Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill

Richard Fuller Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

We shall look forward to the Secretary of State getting a satisfactory result. I am not sure that I always got a satisfactory result with the Treasury, although I was in the Treasury at one point, at least as an adviser. This is very important and, as I say, people’s jobs and livelihoods and the scientific base of this country, of which we are all so proud, depend on it.

Let me come to the Bill, which we support. The Bill is important—the Secretary of State said this—because there is incredible work going on in the scientific community, but there is consensus that there is a lack of a mechanism to identify, build and fund truly ambitious, high-risk, high-reward programmes. We recognise the case for an independent agency that operates outside the established research funding mechanisms, but we feel that the Bill requires improvement.

I guess our concerns cohere into a different view about the role of Government and the lessons of DARPA, which my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) talked about, on which in some broad sense—maybe not in the Secretary of State’s mind, but in others’ minds—ARIA is modelled. It is impossible to ignore what we might call the spectre of Dom in this debate. He was at the Science and Technology Committee—chaired by the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells—and he does rather hang over this Bill. He is its sort of governmental godfather. In his telling, DARPA’s success—I think this is important—is simply because the Government got out of the way and let a bunch of buccaneering individuals do what they liked. It is definitely true, as I understand it, that DARPA has important lessons about the need for the culture that I talked about, including higher reward and, of necessity, a higher chance of failure, but it is simply not true that DARPA was somehow totally detached from Government. DARPA had an obvious client—the Department of Defense—a clear mandate around defence-related research, a clear synergy in its work with the procurement power of the US DOD and, incidentally, abided by laws on freedom of information.

I want to suggest that there are two different views about ARIA: one is that we should let the organisation simply do what it wants, relying on the wisdom of a genius chair and chief executive; and the other subtler and, in our view, more sensible approach—one more consistent with the lessons of DARPA—is that Government should set a clear mandate and framework for ARIA and then get out of the way and not interfere with its day-to-day decision-making. I also believe there is a democratic case, because the priority goals for the spending of £800 million over this Parliament should be driven by democratic choices; not about the specific items that it funds, but about the goals and mission.

That takes me to the three points that I want to make: first, about the mandate for ARIA; secondly, about its position in the wider R&D system; and thirdly, about accountability. I will try to emulate the Secretary of State’s brevity—perhaps not exactly his brevity, but as much as I can.

The deputy director of DARPA says about its success that

“having national security as the mission frames everything.”

The Secretary of State said to the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells at the Science and Technology Committee:

“If I were in your position, I would be asking what the core missions of ARIA are.”

I think the point that Dominic Cummings made, or I am sure would have made, is that this will be a job for the people we hire who are running the organisation. The Secretary of State went on:

“It will be up to the head of ARIA to decide whether he or she thinks the organisation should adopt what the innovation strategy suggests…or reject it.”

I really understand the wish to give freedom to ARIA, but surely it is for Government to shape and not shirk the setting of priorities, and it is not just DARPA where we can learn that lesson. Moonshot R&D—the Japanese agency established in 2019 to fund challenging R&D—has seven specific moonshot goals set by the Japanese Government, and my understanding from the evidence taken by the Science and Technology Committee is that the UK scientific community agrees with that idea.

I notice the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) putting his head in his hands. He has done that before when I speak, but let me just make this point in seriousness: £800 million is not in the scheme of things a huge amount of money, certainly when compared with UKRI’s budget. The concern is that unless, as the Select Committee said, ARIA focuses on a single or a small number of missions, it will dilute its impact.

Take the net zero challenge. I believe it is a challenge of political will and imagination, but it is also a technological challenge. If it is the No. 1 international challenge, as the PM said last week, and if it is the No. 1 domestic challenge, as I think it is, why would it not be the right mandate for ARIA for at least its first five years? Indeed, Professor Richard Jones and Professor Mariana Mazzucato, who perhaps have even greater claims than Dom to being godfather and godmother of this idea, said that climate change would be an ideal challenge on which an agency such as ARIA would focus. To be clear, providing a mandate does not mean micro-managing decisions, and it would be grossly simplistic to suggest otherwise.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman tempts me to my feet, first, because I think he does a tremendous disservice to Dominic Cummings. Without his inspiration, this Bill would not be before this House. Secondly, I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware of the chart that Mr Cummings showed while giving evidence to the Select Committee. It showed a large circle of areas with potential for people to investigate and a smaller segment of that, which is where all of the foreign Governments and our Government focus their research, precisely because they are driven by the political decisions, frameworks and missions that politicians set. Does the right hon. Gentleman not think there is some opportunity for us to do something slightly different and without the sticky fingers of Government interfering?

[Edward Miliband]

The hon. Gentleman and I have a respectful disagreement on this: I think it is for the Government of the day and this House to say what are the massive national priorities. Then it is for an organisation such as ARIA to fund the research in the high-risk, high-reward way that I mentioned. That is simply a difference of view. Without a clear policy mission, we risk a fragmented approach.

I will make this other point, which is that the chair and chief executive will be in the somewhat unenviable position of having to decide which Government Departments to prioritise. Of course they can work with different Departments, but let us set a clear challenge for the organisation.

The second point is not just about the question of mandate, but how it sits in the life cycle of technological innovation and how it works with other funding streams. ARIA is born of a frustration about the failure to fund high-risk research. We do not disagree with that thinking, but that makes it especially important that it does not duplicate the work of existing funding streams. Let me give an example. Innovate UK, part of UKRI, is supposed to be a funding stream to turn ideas into commercially successful products. I do not know from reading the Government’s statement of intent what Innovate UK would fund that ARIA would not and what ARIA would fund that Innovate UK would not.

The vagueness of the mandate for ARIA is matched by vagueness about where in the innovation cycle it sits. I was not doing Mr Cummings a disservice on this score by the way, because I support the Bill, but he said to the Select Committee:

“My version of it here would be…to accelerate scientific discovery far beyond what is currently normal, and to seek strategic advantage in some fields of science and technology…I would keep it broad and vague like that.”

He went on to say that he would say to the agency:

“Your job is to find people…with ideas that could change civilisation completely”.

I am sorry, but that is too vague, and I do not believe it unreasonable to say that there needs to be greater clarity about where in the life cycle ARIA sits.

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[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the Chair of the Select Committee on Science and Technology. Like other Members, I tuned in, eyes wide open, to hear what was said. I look forward to further instalments of that show in the month to come, as I am sure others do. I place on record my thanks, as other Members have done, for the fantastic work that has been undertaken by scientists in the UK in relation to the vaccine programme. It is something that unites us all. We all know that it will transform our lives, and we are collectively thankful on that front.

I commend the Secretary of State, as he has achieved something that is quite remarkable, certainly during my short tenure in the House. He appears almost to have united everyone in vague or cautious support for the Bill. On the face of it, it is something that we can welcome, but we have concerns, which I shall come on to, and reservations that need to be addressed in a positive manner, and hopefully the Secretary is willing to do that.

Before I deal with that, I am conscious that for my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray), who is sitting to my left, today is his last day in the Chamber, and he will make some valedictory remarks. I wish him the best going forward. As everyone in the Chamber will be well aware, all Scottish nationalists do not want to be here. He is getting away a little sooner than the rest of us, but we wish him well, and I am sure that Members across the Chamber do likewise.

Turning, you will be glad to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, to the substance of the Bill, I hope that, while I have made some positive comments, the Secretary of State will forgive me for saying—perhaps I have picked this up wrongly—that his short speech may reflect the fact that the Bill is incredibly vague on details. The first thing to reflect on in that regard is the wider mission of the Bill. That was addressed at length by the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) and by the Select Committee in its hearing last week. What is the Bill trying to achieve? Is it health outcomes, defence outcomes or transport outcomes? The clarity is not there. I heard what the Chair of the Select Committee said about having a focus on two issues. That is all well and good, but we do not have those answers yet from the Government. We need them moving forward, because there is a real concern and risk that what we have is something that becomes a jack of all trades, but a master of none. The Committee said that it was

“a brand in search of a product”,

which is entirely apt at this stage.

The right hon. Member for Doncaster North has rather stolen my thunder in that regard, because I want to discuss what the Bill could seek to do. It could follow Scotland’s lead. In Scotland, we have the Scottish National Investment Bank, which has a clear purpose to invest in net-zero technologies. Why do we not replicate that in the Bill? Why do the Government not put that front and centre of their agenda? The hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) is shaking his head, and he is more than welcome to intervene, to state why climate change should not be at the forefront of the Bill’s agenda.

[Richard Fuller]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me a chance to speak. I want to check that we are talking about the same aspects of the Bill, because he is trying, while saying what he thinks in a broad way, rather narrowly to define the scope of what research science projects can be. Does he not accept that there is a tension there, and that the Scottish example is precisely not what this is about?

[Stephen Flynn]

I reject the suggestion that climate change is a narrow focus given that climate change covers a whole host of areas. I see the Secretary of State nodding along with that. Presumably he is in agreement having previously been the Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth. When we look at this, we need to bear in mind DARPA, which has been talked about at length by others. DARPA had that clear focus, and that clear focus has allowed it to excel, in terms of GPS, the internet and the like. We should seek to replicate that, with climate change at the forefront.

