussing, as well as the potential for ongoing considerations on other critical assets that the Bill might be used for. It would be helpful to hear more about the Government’s intentions on issues like energy and procurement, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor (Alan Strickland) said. We had a positive intervention from the Cabinet Office last year and the ambition to increase domestic steel market share back towards 50% is right, but the test will be in the delivery.
For too long, we have had industrial strategies while approving publicly backed projects that import vast quantities of overseas steel. Taxpayers rightly expect public investment to strengthen British industry and British jobs. Mechanisms like contracts for difference and other subsidy schemes must align much more closely with procurement objectives, so that public money genuinely supports UK supply chains. The forthcoming defence investment plan is a major opportunity to ensure that we are using UK steel across the country in industrial communities to support national security. At the end of the day, economic security is national security. Britain cannot become dangerously dependent on overseas steel for critical infrastructure or defence capability.
While I support the shift to electric arc furnaces and the increased focus on how we use domestic scrap, which is welcome, Britain should seek to retain some primary iron capability. Other countries are investing heavily in technologies like direct reduced iron. We need only look at Luleå in northern Sweden, for example, where an operational hydrogen-powered DRI facility is already producing steel. That has not held the region back in any way. Economically, it has had the opposite effect of attracting inward investment in new industries, from data centres to clean power. I would like to hear a little from the Minister about DRI and whether we will be looking seriously at that, but I do not wish to stray too far out of the scope of the Bill.
The legislation was brought forward in the context of British Steel, but we should not pretend that British Steel is the only critical asset that may ever require Government action. There may be other sites, capabilities and parts of the supply chain where future intervention is needed to protect jobs, sovereign capability and the national interest, so my concern with amendment 12 is that it would make these powers too easy to lose. A future Government may not share the same commitment to active industrial strategy and may not be as willing to renew the tools needed to protect the sector, so we should not remove the extension mechanism now because we may leave workers and industry more exposed later on.
Opposition Members made the point that politicians should not run businesses, although of course the Minister for Industry did run a steel business for many years and did so very effectively. They may mean that politicians from this country should not run businesses. The Bill is before us because of the approach that Jingye has taken. The Chinese steel industry has long benefited from huge state subsidies, and cheap state-directed finance, energy support and overcapacity policies. Beijing did not leave it to the market; it used state power aggressively to expand industrial capacity, which is worth bearing in mind.
I will finish on this point. While the Government cannot say which assets they wish to use these powers for, it is evident that British Steel cannot remain in Chinese hands. I do not know what the long-term ownership structure will look like—perhaps it will be modernised and sold to a new buyer, or perhaps it will be taken into public hands and remain there, with steelworkers having some stake in the company that they built—but I do know this. When a Labour Government intervened to create the nationalised British Steel Corporation in 1967, Teesside enjoyed such high employment and high wages that it was classified as one of the best places to live anywhere in the UK. It brought stability to tens of thousands of families and built the second largest blast furnace in Europe.
In 1979, a very different Government took office with a very different theory of Britain—a small state and a blind faith in the global free market. In just five years, our region had the highest registered unemployment rate anywhere in Great Britain. By the end of Thatcher’s premiership, almost 250,000 jobs in our region had gone. They took a British industrial economy and turned it into a globalised service sector economy.
Today the Thatcherites are back, with a new logo and a new face. They will talk a big game on steel, but we have been here before. It is my belief that only a social democratic Government can truly protect our steel communities and equip them to face the future, because a social democratic Government recognise something that a foreign private owner cannot: the value of protecting sovereign industry, even when the going gets tough.
This issue is about our jobs, but it is also about our security. Will we be left exposed in a volatile world, or will we build for the future again? I hope that this Labour Government have the courage and ambition to do so.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Minister McDonald, I believe you wish to contribute again.
Chris McDonald
There is so much so say, and so little time until the rise of the House. Members who are standing may wish to take a seat, because we might be here for a little while.
Chris McDonald
Indeed, Madam Chair—I was banking on 10 o’clock.
I thank all Members, including the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin); the Liberal Democrat Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney); and the former leader of Reform, the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice), for the extremely constructive and civil way in which this debate has been conducted. I know that that comes from a real enthusiasm among all Members in the Committee for having a successful steel industry.
