UK-EU Relations
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Nick Thomas-Symonds
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. At least the Leader of the Opposition was candid about the chaotic decision making under the previous Government. Together with our friends and neighbours in the EU, we have over £800 billion-worth of trade. It is clearly in our national interest to lower trade barriers pragmatically in that space.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
I am pleased that this Government are moving away from the ideological fantasies of the Conservative Government and taking a pragmatic approach to EU-UK relations. Passive divergence—doing nothing when regulations move forward in the EU—is increasingly a concern for British businesses. It leads to huge trade barriers in emissions trading, for example, which is badly hurting the UK economy. What does the Paymaster General propose to do about passive divergence?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
We are not doing nothing. There are areas where this Government will be in a world-leading space. Let us look, for example, at what we are doing on employment rights and product safety. As I indicated earlier to the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), the Government believe in a race to the top on standards, not a race to the bottom.
Oral Answers to Questions
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(2 weeks, 2 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Bridget Phillipson
Let me start by paying tribute to Halifax WomenCentre for its vital work in Calder Valley. I assure my hon. Friend that we will engage across Government, drawing on expertise in the sector through the development of our new violence against women and girls strategy, which will be published later this year. We have provided an increase of £30 million for domestic abuse safe accommodation services, as well as doing wider work to help local commissioners to identify needs and commission appropriate services.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Organisations such as Voices and the Southside project in Bath provide a wonderful and important service for victims of abuse, but they need the long-term certainty of funding. Does the Minister agree that we need to give them that certainty?
Bridget Phillipson
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for mentioning the excellent organisations in her constituency and the work that they do to support survivors. We are investing more in provision, but I understand her point about the need for security of long-term funding, and we will consider that as part of our VAWG strategy.
Oral Answers to Questions
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(4 weeks, 2 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
I wish my hon. Friend a speedy recovery from his recent treatment, and I thank the doctors and nurses who treated him. Under the previous Government, there was no progress made in diagnosing cancer at stage 1 and 2 between 2013 and 2021. That is an appalling inheritance. We are spending £1.5 billion on new surgical hubs and diagnostic scanners to ensure cancer patients get the care they need.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Eating disorders are the mental health disorder with the highest mortality rate, and we have at least 1.2 million sufferers. Some are being told that they are now too ill to be treated, yet eating disorders are entirely treatable. Today the all-party parliamentary group on eating disorders is publishing its report on how to make eating disorder services fit for purpose. May I ask the Prime Minister to pay very close attention to that report?
The Prime Minister
Let me start by recognising the hon. Lady’s dedicated work and campaigning on this issue for many years. NHS England is expanding eating disorder treatment services, including crisis care and intensive home treatment, and, as she knows, the Online Safety Act 2023 will prevent children from encountering harmful content that promotes eating disorders to services. Obviously, we will look very carefully at the report and consider its recommendations.
G20 and COP29 Summits
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue. I raised food security at the G20 summit earlier this week. My hon. Friend also refers to floods. For anybody who is sceptical about COP, there was a very powerful set of interventions by the Spanish Prime Minister about the impact that climate has had recently, with the terrible flooding in Spain. That is a material reminder of why we must never let up, and why we should not be divided, on the important issue of climate change.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
A breakthrough moment at COP28, the previous COP, was the creation of the loss and damage fund, but the financial contributions from each individual country were miserable, including that of the UK. Supporting communities and climate-vulnerable countries is in all our interests, because it prevents large-scale migration when land becomes uninhabitable. Will the Prime Minister commit to an increased financial contribution to the loss and damage fund?
The Prime Minister
I am not going to set out financial contributions here. The focus that we brought to COP was on the future action and resilience planning that are needed and being absolutely determined to work with partners to make the transition, for example, to clean energy across so many other countries.
Oral Answers to Questions
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jess Phillips
The simple answer is yes, I do agree. As somebody who has written and delivered such programmes in schools, I know that brilliant work is going on across the country in local authorities, multi-academy trusts and more widely, with voluntary sector organisations doing a lot of the work. I would be glad to explore with officials the best way to learn from those who work with children and young people, because we have to work out what will work in our schools and then make sure that we put it out everywhere.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
In the last Parliament, we Back Benchers tried and failed several times to make misogyny a hate crime. Legislation can be a powerful game changer. Is it not time we made misogyny a hate crime?