It is regrettable that the Government have not simply made that suggestion, but it is not surprising, because, just last week, they sought to invest billions of pounds in new nuclear weapons. They could have said, “Here is £800 million that we are going to invest in trying to save the planet rather than destroy it.” In relation to the mission, therefore, the Secretary of State still has a great deal of work to do.

The second key area that I would like to pick up on is in relation to the wider leadership on the Bill. Although that has been referred to already, we do need to have clarity about how that process will work. What will be its outcome? Who will be the leader, or the leadership team, that takes this forward? There have been suggestions, indeed by Dominic Cummings himself, in relation to eminent scientists—scientists who, unfortunately, have been excluded from their professional role given the comments that have been made in relation to eugenics and race. Although I appreciate that the Secretary of State may not be in a position to say what the qualifying criteria will be for someone who takes on this role, I expect him to say what the disqualifying criteria will be. I certainly expect that someone who projects views of eugenics would fit into that disqualification category.

My third point relates to resources and accountability. I am very conscious of the fact that much of what I am saying is a repetition of what has already been said, but that is often true of what is said by everyone in this House, and I am sure that there will be more of that to come. I cannot get my head around this notion that we can throw away freedom of information and public contract processes in order to achieve something. I may have incorrectly picked up the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) on that point he made earlier about being inspired to do that. I do not see it as inspired. I do not think that the public will see it as inspired. They certainly will not see it as inspired coming, as it does, from a Conservative Government, given what we have seen over a number of months in relation to cronyism and the concerns that we all have about that. When it comes to public money, public trust is of paramount importance. Frankly, the Government are not being as clear, transparent and open as they should be about the Bill.

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[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is genuinely a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), who speaks with great knowledge on this issue and who of course represents an area where many people will be interested in the Bill.

In common with other hon. Members, I welcome the Bill, but I just want to make sure I am welcoming the same Bill as they are. In many of the contributions today, Members appear to have aimed their guns at destroying those elements of the Bill that are unique, special and different. The shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), who is no longer in his place, started that off by talking about R&D as an example of an industrial strategy. Well, industrial strategies are playthings of Ministers and, as we know, Ministers can change from time to time. The whole design of the Bill is intended to prevent those issues.

The spokesperson for the Scottish nationalists, the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), chided me a little about the importance of the environment and asked whether that should be a focus. I am not denying that the environment and climate change is an important issue, but the point here is that we do not prescribe that that is the only thing that this organisation can research—I am not saying that it should not look into it.

I do not wish to smother at birth the unique characteristics of this organisation. Essentially, the purpose of the Bill is to create an institution that, in Donald Rumsfeld’s terms, would look at the unknown unknowns, and politicians are not in the right place to define what those would be. If I may, I would gently disagree with the Chair of the Select Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), when he said that we should choose a couple of focal points for ARIA. That really gets to the point, because the question would then be, did we choose the right focal points? I am not sure that that is something the Bill is seeking to do with this agency.

I want to ask some questions, and perhaps the Minister can cover them in her summing up or perhaps we can cover them in Committee. Many hon. Members have spoken about the importance of the programme manager in DARPA. I looked at the worked case example cited in the policy statement released for ARIA. In it, somebody was recruited on the basis of a £50,000 grant and a three-month project. Subsequently, on review, they would, in this example, be granted £20 million for further research. I would say to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench that there are three key tensions there that we need to tease out.

The first is that that approach places tremendous responsibility on the evaluation of those initial projects, so how do we see that going? What are we thinking about in terms of the framework in which that evaluation will take place? That seems a very thin basis for the initial judgment—it is not wrong, but it is a thin basis.

Secondly, the appointments of the chief executive officer and the chair, which my right hon. and hon. Friends are already considering, also seem to be extremely important, because they will, in such an important way, define the culture of this organisation—certainly for the initial five-year term of the chief executive and at least for the first 10 years of this organisation.

Thirdly, DARPA has been commented on a number of times. It estimates that 25% of its programme managers turn over annually, so there will be quite a large turnover of these key members of staff in the UK. What is our expectation? As the hon. Member for Cambridge said, America can draw on an enormous pool of talent. Is the goal that we will be able to draw on a larger, perhaps global pool of talent to play a role in this agency? That would be a very good aspect of global Britain.

In 2019, 65% of DARPA projects were undertaken by companies, and only 17% by universities. Is that the intention here? If so, I would very much welcome that. Also, there is the opportunity in the Bill for ARIA to create companies and joint ventures, and a document will come out to explain how that will work. However, it would be helpful to know whether it will also include what happens to any returns from those joint ventures and companies, and whether the money will go back into ARIA itself or be returned to the Treasury—I think we all know what the answer to that might be, but it would be interesting to at least pose the question.

The Secretary of State will know that ARPA was set up in the same year—1958, if I can read my writing—as the Small Business Investment Act was enacted in the United States. I would like to close on this point. There is very positive reinforcement between the initiatives being taken in the Bill and encouraging support for venture capital and small businesses. I refer Members to my declaration of interests on the issue of venture capital. There is a tremendous opportunity.

DARPA likes to say that it created the internet, but venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins can point to the fact that it made billions out of Amazon, billions out of Netscape and billions out of Google. That is the essence of the problem we often hear about in this country. We are very good at doing the research, but we are very poor at commercialising it. Can we see further efforts by the Department to ensure that we have the same parallel tracks as the United States had when it successfully launched its equivalent of our initiative, ARPA, in 1958?

National Security and Investment Bill

Richard Fuller Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 17th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. He has taken a great deal of interest in this legislation, and we have spoken about such matters. As I said earlier, the whole point of the Bill is that we will be able to scrutinise the precise details of a transaction and of who the ultimate beneficial owner of a particular acquiring entity may be. I would therefore hope that the Bill will indeed cover the particular set of circumstances he outlines.

Going back to the point about providing assurances, businesses and investors can be reassured that the Government will treat potential national security risks with the discretion they deserve.

Turning to the mandatory notification elements of the Bill, investors in 17 prescribed sectors of the economy will be mandated by law to notify the Government of acquisitions of entities above a certain threshold of shareholding or voting. That mandatory notification process is similar to the approach taken in the United States, Germany and France. The Government have, alongside the introduction of the Bill, published an eight-week consultation to refine the definitions of those 17 sectors. The discussions that I and other Ministers in the Department have had with the investment community suggest that that has been extremely welcome.

Many sectors, of course, are well defined, and the purpose of the consultation is to refine them further so that the definitions are clear and narrowly focused on specific parts of sectors in which risks are most likely to arise and will allow parties to self-assess whether they need to notify. The House will appreciate that we could not have published the consultation before we introduced the Bill, with its call-in powers, or we would have risked hostile actors completing transactions in the particularly sensitive sectors.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is quite rightly focusing on precisely defining the sectors. Was he as concerned as I was to hear the Opposition spokesman say today that he would prefer a strategy that did not have that definition, relying instead on the whimsy of a particular Secretary of State at the time? That situation could, like it does in France, lead to a yoghurt company or water bottle business being defined as a national strategic asset.

[Alok Sharma]

My hon. Friend speaks with a great deal of interest and experience in investments. This Bill focuses on national security, and we have been clear that we will define the sectors where mandatory notification is required, which is right and proper. The whole point of the Bill is that we are taking a proportionate approach. We do not want some kind of chilling effect on investment coming into the UK. We have been a beacon for inward investment over many years with, as I said earlier, three quarters of a trillion dollars coming into our country over the past 10 years. We would not want that to change.

Transactions covered by mandatory notification that take place without clearance will be legally void. Again, that is in line with the French, German and Italian regimes. Parties to an acquisition may, of course, voluntarily inform the Secretary of State about their acquisitions to seek swift clearance to proceed. We have also streamlined the information required for notification from 36 pages, as required under the Enterprise Act 2002 for competition modifications, to a third of that.

The use of digital processes will make interaction with the Government much simpler, more transparent and slicker, and Government will aim to provide clearance for most transactions within 30 working days of notification, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) raised earlier. Having spoken to the investment community over the past week, I know that that timely approach to the clearing of transactions is welcomed.

Moving on to the assessment of called-in transactions, part 2 of the Bill provides powers to assess transactions should the Government call one in. Where the specific legal test is met, the Government may impose conditions or, in extremis, block or unwind transactions. I stress once again that the Government will use those powers sparingly and proportionately.

The Government will take the necessary powers in the Bill to gather information about any transaction. However, such information will be strictly safeguarded against inappropriate disclosure. That includes, of course, information from parties, regulators and others to make informed decisions on transactions. If no remedies are imposed, a final notification will be provided at the end of a national security assessment. Alternatively, the Government may choose to prescribe remedies.

Any notification decision under the Bill will be subject to legal challenge from the potential acquirer entity by way of judicial review or appeal, and the Government will be able to apply to the court for a closed material procedure to protect commercially sensitive and national security matters in such proceedings. The investment security unit will ensure that the entire process is streamlined and supported by robust digital structures and governance to ensure swift decision-making on assessments.

It is worth noting that the new regime will be underpinned by both civil and criminal sanctions, creating effective deterrents for non-compliance with statutory obligations. Again, that is in line with sanctions in the French and German regimes.