In fact, there were many points of agreement in the debate. In debating the amendments to the first part of the Bill, the importance of the steel industry came through extremely strongly, as did the importance and reliability of the use of public money. We all share that view across this Committee, and we also want there to be extreme care in the use of the powers in the Bill. I know that Members who moved amendments in that regard are concerned about that, and the Government are too. I will address some of those points, and I will endeavour to address some of the points raised by Members during the debate. I will start by addressing a recurring theme in the debate: what nationalisation is.
Chris McDonald
From the Government’s perspective, there is certainly no intention to disadvantage Northern Ireland. The unique position that Northern Ireland holds is enabling it to attract additional investment above and beyond. In fact, the economic growth rate in Northern Ireland is incredibly impressive, and I look forward to seeing that when I visit in two or three weeks’ time.
Having addressed the amendments, I will move on to some of the new clauses. First, I acknowledge the incredibly constructive dialogue I have had with the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) in preparing for the Bill and the tabling of her amendments. New clause 2 would place a requirement on the Secretary of State to consult an advisory committee as part of his decision-making process. The Government agree with the sentiment—we have had wide consultation with stakeholders—but there is a practical reality and in particular a commercial consideration for the exercise of the Bill’s powers. It is therefore not possible for us to accept that new clause.
New clause 3 relates to the detail of a jobs and industrial transition strategy, which my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor asked a specific question about. I reassure Parliament that from a skills perspective, the Government will assess any impacts of a transfer on jobs, skills and local communities. In fact, that is an incredibly important part of why we would seek to intervene at all. Following an acquisition, the company’s objectives will be published as part of the shareholder framework document.
Finally, I will move on to new clause 5. Again, this issue was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor, and it also comes back to where I started the discussion about the nature of a nationalisation. While the Government in this situation would own a steel undertaking, and as the main shareholder in the business would have the opportunity to set the direction and appropriate strategic objectives, it is not the Government’s aim that the steel companies would then become an extension of the civil service, as amazing as my civil servants are. Instead, steel undertakings should be run by those who are knowledgeable and skilled in the industry, as we have seen at Sheffield Forgemasters and, as we heard, at the semiconductor factory at Octric.
Having covered the amendments and the new clauses, and perhaps tried the patience of the Committee to a great extent, it would be wise to conclude. I point out to hon. and right hon. Members that there is an additional day of debate on the Floor of the House on this Bill tomorrow. Rather than me standing here and talking to myself for six hours, they would be most welcome to come back then. If I have addressed their points sufficiently, perhaps some of those who have tabled amendments may see fit not to press them to Divisions, but otherwise, I feel I have addressed the points sufficiently for now.
Dame Harriett Baldwin
It is wonderful to see so many people interested in following this debate until 10 pm, which when our scrutiny of the Bill ends today. I will make just a few remarks, if I may. Despite the fact that we still have another day tomorrow, there were a few things in today’s debate that I have not heard sufficiently answered.
First, I pay tribute to the wise remarks from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright). I encourage the Minister to take on board his points about the wide scope of the powers the Minister is taking in this legislation. My right hon. and learned Friend is a former Attorney General, so his remarks should be heeded with a great deal of seriousness. I reiterate the questions from my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers), who sought assurances that the blast furnaces will continue. I am not sure we heard that on the record. When the Minister next gets to the Dispatch Box in these days of debate, will he clarify his intentions as far as that is concerned?
Will the Minister provide clarity on the public interest test? Sensible remarks were made about the Regulatory Reform Committee and how the public interest test is too broadly defined. How can it ever be reversed once it has been invoked? I did not hear anything about limiting the contingent liabilities or the sunset clause, or the possible impact—mentioned in the impact report itself—on investor confidence in this country.
The Minister mentioned that he was willing to meet Members who have concerns about the steel tariffs, which are a separate issue. May I urge him, over the next 24 hours, to try to find some time in his diary so that they can raise specific examples with him?
Backing Business to Create Economic Growth
Nusrat Ghani Excerpts(5 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Ruth Cadbury
I very much welcome the work that the Minister for Roads has done on the proposed changes. I welcome the commitment to replace a patchwork of outdated rules with a single consistent framework, which will go a long way to addressing the out-of-area operations and problems that the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) outlined, and it will fix a system that too often has failed passengers and drivers.
