UK Shared Prosperity Fund

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) on securing this important debate. It builds on the important Westminster Hall debate that we held recently on this subject called by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield). In that debate, we sought to elicit more information from the Government about how the shared prosperity fund would operate, and we also focused on the loss of EU funding and the impact it would have on regions classed by the EU as less developed. That is of particular importance to me because I represent a constituency in the north-east. We need to know what will happen about the shared prosperity fund.

Since that debate, however, we have heard very little from the Government about how things are going to proceed.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for giving way and for her remarks. The UK is the most regionally unequal country in Europe and indeed the world in terms of how the economy is centralised around London. Does she share my concern that any fund administered from Whitehall will not meet the needs of regions such as ours—the north-east—or allow them to achieve their economic potential?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I absolutely agree. Indeed, we have pointed out in previous debates that, given what we know about regional inequality in this country, we do not trust this Government to use these funds to eradicate it.

As we have heard throughout this debate, we need a shared prosperity fund to replace the EU structural funds currently being paid to the UK regions through the European regional development fund and the European social fund. The total value to the UK of funding from these streams in the current funding round is £9.15 billion, or £1.3 billion per year, so we are talking substantial sums of money. There are also smaller pots of funding—the European maritime and fisheries fund, the LEADER programme, the youth employment initiative and so on—amounting to a further £100 million a year.

Although there are funding implications for the whole UK, our withdrawal from the EU and the loss of access to these funding streams is of particular importance to the regions of greatest need. If the UK were to remain in the EU, we would be due to receive significant additional funding in the next round. I am not sure that the Minister has taken this issue on board. It would be really good to hear him acknowledge what these regions would have got if we were staying in the EU. The three regions that are currently affected—Tees Valley and Durham, South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire—are on course to slip below the threshold of 75% of EU average GDP per head, which means they will qualify for extra funding. They would join the three regions already acknowledged—west Wales, the valleys and Cornwall—in receiving a much higher level of funding: about £135 million a year. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) said, the Government should be very concerned that these regions are facing such inequality and experiencing a need to develop their economies further. We really do want to hear from the Government how they are going to achieve that.

We want to hear from the Government about how the shared prosperity fund will operate and about timescales. We want to hear what they are doing to address the growing regional inequality in the UK. How do they see the shared prosperity fund sitting alongside local growth funds, for example? How will those funds interact with other funds that are available to support regional development? Are the Government giving themselves a timeframe in which to eradicate regional inequality? To date, we have not had enough information from the Government. Even at this late stage, we know very little about how the fund will operate. What sort of money are we talking about, and will it be disbursed in the same way as it has been under the EU? Will the Government take into account the regions in greatest need, or not?

I feel very strongly about this issue, as do other Members of Parliament in regions that very much need investment to help our economies to grow and to reach their full potential. These are amazing regions with huge skills and talents among the population. They all need development in digital and higher-level skills, so we need to use our universities and colleges to drive up that development. They need investment in renewable energy—particularly the north-east, which has wonderful expertise in this—and in pharmaceuticals. We need to upgrade the transport system. We must ensure that everyone in these regions can reach their potential and contribute to the future prosperity that we all want to see, particularly in the communities that need more support from this Government.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

3. If she will make reducing global warming a strategic priority of her Department.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

4. If she will make reducing global warming a strategic priority of her Department.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

15. If she will make reducing global warming a strategic priority of her Department.

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[Harriett Baldwin]

I welcome the opportunity that the interest young people are showing in climate change gives us to highlight the important work that we are doing. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we do not provide any bilateral assistance for coal-fired power generation, and that CDC, our private sector investment arm, has made no new net investments in coal-fired power since 2012.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Will the Minister update the House on what DFID is doing to follow through on the agreement made at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in 2018 to support urgent action to address climate change and to increase resilience to prevent 100 million more people from being pushed into poverty by 2030?

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the importance of commitments that were made last year at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. There is an extensive programme of work to follow through on those commitments, not least the £5.8 billion of international climate finance that we have announced so far, which has already helped 47 million people to increase their resilience to climate change. We will be leading that strand at the United Nations summit in September.

