Oil and Gas Producers: Windfall Tax
Rupa Huq Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House notes the cost-of-living crisis hitting families across the country and that the energy price cap is predicted to rise by 50 per cent from April; recognises that rocketing energy prices are hitting businesses as well as household budgets; calls on the Government to introduce a windfall tax on the profits of North Sea oil and gas producers; and further calls on the Government to use that windfall tax to help fund a package of support for families and businesses facing the energy price crisis.
In the last few days, we have often heard the Government say that they are desperate to talk about the biggest issues facing the country. Conservative Member after Conservative Member has lined up to say that there is nothing they would rather do than end the distractions and talk about the burning issues facing people. I have to say, Madam Deputy Speaker, where are they all? Where are they? Today, we are giving them—[Interruption.] There are a few of them, but not very many. Today, we are giving them and the House the chance to talk about those issues, and there is no bigger issue facing families than the energy price crisis. For months, we have waited for the Government to tell us what it is that they are going to do and there has been silence. Today, we are making a generous offer to focus on what really matters and to give them the chance to support the principle of a windfall tax on the oil and gas companies to help to address the energy crisis.
Let me set out the case. In just six days’ time, we will know the scale of the price cap increase to be announced by Ofgem. It is expected, on the latest gas prices, that there will be a £600 increase in the cap, on top of the £120 increase we have already seen. April’s increase alone is expected to drag 1.5 million more families into fuel poverty. Let us be absolutely clear what that means. Consider a recent Citizens Advice case of a man in his 60s from Devon who had given up his job as an engineer when he was diagnosed with spinal cancer. He had been claiming universal credit but cannot work and recently saw that drop by £20 a week. He told Citizens Advice:
“I don’t buy the things I need to buy. I’m constantly looking at the bank account. I put things off as I can’t afford the petrol to drive. I feel isolated and stressed, but what can I do? I’m living in one room to keep the heat down as low as I possibly can, but everything is just mounting up. It’s direct debit after direct debit.”
I have had similar cases in Doncaster. This is the reality facing millions in our country, and that is before the price cap has actually gone up. It is against the backdrop of inflation running at nearly 6% and the national insurance rise on top. So people are facing very difficult times. Businesses, too, are facing great difficulty as a result of what is happening.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the Government’s version of the energy price cap, along with “use it or lose it” penalties on developers, banning letting fees for tenants and gender pay gap reporting, have his fingerprints all over them from our 2015 Labour manifesto, but that, unfortunately, they have made the schoolboy error of copying homework incorrectly? That is why we now need a windfall tax to rectify those errors. In a parallel universe—the Miliverse—this was done right, but sadly it has been done all wrong by them!
Edward Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am old enough to remember when an energy price cap was living in a “Marxist universe” and now it is Government policy.
The Federation for Small Businesses reports that 45% of members are seeing soaring costs from higher energy bills. Meanwhile, the Energy Intensive Users Group, representing vital industries such as steel and pharmaceuticals, has called repeatedly for “immediate action”.
This is an economic crisis plain and simple. What is extraordinary is that the Government, months into the crisis, have not produced a single solution. Where is the solution? There can be no greater evidence of a Government paralysed by inaction. Millions of families who want reassurance are instead subject to the spectacle of a rule-breaking Prime Minister still too distracted by trying to save his own skin.
Our case today is that millions of struggling families should not be left to face this situation alone and that we should do all we can to act. It is right to look to those benefiting from this crisis to make a contribution.
UK Steel Production: Greensill Capital
Rupa Huq Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Kwasi Kwarteng
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to point to electricity and energy costs. I am in regular contact with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to see what can be done, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) said, to address that problem.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The Greensill affair raises the issue not just of Liberty Steel’s refinancing but of ex-Prime Minister David Cameron bending the ear of the now Chancellor, although he was not on the lobbying register. With ex-Minister Eric Pickles overseeing the body regulating current Ministers’ interests, how can the Government ensure transparency on conflicts of interest when they seem to operate a culture of friends with benefits and mates’ rates, with British steel jobs being mere collateral?