Baroness Casey’s “National audit on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse” found that inconsistent taxi and private hire vehicle licensing creates vulnerabilities that can be, and were, exploited by grooming gangs. The announcement of that legislation follows the welcome commitment in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 to introduce minimum standards for drivers, operators and licensing authorities. However, many fear that minimum standards could perpetuate inconsistencies that affect vulnerable passengers, and they are seeking not minimum but absolute standards in taxi licensing.
Let me touch on something not directly connected to transport, which is the draft ticket tout Bill. While I welcome a Bill to stop ticket touts selling on concert and event tickets for vastly inflated prices, I wonder if it could be extended to car driving test slots sold by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency. Or will we have to wait until the agency updates its IT systems, or possibly—perhaps successfully—manages to recruit and retain sufficient driving instructors, so that there is no longer more demand for tests than there are slots available, as that is fuelling the ticket touts? If the Eavis family have managed to stop ticket touts making a killing from Glastonbury tickets, surely a Government agency should have been able to do so before now.
The railways and passenger benefits Bill will establish Great British Railways as a new publicly owned company, setting up a new passenger watchdog that will set consumer standards for railways and investigate poor service, as well as simplifying fares and ticketing. A passenger-focused GBR could—not necessarily will, but could—improve reliability, simplicity and accountability across the network for passengers and freight.
Other Bills in the King’s Speech and the Government’s subsequent briefing are welcomed by many of my constituents. The social housing renewal Bill will benefit many of my constituents who will never be in a position to buy a home in west London. They just need a safe, secure, affordable and stable place they can call home, without being overcrowded or forced to continually up sticks, lose their jobs and support networks, and disrupt their children’s education, only to find themselves in another overpriced, overcrowded, damp, tiny space with shared facilities.
I welcome the fact that young people aged 16 and 17 will be able to vote, as those in Scotland have been for a decade. As someone who voted here nine years ago to remain in the single market and customs union, I welcome the proposals to bring the UK closer to Europe, our exit from which has been one of the most devastating shocks to the UK economy. Many parents and teachers in my constituency welcome the consultation to reform SEND, although they are keeping a watching brief on whether the resources will be adequate to their children’s needs.
Finally, on the commonhold and leasehold reform Bill, although it would be virtually impossible to scrap leasehold entirely overnight, the ban on new leaseholds for flats, the cap on ground rent, and the new process for converting to commonhold are all welcome measures, as is making it cheaper and easier for leaseholders to extend their lease or buy their freehold. I also welcome the remediation Bill for those living in homes with unsafe cladding. Too many residents in Hounslow, Isleworth and Brentford are still living in fear of the consequences of a fire breaking out in their block.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Bromborough) (Lab)
In the face of the local election results last week, it is undeniable that what we have done so far is not enough. The long tail of austerity means that we have so much more to do. People see a world moving at a rate of knots and are frustrated at this Government’s slow pace of change. We live in a world where we can order almost anything we want in the morning and have it delivered later that same day. For consumers, satisfaction is now almost instantaneous. That is in complete contrast to Government, where improvements are seen as slow. The expectations and the challenge that we face are there for all to see.
What does the King’s Speech do to address what I consider to be the holy trinity of what good Labour Governments do: jobs, homes and health? First, there are two pieces of legislation on homes. The social housing renewal Bill will alter the right to buy by increasing the eligibility requirement by 10 years, amending percentage discounts to better align with new maximum discounts and exempting newly built social housing from the right to buy for 35 years.
This area is like so many other Thatcher legacies. The sugar rush felt in the short term by those able to buy their home at a substantial discount has long been replaced by a broken social housing market in which people living in identical properties next to each other can pay massively differently rents. It is a market in which the taxpayer often subsidises inflated rents through housing benefit and millions of young people who might once have seen a council home as their natural route into adulthood have the option forever denied to them. We can see where the logic of right to buy takes us. Between April 2012 and March 2025, 133,000 social homes were sold, but only 51,000 were replaced. With 1.3 million people on council house waiting lists, the problem is obvious for all to see.
