Oral Answers to Questions
Simon Baynes Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Wales (Simon Hart)
There have already been more than 10,000 Welsh registrations of interest in the UK Government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme. Wales is opening its arms to the people of Ukraine, proving that we are all now super-sponsors.
Simon Baynes
I am glad to have been able to help some families leaving Ukraine and I congratulate the many people and communities in Clwyd South who have been fundraising and giving practical help in the Ukraine crisis. Will the Secretary of State give further details on the Homes for Ukraine scheme, with the 10,000 registrations from Clwyd South and across Wales, and on how that is helping the situation at present?
Simon Hart
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the way in which he has been campaigning on this issue; it is a great example of what Members across the House have been able to do. I repeat my earlier answer about meeting the Ukrainian ambassador last week and expressing his gratitude, as well as mine, to local authorities, charities, the public in Wales and, in particular, the Welsh Government. This has been a joint effort—a superb all-round effort, involving all the stakeholders I have mentioned and more. As I stressed earlier, this is not a competition, but a collaborative effort, in which the early uptake has been superb. I think that we will be able to offer help to the necessary number of people on the timescale that we need because of that level of co-operation. [Interruption.]
Sue Gray Report
Simon Baynes Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I refer the hon. Lady to the answer that I have already given.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
We all recognise that No. 10 Downing Street is an unusual amalgam of workplace, office space and private home. What steps will the Prime Minister take to ensure that the lines between each of them are made clearer in the future?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend will see reference to that very problem in Sue Gray’s report and we will take steps to clarify things and make sure that there is greater transparency in the lines of command.
Oral Answers to Questions
Simon Baynes Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Kemi Badenoch
I have to say—and I really do not say this lightly—that the hon. Lady has form in pretending that the Government are doing absolutely nothing, when we are doing so much to encourage vaccine take-up in ethnic minority communities. She will know that in her own constituency of Ealing Central and Acton we have spent £485,000 on the community champions scheme. The hon. Lady will not stand up and let her constituents know what we are doing to encourage vaccine uptake. Perhaps she should focus on the positive things that the Government have done, including in her own constituency. There would be less vaccine hesitancy if Opposition Members stopped scaremongering.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
The Minister for Equalities (Kemi Badenoch)
The Government continue to support women in enterprise by implementing the recommendations of the Rose review. Our start-up loans company has advanced more than 35,000 loans to women since 2012, worth nearly £300 million, and that represents 40% of all loans.
Simon Baynes
My constituent Kerry Mackay from the Ceiriog valley has overcome hardship and just been named one of the top 100 most inspirational and dynamic female entrepreneurs in the UK for her business ScrubbiesUK, which makes environmentally friendly cleaning pads. Will the Minister congratulate Kerry and look at ways to raise awareness of the business mentoring and training schemes that were pivotal to her success and that of her business?
Kemi Badenoch
Kerry Mackay is inspirational and I congratulate her and all her colleagues at ScrubbiesUK. She is an exemplar for small businesses, leading the way to help the UK tackle plastic pollution and reach our climate goals. I am glad to hear that she benefited from Government mentoring support, and I will ask the relevant Business Minister to write to my hon. Friend with more details. In the meantime, I hope that people like Kerry Mackay will raise awareness of this opportunity through their own networks, which is often the most effective way to spread the word.
Oral Answers to Questions
Simon Baynes Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend and totally agree with him about the appalling case of little Arthur. He is right, and in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, child murder will be where there is premeditation, and will carry a whole-life order as its starting point. I hope that all hon. Members across the House will join us in supporting that measure. May I also mention Tony’s law, which we are introducing to increase the penalties for causing death and causing serious injury from child cruelty.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
Our landmark cross-Government drugs strategy sets out an ambitious long-term vision and includes £780 million of additional investment in treatment and recovery—the largest ever single increase. This will increase and improve treatment services, including providing 950 additional drug and alcohol criminal justice workers. The specialist drug and alcohol workers will give the police, courts and probation the facilities that they need to assess offenders and give sentencers confidence that they can make greater use of community sentences, because they will know that the treatment will be available.