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[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has been consistent in challenging me on the 29 March date in Prime Minister’s questions and in statements, and indeed in debates. I have always wanted us to be able to leave on 29 March, but I believe, as was said during the referendum campaign by those who wanted to leave, that it is better to leave with a negotiated deal with the European Union. That is why I am saying that I think we should look again at being able to leave with a negotiated deal, but in order to do that we need time for this Parliament to ratify a deal, and in order to do that we need an extension until 30 June. But, as I have said, as Prime Minister I could not consider a delay further beyond 30 June. This is the point at which this House has the decision to take as to what it wants the future to be. That is what is facing this House, and that is a decision I believe we should take honouring the result of the referendum.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Q2.   On Friday I visited a school in my constituency where distressing poverty means that teachers are not only providing food for the children at breakfast and lunch, but are sourcing clothes and buying shoes for them, in addition to raising money for books and equipment. Now that school, the only one in the area, is threatened with closure, so rather than spending money trying to get people to back her Brexit deal, will the Prime Minister please use it to address the acute social need in this country that is bringing families and communities to their knees?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady will be well aware that we are putting more money into our schools, we are ensuring that we have a welfare system that encourages people into the workplace, and we have put more money into various other elements of care for people across our communities. But the best solution for people to ensure they are able to provide for themselves and their families is for us to have a strong economy and for people to be helped into work, and that is why it was so pleasing that this week yet again the employment level is at a record high in this country.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am going to make further progress.

Thirdly, alongside the joint instrument on the withdrawal agreement, the United Kingdom Government will make a unilateral declaration relating to the temporary nature of the backstop. Such declarations are commonly used by states alongside the ratification of treaties. The declaration clarifies what the UK could do if it was not possible to conclude an agreement that superseded the protocol because the EU had acted contrary to its obligations. In those circumstances, the UK’s understanding is that nothing in the withdrawal agreement would prevent us from instigating measures that could ultimately lead to the disapplication of our obligations under the protocol. Were we to take such measures, the UK would remain in full compliance with its obligations under the Belfast-Good Friday agreement and to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the Prime Minister for giving way. I really do want to know why she has consistently sought to get a deal that satisfies hardliners on her own side, rather than reaching out across the Chamber to get an agreement that would be a softer Brexit, but which would protect the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland more than her current deal does.

[The Prime Minister]

First of all, if as the hon. Lady thought I was placating everybody on my side of the House, I do not think the deal would have been rejected in the first place, so I think she is rather wrong on that. Secondly, I did reach out to the Labour party Front Bench. I had a meeting with the Leader of the Opposition and there was one meeting between the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). We offered other meetings and voice came there back none.

Oral Answers to Questions

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. This is so important. I believe that if we fail to deliver on what the British people instructed us to do in the vote in the referendum, the British people’s views of this House, of Parliament and of politicians will be at an all-time low, because they will have lost faith in politicians across the whole of this Parliament. We need to deliver Brexit for the British people.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Q4. The Prime Minister may have created a Brexit crisis, but other crises are unfolding. Rates of chronic health conditions and obesity in the north- east are the highest of any English region, and people over 65 in Durham can expect only eight years of healthy living, compared with 14 in Windsor and Maidenhead, so why on earth is the Prime Minister planning to cut Durham’s public health budget by a massive 40%? That will not only worsen health outcomes for my constituents but ultimately cost the NHS more and further widen health inequalities.

[The Prime Minister]

Of course, public health funding will be looked at in the spending review. The hon. Lady assumes that the only action taken on prevention of obesity and other conditions is through public health, but that is not the case. If she looks at the NHS long-term plan that has been announced—funded by the biggest cash boost in the NHS’s history, given by this Government—what she will see is an emphasis on prevention and on ensuring that people are able to lead healthier independent lives for longer.

Exiting the European Union

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. The flight of capital and the run on the pound that Labour Members themselves accept would be the impact of their economic policies would be the worst damage that could be inflicted on this economy.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I am one of the few people in this House brought up in Northern Ireland during the years of conflict, and I do not ever want to see a return to that time. So how is the Prime Minister going to ensure no hard border in Ireland now or in a few years’ time and absolutely no undermining of the Good Friday agreement that brought such welcome peace? Surely, this negotiation should not be about the Prime Minister trying to placate enough people on her own side to heave this bad deal over the line: it should be about the long-term peace and prosperity of Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, too.