Kwasi Kwarteng
Obviously, I completely reject the hon. Lady’s characterisation of what goes on. She will know that officials often meet huge numbers of business people who are affected by policy. That is part of policy development, but it is always done in a transparent, open and proper way.
Draft European Structural and Investment Funds Common Provisions and COMMON PROVISION RULES ETC. (AMENDMENT) (EU EXIT) (REVOCATION) REGULATIONS 2020
Rupa Huq Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq, especially on this very important subject, which I know is close to your heart and that of all of us here. I thank the Minister for his opening remarks, which were enlightening in some respects, though not in all, as I will come on to.
Between 2014 and 2030, the UK benefited from £17.2 billion of European structural and investment funds, as well as the additional national and private co-financing that that funding leveraged. That investment continues to strengthen projects led by not-for-profit organisations, local authorities, registered charities, higher and further education institutions, voluntary and community organisations, and statutory and non-statutory public-funded bodies, but it also—the Minister briefly made reference to this point—makes its way to businesses across the regions and nations of the United Kingdom that support these sectors in making the best of the investment.
Over time, the funding streams have become an integral part of the US business landscape. Whether through research and innovation, supporting our shift towards a low-carbon economy or promoting social inclusion to combat poverty and create jobs, the European Union structural and investment funds have mitigated some of the chronic regional, socio-economic and business investment disparities we see in the UK. As an MP from the north-east of England, I know very well how vital the funds have been in plugging the gaps left in my region after a decade of austerity.
The funds are underpinned by fair and progressive distribution formulas that ensure investment gets to where it is needed most and where it will have the most impact. I am sure that the Minister will agree that is the very definition of levelling up. Indeed, the Institute for Public Policy Research’s report on the proposed shared prosperity fund, published in February 2019, states:
“After Brexit, the UK will need to continue to give targeted support and investment into regions with lower levels of growth and higher levels of poverty, or it risks worsening the geographical divide.”
Labour supports the SI, in so far as it ensures that UK-funded programmes and activities entered into as part of the MFF 2014-2020 can continue to operate smoothly through to completion beyond the end of the transition period. We recognise that the SI is largely technical in nature and that it revokes a previous SI that, as the Minister has said, is no longer relevant and must be removed from the statute book. However, I want to raise a number of concerns that I hope the Minister will be able to speak to in his response.
We have just months left until the end of the transition period, but the Government are seemingly—obviously, I would say—struggling to negotiate effectively with the European Union, and they continue to undermine their own political declaration and withdrawal agreement at every turn. It was interesting to hear the Minister say that the SI was no longer needed because the withdrawal agreement had been signed and agreed, yet we debate in this House whether the withdrawal agreement will continue to apply in certain important aspects.
As things stand, the UK will have no access to structural investment funds once the 2014-2020 funding cycle comes to an end. The Minister said that “it is proposed” that the replacement be the strategic prosperity fund, using the passive voice as if it were not part of his Department’s obligations—or promises rather than obligations. The Minister will also know that Labour has been concerned for some time that the UK shared prosperity fund has no details on how the Government will distribute and match the success of EU programmes. No details have been forthcoming whatsoever.
Labour has been pushing the Government for any kind of plan since the new fund was first suggested in the Conservative party’s 2017 manifesto—more than three years ago. We were told that we would be seeing a full consultation document and final decisions on the fund’s design as part of the 2019 spending review, so businesses and key stakeholders across the country duly geared up to work with the Government on the replacement fund. Instead, the Government cancelled the spending review and have since rowed back on their commitment to a full and transparent consultation process. The Minister made no mention of that.
A rescheduled spending review to conclude in July 2020 has been further delayed due to covid-19. We understand that, and the Government can be forgiven for having to adapt their legislative programme at short notice. However, the plans for the fund were already off schedule well before the pandemic hit. Without figures or even a simple timetable, businesses operating in all sectors across the UK are left in the dark, unable to plan for key funding applications beyond 2020, and all that just months before the transition period comes to an abrupt end. That adds even more layers of uncertainty on top of those already being felt by businesses small and large across our country as a result of the Government’s mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and European Union negotiations.