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[Edward Miliband]

I really appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point. These are not Christmas tree baubles that I have suddenly raised now. In 2010, there was the issue of the Kraft takeover of Cadbury. In 2014, there was the threatened takeover by Pfizer of AstraZeneca that had deep implications for our science base. I have felt for a decade that our legislation is not fit for purpose—and I acknowledge completely that this legislation was put in place by the Labour Government. These are deeply serious questions about the future of our industrial strategy and industrial base.

I do not pretend that these issues are easy to resolve. Of course there are dangers on both sides of the ledger, and we have to strike a balance between those two dangers, but we have enough experience with Kraft-Cadbury and with Pfizer and AstraZeneca— which did not happen, but not because of any powers of Government—to be anxious about Nvidia-ARM. If, as I believe, the whole basis of this legislation is to say that other countries are taking this action when it comes to national security and so should we, the logic applies here as well. It is not straightforward, it is not simple, and I completely acknowledge that to the hon. Gentleman, but I see the case for change.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman used the phrase “I feel” and then talked about confectionary, then about how he felt about pharmaceuticals and about semiconductor chips that are used in mobile telephony. That is the problem, is it not, Mr Deputy Speaker? His feelings are not an appropriate way to interfere in the development assets of private capital. What could he provide to those businesses to protect their development from the vagaries of his feelings from time to time?

[Edward Miliband]

It is interesting; I believe the hon. Gentleman supports this Bill—I may be wrong—but on national security, the Government will apply some tests and we could apply some tests when it comes to our industrial base. Let me make this point to him: it is not just France, but Germany, Australia, Japan and the United States. It is all of the other major industrial economies that say, “Well, no, we do have a strategic interest in certain industries.” Of course, if we decided to go down that route, we would have a debate in this House about the specific areas in which we wanted to be able to intervene. We would have to look at exactly the criteria, and it is not just about whim, but the question is: is the status quo adequate?

I say to the hon. Gentleman that the status quo is not adequate, and we do not just have 10 years or more of experience to suggest that the status quo is not adequate; we also have a real situation now with Nvidia and ARM. If anyone in the House wants to get up and say, “We think it is fine. We think this should just go ahead. We are not concerned about what that means for our tech sector”, then fine, but everybody I speak to in the tech sector who knows about this issue, including my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central, says that there is a real worry. Why have we not developed enough of these world-leading companies in this country? Why do we want to see ARM taken over?

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[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I of course completely agree with my hon. Friend and I was just going to come on to the data harvesting point, because it is caught in this. She is right that China’s national intelligence law requires all Chinese firms to assist with state intelligence work and to deny that if they are asked. Let us say the Secretary of State wants to investigate and says he has strong penalties for non-compliance. By law in China they are not allowed to comply with that process at all, so there is already a national conflict in this. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, which is a very dodgy company set up in China that has huge links with the Chinese Communist Government. So we need to be very careful about where we go with this because UK nationals might get caught up and get punished for what is essentially a refusal by the Chinese Government to allow others to do this.

I am also slightly concerned about some of the things that happened in the past not being caught by the Bill. The Henry Jackson Society has today announced that, having looked through the Bill, only 23 of the 117 Chinese acquisitions over the last decade would have actually been caught. The areas that are outside of this include pharmaceuticals. The Chinese takeover of Bio Products Laboratory, which has a very significant technology with regard to blood products, would not have been caught. In education, 10 universities have many thousands of obligations to Chinese investors, where they get a trade-off on technology, some linked to defence firms. That would not have been caught. Interestingly, Thames Water and Veolia Water have significant share ownership from Chinese firms, but that certainly would not have been called into question.

[Richard Fuller]

My right hon. Friend is referring a lot to China, and I am sure he will not be alone in that this afternoon. Is his perspective that we should be looking in the Bill to restrict all Chinese investments in the UK, or investment in particular sectors, and what is the differentiation if the origins of that is the Chinese state, in this fusion of the state with business?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

My view is that the Bill should help us to identify exactly which of these are genuinely private and not located in China under Chinese law. That will be a big issue. I have to tell my hon. Friend that, on that question he is right, because I believe we are now facing a very significant threat from China. So we now need to use the Bill to figure out how we deal with that threat on a wider basis, not just on individual takeovers. The Government need to look at that. Huawei was a very good example of Government policy having to be reversed on that basis. It is a growing problem and he is right to raise it.

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[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me in such an important debate. May I start by thanking the Secretary of State and the Minister for the time that they have given me, members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China and others to discuss the contents of the Bill and what it does?

As I understand it—I hope I get this explanation right—the Bill gives the Government the power to screen and call in acquisitions of assets deemed to pose a threat to national security. Those assets might include land, physical property or intellectual property. As a result, the Secretary of State will be given retrospective powers to consider investments made over the past five years.

I welcome the cross-party consensus on the Bill. It seems to me, as a new intake Member of Parliament, that this is one of those rare moments when there is consensus in the House to produce a truly remarkable piece of legislation. I hope that the Government will listen carefully to the comments that have been made already.

I welcome the sentiments of the Bill, and I hope that passing it into law will be our first step in attempting to match Australia’s Foreign Investment Reform (Protecting Australia’s National Security) Bill and America’s Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernisation Act of 2018. But—and there is a sizeable “but”—we have, as other Members have made clear, a long way to go before this legislation reflects the comprehensive laws that many of our Five Eyes nation colleagues have in place.

The UK seeks to be a competitive, free and fair economy. I believe that that is sacrosanct and that we must do everything we can to ensure that businesses and people around the world look at our country as an attractive destination for investment. A stable democracy, a highly skilled workforce, league table topping universities, the rule of law and world-class industries such as photonics and FinTech all make the UK an attractive place to invest that benefits investors and British citizens alike.

Our laws are balanced as a result, encouraging foreign investment and adherence to UK laws and national interests. That balance has become all the more challenging with rapid technological change, internationalist agendas and our own failure, if I may say so, to hold a strategic dependency review. In short, the threats to our national security are numerous, real and present, and they come in a multitude of forms.

The narrow scope of the Bill limits its impact. It fails to address the threats that the UK is currently facing, and it holds the potential to see us become complicit with businesses and organisations that violate human rights. The national security that the Secretary of State spoke of remains ill-defined, to the detriment of the objectives of the Bill. Added to that, under the screening mechanism outlined in the Bill, a number of sectors are not addressed, such as education—a core part of the UK’s economy and an attraction to thousands of foreign students across the globe, with institutions that undertake research and development programmes in myriad areas, including defence, development and foreign affairs. A recent study found that 10 UK university laboratories are now dependent on significant investment from Chinese defence firms, yet our universities have not been specified in the scope of the Government’s consultation on sectors to which mandatory notification applies. How can that not be considered a national security risk?

The pharmaceutical sector is a global success story, with many companies basing their operations here in the UK, but there is nothing in the Bill that would have stopped or reviewed the Chinese takeover of Bio Products Laboratory. At a time when we face greater and graver challenges around the health of mankind, the Government must rethink what needs to be included in the scope of their consultation.

I have touched on two sectors but said nothing about the UK’s nuclear sector or water industry. Both need to be given the cover to protect our national security. Our core infrastructure, which is intimately connected to our national security, is routinely being placed in the hands of foreign owners. That should be a cause of great concern to the whole House. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) mentioned the 23 out of 117 Chinese acquisitions of UK firms—if less than 20% of Chinese acquisitions are being scrutinised under this legislation, we need to rethink parts of the Bill and strengthen it where possible.

[Richard Fuller]

I think it would be helpful for us to decide whether we are talking about foreign ownership of assets or Chinese ownership of assets. Obviously there is a gradation between them, but I am hearing from some of the contributions that we just do not like foreigner ownership of assets, which I am sure is not what my hon. Friend means at all.

[Anthony Mangnall]

It is important to recognise that China has a poor track record in this case, which has not been addressed, but of course we are not against foreign ownership. We want to ensure that the structure is in place to scrutinise these acquisitions in the correct way that protects opportunity in this country. I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.

A few months ago, I broke cover early on to vote against the Government over the proposals to see our 5G network built by Huawei—and I have not lived it down yet! I did so because our core infrastructure should never be compromised by foreign investment, and that was a severe threat to our national security. I welcome the fact that the Government have moved so significantly and plan to phase out Huawei by 2027.

I also did so because of the reports of human rights violations by Huawei. The success of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) in passing the Modern Slavery Act 2015 is a proud moment for the UK, but it is worthless unless we use this Bill to stop dealing with companies that are reported to be using slave labour and looking to invest in the United Kingdom. Nothing in the Bill prevents companies that are complicit in gross human rights violations from investing in the United Kingdom, and that is a huge oversight. It would be an injustice and morally wrong for the UK ever to look the other way as money created from slave labour was invested in this country.

We have been told that this is not the right Bill for such provisions, but with all due respect, that is the same excuse used by the Whips on every single occasion that I have raised concerns about a piece of legislation. If we are going to bring forward the correct pieces of legislation, let us bring them forward. If not, the Government should not be surprised if we try to tack on amendments to address the issues that so many Members across the House feel strongly about.

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[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), who represents a constituency where many businesses will have to wrestle with some of the implications of the Bill as it passes through and becomes law. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Minister on their preparation of this Bill. A lot of good time has been put in over the past couple of years and good evidence has been presented to prepare the Bill for debate today, and it will be my pleasure to support it.

