Employment (Allocation of Tips) Bill

Paul Howell Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 20th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) for tabling the Bill, and my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell) for all the tremendous work that was done beforehand. As has been said several times already, this is such an important issue, and it is delightful that my hon. Friend the Member for Watford has been able to put in the time and commitment to get the Bill to the stage it is now at—I hope his heart can stop fluttering soon. Of course, it is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby).

I said in relation to the previous Bill that I did not have much experience, but I have a little bit more experience of this one. My constituency of Sedgefield is 240 square miles, and contains a significant number of pubs, restaurants and hotels. I do not, unfortunately, have a great deal of awareness—apart from the odd visit—of nail bars or what the quality of service is there; I have had some engagement with the teams, maybe, but that is about as far as I have taken it.

It is fair to say that anyone paying a service charge, or giving a tip, as we would normally call it, expects it to go to the staff, but it is important in this discussion to understand who the staff are. In a multinational hotel chain, the owners are clearly distant, but in a lot of pubs and small restaurants the staff may be the owners. There is some differentiation, in that there could be one person in the family who owns it, and maybe he or she should not be getting the tips, but the other could be working behind the bar or serving the food, and clearly the distribution model—however we make it up—must be fair to them as well.

Certainly, a number of pubs either start as or evolve into quasi-restaurants because the owner is the chef. They have put the effort into the kitchen and they are providing the service of food. When we look at what generates a tip, particularly in a food environment, there are two clear dimensions: the quality of the food and the person-to-person service and delivery. It is important that all of that is considered.

[Dean Russell]

One key component of the Bill, assuming that we get it through today and the Lords agree with us, will be the code of practice, which will effectively set out a 12-week consultation—I believe it is 12 weeks, unless things have changed—with the hospitality industry and more broadly to ensure that there are scenarios that are practicable and work in reality for organisations and staff. Those scenarios can be referred to in tribunals, should things get to that point, but, hopefully, they will give many approaches for businesses, even before the Bill becomes law, to say, “This is the right way to do it.” The Bill does not try to offer a one-size-fits-all model; it is about making sure it works, but at its heart is fairness. If the tip is for the people who have served and cooked wonderful food, then fairness within that organisation means ensuring that that tip is shared fairly across them all, and they can refer to the code of practice as part of that.

[Paul Howell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his very valuable clarification of the direction of travel we hope the Bill will proceed in.

The point was made earlier that the Bill is about making sure people are fairly paid. We have seen in the past people trying to incorporate the tips as part of the justification for a minimum wage. That is wholly inappropriate and I think that is one of the drivers for this Bill, which reinforces the position that people can ensure they get the appropriate pay on their payslip for their work, with tips being a separate scenario that can be discussed and followed through.

We must factor in a number of considerations about where organisations have got to. I do not think many sectors of our economy have been harder hit than hospitality over the last few years, first by covid and then by subsequent problems with labour. That puts pressures on business, and unfortunately some businesses take a step to the side of where their morals should be. This Bill will help to give clarity to that space, so it is absolutely clear that the tips belong on one side of the equation and we do not have a situation, as was mentioned earlier, where businesses are competing with each other, but one is taking the tips and putting it into the profit pot—or the cost-covering pot—and the other is doing the right thing and passing those moneys on to where they belong.

To come back to the point about cash-only or contactless-only methods of payment, another benefit of the Bill is that it provides clarity. The method of payment should not influence whether somebody gets a tip. We have all been to organisations—not in my constituency, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston) said; it must have been when I was travelling—that say “card payment only” or “cash payment only”. When a customer walks into an organisation where that direction is given, it makes them think that there is an ulterior motive. Does the organisation want cash so that it does not always go through the books? Does the organisation want contactless so that it has control over all the tips? Those are the two extremes, and both thought processes are probably unfounded in most organisations, but it puts doubt into the customer’s mind as to an organisation’s motives. The Bill will hopefully take that uncertainty away from the customer, so they know that the right thing is being done and the whole tips agenda has no impact.

Many typically small organisations are affected by this issue, so the aggregate number of people involved is incredible; I understand that up to 1 million people could benefit from it and the stats imply that they could get about £200 a year each. That is a significant amount but as my hon. Friend said, I like to think that I tip people reasonably, so I would have thought that they would get significantly more than £200 in the year. There could easily be a significant benefit for the people who are providing excellent services in our organisations, so I commend the progress of the Bill.

My hon. Friend also said that he had tried to go to as many pubs and other places in his constituency as he could, as I do. I hope the House will excuse a slight digression on this, but sometimes that has unintended consequences. I do not think that I am a particularly heavy drinker, but when I go out, I have a couple of beers from time to time. Hon. Members may have seen the “Love Your Liver” campaign in the House earlier this week. I called in and I am now going to my GP, because apparently I need to be checked out. When people go out, they should be aware of the impact on their health, because they would not necessarily know—I do not think there is anything wrong with me, but a scan tells me that there could be, so I need to check it out. I apologise for the digression, but it seemed appropriate to put a shout out for the health agenda.

