Civil Nuclear Road Map

Debate between Rosie Winterton and Richard Thomson

Thursday 11th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. He is absolutely right in one respect: the Scottish Government do not support the development of new nuclear power in Scotland. The reasons for that are simple: beside the environmental concerns, the economics do not lie. Nuclear power is slow to deliver and horrendously expensive, and the policy of recent years under Labour and Conservative Governments has been simply to allow private companies to privatise the profits while the risks are socialised for taxpayers. We on this side of the House—at least, on the SNP Benches—all know that Scotland’s comparative advantages lie in hydrogen and renewables, both areas in which the Scottish Government’s ambitions appear to considerably outstrip those of the current UK Government.

May I ask the Minister two simple questions? First, despite his disagreement with the Scottish Government’s stance on planning and nuclear, will he and his Government respect the devolution settlement as it stands? Secondly, will he give an undertaking, as none of his predecessors over the last half century or more have been able to do, that when the multibillion-pound decommissioning liabilities become live for any new generation of nuclear power stations, they will lie squarely on the private companies that have benefited in the preceding decades and will not fall on the taxpayer?

[Andrew Bowie]

The Scottish National party, like almost every nationalist party in the world, has a misplaced belief in its own exceptionalism, and nowhere is that more true than on nuclear. At COP28, we saw over 30 countries come together to pledge to increase civil nuclear capacity around the world by a third, so clear and obvious is it that nuclear is essential not just in ensuring our energy security, benefiting local communities and driving forward our economy, but in reaching our net zero goals and ensuring that we have a cleaner energy baseload in the future. Indeed, there is no net zero without nuclear.

It pains me, especially as a Scottish Member of Parliament, that the Scottish Government’s wrong-headed position on this remains extant. I would very much welcome a change of direction within the Scottish Government. I urge the Scottish National party to look around the world at the countries joining with us in this nuclear renaissance and revival, and to think of the huge benefits that could be brought to Scotland, with its proud history in nuclear going back many decades, if it were to join us on this journey.

Of course we respect the devolution settlement. We are absolutely committed to maintaining it. What I urge, though, is a change of direction, a change of approach and a change of position by the Scottish Government, so that the Scottish people, the Scottish economy and the Scottish environment can benefit from future investment in nuclear that will be felt in England and Wales, and indeed in so many other countries around the world.

Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Debate between Rosie Winterton and Richard Thomson

Report stage
Monday 20th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

My party broadly welcomed the Bill at its introduction and through Committee, and broadly speaking we still do. However, for our liking there remain too many gaps in consumer protection. The Bill does not include an equivalent to the EU’s consumer rights to redress when consumers are misled, and it does not baseline the protections that we had previously, which we think is a serious omission. Many consumers found that to their cost when their travel arrangements went haywire through chaos at the channel ports over the summer.

The Bill does not do enough to tackle greenwashing. As we have heard, there is a systemic failure to tackle drip pricing and subscription traps. We are also still unclear about how the Government intend to tackle the scourge of fake reviews; although secondary legislation could be introduced, the scope of the sanctions that could be brought to bear against the perpetrators would inevitably be restricted.

Rather to my surprise, we have 175 Government amendments to the Bill. That seems rather a lot to be bringing in. It can be gently elided over that this is a Government who have been listening carefully to all the arguments put, but, to be perfectly honest, I think it shows that this has become something of a Christmas tree Bill. It would have been better to have had much more parliamentary scrutiny in Committee of some of the things we now find coming in, no matter how well-intentioned they are.

A number of amendments to the Bill do cause me concern, including the series of amendments that changes the mechanism for appealing the Competition and Markets Authority’s decisions. In our view, Government amendments 6, 7, 10 and 30 will water down the Bill’s effectiveness, allowing tech companies described under the Bill as the most powerful firms and dynamic digital markets to be able to challenge the CMA’s decisions if they do not believe that they are proportionate.

