Oral Answers to Questions

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

My hon. Friend rightly champions Mansfield, and we will look very closely at the expression of interest that has been expressed in relation to the future high streets fund. The stronger towns fund will support towns to grow and prosper, and we will obviously be working with communities. I can certainly give a commitment to work with him and with Mansfield as we continue to shape that, and get the right feedback to ensure that that money delivers what we want it to.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Last time I looked, Taunton Deane was a considerable distance away from the midlands, but I am in a generous mood, so we must hear the hon. Lady.

[Rebecca Pow]

18.   Thank you for being so generous, Mr Speaker. Although it is not the midlands engine but the great south west, this question is about economic growth. Some £600 million of economic growth could be delivered from the £95 million forward funding, with a bid just submitted by Somerset County Council that represents great value for money in delivering 10,000 houses. Does the Secretary of State agree that this is indeed a good place for the Government to invest their money and will make a great contribution to our housing targets?

[James Brokenshire]

I acknowledge my hon. Friend’s ingenuity in putting her question. Her council has submitted a £14 million bid to the housing infrastructure fund, which we obviously want to see delivering more homes and building the homes our country needs. I can assure my hon. Friend that we will look carefully at this bid. It is a competitive process, but I am encouraged by what she says.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

First, I thank the hon. Lady for all the hard work she put in when she was on the Opposition Front Bench and for the principled stand she has taken. It has been a pleasure working with her. Secondly, we have declared that we want all sites to take off “No DSS”-type adverts. I have been very encouraged by what has happened with Zoopla and National Westminster bank. This work is ongoing, but I would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady to see what we can do to spread it further.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

T8. Many of our precious historic parks and gardens have been restored with vital grants from the national Heritage Lottery Fund. As a part of that, conservation management plans have had to be prepared. Unfortunately, despite Hestercombe Gardens in my constituency offering to curate the archive, the national Heritage Lottery Fund has apparently just destroyed the entire archive, apart from a few documents it thought it should keep for legal reasons. Does the Minister agree that this is a scandal that should never be allowed to happen again?

[Rishi Sunak]

I agree with my hon. Friend that maintaining records of the UK’s landscape heritage is important. I would be delighted to raise her point with colleagues at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to ensure that in future we can surmount any bureaucratic hurdles and that vital archives are preserved.

Economic Growth: South-west

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Gary Streeter]

All of those things are true, of course, but I did say that “for some” the south-west is the seven counties, including even Gloucestershire, which Cheltenham is in. I understand that Cheltenham itself is a small market town somewhere to the north-east.

I will describe that which is going well, what we welcome from the Government already and what we still want to see. First, what is going well? Of course, our natural assets are still there and they remain unrivalled: the sea, the coast, the moor, the areas of outstanding natural beauty, the stunning landscapes and the beautiful towns and villages. The south-west is a region like no other.

I am delighted to say that tourism is flourishing. We have more quality places to stay, and better visitor destinations and tourist attractions. Mr Owen, you might be interested to know that I will make the case that we are not just a tourist region—far from it—but 311,000 people were employed in the hospitality sector in 2017 and it provides roughly 11% of the overall regional employment. So tourism remains significant and it is doing well, thanks partly to the fact that we had some wonderful weather last year and the roads were full all the time.

The second thing that is going well is the collaboration between our local enterprise partnerships, and our local authorities and national parks. That collaboration is the closest and most effective since records began, and in all my time in this House I have certainly never seen our various component parts working together as they are today. There is also a close working relationship with the private sector. Some colleagues in Westminster Hall today will recall the “Back The South West” campaign that we launched in 2016, with the charter—the south-west growth charter—that I will refer to shortly. All of that is driven by private sector companies that are ambitious for our region and determined to deliver.

At the 2016 Exeter conference, the then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government came down and made a great and passionate speech, and told us to speak with a single voice in the south-west. We have done that; we are more joined-up than ever before, and I think it is beginning to make its mark upon Government.

Far from being just a tourist area, our region boasts some wonderful companies. For example, Princess Yachts in Plymouth employs 3,000 people and Babcock employs 4,500 people in the dockyard and naval base. That is to name but two; there are many other companies and I am sure that colleagues will mention some of the high-performing companies in their constituencies.

I will single out just two companies from the south-west that are doing particularly well. First, there is the Pennon Group. Brilliantly led by Chris Loughlin, it includes South West Water, which is a leading national water and sewerage company that will make £1 billion of investment in our region by 2025. Its business plan has been fast-tracked by Ofwat for the second time in a row, which I think is unique among the water companies. Pennon Group also includes Viridor, which is the UK’s largest recycling company, so we have this successful and ambitious green company that employs over 5,000 people UK-wide. It is a company that our region is rightly proud of and it generates over 6,000 jobs in our region alone through direct and indirect employment. We thank the Pennon Group for all it does for our region.

The second company is Thales, which is a major global defence contractor that employs over 1,100 people in the wider south-west, including in Cheltenham. Thales stated recently that it sees huge potential for its business in the south-west and the region as a whole:

“There is the opportunity to put the region on the map in the digital technology and maritime space and with the support of Government we think the region can go from strength to strength.”

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

The Heart of the South West local enterprise partnership has a focus on the marine environment and in Taunton Deane we have the UK Hydrographic Office, which is the global leader on marine data. It is putting in a bid for a geospatial hub in Taunton, as well as an innovation centre. Does my hon. Friend agree that building on that will help the whole of the south-west to really up this sector, which will bring with it untold economic opportunities for the whole region?

[Sir Gary Streeter]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend. That is one of the areas of development for our region that makes it very exciting indeed, and I am very happy to add my support to her excellent support for that project and opportunity.

I will just go back to Thales briefly. It recently opened a Maritime Autonomy Centre at Turnchapel Wharf in my constituency, which I know the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) has visited. That work includes capital investment of over £1 million, which represents the company’s commitment to its future in the south-west as a place where it can invest in digitally transformative maritime technologies—not a phrase to say after a glass or two of wine. This facility will act as the key maritime integration, test and evaluation centre for the combined United Kingdom and French maritime mine countermeasures programme. It is very impressive.

Our region therefore has substantial companies operating throughout it and is not just a place for people to come for their cream tea, although of course, Mr Owen, you would be very welcome to come down next summer and enjoy one.

Our universities are also doing well—

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[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. It is also a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Sir Gary Streeter) for initiating the debate. As we speak here in Westminster Hall, in the main Chamber there is a debate on the police grant report. It is welcome to see the extra grant for the police forces across the country. It is very much needed.

The south-west is a great place to live, work and do business, as my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon has said, but more needs to be done to attract and retain the high-skilled jobs that we need to boost wage growth and offer opportunities for young people. Hinkley Point will play a useful role in that. The availability of labour and skills continues to be a significant challenge to many south-west businesses affected by factors such as transport, housing affordability and an ageing population. It is great that we have several speakers here from Cornwall, but I remind them that they have to go through Devon, Somerset and many other counties before they can get to Cornwall. I remind the Minister that we are debating what has happened in the south-west peninsula. Bristol is a great city, but there is an awful lot of land between Bristol and Penzance. We want our fair share of resources, which we are getting more of, but we need even more.

In areas such as agriculture, hospitality and tourism, we continue to rely on a high proportion of migrant labour. We need a system in which we have control over migrant labour and have enough migrant workers in future. As we leave the EU, not only do we need to ensure that we can still get access to EU migrant labour to fill the jobs but we need to devise a south-west strategy to retain graduates and skilled labour, boost investment in our infrastructure and grow business in our region.