Secondly on housing, the long-awaited draft commonhold and leasehold reform Bill will bring us closer to ending the feudal leasehold system. It will finally ban the use of leasehold for new build flats, it will place a cap on ground rents, and it will create a new legal framework for commonhold. There is huge demand for this to be done as soon as possible, and I know the Minister is going as fast as he safely can, but he also needs to tackle rip-off estate management fees—he has to stop that model in its tracks. If we are determined to tackle the cost of living crisis, that is one obvious and indefensible practice that we can end.
Alongside addressing the problems that people face now, the Government must take steps to address the problems that are coming down the track. I believe that the unwritten social contract that if a person works hard and plays by the rules, they can expect a good standard of living in return, is disintegrating and under real threat. Across this country, economic growth no longer translates to better outcomes in life, something that is only set to continue with the increase in AI in the workplace and developments in automation. Graduate roles have already been hit—graduate vacancies have fallen by more than one third this year—and that trend will only continue and diffuse across other areas of the labour market. Young people are therefore growing up and entering a world of work that is detached from previous norms, and we are nowhere near ready for the resulting changes that we will see in the next decade. The state needs to be ready to respond to those shifts, to ensure that not only those entering the workforce, but those who are already in it and those who are displaced, are properly skilled for the needs of the future labour market.
That future labour market has to include significantly more manufacturing roles, as the Secretary of State acknowledged in his speech. The more we can make ourselves, the more insulated we will be from the inevitable disruption that AI is going to cause to jobs, particularly in the service sector, but it will also better protect us from the global supply chain shocks that we are far too exposed to at the moment. The moves to protect UK steel are the right first step in recognising that we need to do much more to protect our manufacturing base. I am not proposing that we nationalise everything—I will leave that for other people to do—but my visit to the local Vauxhall car plant last week was a clear lesson in how we need to sharpen up across the whole of Government to protect manufacturing, and the UK automotive sector in particular. The decision on employee car ownership schemes in the last Budget was welcome, as is support for energy costs next year, but of course, the industry would like that support to be much sooner and much stronger than what is proposed.
There are a number of factors challenging the automotive sector, but the biggest one and the one over which the Government have the most control is the ZEV mandate. There has been huge investment in the Ellesmere Port plant so that it can manufacture electric vehicles, and I believe that most of the UK automotive sector is supportive of an electric future. However, the reality is that the current level of sales is nowhere near where it needs to be in order to hit the ZEV mandate, and that gap is only going to get bigger each year. We need to be clear that this is not just a case of “Oh, well, we aren’t going to hit the target.” Every sale short of that target has direct financial consequences for UK manufacturers.
Looking around the world, we see that most countries that have put in place sales targets for electric vehicles have had to row back from them in light of the evidence that uptake just is not where it was predicted to be. We need to bring the review forward and make the decision now that the escalation of targets under the ZEV mandate needs to be turned off. This is not something to be looked at in the abstract, on a graph in the corridors of Whitehall; it needs to be looked at in the context of the cold reality of consumer choice and the importance of protecting UK manufacturing. Let us not lose good manufacturing jobs in pursuit of the unattainable—all that will do is supercharge the Chinese automotive sector. That is not going to help the planet as much as we would like, and it certainly is not going to help this country. We have a great tradition of building vehicles in this country, and we want to be at the vanguard of taking the industry into the future, but let us do it in a sustainable way that protects and builds on what we have.
We need to do more to support UK manufacturing through procurement. I was delighted recently to take a Royal Mail delivery van made in Ellesmere Port for a spin, with permission from the owner. That electric van, made down the road, is delivering mail to my constituents. We need to see much more of that, and we need to encourage UK companies to buy from the UK. Every part of the public sector should be required to buy British. Every council, every hospital and every school should seek to maximise that, because every taxpayer pound spent on UK goods goes back into our economy. We can do a lot without legislation, but we need to pursue it with great zeal.
This is all about levelling the playing field, because more needs to be done. When people see barber shops and vape shops proliferate on their high streets, they know that something is not right, as there simply is not the market to sustain them all. When they see some shut down, perhaps for selling illicit goods or for illegal working, it confirms their suspicions that they are not competing with legitimate businesses. When we see them reopen a few months later, perhaps under a different name, people see a system struggling to cope with the scale of organised crime infecting our high streets.