Government amendments 51 to 53, 55 and 56 also have that effect, since they will prevent certain appeals by big-tech firms of decisions made by the CMA from being held to the judicial review standard. I am unpersuaded by the arguments that we have heard so far about that. We fear that, in practice, when a decision is taken that is not, for whatever reason, to the liking of big-tech companies with rather large budgets—to take one entirely at random, we have Apple, which makes profits and turnover yields that are bigger than most countries’ GDPs—they will inevitably be able to tie those decisions up in the courts for quite some time, all the while being able to secure whatever advantage they had which the CMA had judged they got unfairly. The CMA has warned that changing the appeal mechanism could lead to such a set of drawn-out legal battles and quite an adversarial relationship with the firms that it seeks to regulate, which I would venture is far removed from the Bill’s original intention.

It is unusual that I should ever pray in aid the other place in a political argument, but last month the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee called on the Government to maintain the JR standard for all appeals. It is therefore worrying, if not entirely surprising, that the extensive lobbying that some of the bigger tech companies have subjected us to seems to have found the ear of the Government.

If the UK Government’s amendments 6, 7, 10 and 30, which seek to allow firms with strategic market status to appeal against CMA decisions, are accepted, that will essentially undermine the CMA’s job and ability to protect consumers. Those amendments would allow big tech firms to appeal against decisions taken by the regulators on significant issues such as blocking mergers and issuing fines simply on the basis of their feeling that they may not be proportionate. As I say, they can certainly afford to spend huge amounts of money on legal representations to quibble with these decisions, particularly if the fines or deprivation of the opportunity to make lots of money mean that they feel it is worth spending that money whatever the eventual chances of success are.

This is in addition to the letter that Baroness Stowell wrote to the PM last month warning that the UK Government must not “undermine” the Competition and Markets Authority, noting that these amendments would

“favour those with an interest in delaying regulatory intervention”

and give greater power to avoid scrutiny to the tech firms

“with the greatest resources”.

The UK Government should not be ignoring these warnings, and we believe that this is a detrimental addition to the Bill. This position was also backed up by Which? in April last year. In our view, these amendments show that the Government have done the exact opposite of sticking to their guns on this.

I am mindful of the time—as are you, Madam Deputy Speaker—so I shall come to the amendments that I believe we will be voting on later. Labour amendments 187 and 188 would enable the Competition and Markets Authority to consider any significant benefits, due to a combination of factors, that might result from a breach of the conduct requirement. We think that strikes a reasonable and fair balance on where we would like the outcomes to be, and should the amendments be pressed to a vote, the SNP will be supporting them.

Artificial Intelligence Safety Summit

Debate between Rosie Winterton and Richard Thomson

Thursday 9th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. The Bletchley declaration provides a baseline and is useful as a starting point, but it will be ongoing engagement that counts as we develop our understanding of the opportunities and threats that AI presents.

I was very taken by the Secretary of State saying that this was not an opportunity for party political point scoring. In that vein, on reflection, does she share my disappointment that the UK Government seemed to actively take steps to exclude the involvement of the devolved Administrations from around these islands from participation in the summit? Any claim that the UK might have to global leadership in AI rests in large part on the work that goes on in all parts of these islands, particularly from a legal, ethical, regulatory and technological perspective. It would have been very valuable had the other Governments that exist on these islands had the opportunity to fully participate in the summit.

While the declaration is a useful starting point, it is the future work on this that will count, so may I have an assurance from the Secretary of State that the UK Government will not seek to curtail again the involvement of devolved Administrations around these islands in future national and international discussions on these matters?

HMPPS Update

Debate between Rosie Winterton and Richard Thomson

Thursday 7th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. My party hopes Khalife will soon return to custody. Leaving aside the extraordinary manner of the details of the escape, some more immediate questions arise. Mr Khalife may have been believed to pose a low risk to members of the public, but he was clearly thought to present a considerable risk to his service colleagues and to national security. As such, it will strike people as extraordinary that he was being held under category B conditions, rather than category A, pending any trial.