I appreciate the Bill’s intention, because it is about fairness and it takes away the need for concern and gives employees the legal right to go back and check, if necessary. I endorse the earlier point about the potential for publicising it to make sure that staff and employers are aware that there is a now a line in the sand that has a legal footprint behind it, and it is not just best practice. Of course, best practice attracts the best staff who will attract customers.

Anybody who has worked in any organisation—any manufacturing, trading or sales business—knows one thing above all else: the easiest customers are the repeat customers. If a business can repeat its customers, it will be more successful and sustainable. Why do customers come back? As I said, it is because of the quality of the product, typically food or drink in this context, and the quality of the service. If businesses look after their staff, pay them correctly and allow them to keep the tips that they have earned, they will have a more successful business. I commend the Bill to the House.

Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Bill

Paul Howell Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 20th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes), and like everybody else, I thank the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) for promoting this important Bill. I am probably going to waffle a little bit, because I have had printer problems and technical problems this morning, so my speech will be as it comes, so to speak.

In this place, we get to see and be involved in so many things. I had had no engagement with neonatal care until I started to do a little bit of research for this Bill. I have been fortunate in my life in that sense—there have been other things that have affected us—but when we start to look at those things, we find organisations that are not necessarily in our constituency, but might be close to our constituency. I want to talk a little about the support that is out there, which demonstrates the importance of this Bill, and specifically about a charity that is based in a constituency neighbouring mine, which is called Leo’s. Leo was a child who was lost by a parent, but he was the first of twins; the second twin, Oska, survived. The charity was founded on the basis that Leo had given his life for his second twin.

How a parent goes through that, I cannot comprehend. I have one child, who is very healthy, and I am very thankful for that, but once we start to think about these sorts of things, it is so easy—[Interruption.] I am sorry, I am getting emotional already, and it is not something I am even close to in that sense. I want to emphasise how much these parents suffer from the pressures on them and from mental health problems. One of the stats on the website is that 79% of parents have mental health challenges as the result of going into neonatal care. I do not understand why it is not 100%. It must be so traumatic to go through that space.

I understand that Leo’s was instrumental in founding Neonatal Mental Health Awareness Week. That shows that when something touches somebody really deeply, they go out and reach people in other areas that they probably never imagined they would get into. Some of the speeches that we have heard show the connections that people have made. As I say, I have no particular connection to this issue, other than that it has touched me as I have looked into it a little bit for this Bill. So really, I just want to emphasise the need to do things for parents in this situation. They have enough of a challenge without having to worry about where the next penny is coming from, so I support what the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East has brought forward in this Bill and commend him for it.

This issue is not just about the now or the immediacy of the issue; it is about going forward. One thing I noticed, I think from earlier this year, was the number of referrals to the charity. It has had some funding from County Durham Foundation Trust and elsewhere, but it is now oversubscribed and has had to stop referrals, I think for the first time, because there was just so much demand. That shows the scale of the issue—I think there are about 3,000 cases a year in the north-east alone, apparently.

I could waffle for a little longer, but I feel like I am going round in circles a bit. I commend the hon. Member and thank him for bringing the Bill forward. As he said, we do not always speak with such unity across the House, particularly those of us in the north-east, who are quite close to the Members in Scotland. I will conclude there, Mr Deputy Speaker, and will try to find my notes for the next debate before I get there.

Britain’s Industrial Future

Paul Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman]

I do not have that figure at my fingertips, but I have a funny feeling that the hon. Gentleman does. The Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) will respond on that later.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

The Minister has talked about the space and science-led businesses around the country. On the north-east, in response to the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), we should not forget the tremendous things that are happening at NETPark in Sedgefield.

[George Freeman]

Indeed, fantastic things are happening at NETPark. One would think that the Labour party, which dominated County Durham politics for decades and seemed to indulge in the poverty up there, would celebrate the phenomenal turnaround in the north-east. It is one of our leading manufacturing regions. NETPark is home to Kromek and Newcastle is home to QuantuMDX. That is a great story of British manufacturing driving an advanced economy in the areas that were blighted by painful deindustrialisation. I am proud that the Conservative party is in the vanguard of that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

I, like many Conservative Members, have spent time working in business and find it amazing that those who have not are so vocal in claiming that we do not understand. This Government spent billions supporting businesses through the pandemic and are a true friend of business. Just in my constituency, Hitachi is investing in battery technology in Sedgefield, and the many science and space industries in Sedgefield are exemplars in driving opportunities for our region through potential unicorns.

Business needs many things, but the Opposition have ignored the two big disruptions. The pandemic and, of course, Ukraine affect everything we have been trying to do in recent years. As in the previous debate, the Opposition are selective in forgetting that these big arguments need to be considered. UK resilience, however, is a key part of any strategy, and obviously this has been driven further by what has happened with the pandemic and the situation in Ukraine. There is a need for us to be more in control of our supply chains. Whether that is about owning them and building things here, or just taking key positions in them, it is important that we get this right. It is a fundamental part of where we need to go forward.