It is both easier and right to look at this as a national security measure and not so much as an investment measure; we have to deal with the investment implications, but it is important that we get the national security measures right. There has been lots of conversation today about the requirements of the Bill, but I have to say that the evidence of historical examples has not been quite as strong as some of the measures in it. In many cases, this is a precautionary Bill, rather than one driven by the evidence historically. I do not think we want to be too critical of what we have been doing over the past 10 or 15 years. As many Members have said, this Bill is bringing something up to date so that we can deal with the things we think might be coming in the next 10 or 20 years.

I can now see why the Minister has had to thread a needle to try to land this precisely. Many voices, on all sides, have been asking him to extend the Bill. Indeed, the Bill has the potential to be an expansive octopus, given the pressures that might be put on the Government to extend it. I have heard about having a wider national interest test and including more sectors than the 17 we already have. We have talked about a definition of the national interest, which has been portrayed to the Minister as something that might restrict, but, as he well knows, the more precise a definition, the broader it can be in terms of how it is interpreted for others.

There have been many cautionary comments from others about the extension of the Bill into a national industry strategy for the country—that is not the purpose of the Bill. The right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), the Opposition spokesman, who is no longer in his place, misjudged the Bill in saying that that is something we need to adorn it with. That would be completely inappropriate and it would take away from some of the scrutiny I hope Members will give the Bill as it goes through Committee.

I ask the Minister to be aware of and listen to people on the potential for unintended consequences. We have heard a lot about the decision in respect of Huawei, but he will be aware of the potential for retaliatory measures by us. Please look at the unintended consequences in respect of innovation in some of the sectors that may be affected. In that regard, I just point Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as an adviser to a technology company.

May we also feed something in from the Government Benches about a pattern we are seeing? As we are bringing forward more regulatory measures and as we take back regulatory powers from the EU, parliamentarians are constantly raising the question of what parliamentary oversight of those regulatory powers there is. It would be useful if Ministers would look at that. I congratulate the Minister on presenting the Bill and I am grateful for the opportunity to make some comments today.

Business and Planning Bill

Richard Fuller Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 29th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

First, these are of course temporary measures. A 90-day rolling review, which I think the hon. Lady is proposing, would undermine the certainty that we are giving businesses in terms of these particular measures. She will know, however, that should the Government wish to extend any of the measures, they will be subject to made affirmative or draft affirmative procedures, so they will come before the House before there is any opportunity to extend them further.

I now return to the issue of trying to get the construction sector moving. In 2018, this sector represented almost 9% of our GDP. Lockdown has had a profound impact on construction sites across the country. We estimate that almost 1,200 unimplemented major residential planning permissions, with capacity to deliver over 60,000 homes, have lapsed or will lapse between the start of lockdown on 23 March and 31 December this year. Therefore, the Bill introduces powers to extend these planning permissions and listed building consents to 1 April 2021. This will be automatic for permissions that have not lapsed at the point that these measures come into force. Lapsed permissions can be reinstated and can benefit from the same extension, but subject to necessary environmental approvals.

We will also make it quicker for developers to apply for longer construction site working hours. This will help to facilitate safe working—for example, by staggering workers’ hours—and to make up for lost progress. Applications will be concluded within 14 days. This measure does not apply to applications from individual householders. Local authorities retain discretion and can refuse applications where there would be an unacceptable impact. Again, this is a temporary measure. Extended hours can only last up until 1 April 2021, unless extended by secondary legislation.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Across my constituency, there is already tremendous local sensitivity about excessive developments, the planning process and some of the procedures for public participation in the process being curtailed—there are virtual meetings and sometimes council executives make decisions on their own. Will the Secretary of State assure me that the Bill will not limit public participation in anything that might be the result of an extension or expansion of existing planning permission or indeed a new planning permission?

[Alok Sharma]

No, it will not. I will talk a bit about hybrid appeal proceedings, and I think my hon. Friend will find that helpful.

There are two further planning measures that relate to the new spatial development strategy for London and hybrid appeal proceedings. The Mayor of London will shortly publish the new spatial development strategy, setting out plans for new homes for London. The Bill temporarily removes, until 31 December, the requirement for the strategy to be available for physical inspection and to provide hard copies on request. That ask from the Mayor of London will help to address practical challenges from social distancing.

Social distancing has also constrained the Planning Inspectorate’s ability to conduct hearings and inquires, and a backlog has been growing. Through the Bill, we will enable the inspectorate to combine written representations, hearings and inquiries when dealing with appeals. That change was recommended by the independent Rosewell review. A recent pilot undertaken on the review measures reduced average decision-making time from 47 weeks to 23 weeks.

[Alok Sharma]

As I said, these measures will not relate to residential applications that have been made. The whole point is to get the construction sector moving. I have talked about a range of measures that we have set out for the sector, and I hope that more SME builders will be able to take advantage of them.

The Bill will enable lenders to continue issuing bounce-back loans quickly and at scale. It will retrospectively disapply the unfair relationships provisions in the Consumer Credit Act 1974 for lending made under the scheme. Reflecting current circumstances, the bounce-back loan scheme allows lenders to rely on self-certification from the business that it meets the eligibility criteria for the scheme and can afford to pay back the loan. It also provides for simpler information disclosure requirements to the borrowers. That will ensure that small businesses can continue to access the financial support that they need without undue delay.

[Richard Fuller]

I am very grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. I want to take him back to the point about public participation, because it is such a sensitive area. He said that in clause 20, the procedures for planning proceedings can be altered. Either now or in Committee, can he clarify who will be making those decisions and what impact that will have on public participation in relation to housing developments that might have a dramatic impact in the area? I want to be clear about whether the Bill will affect that dramatically.

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[Edward Miliband]

My hon. Friend in her customary eloquent way anticipates my next point. We have seen—and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed), the shadow Secretary of State for local government, for giving me the exact figures—£10 billion of costs loaded on to local authorities during this crisis, and only £3.2 billion provided by Government, despite the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government saying that the Government would stand behind councils and give them the funding they need. We have another Bill that puts yet more pressure on local authorities, but with no clear plan about how they will be reimbursed, and our new clause 5 speaks to that issue.

We also welcome the changes to transport licensing and the removal of the unfair relationship provision in the Consumer Credit Act to ensure that bounce-back loans are more easily accessed.  I am grateful to the Secretary of State for the detailed discussions that we had about that particular provision.

Those are the main provisions of the Bill and, as I said, there is cross-party agreement on them. Obviously, there will be detailed discussions in Committee. However, I have to say to the Secretary of State and the House that we are under an illusion if we think that the measures in this Bill will go much of the way towards addressing the crisis that we face: 4 July represents a reopening of pubs and restaurants, but it does not represent recovery.

It is important to note that many sections of our economy employing hundreds of thousands of people, including gyms, leisure centres, live entertainment venues, beauty salons, conference facilities, night clubs and swimming pools, will still not be able to open for public health reasons. We support those public health decisions. Other parts of our economy will open only with severe restrictions, including large parts of our hospitality industry, which employs 3 million people or one in 10 of the whole workforce. The British Beer and Pub Association says that 25% of pubs will not be able to reopen even at 1 metre. The Government themselves acknowledge, in the scientific assessment of the change to 1 metre, that the hospitality industry will lose 25% to 40% of its revenue even at 1 metre distancing. That revenue translates into a risk to hundreds of thousands of jobs. Live performance remains prohibited, which affects the theatre sector, employing 290,000 people. Manufacturers, too, are reeling from the fall in domestic and worldwide demand.

I say all that not to cast doubt on the public health measures being taken or to speak against the Bill, but to point to the wider context, which is that the Government are taking a one-size-fits-all approach to the furlough, for example, demanding an employer contribution from August and a cliff edge at the end of October. The shadow business Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), received this letter from a venue in Manchester in the past week: 

“As the Government furlough scheme draws to a close, I will be making very difficult decisions this week so that I can give notice during the period of 80% furlough contribution to commence a redundancy consultation with the majority of my venue staff. With zero income and no appropriate financial Government support, I have no choice but to make these decisions.”

We are not asking the impossible of Government; we are saying, “Look at what other countries are doing”, whether that is Spain, Italy, New Zealand, France or Germany. They are taking a sectoral approach to the furlough. They are saying that specific sectors are more affected by the public health measures and that, therefore, the economic measures have to match that.

[Richard Fuller]

The shadow Secretary of State will be aware that the Government measures taken across the economy, which he has welcomed, already raise issues of fairness between those who fall one side of the line and those who fall on the other side. What is his proposal for those sectors? Some businesses will fall just to one side, but who will be the expert to understand who fits where? I am all up for it if he can reconcile that, but there are risks, are there not?

[Edward Miliband]

Of course there are, but just because we cannot do everything does not mean that we should not do anything. The grants programme that the Government introduced was done by sector—retail, hospitality and leisure. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about boundaries, and some business organisations would raise that issue, but I worry that technical concerns about boundaries, which have been overcome for the grants scheme, stop us doing something that makes real sense.

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[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Gentleman mentions breweries. He knows that the Bill largely covers England and England and Wales. It does not cover other areas of our devolved community. However, I can tell him that by ensuring that breweries’ customers open up and can sell alcohol to their customers, we are helping breweries around the country and in Northern Ireland, whether they are big or small.