Improving transport in the region and around the south-west is vital. There are two strategic transport corridors for rail and road into the peninsula, which means that the south-west lacks resilience. We welcome the development of the A303, but it will be dualled all the way to Ilminster and then out through the A358 to Taunton. A little bit of the A303 from Ilminster to Honiton needs a little bit more done to it. Much as I welcome and support what is happening to the north Devon link road, we also need that last little bit of road to make sure that we get a second arterial road.

We are improving resilience on the Dawlish railway line. Not only have we got the mainline from Paddington to Penzance but we have a great line from Waterloo to Exeter, which goes through the south of my constituency and runs through the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire). We could do a lot more to invest in loops and other things to make sure that we get more trains through the second route. It is essential to have a second railway link into the south-west. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), I am interested in the Devon Metro coming through Somerset and creating more resilience on our existing lines so that we can have smaller trains as well as the large commuter trains. That will be a great improvement.

Improving transport will improve education accessibility, so that students can choose whether to do A-levels, apprenticeships or technical education. Not only do we have the great universities of Exeter and Plymouth, and of course Bristol, but we have Petroc, Axe Valley and many other colleges across our region. Apprenticeships are so useful because not everybody wants to go to university, and it is a great bonus to have that provision.

Improving transport will mean that tourists can get around the whole of the south-west, from the Jurassic coast to Exeter Cathedral, and even down to Cornwall, as well as to great towns such as Seaton, Axminster and many others in my constituency.

Broadband and mobile connection is hugely important. As many colleagues have said, it is a huge driver of the economy. Superfast broadband is absolutely essential.

[Rebecca Pow]

A recent report by the South West Rural Productivity Commission said that improving digital connectivity was a game changer for rural businesses. Also, it is one of the key things in the Somerset Chamber’s report and is its businesses’ most important factor in upping productivity in our region. Will my hon. Friend join me in a campaign to get the Treasury to extend state aid so that Connecting Devon and Somerset can bring about the final rollout of the superfast broadband that we so urgently need in our two constituencies to deliver for our businesses?

[Neil Parish]

I very much support my hon. Friend, who is a neighbour on the Somerset border. We have worked together not only on delivering in the Blackdowns but across our constituencies. State aid will be essential to keep the money flowing. Also, I look forward to Gigaclear really getting its act together and getting more investment in, which will help us to deliver broadband overall in a combination of state, council and private sector funding.

With everything online now, from tax returns to farming administration and farm payments, and from online shopping to school homework, it is imperative that we get the improvements to broadband and mobile coverage that we need. In some areas the mobile system will deliver broadband to some of the very hardest-to-reach areas. Mobile and broadband speeds might not be such a problem here in Westminster, but in the south-west they are a constant handicap for many farm families and businesses. In my own farmhouse there is very little connectivity. Sometimes it can be a blessing when the Whips are trying to get hold of me; I can be completely unconnectable and off the page.

Despite the best efforts of colleagues here today, we still have some of the worst mobile coverage of any region apart from Wales. It is getting better, but we need to do more. We have to make sure that the mobile companies do not keep the masts all to themselves; they must share them more. Joining everything together will make things work better with the same resource. Delays to broadband in the Devon and Somerset area have been extremely disappointing, mainly because we know how transformational superfast broadband will be to our rural economy and home lives once it is delivered. We need the Treasury to provide state aid.

Finally, I want to touch on the importance of farming to our rural economy and the south-west economy as a whole. The UK’s food and farming industry generates more than £110 billion and employs one in eight people in the UK. Farming is a driver for the local economy as it brings money to the south-west, which is then spent in the south-west. However, I cannot get through a whole speech on the economy without mentioning the B word: Brexit is both an opportunity and a threat to our rural economy. We need more fish for our fishermen. We might see greater opportunities for deep-sea anglers, more fish for our processors, and much needed regeneration of our coastal communities. We also need to ensure that we produce good food so that our food processors—our largest manufacturing industry—continue to thrive. Brexit offers us the opportunity to reposition agriculture and the wider rural economy as a powerhouse in its own right. It needs to be recognised across Government, and not just in DEFRA. I hope that the Minister will today recognise the vital multiplier effect of farming businesses in the rural economy, along with tourism in the south-west, and will do everything possible to protect and help farmers as we leave the EU.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Sir Gary Streeter) on securing the debate. I am sure that all of us here believe passionately in the south-west. The region is already an economic powerhouse, which can rival the northern powerhouse or the midlands engine. We now have a network of professional organisations whose job it is to promote aspects of economic growth in the region. I pay tribute to the local enterprise partnerships—especially the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly LEP, my local one. Mark Duddridge and his team have a clear vision:

“By 2030, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly will be the place where businesses thrive and people enjoy an outstanding quality of life.”

Those few words really sum up the joy and opportunity of living in the south-west.

I was born and bred in my constituency, and we all know what a brilliant quality of life people can have in south-east Cornwall. Apparently the rest of the south-west region is not that bad, either, apart from the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) insists on putting the cream and jam on to scones the wrong way. However, that amazing quality of life is no good unless it is built on a strong economic foundation. We need profitable, expanding, forward-looking businesses, to create value that earns profits and pays taxes. To support those businesses we need to be able to provide smart investment funds where they are most needed.

The LEP does a great job, but there are headwinds. For example, when we leave the European Union we can redirect the shared prosperity fund. I, like others, am keen to hear details of how that will be spent in a way that is tailored to suit the needs of Cornwall, instead of dictated by the European Commission. The most important thing is for funds to be directed to where they can most affect productivity. If productivity in the south-west matched current levels in the south-east, the region would add about £18 billion a year to the UK economy. In that regard I want to mention the farming industry, which I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton will be pleased about. It is one of the most productive sectors in the south-west. Farming brings a lot of money into the region, most of which stays in the local economy. It is vital that farming should be given prominence in the industrial strategy.

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend is making a good case. Does she agree that if we combined agriculture with the food manufacturing and processing industries that would represent the largest economy in the south-west region? We could make a good case for its being a major plank of the industrial strategy. I see that the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) is in the Chamber, so perhaps he and the Minister who is responding to the debate will take notes.

[Mrs Murray]

I completely concur with my hon. Friend.

As hon. Members know, I am passionate about our highly professional fishing industry and determined that our fishermen should reap the benefits of Brexit. I urge the Government to do everything they can to protect fishermen and ensure that British fishermen get the best from our highly productive fishing grounds. We all know that infrastructure investment is key to the region’s success. We have some superb schemes well under way. The Looe flood protection project will protect the fishing industry’s future and stimulate the local economy and tourism in the area surrounding the town.

Improvements to the A38 are vital. Thousands of people use it every day, and 1.2 million vehicle hours are wasted every year due to delays. Think of the environmental impact. We all know about the safety concerns. Finally, a few improvements to the railway line could make a big impact. I, too, am looking forward to next week’s announcement. I would like more frequent services, a move towards clock-face timetables, early adoption of a free 5G network for travellers and, of course, better integration with local bus services—especially in rural constituencies such as mine.

I could go on with a shopping list of superb investment opportunities, but I will simply reiterate what a fantastic quality of life we have in south-east Cornwall and the rest of the south-west. Let us see what we can do to create the economic growth that is needed to support that quality of life.

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[Chi Onwurah]

I am afraid I will not give way.

Regional disparities and the unique issues facing the south-west are the reason we need the £250 billion national investment bank. [Interruption.] May I just point out that we have heard much more from Government Members than Opposition Members so far?

Many Members mentioned the need for regional investment. Our network of regional development funds will ensure that regional needs are put first and that local decision makers decide what is right for their area. The future of the south-west, and of our country, depends on a real industrial strategy that lays a path for a high-wage, high-skill, high-productivity region. The Government should follow Labour’s example in crafting a visionary, vigorous and viable industrial strategy.