What is more extraordinary is that prison inspectors reported concerns in January last year about the measures in place at Wandsworth to prevent escapes, after finding what they believed to be potential shortcomings in physical aspects of security locally on site. It was also alarming to hear the former head of security at Wandsworth, Ian Acheson, on the radio this morning saying that, on any given day, some 30% to 40% of frontline staff are unavailable for duty at the prison.

The Prison Officers Association has highlighted that some £900 million has been stripped out of prison budgets in England and Wales since 2010, which will leave more prisons than just Wandsworth overcrowded and under-resourced. The Prison Officers Association’s national chair has called this morning for an urgent review of how prisons across England and Wales are run. I appreciate that the Secretary of State has announced two separate strands of inquiry from the Dispatch Box, which I am sure will be welcomed, but will he expand the scope of his questioning to allow for that inquiry into how the Prison Service across England and Wales is run, in the light of the concerns that have been expressed?

Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

Debate between Rosie Winterton and Richard Thomson

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow SNP spokesperson.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

It feels unnecessary to repeat this, but this Government seem willing to sign up to any trade deals. My party is in favour of good ones, and we are against poor ones, and that is why we oppose this deal. [Interruption.] The concerns that we have, despite the heckling from those on the Government Benches, about the lack of mechanisms to safeguard workers’ rights and about the potential impacts on domestic standards, particularly in the agrifoods sectors, do not go away with blustery repetition and flat contradiction, which seems to be the stock-in-trade in all that Government Front Benchers have to say about this deal.

The Secretary of State gets aerated whenever it is pointed out that the Government’s own figures show that GDP is estimated to increase by only 0.08% over the next 10 years as a result of the deal, at the same time as the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts a 4% hit to GDP through Brexit. Ministers have had an awful long time to find out what the figure actually is, if they do not believe that 0.08% figure. Without reference to vague opportunities, the number of middle-class consumers in the Pacific rim or the GDP of countries in the CPTPP, and without deviation, repetition or hesitation, what exactly will the impact be on UK GDP as a result of this deal?

Business of the House

Debate between Rosie Winterton and Richard Thomson

Thursday 6th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

I thank the Leader for giving us the business and, again, endorse the remarks that the shadow Leader has made about standards. I wish to add my own remarks about the 35th anniversary of the Piper Alpha tragedy. I am sure our thoughts are very much with all those who continue to be affected by the tragic events that took place 35 years ago to this day.

I also wish to say how pleased I am that the Leader of the House enjoyed her visit to St Giles’ Cathedral yesterday for the service of thanksgiving. I hope she did not suffer from a bout of sword envy when she saw Dame Katherine Grainger carrying out that duty yesterday.

This week sees the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the NHS, the inspiration for which came from the experience of the Highlands and Islands Medical Service, established in 1913. I add my own words of thanks for the contribution NHS staff, past, present and future, have made and will make to our collective health and wellbeing as a nation.

Last week, I asked the Leader of the House to make time for debates on why six police forces in England continue to remain in special measures and on why NHS staff sickness in England has hit a record high. There are, alas, no signs of any debates forthcoming on those issues. Can I add to that list a request for a debate on why 28 NHS trusts and integrated care boards across England are in similar special measures, so we can find out what the Government intend to do about that?

This week, members of the Orkney Islands Council agreed that they should explore options for alternative models of governance, including exploring their Nordic connections. There have been some suggestions that they might wish to rejoin Norway and exploit those historical links. It is easy for Members on the SNP Benches to see the attractions of being part of a small, prosperous, energy-rich, independent country of 5.5 million people, so the only question is the constitutional means by which that could be given effect, if a part of the UK wished to leave. Asking for approximately 5.5 million friends, could we have a debate on how that might happen please?

Finance Bill

Debate between Rosie Winterton and Richard Thomson

Committee stage
Wednesday 30th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I should have reminded colleagues that when we are in Committee I am to be referred to as “Chair” or “Dame Rosie”.

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

Thank you, Dame Rosie, for calling me at this point. We are discussing this Finance Bill still against a backdrop of problems with our energy security, the climate crisis and the cost of living crisis. Sadly, despite the rapid turnover in personnel in recent weeks and months at No. 10 and No. 11 Downing Street, there are still no signs in this Bill that the Government have any inclination to go about getting to grips with those three crises and challenges of our age.

