Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Baynes Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)]

6. What assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the community ownership fund on local communities.

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

12. What assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the community ownership fund on local communities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Jacob Young)]

Community ownership can boost local connections and pride of place, and bolster resilience. So far, we have awarded about £103 million to 333 projects across the UK. We are working with an external evaluation partner on an evaluation of the fund. We are already seeing some great examples of COF projects making a real difference to their communities, such as Grow the Glens in Northern Ireland and East Boldre community stores in the south-east of England.

[Jacob Young]

I enjoyed visiting the Salusbury Arms with my hon. Friend and raising a glass to the community there. Ahead of round 4, we launched a brand-new expression of interest process, which provides interested applicants with an outcome within minutes. To support applicants at the fourth stage, we have also updated the prospectus and other guidance on gov.uk. We want to help as many communities as possible to benefit from the fund, spreading the benefits of levelling up nationwide.

[Simon Baynes]

Does the Minister agree that the recent grant of £452,700 to the Owain Glyndŵr hotel in Corwen, in Clwyd South, is a wonderful example of the hugely beneficial impact of the community ownership fund on local communities? The grant will enable this much-loved hotel to play a central role in the town again, and to benefit from the reopening of Corwen station and the other projects in Corwen arising from my Clwyd South levelling-up fund.

[Jacob Young]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting that exciting project, which seeks to secure the future of the Owain Glyndŵr hotel and develop it into a community social hub showcasing the life and history of the area. I agree that the project is a great example of what the community ownership fund seeks to do across our United Kingdom. The fund not only safeguards priceless and much-loved local assets, but supports ambition and builds opportunity in local areas. I will be visiting north Wales in the very near future and will test my diary to see whether it is possible to swing by and say, “Da iawn.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Baynes Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

3. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the levelling-up fund at distributing funding across all parts of the UK.

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

8. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the levelling-up fund at distributing funding across all parts of the UK.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

9. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the levelling-up fund at distributing funding across all parts of the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Baynes]

Does the Minister agree that Clwyd South’s £13.3 million of levelling-up projects in the Trevor basin, Llangollen and Corwen, which I recently visited, and the newly announced £160 million investment zone for Wrexham, Clwyd South and Flintshire are shining examples of the effectiveness of levelling up galvanising investment and activity in north-east Wales?

[Jacob Young]

My hon. Friend is a fantastic champion for his constituents in Clwyd South, and for constituents in Shropshire as well. I completely agree that the £13.3 million investment from the levelling-up fund will protect a valuable heritage site for north Wales, an area enjoyed by locals, while encouraging visitors to stay longer and spend more in local shops, cafés and campsites. The recently announced investment zone in Wrexham and Flintshire also demonstrates our commitment to levelling up investment in research, innovation and support for economic development in the region.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Baynes Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dehenna Davison]

I understand that the hon. Lady is in touch with the Environment Agency about that, and that there is an ongoing investigation. Although she will appreciate that I cannot comment on any specifics of the case, I would, of course, be happy to meet her to discuss the wider issue of waste remediation. Our Government are committed to tackling waste crime: we have increased the Environment Agency’s budget by £10 million per year and tightened the law to make it harder for rogue operators to find work in the sector and easier for regulators to take action against criminals.

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

4. What progress he has made on allocating funds through the community ownership fund.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Felicity Buchan)]

The community ownership fund has been a significant success, and has so far awarded £36.8 million to 150 projects across the UK. A total of £25.5 million has been allocated in England, £5.2 million in Scotland, £3.2 million in Wales and £3 million in Northern Ireland.

[Simon Baynes]

Does the Minister agree that the community ownership fund provides tremendous potential for community organisations in Clwyd South and elsewhere to take ownership of assets and amenities that risk being lost, and that the current bidding round is benefiting from the positive changes to the fund that were announced on 12 May?

