Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

You can’t have one! I hate to say it to you, but how long have you been here?

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

21. What assessment he has made of the impact of the rise in energy prices on (a) households and (b) businesses.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 24th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

And Gigg Lane has the finest playing surface. We now go to topicals, with Paul Blomfield.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

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

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let us head to Yorkshire with shadow Minister Paul Blomfield.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]]

I am no longer shadow Minister, but happy to be contributing to this debate, Mr Speaker.

Moon Climbing, a specialist rock climbing supplier in my constituency, tells me how, since January, new barriers have damaged its trade with Europe. In line with the advice of DIT officials, it set up a base in the Netherlands to avoid the barriers and it anticipates that that will

“be our main base from which we service both the EU and the rest of the world”.

I heard the Minister and the Secretary of State say earlier that it is nothing to do with them, but, frankly, companies expect the Department for International Trade to take some responsibility for trade, so what are they doing to prevent more UK businesses moving abroad as a result of the damaging Brexit deal—losing UK jobs, GDP and tax revenue?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 3rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you for taking this point of order, because it relates to the questions that we have just heard. In answer to my question on rolling over the deals that we currently enjoy through membership of the European Union, the Under-Secretary of State for International Trade, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), said, and I quote, that

“the vast majority of the trade covered by those deals has already been secured,”

and that was repeated by one of his colleagues. It is, however, contradicted by the Department’s own website, which says that 19 deals have been secured worth £84.07 billion last year, but there are 18 deals outstanding worth £84.5 billion—and that does not even include Japan. Will the Minister take this opportunity to correct the record and confirm that the vast majority of trade is not covered by these deals, and in fact they cover slightly less than half?

[Mr Speaker]

That is not a point of order; it is a clarification. I am happy to leave it there unless the Secretary of State wishes to respond.

Tax Avoidance and Evasion

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Each year I organise an annual community consultation, and each year there has been growing anger among my constituents about the sense that they are paying their fair share from very ordinary incomes while the level of corporate tax avoidance has been growing out of control as successive Conservative Governments have failed to step up to the mark in tackling it. We are apparently losing over £1 billion of tax due on UK earnings from just five of the biggest US tech firms; that is money that could pay for more than 42,000 rooms in care homes for people who desperately need them. So does my right hon. Friend agree that there is enormous public support for tough action on corporate tax avoidance?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I can put the hon. Gentleman’s name down if he wishes to make a speech, but we must have shorter interventions.

Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Lindsay Hoyle

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield]

Does the Secretary of State accept that that access to an advocate should not be necessarily subject to a best interest test, as is being proposed, but should be a right?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Just to help everybody, let me say that we have 11 speakers, we still have to hear from the Opposition shadow Minister and we have the wind-ups. So I hope we can take that into account, although I recognise that the Minister is being very generous.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Lindsay Hoyle

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 21st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Coventry has two universities. A big concern following Brexit is that international students, in particular from countries such as India, are now looking at north America, given the difficulty they will have in coming to this country when they are treated as immigrants. They should be removed from immigration figures, because the benefits amount to just under £10 billion coming into this country. I hope the Government are taking that seriously.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is certainly testing my patience. It is one thing to come in and then ask a question, but it is another thing to stretch it into a speech. The hon. Member for Sheffield Central is being generous with interventions, but we do not want to get into a Brexit debate.

[Paul Blomfield]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I appreciate the intervention of my hon. Friend, because he is a strong champion of the two universities in Coventry and he makes, on every occasion, this strong point about the importance of international students. He is right. Many universities around the country will be in crisis if there is a significant drop in the number of international students. It will mean not only that their incomes will drop, but that many of their postgraduate taught courses, which are viable only because of the levels of income that are brought through our international students, will cease to be viable, cease to exist and cease to be available for UK students. It is a hugely important issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield]

The Minister is talking about the affordability and sustainability of systems. Does he acknowledge that when the proposals to change the student funding system were put to this House back in 2012, it was on the understanding from his predecessor, Lord Willetts, that the resource and budgeting charge—the uncollectable level of student debt—would be at around 28%? That prediction was rubbished by many experts in the sector and from the Opposition Benches, and gradually, over the lifetime of the Parliament, the percentage went up into the 30s and the 40s, to the point where it became unsustainable. The unsustainability of the system that the Government created was then dealt with by imposing that burden on students by varying the charges and the deal on student loans in the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) described.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Short interventions, please.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Lindsay Hoyle

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I echo the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) in welcoming the fact that the Minister survived the ministerial cull and is still in his place, because I think he has brought a—[Interruption.] He is defying my words at the moment; I was going to say how good he is at listening. I am over here!

