Sainsbury and Asda Merger

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffiths]

My hon. Friend raises important points, and I know that his constituents will be concerned. I can assure him that the CMA will take representations. If he would like to meet personally with the CMA, I would be delighted to try to help facilitate that.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Foss Islands Sainsbury’s and Asda are also adjacent to each other, and staff will have woken up this morning to hear the announcement not from their employers but on the radio. What is the Minister doing to ensure staff get the support now that they need?

[Andrew Griffiths]

We have engaged with Sainsbury’s and Asda to urge them to speak to their staff, and we have also engaged very openly and honestly with the trade unions. We want to see proper and early engagement and consultation in this process to ensure that the workforce is protected, but the public assurances that both Sainsbury’s and Asda are giving at present are that all the stores, and all the jobs in the stores, will be protected.

Pubs Code 2016

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Bailey]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. To a certain extent, I was going to cover that, but his precise point is a welcome addition, because transparency is the key. That would give guidance to tenants who were looking for the market rent only option. It would enable them to see how viable their application is and on what grounds they could challenge the pub company, if the pub company refused or obstructed it.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I will be writing to the Minister about my constituents’ experience of the Pubs Code Adjudicator following Paul Newby’s visit to York, at my invitation. Despite his commitments about expediency and communications, pubs such as the Golden Ball in York are still waiting 13 months later to hear what is happening about their case. How can that be fair, and how can it be right?

[Mr Bailey]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I know that many tenants feel that this procrastination over resolution is playing into the hands of the pub companies, and that it is, in some cases, deliberately designed to drive up expenses and deter anybody from making such applications.

[Mr Bailey]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is one of the complaints, and I will be discussing some of them in a few moments.

Prior to the implementation of the legislation, subsequent Committees sought the industry’s agreement on a voluntary code, but subsequent inquiries demonstrated that the pub companies, despite paying lip service to a voluntary code, were actually not conforming to it and not making any progress on it. It was then in exasperation—almost desperation—that the Select Committee decided that enough was enough, and that it was time to implement legislation. Subsequently, the legislation materialised.

The key issue, above all else, is tied tenancies and the market rent only option. The argument is that tied tenants have to pay a disproportionate amount of money for their stock and other services, and that, as a result, the pub company gets a disproportionate share of the income arising from the premises. If a tenant seeks to go free of tie, the pub company will implement conditions in the negotiations that remove any financial advantage from that course of action. The legislation, by giving tenants the option of applying for a market rent only option, is designed to overcome that handicap. The way in which the process is being implemented is a matter of huge concern, and it needs further consideration by the Pubs Code Adjudicator and the Government.

The Pubs Code Adjudicator report in July 2017—bearing in mind that the legislation came in one year earlier, in July 2016—said that there were two overarching principles in the code. The first was “fair and lawful” dealings in relation to tied tenants. The second, which I have touched on, was the “no worse off” principle, which sets out

“that individual tied tenants should not be worse off than they would be if they were free of the tie”.

Eighteen months after the introduction of the pubs code and the Pubs Code Adjudicator, it is time to take stock and assess whether the objectives set out in the pubs code—I just defined them—are being met, and, if not, what needs to be done.

Before I do that, I have to touch on the controversy that raged over the appointment of Paul Newby as the Pubs Code Adjudicator. I will not dwell on the whole catalogue of concerns, but it is well known that there are accusations of conflicts of interests arising from his past employment with the valuers and surveyors Fleurets, because it had extensive interests with the pub companies, and from his personal investment in it. I said in the debate last January that unless he divested himself of that particular investment, then in no way should he be the Pubs Code Adjudicator because he had an obvious and transparent conflict of interest. He has not done so. Given that confidence in his commitment and impartiality is crucial to earning the trust of pub tenants, that must be of huge concern. I will come back to this issue in a moment.

He has had opportunities over the past 18 months to demonstrate his effectiveness; however, looking at his performance, we see that it is possibly a slight understatement to say that the implementation and the progress made under his supervision fall short of the level needed to achieve the legislative objectives. The first concern is the slowness of the adjudication process. Between July 2016 and March 2017, arbitration awards were made in only 15 of the 119 cases accepted for arbitration. In the cases specifically relating to the market rent only option, the figure was 12 out of 104. Later in the year, in August, the adjudicator published a market rent only verification exercise report, which demonstrates that of the total of 497 market rent only notices, only 11 were actually converted into agreed market rent only tenancies. Of the 130 arbitration cases listed on 31 July 2017, 79 had been delayed for more than three months, and 12 for more than six months.

Now I will come back to the point that I was making earlier. The slowness of arbitration is not the only issue; impartiality is also a problem. The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators has upheld four of the 12 challenges made by pub tenants to the adjudicator’s decisions. That demonstrates the lack of confidence of tenants in the industry in the robustness and impartiality of the way in which he is exercising the code. To have a one-third failure rate in such a key, sensitive position is absolutely unacceptable.

[Rachael Maskell]

My hon. Friend is making a very solid case. A further conflict of interest in dragging out these cases is that doing so is economically disadvantaging tenants. Has he discovered the same fact?