[Felicity Buchan]

I agree that the community ownership fund has huge potential in Clwyd South and, indeed, across the UK. The changes that my hon. Friend alludes to—extending the maximum funding available from £250,000 to £1 million, reducing the match funding required, and allowing applications from parish, town and community councils—will mean that even more cherished assets and amenities can be saved for local communities. I remind the House that window 1 of round 3 will close on July 12.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Simon Baynes Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

I warmly welcome this Budget, and I am pleased that it sets out measures to support the Government’s aim of halving inflation, growing the economy and getting debt falling. According to the OBR’s analysis, the Government will meet those targets in the medium term, which is vital for my constituency and the rest of the UK, to ensure long-term economic health.

Inflation is forecast to fall to 2.9% by the end of 2023—a figure that perhaps has not been drawn out so much from the Budget—and to fall to 0.9% in 2024, before rising again to around 2% for the remainder of the forecast period. Debt is forecast to start falling as a percentage of GDP in the medium term and the Government’s other fiscal target—for public sector net borrowing to total less than 3% of GDP by 2027-28—will also be met.

Given the massive economic turmoil that we have seen around the world, caused by the covid pandemic and Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine, these forecasts represent an impressive stabilisation and improvement in our economic prospects. That stabilisation rests, in great part, on the strong base with which the UK economy entered the covid pandemic. My hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) has drawn out the figures about how the UK economy was 21% bigger in 2022 than in 2010, when the Conservatives came to power. I want to add to that statistic that since 2010 the UK has grown a quarter faster than Germany, nearly 50% faster than France, more than twice as fast as Spain, three times faster than Japan and 19 times faster than Italy, so this is a strong economic base.

I strongly support the broader policies outlined in the Budget. As a Welsh MP, I hope very much that the Welsh Government will match the Chancellor’s policy to extend 30 hours of childcare a week to working parents of children aged nine months to four years. I also warmly welcome the introduction of reforms to the childcare sector, including changes to the staff-to-child ratio for two-year-olds, from 1:4 to 1:5. Likewise, I hope that measure is adopted by the Welsh Government.

I believe the Chancellor got the balance right in focusing help for business by introducing a £25 billion three-year tax cut for business investment through expensing, rather than maintaining lower corporation tax rates. I speak as the Member of Parliament for Clwyd South, where the many small and medium-sized companies make up the vast majority of the business sector of my constituency. This measure to encourage investment in business will help to improve productivity, which is a key aim within the British economy. I strongly support that measure for the benefit of the economy in Clwyd South.

I also strongly support the measures to help people get back to work, particularly the more vulnerable in our society, ranging from establishing a new universal support programme for disabled people and the long-term sick, to abolishing the work capability assessment and increasing the administrative earnings threshold to 18 hours. These are vital reforms that will help many people in my constituency.

In conclusion, this is a bold and imaginative Budget that will help people across the length and breadth of the UK, and provide strength and stability for the economy after a period of great turbulence and uncertainty. Therefore, the Budget commands my full support.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Baynes Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

5. What steps his Department is taking to provide (a) tools and (b) funding to help local leaders deliver services.

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to provide (a) tools and (b) funding to help local leaders deliver services.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Lee Rowley)]

The Government hugely value the work of local authorities and make significant taxpayer subsidy available to ensure that the work they do is successful. Last week, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor confirmed that additional funding will be made available for local government in 2023-24, particularly with regard to adult social care, where we know there are pressures.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

The Government are absolutely committed to ensuring that infrastructure is in place at the right time. My hon. Friend has worked incredibly hard in in this place in the period he has been here to make clear that the traffic challenges in Aylesbury are because of pressure from new housing, hence this grant. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), who is responsible for this area, and I are happy discuss this issue further with him to help his constituency.

[Simon Baynes]

In Clwyd South, Wrexham and Denbighshire councils are enthusiastically embracing the opportunities provided by UK Government funding, including the councils’ central role in ensuring the success of the Clwyd South £13.3 million levelling-up fund bid. Can the Minister ensure that future UK Government funding always contains provision for councils to grow further their own project management skills and resources?