[Rebecca Pow]

rose—

[Dr Offord]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jake Berry)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Sir Gary Streeter) on securing this important debate. It is not about Brexit, but if I were channelling a famous son of Devon—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who wrote “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”—I would say that Conservative Members believe that Brexit is full of opportunities, while the Opposition have already shot the albatross and hung it round the neck of every business in this country, because they see Brexit only as a risk.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) said that Labour has a real industrial strategy. As Minister for local growth, I must tell her that I visit businesses all over the United Kingdom and they tell me that they have one thing on their risk register at the moment: not Brexit, but a Labour Government. Industrial strategies are not created by political parties that believe in the appropriation and removal of businesses from their owners. It is a Labour Prime Minister, not Brexit, that is the real risk.

[Rebecca Pow]

rose—

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Order. I am sure that this intervention will be on the subject of the debate.

[Rebecca Pow]

It relates to something that the Minister has just said.

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

No, you are not listening. We are debating the motion before the Chamber. It has been a good-hearted debate and you have made several interventions, but they have to relate to the subject matter.

[Rebecca Pow]

My intervention relates to the south-west. Colleagues have made a strong case for upping the productivity in the south-west region, but under this Government a great deal of funding has come to the south-west—far more than ever before. We simply want to build on that.

[Jake Berry]

That is why we have heard from 10 Conservative colleagues, but only one Opposition Back Bencher. It is a sign that we are a Government who listen to colleagues in the south-west and ensure that economic growth in the south-west is at the heart of our approach.

We have had an interesting debate that has focused on three areas. The first is infrastructure, which we have to accept is one of the building blocks of any vibrant economy outside the capital. We have described this year as the year of delivery for digital, road and rail infrastructure, so it is important that our debate has addressed how we can ensure that we continue to deliver for everyone living in the south-west of England, particularly after years of under-investment. That is the real similarity between the north of England, where we have the northern powerhouse, and the south-west region: for far too long, under different Governments, the country has focused on infrastructure and industrial growth in London and its surrounding hinterland. It is about time we moved beyond that.

We have heard some good speeches today about human capital, in relation both to education and productivity. It is right to focus on how we can drive opportunity to people young and old across the south-west for a more varied educational picture, whether that is through the brilliant universities that have been mentioned or the great businesses that drive productivity. There are huge opportunities for productivity in cyber-security, spaceports, civil and nuclear developments in Hinkley, tourism, agriculture and our maritime economy.

I applaud the south-west local enterprise partnerships for their creation of the Heart of the South West economic co-operation and growth area. I hope that that combined effort will be reflected in their local industrial strategy, because this year needs to be the year of our regions, not just of our capital city. As Minister for local growth, I firmly believe that our biggest opportunity after leaving the European Union will be regional, and that is what the Government should be measured on.

In the limited time available, I will attempt to deal with the questions raised by hon. Members. First, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon spoke about tourism’s value to the economy. The Government continue to invest in tourism, particularly through the “Great” campaign to attract overseas visitors to this country. I encourage him and his LEP to engage with BEIS to discuss the developing potential of the tourism sector deal and pursue the idea of putting natural capital—the beauty that exists across the whole south-west—at the heart of their local industrial strategy.

Many hon. Members raised transport, particularly the Dawlish line. Colleagues will acknowledge that the Government have already invested £70 million in the line to date. I have heard the calls from Members across the parties to use whatever influence I may have over the Department for Transport to get it to fast-track its announcement about the line and ensure that we complete our commitment to making sure that it remains a robust and reliable connection for their constituents.

Hon. Members also raised the transforming cities fund, which we announced in the Budget. Some of that £2.5 billion fund has already been devolved to areas with Mayors, such as the Bristol city region, and the remaining £1.2 billion in the pot is subject to the competitive bidding process. The results of that process will be announced after the assessment of the bids; the Department for Transport tells me that that announcement will be made shortly.

My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) raised geothermal energy, which the Government recognise as a large opportunity. I encourage her to ensure that clean growth continues to be a priority, not just for the Government but for her area’s local industrial strategy.

The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), who made the only speech from the Opposition Back Benches, spoke with real passion and in a very non-partisan way about the opportunity for a marine park in Plymouth Sound, which takes me back to the point that we need to ensure that local industrial strategies and our national industrial strategy accurately reflect the value of natural capital. When we talk about things like productivity, it is all too easy to ignore what may be on our doorstep.

I hope that in 2018, when the landscapes review undertaken by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs consulted on whether the current network of national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty should extend out to sea, partners in Plymouth and Devonport made a strong case for that marine park. There is no update from DEFRA yet, but I will continue to watch developments with interest because the marine park is an important idea that could be rolled out across the country—not least in your Anglesey constituency of Ynys Môn, Mr Owen. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport is right that we need to be bold and clear about our passion to grow the south-west’s economy; his speech made that point very well.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) spoke well about the UK shared prosperity fund. He will be aware of the Government commitment to ensure that the current round of EU structural funding has the benefit of a Treasury guarantee until March 2021, but our specific aim in introducing the UK shared prosperity fund is to provide a single domestic local growth fund without the bureaucracy of EU funds. As my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) noted, we need to ensure that our UK growth funds concentrate on what we need to grow in this country. That is one of the opportunities that leaving the European Union will bring.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) spoke about the desired growth of the Cornish economy. Of course the spaceport has already received funding of £2 million from the Government, and the Space Industry Act 2018 will enable spaceships—I guess—to take off by 2020.

I want to give my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon an opportunity to wind up, so I do not have time to answer all the questions asked by hon. Members, but I will write to them about any outstanding issues. This has been a wonderful debate. This is the year of regional growth, and the south-west must be at the heart of it.

Tenant Fees Bill

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Wheeler]

Again, I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is so deeply imbued with knowledge of these issues that I take note of it. I think he will find that later in the Bill there is a clause that might be helpful to him.

There is also a power in clause 3 to amend the list of permitted payments, including the level of the deposit cap and types of default fees that can be charged, should this be required.

Lords amendment 48 clarifies that landlords and agents will still be able to charge for any damages for contractual breaches as they do now. On this point, the hon. Member for Great Grimsby has tabled an amendment seeking to ensure that, where a landlord or agent wishes to charge a payment for damages, they must provide evidence in writing to demonstrate that their costs are reasonable. I would like to reassure her, and other hon. Members, that that amendment is not necessary. It has never been the intention that the Bill affects a landlord or an agent’s right to recover damages for breach of contract under common law. That is why we brought forward Lords amendment 48 to clarify the position and to ensure that such payments will not be outlawed under the ban. I want to reassure hon. Members that this does not create a back door to charging fees. I repeat: it does not create a back door to charging fees. Damages are generally not meant to do anything more than put the innocent party back in the position they would have been in had the contract not been breached. No reasonableness test is therefore needed. There are already large amounts of case law that deal with what is appropriate in a damages case. If an agent or a landlord attempts to insert a clause that requires a payment—for example, saying, “If you do X, you must make a payment”—this will be prohibited under clause 1(6)(b) or clause 2(5)(b). Further, landlords or agents are required to go to court if they want to enforce a damages claim, or they could seek to recover them from the tenancy deposit. In both cases, they would need to provide evidence to substantiate any claim, and they would only be awarded any fair costs.

As such, the hon. Lady’s amendment is unnecessary. It would also not be appropriate for this Bill to start tweaking years of existing case law regarding damages payments. We are more likely to confuse the landscape than to clarify it. We are committed, on this matter, to working with Citizens Advice, Shelter and other industry groups to ensure that tenants fully understand their existing rights with regard to paying and challenging contractual damages. We have already taken steps to update our guidance to make this point clear. I hope that, with those reassurances, the hon. Lady feels able to withdraw her amendment.