We have a 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution. We are the first major economy to legislate to achieve net zero. We are ramping up the supply of home-grown energy, and we have reacted to the Putin energy crisis by providing immediate support to make sure our businesses are in a good place. This Government believe that business and industry are central to our economic strength, and have strongly supported investment across the country. Just last month, BP submitted plans for a green Teesside; the hydrogen energy there, which is just next door to my constituency, will create many jobs and help decarbonise heavy transport in the region. This will be the UK’s first major hydrogen transport hub and by 2025 it will become one of the country’s largest green hydrogen facilities.

It is not only international businesses that have a part to play in our industrial strategy. I cannot overemphasise the importance of engaging with local businesses, particularly when pushing for investment in space and science technology. As I mentioned, I am lucky enough to have companies such as Kromek and Filtronic in my area, as such companies provide high-skilled jobs to hundreds of local residents. But we also have established businesses in the automotive sector, such as Gestamp Tallent, and in many other industries. They are all pushing their agendas, and I have seen Ministers at all of them trying to make sure that they understand what these businesses need and that this Government are supporting them.

As was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Holly Mumby-Croft), we need to be sure to work to have a balanced view of our investment. When considering any investment support, we need to understand what is happening across the world and make sure that we are not disadvantaging our businesses by not investing in them when other Governments are investing in theirs. We need to make sure we are in balance in what we are doing. We need to balance all our fuel opportunities in a completely holistic consideration of our need for fuel and its worldwide impact on the carbon footprint.

Until recently, I served on the Select Committee on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and I have to say that for a significant portion of that time the Labour attendance was appalling. If Labour believes we need an industrial strategy, the time and forum for that is the Select Committee, and not grandstanding here. If Labour Members think the Government need to approach their industrial strategy differently, they have an opportunity to get that message across and challenge the Government through the proper channels.

Home Energy Efficiency: North of England

Paul Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

It is a privilege to speak in this important debate, Mr Robertson, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

I begin by congratulating my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson), on securing this important debate. Although energy efficiency has always been important from an environmental standpoint, the significant increase in energy costs that the UK is experiencing has made it more relevant than ever. Cost of living pressures, and the changing economics of gas and green energy, have significantly increased the opportunities provided by energy efficiency. The cost of gas has increased dramatically, but the cost of installing a heat pump or something similar has not moved. However, the economics are changing massively, in terms of how this will play out.

Sedgefield surrounds Darlington, and it has many villages, from Hurworth to Ferryhill, and from Wheatly Hill to Piercebridge. It has a variety of different properties. Given that the constituency also covers almost 240 square miles, it has many farmhouses and outlying buildings that present energy efficiency challenges.

According to statistics from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy produced in April, the north-east has one of the highest rates of fuel poverty in the country. Energy efficiency is one of the three factors that cause fuel poverty, according to the End Fuel Poverty coalition. Although improvements to energy efficiency in households that are struggling with energy costs will not solve the problem on their own, they are certainly a welcome step.

Durham County Council estimates that improving energy efficiency in homes in former mining villages could save households around £250 a year on bills. I think that figure was calculated before the current inflationary price increases, so it is probably much more than that now. The Government have a role to play in enabling residents to make their homes more energy efficient. Although it was not perfect, the green homes grant voucher scheme was broadly popular in providing a substantial subsidy for those who wanted to make their home more energy efficient, but could not cover the entire cost of doing so. The local authority portion of the scheme, which awarded councils funding to upgrade homes for low-income families, was particularly necessary, given how expensive such upgrades can be. For example, the tradesperson site My Builder estimates that insulation work starts at around £200 per external cavity wall. Such work on a two-storey terraced house would cost about £400, but the price increases steeply for buildings built before the 1920s, which usually have solid walls. In that case, internal wall insulation starts at £4,000, but can cost much more depending on the size of the house. Solid wall insulation is even more expensive, starting at around £7,000, and without some help, it is likely that many households in need of insulation would not be able to afford it.

To make rural homes energy efficient is a particular challenge, because they are often, or rather always, somewhat isolated and not connected to gas mains. To enable those properties to have a low-carbon heating scheme was one of the measures covered by the green homes grant. To be fair, Durham County Council took full advantage of it, using more than £5 million of Government funding to install more than 100 low-carbon heating systems in rural homes across the county. It also used to funding to install insulation in villages such as Chilton and Ferryhill. I was pleased to join Lord Callanan when he visited to inspect the properties and to see how delighted the residents were with the scheme, and how much it had improved their situation.

Another barrier to making homes energy efficient, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington, is absentee landlords. We may have a terrace of low-value houses and while it is all well and good for someone to insulate their own house and the two walls adjoining the other properties, if the house next door is empty, there will be a great deal of leakage from the heating system. That situation does not incentivise people to make their properties energy efficient. Similarly, a tenant whose landlord has refused to make their house more energy efficient has no option but to pay more for their energy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington has also referred to the fact that the cost of updating a property compared with its value is a major problem in the north. In some of my villages, property can have a value as low as £40,000 or £50,000. If someone has to spend between £5,000 and £10,000 on insulation, even at a basic level that represents a substantial amount of the value of the property. Neither the individual, nor a social landlord or private landlord, will see value in trying to do that. However, it is important for that work to be done so that householders have a better economic base for paying their ongoing fuel costs. We need to make sure that we support them in that endeavour.