[The Prime Minister]

It is that long-term peace and prosperity not only of Northern Ireland but the whole United Kingdom that has underpinned the approach the Government have taken to the whole of these negotiations. We remain firmly committed to ensuring that the peace process that has been so important to the lives of people in Northern Ireland, the peace that has been achieved and the development in Northern Ireland that has been achieved can continue into the future and give the people of Northern Ireland the bright future that we can also give to people across the whole United Kingdom. Having no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland is an important part of maintaining that process into the future.

October EU Council

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First, I thank my hon. Friend for the comments that he made about the remarks and language that were used at the weekend.

Yes, we do—we have set out our plan and we are negotiating on the basis of that plan with the European Union. As I say, significant elements of the structure and scope of the future relationship have been agreed. The legal position, as I am sure my hon. Friend knows very well, is that we cannot sign up to legal text in relation to that future relationship until we have left the European Union. I have also said all along that when Parliament looks at the withdrawal agreement, it will also want to have sufficient detail about the future relationship and know what that will be. That is what we are working to deliver.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Can the Prime Minister clarify whether 95% of a withdrawal deal has been agreed with the EU? If it has, why has this House no details of it?

[The Prime Minister]

I will explain the negotiating process: we sit down and talk about the issues; we get to the point of having a text on the table; that text is looked at by leaders, and they take a decision on the text and the future relationship—that is the point at which the negotiations and the deal are completed; and then this House will be able to see all the details of the withdrawal agreement and the future relationship in deciding whether to accept the deal the Government have negotiated.

Oral Answers to Questions

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ross Thomson (Aberdeen South) (Con)]

7. What steps she is taking to support Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

9. What steps her Department is taking to protect Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh in preparation for the monsoon season.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Alistair Burt)]

The UK has helped to lead the international response to the crisis. We are working with the Government of Bangladesh and humanitarian partners to improve shelters, provide water and sanitation, vaccinate against deadly disease and pre-position emergency supplies.

[Alistair Burt]

Yes.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Save the Children has warned that not only are powerful storms affecting the Rohingya refugee camps, but such storms are likely to become more frequent. What are the Government doing to ensure that global action is taken to address flooding issues? [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

I understand the sense of anticipation. I just remind the House that we are discussing the plight of Rohingya refugees, whom we owe some empathy and respect.

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[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has raised a very important issue. Of course, as she said, this is something of which we see many women being victims, but men can be victims of domestic abuse, too. I certainly welcome the efforts of the Employers’ Initiative in raising awareness of this issue and in doing that vital work of providing advice and support to employers and employees on the steps they can take to address it. I understand that the Minister for Women, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), who is also responsible for crime, safeguarding and vulnerability, recently attended the launch of a toolkit for employers on tackling domestic abuse that was developed in partnership with the Employers’ Initiative, Public Health England and Business in the Community. I would absolutely encourage Members from all sides of this House, as employers, to sign up to the initiative and also to promote it in their constituencies so that we can take every step we can to root out domestic violence and domestic abuse.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Q2. President Trump has recently locked up children in cages, instigated a ban on Muslims, stalled action on climate change and started trade wars, and he is now threatening women’s reproductive rights. Should the Prime Minister not be challenging his divisive and damaging policies, instead of inviting him for tea and cakes at No. 10?

[The Prime Minister]

I have responded to the points that the hon. Lady has raised. I have been very clear, and I have said in the House, for example, that the action taken against child migrants was not unacceptable and is not something we would do here in the UK. We did not consider that acceptable. She wants me to challenge the President of the United States. What better way to challenge the President of the United States than to sit down and talk to him?

Oral Answers to Questions

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I, too, welcome the Secretary of State to her new role. I heard what she just said, but on Sunday it emerged that the UK had been providing military assistance to Saudi Arabia to carry out military training as part of Operation Crossways. With the Foreign Secretary hosting Foreign Ministers from the region yesterday for talks, does the Secretary of State think that the UK’s military support and arms sales to Saudi Arabia are helping or hindering a political solution to the simply appalling and worsening humanitarian situation in Yemen?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Lady and other Members who have welcomed me to my post.