The time for which a shop can be closed for breaching the law will be doubled, but let us also go after the landlords for, at best, failing to do due diligence, and at worst for being complicit in illegal activity. We can do more to support our small businesses on the high street and get the level playing field that we desperately need.
We also need a level playing field in how we treat people at work. We have to accept that bogus self-employment is a business model based on denying workers basic protections at work, and it is absolutely the wrong direction for this country. We promised in our manifesto that we would tackle this, so we should get on with it.
On a related note, the proposed strengthening of the growth duty, which will apparently reduce unnecessary risk aversion, is misguided. Good businesses want their staff to work in safe environments, and they want them to be treated well. This so-called unnecessary risk aversion, referred to in documents that the Government have produced, is an illusion—a straw man—and it has been used to put up with other shortcomings.
We face many challenges. I think we are on the right track, but we need to go much further and much faster. The public are telling us that they need to see results. We are now two years into this Government, and as much as the news cycle is hyper-focused on personality, the King’s Speech is all about policy. It is about how we shape a better future and show voters that they were right to put their trust in the Labour party to deliver for them.
Everyone here knows the perils that lie ahead if we are not bold enough, if we are not determined enough and if we do not use the time that we have to deliver real change. We are nearing the halfway point of this Parliament and, while progress has been made, it is abundantly clear that we need to go much further if we are to show that we have the power to transform the lives of ordinary people in this country.
The clock is ticking. Incrementalism will not cut it. We now need a response that rises to the urgent challenges that our country faces, so let us go out there and do it.
Robert Jenrick
Let me give the hon. Gentleman some, then.
We all know that this King’s Speech is not worth the paper it is written on—there is nothing in it. Speaking as a former Minister, it is made up of the very policies that officials pull out of the third drawer of a desk and hand to weak, inept Ministers who have no ideas of their own: “Here you go, Minister. Here’s a substitute for your own thoughts.”
I will tell the House some things that we would do— that Reform would do, were there a Reform Government. No. 1, we would get a grip on the ballooning benefits bill. Let us get the millions of people in this country who are out of work back into the workplace to get the benefits bill down, as a moral imperative. Why write off millions of our fellow citizens, especially the young? How can people be off work with mild anxiety? How can we have people claiming PIP who have not even had a face-to-face appointment with a genuine clinician? This is madness. It has to change. Of course as a country we want a proper safety net, but that is not what we have today, and we all know it. At the moment, we have a farce where people are choosing not to work. That can change. It will not change under this Labour Government, but it can change, and we can save billions of pounds from it.
I will give the hon. Gentleman a second thing we would do: scrap net zero, so that we end the deindustrialisation of our country. Steel, chemicals, fertilisers, glass, ceramics, car making: 2 million jobs depend on high-energy intensive industries. All will be gone within the next 10 years. I wager that many Labour Members represent the good, decent, patriotic Brits who work in those businesses. They are selling them down the river. We need to end net zero and adopt a pragmatic and intelligent way to decarbonise our economy that does not immiserate working people and ruin what remains of our heavy industry. Those are two things that we could do.
I will give the hon. Gentleman a last thing we would do: end illegal migration. The way we do that is not merely to stop the boats, but to end the farce of people coming here on indefinite leave to remain, knowing that they will ultimately become citizens of this country on a short path, costing the Exchequer hundreds of billions of pounds. The Labour party has a policy, we are told, that takes us some way to that; but then we have the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) saying that the Home Secretary should be sacked for having the audacity to propose some pretty weak, but none the less sensible, changes to our legal and illegal migration systems. That gives us a clue about what is to come.