The British Chambers of Commerce wrote to the Government in July 2019, more than a year ago, stating:
“From city regeneration schemes to business support, investment finance to research collaboration, businesses do not want to see ‘cliff edges’ in funding, but nor do they want a copy-and-paste approach to replacing the current system of EU development finance. Government must publish long-overdue proposals for a UK Shared Prosperity Fund for consultation—with a commitment to maximum local autonomy, a strong voice for business and a focus on economic growth.”
That was requested more than a year ago.
First, can the Minister clarify today when we can expect to see a credible plan for the UK’s shared prosperity fund? Secondly, can he confirm whether a full public consultation will take place to ensure all views and stakeholders get an equal opportunity to feed into this important and nation-shaping fund? Can he also clarify what work his Department has done to audit the impact of the European Union structural investment fund on businesses across the regions of the UK? Labour believes it is important for the Department and Ministers to have a clear picture of the impact before plans for a replacement fund can be decided upon. Can he agree that that vital work will be placed in the public domain before any consultation takes place?
The all-party parliamentary group for post-Brexit funding for nations, regions and local areas believes that the European regional development fund, the European social fund and the local growth fund, a non-EU fund, may be considered for amalgamation. The Minister mentioned a series of smaller funds including the European maritime and fisheries fund, and there is also the LEADER programme for rural development and the youth employment initiative. They could be considered for folding into the UK shared prosperity fund too. Taking into account the inflation uprating of those funding pots, as well as the additional designated “less developed regions” and “transition regions” the UK would have been allocated in the next MFF, the APPG suggests that any new shared prosperity fund should total just over £4 billion. Taking that figure as a starting point, will the Minister say whether the Government’s fund will be higher or lower than that figure?
On devolution, the Welsh Government have legitimate concerns about the shared prosperity fund being directed centrally from Whitehall, which they would see as an attack on devolution. Welsh businesses need the Government here in Westminster to ensure that the extraordinary benefits experienced by Welsh businesses under the European structural and investment funds are not lost in the transition to a new fund. Many local authorities across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland share that concern. I want to see the replacement fund enabling local leaders, businesses and people to have more say on how money is spent in communities. Indeed, in March this year the Institute for Government said
“Although the UK government has committed that the UK Shared Prosperity Fund will operate in a way that respects the devolution settlements, the devolved administrations are also suspicious that it might be used to allow the UK government to spend money directly in devolved areas, bypassing the devolved governments. This could signal a centralisation of regional development policy which would, according to Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford, represent “a direct attack on devolution”.”
Can the Minister reassure us that that is not his intention?
In a letter to the Chancellor in February, the chair of the North East England Chamber of Commerce, James Ramsbotham, called out the Government’s “extremely poor” approach to engagement and consultation on the UK shared prosperity fund, which must recognise the north-east’s specific challenges regarding deprivation and lower economic performance. You will understand, Dr Huq, that as a north-east MP I cite a north-east example, but I know that other regions have concerns about the lack of consultation. Many businesses I speak to are also concerned that the Government may move to a shorter funding cycle. A seven-year funding cycle is embedded in European Union structural and investment funds, which enables businesses to plan strategically to make smarter investments in their workforce and operations over a longer period of time. I ask the Minister to acknowledge the value of longer-term cycles. Will the Minister be advocating for that approach on behalf of UK businesses in any new fund?
I have concerns that the Government will propagate politically motivated funding strategies via the shared prosperity fund that could negatively impact areas that most need investment. We have seen cynical funding formulas deployed in the future high street fund and in the town of culture funds, targeting Conservative party seats that have received disproportionate levels of funding. Will the Minister allay the concerns of businesses and non-Conservative target seats by declaring today that the Government have no intention of leaving out areas that are in urgent need of investment?
Oral Answers to Questions
Rupa Huq Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Kwasi Kwarteng
Absolutely. I welcome my hon. Friend to his place—another very successful campaign. On fracking, the moratorium is what it says: we are stopping it. The only way it can be resumed is by compelling evidence, which so far is not forthcoming. So the moratorium stays and fracking, for the time being, is over.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kelly Tolhurst)
Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and the British Business Bank is supporting over £7 billion of finance to over 91,000 small and medium-size enterprises. Through our business productivity review, published in November, we set out the steps we are taking to boost small business productivity, including: funding a small business leadership programme, strengthening local networks and expanding the knowledge transfer partnership programme.