Jess Phillips
The Government are absolutely committed to tackling misogyny, both before it starts and when it exists. Hate crime reviews are being undertaken, and I am more than happy to meet the hon. Lady. I have met her many times to discuss this subject.
Oral Answers to Questions
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Nick Thomas-Symonds
My hon. Friend is entirely right: the last Government presided over appalling falling standards, which is why the Prime Minister is insisting that this is a Government of service to the public. The Labour party manifesto committed the Government to giving the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests the powers to initiate investigations of misconduct, but also to ensuring that the adviser has access to the evidence that he or she needs, and those changes will be introduced in due course.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Georgia Gould)
The Cabinet Office provides a framework to support Departments and employees, which includes signposts on how to raise a concern, channels enabling that to be done safely, and practical support for whistleblowers. The Cabinet Office is working to capture whistleblowers’ experience and ways in which to improve it, and, as was mentioned in the King’s Speech, we will be introducing a duty of candour Bill which will improve transparency and accountability.
Wera Hobhouse
Good whistleblowing is good for government. Last year the National Audit Office published a report saying that the Government must do more to address governmental failures, and, even more worrying, that 50% of civil servants feel that it is not safe to challenge the way in which things are being done, and feel that their concerns are not being listened to or, indeed, that they will face negative consequences if they speak out. Will the Government establish a new office of whistleblowers to create new legal rights, and also to promote greater public awareness of whistleblowers’ rights?
Georgia Gould
As you say, whistleblowing is critical. We have had a discussion today about fraud and about the problems that emerge when we do not have protections in place. We are absolutely committed to supporting whistleblowers, and we are looking into the statistics that you mentioned and what is causing those problems. We will continue to do that, because it is very high on our agenda.
Fossil Fuels: Lobbying
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(1 year ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
To avert climate breakdown, the vast majority of the fossil fuel industry’s coal, gas and oil reserves need to stay firmly in the ground. Yet successive Governments, led by different political parties, have failed to take the kind of action that the science demands. They have known the indisputable facts and the consequences of inaction. Such consequences include the fact that the costs of delaying, and of failing to address climate, economic and social chaos, far outweigh those associated with an orderly transition along the lines of a jobs-rich, inequality-busting green new deal. Yet Government after Government have continued with business as usual. Government after Government have refused to grasp that despite some breakthroughs, successes and progress, the big picture has continued to get worse.
I do not deny that we are now seeing record amounts of energy being generated from renewable resources, for example, but these very welcome achievements do nothing to eliminate the dangerous damage arising from the continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels. Given what the experts have been saying for decades now, we have to ask ourselves why this Government, and others before them, have presided over, and colluded in, the frankly criminal decisions that have seen yet more oil, gas and coal continue to be explored and exploited. The answer to that question can be traced back to one consistent factor: the role of the fossil fuel industry in our politics. For over those very same decades when climate scientists have been warning of the rapidly shrinking window to avert a climate emergency, fossil fuel companies and their lobbyists have been denying the science, and then they have delayed, weakened and sabotaged climate action. Those tactics have enabled them to make billions in profits, while heating the planet and destroying communities.
In this debate, I want to highlight some of the ways in which fossil fuel influence is exerted in our politics and to propose how it should urgently be curtailed. I want to start with a case study, featuring the little-known fossil fuel lobby group Offshore Energies UK—OEUK—whose members include North sea operators such as Equinor, Harbour Energy, BP and Shell, and whose activities have resulted in a windfall tax that actually rewards companies for digging up more oil and gas, and a “price floor” introduced entirely at the industry’s behest. Let me explain how that has happened. According to analysis of data in the public domain, OEUK and its members met UK Government Ministers more than 210 times in the year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—that is nearly once every working day. In June 2022, in that one month, when the Energy (Oil and Gas) Profits Levy Bill was drafted and consulted on, the industry went into lobbying overdrive: OEUK and its operator members had twice as many meetings with Ministers as they did in the month before or after. It also held a parliamentary reception, in the name of the all-party group on the British offshore oil and gas industry, for which it provides, conveniently, the secretariat. The main message for the MPs and peers in attendance was that the windfall tax would “undermine and disrupt” investment in the sector. In a meeting a few days later with the then Chancellor, now Prime Minister, the industry spelt out what it wanted to see in the Bill. Its recommendations, also put in writing to the Treasury, included protection for petroleum revenue tax repayments, which are, in essence, an existing tax break that can pay fossil fuel firms back for taxes they have paid in the past. The subsequent legislation did exactly as OEUK requested. Moreover, it introduced an enormous 80% “investment allowance”, which, combined with existing tax breaks, means that fossil fuel companies can claim £91 back for every £100 they invest in UK oil and gas extraction. As a result of that climate-wrecking loophole, Shell, for example, went on to pay no windfall tax at all in 2022.