We have many different styles of housing in the constituency, so we need a range of insulation options. The same is true about our move to green energy. The local geography provides particular challenges and opportunities. Former mining villages, where houses are close together, are suitable for district heating systems. Geothermal heating is also a possibility in County Durham due to the former mines. Some of my colleagues recently wrote in The Times that the Durham Energy Institute at Durham University has led the way on that research for a while. Support of such solutions can make a huge difference for residents and home owners, whether they are individuals or landlords. I believe that the solutions are out there, and I would like to continue to support the variety of initiatives that help, whether that is supporting insulation, addressing empty properties or promoting the transition to options that could be greener and more cost efficient in the long term, such as a district heating system—possibly even driven by the utilisation of mine water heating. Those opportunities, once in place, can be cheap to run and environmentally efficient. I am confident that we have the solutions to the north-east’s domestic energy problems, but it is a question of ensuring that they reach the households that need them. The Government have made progress in this area. I look forward to them continuing that and taking further steps.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Gentleman is admirably setting out a series of concerns about how we address the process of retrofitting, which we need to think about very carefully. One of the things that concerns me—here I get a bit political—is just how bad the Government’s overall retrofit programme has been over a long period. It is not just about the collapse of schemes from 2012 onwards. In the previous debate, somebody asked what happened in energy during the previous Labour Government. Well, a lot happened: the carbon emissions reduction target, the community energy saving programme and warm home grants.

There has been a real noticeable increase in standard assessment procedure ratings in properties over the years. From about 1990 to 1995-96, the schemes really started working, and they were publicly funded. What happened in 2012 is that the publicly funded schemes were removed, and after that the schemes were entirely market based. The green deal died a death. Recently, the green homes grant was sort of publicly funded, but it also rapidly died a death.

Significantly—I want to emphasise this point, in terms of how we treat retrofit—the only part of the green homes grant that was successful was the part that applied to local authorities. Local authorities were and are able to take some of that grant and do a lot of good work. The hon. Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) said that his local authority has done a lot of public work on that, yet the Government systematically set their face against the idea that local authorities can play a substantial leading role in retrofitting.

I suggest—the hon. Member for Darlington and I spoke about this a moment ago—that the case has overwhelmingly been made for retrofit funding. We are saying that there should be a 10-year programme to retrofit 19 million homes of all tenures through a combination of loans, grants and direct local authority schemes, with two million homes retrofitted immediately. That would be a comprehensive programme of retrofitting across the country, with the emphasis on area-based schemes so that local authorities can look at where their areas are worst and at what needs to be done in their particular circumstances, and concentrate resources accordingly on retrofitting with that knowledge and those concerns at the front of their minds. How much better would that be than the sorts of schemes we have had over the years? In this case, energy companies have been asked to go around and pick out individual properties to do up to a greater or lesser extent.

[Paul Howell]

I declare an interest: I am a private landlord. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, in terms of segmenting the approach and trying to make sure it is right, we need a different approach when considering the economics of the north, for landlords and owners, in contrast to the high-value property areas of the country, to ensure that we focus on absentee landlords and people who are not doing the right thing? In parts of the north they almost walk away because the value of the property is so low. We need to ensure that does not result in the properties becoming derelict. Rather, they should either be resold or go back into the rental market properly.

[Dr Whitehead]

I agree with the hon. Member that we need to ensure that we tailor our programmes, not just to the particular areas of the country but to the particular resources that we will need in order to deal with the arrangements in different parts of the country. Labour’s programme would not only allow that to happen, but ensure that, right across the country, we were not applying a one-size-fits-all arrangement and we were allowing local authorities in particular to tailor their programmes. We can imagine the equivalent of the old housing improvement areas or general improvement areas being applied in the form of energy efficiency improvement areas in various local authority areas. They would be chosen by those local authorities, and would be able to concentrate on different tenures in the way that the hon. Gentleman outlined. The difference is like night and day between what Labour is proposing at the moment and what the Government—albeit they have spent some money on retrofitting—continue to try to do.

I just want to take a few more minutes, because I appreciate that we will in the end run out of time—even though we have more time than we thought—and I want to give the Minister ample time to reply to the debate. I would like him to address his thoughts to three particular questions.

One of the only schemes that is doing any serious work on retrofitting at the moment is ECO—the energy company obligation. The ECO scheme is now in its fourth iteration; ECO4 was supposed to come onstream in April this year, and the hon. Member for Darlington asked, “Where is ECO?” There is an answer in the press release for the Energy Security Bill that appeared on my desk today. That press release states:

“The current ECO4 scheme came into force in June 2022 and will run until March 2026.”

That is just not true. No ECO4 scheme is in operation at the moment, because the regulations have not yet been sorted out as far as this House is concerned; we still have to discuss them and put them into being. Today, I was at a lunch where an energy management and building company guy sitting next to me was bemoaning the fact that the people there could not just get on with ECO4 because they just do not know what is going to happen with the regulations.

