Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Debate between Richard Fuller and Toby Perkins

Tuesday 18th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point and precisely expressing the passion which so many of us feel for the pubs in our communities. It is precisely because so many of us are concerned about the changing face of the pub trade in our communities that the issue of the contribution of pub companies to pub closures has been so fiercely debated. It is because so many of us believe that the model under which pub companies operate is the cause of many of the pub closures that the Opposition have brought this matter to the House on many occasions, and many other Members have made that case. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that this debate is all about the strength of the industry, but it is also about having a sense of what exactly is being done to support it, and the question of pub companies is a key part of that debate.

I suspect that much of this debate will be about what divides Members, but there is real value in reflecting on what we are all agreed about, including the fact that this Government Bill contains provisions for a pubs code. The very fact that we are debating an issue that for so long seemed destined to elude this Parliament is a tribute to the dogged work not just of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, but of Parliament itself. Today still has potential to be a great day for this Parliament.

In reflecting on the contribution that Parliament has made on this question, notwithstanding my reservations about how the Government are handling this incredibly important debate, I want to pay tribute to the many hon. Members whose work has brought us to this point. In no particular order, those who deserve great credit include the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Sir Peter Luff) and my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey). They have both chaired the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, which produced diligent research on this issue in 2004, 2009, 2010 and 2011.

In 2011, the Select Committee finally came to the conclusion that the industry had had enough time to get its house in order and that the time had arrived for a statutory code with an independent adjudicator, open market rent assessments and a free-of-tie option. It is disappointing that it has taken more than three years to get from the Select Committee’s conclusion to the Bill before the House. It will be an even greater disappointment if we have to move away from the Bill and are told that there will be a further review in two years’ time to debate the whole thing again and decide whether we then need the free-of-tie option. What is more important than anything else is that Members do not let the opportunity to take real action through the Bill pass us by.

I want to acknowledge other Members. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) was the pubs Minister who empowered the Select Committee to be the arbiter of when the time for action had arrived. The hon. Members for Leeds North West and for Northampton South (Mr Binley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) led a cross-party campaign to ensure not only that we had a pubs code, but that it would make a real difference for tenants and create competitive pressure on pub-owning companies to ensure that they offered their tenants a fair deal.

I also want to recognise the Minister’s contribution. Notwithstanding what I said about how the Government have handled this Bill and how she has been badly let down on a Bill that appears to be changing in front of our eyes for what appear to be political considerations, the fact is that she did at least end the prevarication—at least, that is what I wrote down in my speech—that we endured under her predecessors. If this was Prime Minister’s questions, I would be told off for writing my script in advance, but that helps when we are going to be on our feet for a while.

To be charitable for a moment, at least we are here to debate the pubs code. The fact that the Minister’s predecessors constantly pushed for review after review and did not take action, while she came forward to say that there would be something in statute, is a source of tremendous credit. It is a shame that she has unfortunately been forced to come to the Dispatch Box to propose a review in two years’ time, with all the uncertainty that that will create. However, she has at least made an effort to get something on the statute book.

There are many other such hon. Members, but the strength of this campaign has been due to the fact that the push inside the House very much reflects the broad coalition in favour of the measures outside it. The case that we and other hon. Members are making today has been supported by a tremendous range of organisations, almost all of whom come under the Fair Deal for Your Local banner.

Just listen, Mr Deputy Speaker—not that you would ever not listen while in the Chair, but perhaps you will do so with particular attention—to the breadth of organisations that support this case. Such breadth makes the case more powerfully than anything else. The organisations include the Federation of Small Businesses, which does not usually demand regulations or that the business relationship between two parties should be put on a statutory footing; the all-party save the pub group, which is so ably chaired by the hon. Member for Leeds North West; the Campaign for Real Ale and the Fair Pint campaign; the trade unions Unite and the GMB; and the Guild of Master Victuallers and the Forum of Private Business.

There are also two support groups, Justice for Licensees and Licensees Supporting Licensees, which were set up to support licensees affected by what had happened in their relationship with the pub company. Such licensees have often been bankrupted or are facing bankruptcy as a result of having chosen to pursue their dream of running a pub. Who would have thought that a support group needed to be set up for people who have chosen to pursue a particular profession or work in a particular industry?

