Summer Adjournment

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

It is good news that I have been called to speak so early, and I want to start with some good news relating to the last time that I was in this slot. I like to use this debate for unfinished business, and last time I mentioned a business in Park Royal called Sweetland, a baklava manufacturer of distinction. It is a patisserie that makes middle eastern food that goes to restaurants all over the west end, and it was having problems with HS2 over late payments relating to its relocation. The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury, the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) was the Rail Minister at the time, and he beavered away on this. As a result of his efforts and those of the Deputy Leader of the House, the company got its payments. In more good news, I am pleased to say that I was able to cut the ribbon the other day at the shiny new Sweetland factory in the East Acton ward. The company is very pleased.

I hope that the same magic can be worked again with a couple of other businesses whose cases I want to raise this afternoon. Next door to Sweetland is Med Food, which supplies olives. I emerged from there recently laden with jars of olives in different suspensions and flavours. It has not had a great time from HS2. Its relocation is being queried at every turn, and a receipt for bubble wrap that came in at under £200 was queried as unreasonable. Bubble wrap is the kind of thing that people need if they are relocating many hundreds of cubic metres of stock, and I wonder whether the Minister will look into Med Food’s case.

Altenergy of Chiswick, London, W4, is a solar PV panel manufacturer. Its business was booming as recently as 2011, when it was among the top 100 companies in that field. However, the industry has collapsed over the past couple of years, and the company’s turnover has gone down by 80% since the end of the feed-in tariff scheme was announced in 2011. This is part of a pattern from this Government. They used to want us to hug a husky, but now we see their love of nuclear power at Hinkley Point, which is actually two nuclear power stations, and their Heathrow expansion, which they pushed through the other day, is completely at odds with what they used to believe in, as is all the rest of the un-green stuff that they are doing now.

Will the Minister tell us what will happen to Altenergy of Chiswick, London, W4? The company wants policy clarity and fair treatment for rooftop solar, which is a popular type of renewable energy. It is cheap and obviously green; it is the most popular thing in the global renewables market. It dominates the market globally, but in this country, our Government seem to be dangerously in hock to the nuclear industry, which is getting all the subsidy. Altenergy is very worried. It used to have large offices, but it has now relocated to a shed belonging to the chief executive officer, Rajiv Bhatia. It has massively downsized. It used to employ 50 people, but it now employs just a handful. Can the Minister give me any assurances about what will happen when the feed-in tariff goes next year? The company wants to know about net metering, which would provide some certainty. There is no indication that the export tariff will be maintained after 1 April. May we have some assurances on that? Quinn McGovern from Elan Global Renewables of Acton, W3, is in a similar predicament. Several of these companies are wondering whether they might be about to go to the wall.

The issues being experienced by those businesses are not Brexit-related, but I shall now come to the Brexit-related ones. Hamish Orr Ewing of Ealing, W5, is a wine merchant who runs Wine Source Group, an importer of fine wines. He is concerned that the Government’s plan to ensure that importers pay VAT up front would

“be terminal for many merchants”.

He says that the UK wine industry contributes £9.1 billion to the public purse. He believes this plan to be an act of economic self-harm, and he would like some assurances.

We have heard a lot about the Windrush generation recently, and there are several Home Office-related business issues hitting Ealing and Acton. Manic Textiles wants to hire someone from Ukraine. He is skilled, but the company cannot pay him enough. When is this going to stop? We have ridiculous Government targets for the sake of targets that do not consider the skills gaps in our labour force. People may have seen on BBC News the case of a much-loved teacher at the Christ the Saviour Church of England Primary School who went back to Canada and now cannot come back because he does not earn enough. The situation is just nuts. In every case, the Home Office reply just seems to say, “Tough,” which is a bit embarrassing to pass on to the constituent, so I wonder whether the Department will consider the quality of its responses.

The last case that I want to raise is a really sad one. I was contacted on 12 July by Karl and Abbie Pokorny, who wrote to me to say:

“Our family has had a hard few weeks. Our previously happy and healthy three-and-a-half-year-old daughter has ended up in a drug-induced coma on a heart and lung machine and is on the transplant list, waiting for a new heart.”

I think that a new heart would have come for this little girl in March 2019, and their question was about EU organ donation. We have heard about Galileo and the European Medicines Agency—luckily, a new clause was passed last week with the aim of keeping us in the EMA—but they were wondering about our access to organ treatment networks. I contacted them this morning to ask whether it is okay to raise Sophie’s case this afternoon, and I am sorry to say that she passed at the weekend, on Sunday. Perhaps that particular case—[Interruption.] I am sorry for making the tone a little dramatic—I did not wish to do that—but let us hope that Sophie’s death was not in vain. Such things should be uppermost in the negotiations. The answers to my written questions about such things are vague in the extreme and always say “in due course” or whatever.

Anyway, I will end my speech there, because I know that loads of people want to speak. Happy holidays to one and all!