As hon. Members have heard, activity is picking up in the construction industry, another sector that is an engine of our economy and that is keen to get Britain building again. I pay particular tribute to construction workers up and down our country who worked through the pandemic and the businesses that got their sites back up and running in these difficult circumstances. I am pleased to support their efforts through the safe working charter, which my Department developed with the Home Builders Federation.

However, we know that there is more to do. Home starts and completions are well down on last year, with planning permissions for at least 60,000 homes hanging in the balance. That is why we are speeding up the planning system through the temporary measures in the Bill as part of a wider reform to ensure that it is fit for the 21st century. That means greater flexibility for builders to seek extensions to site working hours to facilitate social distancing, which will support the sector’s safe economic recovery. We want work on construction sites to resume swiftly and safely, but I recognise the potential effect of the change on residents when we are all spending more time at home. Several Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, raised that point.

I encourage builders to work constructively with local communities and councils to minimise disruption. I want to be clear that councils will retain local discretion over the decision-making process. They also have legal duties regarding statutory nuisance, which continue. They know their areas best and that is why they will continue to have discretion in their local decision-making processes. They are well placed to judge the effect on local businesses and residents, and where there will be an unacceptable impact, they retain the discretion to refuse extended hours.

We are also enabling the extension of planning permissions that have expired since the lockdown began or are about to expire, saving literally hundreds of projects. This is at the request of local authorities and the construction sector. I recognise that there is a risk of schemes being delayed further if existing permissions are extended too long, which is why this will be only a temporary measure. Our extension date of 1 April 2021 strikes the right balance between giving certainty to the sector and ensuring that there are no further undue delays to new developments.

Another significant measure, which will help us double the pace of appeals while maintaining fair decision making, is the proposal to enable the Planning Inspectorate to advance appeals using more than one type of procedure. When we tested this hybrid approach last year, we more than halved the appeal time. This change, backed by all parties in the planning system, will be introduced on a permanent basis. In making these changes, it is important that we bring communities with us, and I am satisfied that, by agreeing through the Bill to temporarily remove the requirement for copies of the London plan to be made available for inspection at premises and on request, and instead enabling inspection free of charge by electronic means, the interests of transparency and accountability will be served.

[Richard Fuller]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for clarifying a point that I raised earlier during the Secretary of State’s speech. I would just like to ask him for clarification on a slightly more detailed point about housing developments outside London, particularly those in my constituency. It is about the process in the Bill for the public themselves having the opportunity to review any application. What changes, if any, might occur to their rights to make representations on applications?

[Christopher Pincher]

I do not believe that this Bill does anything to disadvantage anybody in their right to fair access to information. Some of the changes that we have already made allow people to take part in planning committees virtually. Not everybody wants to go down to their town hall at 10 o’clock on a wet February evening if they can, quite literally, dial into those planning committees and see what is going on. They have access in a way that they would not ordinarily have.

I make this final point with reference to my hon. Friend’s point and the changes that we are making to the Planning Inspectorate’s processes. This particular proposition was made by Dame Bridget Rosewell as part of her recommendations. It was one of the 22 recommendations that she made, and it will allow planning inspectors to use a variety of tools consecutively to speed up their adjudication on decisions, which is good for everybody involved in the process. The average time has already been cut from 47 weeks to 23. We believe that this mechanism will speed up adjudication on planning decisions even more, and that is to the betterment of all involved.

This Bill could not be more important for reopening our economy, for championing firms large and small and for helping people live their lives again, with safety still paramount. Let us ensure this Bill’s swift passage, as I think all hon. Members have said in their contributions, and get Britain back in business. I commend this Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Committee of the whole House (Order, this day).

Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill

Richard Fuller Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), will correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that it is possible to transfer loans between the bounce-back scheme and CBILS. I am happy to discuss that with my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), who is absolutely right—people cannot have one of each, so to speak, but I think that it is possible to make a transfer.

The measures set out in the Bill have been welcomed across the board by business representatives’ organisations such as the Federation of Small Businesses, the Institute of Directors, the CBI, the British Chambers of Commerce, R3—the insolvency and restructuring professionals trade association—and the Trades Union Congress. Some of the measures will take retrospective effect to provide as much relief to businesses as possible. To ensure that is the case, we have announced the dates from which the measures will begin.



Let me turn to corporate restructurings, and the package of permanent corporate restructuring measures, which have previously been consulted on. As colleagues know, they were consulted on in 2016, and then formed part of a wider consultation on corporate governance and insolvency published in 2018, so they have been consulted on in some detail. They will have immediate effect in helping companies get through the covid-19 emergency.

A number of time-limited provisions are there to cater for the immediate economic impact of the covid-19 pandemic. They have been added to the package and will be in place for a month after Royal Assent.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Playing a fundamental part in the Bill, we have a number of measures that have been consulted on for a long period; people have thought about them and, as my right hon. Friend said, there has been a large degree of consensus around them. Then we have some other measures that have been brought forward in response to the immediate crisis; the Department has worked incredibly quickly to come up with them. Is the Department satisfied that it has got the balance right between the two? Is there anything that we should look out for in the next few months about the permanence of some of those measures?

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[Alok Sharma]

My hon. Friend raises a really important point about protecting small suppliers. They will of course have this exemption. According to the definition in the Companies Act 2006, a small supplier is one that meets two of the following three criteria: having up to 50 employees, a turnover of up to £10.2 million, and gross assets of up to £5.1 million. I think that will cover a very large number of businesses in our country.

[Richard Fuller]

May I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for permitting so many interventions? As we are rushing through the Bill relatively quickly, it is important that Members on both sides of the House have the opportunity to raise points directly with the Secretary of State, so thank you for permitting some latitude for interventions.

The small business commissioner appeared before the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee a few weeks ago, and I posed some questions about whether he had the powers he needed. As my right hon. Friend looks at this period, with the particular pressure caused by covid-19, is he assured that the small business commissioner’s powers are as will be needed, or does he envisage wanting to look again at this in the future?

[Alok Sharma]

My hon. Friend raises an incredibly important point. I championed this issue—support for small businesses—when I was on the Back Benches. As he will know, the Government’s payment terms are favourable in setting a very time-limited period within which payments must be made to Government suppliers, and of course the Government also require that if a large organisation is being paid by the Government under a contract, they need to pass on that speed of payment to smaller subcontractors. He will also know that in the manifesto on which he and I stood we committed to looking further at the role of the small business commissioner and how it might be strengthened. We will bring forward a consultation on that in due course.

I move now to the temporary measures in the Bill. The first set provides for a suspension of the serving of statutory demands and a restriction on winding-up petitions. These measures will be retrospective from 1 March and 27 April respectively and will last until one month after Royal Assent, although they can be extended if that is deemed necessary. The Coronavirus Act 2020 temporarily suspended the right of commercial landlords to forfeit the tenancies of retail businesses in order to protect tenants unable to trade because of covid-19. While this temporary suspension has been in place, the majority of landlords and tenants have been working well together to reach agreements on debt obligations, but a small number of landlords have been using aggressive debt recovery tactics to put pressure on tenants, including through the use of statutory demands and threats of winding up. For this reason, the measures in the Bill to limit the use of statutory demands and winding-up petitions have been welcomed by many, especially in the hospitality sector.

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[Edward Miliband]

My hon. Friend is a brilliant champion of those industries and other industries in his constituency, and I agree with him. I will come on to the particular sectoral challenges that the Secretary of State and the Government are facing.

Let me mention the areas where we would like to see improvements made to the Bill. First and most importantly, the Government’s case on the restructuring plan provision is that it could have benefits in enabling companies to restructure and not go into liquidation and in stopping large creditors from forcing companies to do so. I accept the case. I think I am right in saying that the cross-class cram-down provisions—it is not a very beautiful phrase—apply across the EU under EU law and apply in the United States as well. What is important about the provisions is that they mean that even if a class or classes of creditors object to a rescue plan, it can still go ahead providing they are better off than in the other most likely scenario, which is often going to be liquidation. That is why protecting those without power—creditors and others—is so important.

What cannot be allowed to happen—I know the Secretary of State agrees with this—is for the RP provision, which has wide scope and is not just for companies that are insolvent, but for those who fear they might become so, to be used to ride roughshod over the rights of employees, including their pensions. Given the nature of the crisis we are in, it is essential that there are proper safeguards.

To give an example, the Secretary of State will have heard earlier the deep concerns across the House about the actions of British Airways, including sacking its employees and apparently offering worse terms and conditions. The RP provision cannot become a charter for more of that sort of action, and it is our mutual responsibility to make sure it does not become so. I know the Secretary of State shares that view.

[Richard Fuller]

I am extraordinarily grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising this point, because he will be aware that when a company is in a crisis situation and has so many wolves at the door, it has to make rapid decisions to salvage the assets and the business and continue, hopefully, to trade profitably. He is putting his finger precisely on the issue of what the rights of employees in that circumstance are and what protection there is for their pension benefits in the long term—that is a fundamental part of this issue. I am interested in his new clause on employee representation, which refers specifically to trade union representation; would he be prepared to broaden that out to include some broader sense of employee representation?