Therefore my first question to the Minister is this. When will that happen so that we really can get under way with ECO4? Why has he put it in the Energy Security Bill that ECO4 has already started when it has not? Can he get it started as soon as possible so that the people I have been talking to recently can actually have some security about the future arrangements for retrofit? We obviously consider that the uprating for ECO4 that has already taken place, from £750 million to £1 billion, is welcome but not enough. Certainly we would want to see that programme substantially increased in size at a very early stage in order to get this retrofit programme going as quickly as possible.

The second question is this. Why is there nothing in the Energy Security Bill—as far as I can see—that takes us beyond the level of ECO4? Certain things in the Bill suggest some amendments to ECO4, but there is nothing to take us beyond that particular scheme in the way that has been described today in this Chamber. I do not know whether the Minister—because I suspect that the Energy Security Bill is a Bill in progress even as it is published—will want to bring forward amendments, during the passage of the Bill, that allow those further things to take place, but I will be interested to know this afternoon whether that is under serious consideration.

As I think every Member present this afternoon has said, this is a pressing problem that needs to be sorted out as quickly as possible, and on the widest scale that is compatible with our net zero commitment and the duty we have towards our citizens’ style of living, energy bills and expectations of what their housing will look like in future years. Pushing forward on that is something we in this Chamber are completely united on, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to that unity of purpose.

Misuse of Fireworks Bill

Paul Howell Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 21st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Owen]

Absolutely. I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and for the experience and expertise he brings to this place in raising that point.

As a bare minimum, we must change the maximum limit to 90 decibels. I am aware that that measure alone does not tackle all the issues, such as the one the hon. Gentleman has just raised, but it will make a strong start in addressing the impact of fireworks.

For my constituents, fireworks are not just a disturbance on bonfire night or new year, they are a constant year-round and sometimes weekly nightmare. When I have posted on social media about the frequency and intensity of fireworks in Luton, I have been flooded with streams of distressing stories from constituents. One Luton resident wrote that she had become so accustomed to the intrusive noise of fireworks that, shockingly, when someone was shot outside her home, she did not call the police or an ambulance because she did not register the sound as unusual. The person, thankfully, survived, but my constituent was no less shaken.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that one of the big problems with fireworks is the way they have evolved? I am probably a little bit older than she is, but my first experience with fireworks was a rocket in a bottle in the backyard and the rocket struggling to get above the house. The fireworks that can now be bought are such powerful beasts. The issue is not just about animals or people: as the son of a fireman, I know there are other implications as well.

[Sarah Owen]

From the son of a fireman to the daughter of a firefighter: I wholeheartedly agree. Legislation has not been able to catch up with the speed of development of fireworks.

When I spoke in a debate on this issue in November, a local Luton parent wrote to me about her experience, which sums up the distress that fireworks cause. She wrote:

“We can hear fireworks every single night. Without exaggeration, I counted, they can go off every 10 minutes between 6 pm and midnight. Sometimes at 1 am. The stress caused by them is enormous and growing. My child is terrified. To a point where she screams and begs me to stop them. We have to put on a white noise sound on a tablet in her room in order to reduce the sound of the bangs. If she wakes up, she cries, shivers and goes back to sleep with earmuffs on. Before bedtime she begs me for no fireworks. Mental health in our family is in pieces. I am genuinely worried about the wellbeing of my daughter. We can’t live like this.”—[Official Report, 8 November 2021; Vol. 703, c. 10-11WH.]

Reducing Costs for Businesses

Paul Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

I of course recognise the hardship that businesses are facing through the pandemic, but if the Government had followed the Opposition’s advice, we would have been in a lot worse state—back to circuit breakers and stage 4 in July last year. The Government paid out £70 billion—I repeat that: £70 billion—in the job retention scheme. The hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) described that as “money wasted”. This feels very much like the Leader of the Opposition’s comments when he described moving the Treasury to Darlington as “not levelling up”, but “giving up”. It shows a shocking lack of appreciation for the number of jobs and businesses that were protected and saved through this scheme.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson), I have met multiple businesses in my Sedgefield constituency that have outlined how grateful they are for the Government support they received over the course of the covid-19 pandemic, and how it has meant they have been able to keep their businesses open and employees in work. This has extended from both small local shops such as Aycliffe Framers to international suppliers such as Gestamp, which employs over 1,500 people in my constituency.

Having spent my life prior to coming to this place as director of a manufacturing business, I, like everyone who owns a business, know what matters is profit—sales less cost—but also clarity, and Ministers coming to the constituency to meet businesses helps them to understand what is happening. I have been delighted that so many of the Business team and the International Trade team have been to NETPark—North East Technology Park—in Sedgefield to understand what those businesses really need and how we can help them best.

That contrasts massively with when I spend my time on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee. With the exception of the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), who is the Chair and has to come, Labour Members’ attendance has been woeful. How they can say that they are interested in business, when they do not even come to a Select Committee I do not know. Members of the shadow Cabinet have described business owners as “the enemy”. How can a party with views like that be trusted with British business?