Papers Relating to the Home Secretary

Debate between Rosie Winterton and Richard Thomson

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

What a debate this is turning out to be on one side of the House. I cast my mind back to last week’s SNP Opposition day debate, and to other Opposition day debates. A single transferable speech seems to be rattling around about all the things that the Opposition could be talking about. The clue for Conservative Members is in the name. If they want to be in charge of choosing the topics for Opposition day debates, they should simply call a general election, which would be welcomed by the country.

Opposition day debates are about the things the Opposition want to talk about, which are very often the things that the Government desperately do not want to talk about. I do not blame the Government or the Paymaster General—the Paymaster General always seems to be the one sent out to defend the crease, even when the post holder changes—for not wanting to talk about the Home Secretary’s shockingly casual approach to security protocols, her apparent disregard for her officials’ legal advice or her extreme rhetoric, which is creating security risks and surely makes her completely unfit for any kind of public office.

We are often told that there are two things we should never see being made: laws and sausages. After the Paymaster General’s remarks today, we might need to add ministerial appointments to that list. It is astonishing that, six days after admitting she had broken the ministerial code and resigning, the Home Secretary was able to saunter back into her old job, off the back of her grubby deal to endorse the Prime Minister in the Conservative party’s leadership election.

It has been obvious in recent years that, whenever a Minister transgresses badly enough, even under this Government, to have to leave office, the time they have to spend in the ex-ministerial sin bin has diminished. I am not sure if that is always because standards have dropped, but the half-life of the radioactivity that results from political misdemeanours seems to have markedly reduced.

The Home Secretary’s reappointment to Government, never mind her reappointment as Home Secretary, raises some extremely serious questions, because there is not one but two emerging scandals surrounding her. Each one, in its own way, not only calls into question her competence and integrity in office but raises extremely serious questions about the judgment of the Prime Minister himself.

Members have spoken about the woeful situation at Manston and, with your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to move away slightly from the discussion of the unauthorised release of information and talk about the obstinate refusal to disclose relevant information—surely that is completely the wrong way round for how Ministers should be operating. We have heard the Home Secretary’s approach to defending the way she dealt with legal advice; she did not, apparently, ignore it, but simply chose to act in a contrary and potentially unlawful fashion having read it.

What cannot be in dispute is that a facility designed to hold up to 1,600 people for no more than 24 hours at a time as a short-term processing facility became, under this Home Secretary’s watch, severely overcrowded. The result has been what the Prison Officers Association assistant general secretary Andy Baxter described as a

“humanitarian crisis on British soil”,

with people sleeping on cardboard in tents amid outbreaks of covid, diphtheria, scabies and hepatitis. David Neal the chief inspector of borders and immigration told the Home Affairs Committee that we are now past the point where we can describe Manston as being a safe facility.

All of that coincided with the Home Secretary’s first period in office. Although she denies this, numerous sources, both inside and outside Government, have stated that one major factor for that overcrowding was that the new Home Secretary was refusing to sign off on hotel accommodation—or “alternative accommodation”, call it whatever you like—that would have allowed people to move on from Manston. I tabled a named day question last week asking how many people had been rehoused in that alternative accommodation and how many such alternative places had been approved by the Home Secretary. Remarkably, the answer that came back refused to divulge that information, because, apparently, it could be obtained only at “disproportionate cost”. I do not think that disproportionate cost is something that can be measured in financial terms, but I hazard a guess that this would have come at a greatly disproportionate cost to the remaining credibility of the Home Secretary.

I go down that byway because paragraph 1(c) of the motion calls for the “minutes”, “submissions” and “communications relating to” the Home Secretary’s appointment or

“advice relating to that appointment”

to be disclosed. It would be extraordinary if the advice that we have been told was being proffered to the Home Secretary was dealt with and treated by her, through her actions, in the manner that many of us believe it was.