[Lee Rowley]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about capacity within local government and the opportunities this Government are making available for local councils to make decisions on how to make their area better over the long term. I know he is a huge champion of his area and I wish him every success in those applications.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Baynes Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

18. What assessment he has made of the impact of the proposals in the levelling-up White Paper on regional inequality in the UK.

[The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (Michael Gove)]

The proposals in the levelling-up White Paper are already reducing regional inequality. Whether it is through urban regeneration in Wolverhampton and Sheffield, new education investment areas across the country, or a commitment to addressing the health inequality that holds so many people back, this Government are making progress to make opportunity more equal for all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

There are few more attractive parts of the Black Country and the west midlands than my hon. Friend’s constituency. I have not yet visited the community of Lye—I am sure that all sorts of puns could follow—but the proposition that she puts forwards, which is increased community involvement in town masterplanning, is at the heart of our approach towards redevelopment.

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

I am delighted that the UK Government have recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Wrexham and Denbighshire councils in order to allow the first phase of the £13.3 million levelling-up projects in Clwyd South to progress. Will my right hon. Friend provide further detail on how he sees these levelling-up fund projects addressing regional inequality in my part of north Wales?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. North Wales has been neglected under previous Labour Governments. It is only this Conservative Administration who are making sure that communities such as Wrexham and Llangollen get the investment they deserve. He and my hon. Friend the estimable Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton) have put forward exciting propositions and we want to make sure that the whole north Wales corridor, from Ynys Môn, over the border into Liverpool and Chester, becomes a supercharged corridor for growth, and that will only happen under this Government.

Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill (Second sitting)

Simon Baynes Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Ms Rimmer]

Q Do you agree, Mr Blaylock?

Adrian Blaylock: Definitely. The way I read it, the Bill prevents any announcements regarding the pandemic from being taking into account, but it does not prevent any other methods of check or challenge from being taken forward by a ratepayer if something different is affecting their rateable value.

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

Q I thank our witnesses. Clearly there is widespread support for the restriction on rating appeals, given the trade-off of extra funding for relief from the Government, but picking up on the point about the rate revaluation—[Interruption.]

[The Chair]

For our witnesses, the Commons is being suspended for three minutes. It is not a vote or a fire bell.

[Simon Baynes]

Thank you, Mr Mundell. Is there a sense in which the timing of the rate revaluation is a helpful coincidence, in that it could mitigate some of the issues that ratepayers might have with the change to their business arising from coronavirus, perhaps particularly where a business has been badly affected and has to change its whole focus? Is the revaluation a way to mitigate that, and is that a helpful coincidence of timing?

David Magor: It is a helpful coincidence of timing. There is an antecedent evaluation date, and the rental evidence gathered to determine the values for the next evaluation list will reflect the circumstances of the pandemic and what is happening in the property market. The valuation officer has started to call for that evidence, which is required by statute and will reflect the current situation. Therefore, the list coming into force in 2023 will reflect the current difficult circumstances and, as you rightly say, potential changes in trading patterns and other things.

Adrian Blaylock: I agree. It is convenient it coincides, so will do exactly what David says.

[Seema Malhotra]

Q To ask a follow-up question, you were talking about local authorities and schemes they may need to set up, Mr Magor. What are you expecting in the guidance from Ministers? How soon does that guidance need to come? We heard concerns about how quickly this needs to happen. From your experience, could you share your view on how long that pot could last? Does there need to be reporting and review of expenditure? What do you expect from the Government on that and on working with local authorities on this?