[Mr Bailey]

Again, my hon. Friend makes an important point. The more we drill into this subject, the more comes out of it. Unfortunately, I am too constrained by time to go into every single issue that arises.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I do indeed. One of the features of our industrial strategy, which takes an approach that previous business policies have not taken sufficient account of over many decades, is the importance of the skills and clusters of industries in local places. As my hon. Friend knows, that is very much at the heart of the industrial strategy that we have published.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

On 8 March, the Chancellor announced a full review of business rates. On 14 March, the Minister responsible for small business said:

“The review will report in due course and in the not-too-distant future.”—[Official Report, 14 March 2017; Vol. 623, c. 178.]

Yet the industrial strategy barely mentions business rates, which are having a massive impact on businesses in York. When will this review start?

[Margot James]

The Chancellor has announced considerable business rate relief for small businesses, including making small business rate relief permanent, retrospective redress for SMEs caught by the staircase tax ruling, and more besides.

Hydraulic Fracturing: North East Derbyshire

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Lee Rowley]

The hon. Lady brings up an important point—one that I will come to later in my speech, because it is vital to understand that specific point before we conclude.

Some will argue from an environmental perspective, some from a perspective on the sheer imposition of activity, and others will be concerned about the uncertainty that fracking brings, for a multitude of reasons, which I cannot hope to go into in this short debate. Others would simply point to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy opinion tracker on fracking, which shows that only 16% of people were in favour of fracking in the latest survey in August this year.

I acknowledge that the Government take a different view from me and many of my residents. I accept the place the Government start from—I have no criticism of that—which is that we need to improve our energy security, diversify our energy mix and ensure we can bridge to the future when renewables can take on a greater share of the energy generation that we need in this country, but I do not agree with the Government’s conclusion on this particular issue.

I accept that energy production has fallen by over a half since 2000, that we are back to pre-North sea oil levels of imports and that we are obtaining an increasing volume of gas from Qatar to heat our homes. I accept that renewable energy remains at a smaller level of energy generation than we would all hope, although it has grown massively from negligible levels just a few decades ago. Even as a fracking sceptic, I accept that there is a debate to be had on how we continue to keep our homes warm, our cars moving and our factories working.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

City of York Council policy is to not have fracking, yet INEOS Upstream is at its heels. In Kirby Misperton, 99.2% of the community in a survey said they did not want fracking, but fracking is now going ahead. Is it not vital that we listen to the community and also the environmental protectors, who are there night after night and day after day protecting that site at Kirby Misperton, wanting to ensure that those environmental standards are upheld?

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

I point out that the interventions are incredibly long—they are becoming mini-speeches. I ask that the hon. Member be given the courtesy of being able to continue his speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell]

Given that 99.2% of people around Kirby Misperton raised serious concerns in the consultation, how can the community have a voice when it was completely ignored and the fracking went ahead?

[Richard Harrington]

I am afraid that I do not know about that particular application, but we have been discussing the local planning procedure and I am sure that the officers and councillors of that area would take that into consideration—[Interruption.] Well, in my experience of a lot of planning applications in my constituency, they do in some and in some they do not. I cannot say that we have had anything like fracking, but in the normal system, that is what the democratic process involves.

The cumulative effect of shale developments need to be taken into account. The national policy is clear: when planning permission is granted for shale gas, the cumulative impact of potentially multiple shale sites has to be considered. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire made that point towards the end of his speech. Such sites are not just considered in isolation. That is part of the national planning policy. Local authorities have the power to assess and restrict the cumulative effects of shale sites, which include some points that he made about the adverse impact on the natural or historical environment. The Government’s view is that the protections are sufficient.

As with any construction project—my hon. Friend might not want any in his constituency; that is a perfectly reasonable view—there will be some element of disruption. The planning guidance clearly sets out how surface-level considerations—such as noise, dust, air quality, lighting and the visual impact on the local and wider landscape, as well as traffic, which the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) mentioned—should all be addressed by the local planning authority. That has to be considered. Such authorities, including his own, can refuse the application or impose operational restrictions for that reason or any other that they consider appropriate.

In my understanding, from the research that we did when we found out about this debate, the application at Marsh Lane is not for hydraulic fracturing, but for stratigraphy tests—I hope hon. Members will excuse my lack of a scientific background, but the application is not for hydraulic fracturing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the aspects of the progress made around the Humber is the close working relationships that have been established by businesses and council leaders north and south of the Humber with the Government. I look forward to visiting the area again—I am a regular visitor—so that we can have further devolution of funds and powers there.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Over the last seven months nearly 2,500 job losses have been announced in York, including some at Nestlé, as well as the closure of two company head offices. There are clear challenges to York’s economy. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet me, along with his senior officials, so that we can address those serious challenges and ensure that the industrial strategy reaches York as well?

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

The smart meter programme should be judged on its long-term effect. It will save £47 billion by the end of that decade.[Official Report, 15 March 2017, Vol. 623, c. 5-6MC.]

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

When will the business rate review commence and report? The sticking plasters offered last week will do little for small businesses in York.

[Margot James]

The review will report in due course and in the not-too-distant future.