This debate is, of course, concerned with security rather than Manston itself, and the reason for that is simple: we know that, by her own admission, the Home Secretary sent confidential information from a secure government IT environment to her own personal Gmail account. She also sent information to another Member of this House, who was not authorised to receive it in that form. Incredibly, she also tried to send it on to the Member’s spouse’s email account and the only reason they failed to receive it was that the Home Secretary accidentally sent it to a different unauthorised recipient, a member of staff of a different parliamentarian. So there were two unauthorised recipients, one of whom it was sent to deliberately and the other of whom was an accidental recipient, every bit as unauthorised as the other intended recipient.

In her resignation letter, the Home Secretary claims to have “rapidly reported” the breach when she realised it. However, a former chairman of the Conservative party has said:

“As I understand it, the evidence was put to her and she accepted the evidence, rather than the other way round.”

In a letter to the Home Affairs Committee on 31 October, the Home Secretary wrote that she realised her error at 10 am and that by 10.2 am had emailed the staff member involved asking them to delete the document—whoop-de-doo. Despite that, the Home Secretary apparently did not think to email or contact the Chief Whip—this further contradicts her claim of rapidly reporting the breach—or, perhaps more pertinently, the permanent secretary or the Cabinet Secretary. It was nearly lunchtime when the Home Secretary said that, by coincidence, she saw the Chief Whip, who by then was already aware of what had happened. It is impossible to square the Home Secretary’s explanation of her actions and motivations with the timeline and the information that we now know. What I think is perhaps hardest to accept is the complete and utter insouciance of the Home Secretary in this matter. Indeed, if we were to take both her resignation letter and her letter to the Home Affairs Committee at face value, we could be forgiven for imagining that this was the first Home Secretary who had ever been forced to resign for doing absolutely nothing wrong.

To take the two most high profile resignations from this Government of late, there is some quite remarkable language used in the letters. The Home Secretary said that she was

“choosing to tender her resignation”,

when she should not even have been given the luxury of that choice. That is almost as good, if not better than, the line in the letter of resignation from the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng). He said:

“You have asked me to stand aside as your Chancellor. I have accepted.”

My goodness, how gracious of him! Nevertheless, there are serious discrepancies in the Home Secretary’s version of events around this breach.

When it comes to that laxness in IT and informational security, we know, of course, that the Home Secretary has form. She herself has conceded that, on six separate occasions, between 15 September and 16 October, she sent documents from her UK Government email environment to her personal Gmail account. That gives rise to a much, much wider issue, which is that, as a result, the UK is now in the absurd position where the Minister responsible for national security has, by her own actions and admissions, proved that she cannot be trusted with the integrity of sensitive documents. That has very serious implications—whether Conservative Members wish to hear it or not—for what the security services can be confident in sharing with the Home Secretary and consequently, flowing from that, serious issues about the accountability that there can be of the security services to Ministers. International partners will also have taken note, and I suspect that the explanations that have been given will cut little ice. They will simply see a security risk.

If the Prime Minister wants to restore some level of confidence in national security and in the office of Home Secretary, he now needs to remove this Home Secretary from office and commit to a full investigation and to the release of all the relevant documentation to establish what exactly took place. If the Prime Minister was in the least bit serious when he talked of integrity and accountability in his Government, he needs to match those fine words with the reality of his actions: release that information and sack the Home Secretary.

As I have said, this matter raises very serious concerns about the Prime Minister’s judgment. That is why the information must be released. That is why the Government must release information also made available to the Prime Minister in deciding whether to reappoint the Home Secretary. That would allow us get to the bottom of it. It would allow us to reach an informed judgment and see whether it is justified that so many Members on the Opposition Benches take the view that the appointment of this Home Secretary was a very, very serious misjudgment indeed.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I was very pleased that the hon. Gentleman brought his speech back neatly to the motion. This is another reminder that we have in front of us quite a narrow motion. I trust that hon. Members will adjust their speeches accordingly.

Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip

Debate between Rosie Winterton and Richard Thomson

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Thomson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and she says it very eloquently and succinctly. We have a crisis of confidence in this country. We have a crisis of confidence in the Prime Minister, who is clearly not fit for the job with which he has been entrusted. This is being aided and abetted by the silence and complicity of far too many Conservative Members, and I cannot wait to see which Lobby the Scottish Conservative contingent, in particular, chooses to go through this evening.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Because of that intervention, I am afraid that the final speaker is going to be able to have only two and a half minutes, unless the SNP spokesperson would take a little less.

National Insurance Contributions Bill

Debate between Rosie Winterton and Richard Thomson

3rd reading
Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before we begin debating the new clauses and amendments to the Bill that have been selected, I want to remind the House that the scope of this debate is limited to whether or not the Bill should be altered or added to by any or all of those amendments and new clauses. This is not an opportunity to debate the Bill as a whole or the national insurance fund in general, and still less to discuss how to fund the NHS or adult social care. I expect that the House will have the chance later in the week to hear from Ministers, if and when they have any new policies to announce with regard to what I have talked about.

New Clause 1

Zero-rate contributions for employees of green manufacturing companies

‘(1) This section applies where—

(a) a secondary Class 1 contribution is payable as mentioned in section 6(1)(b) of the 1992 Act in respect of earnings paid in a tax week in respect of an employment,

(b) the green manufacturing condition is met (see section [Green manufacturing condition]), and

(c) the employer (or, if different, the secondary contributor) elects that this section is to apply in relation to the contribution for the purposes of section 9(1) of the 1992 Act instead of section 9(1A) of that Act or section 1 of this Act.

(2) For the purposes of section 9(1) of whichever of the 1992 Acts would otherwise apply—

(a) the relevant percentage in respect of any earnings paid in the tax week up to or at the upper secondary threshold is 0%, and

(b) the relevant percentage in respect of any earnings paid in the tax week above that threshold is the secondary percentage.

(3) The upper secondary threshold (or the prescribed equivalent in relation to earners paid otherwise than weekly) is the amount specified in regulations under section 8.

(4) For the purposes of the 1992 Acts a person is still to be regarded as being liable to pay a secondary Class 1 contribution even if the amount of the contribution is £0 as a result of this section.

(5) The Treasury may by regulations make provision about cases in which subsection (2) is to be treated as applying in relation to contributions payable in respect of a tax week in a given tax year only when—

(a) that tax year has ended, and

(b) all contributions payable in respect of a tax week in that tax year have been paid.’—(Richard Thomson.)

This new clause provides National Insurance contributions relief for businesses engaged in green manufacturing

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 2—Green manufacturing condition—

‘(1) The green manufacturing condition is that the employer is engaged in the manufacture of products within the categories designated under subsection (2).

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), the Secretary of State must by regulations designate categories of products that in the opinion of the Secretary of State are manufactured with the aim of increasing environmental standards.

(3) The categories of products designated must include—

(a) wind turbines, and

(b) electric vehicles.’

This new clause is linked to NC1.

New clause 3—Scottish Government Covid payments: exemption from primary Class 1 contributions—

‘(1) A primary Class 1 contribution is not to be payable in respect of any Scottish Government Covid payment.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), a “Scottish Government Covid payment” means a payment of £500 pro rata to any NHS Scotland or social care worker in accordance with the announcement made by the Scottish Government on 30 November 2020.’

This new clause provides exemptions for Scottish Government Covid payments to NHS Scotland and social care workers.

New clause 4—Employment allowance for national insurance contributions—

‘(1) In section 1(2)(a)(1) of the National Insurance Contributions Act 2014 (employment allowance for national insurance contributions), for “£4,000” substitute “£16,000”.

(2) The provisions of subsection (1) will remain in force until 30 September 2023 and will then expire unless continued in force by an order under subsection (3).

(3) The Chancellor of the Exchequer may by order made by statutory instrument provide that the provisions which are in force will continue in force for a period not exceeding two years from the coming into operation of the order.

(4) No order will be made under subsection (3) unless a draft of the order has been laid before and approved by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament.