In some ways most significantly of all, the Punch Tenant Network, made up of tenants who run pubs owned by Punch Taverns, has come out in support of new clause 2. Those tenants’ business success hinges to a large degree on the strength—or weakness, depending on how they see it—of their relationship with their pub company, and they are saying that the hon. Member for Leeds North West and 90 other Members are right that the code should be put on a free-of-tie basis. If the network believed the scare stories that the industry is putting about—that the proposed changes will lead to an increase in pub closures, less choice for punters or increased unfairness in the industry—it would hardly be calling on hon. Members to support the new clause.

The House has heard in recent years from literally dozens of Members who are desperately trying to support pubs in their communities that are under threat—all victims of the great pubco scandal.

[Richard Fuller]

The shadow Minister has listed many people who have been involved in the debate on one side or the other. Now, at the moment when the Government are reversing the policy that they had in Committee, does he think it odd from the point of view of protocol that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills is not here to explain that change in Government policy?

[Toby Perkins]

The hon. Gentleman has a valid point. We have all received a huge number of representations from members of CAMRA; from pub licensees; from many different organisations, some of which I have just listed; from the pub-owning companies themselves; and from the British Beer and Pubs Association. They have all been lobbying us in support of, or in opposition to, what they thought would be in the Bill. The Minister, whether by her own choice or because of the hand she has been dealt today, has had to say to the House, “Forget all the speeches that you have prepared and all the letters and considerations you have received on this complicated issue, because we are ripping up a lot of the amendments you thought you would be voting on. We’ll discuss some of them later; and on another one, we thought we might lose, so as a bit of a sop we’ll come back to it in two years if there’s still a problem.” It is a shambolic way to present a Bill.

I wish to be conciliatory and work constructively on the issue, but it reflects no credit on the Government or the House when people come to watch our debate, or watch it on television, and suddenly discover that the issues they have been lobbying their Member of Parliament on have been totally changed. It is an absolute shambles. I have some sympathy with the view that the Secretary of State should have been here to explain why the changes have been made. The Minister was unable to tell us whether he has been involved in the discussions—maybe she will want to clarify that now.

However, this is the point that we have arrived at, and I think we all recognise that when the Government are under pressure they will sometimes take the opportunity to discuss with Members in the run-up to a debate what form amendments will take. Let us make no mistake, though—this debate was scheduled for next week, so the Government could have had another week to consider what should be debated. For reasons best known to them, they decided to bring the debate forward and table last-minute amendments. Now, on the day of the debate, they stand up and say, “Forget all those amendments, we’re not doing any of that”. The hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) may well be right to apportion some responsibility to the Secretary of State, but either way, something that should be a source of pride to the House is now a source of embarrassment. I deeply regret that, because this is an important issue on which there is considerable agreement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller]

rose—

[Toby Perkins]

I did not want to take many more interventions because many other Members wish to speak. However, if the hon. Gentleman feels that it would add a huge amount to the debate I will give way.

[Richard Fuller]

The shadow Minister is making an absolutely crucial point. I think he will have heard, as I did, the Minister say that three companies will be captured by the reduction from 500 to 350. Is the shadow Minister aware of what those three companies have done to incur the wrath of the Secretary of State to be included in the regulation?

[Toby Perkins]

I am not sure that I would necessarily accept that we are suggesting those companies are wrath-deserving. We are attempting to create a regulatory framework that is reliable, so that businesses know where they stand. The limit of 500 is arbitrary, as is the 350 limit. I suspect this is more about attempting to save political face than save the actual companies. Suddenly bringing smaller pub companies into the heart of the Bill is seen as an act of bad faith by the industry. Having lost the vote in Committee, and having then voted against almost exactly the amendment that they then attempted to bring back, which, for the avoidance of doubt was the one that is now not being brought forward, is a pretty shabby way to treat an important industry.

Members and the many thousands of CAMRA members who have written to us all in such impressive numbers in the very short period of time during which there has been an awareness of new clause 2 will be aware that the Opposition supported a free-of-tie option for pubco tenants. [Interruption.] Goodness me, this is a magical moment for the House! I can now say I was there when the Minister for Business and Enterprise, the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) actually attended proceedings on his own Bill. I can tell my grandchildren, “I was there!” He is here, Mr Deputy Speaker. Goodness me.

Infant Class Sizes

Debate between Richard Fuller and Toby Perkins

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins]

That is interesting, as not long ago we heard the Secretary of State talking about class sizes of 70 happening now. I do not recognise that as something that the Labour party wants to see, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) has secured this debate because he wants to make it absolutely clear that the Labour party’s commitment back in 1997 to rescue our schools from the catastrophic and mediaeval state they were in after 18 years of Tory government burns in his heart. He wants a reduction in class sizes and to get away from the huge increases we have seen under this Government.

