Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vince Cable and Duncan Hames

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Duncan Hames]

Amen to that, Mr Speaker. The Secretary of State will know that advanced manufacturing businesses have exceeded the Government’s expectations with their high value bids for the supply chain initiative for their sector. Will he ensure that the over-programming necessary to accommodate those bids does not cause any further unwelcome delay in enabling those businesses, including one in Chippenham, to make great strides in creating jobs in this valuable sector?

[Vince Cable]

We are just missing the baby, and the family will be complete. I am aware of the difficulties that my hon. Friend has had with the AMSCI bid. I have taken a close personal interest in it and I hope it will be resolved within the next few weeks.

Pub Companies

Debate between Vince Cable and Duncan Hames

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I am well aware of the importance of crowdfunding, and the hon. Gentleman might have followed the progress of the business bank, which is now actively engaged in, and supporting, crowdfunding, certainly through the peer-to-peer lending streams. I am aware of the issues with the regulation. Some incumbents, understandably, want their industry regulated, but we need to balance that against the fact that new companies coming into the industry might be less enthusiastic about regulation. Incumbents such as Funding Circle have made a very good case for sensible, moderate regulation.

Let me move on. As I said, we have had four Select Committee investigations into whether the tied model is at the root of the unfairness in the relationship. We have received an enormous amount of correspondence, quite apart from that received from the various action groups, from tenants about problems in their relationships with pub companies and from MPs. The response I have had in the past 10 to 15 minutes shows how widespread such concerns are.

Although pub-owning companies can and sometimes do treat their tenants well, the overall sense from those representations is that the tie arrangements with the pub-owning companies are unfair and that a lack of transparency causes a severe imbalance of negotiating power. That is the essence of the problem. There is an issue about what exactly we should do about it, which is what we are consulting on, but there is no doubt about the problems.

It has also been very clear from the discussions led by the Select Committee over the years that the problem is not so much the tied business model but the unfairness with which it operates. There is quite a lot of debate about the evidence on the speed of closures and how they operate in the tied sector and the non-tied sector. My understanding is that there has been a fairly steady rate of decline, from some 70,000 pubs in 1980 to 50,000 today. Depressingly, that is something in the order of 18 a week net. That decline has continued even after some of the big changes that have taken place in the industry—from the beer orders to pub company consolidation. I know that there is a debate among campaigners about whether tied pubs are more likely to close than pubs that are free of tie, but the evidence I have seen goes both ways. This is not fundamentally an argument about pub closures; it is essentially about the unfairness of and inequalities in the relationship.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

My right hon. Friend is right to broaden his critique beyond the tie itself, important though that is. In my constituency, the landlord of a pub in Melksham complains that Punch is in breach of its own code of practice and of the framework of the British pub industry. He asks where else he can go under the current arrangements, without statutory regulation, when he finds that he gets no joy from the self-regulatory system on a range of issues from dilapidation surveys to meetings that are not minuted.

[Vince Cable]

As I said earlier, there were more than 1,000 individual responses to the consultation. Many described very similar stories to the one that my hon. Friend has just mentioned.

Executive Pay

Debate between Vince Cable and Duncan Hames

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

In general, retrospective legislation is not a good thing, but I will look at the implications of the question.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

As we have heard, some hon. Members argue that nothing should be done to put at risk a light-touch, risk-based regulatory regime. In my right hon. Friend’s attempts to achieve cross-party consensus on the matter, how does he hope to persuade the shadow Chancellor to abandon that position?

[Vince Cable]

I was not aware of the shadow Chancellor’s wisdom on that particular subject, but his party leader has spoken constructively and I hope that that will lead to agreement between our parties on how we can proceed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vince Cable and Duncan Hames

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Next month should at last see meaningfully democratic elections in Egypt, but a new democratic Egypt faces a future hamstrung by debts from the Mubarak era. Will my right hon. Friend ask his officials to conduct an audit of the £100 million owed by Egypt to the Export Credits Guarantee Department?

[Vince Cable]

As my hon. Friend knows, there is a mechanism for dealing with official debt, through the Paris Club, but I will certainly undertake to speak to my colleague, the Secretary of State for International Development, to ask what concessional assistance we are giving to Egypt. The matter does not directly bear on my Department, but I accept that there is a link with the promotion of trade.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vince Cable and Duncan Hames

Thursday 14th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Yes, I have indeed seen the equality impact assessment; it will be released very soon.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

More than two fifths of places to study medicine are awarded to prospective students living in the top fifth of areas for higher education participation. Will the Minister for Universities and Science consider the social background profile of students on longer degree courses, so that the Office for Fair Access can demand specific actions for these courses in future access agreements?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vince Cable and Duncan Hames

Thursday 9th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

The business growth fund is an extremely promising initiative, filling a gap in capital markets that has been left empty pretty much since the 1920s: the provision of equity for rapid growth mid-cap funds. The £2.5 billion fund is committed to by the main banks, and Santander wishes to pursue its own initiative, which is additional to the fund. The business growth fund is a great success. It was launched in Birmingham—I was there a few weeks ago—and it will achieve a lot for British industry.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I noted the Business Secretary’s earlier answer citing the STEMNET project. I hope he is also aware of the work of I’mascientist.org.uk, whose events reach over 10,000 students, with funding of less than £9 per student drawn from charitable and business sponsors. Will he learn from the success of this initiative as a model for the online engagement of students with the futures they could realise through science, technology, engineering and maths?

Local Growth White Paper

Debate between Vince Cable and Duncan Hames

Thursday 28th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I would certainly be interested in finding out more about the science and innovation centre. It might well prove to be a key component of the innovation centre programme that we want to roll out across the country and would probably receive rather more support from that than it has to date. We clearly need to do this in a planned and orderly way, and I look forward to hearing more about it.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Businesses and business groups are more interested in the work and agenda of local enterprise partnerships than they are in their constitutions. Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that bids to establish the partnerships might as a result more closely reflect local political rivalries than the reality of business and labour market geographies?

[Vince Cable]

That was one of the dangers to which we were alerted. For example, when bids were simply a vehicle for local councils that wanted to create a local talking shop without proper involvement from business, they did not proceed. The bids that have been approved are businesslike, focused and well organised, and they will succeed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vince Cable and Duncan Hames

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I am happy to do that. In recent times, I have met Opposition Members from the west midlands who were concerned about the car industry and others who were concerned about ceramics. I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

My right hon. Friend has asserted the Government’s determination that graduate contributions should be linked to ability to pay. Will he therefore consider supplementing the Browne proposals with a less advantageous interest rate for the highest earners?

Higher Education and Student Finance

Debate between Vince Cable and Duncan Hames

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Markets are not being allowed to rip—if they were, I would not have mentioned a £7,000 level; we would have simply lifted all restrictions, and there would be no question, as Browne suggested in his report, of extensive conditionality. If the hon. Gentleman is worried about that problem, why did he participate in a Labour Government who introduced variability in fees?

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Given the Government’s determination to link graduate contributions with ability to pay, will my right hon. Friend ensure that those with the greatest ability to pay, who can afford to make payments early and therefore choose to avoid progressive interest rates, will still be required to make the greatest contribution?

[Vince Cable]

Yes. One of the scandals under the existing system is that affluent people can take advantage of loans at subsidised rates and invest the money. That has happened on a substantial scale, but it will no longer be attractive to people on very high incomes.

I urge Labour Members to have a careful look at the income analysis in the report. The explanation of how the interest rate relates to work is technical and complicated, but even with a system of early repayment—I am sorry to go into economics jargon—the net present value of high earners’ contributions will remain higher than for any other income group.