Simon Baynes
The police in Clwyd South and Wrexham deserve great credit for their work in breaking up county lines in north Wales. Will the Minister please provide more information about the other main aspect of the Prime Minister’s 10-year drug strategy, the £780 million devoted to new approaches to treatments, and how that will be put into effect in Clwyd South and elsewhere in the UK?
Kit Malthouse
I am pleased that my hon. Friend is seeing the impact in his constituency of the remarkable work that his police force have been doing, mainly with Merseyside police, who are the chief exporter to his part of the world of that appalling practice of county lines. We have indeed been remarkably successful in driving the numbers down, but if we are to make that a permanent reduction we need to reduce the demand for those drugs, particularly from heroin and crack addicts. So we will be spending significant amounts of money, as he outlined, on treating their addiction, as well as making sure that they face the consequences of their crimes. That money will be channelled through local authorities. It will take time for them to rebuild and retrain the people required to deliver those services, but I am confident that over the next 10 years we will make a significant difference.
G20 and COP26 World Leaders Summit
Simon Baynes Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman has made an incredibly important point. There are two ways of holding Governments to account, whether they are the Governments of China, Brazil or Russia, or indeed ourselves. First, it is not only the Governments who have signed up, but corporations—the big commodities corporations, such as Cargill. They have agreed no longer to use products that are sourced as a result of deforestation, and consumers will hold them to account, as well as Governments, for what they do.
Secondly, the financial institutions, worth trillions—Barclays, Aviva, and many others around the world—have agreed that they will not finance projects that depend on deforestation. Again, their investors and shareholders, and everyone involved with them, will hold them to account for what they do. If they cheat and invest in deforestation, they will suffer, because, as I said to the House earlier, what is changing now is the power of the consumer, the power of the voters, the power of the world —the power of those who want their Governments to do the right thing now.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating the staff and pupils at Ysgol Dinas Brân school in Llangollen, whom I visited recently, on the excellent work that they are doing in studying climate change and working closely with Denbighshire County Council to ensure that their school operates on a carbon-neutral basis?
The Prime Minister
It gives me great pleasure to congratulate Ysgol Dinas Brân, which I know from my own abortive attempt to win the seat that my hon. Friend now represents so well. I thank those at the school for what they are doing, and I think they are quite right to set the example they are setting. All new schools in our country are carbon-neutral.
Oral Answers to Questions
Simon Baynes Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I am sure the law will be extremely merciful to anybody who finds themselves in a difficult position, but I would just remind the hon. Gentleman that so far 5.4 million EU nationals have applied successfully for the EU settlement scheme, which as far as I remember is about 2 million more EU nationals than we thought we were in the country in the first place.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
The Prime Minister
May I tell my hon. Friend what a joy it is to hear him campaigning for Chirk, Corwen and Llangollen after I tramped around those beautiful places entirely fruitlessly many, many years ago in search of the Conservative vote? Thank you for what you have done. Thank you for continuing to champion those wonderful and beautiful spots.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill
Simon Baynes Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Alun Cairns
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point: we need to bring forward much more detailed proposals about how the shared prosperity fund will work. I hope—this is a call to the Minister—that these clauses will change the nature of the discussion, because they will enable the UK Government to play a more prominent part in how the shared prosperity fund develops. That is not the Government’s position yet, as I understand it, but certainly I hope it will be, and I will be calling for that.
The devolved Administrations receive their funding through the Barnett formula, but that delivers a capacity limitation to the interventions that they can make. Although the Welsh Government receive £120 for every £100 spent in England, which is a very fair settlement as a result of the relative poverty that many of us highlight regularly, that broadly equates to about 5% or 6% of spending in devolved areas according to the population. As a consequence of that relatively small sum of money, large infrastructure projects are much more difficult to deliver. They demand such capital sums that they are difficult to justify in any one community. The nature of devolution has caused resources to be spread far more thinly, and they do not have the impact that they could have in any one area.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
I would like to pick up that point. As an MP for the border constituency of Clwyd South, I know that the importance of infrastructure projects is significant, but they are extremely difficult to implement as things stand. This Bill will enable the financial assistance that will facilitate those projects, which are vital for improving the wellbeing and the lives of people in Wales.