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I know that Royal Mail responded directly to the hon. Lady’s concerns in December 2021, and I responded just yesterday. However, I will continue to look at this, because covid sickness absences still remain, and Royal Mail is rotating deliveries so that its customers receive their mail as frequently as possible. There is clearly more that we can do, and I will ensure that we monitor that as best we can.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

We all know the challenges those in the automotive sector have had in the last few years, but it is more than just them; it is the supply chains as well. Can I encourage the Secretary of State to come and visit Gestamp in my constituency, which supplies everybody from Volvo to Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan and so on, to understand its efforts in research and development, and how we can help it to develop its business?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend knows full well that, as Secretary of State, I have visited his constituency at least two or three times, and I would be very happy to do so again.

Postmasters with Overturned Convictions: Settlement Funds

Paul Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

The 66 people who have applied are those who had been convicted. There is clearly a wider group who have lost money, as we heard earlier from the constituent of the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). There are various compensation schemes for people who have had shortfalls and for those who have had convictions overturned—the 66 people I mentioned. The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) is absolutely right that we need to acknowledge not just the financial losses—as bad as they are—but the impact on mental health, the strains, people’s ostracisation from communities, and, in some cases, the deaths.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

As a member of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, I have listened to some of the harrowing tales about what has gone on in this situation, and I am sure that the issue will come back to the Committee at a later point.

One of the biggest failings was the attitude of the Post Office throughout, including the culture of denial. Will the Minister assure us that the Post Office itself has been challenged to ensure that that culture changes and we do not see such a situation again? As has been said, the sooner that we can get payments to these people, the better. We cannot let it drag on forever; it must be as quick and prompt as possible.

[Paul Scully]

I look forward to coming to my hon. Friend’s Select Committee next month to discuss the issue further. The Post Office has acknowledged that there have been wrongs in the past. There still remain issues that we discuss, but discussions can become too legalistic, when what the wronged postmasters actually want is more empathy; we will continue to work to that end. As my hon. Friend says, we want to ensure that we bring this matter to a swift and fair end.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Gentleman knows that I am fully committed to remote island wind. In fact, when I was Energy Minister, I spearheaded the move to have a separate pot for renewable island wind. He lobbied successfully, and I am happy to speak to him about that at any time of his choosing.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the recent comprehensive spending review and Budget announcement shows that the Government are delivering an historic increase in R&D investment to build back better with a high skill and wage economy for all of the UK? That is very much reflected in NETPark in Sedgefield, which he had the pleasure of visiting recently.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I was delighted to see my hon. Friend in his constituency and to see the wonderful businesses that he is promoting. He will know that the CSR is fully committed to driving our science superpower status through unprecedented investment.

Income Tax (Charge)

Paul Howell Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

That is definitely the Whips Office’s talking point. The reality is—[Interruption.] I will tell them: our last manifesto said that

“the substantial majority of our emissions reductions”

should happen by 2030, and that is absolutely right. We should be going faster and we should not be delaying. The interesting point is that delay is wrong not just for the climate, but economically. That is the brilliant platform on which my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West, the green shadow Chancellor, is standing. We will fall behind if we do not act, and I suspect that, in his heart of hearts, the Business Secretary knows it.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

On the right hon. Gentleman’s comments about credibility, I have sat on two north-east Labour councils, Darlington Borough Council and Durham County Council. When the Conservatives were in charge in Darlington, Labour wanted the target to be 2030. When Labour was in charge in Durham, it wanted the target to be 2050. Is there consistency in Labour party policy or not?

[Edward Miliband]

It is completely consistent, yes.

Let me turn from industry to retrofit and insulation. Of all the things that were missing from the Budget and that I thought the Treasury would have been persuaded about, the one that is as close as we can get to a fiscal, economic, climate no-brainer is a proper 10-year retrofit and insulation plan. If we invest, we cut bills and carbon emissions, make ourselves less exposed to the international gas market, and create tens of thousands of jobs. I do not get why it has not happened. All we get are piecemeal schemes and no proper plan. I will not even go into the fiasco of the green homes grant—emissions from buildings are higher than they were in 2015.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin). In the limited time available, I will talk primarily about infrastructure and education, but I want to cover a number of other issues, too.

I start by talking about the many small businesses we have throughout Sedgefield. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) that a more fundamental review of business rates would be very welcome. I have everything from small cheesemakers, such as the one in Mordon, to breweries such as Yard of Ale at the Surtees Arms, and I am sure that the changes to duty will encourage them to move forward. Emma McClarkin, the chief exec of the British Beer and Pub Association, welcomed the Chancellor’s continued support of the pub sector. I hope that the many pubs across Sedgefield, from Hurworth to Thornley and Ferryhill to Bishopton, also see the benefits of simplifying duty in particular. I must give a shout out to, of all names, The Impeccable Pig in Sedgefield, which was recently awarded “AA Inn of the Year”. There are clear benefits to small businesses, but there are also benefits, as other colleagues have mentioned, from people being able to socialise in pubs. Getting away from the cheap lager from the supermarkets is a good step in the right direction.

