Points of Order

Debate between Sarah Olney and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Tuesday 19th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving me notice of his point of order, and for confirming that he has informed the right hon. Member to whom he referred that he intended to raise this issue. Mr Speaker has always been clear that if Ministers feel that the record needs to be corrected, they should do so as quickly as possible, but it is also true that Ministers are responsible for what they say in the Chamber—hence why they should correct the record if there is a problem. The operation of the ministerial code is not a matter for the Chair, and I hope that the hon. Member understands that. Having said that, those on the Treasury Bench will have heard his concerns, and will feed them back. If the Minister considers a correction is necessary, one will be forthcoming. I think we will leave it at that.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Last week, in this House, I called on the Government to not only publish their contingency plan in the event of Thames Water’s financial collapse, but go a step further and put this failed, polluting giant into special administration. In preparation for that debate, I tabled a number of named day written parliamentary questions to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, scheduled for publication on Friday 15 March, yet I still have not received—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I have to listen carefully to Members, so if others could refrain from chatting, that would be helpful.

[Sarah Olney]

I still have not received a response to those questions, two days after the deadline. The questions I asked were: how many meetings the permanent secretary of the Department has held with Thames Water on Operation Timber in the past 12 months; if the Secretary of State will the publish the minutes of meetings that officials in his Department have had with Thames Water on Operation Timber in each of the last six months; and when the permanent secretary of his Department last met officials from Thames Water to discuss Operation Timber. The continued failure of this Conservative Government to be transparent about their rescue plans for Thames Water amounts to nothing short of a cover-up. It is now crucial to raise this issue in the Chamber through a point of order. What steps can I take to receive a response from the Department to my questions?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me notice of her point of order, and I am sure that all hon. and right hon. Members, whether they are here or not, would agree that answers to parliamentary questions should be given promptly. Again, I know that those on the Treasury Bench will have heard her point of order. She may wish to take up any undue delay in ministerial answers with the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley), who chairs the Procedure Committee, which keeps under review departmental performance on answering questions. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) is lucky that the Chair of that Committee happens to be in the Chamber, and I can see that she has heard what the hon. Lady has had to say.

Night Flights: Impact on Communities

Debate between Sarah Olney and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney]

Yes.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I think the hon. Member needs to answer one intervention before taking another.

[Sarah Olney]

The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) makes an excellent point, and she and I share views on this issue.

National Insurance Contributions Bill

Debate between Sarah Olney and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

2nd reading
Monday 14th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney]

I very much welcome the Exchequer Secretary’s intervention. I am happy to stand corrected, and I very much look forward to seeing the impacts of those plans right across the nation, because as far as I am concerned, the significant weakness of the plan for freeports is that it cherry-picks areas for investment while ignoring the needs of many other communities across the country. That is why I say that the Bill is a missed opportunity: because to target the national insurance cut just at areas that will have a freeport is to ignore the impact that such a cut could have across many sectors that could provide fantastic opportunities for employment as we come out of the pandemic. There is a very real danger that freeports will divert business activity from areas outside freeports, and that this measure will hit the public finances without any subsequent increase in economic activity.

I believe that the Government would make much better use of the national insurance contributions scheme by stimulating economic growth in ways proven to be effective. For example, an increase in the annual employment allowance to £16,000 could benefit every small and medium-sized enterprise. It would allow employers to take on up to five workers each without making contributions, which would be a substantial boost to communities across the country and would do much more to boost employment across the nation than these hand-picked benefits whose impact cannot be measured.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

As the next speaker has withdrawn, we will go straight to Jim Shannon.

Climate and Ecological Emergency: UK’s Response

Debate between Sarah Olney and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Tuesday 9th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD) [V]]

It is a real pleasure to be here this evening to provide support to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) in this very important debate. I speak on behalf of all the Liberal Democrats when I say that we really support the Bill’s continued progress. While we have been discussing the climate and ecological emergency, for me one of the real priorities is that the Bill brings together the action needed both on climate change and on the environment. Both are absolutely critical, as the hon. Lady laid out in her excellent opening speech, but it is really clear that the current structure of government is not well set up to deliver on our objectives and the Government’s objectives in these areas. We see too much stovepiping between different Departments on both climate and the environment, and to bring everything together under one set of objectives that can be driven forward together is really important, and is the real strength of the Bill.

I have been involved in a number of digital events up and down the country to support the Bill and talk more to the public about it. It has become clear that we can use the platform that the Bill provides to speak to the public much more openly about climate and the ecological emergency. We all know that there will be a measure of individual behaviour change required, and it is urgent that we start talking to members of the public right now about what they need to do to deliver the change we need to see if we are to combat climate change and make a real difference to our environment.