On the subject of the vision for education held by the previous Education Secretary before his dismissal—I am sure that my two colleagues on the Front Bench are not the only people sitting on a Front Bench at the moment who were pleased to see him disappear—this Government’s approach has led, in my experience, to a demoralised teaching work force, a betrayal of the Government’s rhetoric when they came to office of a commitment to the early years, and a fragmented landscape that has seen enfeebled local authority provision, schools driven unwillingly into becoming academies and the appalling realisation that although money has flowed towards free schools, often in areas that had sufficient demand, there has been a 200% increase in the number of infant pupils taught in classes sized over 30.

Any MP who has taken the time to visit their local schools cannot fail to be moved by the pressure put on our schools by this out-of-touch Government, but the seeds of that educational approach should have been revealed to anyone who took the time to read the Conservative party manifesto, which was referred to a few minutes ago by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central. It stated:

“A Conservative government will give many more children access to the kind of education that is currently only available to the well-off: safe classrooms, talented…teachers, access to the best curriculum…and smaller schools with smaller class sizes with teachers who know the children’s names.”

I do not know about other MPs, but as someone who has been a councillor, a school governor and a parent in Chesterfield over the 13 years of Labour government I find that description, as though that was what schools were like back in 2010, downright offensive. It seems to be a view of our education system based on the views of someone whose only experience of schools was what they had read in the Daily Mail. But that was how the Tory party represented what education looked like back in 2010. Sadly, it is consistent with how out of touch the Government have been on education and a raft of other issues throughout their time in government.

It is not the fault of Ministers in this Government that the education team was entirely privately educated and that does not prevent them individually from being perfectly good Ministers, but when the basis of their education policy is founded on such a narrow and misguided view of what schoolchildren in my constituency experience, I cannot help but think that a wider perspective across the team would help their approach to be slightly more grounded in reality.

Let me return specifically to class sizes. The old “hug a hoodie” David Cameron used to get it. Back in 2008, when he was still a modern Conservative, he told the Yorkshire Post that

“the more we can get class sizes down the better”.

In the 2010 manifesto, he promised

“small schools with smaller class sizes”

That incarnation of David Cameron—oh, how long ago it seems—understood that every extra pupil adds to a teacher’s work load, with extra marking and planning, and means less time to be spent on pupils. If we want primary education to be about more than just presenting something to pupils, class size is important. Smaller classes mean more attention per pupil and more opportunity for children to develop their analytical thinking skills.

That is why the last Labour Government made class sizes such a priority and made such great strides on this issue. In 1997, as one of our five key pledges ahead of the election, Labour promised to cut class sizes to 30 or under for five, six and seven-year-olds by September 2002. Remarkably, the Labour Government actually achieved that a year early; by 2001 it was clear that it would be met. I cannot imagine that many of the promises made by the current Government will be achieved a year early—they will certainly not be achieving what they promised on the deficit. Unfortunately, those achievements have been thrown away by this Tory-led Government, particularly by two specific policy mistakes they have made.

Whereas Labour outlawed class sizes going beyond 30 for children aged four to seven, so that if a class did go above 30 in one year it had to be brought back down the following year, this Tory-led Government relaxed those rules so that class sizes can be above 30 for several years—we heard the Secretary of State proudly boasting about that today. Worse, the Government’s unfettered and ideological free school programme has diverted funding away from areas that need school places most. Instead, we have heard of the disgraceful situation where free schools have been set up in areas with an oversupply of infants schools and are sat there half empty.

Some people who were planning to set up a free school in Chesterfield came to see me at one of my surgeries. I said to these two parents, “So why do you want to set up a free school?” They said, “We don’t think we can get our kids into Brookfield. We want our kids to go there.” So this entire school was being set up because they could not get their children into one school, even though there were other schools they could get into. When I suggested that they could join the governing body of the school in their catchment area and see whether they could improve that, I was told, “Well, it is a bit of a risk.” So I said, “You are setting up a school that doesn’t exist, that has no teachers, that has no building, that has no other pupils and that has no facilities. That is not ‘not a risk’, is it?” [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) is shouting “yes” and he has a free school in his constituency that is half empty. We heard the Education Secretary saying today that a new free school that was due to be set up has, in the middle of September, when most pupils—

[Richard Fuller]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Toby Perkins]

Let me just finish the point. The Education Secretary was talking about a school in Leicester that, at a time when most children all around the country are going back to school, has been told that it cannot open, and 69 children are left without a school. She says, “Well, we have to get these things right.” The Government should have looked at that when they were going through all these proposals and giving the money to set up the free school. That is the basis of this education policy.