Hon. Members will be aware that the Bill introduces a clear set of rules around holding deposits. This will improve transparency and provide assurances from both tenant and landlord around the commitment to entering into a tenancy agreement. To minimise the risk of abuse, Lords amendment 54 introduces a formal requirement for landlords and agents to set out in writing why they are retaining a deposit. This will empower tenants to challenge decisions that they believe to be unfair. It will also ensure that tenants do not continue to apply for properties and risk losing their holding deposit time and again without understanding why.

We also agree that it is not right that landlords and agents accept multiple holding deposits for the same property. That is why Lords amendment 41 ensures that a landlord or an agent can only take one holding deposit at any one time for a property, unless permitted to retain the earlier deposit. Lords amendment 50 will ensure that a tenant receives their holding deposit back when the tenancy agreement is entered into. Previously, it could have been the case that a landlord might have had grounds to retain the holding deposit, and done so but entered into the tenancy anyway. Further, Lords amendment 59 clarifies that a holding deposit must be refunded where a landlord or an agent imposes a requirement that breaches the ban or behaves in such a manner that it would be unreasonable to expect the tenant or relevant person to enter the tenancy. This will, for example, give tenants greater power to object where a landlord or agent has asked them to pay an unlawful fee or to enter into an agreement with unfair terms.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

This is a very stressful time for tenants; I have had a case raised with me very recently. That is particularly so for those who are forced, for one reason or another, to move frequently, which seems to happen more often in London than elsewhere, including Taunton Deane. Does the Minister agree that these amendments and this Bill are going to make a real difference to their security, particularly the fact that they have redress over the deposit issue, which is incredibly stressful if they have to try to claim it back?

[Mrs Wheeler]

My hon. Friend is quite right. It does seem to be a bit more of a thing in the south-east than anywhere else. Nevertheless, this Bill, which we hope to get through tonight with no ping-pong, will apply across the whole of England, and it will help tenants going forward, so I thank her for her question.

Lords amendments 13, 14, 19, 20, 38 to 40, 51 to 53 and 56 to 58 are consequential to those on holding deposits that I have just described.

I would like to discuss some amendments made to ensure that the Bill does not adversely affect organisations that were never intended to be in scope. We have taken local housing authorities and the Greater London Authority, or any organisation acting on their behalf, out of the definition of “relevant person”. Lords amendments 3 and 4 ensure that those authorities and those acting on their behalf will be able to make payments in connection with a tenancy when acting on behalf of a tenant or guaranteeing their rent.

Local authorities have a duty to help the homeless find accommodation. We recognise that, as part of this, councils may need to provide assistance to applicants—financial or otherwise—to access private rented accommodation. We do not want inadvertently to prevent a local authority from carrying out that vital work.

Further, Lords amendments 24 to 26 exclude certain licences to occupy where advice or assistance is provided in connection with the grant, renewal or continuation of the licence by charities or community interest companies. The types of licence that will be excluded are those that have been granted primarily for the provision of companionship or companionship combined with care or assistance where no rent is paid. This ensures that the important work of schemes such as Homeshare can continue. Homeshare matches a person in housing need—often a young person—with a householder, who is often elderly and needs companionship, sometimes combined with low-level care or assistance. I am sure we all agree that that is a worthy cause that was never intended to be in scope of the ban on letting fees.

Lords amendments 21 to 23 and 27 ensure that the forthcoming client money protection provisions work as intended. We want to give landlords and tenants financial security, but not in such a way as to impose disproportionate and unnecessary burdens on industry, which might adversely impact tenants and landlords. We have clarified that money that has already been protected through a Government-approved tenancy deposit scheme is not required to be doubly protected by a client money protection scheme. That was never the policy intention.

We will also not require schemes to pay out where certain risks are excluded by insurers. Those policy exclusions typically refer to events such as war, terrorism or confiscation by the state. Neither can we expect schemes to hold insurance for every penny held by agents. Our amendments ensure that the level of insurance held by schemes is proportionate to the risk of client money being lost. We are permitting schemes to impose limits per individual claimant and aggregate limits, where they are at least equivalent to the scheme’s maximum probable loss. That is an accepted industry practice, and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme imposes such limits.

The amendments on client money protection also provide for a transitional period of 12 months after the requirement to belong to a scheme comes into force, permitting agents to join a scheme where they are making all efforts to apply for a client account but have not yet obtained one. We want to give agents sufficient time to find a bank that offers a pooled client account. Schemes will be able to work with agents to find an appropriate banking provider where they are having difficulty. I would like to be clear that the 12-month transitional period only applies in relation to applying for a pooled client account and not the requirement to belong to a client money protection scheme more broadly. That is intended to come into force on 1 April 2019, prior to the ban on fees, and as long as we do not have ping-pong.

Lords amendment 27 clarifies that the lead enforcement authority set up under the Bill can also enforce the client money protection regulations, and Lords amendment 60 is a consequential amendment to the title of the Bill. These amendments will ensure that client money protection gives tenants and landlords the financial security that they want and deserve, without imposing unreasonable and disproportionate costs on industry, which could increase costs for tenants and landlords.

Above all, these amendments improve affordability, strengthen protection for tenants and minimise the risk of abuse by the minority of rogue landlords and agents. They ensure that the Bill’s key provisions are clear and transparent on the face of the Bill, offering tenants the certainty and security that they deserve. I hope that Members will welcome the changes that have been made, which I firmly believe address the key concerns raised in this House. I am confident that the measures in the Bill will help to deliver the fairer and more affordable private rented sector that we all want to see for tenants, but also for decent, professional landlords and agents who are providing a vital service.

It is in all our interests to see this crucial legislation become law as quickly as possible and avoid any delay that ping-pong would inevitably cause. We need to allow a short period following Royal Assent to enable agents and landlords to become compliant with the new legislation. We therefore intend the provisions in the Bill to come into force on 1 June 2019, which means that the ban would apply to all new tenancies entered into on or after that date.

Local Government Funding Settlement

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

In a similarly festive spirit, I can tell the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) that she has brought back fond memories for me, because in 1992 I fought the Bristol South constituency. Unfortunately for me, and probably for the benefit of the nation, the Bristol South constituency fought back.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

You might have been my neighbour, Mr Speaker.

I very much welcome the increase in core spending for Somerset of 3.7% and, in particular, our inclusion in the 75% business rate retention pilot areas, which I and three colleagues from Somerset have worked hard on. I have just had a text from the leader of Somerset County Council saying, “This is excellent news and thank you.” Does this not demonstrate that our Ministers are listening, especially the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), and that they have at last realised that rural areas really do need some special attention?

Oral Answers to Questions

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Wheeler]

Sadly I do not have a crystal ball, but what I do have is a team of fantastic advisers who are making sure that councils have put in really good bids to help rough sleepers. Secondly, there is money: £40 million, £30 million, £75 million and, now, another £5 million. This Government take homelessness and rough sleeping extremely seriously, and we are the only Government who have put it in our manifesto that we want to halve homelessness and rough sleeping. We will be looking after the most vulnerable people in 2020, and we will finish this altogether in 2027. The answer is that the Government and the money that taxpayers are providing are doing their best.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

3. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of his Department’s support for local government.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)]

Councils will receive a real-terms increase in financial resources both this year and next. Furthermore, the Department funds the Local Government Association to provide support for local authorities to build leadership capacity, conduct peer reviews and facilitate efficiency initiatives.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the Minister for that. What help is being provided specifically for Somerset County Council to cope with the escalating demands of adult social care and children’s services? Will he bear in mind that Somerset County Council desperately needs £80 million from the housing infrastructure fund in order to cope with providing much-needed future infrastructure?

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is tireless in pressing Somerset’s case. We listened carefully to her and others, and the Budget confirmed an additional £650 million for social care next year, and indeed an additional £500 million for the housing infrastructure fund. I am sure that the Minister for Housing will have heard her submission, but given what I have said, and the LGA’s specific support for Somerset with its children’s services, I hope she feels that we are responding to Somerset’s concerns and hers.

