General Matters

Priti Patel Excerpts

Tuesday 18th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), who has enlightened us all and encouraged us to participate in volunteering, which is an important community activity.

I welcome the Deputy Leader of the House to his new position. I should like to use this debate to express my constituents’ concerns and to seek his advice and perhaps ministerial guidance on how to pursue the matters that they have raised. We have heard a lot about national campaigns today, but a big local campaign is under way in my constituency. I should like to draw to the Minister’s attention the way in which quality of life for my constituents—local residents in Tiptree, one of the largest villages in the country—has been undermined by the failure of our local authority to enforce planning conditions on the training round in Grange road, which is used by Colchester United football club.

The facility is used outside the hours agreed in the original planning consent for the site. The noise, disruption and foul language—that is what really upsets my constituents—are distressing for families living near the ground. They are forced to keep their windows closed and stop their children playing in the garden because of the noise and the bad language shouted out in the training ground. Residents feel, in an era of localism, that they have been let down and ignored by the council, which should support them and enforce planning arrangements, rather than, as my constituents believe, turn a blind eye to their concerns. Residents are up in arms and dissatisfied with the replies that they have received from the council in response to their complaints. That is such an important issue for my constituents that I pledged to raise it in the House, so I would welcome some guidance from the Deputy Leader of the House on the matter.

Let me turn to business matters. We British were once famously dubbed a nation of shopkeepers. Having grown up in a family of shopkeepers, I know how important local shops and retailing are in providing local jobs in our constituencies, in towns and villages across the country. However, over the past decade, our high streets up and down the country have struggled to provide jobs and many of the essential services that over time we have taken for granted and to act effectively as the hubs in the communities that they once were. That is why I welcome the work that the Government have done in creating a new vision for the future of our town centres.

In particular, I would like to use this opportunity to praise everyone in Witham town who was involved in putting together the two bids for Portas pilots that we submitted. They failed, but irrespective of that, my constituents who put in the hours on the bid did a tremendous job and made an incredible case for Witham. Interestingly enough, in yesterday’s debate, I highlighted the fact that parts of Essex have consistently been overlooked for infrastructure investment in this area and many others. I should like to make a plea to the Government and urge them to support the Witham town application to become a town team partner and secure the new funds that are available. If nothing else, we in Witham look forward to working with the Government and taking on board many of the innovative ideas that have been proposed in the Portas schemes and the new vision that is being introduced for town centre management.

The House has heard me say on a number of occasions that 83% of local jobs in my constituency are in small and medium-sized enterprises—a high figure compared with the national average of 68%. The House has also heard me say before that Essex is very much the county of entrepreneurs, playing a vital part in the national economy, but I should like to restate my long-standing concerns about bank lending to small business.

Small businesses are at the heart of my constituency and our local jobs market. I should like again to highlight the case of the chocolate maker Amelia Rope, my inspirational constituent, who, despite her international order book and sales in some of the world’s most famous shops, including Liberty and Selfridges, has continuously struggled to secure bank lending to invest and grow her business. Interestingly, despite the fact that I took her to meet the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills back in 2010, she maintained in an interview with the Evening Standard about three weeks ago that nobody is looking after people such as her, which is something I hear from many local businesses in my constituency. I urge the Government to reaffirm their focus on making bank lending a priority, so that these incredible entrepreneurs, who are risk takers, can do everything that they can to stimulate private sector growth, create jobs and get our economy back on track.

Also on the theme of business, as the summer ends, many home owners will be worried about rising energy costs and heating their homes. The Government should be congratulated on the focus that they are giving to tackling fuel poverty and encouraging customers to switch suppliers and find cheaper tariffs. However, more effort is needed to help small businesses with their energy costs. The Association of Convenience Stores is running a campaign for fair energy contracts for local shops, to help small businesses to get a better deal from their energy companies. At the moment, 27% of small shops have been hit with rather large charges for backdated bills, often as a result of energy companies asking them to pay for up to six years of energy, owing to incorrect billing in the first place, even when it was the fault of the supplier. That is simply not fair; nor is it right or proper, and it can land businesses with bills totalling thousands of pounds and threats of disconnection. About 36% of small shops have also been overcharged— I speak from experience on this, because my parents’ last business fell into precisely that category—and 31% have reported above-inflation rises in their energy tariffs.

I urge the Government to look closely at that campaign, in the light of the fact that our shops and small businesses are struggling. We do not have enough small shops on our high streets or in our villages, and they have their own challenges with cash flow. The campaign could bring about change, and it would send out a tremendously positive message if the Government were to take action to help small firms to keep their energy bills down and, importantly, to be treated much more fairly by some of the energy companies.

I have spoken before about Essex roads, and the matter that I want to touch on next is a constant issue for my constituents and for people in Kent. It involves the Dartford crossing. Next month, the crossing’s toll charges will rise by a third from £1.50 to £2 for a car, and the charges for commercial vehicles will go up from £2 to £2.50 for a two-axle light goods vehicle and to up to £5 for heavy goods vehicles. A lot of my constituents use the M25 and the Dartford crossing, and many of them are complaining about the increases and raising the question of fairness. Thousands of motorists rely on that crossing every day.

There are two issues: one is the price of using the crossing—as I have said, the toll charges are going up—and the other is that we have a major problem with traffic flows and jams, as recent correspondence with the Highways Agency has confirmed. The crossing is a vital economic link for businesses in my constituency and across the south-east. Records from the Highways Agency show that the crossing’s performance is questionable, with journey time reliability in the year to May 2012 being just 57% for southbound journeys and 60% for northbound ones. That is below the 83.5% national average for journey time reliability on our motorways.

People who use the crossing daily know of the paralysis, logjams and huge tailbacks. Over the past three years, there have been only six occasions northbound and one southbound on which the tolls have been suspended due to the severity of the traffic. It is a fact that traffic jams cause delays and have a cost to the economy. The economic costs of delays at the crossing are estimated by the Highways Agency to be £40 million, but the introduction of new technology to support free-flow charging arrangements is at least two years away. People in the south-east are paying more for a poor service.

I would welcome the Deputy Leader of the House’s thoughts on that matter, and I urge the Government to look again at the arrangements for charging at the crossing, as well as at their affect on the economy and at the costs that families and businesses are incurring. I look forward to his responding to the debate, and on behalf of my constituents I hope that the Government will take on board some of these issues in a positive way.