Dr Huq
I thank the Minister for her response. I was at a local business breakfast last week. Alongside the predictable issues of late payment, Brexit-readiness and parking, which I would have expected, I was surprised to hear naturally Conservative people lambasting the Government for refocusing priorities northward post-election, which they see as quite shameless and political. How can the Minister ensure that the good idea of regional rebalancing does not end up clobbering small firms and sole traders in Ealing, Acton and Chiswick? The streets are not paved with gold there and they already feel under the cosh.
Kelly Tolhurst
I can reassure the hon. Lady that the Government completely back business, whether in the north or the south. We want businesses to grow wherever they are in the UK. That is highlighted by the fact that in her constituency alone there have been 193 start-up loans, representing £1.6 million. It is clear that the Government are willing to support entrepreneurs and all business owners who want to grow, wherever they are.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Andrea Leadsom)
With your permission, Mr Speaker, I will first talk about my departmental priorities.
As we enter an exciting new decade, we are building a stronger, greener United Kingdom. To achieve that, my Department is focusing on three priorities. First, we are leading the world on tackling climate change, not just because it is the right thing to do but because it will create millions of new jobs and skills right across the UK. Secondly, we are solving the grand challenges facing our society—from life sciences to space, artificial intelligence and robotics—and improving lives across the world. Thirdly, we are quite simply making the UK the best place in the world to work and to grow a business.
Social enterprises are a thriving part of the UK’s economy. When I was a Back-Bench MP, and before I went into politics, I was closely involved in setting up and running a number of charities. She is absolutely right that we need to continue focusing on them as a key part of the economy.
I am always happy to hear lobbying from colleagues on both sides of the House about machinery of government changes, and perhaps we can meet another time to talk about that.
A Green Industrial Revolution
Rupa Huq Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Andrea Leadsom
I urge the hon. Gentleman to consider what I have just said in explaining the achievements, the ambition and what we are actually doing in practice. Perhaps he just needs to listen to what I am saying.
To seize the opportunities that lie ahead, we must make the UK the best place in the world to work and to grow a business. This Government will back business to the hilt, promoting inward investment and new export markets while also stamping out the poor practices that can sometimes give businesses a bad name. Our plan is to reduce burdens on business by reviewing and reducing business rates, and by resolving the scourge of late payments. As we leave the European Union, we will protect business confidence in supply chains, securing the best possible trading arrangements with our European partners. From diversity to sustainability and beyond, we will hold businesses to the same high standards, putting in place reforms to keep the UK a world leader in audit, corporate governance and transparency.
Dr Huq
I wanted to congratulate the Secretary of State on one thing that caught my eye in both the Queen’s Speech and last year’s Environment Bill: the biodiversity net gain mandated for planning authorities when making their decisions. That has not yet taken effect. Ealing Council has a meeting of its planning committee tonight. Will she encourage me by making a new year’s resolution of ensuring that such committees adopt the measure now so that the bulldozers do not sacrifice our nature? The future of our planet is at stake.
Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Lady will hear that there is a lot of support for her initiative across the Chamber. She is right that we do not want Government to be telling people what to do; we want people to draw their own conclusions and to seek to protect and preserve our incredibly valuable biodiversity, our green spaces and our precious habitats for future generations.
At the same time as making the UK the best place in the world to work and to grow a business, we want our employment Bill, to which we committed in the Queen’s Speech, to make sure that work is fairly rewarded. We want to protect workers’ rights and ensure fair pay, to create a world where flexible working is just called “working”, and to do more to support the crucial work that people do as carers and parents, helping people to balance work with the other things that matter in their lives.
Margaret Thatcher ended her UN speech in 1989 by saying:
“We are the trustees of this planet, charged today with preserving life itself—preserving life with all its mystery and all its wonder.”