Non-Domestic Rating (Nursery Grounds) Bill

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th July 2018 Commons Chamber

I am tempted to point out that the opportunity to use the “green shoots of recovery” line is simply too good to pass up in such a debate. It is with absolutely no hesitation that I support the Bill and the Government’s other continuing efforts to ensure that rural small businesses in this country get the best chance to succeed.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I am delighted to speak in support of the Bill. This is a most pertinent time to talk about measures that will aid our worthy horticultural industry—not least because it is the tennis season. In particular, it is the time of that most prestigious of world-class events, Wimbledon. What is even more important about Wimbledon than the tennis, Sir Lindsay? The strawberries. People were wondering how I could get tennis into the debate—

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

But more so the cream.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

I have written down in brackets “and cream”. During the tournament last year, more than 166,000 portions of strawberries were served, with cream. That is 33 tonnes of strawberries. Were I not speaking in this debate, I would be at Wimbledon. That is how important I think it is that we get our business through.

Many strawberry plants, like other plants in the horticultural chain, start life being propagated in nursery grounds, which are often the lifeblood of the horticultural industry. They are the hotbed of germination, propagation and cultivation, and we are discussing them because the Bill exempts from non-domestic rates buildings that are, or form part of, a nursery ground, as several hon. Friends have already said. It gives nursery grounds parity with their agricultural counterparts.

The south-west region, where I come from, is a rural region with a good climate for gardening, growing and horticulture, and it supports so many businesses in the sector, not least in Taunton Deane, which is one reason why I particularly wanted to speak in this debate. I also wanted to speak because in a previous life I worked for the National Farmers Union and got quite involved with the horticultural industry, and I was for many years a horticultural and gardening journalist and broadcaster, so this subject is close to my heart.

I certainly appreciate the hard graft—to use a horticultural term—involved in the industry and the very tight margins, especially for those at the start of the chain. It is difficult for them to pass on their costs: they cannot have huge add-ons because they do not deal with the general public. For this small sector of the industry to discover recently that it was to be penalised by having to pay business rates, when previously it had been exempted, like its agricultural counterparts, was a bitter blow.

Let me give some background. Nursery grounds were exempt from non-domestic rates from 1928 until recently when, through one particular court decision, about which we have heard from colleagues, it was found that the exemption was an incorrect application of the law. This was a bolt from the blue and, as can be imagined, caused a huge amount of angst in the nursery industry, which was already up against the tight margins that I mentioned. The Horticultural Trades Association reported that the change would be detrimental to the industry: if nurseries had to pay business rates that they had not paid previously, that would inevitably drive up costs that would be passed on to the consumers at the end of the chain. As Conservatives—we are the party of business—that did not sit easily with us. The HTA reported that some of its members could face bills to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds if the situation was not rectified.

I am delighted to say, though, that through the ripening of this small but perfectly formed Bill, the wrong has been righted. The fruitful outcome that we are witnessing today clarifies once and for all that the situation will again be aligned with the previous practice of exemptions. I am particularly pleased to hear that the funds will be backdated, as specified in the Bill. The Bill demonstrates that, in such an instance, where unfairness has so obviously been demonstrated, the Government, particularly the meticulous and attentive Minister, have listened—and they have not just listened but acted.

The Bill is fully in step with the Government’s commitment to a vision of a productive, competitive and sustainable UK agricultural sector, of which horticulture and the plant nursery sector are an important part. In fact, I believe there is great scope for the industry to grow and blossom, particularly as we exit the EU. With the right back-up, such as that demonstrated through this Bill, there is an opportunity to grow more of our plant material at home, to fuel our landscaping and ornamental plant industry, thereby avoiding the inherent plant disease and pest threats that are associated with importing plants for this trade. For example, we hear a great deal about the disease xylella, which is wiping out olive trees and many other herbaceous and woody commercial plants in Europe. We do not want that in the UK.

After the granting of Taunton’s new and most welcome garden town status, designated through the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, I am working to see more trees included in our townscape. Would it not be wonderful if, at the same time as improving the environment and people’s health and wellbeing, along with all the other benefits that we get from trees, those trees were home-grown, so that the economy benefits at the same time?

Let me touch on the idea of growing the whole horticultural industry and why it is important to put in place measures such as the Bill to stimulate the industry. It is thought that there is great scope to grow the industry, perhaps by as much as an incredible £18 billion. In fact, tomorrow the all-party group on gardening and horticulture is holding an inquiry into how we can skill up the industry and what we need to do to make that happen. There is consensus from the Horticultural Trades Association that if the gross value added—that is, the goods and services that emanate from the diverse horticultural and gardening industry—was measured, which it currently is not, it would demonstrate exactly how valuable the sector is to the economy. It would then be easier to make a case for putting in the right measures, including research and development and so on, to grow the sector.

This small but perfectly formed Bill rights an injustice relating to the imposition of business rates on a special sector of the important horticultural industry, one of the very veins of the supply chain. In so doing, it benefits the industry by not saddling it with an unwelcome property tax and thus helps all those who work in the trade and the whole economy, by giving back to the industry one of the benefits that it needs to thrive. It will have particular resonance throughout the south-west, so I fully support the Bill.

[Rishi Sunak]

It is a pleasure to respond briefly to the various points raised. I thank my opposite number, the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), for the typically constructive way he has approached this type of legislation; of course, we do not agree on everything, but it is fantastic to be able to move these relatively technical matters through the House speedily.

The hon. Gentleman expressed, as he has before, a specific concern about whether the presence of an automated teller machine in a convenience store could take the rateable value of that small shop above the threshold for small business rate relief. Having looked into the matter, I am delighted to tell him that we do not believe that that should be the case. If an ATM is rateable, it would appear as a separate assessment on the ratings list and the ratepayer would typically be the financial institution that operates the ATM, not the shop itself. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are discussing the specific issues with the Association of Convenience Stores to ensure that its concerns are investigated and addressed.

The hon. Gentleman turned to the important topic of high streets. I know that all of us in this House celebrate our local high streets; they are vital parts not just of our communities, but of our economies. I am very pleased to tell him that my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) is the Minister for high streets and is fully focused on the issue at hand through the Future High Streets Forum. More excitingly, he has just launched the Great British High Street Awards 2018. I will do a plug and call on all Members to nominate their local high streets. Nominations are open until the end of August. The last iteration of the competition saw almost 1,000 entries from across the country and hundreds of thousands of votes from the public to choose the eventual winner. There is a considerable cash prize on offer for the winner and, indeed, a new rising star category. The winner will also receive expert advice from industry professionals. I hope that the hon. Gentleman knows that we take the issue of high streets very seriously indeed.

Let me touch briefly on some of the other contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) should take enormous pride in the role that he has played in ensuring that we are discussing this important issue today. Hopefully, this legislation will eventually receive Royal Assent and that will be in no small part owing to his efforts to put this issue on the agenda of Ministers, and he deserves enormous credit for that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), who had this job before me, put in motion the Bill that we are discussing today and engaged with my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay on this important topic, ensuring that when I arrived in the Department this agenda was ready to take forward, and he also deserves credit for that. It is always intimidating to have to respond to him in this Chamber, as I am always reminded that so well did he do this job before I inherited it that the job had to be split between two different people. The Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler), sits beside me on the Bench. The two of us together do our best to replicate what he did before us and we are grateful that he left everything in such good shape for us to pick up.

My hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) has been a stalwart in speaking about business rate tweaks. I join him in hoping that there are far fewer of these to come in the immediate future, but thank him for his support of the Bill. He spoke eloquently about defending the rural interests in his constituency, which will benefit from this Bill, as he did when we enabled business rates relief for new fibre installations, a topic that is dear to his heart and which he pushed hard for. He should shortly be seeing the benefits of that policy in action across the country.