[Edward Miliband]

I welcome what the hon. Gentleman says, and the answer is yes, because lots of businesses do not have trade unions, and the question is what rights employees will have in those circumstances. The US experience is quite informative: I mentioned the US hazard provision, and at American Airlines and General Motors we saw employees lose out very significantly. The hon. Gentleman’s point about pension provision is absolutely part of this. I very much hope—this is the spirit in which we are approaching the Bill—that the Government will seek to improve the protections that are in place. Our new clause 5, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, seeks to ensure mandatory discussions with the trade unions once a company enters a restructuring process. That will ensure that employees are provided with all the information made available to the court and fully consulted on any restructuring plan, and the court could then take that into account. There may be better and more comprehensive ways to build in such protection, but it is essential that we do so. Perhaps the Minister can come back on that in his winding-up speech and, indeed, in Committee.

Secondly, we are concerned about similar issues when it comes to insolvency. Unsecured creditors are left to bear most of the risk of insolvency, so they are often at the back of the queue when it comes to being protected. The protection of unsecured creditors, or the greater protection of them, could be provided through strengthening the ring-fencing of the proceeds of sale of assets when a company becomes insolvent, increasing the proportion of the proceeds reserved for them to 30%, and removing the financial limit, which is what we propose in one of our amendments. We also believe that pension schemes—this goes to the point that the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) made—should be made a priority creditor in the event of insolvency so that they get to have a role as a class, because currently I do not believe that they necessarily will.

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[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

I welcome the measures in the Bill, which will support struggling businesses during this difficult economic period, but, as other Members have said, this short-term relief needs to be followed quickly by a comprehensive recovery plan for the British economy.

For British businesses, this is a moment of genuine crisis. More than one in five companies across the economy, and an overwhelming majority of those in the worst affected sectors, have already been forced temporarily to cease trading. Survey after survey and the cases we have all encountered in our constituencies shed light on the depth of the anxiety that businesses and their employees are carrying about the coming months. I think there is an understanding across the House, therefore, that failure to act would have meant hundreds of thousands of fundamentally healthy businesses going under altogether, and that that would have been unacceptable.

In that context, the Bill’s time-limited provisions are a matter of necessity. The measures on wrongful trading, statutory demands, winding-up petitions and greater flexibility on governance constitute meaningful, if in some respects temporary, respite for struggling businesses. However, the urgency of responding to this crisis must not blind us to the deeper challenges that we face.

The measures we are debating will postpone the threat of insolvency, but giving workers and businesses real security about the future will require a more ambitious and better-targeted package of support. A significant majority of businesses that have continued to trade are currently reliant on some form of Government help. The success of that model has been its ability to deliver a one-size-fits-all remedy at pace, but the slowdown so far has been marked not just by its severity but by its unevenness.

The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee heard last month from the retail sector, for which the challenge is especially stark, with as many as a fifth of independent non-food retailers expecting to close for good and often in no position to take on additional debt. Tomorrow we will hear from the manufacturing and energy sectors, including aerospace, automotive and steel, whose needs are self-evidently of a different order, with a small number of major companies providing a significant percentage of British exports, but often reliant on a vast supply chain of small and medium enterprises, themselves in distress and in need of bespoke support. So as the economy reopens, the key measure of success for preventing insolvencies will be the Government’s ability to get help where it is required, on a sectoral basis, with a whole-supply-chain view.

[Richard Fuller]

It is a pleasure to serve on the Committee of which the hon. Member is Chair. I am interested to hear him talk about the differential impact on different sectors. He mentioned retail. Does he think that the Government’s policy to close retail was wrong?

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[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) and his passionate response to the issues facing the steel industry, and also to hear the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson), who seemed rather bothered that he was among the last of his intake to deliver his maiden speech. I would say to him there is nothing wrong in leaving the best till last.

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Interests. I support the Bill and the measures it provides for business. I ran a business for many years before becoming to this place and recognise the many challenges that business owners and managers face at this difficult time. We were reminded of that by the Chairman of the Select Committee, who talked about the survey showing that 80% of manufacturing companies have seen orders fall, while 20% have seen their order books halved. These are substantial reductions in demand, and there are some sectors of the economy, in retail and hospitality, where trade is non-existent. However, those businesses continue to incur costs. Many of those costs have been defrayed by Government support, but that will never match the expense needed to keep a business going.

At the same time, many businesses face delayed payment by their suppliers, many of which would legitimately say that they are not able to pay their bills because they are not trading and do not have money coming in. The Select Committee recently spoke to the Small Business Commissioner, who is going to need to be very busy and active.

In the face of all this, the Government have been incredibly quick to respond with a broad range of measures. I thought it was rather churlish of the shadow Secretary of State not to acknowledge the great support that the Federation of Small Businesses, the chambers of commerce and the Institute of Directors have given to the many measures that businesses brought out at great pace. Everything was done very quickly. We need to see the Bill in the light of those measures: it is part of a package of measures available to support businesses in a very difficult time. Of course, the measures in the Bill have been introduced quickly. There has been some criticism of the amount of time it took to get the Bill ready and that we have to scrutinise it, but these are important measures that will support businesses and keep them alive. We need to get them on the statute book to enable businesses to survive these exceptional times.

It is important to look at the permanent measures and the temporary measures. On the permanent measures, the protection from creditors, which provides a breathing space in which businesses can adjust to a new reality to get provisions in place, is incredibly important. Such protections will be taken up by businesses that, but for this pandemic, would have been trading completely profitably over recent months. It is not the fault of the company or directors that they are faced with these challenges. It is of course in our interests—it is in the public interest—for us to enable company rescue and to prevent the failure of businesses that are experiencing short-term problems.

Many of the measures in the Bill have been described as heading in the direction of chapter 11 as exists in the United States. They do not go quite that far, but they are important steps in the right direction. It is important to remember that in many cases the companies that will be supported by the process we are discussing will be ones that have received Government support in recent months, with staff furloughed or the businesses having received grants—companies to which public funds have already been committed. It is important to consider the fact that the Bill will ensure that that earlier funding—that public money that has been made available—does not go to waste. It will be a huge shame if we do not protect those businesses that have had Government support over the past few months.

The Bill will introduce a moratorium during which no legal action can be taken. I discussed with a recovery specialist the appropriateness of the amount of time that the Bill gives for that, which is 20 working days—in essence, a month, for most of us—extendable to two months. He said to me that in the context of a company restructuring that is actually not a lot of time. It can of course be extended, but for a creditor of the company who is waiting to find out what the future is going to hold and how much of the debt they are due is going to be repaid, a month or two can be a pretty long time. We need to respect the position of all the people involved. During that time there will be a payment holiday during which suppliers will not be paid.

There is then, of course, the restriction on enforcement action that a creditor can bring, which I shall talk about in a moment. That provision covers landlords, who are often being painted as the villain of the piece, taking aggressive action against companies in many cases; it seems to me that in some instances landlords need to have a view about their own better interests, and it may be better for a landlord to retain a tenant in a building, continuing to trade with Government support, and to keep the tenant in there while deferring rent, rather than the landlord ending up with an empty property for which, after a period of time, they will pick up a liability for the business rates.

Under the provisions of the Bill, companies will be able to use their breathing space to re-forecast their business. One of the challenges with the loans that we have already discussed this afternoon is how someone prepares a cash-flow forecast for a business for which the previous three months have been completely out of kilter with the historic trading pattern of the business. For directors and business owners who are in that position that would be incredibly difficult. I used to run my business on an annual basis, and would prepare my business forecast in October or November ready for January trading. I knew exactly the pattern of trade for my business, which remained remarkably stable year after year. I am incredibly sorry for businesses that have to go through that right now, as it must be extremely difficult.

I wish to raise with the Minister concerns about the termination clauses and the ipso facto change, which is permanent. If a supplier ceases to supply because of impending insolvency, that action, in critical cases, could lead to failure. Having run a business, I know that if a large debt builds up with a customer and payments are weeks and months overdue, the only action that a supplier can take is to cease supply. Businesses are often reluctant to do that, but they should have more courage and confidence in what they supply to the customer and the terms and conditions of their deal.

[Richard Fuller]

My hon. Friend is making an important point. Does he share my concern that there is a certain vagueness about what continuing supply might mean for a business in crisis? Does it mean that the historic pattern of supply should be continued? Does it mean that a company that is potentially insolvent has the right to demand a much greater increase in supply? It is very unclear.

[Mark Pawsey]

That is a good point, and I hope that the Minister will consider that, because in many cases a contract has been entered into on the basis of a certain volume of business. Many businesses have contracted, so a purchasing company may not be buying the same volume. Does that provide the ability to keep the price at the original position? Price and volume go hand in hand, and there may be additional economies of scale. There are concerns, and I know that the Minister will respond.

My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) raised the issue of debts accruing because of extended payment terms. Buyers are often more interested in payment terms than the price of the product. A buyer does a great job if he manages to screw 60 or 90-day payment terms out of a supplier, rather than a particularly good deal on the product. If we can move our culture away from extended credit many of the provisions in the Bill would be rather less necessary than they are. The Minister will deal with those issues, and it is entirely right that in the Bill he guarantees that supplies that are made during the moratorium are exempt—the supplier is guaranteed to be paid once the monitor has agreed that they will continue to trade. That goes some way towards providing substantial confidence to the supplier. I am also happy with the exemption from the provisions for small companies. As the Secretary of State has said at the Dispatch Box, the usual criteria on size apply.