Alun Cairns
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he highlights, at a constituency level, the challenges because of the nature of the limitations of their funding the Welsh Government or any devolved Administration in any part of the UK face in having the greatest impact on constituencies. The might of the UK Government can support those large-scale projects.
The last major infrastructure project in Wales was in 1987, when the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation was formed. There has not been a major infrastructure project since then. That demonstrates that the nature of devolution has led to money being spread much more thinly across all communities. There is a good argument for that, but it removes the ability to have an impact in one specific community.
Oral Answers to Questions
Simon Baynes Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Michael Gove
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point. I will be talking to the team who are operating the JBC later today, and I will raise that specific point with them. I am really grateful to her for raising it with me.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
Michael Gove
I know that in both Wrexham and Denbighshire there have been recent incidences of the spread of infection that have been concerning, and I know that my hon. Friend, along with colleagues in local government, has been highly effective in making sure that we deal with those in the most appropriate way. He is absolutely right: it is joint working with effective local councils and energetic Members of Parliament like himself that is critical to making sure that we deal with this infection.
Oral Answers to Questions
Simon Baynes Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Kemi Badenoch
The hon. Lady is right. We are increasingly worried about the number of deaths in deprived areas of the country. As she said, the rate of deaths in the most deprived areas was more than two times higher than in other places, but it is important to note that the underlying factors are extremely complex—these things may be related, but we do not have definitive evidence about the relationship between covid-19 and deaths in deprived areas. We are taking many steps to look after people from disadvantaged backgrounds and from working-class communities. We have protected people’s incomes and jobs, supported businesses and looked at universal credit and statutory sick pay. We are doing every single thing we can to make sure that individuals and communities are protected, on the whole, from any adverse impact of the lockdown.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
Simon Baynes [V]
All domestic abuse is heartbreaking, but it is particularly so for children. What are the Government doing for children affected by domestic abuse in my constituency of Clwyd South, the rest of Wales and the rest of the UK?
Victoria Atkins [V]
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this question. The Domestic Abuse Bill, which had its Second Reading last week, requires the domestic abuse commissioner to consider the impact of domestic abuse on children in her work. In addition, the Bill includes a new statutory duty on tier 1 local authorities in England to provide support to victims of domestic abuse and their children within safe accommodation. Last week, I announced £3.1 million in funding for specialist support for children affected by domestic abuse.
Oral Answers to Questions
Simon Baynes Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
Over 1 million children are benefiting from the Government’s investment in early years entitlements, which can save their parents up to £5,000 every year. In the next financial year, we plan to spend £3.6 billion on this. Furthermore, our manifesto commits to another £1 billion for more wraparound and holiday childcare places from 2021. We have already started working on the details.
Vicky Ford
Coronavirus is the top priority, and we must follow medical and scientific advice. Public Health England continues to advise schools and settings, and that includes early years settings, to remain open unless otherwise advised. We are aware of concerns from early years providers about potential closures and are working to minimise the impact. This is a top priority. In the meantime, there is a dedicated helpline for schools and their parents. Mr Speaker, the helpline number for schools and parents is 0800 0468687.
Simon Baynes
On a recent visit to the Overton Playcentre in my constituency of Clwyd South, the manager, Rachel Harris, described the childcare offer that they deliver to parents as “life-changing”. Does the Minister agree that the seamless transition that is offered by the Overton Playcentre between its childcare and the education at the nearby St Mary’s Church in Wales Primary School, with which they work very closely, offers an effective model for maximising the availability of affordable childcare?
Vicky Ford
May I pass on my congratulations to the Overton Playcentre? It is absolutely great when we see a pre-school and early years establishment work together with schools in the best interests of children. It really does make a difference. Last year, nearly three out of every four children were reaching a good level of development by the time they ended reception, and that is up from just one in two back in 2013. That is partly due to excellent playgroups and schools working together such as those in Clwyd South.