(5) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must lay before Parliament a review of the effects of the provisions in subsection (1) on employment, the performance of small businesses and GDP growth no later than 30 September 2023.’

This new clause would quadruple the employment allowance from £4,000 to £16,000 for two years. At the end of the period, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be required to assess its effects and would be able to seek parliamentary approval for the policy to continue for up to a further two years.

Amendment 1, in clause 2, page 2, line 26, at end insert—

“(e) the employer pays, as a minimum, a living wage to all staff it employs, and

(f) the businesses operating in the freeport in which the employer has business premises have collectively—

(i) put in place a strategy setting out how the freeport will contribute to the target for net UK emissions of greenhouse gases in 2050 as set out in the Climate Change Act 2008 as amended by the Climate Change Act (2050 Target Amendment) Order 2019,

(ii) put in place a strategy setting out how the businesses will ensure that no goods passing through the freeport are the products of slave labour, and

(iii) carried out an environmental impact assessment of the operation of the freeport.”

This amendment provides conditions to businesses in freeports. These include a strategy on how the freeport will contribute to the target for net UK greenhouse gases emissions, a strategy ensuring no goods passing through the freeport are products of slave labour, and an environmental impact assessment of the freeport.

Amendment 2, page 3, line 11, at end insert—

‘(4A) For the purposes of subsection (1)(e), the living wage per hour—

(a) for the financial year 2021-22 is—

(i) £9.50 outside of London, and

(ii) £10.85 inside London; and

(b) for each year after the financial year 2021-22 is to be determined by the Living Wage Foundation.’

This amendment defines the living wage, payment of which is one of the conditions businesses would have to meet under Amendment 1.

Government amendment 3.

[Richard Thomson]

I rise to support amendments 1 and 2 and new clauses 1 to 3 in my name.

I went over the reasoning for these amendments in some detail on Second Reading and in Committee, so I am sure the House will be relieved to hear that I do not intend to go into quite that level of detail again. The arguments I made then still stand, that the Government should not forgo tax revenues or give advantages to some businesses that are not available to others in terms of national insurance exemptions without securing meaningful commitments in return and in advance.

For that reason, we believe reciprocal benefits should be baked in from the start, both in the strategic economic objectives that we presume are being sought and in ensuring the very best employer behaviour, so that we are incentivising the kind of corporate behaviour that we want to see and encouraging future manufacturing to develop in that way.

We particularly wish to see greenports evolve—greenports are the Scottish Government’s model for freeports—to help tackle the climate crisis and to ensure the protection of workers’ rights. SNP amendments 1 and 2 would help to ensure that freeports and greenports do not end up contributing to a race to the bottom on workers’ rights and broader standards.

New clauses 1 and 2 get to the heart of the matter, by ensuring that employers within the designated freeports pay, as a minimum, a living wage to all staff they employ; by setting out how businesses can ensure that no goods passing through freeports are in any way the product of, or have benefited from the contribution of, slave labour; by setting out how freeports can contribute towards achieving legally binding climate change commitments; and by ensuring that the environmental impact of freeports is properly considered in each case, so that they can be seen as an exemplar, rather than simply being compliant with existing legislation.

We believe firmly that if national insurance exemptions are to be made available, they should be for enterprises that are helping us to transition towards a low-carbon economy. In those new clauses, we have specified two categories of manufacture—wind turbines and electric vehicles—that we consider should be covered. The opportunity is inherent within new clause 2 for the Secretary of State to designate a much wider range of products that also can contribute towards that objective.

We have a choice here: we can grant these incentives and hope—this depends on one’s political taste—that we let 1,000 flowers bloom or that the invisible hand of the market will somehow deliver the economic and social objectives being sought; or, with some judicious framing of the Bill, we can help to increase the likelihood of achieving a set of positive outcomes from those objectives.

Points of Order

Debate between Rosie Winterton and Richard Thomson

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving notice of his point of order. Select Committee scrutiny is an essential aspect of our work in this place, and for Committees to be able properly to undertake scrutiny they need access to key witnesses, including Ministers. The Government must therefore make every effort to ensure that the appropriate Ministers are able to give evidence to Committees in a timely way. When the Minister concerned is in the House of Lords, it is particularly important that Committees in this House are able to hold them to account.