Today is a pantomime. We know this King’s Speech does not exist. We know this King’s Speech will be chucked into the dustbin in a few months’ time. Maybe there will be another King’s Speech. What we know is that what follows will almost certainly be worse. The fate of our country, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, does not rest on what is happening in this Chamber; it rests on the Labour party members who will choose the next Prime Minister, because this Prime Minister is finished. We all know that. What comes then will be more failed policies, no answers to the challenges that face our country and no response to the yearning in the country for real change. The only way to achieve that—and we all know it—is a general election.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
The right hon. Member will know, when mentioning other colleagues in the Chamber, to ensure that those colleagues are given fair warning in advance. If that has not already been done, I assume that it will be done swiftly.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
As much as I enjoy lectures from the Widow Twankey of Reform, I see this King’s Speech as an opportunity for us all to reflect on the anger that I suspect we all heard on the doorsteps in every constituency across this country during the local elections. To do that, we must be honest with ourselves about the anger that we may feel. How can any of us who say that we believe this country is stronger together—that love is stronger than hate—not accept that we are also angry? I must be honest: this weekend I bumped into the “Unite the Kingdom” protesters, many of them swaggering, beer in hand, through my local station. I honestly felt a guttural sense of anger, which is not right. I do not know those people and I do not know their motivations, but in our current political environment, that was how I felt.
I was angry because I felt that their sense of uniting this kingdom would not include my beloved Walthamstow, a community where we pride ourselves on the diversity of thought, background, and cultures that we all share—although I can promise Members that they are of one mind when it comes to the importance of bin collections, stopping fly-tipping and Thames Water not ripping up the roads. It is now a community in which my Muslim neighbours are scared and my Jewish neighbours fearful because of the violence, intimidation and fury in this place and in our culture wars, where they are used as cannon fodder.
If I am honest, though, my anger was also at myself. I bumped into those people because I had been in central London, at one of those conferences that I think all political parties have on Saturdays, where we all make the same kind of speech, using the same buzz words that we have all been using for the last 20 years. They are a comfort zone of political life, where everyone nods along but no answers are provided. This country is crying out for answers—we are all agreed on that—but the honest truth is that people are not sure that answers are coming from this place, and that is the test that the King’s Speech must deal with.
People want change in every corner, in every community and for every citizen, because right now nobody thinks that anything is working the way it should. As ever, the problem is not Muslims or Jews or bankers; it is politicians—it is us. Whether here, in Palestine, Gaza, the White House or the Kremlin, if we want to show the public that we can build a better world through debate, decision making and discourse, that starts with us. It starts with what we spend our time doing here on behalf of this nation, and whether this King’s Speech offers the difficult questions and answers that this country needs to face the world we are in.
The reason I spend too much time at weekends talking politics is that, for my sins, I chair the Labour Movement for Europe—and yes, looking at the King’s Speech and the European partnership Bill, I think how Brexit has broken all of us. Whether we voted leave or remain, the evidence is indisputable that Brexit has not turned out how anybody thought it would. Jobs and businesses have been lost—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) asks what is the problem. He should go and speak to the 16,000 businesses that have given up trading altogether because the only benefit of Brexit was for paperwork creators.
We all walked out of the room, when we needed to be in the room to face the challenges of the modern world, whether that is national security, trade, or the climate crisis that we face. This is not a call to rejoin—that relationship with Europe is gone, and it will be a long time before we are able to rebuild it—but it is a call for us to recognise how damaging that has been for our chances as a country, and why we need to rebuild that relationship.
The European partnership Bill will do deals on food, emissions trading and electricity. Those things are all needed, but they are not enough to answer the challenge that our communities face us with: “How does life get better for us?”. Many of us who were here at the time of Brexit will already be deeply triggered by some of the things that have been mentioned, and it only makes sense to have this argument again if we are talking about a relationship that makes sense in 2026 and 2028, not 2016 and 2019. We must recognise that in the past six months we have been threatened with the invasion of Greenland, by continued aggression in Ukraine, and by a climate crisis that means we have to look again at the single market, the customs union and, yes, at freedom of movement. Any political party that denies that those conversations need to take place is not being honest with the public, because a customs union alone will not cut it.
The right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) might be surprised by this, but I agreed with the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) when he said we should get a deal that looks like the Switzerland deal. I am sorry he is not here today—I had hoped he would be, Madam Deputy Speaker, to refer to him—to agree with me that to do that, we must put behind us the fights of the past and the old red lines, and use the Bill to give the Government the negotiating mandate to do that.
We must also do what this place consistently fails to do: put families first. If we had not left the European Union, by now every family and every parent would have proper rights to paid leave to be with their kids, and we would finally be able to tackle the gender pay gap and the motherhood penalty. That is why we must ensure that the Bill does not just align for food; it needs to align for families and to put workers and their needs, not just businesses, at the heart of a new deal with Europe.