David Magor: I know Adrian will pick up on the impact of it, but I will start. On the guidance, for reliefs under section 47 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, the Minster is required to give guidance and local authorities to have regard to it. You would expect the guidance to be sufficient to enable local authorities to develop a scheme within the Government’s wishes. From ministerial statements, we know that that scheme will not include awarding relief to retail, hospitality and leisure, or those in receipt of other reliefs that remove their rate liability, and that economic factors will be considered from company to company. I would expect the guidance to clarify those issues and make it clear how the individual pots will operate.

I would also expect it to give local authorities an element of discretion—after all, section 47 is about discretionary relief—to have a scheme shaped for their area. This is why it has to be done in stages. The first is passing the Bill into law. Then, you issue the guidance with the distribution, give local authorities a chance to analyse that distribution and understand whether it is fair, and what to do at a local level. Local authorities then have regard to that guidance and devise a scheme, which has to be done quickly.

If we had not had this proposed change in the law, the valuation officer and ratepayers’ agents would be settling matters now, and I suspect refunds would have started to circulate. If this scheme is to replace those MCC challenges, you would like to think it would be in force later this year, and that any reliefs would be paid during the current financial year— that must be the aim.

The pot is a one-off that would be distributed as quickly as possible, because now is the time when the money is needed. The real issue for local authorities is devising a scheme and ensuring that they can distribute the pot fairly, and that they do not run out of money. That, in itself, will be a massive problem.

Adrian Blaylock: The only point I would add to that is timing. I think you questioned the timing and the need for haste; as David said, businesses need this money now. The only thing I would question is to ask what this relief pot meant to be compensating for. The majority of the lockdown measures and the restrictions applied during 2020-21 rather than during 2021-22, and there is a specific part of section 47 of the Local Government Finance Act that says that a local authority cannot take a decision more than six months after the financial year to which the decision relates. So, strictly speaking, as at the end of September a local authority will not be permitted to give discretionary relief rate back into 2020-21. That means that either everything needs to be in place and all the local schemes need to be up and running by the end of September, or the relief is not given for 2020-21 but is given for 2021-22 instead. However, what then happens to the businesses that had a material change of circumstances lodged for 2020-21 that are no longer in existence? They have missed out on that.

As for the timing, it is important that the Bill gets through as quickly as possible, but it is also important for people to understand that local government also have to go through their own governance processes. Devising a scheme is not just a case of somebody sitting at a desk and saying, “There you go, this is our scheme”. It needs to go through the proper governance process, which will take time. It could take two or three months for all that to go through its own internal processes, on top of whatever time it takes for the legislation to be passed and the guidance and allocations to be issued by MHCLG. Timing is crucial in this process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Baynes]

Q Ms Nicholls, I have heard you speak on many occasions about hospitality businesses with great authority. One of the points that occurs to me is that they have the capacity to spring back quicker than some other businesses. That has certainly been the experience, particularly of last summer. They also benefit from the restrictions on travel, in terms of domestic demand. Do you think that to that extent it is quite difficult to judge exactly what the situation would be like at this particular point, because they may spring back better than we fear in, say, the late summer or the autumn?

Kate Nicholls: There is clearly a value judgment that needs to be made, and local authorities know their own local markets and the businesses within them, but these businesses will be coming out with such high levels of debt that, however quickly they spring back with revenue, it will take them years to repair the damage that covid has done to them. In the past 16 months, the hospitality sector has been closed with no revenue for 10 months and so severely restricted by the social distancing restrictions that it is not profitable for the remaining six. Businesses in our night-time economy, late-night businesses and entertainment businesses, many of which have struggled to access this grant support, have been closed for 16 months with no revenue. That takes an awfully long time to recover from. The sector has lost £280 million a day. Although certain parts of the sector had a strong performance last summer, the best they achieved was 60% of normal revenue, and that is below break-even.