One thing we need to remember, whatever we are doing, is that we always talk about “this place”, and place is an important thing for us all to be thinking about. We need to think about where people are coming from and what they do there. That is where the importance of levelling up comes in. It is about looking after communities, but in particular those that my all-party parliamentary group for “left behind” neighbourhoods focuses on, which can miss out because they do not have the capacity to go for the grants and support being picked up by other people. We need to encourage all our businesses to be as cognisant as they can of social impact. We need to remember that the quality of place that people are coming from is a key driver in the quality of employee that businesses will get.

The primary town in the Sedgefield constituency is Newton Aycliffe, and it has put in a levelling-up bid to for town centre recovery. That is a key thing that must happen to help us grow. We also have some fantastic businesses there, ranging from Crafter’s Companion, which has been active during the pandemic in getting people into crafting work and helping their mental health, to the likes of Hitachi. Hopefully we will see some announcements in the not-too-distant future on HS2, so that we can get some certainty. Certainty is what businesses need to move forward.

I also have 3M, whose efforts on masks through the pandemic have been incredible. We need to be careful about restructuring supply chains, because of the investment that people have needed to make. We also have lots of coach businesses. I hope the Department for Transport will continue to support our local council on a capital and revenue basis to help those businesses transition back from the depths that they have reached, so that they can get back to viability. On council funding, I want to ensure that there is proper consideration of the rurality or deprivation indices for councils. Durham in particular sometimes suffers from the way that they are used in funding formulae.

To return to business and its the social benefits, there is a company called Finley Structures in my patch. Last week, I had the pleasure of going there to see a blue plaque put up for the Aycliffe Angels—the ladies who made munitions during the war. To our delight, a 100-year-old lady called Muriel Scott turned up unexpectedly while we were there. If funding comes through from the money that has been talked about for that kind of thing, John Finley, who runs the business, wants to create a museum to show what people like Muriel Scott went through.

We need to drive science innovation. The Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), and the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have visited NETPark—the North East Technology Park—just outside Sedgefield, and understand its significance. If we can get the investment, we will have the north-east space hub there too. The local council is doing a good job, but we need to make sure that we pull that off.

That feeds into education and training, which are critical. T-levels have a place in the agenda, but I encourage the Government not to throw out BTECs. It is important that everyone has an opportunity, wherever they come from and whatever level of education they start from, to engage with the process and take the next step forward. That leads me to university technical colleges, of which I have one of the best in the country. Because it is linked to the likes of Hitachi and Gestamp, it attracts people from all over the north-east and Northumberland—as far away as that. Lord Baker wants more UTCs to be established, so I am hopeful that they will happen. I encourage investment in them to develop the opportunity for more people to learn technical skills and get us all into a better place.

To return to infrastructure, I have spoken many times in this place about Ferryhill station and the opportunity for it to reopen. The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) referred to jobs. If that station goes in, the line will go through to Stockton North and connect to Teesside and to all the jobs being created by the Tees Valley Mayor, Ben Houchen. Like all railway lines and roads, however, it is a two-way link, so it would present the opportunity not only for my people from the Ferryhills of this world to get to Teesside and the jobs there, but for anybody in the Stockton and Middlesbrough area who wanted to come to NETPark for the high-value science-led jobs to come on the train in the other direction. It is at the evaluation stage and I am hopeful that it will come forward.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) and I think that my constituents will feel that this is a fair Budget at difficult time. Opposition Members have made a number of comments about Labour’s position on business, but I sit on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee and I have to say that the Opposition’s presence in that Committee is lamentable. The number of times that the only Labour Member present has been the Chair is poor. How can they talk about business when they do not even turn up to the Select Committee? When we went to Tata Steel, the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) met us there; credit to her for joining us, but she was not a member of the Select Committee.

I welcome the funding for the British Business Bank. As a last point, because I do not think anyone should forget it, climate change is important but we need to make sure that we do things in context. There is no point in stopping doing things that nobody wants to do—I will use an easy example of the Cumbrian mine—only to then import coal from the other side of the planet and pay all the carbon costs that go with bringing it in from elsewhere.

There is a lot in the Budget that I like, but there is the odd thing, such as the Leamside line that was announced this morning, that I would have liked to get through, although that is not the Budget but the Restoring Your Railway fund. We will need to come back to that and have a closer look at it. In general, however, I welcome this Budget.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

I want to start where the Chancellor left off, by saying that I strongly believe that it is not just for the Government to fix every problem and tackle every challenge. I am a Conservative because I believe in and want to support strong families, strong communities, the voluntary sector and charities coming together to make our country a better place to live, work and raise a family. We saw that during the pandemic. The state played an enormously important role but so did families, volunteers and charities in Crewe and Nantwich and across the country, and I shall focus on welcoming the measures in the Budget that support families.

I welcome the introduction of family hubs—I supported my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) in campaigning for that—further funding for parenting support, more support for adopted children and their families, and the continuation of the holiday activity programme. In discussing the stability of families and poverty, we cannot ignore, and must pay greater attention to, some of the factors that make it much more likely for children to be living in poverty. Single-parent families and families with three or more children are much more likely to be living in poverty and I wish campaigners and those on the Opposition Benches would pay as much attention to these important factors as they do to the role of Government in topping up family incomes.