My constituency neighbour, my good hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), has, as I know at first hand, a very mixed constituency. As ever, he did an excellent and eloquent job in talking about the importance of small businesses across Teesside and the efforts that this Government have put in place to ensure that the tax burden on those small businesses is as low as possible. I welcome his support for the £10 billion-worth of measures to alleviate the burden of business rates on small enterprises across Teesside. I am glad that they are benefiting from that. In the rural part of his constituency in East Cleveland, the agricultural community will, I am sure, welcome his support and lobbying for this measure as it can ensure that its productivity remains high in the months and years to come.

What better place to end than with my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow)? As ever, she gave us a brilliant defence and a brilliant celebration of our rural economy and everything that it contributes to our national life. We are, of course, grateful to her for gracing us with her presence today, when she could have been at Wimbledon enjoying the strawberries, the Pimms, the cream and everything else on offer. I must say that, when it comes to slipping requests, she clearly has a much better relationship with the Whips than I do, as my previous requests for various exemptions for cricket matches and tennis matches were firmly denied, so I have something to take up with the Whips in due course.

I am glad that we have had a very constructive discussion today and that there is widespread support for this particular clause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair.

Bill reported, without amendment (Standing Order No. 83D(6)).

Oral Answers to Questions

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

To enable developers to build the right proportion of affordable housing, it is essential that they have the money for infrastructure. In that respect, I welcome the £7.6 million we have received for the spine road in Staplegrove. When will we know whether £18 million of funding will be announced following the joint bid by my council and Sedgemoor?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend. The housing infrastructure fund is absolutely vital because people rightly ask local authorities with the ambition to build new homes where the roads, schools and clinics will come from. We are taking forward a whole range of bids for co-development. The business proposals will be analysed by my Department, and we will make further announcements in the autumn.

Non-Domestic Rating (Nursery Grounds) Bill

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My right hon. Friend is right. My understanding is that other legislation has outlined the difference between the two, and I will come on to the Court decision that distinguished the treatment of the two.

It might be helpful, for Members who are not aware, if I explain the distinction. A nursery ground is where small plants or trees are propagated or sown with a view to their being sold on to someone else for growing on to their mature state, for sale to or use by the end consumer, whereas a market garden is where fruit, vegetables, flowers or plants are produced to be sold directly or indirectly to members of the public for consumption.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I have been much involved with the horticultural industry, so I am quite aware of the nursery industry, but I believe that many people are not aware of how significant it is for growing produce for our home market. We could grow it even more after Brexit—indeed, we need to—and the Bill will help a great deal by making these businesses more viable.

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is, as ever, an incredible champion for agriculture and the rural community. She is right to highlight not only the current contribution of the fantastic horticultural sector to the UK economy in providing such fantastic food and drink for us to enjoy but the opportunities that will come after Brexit, as we make good on the promise of a global Britain where our food and drink exporters can look out to the world around, where demand is growing exponentially, and take advantage of all those opportunities. Consumers around the world will have the opportunity to benefit from high-quality produce developed in this country and always to high welfare standards, of which I know she is also a champion.

It is worth noting that the exemption from business rates for agricultural land has been in place since 1929. Before that, in the early part of the 20th century and before, agriculture benefited from a partial exemption from rates. For almost 100 years, the Government and Parliament have considered that agriculture should not pay rates. This Government and I trust that this Parliament has no intention for any change of direction in this matter.

It has been assumed until now that all plant nurseries where plants or trees are grown in the initial stages of their life, as I outlined, benefited from that exemption. That had always been the understanding of both rating valuers and practitioners, but in 2015, a Court of Appeal decision showed that the exemption did not apply to plant nurseries in buildings where the buildings were not used in connection directly with agricultural land. That does not reflect Government policy, and neither does it reflect our commitment to supporting sustainable growth in the rural economy.

This legislation will ensure that plant nurseries in buildings will once again benefit from the exemption from business rates for agricultural land and buildings. It will restore fairness for hard-working businesses hit by an unexpected tax burden, and it will enable the Valuation Office Agency to return to its former practice of exempting plant nurseries in buildings and removing plant nurseries that have been assessed from the business rates list. Plant nurseries paying business rates since 2015 will be eligible to apply for a backdated refund of their business rates, which will ensure that these businesses do not continue to suffer as a result of a property tax with an impact on the cost of farming and produce.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: that is what the Bill seeks to do. It is a limited, targeted Bill that restores the practice previously widely accepted and understood by all participants in the rating system and ensures we will return to the state that existed before the Court of Appeal decision.

While I am responding to my right hon. Friend, let me clarify my earlier point. He asked where exactly the definition of nursery grounds can be found. I am reminded that it is precisely defined in case law, rather than in statute. That is where the definitions used over the years have been developed.

To turn to the business rates system in general, the Government are very clearly using the business rates system to create opportunities and to drive growth across the country. The Government have introduced a range of business rates reforms—worth over £10 billion by 2023—that will benefit the wider economy, including many businesses in rural areas. In April 2017, we permanently doubled small business rate relief to 100%, and raised the threshold from £6,000 to £12,000. As a result of these measures, over 600,000 small businesses—occupiers of a third of all properties—now pay no business rates at all. This demonstrates the Government’s clear commitment to supporting small businesses. We understand the impact of business rates in the rural economy in particular, so at the same time the Government also doubled rural rate relief from 50% to 100% for eligible businesses.

[Rebecca Pow]

I have an urban area in Taunton Deane, but I speak as someone whose constituency is particularly rural. There is a view that there is an increasing divide between urban and rural, particularly in the south-west, where we are largely rural. These business rates exemptions are absolutely crucial. Does the Minister agree that this Government are very much indicating that they understand their importance?

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She will know that I also represent a deeply rural constituency. I have seen at first hand the incredible difference that the business rates exemptions make to small rural enterprises, whether they are small business rate relief, rural rate relief or, indeed, some of the measures to support pubs that the Chancellor has announced in the last Budget or two. All of these measures add up to tangible savings for thriving enterprises, which are indeed the lifeblood of rural areas.

My hon. Friend will know, as I do, that rural areas typically do not benefit from large multinational employers. The backbone of rural economies are small and medium-sized enterprises, for which business rates are often a significant cost to bear. Any relief that the Government can give is always warmly welcomed, and it makes an enormous difference to their profitability and future success.

I am pleased to tell my hon. Friend that the Government continue to listen to business. At the spring Budget last year, the Chancellor announced a £435 million package to support rate payers facing the steepest rises in bills following the revaluation. Further answering calls from businesses, the Government brought forward to April this year the switch in the annual indexation of business rates from the retail prices index to the consumer prices index. That represents a cut in business rates every year. Although bringing forward that measure two years earlier than previously planned might sound technical, it is worth £2.3 billion over the next five years.

Furthermore, at last year’s autumn Budget the Chancellor also announced an increase in the frequency of property revaluations from every five years to every three years following the next revaluation. That will ensure that bills more accurately reflect properties’ current rental value and relative changes in rents. The 2018 spring statement announced that the next revaluation would be brought forward to 2021 from 2022, so that businesses can benefit from the change as soon as possible. After that, three-year revaluations will take effect in 2024.

To deliver on that commitment, the Government have already introduced secondary legislation to set the valuation date for the next revaluation on 1 April 2019, allowing the Valuation Office Agency to start preparing for a 2021 revaluation. The Government will introduce primary legislation to change the date of the next revaluation to 2021 in due course. The British Retail Consortium recognised that that was a positive move to improve the fairness of the system, and I look forward to meeting its representatives shortly.