I hope that that is something on which we can all agree, whatever our party or politics. Thirty years ago, politicians could barely have imagined the technologies that would be available today. Today, we can only dream of the world of 2050. Together—as a House, as a country and as an international community—we must act. Our action can make a global difference. Instead of self-doubt, we need self-belief in our ability to build the low-carbon, high-tech United Kingdom that we all want, a stronger, greener future for people across our shores, and a sustainable future for our planet.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rupa Huq Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Danielle Rowley (Midlothian) (Lab)
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)
All of us in this House should celebrate the UK’s global leadership in decarbonising our economy: we have had the fastest rate of decarbonisation in the G20 since 1990, and part of that leadership has been through very substantial investment in renewable technology, including subsidies totalling £52 billion since 2010 and auction design and research and development investment. It is paying off: in the third quarter of last year we generated over a third of our energy from renewables, and our support is continuing with over half a billion pounds committed to the contracts for difference process and almost £200 million for cost-reducing innovations.
Claire Perry
The hon. Lady raises an important point. We want to continue to invest in technologies that have the potential both to decarbonise and drive global exports, and that is certainly an area that could contribute, although not at any price: we will not rerun the debate over Swansea, which would have been the most expensive power station the country had ever built and created just 30 jobs. There are potentially better, more valuable projects and I am always happy to look at innovative proposals coming forward to see how we might support this technology.
Dr Huq
As well as the obvious, 31 March sees the end of the export tariff on electricity exported into the grid by solar photovoltaic systems. After that, big firms will end up receiving free electricity from all new solar PV installations, which are mainly small businesses and individual households, so they will effectively be subsidising the giants. Will the Government consider a net metering scheme, whereby the difference between electricity consumed and exported into the grid only is paid for, to rectify this burning injustice?
Claire Perry
I admire the hon. Lady’s passion. I feel I am rather front-running my answer to Question 9, which I know the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) is teed up to ask, but I will publish today the consultation on the Government’s proposals for a smart export guarantee to bring forward this valuable source of energy at a price so that people are not providing it to the grid for free, and to support its development in what we want to call our smart systems plan going forward.
Erasmus Plus Programme
Rupa Huq Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Lloyd Russell-Moyle
I totally agree, and I believe the Government are in favour of the Erasmus+ scheme. We have heard positive sounds from the Government, but we now have to put our money where our mouth is.
Erasmus+ is a valuable resource that contributes a vast amount of scope and depth to the British university and youth sectors. My former colleagues and I spent three years in and out of Brussels negotiating the current scheme, which was formed in 2014, and it brought together the Socrates, Erasmus, Leonardo, Grundtvig and Youth in Action programmes—the higher education, technical education, schools exchange and youth work programmes—and sometimes we forget that Erasmus+ incorporates all those different sectors of exchange.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent and powerful speech. I went on one of the predecessor schemes. Has he seen the figures from Universities UK showing that 7.8% of black and minority ethnic graduates who have not studied abroad are unemployed, whereas 4.6% of black and minority ethnic graduates who have taken part in student mobility projects, such as Erasmus+ and its predecessors, are unemployed? I did it, and I did not turn out too badly.
The Government place great faith in the race disparity audit. Does my hon. Friend agree it is important that we should cherish and prioritise Erasmus+?
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
I totally agree. Some predecessor and current programmes of Erasmus+ are particularly good at diversity; 50% of its participants are from economically deprived or other minority backgrounds, and it helps improve not only grades, but longer-term outcomes. If I may say so, my hon. Friend has done very well for herself.
With a budget of €14.7 billion, Erasmus is an educational scheme that is not only continental, but global in reach.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
I totally agree with my hon. Friend. There are examples coming out of our ears of the good work that the programme does.
Last month, Universities UK launched its Go International project to outline the reasons why international exchange is vital for our economy, education sector and young people. It also produced a very good little report. In fact, the Minister for Universities came and launched the project with us and said some good words about the importance of international exchange. We need those good words to turn into good actions, so that we can secure the Erasmus programme’s position. I believe that we all share that desire.