I give notice that I will try to amend the European partnership Bill, to give this place the chance to fix what it missed in the last Session: the missing piece of employment rights that businesses overwhelmingly support and that give dads and second parents the same rights as their European counterparts. We must also fix the mistake made in the last Session when we removed the European Scrutiny Committee, so that Members can be part of writing that legislation. Even colleagues who may disagree about the outcome of the European relationships that we might want to build would agree that it is time to take back control to this place.
This Bill, this legislation, this King’s Speech must be an opportunity to show our constituents that we get the challenges and barriers that they face in their lives. The honest truth is that they should be a place for discussion. None of the proposed legislation is good to go, but it can be amended through the parliamentary process to get there. Let us start with ensuring that people have confidence in our democracy. Of course we need a representation of the people Bill. There are 5 million reasons why we need to stop cryptocurrencies and company donations that are corroding people’s sense of confidence in British democracy, and we also need to end the loopholes that exist, capping donations for, and indeed from, individuals. Those who can get millions of pounds personally, or who use third-party organisations to hide their tracks, damage us all together.
We must get right the reforms for children with special needs and disabilities. For too long we as MPs have heard those vulnerable stories, seen the frustrations, and recognised that too often the tribunal has been the place of resolution. We must also get leasehold reform and the social housing Bill through. Housing is the cause of poverty in so many communities, particularly mine.
We must ban conversion therapy, because trans people are living in fear right now in this country, and that cannot be right for our fellow human beings. We need the energy independence Bill to work. I want the E in E17 to stand for energy: my community are stepping up to the plate, using our collective bargaining power to lower our energy bills by seeking bulk discounts on solar panels. We need the Government to work with us to get the interest-free loans to ensure that the community can bring everyone together in that energy transition.
We do not want the Government to be caught up in fighting to get rid of juries, when really, if we want to help victims, we should bring in specialist rape courts. Yes, we need to have the difficult conversations about immigration, because in my Walthamstow community we are proud of the contribution of our neighbours, whether they were born here or made their homes here. When we see people attacking others over indefinite leave to remain—people who are our nurses, doctors, scientists, friends and neighbours—we do not see a kingdom being united; we see people playing with culture wars rather than looking at the economic case. We want the legislation to reflect the benefits of immigration to our society.
I will defend to my death the right of people to disagree with me, to hold different opinions about the future of this country and to resolve those through the democratic process, but I will not let myself be silenced or sidelined by them. Maya Angelou taught us that hate can cause a lot of problems, but it has not yet solved a single one. I know in my heart of hearts that feeling angry at the world, including people I do not know at my local train station, solves nothing. It is up to us all in this place to rehabilitate politics through this Session, and to use the King’s Speech to show that we are truly capable of bold, radical thought. I hope to play my part in presenting ideas to my colleagues and securing their cross-party support to make that happen, because this country needs and deserves nothing less.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call Kirsty Blackman, after whose contribution there will be a speaking limit of five minutes.
Dr Arthur
I thank the hon. Lady for entertaining us all; she is having fun. I remember the shambolic end to Humza Yousaf’s tenure as First Minister in Scotland— it was shambolic; she will admit that. Having reflected on that period, which was a real crisis for her party and for Scotland, what advice can she offer Labour Members? What did she learn from that process?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. May I give a tiny bit of advice? Let us keep this short, because there are many hon. Members wishing to contribute to the debate.
Kirsty Blackman
I will try to give a short piece of advice, Madam Deputy Speaker. If I were in the Scottish Labour party, I would either say, “We are a separate party from UK Labour, and we make our own decisions”, or I would say, “We back the Prime Minister.” It is clear that Anas Sarwar, the leader of Scottish Labour, does not back the Prime Minister, and does not have confidence in him. He and many of his MSPs and MPs have said that Scottish Labour is a separate party, which makes its own decisions. I assume that the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) follows his Scottish leader, supports ending the Prime Minister’s reign, and is looking forward to that, like all his colleagues.
As I said, our amendment can hardly fail to be the most popular amendment tabled, given that so many hon. Members from across the House have explicitly stated how much they support our position, so I am sure that they will vote for it on Wednesday.