Yes, demand is strong, and we anticipate that people will be coming to our venues this summer, but there are still constraints that will prevent those businesses from rapidly bouncing back into being sustainable and profitable, and they remain wobbly. Debt is one that could topple them over. There are issues to do with driver and labour shortages across the supply chain. They remain in a very fragile state and there is no resilience left in the industry, so we need to work to make sure we have strategies in place and build back resilience into the hospitality sector. We can then support our supply chain. A bit of pump priming and support now will pay dividends in the longer term.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much, Ms Nicholls, first, for your evidence and, secondly, for your flexibility with your timings so that you were able to join us early. We appreciated that very much.

Examination of witness

Duncan Swift gave evidence.

Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill (First sitting)

Simon Baynes Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Seema Malhotra]

Q May I probe you a little further on the three year issue? You are right that within legislation there is provision for courts to make disqualification orders within three years after a company has been dissolved. This legislation extends that in line with that current time limit. In light of the fact that we have very unusual circumstances at the moment, with potentially thousands of companies that could require investigation, do you think that with that increased workload for the Insolvency Service, the question about available resources and the court backlogs, there could be a particular issue with directors effectively being culpable but the Government running out of time for courts to issue disqualification orders against them?

David Kerr: We might have touched on this slightly previously. First, there is no suggestion, as far as I am aware, that the whole of the 2,500 companies that have been mentioned would be the subject of an investigation. We are talking about dissolutions in the last 15 months or thereabouts. The time limit is relevant, obviously, because the service has to work to that, but the previous witness made the point, which we should bear in mind, that the majority of the cases that it takes do not necessarily involve court proceedings. In a lot of cases, having presented the evidence to the directors and with the threat of court proceedings available to the service if necessary, many are resolved by the director giving an undertaking, which has the same effect as an order, so a lot of them will not involve court proceedings and that helps the service to achieve what it is seeking to do within that timeframe. Many of the cases in these instances of dissolved companies, I imagine, would result similarly in a relatively high proportion of those being concluded by undertaking.

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

Q Thank you, Mr Kerr, for your evidence. I have two questions. These measures clearly have widespread support. Can you give us a feel for the scale of the problem with dissolved companies? We have discussed quite a lot of different figures this morning, but do you feel this is a very significant problem, or a manageable problem, just to get some more idea anecdotally on that?

Secondly, clause 2 allows “easier investigation”. Can you give us some idea of the way in which the Bill improves that process of investigation?

David Kerr: I will deal with the second point first. We know that this provision means that we do not have to go through the process of restoring a company and instead the Department can commence an investigation in circumstances where it deems it appropriate without any barriers to doing that. In that sense it makes the process easier to commence the work it needs to do.

Many companies are dissolved every year, but I do not think there is any suggestion that all those, or even the majority, involve any misconduct by directors and by those who have opposed or supported the measure. I do not think there is any suggestion among those who proposed or supported the measure that that process should be removed as an option for companies in appropriate circumstances. The question is really how many of those represent some form of misconduct or where misconduct might be hidden, or where there is some abuse. I have not seen any statistics on that and do not know if anybody would know for certain. Again, it comes back to the point that the service would have the power to investigate in circumstances where something was brought to its attention, suggesting a need for investigation. In that sense, it is a welcome provision.

Community Renewal Fund and Levelling Up Fund in Wales

Simon Baynes Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones), a fellow member of the Welsh Affairs Committee, on securing this debate.

I strongly support the key principle that lies behind these two funds—namely, the UK Government’s commitment to levelling up the whole of the United Kingdom, all parts of the Union, to ensure that no community is left behind. A very important feature of the funds is that they involve decentralising power and working more directly with local partners and communities across Wales and the UK, who are best placed to understand the needs of their local areas and are more closely aligned to the local economic geographies to be able to deliver quickly on the ground. I am an MP for North Wales, which often feels forgotten by the Labour Welsh Government in Cardiff so, for me, this decentralised approach is particularly welcome.

I welcome the UK Government’s provision of an additional £220 million funding through the UK community renewal fund to help local areas prepare for the launch of the UK shared prosperity fund in 2022. I welcome the fact that the community renewal fund, which is largely revenue based, aims to support people and communities most in need across the UK to pilot programmes and new approaches, and that it will invest in skills, community and place, local businesses and supporting people in employment.