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Will the Front Benchers take note of this? The hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) is making reference to the Front Benchers, and they appear to be having a conversation. I am sure that everybody wants to hear what the hon. Gentleman wants to say.

[Mr Sheerman]

My hon. Friend was trying to be nice.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does he agree that there is a danger that, by placing yet more strictures on potential international students, the Bill will send a signal that they are not welcome in the UK? This is such an important export industry for the UK, if I can put it like that, and it is important that the mood music—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She is rightly highlighting the concern that has been expressed from both sides of the House in previous debates. UK higher education is a major export earner, contributing about £8 billion to the UK economy annually.

I remember an exchange with the Immigration Minister when he was newly appointed, at a meeting of the all-party parliamentary university group, in which he pointed out that we should be talking not only about the income that international students brought in but about the costs that were incurred, including the cost to the health service. I went back to Sheffield university and said that we needed to look into that issue. The university commissioned Oxford Economics to carry out the most rigorous assessment possible into the income involved and the costs for our city. That assessment did not just cover the NHS and education; it went to the nth degree, covering every conceivable cost including traffic congestion. It concluded that international students were worth about £120 million a year to the Sheffield economy in net terms, which probably equated to about 6,000 jobs. Measures such as those in the Bill will serve only to discourage students from coming to the UK.

The Minister will argue that the health surcharge will bring us into line with our major competitors, which require health insurance as a condition for obtaining a student visa, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) pointed out, it comes on the back of other changes introduced by the Home Office that have done huge damage to the competitive position of our universities. This will simply be seen as another signal that international students are not welcome in the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huppert]

The hon. Gentleman and I have discussed students’ concerns many times. Does he agree that a similar argument applies to the student visitor visa? Will he join me in opposing any proposal to clamp down on those arrangements, on the ground that it would also damage our colleges?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. May I point out to the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) that quite a lot of Members are waiting to get in, including Dr Huppert? Perhaps if he takes fewer interventions, we might get to the hon. Gentleman.

[Paul Blomfield]

I will take that advice, Mr Deputy Speaker, and take no more interventions.

We need to look carefully at the student visitor route to see how much is displacement and exactly what is going on within those numbers.

My major concern, and that of our universities, is that we are losing market share as regards university students coming to the UK. The health surcharge obviously comes on top of a number of measures that the Government have introduced, and it is not just about the health surcharge. The universities are concerned about the provisions on landlords. They are worried, as other Members have been, about what will happen and that landlords—we know that 83% of them do not want these measures—will take the easy way out. We have seen the evidence in the reports over the past couple of weeks of letting agents in London who are discriminating against people on racial and ethnic grounds and on grounds of their appearance. The danger is that that will happen in this case and that international students, often leaving home to come and study here for the first time, will be discriminated against and will find an unwelcoming environment in this country.

The Bill is the kind of measure that brings politics into disrepute. It is gambling with our economy and our reputation just for a cheap headline. People deserve better.

Debt Advice and Debt Management

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 1st December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share the concerns of Peter Hemmingfield, a debt team supervisor in my constituency who works, under the community legal advice contract, with the Legal Services Commission to provide specialist debt advice? He is very concerned that the service that he provides will practically disappear as a result of the intended legal aid cuts. He says in a letter to me:

“A substantial amount of our work is involved in helping many clients who have mental and physical health problems, who are aged”—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Unfortunately, interventions have to be short; I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is just coming to the end of his.

[Paul Blomfield]

You are absolutely right, Mr Deputy Speaker; I was just coming to the end. Peter Hemmingfield talks about people who are unable to manage their debts alone. Should we not be concerned about the impact on the most vulnerable?