Those are the reasons why I am supporting the Bill. The Liberal Democrats want to see the Bill progress through the Commons. I echo what the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) about the structures of the House not allowing that, but I believe that if a way could be found for more Members to have their say on the elements of the Bill, we would see a lot more progress.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before I bring in the next speaker, it is important to say that Adjournment debates should not be about specific pieces of legislation. The debate is about the UK’s response to the climate and ecological emergency. References to a Bill are fine, but it is not a forum for discussion on a particular Bill. I am sure that Liz Saville Roberts will take that into account in her speech.

Climate Change Assembly UK: The Path to Net Zero

Debate between Sarah Olney and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

This is a really excellent report and set of recommendations, and I want to thank all those members of the public who gave up their time over a series of weekends, as I understand it, during the beginning of the pandemic to consider the difficulties ahead of us as a nation and to think carefully about how we should respond. As they have put in all that time and effort to produce this report, I think it is incumbent on the Government to really think about it, to form their response and to take up the agenda for the radical change that we need to see if we are serious about tackling climate change. It is quite clear that the public are on board. They know what needs to be done, and it is time that the Government took up their call.

The recommendations in the report are wide-ranging and cover a wide range of Departments across Government. Government policy on climate change currently seems to be funnelled through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but it is quite clear in the report that the Department for Transport, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, not to mention the Treasury, also have a part to play in delivering these recommendations. With all due respect, is the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy sufficiently senior in Government to co-ordinate the response to climate change across each of those Departments? Should we not have a Department and a Secretary of State for climate change, as there used to be, to bring all these strands together and to be held accountable for delivering the Government’s net zero pledge?

On that theme, the importance to the UK of our co-hosting of COP26 next year in driving through the change we would want to see internationally has been much talked about, not least by the Government. Would it not make sense to appoint a full-time person to oversee the UK’s contribution to this massively important event rather than ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to do that as part of his role? That person could then be well placed to co-ordinate across different Government Departments and become a focal point for driving the change towards net zero.

The contribution made to our carbon emissions by vehicles is well covered in the report, and I welcome its recommendation that electrical vehicle charging infrastructure receives greater investment and that the sale of petrol and diesel cars be banned by 2030. It was really good to see the Government commit to that in their 10-point plan last week.

As the Member of Parliament for Richmond Park, the issue of traffic, roads and parking is one on which I receive a great deal of correspondence. In some parts of my constituency, congestion is a real blight on people’s everyday lives, and we even see long queues of traffic through the national nature reserve that gives my constituency its name. The negative impacts of excessive car journeys on everyday life go beyond emissions and poor air quality: they threaten lives, create congestion, and cut people off from their streets and town centres; and inasmuch as people are choosing car journeys over walking or cycling, they cause inactivity and poor physical health. At least in urban areas, a policy to reduce the overall number of car journeys that people make would have profound benefits on quality of life in any number of ways beyond carbon emissions. There was a hope during the first lockdown that people might switch to other forms of travel, but that does not appear to be borne out now. I was therefore pleased to see a recommendation that overall car journeys should be reduced, although a reduction of 2% to 5% per decade seems unambitious when car use has risen by 7.5% in the past five years alone.

The report proposes policy solutions for greater investment in public transport, making it cheaper, greener and more accessible, with a greater investment in cycling. The provision of usable alternatives is key to reducing car journeys. I note that the Government announced a £27 billion investment in roads earlier this year and a £257 million investment in cycling infrastructure yesterday. This appears to be a nettle that has not yet been grasped. I also note that no further support for Transport for London is budgeted in the next financial year. That seems to suppose that public transport usage in London will bounce back to pre-pandemic levels by April 2021. Well, I am very pleased at what that implies about the speed and scale of the Government’s vaccination programme.

I was pleased to see the recommendations on upgrading our homes. It is clear that people want a range of solutions and financial support to access this. We need to develop and embrace new technologies for heating our homes, such as heat pumps, if we are to achieve our net zero target. The Government are right to say that this is an area of potential to create new jobs, and skilled jobs, in every region of the UK, but I am keen to understand how they plan to deliver them. According to answers to written questions I have received from BEIS, on 10 November the Government were expecting 80,000 jobs to be created through the £1.5 billion green homes grant. This mysteriously shrank to 50,000 in the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan last week. The shortcoming of the green homes grant is that it is only open for a year, and there are not enough skilled contractors to be able to deliver against the demand created. I asked the Department how long it would take to train someone to install heat pumps, and the answer was that an existing builder could take on skilled people and deliver that—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.