Dr Huq
Does my hon. Friend agree that, as well as the obvious numerical and financial benefits that higher education brings that we can see in Horizon 2020 funding and the Galileo programme, there are also socio-cultural benefits, as he has alluded to himself, to these type of exchanges? The fact is that, two years on from the referendum, we are still in the dark about what will happen post 2020. That shows that, with a lack of contingency planning, the Government rushed into this referendum, and they still do not know what they are doing now.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rupa Huq Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely important point. We have commissioned Professor Dieter Helm to look at how we can reduce the costs of our energy system for businesses and consumers. One of the advantages of the strategy that we have pursued is that we have brought down the costs of offshore wind—a major contribution—by targeting and investing substantially in it at a rate, as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth said earlier, which has resulted in a reduction beyond what anyone expected even a couple of years ago.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)
Since 2010, we have seen a large increase in renewables deployment and investment, with more than £52 billion invested, and indeed it is paying off. In 2017, more than half our energy generation came from low-carbon sources. As prices tumble, we can buy more with the same amount of money, which is why we are making £557 million available for further contracts for difference. We have started negotiations with Hitachi to bring forward the country’s second new nuclear plant, which my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) mentioned.
Dr Huq
The Minister talks a good talk, but rooftop solar panel take-up is at a seven-year low. In my seat, Alternergy has gone from topping the Fintech 100 to an 80% drop in business since the end of the feed-in tariff was announced in 2012. What assurances does the Minister have for such firms after the scheme closes next year?
Claire Perry
It is right that we look at how we can deliver subsidy-free energy using schemes such as the feed-in tariff that have been wildly successful. I will shortly be launching a call for evidence so that we can come up with a good replacement for the feed-in tariff scheme.
Draft National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2018
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Andrew Griffiths
What I am concerned about is ensuring that the lowest-paid in society keep more of their money, so that they have more money to decide what to do with and to look after their families with.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Whether the threshold is £13,000 or £10,000 does not really make any difference to someone on £5,000, does it?
Andrew Griffiths
That is why, as a result of the decisions we make today, those people will be £600 a year better off.
The hon. Members for North West Durham and for Glasgow South West both raised the issue of differences in pay according to age. Let me explain the rationale behind that. The age-related rates protect younger workers, who are more vulnerable to the labour market. For example, between November and January, the unemployment rate for people aged 16 to 24 was 12.3%, compared with 3.1% for those aged 25 or over. We are rightly cautious for this group and do not want to harm young workers through the policy, which was intended to benefit them.
Nobody wants to see people paid less than they would hope for. When coming to its conclusions, the Low Pay Commission bears in mind the impact that its decisions will have on the lowest-paid in our society, but it also has a mind to the impact on jobs, the economy and the businesses that have to pay. Bear in mind that this is employers’ money that we are spending; it is they who have to bear the brunt of the decision we make. Unlike the hon. Member for North West Durham, who seemed to be quite negative towards the Low Pay Commission, I pay tribute to it and the work that it has done.
Our industrial strategy aims to build a country that works for everyone, wherever they live and wherever they work. It recognises that it is people who drive success, whether they are innovators, entrepreneurs or workers. Good employers have long recognised the value of investment in their workforce. Ensuring that we have a fair minimum wage is just one way in which the industrial strategy is working to build and support the investment in people. The Government continue to build an economy that works for everyone. Making work pay for the lowest earners in our society is a key part of our commitment. I commend these regulations to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Office for Students: Appointment
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Joseph Johnson
My hon. Friend is right to laud Mr Young’s achievements at the West London Free School, where the 38.5% of children who receive the pupil premium have done better than the national average for pupils on the pupil premium in both this most recent year and the previous one. Mr Young has created an inclusive environment. A parent governor at the school described him as
“committed to public education, academic excellence, and greater opportunities for kids from lower incomes.”
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
I am usually the first to congratulate my constituents on their achievements, but even Toby Young’s Acton address cannot save him on this one. In his column in The Spectator on 9 December—not historical, but mere days before his appointment—he boasted
“what a Big Swinging Dick I am.”
The column was titled “The subtle art of showing off at work”. How does that and the fact that his West London Free School has gone through five headteachers in almost as many years make him qualified for this post?
Joseph Johnson
Had Opposition Members done half as much as Mr Young has to promote outcomes for disadvantaged students, they would be in a better position to disparage his achievements. Mr Young’s school has done better than the national average for its pupils on the pupil premium in both this most recent year and the last. That is something of which he can be rightly proud.