I am very sorry that the hon. Gentleman’s Committee has been experiencing these difficulties. He has now put his concerns on the record. They will have been heard by Ministers, and I hope that every effort is now made to ensure that the Committee is able to take evidence from the Minister, without delay.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In responding to the urgent question on 27 May about the UK’s proposed tariff offer to the Australian Government on agricultural experts, the Minister for Trade Policy claimed, in his opening statement, that

“Australia has some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world.”—[Official Report, 27 May 2021; Vol. 696, c. 549.]

Later, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley), he said that

“if she sat down with the RSPCA Australia, it might give her a robust view of how good Australian animal welfare standards are.”—[Official Report, 27 May 2021; Vol. 696, c. 557.]

Since then, the Australian RSPCA has described the Minister’s reply as being “misinformed”, with its chief executive, Dr Richard Mussell, saying:

“Unfortunately, animal welfare standards in Australia are basic at best…Standards are rarely audited and, unless implemented into law, which few are, they are only voluntary.”

I have informed the Minister of my intention to raise this point of order, and I am sure he would not wish to have inadvertently misled the House in this way. I wonder whether you can advise me as to how the Minister might be able to correct the record in the House at the earliest opportunity.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice that he wished to raise this matter. I have to say that the content of Ministers’ answers to parliamentary questions is a matter not for me but for the Minister concerned. I am also a little concerned that points of order become a continuation of Question Time. However, the hon. Gentleman has put his views on the record, and I am sure the point has been heard by those on the Treasury Bench and will be relayed to the Minister.

I am now suspending the House for two minutes to make arrangements for the next business.

Finance Bill

Debate between Rosie Winterton and Richard Thomson

Report stage & 3rd reading
Monday 24th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We were having a little difficulty getting hold of the speaker at No. 2 on the list, so I will call Richard Thomson and then come back to David Simmonds.

[Richard Thomson]

I rise to support new clause 25. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) and I would like to echo much of what she said.

We have had freeports before in the UK, as recently as 2012, and our EU partners still have them, with 72 free zones across the EU territory. Some contributors in these debates have taken an excessively, I think, dim view of freeports. I would like to take a more balanced view, but I still think we are absolutely right to proceed cautiously, and that is why I am happy to support new clause 25. Given the incentives on business rates that are on offer, the potential national insurance exemptions and the exemptions on customs duties, it is absolutely vital to make sure that the economic activity attracted to freeports is not simply being displaced from elsewhere, and that the activity is new, adding value and resulting in economic output that is greater than would otherwise have been the case.

Therefore, when we are measuring that impact, it is important to make sure that the Government do not get to mark their own exam paper by choosing their measures of success after the fact. That is why it is important to be able to report back on job creation, skills and productivity, the impact on tax revenues, the levels of financial criminal activity that have resulted around a development and the details of the resourcing needed to ensure compliance with the law, and also to understand the extent to which the mix of industries that will have grown up around a freeport development match those sought in the original bids.

The Scottish Government have sought to build on the freeport model with a green port version of it that embraces all the potential benefits of freeports, while ensuring that the principles of fair work are enshrined at their heart—the principles of fair work and fair pay through a real living wage—and putting environmental concerns to the fore, through placing carbon reduction at the heart of these developments. These proposals for green ports from the Scottish Government already have widespread buy-in from business, industry and investors in Scotland. The Scottish Government stand ready, armed with the fresh mandate they received from the Scottish people earlier this month, to press ahead as soon as the UK Government are willing to do so.

At the conclusion of the Committee stage, the Minister gave—I hope he will not mind me describing it in this way—a somewhat editorialised account of the development of freeports and green ports in Scotland. We could back and forth roundabout that, but I would much rather move forward, just as the Scottish Government would. I hope the Minister would like to do that, too, and will commit to working as quickly as possible with the Scottish Government to bring green ports to fruition in Scotland.