The emphasis on the first 1,001 days is also welcome. We are seeing increasing understanding across Government that the big impact we can have early on in terms of children and families is worth our attention and gets better results in the long run.

The Opposition too often focus purely on financial security. Of course financial security is important, but it is also important to support people to be the best parents they can be and to ensure that their children grow up with emotional security and have the kind of self-belief and aspiration that I was given by my family. Sadly, when I meet some children in my constituency, they do not have that. We have to do better at giving that to them.

As much as we argue over relatively small, albeit important, changes in the percentages and numbers of people living in absolute and relative poverty, if we take a step back and look at the big historical trends, those figures have been stubbornly in roughly the same place. I think that is because we focus too much on the money and not enough on the other factors that might lift people out of poverty and give them aspiration and opportunity.

Supporting people into work and better jobs is absolutely part of that, not just because it improves people’s incomes but because we know that work helps to improve people’s mental and physical wellbeing. I am proud that, compared with 2010, there are half a million fewer children growing up in a household that has been out of work long term. That is the kind of achievement that sustainably lifts people out of poverty.

That is why I welcome the emphasis on the changes we have made to universal credit—using the money wisely to encourage people into work and to keep more of their own money—and to the minimum wage. We need to do everything we can to ensure that the right incentives are there for people to be in work. Of course, closely tied to that are the commitments we made earlier in the year on things such as the lifetime skills guarantee and further funding to support free childcare. We need to look closely at whether we can go further when it comes to childcare. We still have historically high childcare costs in this country, and that remains a difficult barrier to work. Things such as the change in the taper would go further if childcare were cheaper.

We also need to look at child maintenance, which is another key factor in poverty. Some 60% of children living in single-parent households that are not in receipt of maintenance would be lifted out of poverty if that maintenance were received. When the restrictions and measures brought in to tackle this issue, which largely focused on things such as deduction orders for people’s earnings and court orders to seize assets, were considered, I do not think enough thought was given to the realities of using them, because most of those things make it difficult for someone to earn money, which defeats the object. Consideration was given to home curfews for people who were non-compliant with their child maintenance, but those powers were never enacted. We need to look at that again if we want to drive down the absence of child maintenance payments.

I am conscious that Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy colleagues are leading today’s debate, so I want to mention an area that will be important for job opportunities in Crewe and Nantwich, which I have been talking to the Secretary of State about—the geothermal industry. We saw earlier in the year the difficulties of over-relying on solar and wind power when it comes to our renewable energy drive. Geothermal is an under-utilised opportunity in this country. Unfortunately, earlier in the year, just as the industry wanted to invest, we removed the tariff that would give it a guaranteed return. That has obviously had a devastating impact on investment in geothermal. We see it rising across Europe and across the world, but it is not rising in this country because we do not have that guarantee. I will continue to work with BEIS colleagues to see whether we can do something about that.

Levelling up is important to us all. It is no good encouraging families and encouraging ambition if opportunity is not spread evenly around the country, as colleagues have mentioned. Yesterday, we saw the announcement of hundreds of millions of pounds of investment through the levelling-up fund. Through the impact of the £22.9 million Crewe town deal that we were awarded earlier this year, I have seen the real, tangible difference that those projects can make—led by local MPs, working with local authorities and, importantly, picking projects that are important to local communities across a whole range of issues. I look forward to us making a levelling-up fund bid in future funding rounds.

I am afraid that we have heard the usual today from those on the Opposition Benches. Labour Members want to tell everyone that there are no difficult decisions. There is never a request for more benefit spending that they say no to. There is no problem to which their answer is not just “tax the rich”, despite the increasing proportion of our tax bill being paid by the wealthy. Some 30% of income tax is paid by the top 1% of earners. I am not quite sure where Labour Members want that figure to be before they will accept that those with the broadest shoulders are carrying the biggest burden, and I do not think it is sensible in a global economy to further discourage wealth creators from living in this country.

Labour Members know that their rhetoric on taxing the rich does not add up. That is why, despite all the talk, they have outlined only one measure, which—along with all the measures they have talked about but failed to detail—they know full well does not come close to meeting their continual spending commitments. For example, they wanted us to spend not just £6 billion on retaining the uplift on universal credit, but £2 billion to extend it to those on legacy benefits, and £1 billion to extend it to those on tax credits. They wanted £2 billion to scrap the two-child policy; £2 billion to turn advances into grants—I could go on. They never explain how they would pay for that, besides broad discussions about taxing the rich. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), from a sedentary position, talks about champagne. It is classic Labour to misunderstand what it means to be aspirational. The people I know who want to buy a glass of champagne are not wealthy; they are people from ordinary families who maybe have a wedding or another special occasion and want to enjoy themselves. The hon. Gentleman’s disdain for that measure just shows how he does not understand the people he is supposed to represent.

[Paul Howell]

Does my hon. Friend agree that when we talk about champagne, we are probably more likely to be talking about a £7 bottle of prosecco?