[Richard Fuller]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because the Labour party is trying, yet again, to divide people on the issue of free schools and is pointing to Bedford as an example. Local people and local teachers have worked very hard to make sure that the free school could be part of the family of schools and, contrary to what he is saying, the Bedford free school is one of the largest free schools that have been set up from scratch, with more than 400 pupils. Their parents have decided that that school is right for their children, and I am very proud that this Government have enabled them to make that choice.

[Toby Perkins]

The hon. Gentleman talks about a divisive education system, but I have never seen a more divided education system than the one that has been set up by this Government. We have seen an incredibly divided, fragmented system. We have seen schools that do not want to be academies forced into it because they cannot afford to be anything else but academies. The Opposition made it absolutely clear that we support parents getting involved in their schools, but the ideological approach of setting up free schools in a place that already has adequate supply and at the same time seeing infant class sizes at the disgraceful level that has been discussed in this debate is an utterly divisive way to approach education policy.

National Audit Office reports demonstrate that fully two thirds of all of new places created by the free schools programme have been created outside the areas with the most need. Extraordinarily, that has left some local authorities in a position where they want to build a new school to manage a primary places crisis, only to be told that the Department for Education will allow a new school to be built only if it is a free school and only to find out that nobody wants to build a free school in that area. That approach is utterly against the best interests of our children.

Free schools were supposed to fill gaps in the market, but they are in fact doing the opposite and are stacked up in places where there is already sufficient demand. We have seen the consequence of that approach in my constituency. Across Derbyshire, the number of infant school pupils who are in classes with more than 30 children has increased by 117% since this Government came to office. A freedom of information request to the Department for Education exposed the full scale of the class-size growth scandal. How pitiful the Prime Minister’s promise to cut class sizes now looks.

In Chesterfield, schools are grappling with class sizes that were absolutely unimaginable under a Labour Government. Hollingwood primary school has one class of 36; Hasland Hall infant school a class of 39; Abercrombie primary school a class of 44; and Walton Holymoorside, just over the border in North East Derbyshire—it is the school to which my own children went—a class of 36. For anyone who remembers the huge class sizes that we had under the last Tory Government—the one that actually won a general election—those figures will come as no surprise.

Business Rates

Debate between Richard Fuller and Toby Perkins

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins]

I am going to make a bit more progress. A large number of Members wish to speak, which makes it clear how important the issue is.

Our proposal is not to increase corporation tax from the current rate but simply not to take forward the planned 2015 cut, instead using all the money planned for that to reduce the business rate burden.

The Government have tabled an amendment to the motion, the final line of which states that the House

“rejects the policy proposals from Her Majesty’s Opposition on rates which would involve increasing corporation tax on all firms”.

That is what Government Members will be asked to vote for. First, under our proposals the rate would still be lower than it is today. More importantly, it would alter the corporation tax rate only of businesses that make more than £300,000 of profit. Government Members might well think that every single firm earns more than that, but I can tell them that 80,000 businesses would be affected out of a total of 5 million in the UK. That is just over 1.5% of all the businesses in the UK, not “all firms” as the Government’s amendment states. If they think that 1.5% of firms is “all firms”, they are either incompetent or totally out of touch. I suspect that it is both.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Toby Perkins]

For some reason, on the subject of incompetence, the hon. Gentleman wants to intervene.

[Richard Fuller]

I am extremely grateful for that nice introduction.

I draw the House’s attention to my registered interests. I am a director of a small technology business and of a manufacturing business. The Government are still dealing with the deficit that the hon. Gentleman’s party’s Government left, and money is therefore scarce. For every element of taxation that he wants to reduce, the money would have to be found from elsewhere. How would Labour’s proposal help technology and manufacturing businesses, which are surely what we need to secure growth in the economy, rather than retail?

[Toby Perkins]

It is interesting the hon. Gentleman says that, because the point is that our business rate proposal was announced at the same time as we said how it would be paid for. It is the principle of ensuring that we do not make commitments unless it is clear how we will pay for it—in this case, the corporation tax cut is not being taken forward, and that will pay for the business rates. The Chancellor has just announced that he will not increase business rates, but I would be interested to hear from Government Members whether he will make it clear how that will be paid for. We have had numerous policies so far from this Government that seem to be just sticking it on the deficit.