In spite of all that, the Government are not resting on our laurels. We are also reviewing the wider taxation of the digital economy, and the Chancellor has been clear that we need to look more broadly at the overall taxation of the digital economy. The Government are working internationally to ensure that corporate tax rules deliver fairer results for certain digital businesses. We will use the output of those discussions to help inform consideration of the wider business tax system, to ensure that all businesses make a fair contribution to the public finances and that business rates continue to support the stability of local government funding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Warman]

My constituency also contains a village called Old Leake, which is in the same ward as Wrangle. “Wrangle and Old Leake” surely has some comic potential as well. I agree with my right hon. Friend that businesses that have paid out—I should say that I do not believe that Fountain is in that position—should be entitled to the refund that the Minister suggested, and the Government should consider establishing such a fund if compensation is due.

Having been exempted from rates since 1929, the businesses to which I have referred were faced with a number of factors that they had previously never even had to consider incorporating in their business models. I understand that glasshouses, which are obviously of huge concern to a constituency such as mine, have been exempted since the 1990s. An issue on which businesses throughout this section of the economy have been entirely predicated was upended by the courts almost overnight.

I agree with the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) that the Government deserve some credit for seeking to clarify what might have been an important issue had the system been allowed to persist. There was real concern—not just among businesses in my constituency—when it became obvious that the Valuation Office Agency was going down this path. I began by saying that the issue was about brassicas and flooding, but in fact it is about the jobs that would have been at stake. If the Government had not intervened to clarify the position, people would undoubtedly would have found themselves out of work.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), who at the relevant time had ministerial responsibility for these matters. Having visited those at R. Fountain & Son and reassured them that I was confident that such an extreme situation could only be the result of a mistake rather than Government policy, I had the extraordinary and delightful experience of mentioning that to my hon. Friend in a Lobby—he may not even remember it—and being told that the Government were already looking into the matter. It was a pleasure to be able to go back to businesses in my constituency and say that the Government would not be daft enough to increase their business rates so suddenly and massively.

To be honest, however, it was an even greater pleasure to go back to the drainage board. While I obviously care greatly about businesses throughout my constituency, the work of drainage boards in Lincolnshire is particularly and enormously valuable. They do huge service to the broader economy, and provide a great deal of reassurance through their work with the Environment Agency across the broader flooding landscape. Given that, according to the Association of British Insurers, my constituency is at greater risk of flooding than any other, I am particularly alive to that.

As I have said, my constituency is largely agricultural, and we are grateful for the business rates retention pilot. The Department is obviously aware of what must be done to ensure that business rates retention works for the areas to which it is applied, and that we do not end up losing out overall and accidentally giving more money back to the Treasury. I know that it does not intend that to happen in any circumstances.

I hope that Members will bear in mind that the Bill represents a useful endeavour to fix a problem that would have had a real impact not only on the local economy and jobs in my constituency, but on the availability of cabbages throughout the country, about which I know the House cares deeply. I also hope that, while accepting my praise for his swift action, the Minister will bear in mind that it highlights what business rates retention may well look like as we proceed with what I consider to be a worthwhile and popular policy.

[Rebecca Pow]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is heartening that although people often think that we in Parliament are powerless and are not listened to, when my hon. Friend went to the Minister about his cabbages, the Minister listened and we have done something that will help? That is a positive message. It might be a small thing to many people, but this is a positive message that, with cross-party work, we can make something happen.

[Matt Warman]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and this shows the power of my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton, and now the power of the two current Front Benchers. I agree with the Opposition spokesman that it is of course a good thing to work cross party on such an issue, which relates to not an intentional decision taken by the Government, but a decision by the courts that risked upending a long-standing principle.

I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton and those who have continued his work. I hope that the one wrinkle in the potential of the excellent notion of business rate retention will be considered in the context of these sorts of decisions. Such decisions could of course come up again, because people do go to courts, and courts do produce judgments that perhaps surprise all of us. In this case, the decision certainly surprised my drainage board and farmers such as Fountains. I praise the Government and hope we can get on with this as soon as possible.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I am delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), and I want to add my comments on what is a very precise Bill. Although it relates to plants, it is not in any way flowery; it is a tight, neat little Bill that very much that does what it says on the tin—or, we might say, on the plant pot.

The Bill exempts from non-domestic rates buildings that are, or form part of, a nursery ground. That is highly significant for our highly professional and essential horticultural industry, which does not often get as much attention as it deserves. The horticultural industry supplies many fantastic plants for the whole nation, and as the Minister mentioned—I am glad he referred to this—there is scope for the industry to increase.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her knowledge in this area; in fact, I think she was a TV star in the horticultural sphere for a short time. Is it not true that the changes in the Bill will make it much easier for plant nurseries to grow and be productive?

[Rebecca Pow]

Yes, and I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. One of the programmes my name was attached to was called “Loads More Muck and Magic.” It was a Channel 4 series and it was all about growing plants organically, which is terribly trendy now, so it was a bit ahead of its time—it was all ponytails and carpets then, though. It was filmed not far from my hon. Friend’s constituency at the Ryton organic gardens at Ryton-on-Dunsmore, which is still a terrific centre for organic gardening. The organisation there was called the Henry Doubleday Research Association, and it did a lot of great work on how to grow plants and what we should all do as growers at home.

My hon. Friend makes the good point that this Bill looks very much at the beginning of the plant chain when people take seeds and grow them—that exciting germination and propagation process that grows up plants, which can then be handed through the chain. I will go into that in more detail shortly, but it is an area that people forget about, even though it is such a valuable part of this important industry.

Although this is a great industry and it is highly valued, it is quite difficult to put an exact value on the horticultural trade. For example, estimates show that the whole gardening industry—that category is very wide, and would include garden tourism and events such as the Chelsea and Hampton Court flower shows—is worth approximately £16 billion to the economy and employs 300,000 people.

Normally, however, the best measure of an industry’s contribution to the economy is gross value added. I am not an economist—I am sure that most of my colleagues are much more knowledgeable about this than I am, particularly the Minister, who I know is very good with his figures—but I believe that GVA measures the value of an industry’s goods or services to the economy, excluding any goods or services used in production. However, that breakdown of statistics is not carried out for the horticultural industry. If it were, we would have a much better figure to show just how important the industry is. Should the Minister ever move to the Treasury—he may well do, given his mathematical brain—he might like to look into that GVA anomaly. That would be incredibly helpful to the nation as a whole, particularly in the light of Brexit. It is hard to grow an industry and attract the investment that it needs if we do not have the exact figures relating to that industry. You might think that I am digressing, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I think this is an important point.

[Julian Knight]

I do not think that my hon. Friend is digressing at all. In fact, she has made a germane point in mentioning the 300,000 people who work in the industry. Does she agree that if we can get people to plant more and get them really interested in horticulture in ways such as this, we could get a great deal closer to self-sufficiency, not only in food but in plants?

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend is a man after my own heart. I do not know whether you are a gardener, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

A reluctant gardener.

[Rebecca Pow]

A reluctant gardener? That’s okay. You can garden from your chair, or in a window box, but you can get your fingers into the soil. My hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) is absolutely right to say that we could increase our home growing, but we could also increase the health and wellbeing that people get from being engaged in the soil and growing things. Horticulture is such an exciting area to be in, and it is also very good for mental health. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point.

The industry itself believes that if we had the statistics that I was talking about, it would be possible to grow the industry by £18 billion. I am pleased to say that the ornamental horticultural roundtable group, in which I have been much involved, has commissioned Oxford Economics—at the vast expense of £50,000—to look into the value and economics of the ornamental horticultural sector. That is just one section of the horticultural industry, but it is pertinent to what we are talking about today. I urge all my colleagues to join the all-party parliamentary group on gardening and horticulture if they are not already members of it, because we have interesting trips to places such as Chelsea and glean a lot of excellent information. The group is also looking into the issue of growing the horticultural industry in the context of Brexit.