I have seen the benefits the levelling-up fund could bring to my own constituency of Clwyd South through the bid currently being prepared jointly by Wrexham County Borough Council and Denbighshire County Council, which focuses on projects along the Dee Valley, including the regeneration of the Trevor Basin, as well as improved travel connectivity and investment in Chirk, Llangollen and Corwen. It provides a unique opportunity for the councils to access funding from the UK Government to bring forward significant development and regeneration opportunities, which both councils have been developing since the inception of the 11-mile world heritage site in 2009, making the most of the Llangollen canal and steam railway.

The levelling-up fund is a game changer and will help to deliver a fundamental shift in aspiration, confidence and opportunity. That is all the more important to an area with a desire to emerge from the worst recession in living memory and a worldwide pandemic with a renewed vigour and determination to put the world heritage site where it belongs: at the heart of the visitor economy in the region and at the centre of the drive for prosperity in north Wales.

I am very pleased that at least £800 million of the total £4.8-billion levelling-up fund will be invested in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and that, for the first round of funding, at least 5% of the total UK allocation will go to Wales. That is as much as, if not more than, what would have been received through the Barnett consequentials. Further to this, of course, each of the 22 local authorities in Wales will receive £125,000 in capacity funding to help build their relationship with the UK Government and draw up top-quality proposals. Wales has proved to be at the leading edge of those councils putting forward proposals, with 13 out of the 22 local authorities in Wales having applied in the first round of funding—the highest percentage of any part of the Union.

The UK Government intend to create careers, not just jobs. Their objective is to make sure that wherever you are born and grow up, you will have a fair opportunity to succeed in life and do not have to leave your home town to find a good career.

In conclusion, levelling up is about not just the physical infrastructure of communities, but the social infrastructure, supporting local transport, high streets—[Interruption.]

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be frozen and I do not think we will get him back.

Learned Societies at Burlington House

Simon Baynes Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the second time this afternoon, Ms Rees. I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) not only on securing the debate but on his energetic campaigning on behalf of Burlington House. Appropriately, as a new Welsh MP, my first contact with the issue of the future of the learned societies at Burlington House was through an email last year from Cardiff, from Professor John Hines, the chair of the Wales fellows group and vice-president of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Professor Hines, like the right hon. and hon. Members who have already spoken in the debate, made the case with great eloquence for the continuation of the bespoke Government arrangement that has delivered immense public value as a hub of cultural and scientific discovery. As my hon. Friend mentioned, there has been a significant economic benefit from that. It is worth repeating the figure he mentioned of £47.4 million per annum, because it is a significant amount of money, and how it is estimated that almost a third of that value could be lost through the damage caused by relocation.

The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) emphasised the benefits of decentralised activities, so I will not go back over that ground, but I strongly agree with the points she made. I would like to quote from Professor Hines’ letter to me, which covers some of the right hon. Member’s points as well as others. He wrote:

“Our relationship with the parent society—

in this case, it is the Society of Antiquaries, but I think it is representative of the other learned societies based at Burlington House—

“is of inestimable practical value in placing our own concerns and achievements on the international stage”—

that is particularly important in areas such as Wales that need to ensure that they have representation at the highest level in the UK. He continues:

“learning from networking opportunities, and maintaining an effective flow of information and understanding over heritage matters and policy between the capital of the United Kingdom and the Principality. We are especially able to testify to the vital importance of a central and appropriate location for the fulfilment of the special aims of the Society.”

That sums up why this is an important issue not only for the centre of London but for the whole of the UK. I therefore urge the Minister to find an acceptable solution along the lines outlined by my hon. Friend, which would enable the learned societies to remain at Burlington House. That would enrich not only their activities in London but their wider work in Wales and across the UK.