Although the UK military has provided training on targeting, to try to reduce civilian casualties, that has been entirely separate from the Saudi coalition’s actual campaign. We are trying to utilise the military-to-military contacts that we do have, which are deep, as part of our diplomatic process to try and get the coalition to realise that it must let aid into the two ports. We are also providing £1.3 million to help the UN’s verification and inspection mechanisms. If we can supply any practical support to give the coalition confidence that weapons are not coming in with aid, we will do that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about trade preferences and the implications for securing jobs in this country and about creating new markets in developing countries and new trading opportunities. As part of the discussions, those subjects will be at the heart of securing a prosperous future for our country and for poor countries around the world.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

What reassurance can the Secretary of State provide that post-Brexit trade agreements for the least developed countries will enshrine good-quality employment rights and high standards of health and safety, align with fair trade policies and support trade union recognition?

[Priti Patel]

It is important for the hon. Lady to recognise that Britain is at the forefront of that, unlike the EU, which has yet to agree trade preferences and good trading opportunities with some of the world’s poorest countries. Britain will lead the world in free trade, but, importantly, we will also help the poorest countries to invest in skills, technical assistance and capacity building and create new markets. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady says no, but she should recognise that her party did little when in government to support trade in poor countries, which is exactly what this Conservative Government are doing.

Record Copies of Acts

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I am afraid that I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford). I congratulate the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) on securing this debate and on ensuring that it has been held after the previous debate was postponed. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for doing so much to raise the issue’s profile.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

On the subject of paying tribute, we should formally acknowledge the extremely important role played by Brian White, MP for North East Milton Keynes from 1997 to 2005, who took us through this whole business in immense detail and won the argument and the vote that kept vellum.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

It is important that we acknowledge Brian White. Indeed, I will go on to say something about the industry in his constituency that he protected.

It is perhaps because I have a truly magnificent cathedral in my constituency that is over 1,000 years old that I feel strongly that tradition is important and that we should continue to record Acts of Parliament on vellum. The existence of so many beautiful old buildings in Durham has reinforced my belief that we should treasure our heritage and look after it for future generations, something which this country has unfortunately not always been good at. For example, beautiful Victorian terraces have been ripped down, apparently in the name of progress, for new blocks of flats that are demolished just years later because of poor construction and, most critically of all, their not being fit for purpose. We run the risk of doing something similar with vellum.

Our lack of respect for heritage is equally apparent in other areas. For example, we have lost many of our folk songs, dances, music, poetry and other aspects of our culture, because we have not kept them alive by using them. Were it not for champions of their causes, we would have lost many others altogether. We can be a champion for vellum today.

[Rebecca Harris]

Both Houses of Parliament will soon enjoy the ceremony and tradition of the Queen’s Speech. Does the hon. Lady agree that it would not be a favourable idea to save money by getting the Queen to make a webcast from her sitting room?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The hon. Lady makes her point extremely well.

When it is proposed that vellum must be discontinued because there is a cheaper alternative, I start from a perspective of great scepticism. Why should we change the practice when it has served us so well for centuries? The issue is close to my heart because of the Lindisfarne Gospels. Everyone here will know their relevance to the north-east and to my Durham constituency. Produced in around 700, the gospels were written and painted on vellum, without which the gospels simply would not be with us today. Not just old relics, they are important living texts for our understanding of the culture and heritage of the north-east and elsewhere. When last on display in Durham a few years ago, over 100,000 people viewed them in just three months, most of them paying to do so.

Vellum is needed in the restoration of our ancient texts and for the recording of a range of important documents not only in the UK, but abroad. I hope that this House and the other place will take steps to protect the industry that supports that restoration, not put its future viability at risk by discontinuing the use of vellum. I pay tribute to the former Member of Parliament for North East Milton Keynes and the current Members of Parliament for Milton Keynes for trying to support and keep the industry alive.