I want to conclude with the temporary suspension of the rules on wrongful trading, which I entirely support. Right now, business directors around the country are pretty worried about the financial viability of their businesses and their liabilities if they continue to trade, particularly if the trade position continues to worsen. The current rules are that they could be liable personally if they do not bring their business to a conclusion, even though the challenges facing those businesses are not of their making. Relaxation of those wrongful trading provisions will enable many directors across the country to sleep rather more soundly at night.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I draw the attention of hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you know, as you have been listening to this debate, that many speakers have put this Bill in the context of the current economic situation and so perhaps I shall start by providing some of my own views. I am taken back not to when I gave my maiden speech, but to about 72 days ago when this House voted through the measures that have had the economic consequences that we are now debating how to mitigate. Seventy-two days ago, every single Member of this House—me included—supported or acquiesced in the measures that have destroyed parts of our economy and put many others on life support. So how should we come into this debate? We should follow the line that the Secretary of State took: he came here with a sense of humility that these were measures that the Government had to take. He came here not with hubris, but with humility, because I think he understood that the hands of politicians—of all of us—are all over the fact that so many hundreds of thousands of businesses in our country are facing such terrible times and that so many millions of people who are in employment, or who think they are in employment because they have been furloughed, are facing some severe economic consequences as a result.

It was our decision—the decision of every single Member of Parliament—to close the economy down, and we seek to excise from our collective memory the fact that there was any other choice. We say that we had to do it, there was no other option, but of course there were other options. Other countries have followed other paths. This was the path that every single Member of this Parliament chose, and we did it because we were frightened. We did it because we were uncertain. There is nothing particularly wrong with fear and uncertainty, but, my goodness, what a cost it will bring to our economy.

The Secretary of State was absolutely right to bring this Bill forward and to do it in such a humble way. What a shame it is, as I have sat here listening to the contributions of other MPs, that that humility has not been reflected in those contributions. No, having wrought this destruction on our economy, Members of Parliament now want to rush forward with their own ideas about how they can make the economy better, how they can make it greener, how they can level it up, and how they can give employees more rights. It is as if the parsecs of collective experience in this House of running businesses make us suitable champions for the economy of the future.

We should learn some humility. If there is one message that I have for the Government and for all politicians here it is to get your sticky fingers off British business. We should let the business leaders of this country find their way back. We should say that we are sorry for destroying lifetimes of work in a rushed decision to close down the economy. People who have been forced to see all their efforts come to nothing have spent every hour of those 72 days worrying about whether they can continue to employ their workers, and worrying about whether they can sustain themselves and their families. That angst and that anxiety stems from the decisions that we made in this House. Let us have some humility, let us follow the guidance of those on the Front Bench in this debate and let us not seek an opportunity for more political meddling in our economy as a result of what we have done. I am glad to have got that off my chest.

The corporate insolvency measures in the Bill seek to address this most extreme consequence of the actions we have taken, and therefore it is quite right that this is one of the first Bills the Government are bringing forward to deal with what the economy faces. I support the measures that the Government are putting in place. It is right to bring forward greater flexibility in the insolvency regime and, as many Members have mentioned, this has been welcomed across much of industry and the professional services, and has had plenty of time for discourse and debate.

It is also right that there should be a temporary suspension of insolvency laws to enable companies to trade through this emergency. I know from my own experience as a director that the issue of personal liability, particularly in relation to going concern, is one of absolute centrality to directors. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) mentioned, it is extremely difficult for many businesses to produce a forecast in such difficult times that will provide the certainty that the directors are actually producing a forecast that is real and achievable. Indeed, as many Members have mentioned, when it comes to banks and CBILS, banks themselves have found it very difficult to interpret the forecasts that companies are putting forward. As for the temporary easing of requirements, that seems to me to be a housekeeping exercise that the Government have judged adroitly and correctly.

I have some questions for my hon. Friend the Minister. The first is about the reputation of the UK as a safe haven for capital. We have had tremendous experience of attracting foreign investment, both in equity and debt. Is he assured that that reputation is going to continue? The efficient allocation of capital is a hallmark of an effective economy. Have the measures in this Bill been checked to ensure that all providers of debt financing to our businesses understand, accept and support the changes that he is bringing forward?

On the housekeeping measure of filing annual accounts, as the Minister will be aware, the availability of updated information is quite crucial for investors and others to make judicious decisions. Of course, there is always access to the private accounts of businesses, but in the public domain those evaluations are quite important. In his judgment about whether to extend that, he will certainly want to bear in mind the consequences for extensions of that particular aspect.

In his opening speech, the Leader of the Opposition—I do apologise; the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) used to be the Leader of the Opposition, but is now the Opposition spokesman on business—talked about some very important issues relating to the balance of rights, particularly with regard to employees and the protection of pension assets. This is something that I think the Government should consider. In fact, the shadow Secretary of State was kind enough to say that this is something the Government are considering, and I think it is right for all of us to consider what the impact of the pressure on employees will be. We saw during the urgent question earlier about the bare-knuckle behaviour of the management of British Airways that desperate situations sometimes bring forward desperate attitudes, and the long-standing rights that employees felt they had no longer seem to have any currency, so that seems very pertinent to this part of the Bill.

On the cross-class clampdown, the Government are bringing forward the ability for a court to decide whether a particular class of creditors who have not themselves agreed to a settlement should be forced to accept a settlement. We have no experience in this country—perhaps we do, and the Minister could tell me if so, but I am not aware of it—of courts being able to decide between the equitable rights of one class of creditors and those of another class of creditors in coming to a conclusion that is right for all in the round. What are the Government’s thoughts about what would be required from the courts in coming to those judgments? What is required in terms of disclosure from the courts that might be useful for the Government and the public to know? What is the Government’s view about whether there will be emerging patterns of response from the courts as they come to those intra-class decisions?

[Bim Afolami]

I have done several schemes of arrangement in my previous life, and know that the courts are very used to them. We are talking about an instance where a minority of creditors would effectively be outvoted by a majority agreeing to the scheme beforehand—something that currently requires unanimity. The difference between what we have now and where we are going is therefore not actually that significant, as long as an objective judgment can be made—judges can do that; they do it all the time in the High Court—as to the financial benefit, or lack thereof, of a particular scheme to a particular creditor.

[Richard Fuller]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s clarification, but my concern—I may well have read the Bill incorrectly—is that we are talking not just about majority or minority, but about where the majority or minority lies. At the moment, the majority has to be within every class of creditors, and there might be a disabusing minority within those instances. Under this legislation, an entire class of creditors could become a minority, and even though they all agree that they do not like the arrangement, for example, they will be forced to accept it. I think that that is a difference of approach. If we are giving that power to the courts, it is important for us and for the Government to be clear about the pattern that is likely to emerge, because in that respect the provision is different and new.

I think that the Secretary of State has answered my next question, but I will ask it again if I may. Will the clauses that are designed to be temporary measures sunset automatically without a subsequent affirmative statutory instrument proceeding in the House? Will they be subject to the negative procedure, or continue without an SI to cancel them? I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify that at some point, perhaps in his closing remarks if he has the time.

It is relevant to raise the issue of companies and sectors that may take time to recover, beyond the relevant period. I think that is addressed in Opposition amendments 3 to 6. What if the directors themselves cannot reach a clear judgment that fully escapes the risks of wrongful trading? What is the position of someone on a directorship in this situation who reaches a dissenting opinion to the majority of directors on the important issue of whether the organisation is able to continue trading? That is another issue of detail that the Minister may wish to address in Committee.

The impact assessment for the Bill does not appear to address the cost of debt from these changes, essentially assuming that changing what has historically been a situation that favoured senior debt to one that is a little bit looser between different classes of debt would have no impact on how much that debt might be priced at in the future. But it is my understanding that increasing risk on an instrument might cause an increase in the price on it. That may have been considered in the impact assessment and have been negligible, but it would be interesting to see what the Government have to say.

I am interested in what happens in the circumstances that arise under the chapter 11 equivalent proceedings when the Government are a debtor or a shareholder in a business. Do the Government have a voice that is different from any other creditor? The contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) was interesting in this regard, as he highlighted the part of the Bill where HMRC becomes a preferred creditor. Well, those of us who have had to deal with HMRC as a creditor in the past would not mark it down as one of the most amenable of creditors when it comes to its own interests, and that is putting it lightly. In fact, as we are seeing in this Parliament already, HMRC is acting, both in the Treasury and in general, somewhat as a bovver boy in British industry. It does not seem to like people who are self-employed and it certainly does not like people who have a loan charge. Now it seems to want to have priority in the debt structures of our companies. Where will its ambitions end? Where will this Government’s facilitation of the taxman’s ambitions end? As a Conservative, I would have hoped that they would have ended some time ago. Perhaps I can tempt my hon. Friend the Minister to comment on that.

[Damian Collins]

I am following my hon. Friend’s remarks closely. Given his opening remarks, might it not be better, if we believe in backing British business, for us to have some skin in the game? We might not get our money back every time, but overall we probably would.

[Richard Fuller]

After my hon. Friend’s comments about association football, of which I have absolutely no understanding at all, I will bow to his better judgment on this topic too, but generally I am not really in favour of the Government having skin in the commercial game. When they get active in the economy, they tend to blunder around and probably, with the best of intentions, make things worse. I am not saying that they should not have their role; certainly, right now, many people will want the Government to have a role. Many Members have rightly looked at the measures the Government have put in place to support business and praised them.