The ornamental plant industry supplies our landscaping industry and our popular gardening sector with wonderful bedding plants and perennials, and it is thought that that sector was worth £1.4 billion in 2017, which represents an increase of 4.8% compared with 2016. So the sector is on the up, and it could increase more. It could be a much more viable industry with this essential business rates exemption, and the more we can grow the industry, the more it will benefit the economy, particularly in the south-west.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

It has been great to hear about the all-party parliamentary group—perhaps I should dig out the details. Coming back to the exemption that the Bill is likely to provide, my hon. Friend has talked at some length about the fact that the industry is now able to grow. Is it not also the case, however, that the tax that was imposed by the Court of Appeal could well have had a significantly detrimental effect on many growers, particularly the smaller businesses that would have been most affected?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I could put the hon. Gentleman on to the speaking list if he would like. I will put him on it with pleasure, but we must have short interventions.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend and apologise to you on his behalf, Mr Deputy Speaker. However, he made a useful intervention, because I am going to come on to that point. That issue was causing concern among many businesses, because it would have cost some of them hundreds of thousands of pounds, and some smaller businesses could have been wiped out, so this is a serious point.

[Sir Greg Knight]

First, does my hon. Friend share my disgust that not one Liberal Democrat MP is in the Chamber to discuss an important matter affecting rural communities? Secondly, although retrospection in law is generally to be frowned upon, does she agree that it is most welcome in this case because we are righting a perceived wrong?

[Rebecca Pow]

We began this debate on a cross-party basis, and I am loth to say anything more controversial, but he makes an exceedingly good point about the Liberal Democrats. They were large in the south-west, but we wiped them out—as one does with a weed wiper, to use another horticultural term. The south-west is a rural region, and gardening and horticulture are important parts of our economy. One would have thought that the Liberal Democrats might have realised that and turned up, but yet again it is the Conservative party that speaks up for the rural community, and I am proud to be part of that community. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) is also here, of course.

The south-west has a good climate for horticulture, as does Chichester, and horticulture and gardening are important in Taunton Deane. We have some wonderful open gardens and visitor attractions, such as at Hestercombe and Cothay, hundreds of private gardens, and many allotment holders, many of whom have plants that started their lives in the nurseries that we are talking about today. I had a marvellous Sunday planting out my fuchsias, geraniums and alyssums into my tubs and containers, and they would have started life at one of those nurseries. I had a lovely time, and the weather was beautiful.

To get back to the Bill, which is going to come to fruition today—to use another horticultural term—nursery grounds were exempt from non-domestic rates from 1928 until recently, when the Court decision that we have heard about found exemptions to be an incorrect application of the law. As I said, that change caused a huge amount of worry in the nursery industry, where margins are tight. The Horticultural Trades Association reported that the change would be detrimental to the industry, inevitably driving up costs if nurseries had to pay business rates that they had not been paying previously, and that those costs would be passed on to the consumer. As Conservatives, that is not something that we are in favour of.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I do not mind if you want to pad out the debate, but I am bothered by the fact that we have another Back-Bench speaker to come and I still have to bring in the Front-Bench speakers, so I do not know whether you still want to give way.

[Rebecca Pow]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. If it will be short, I shall take an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), who has not yet intervened.

[Gillian Keegan]

My hon. Friend was talking about the prosperity of our economy. Does she agree that the growers and the farming industry of the future are important to that prosperity? There are many technological changes coming along in germination, for example, and our growers and farmers do not want to be sat there thinking about rates on particular buildings or polytunnels. The Bill is important to allow flexibility and ensure sustainability so that we have a thriving food economy.

[Rebecca Pow]

That is a good point. Industries such as horticulture are not quick—it takes time to grow plants and for them to go through the cycles, so it is important that businesses have the security and confidence that this Bill will put back into their lives. I am grateful for that.

The HTA has reported that some members are facing bills to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds, which we do not want. I am pleased the Bill clarifies the situation and is aligned with the previous practice of exemptions. I am particularly pleased to hear that the funds will be backdated, as the Minister clearly said.

I thank the Minister, because many colleagues on both sides of the House have been to see him, and he has listened. That is what people want from the Government, and we are making the change. This is the right way to go. The turnaround supports the Government’s commitment to a vision of a productive, competitive and sustainable UK agricultural sector, of which horticulture and the plant nursery sector are an important part.

Plant nurseries are under the microscope in the Bill, and they are important to our landscaping industry and to our towns that have been landscaped. Taunton has just received garden town status and will be seeing more landscaping. We want more trees and, as the MP, I have laid claim to that and have said that we must have more trees in our urban environment. Local authorities are not necessarily keen on having more trees, because they claim trees have a high maintenance cost, but we will change their mind.

Plant nurseries are hard-working businesses with soil under their fingernails. They grow plants from seed to germination to propagation, and many nurseries then sell them on to the next stage for businesses to grow them before they ultimately get into the market. That is what the Bill is about—plant nurseries are important stepping stones.

Nurseries will become increasingly important, because we need to increase our home-grown production, if nothing else, to prevent the threat of pests and plant diseases coming in from abroad. There is a terrible disease called xylella that is wiping out olive trees and many other herbaceous and woody commercial plants in Europe. We do not want that in the UK. If we grow more plants at home, and if we help our businesses with business rates exemptions such as this, we can expand and grow our own industry. That is essential, because there is a great line of diseases waiting to march in here on imported plants. We have a very good biosecurity system, but there is always a danger of disease. The more we can help our businesses to grow with Bills such as this, the fewer diseases we will have in this country.

The Bill will help an industry with very tight margins. It is a crucial step, and I know the Minister is taking it all to heart because he is committed to enabling the viability of the agricultural industry, rather than saddling it with a property tax. The Bill is about supporting the economy, and it is vital for the south-west, where horticulture is so important. Horticulture needs to grow, and I hope the Bill and the plant nurseries it supports will blossom.

[Bob Blackman]

rose—

Tenant Fees Bill

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 21st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

The issue was considered by the Select Committee, and we have considered it carefully. We believe that six weeks’ rent as an upper limit strikes the right balance between providing tenants with greater affordability while ensuring that landlords have adequate financial security for their assets.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I welcome the Bill. It is crucial that we have a vibrant tenant sector and that we aid it in every way possible, but the Bill must not deter landlords or agents who are acting well, assiduously and industriously. We must ensure that the Bill increases transparency and the competitiveness of the market, while still having a viable and vibrant market.

[James Brokenshire]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Let me be clear: the Bill is not an attack on good agents and landlords. We value the important services that they provide, but it will ensure a fair playing field for reputable agents by making it harder for rogues to operate. Letting agents and landlords who represent good value for money will continue to thrive, while those who rely on charging unfair and unjustifiable fees will have to reconsider their business models. We have also committed to regulation to prevent reputable agents from being undercut or undermined by rogues.

My hon. Friend makes her point very sincerely. The interesting point about some of the experience in Scotland is that the number of letting agents in Scotland, according to Companies House, has increased since 2012, when the ban on tenant fees was clarified there. That demonstrates that innovative and good agents can continue to thrive.

Windrush

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman mentions a couple of cases with which I am not familiar. If he wants to send me details, I shall take a closer look.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I, too, welcome the Secretary of State to his position, to which he brings his own particular personal insight and integrity. I also welcome the new fast-track system and wish to report that my constituent, who was thrown out of Uganda in 1973 and had a very hard time, has, as a result of the new system, been fast-tracked through and is delighted with his treatment. I have high hopes that he will be confirmed for ever to remain in Taunton Deane. Is it not right and essential that we have an immigration policy that is fit for the future, respects people’s rights and encourages aspiration?

[Sajid Javid]

I agree with every word my hon. Friend says.