I rarely agree with the Minister for the Cabinet Office, but I did when he told The Daily Telegraph:

“Recording our laws on vellum is a millennium long tradition, and surprisingly cost effective. While the world around us constantly changes, we should safeguard some of our great traditions and not let the use of vellum die out.”

I strongly agree with him on that and I hope that in this House today we can send a strong message to their lordships that they should think again about this decision.

I am not against modernisation—indeed, I think the House of Lords could do with some of it—but we need to get the balance right. Things do have to change, but we also need to preserve what is important about our past. Acts of Parliament fall into that category, and we should continue to use vellum. I hope that we all vote in support of that today.

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[Melanie Onn]

This expense is simply to continue a tradition because that is the way it has always been—that seems to be the only genuine argument that has been presented for continuing to print Acts of Parliament on vellum. A much more important tradition is the 800-year-old one that all Members of this House are equal, which the Government ended when they introduced English votes for English laws in such a shoddy way. Conservative Members were willing to let go of that tradition, and I see no reason why the tradition we are debating today is more worthy of retention.

The Minister and other hon. Members have said that vellum should be kept as it is the only way to maintain physical copies of Acts of Parliament for the long term, but the Parliamentary Archives contains paper records that date back just as long as vellum ones. The manuscript journals of the House of Lords, which date back to 1510, have been printed on paper, but the oldest vellum record is an Act of Parliament from 1497, which is a difference of only 13 years.

I know that the hon. Member for North Wiltshire likes to remind everyone that if Magna Carta had been printed on paper, it would have been lost in about 1465, sometime before the birth of Henry VIII, but we are not talking about Magna Carta. As the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) pointed out, we are talking about the Coinage (Measurement) Act 2011, the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013, the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 and every other Bill that is passed in this place. I might also point out that there was a greater need to print on vellum at the time when Magna Carta was drafted, given the surprise emergence of computers and the internet since the 13th century.

Several hon. Members raised concerns about the future of William Cowley, which is a serious point because that company currently provides the vellum for Acts of Parliament.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Melanie Onn]

We support this industry and agree that it is worth maintaining—[Interruption.] In response to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), I am not giving way because I have only two minutes left before the speech from the Minister, who wants to take 13 minutes to make his point clear.

We support this industry and agree that it is worth maintaining, but the company produces thousands of pages of vellum every year and its contract with Parliament is only a small part of its business. The company’s general manager has said that the loss of the contract with Parliament would be “nothing”, and I think that we should accept his expert opinion.

The Minister for the Cabinet Office said to The Daily Telegraph yesterday:

“Printing vellum copies of laws…provides a durability we cannot guarantee in the digital world, as we simply cannot know how easy it will be to read today’s data in a decade, let alone in a millennium.”

What absolute rubbish! One minute the Cabinet Office brags about

“building new digital services so good people prefer using them to the old paper versions they replace”,

and the next it says that it is all going to be unreadable in 10 years’ time. If we follow his logic, everything should be printed on vellum, not just Acts of Parliament.

The hon. Member for North Wiltshire and the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) have claimed that to ditch vellum would be to downgrade the importance of the law of the land. As very few people are actually aware of laws being printed on goatskin in the first place, I can only think that they must be talking about the effect on themselves and their Conservative colleagues. If they believe the law would no longer be important after the change to manuscript paper, people might want to keep an eye on them.

I find it particularly surprising that the hon. Member for North East Somerset, who has written an article in The Daily Telegraph today, agrees with the argument that it is important for Acts to last 5,000 years. His lack of concern about rising global temperatures had led me to believe that he was not all that bothered about anything still being here in the year 7016.

Finally, there is the question of why on earth the Minister for the Cabinet Office is getting involved. This is a matter for the Lords, not the Commons or the Government. If the Government do wish to involve themselves, why is the Leader of the House not leading on this matter, rather than the Minister for the Cabinet Office? I am sure that there are much more useful things a Government Minister could be doing with his time, and there are certainly much more worthy causes on which £100,000 of taxpayers’ money could be spent each year. He should let the Lords end this archaic process and get on with something more important. The world has moved on since 1497 and it is time that this place did too.