Of course, people need not just take our word for that. Ask people around the world which country’s Government have responded best to the economic consequences of the virus and they will say that the United Kingdom Government are No. 1, with Japan, America and Germany in the United Kingdom’s wake. That is a tremendous credit to Ministers, but I would not like to encourage them to make that participation any longer than it needs to be.

On the guidance for going concern judgments, the Department will have spoken with auditors about how they are approaching their going concern judgments this audit season. Does the Bill have any impact on those judgments? Does the Department already think that it might need to bring forward any other measures based on the independent judgments of those auditors?

I raise that because in the 2007 crisis, there was a feeling that the rating agencies had been captured by their corporate clients and were giving ratings that perhaps did not reflect the true underlying status of businesses. We are fortunate in this country already to have embarked on reforms of accounting and on the separation of accounting and other activities to limit that risk, but I just caution that we ought be aware of that in a year’s time when we look at those going concern judgments. We would not like those to come back on our accounting firms, which are doing the best they can.

In Committee, the Minister would be wise to give a few more details about the role of the monitor—my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) raised that issue—and what role the Department will have in monitoring the monitors. Is any change expected to that?

One other concern I have is that facilitating businesses to continue trading at a time when the economy as a whole may be recovering and uncertain has a hint about it of creating some form of zombie businesses, where people are compelled to provide supply, as is required under the Bill, but there is the increasing sense that those businesses are not going to make it. I may be expressing a concern based on widespread use of the insolvency practice, which may not come to fruition—let us hope that for many people it does not—but I wonder what the Government’s thoughts are about the risk of businesses existing in name but not actually being able to create a long-term future for themselves or their employees.

I mentioned the Opposition’s amendment 1, on the voice of employees on obtaining a moratorium. If that were tweaked, it would be an interesting issue for the Government to consider. I also mentioned in an intervention the powers of the small business commissioner. The Secretary of State was right to say, “Hold on a minute; that’s something that we will come back to,” particularly as we are going through this in one day. It is probably not something that we would want to put through so fast. Similarly the calls by the Leader of the Opposition—[Interruption.] I did it again. I am so sorry. It is so hard to forget that time.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The best one.

[Richard Fuller]

Perhaps the current Leader of the Opposition would take offence at what the shadow Minister has said. I am not sure, although if we are ranking Leaders of the Opposition, I would say that as long as they are Labour, that is fine by me.

Notwithstanding the shadow Secretary of State’s position, he raised the issue of reform of corporate governance. It is an interesting topic, and the RSA Group did an interesting review of it last year, but again I would say to the Opposition that this is probably not the time for bringing that forward.

The protection of pension schemes is an issue that the Government ought to consider quite seriously. I have had personal experience of that, and I would not like those dependent on a pension fund to find themselves somehow further at risk as a result of these issues.

I started by mentioning the position 72 days ago and some of the consequences for businesses in the interim. I wanted to be absolutely clear that every single politician has been part of causing that, and, to the extent to which the Opposition continue to be supportive of the Government, as they have been in this debate, and the Government continue to be open with the Opposition, that is the spirit that the country would expect. For those businesses that have fallen because of the crisis or are likely to fail, I would like to say that, as a Member of Parliament, I am sorry. I am sorry for all that has happened to your businesses. I am sorry for the consequences. In the case of one particular constituent—who I will not name in full, but her first name is Peta—let me say that I have worked tirelessly to find ways in which Government programmes can support what you have done and will continue to do so. However, the best thing that we can do is to restore the British economy, get the Bill passed to ensure protection for the businesses that will fall on hard times and get the economy moving again.

Budget Resolutions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is helpful to break this Budget down into three separate Budgets: the coronavirus emergency Budget, the current expenditure Budget and the strategic investment Budget.

On the first of those Budgets, for me the test is: did the Chancellor announce a sufficient range of measures and investment? He started, quite rightly, by saying that the NHS will get all the money it deserves and needs, and that was on top of confirming in the Budget the commitments that the Government have already made about providing finance to the NHS and his later statement in the Budget suggesting additional funding for the NHS. “NHS, NHS, NHS” was a core message of this Budget, and I am sure it will be a core message of all Conservative Budgets over the next four or five years.

In addition, the Chancellor announced much needed support for our small businesses. I am delighted, having last week gone with the Federation of Small Businesses to meet a couple of businesses—including the Number One King Street café in Potton, who said, “We need help with our rates”—that the Chancellor focused on getting money directly into the hands of small businesses. Yes, we need banks to assist—it is right to do that—but one of the lessons from 2007 and 2008 was that we cannot rely on the banks alone to support the economy. My first challenge and question to my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is: will he make sure, over the next few weeks and months, that he looks at all the arteries in the financial system that can get money directly into the hands of our small businesses? In particular, will he look at one omission in the rates relief, which is that childminders and nurseries were not included in the list? Childminder nurseries, such as the one in my constituency run by Debbie Moliterno, need that relief because of the pressure of the coronavirus on our economy.

The second Budget is the current expenditure Budget, where one of the messages is: are we working in a way that is prudent? The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that there will be £12 billion of headroom in the current Budget. I am more conservative; I think there is too much uncertainty around. There were some taxation increases mentioned in the Budget, but we have to understand that there may well need to be additional taxes later this year. My point to my right hon. Friend is that we need in that effort to do all we can to support the wealth-creating part of our economy, which is the small businesses and entrepreneurs we have, who face certain issues.

As my right hon. Friend knows, next week we will have a debate on the loan charge. I met constituents affected by that last week. We also have issues with IR35, where the HMRC is acting according to the reverse of Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s principle of taxation, by getting as much hissing out of the goose for the lowest possible tax imaginable. Eighteen years of collective failure by HMRC—please, Financial Secretary, do not be the fall guy for HMRC’s blatantly poor execution of this policy on treating entrepreneurs.

The third part of the Budget is the strategic investment Budget. Hidden away in that is this Government’s ambition for raising the wages and incomes of the poorest paid workers. This Government should be proud of their record over the last few years in raising the living wage and raising wages for the poorest workers in our community. When the last Labour Government were in office, we were 17th in the OECD for the ratio of our minimum wage to median earnings. In 2018-19, we were ninth, and the Chancellor has indicated that we have further to go. This ambition is not matched by any other major economy in the OECD, and it is right for that to be part of the strategic ambitions of our Government.

However, we also need to recognise—I say this to my fiscally conservative colleagues—that this is a time for investment. Some other speakers have mentioned that it is unusual for us to have a debt-to-GDP ratio of 80%. That is true if the perspective is the last 20 or 30 years, but if we look back over these 20 years and the 100 years of the past century, from 1917 to 1966 this country managed and maintained a debt-to-GDP ratio of 80% or above. Therefore, although it is unusual in the near-term context, and in the lives of nearly all hon. Members here today, in the broader context it is something with the right principle and purposes, and something that even fiscally conservative Members of Parliament such as myself can sustain.

We need that because this is the first Budget since we left the European Union. We need to ensure that our scale of ambition meets the opportunities for our nation. We need to ensure that we get rid of all the obstacles in the way of the Government’s policies, to take hold of the opportunities that we have, so that this country can really generate momentum in the direction of change. That is important.

My final point to my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary, in terms of how the return on investment will be judged, is that he should not get hooked on a single objective such as the increase in productivity rate for this country. We have other significant challenges. We have not only the challenge of productivity; we have the challenge of meeting the carbon ambitions of our economy. We are facing radical changes in the fundamental basis of our economy and the fundamental basis of our trade, so to tie ourselves to a single point of accountability would be incorrect.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I have already talked about the £2,500 that we have been getting out through that business recovery grant, but we will always look to continue to work with businesses in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as in England. It is important, as the hon. Gentleman said, that communities come together, which is why there is support for community economies, ensuring that they can continue to survive and thrive.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend will be a great supporter of small businesses, so will he get off to a fast start by urging the Treasury to scrap its misguided changes to IR35? Those changes are punishing small businesses, with large companies already implementing blanket bans that the Treasury had said in a statement would not yet be implemented, and with the HMRC’s own assessment tool creating confusion, not clarity, for entrepreneurs.

[Paul Scully]

I am sure the Chancellor will hear that question. As my hon. Friend well knows, that is a matter for the Budget, which is still under review.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I note her interest, her role and the work she has done on this issue, and I will be more than happy to meet her. It is important that everyone in the United Kingdom, no matter who they are, is able to access support from government. We want all entrepreneurs to thrive and I will be happy to work with her to be able to achieve that.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

T8. Will the Government consider introducing a small business equivalent of the personal allowance, exempting small businesses from all taxes other than VAT and assisting small businesses such as Maynard’s ice cream in my constituency in meeting the challenge of increases in the living wage?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank my hon .Friend for his question and very much welcome him back to this place, as an extremely valued member of the Select Committee on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, on which he served with me—I am pleased to have him back. He raises an interesting idea. The UK has a highly competitive tax environment, and we need to do more to support our small businesses with the cost of doing business. That is why the Government have committed to launching a fundamental review of business rates, and Treasury colleagues will be giving more details on that in due course.