The lobbying around the Bill was happening in the context of a wider lobbying campaign by OEUK, which had been urging the Treasury all year to reinstate regular meetings of the so-called “fiscal forum”, an advisory group that basically invites OEUK and its members to shape their own tax regime. On 9 December 2022, they got their wish; the fiscal forum met again, hosted by the new Chancellor, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), and the industry used the meeting to claim, yet again, that the windfall tax would harm investment in the sector. That meeting occurred in the wake of the Chancellor’s already having announced further changes to the windfall tax regime that would, in effect, see taxpayers actually paying and handing over money to oil and gas firms for investments being made. None the less, those companies wanted still more and they used the fiscal forum to demand that a price floor be introduced—and, surprise, surprise, they got it.
In spring 2023, OEUK board members of Harbour Energy and Equinor met with Treasury officials. The minutes, secured via a freedom of information request, state that the “Equinor reps smiled” at Government’s reassurances—yes, I am sure they did.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The hon. Lady is eloquently setting out how the Government are responding to heavy lobbying from the fossil fuel industry. Does she agree that no future generation—neither our children nor our grandchildren—will ever thank us, the politicians of today, for having put all our energy and focus into the energies of the past? Does she agree that the fossil fuel industry should really look at itself as well?
Caroline Lucas
It will come as no surprise to the hon. Member that I completely agree with her. I do wonder what our own kids will think when the planet continues to heat still further, and what their kids, in turn, will think. What were we thinking of? What was the fossil fuel industry thinking of, certainly, beyond its profits? Apparently very little.
Caroline Lucas
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I understand, of course, why he would want to make it. I would simply say that there is concern around perceived influence as well as direct influence. I have no reason to doubt for a second what he has just said—I am sure that it is absolutely true—but at the same time, when people outside this place look at the facts that I have been laying out this evening, in a dispassionate way I hope, alarm bells will start to ring, at the very least. We are talking about an industry that has a massive impact on the future of our planet, and I think it right, given the access that it appears to have to people in high places, to have this debate and raise those questions in this place.
Wera Hobhouse
Does the hon. Lady agree that, although we all roughly agree that we need to get to net zero, the biggest problem is the pace of change? The fossil fuel industry has successfully lobbied us all to say, “Not so fast! You can’t do it so fast. Don’t pull the rug from under our feet.” That is the biggest danger we face, because if we miss the target, there is no point talking about net zero. We have a 2050 target and we need to reach it urgently; we cannot delay any further, or go at a slower pace than necessary.
Caroline Lucas
I thank the hon. Member for her intervention, which reminds me of a powerful thing that the US campaigner Bill McKibben says: delaying is the new denial, and winning slowly is the same as losing. There is a real imperative here to be fast.
Defending the UK and Allies
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) has made regular statements over the past couple of months on foreign affairs. I am here answering questions about last week’s actions, and the Procedure Committee is actively looking at how we ensure proper accountability and scrutiny— I gave evidence on that particular topic to the Liaison Committee in December.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
We must support the recognised Yemeni Government, not least by helping them to address the huge problems of malnutrition and hunger. The Government have slashed aid by almost £200 million. The Prime Minister has already answered several questions on humanitarian aid, but will he reverse the cuts to the aid budget to address the human suffering in Yemen, which only fuels the success of the Houthi terrorists?
The Prime Minister
I was proud that we hosted a food security summit, which was warmly welcomed by vulnerable countries last year. Perhaps the hon. Lady could tell the House how she would propose to pay for the £5 billion increase in the aid budget that she proposes.
Oral Answers to Questions
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Chloe Smith)
We are moving forward with discussions on the UK’s involvement in Horizon Europe, and we hope they will be successful. Association is our preference. The talks are continuing constructively, but we have not yet agreed a deal. We want to reach a resolution as quickly as possible to give the industry certainty. We have also set out our bold alternative, Pioneer, which we are ready to implement if necessary.
Chloe Smith
We have continued to support the sector with more than £1.5 billion of the Horizon guarantee. We have done that to ensure that there is no loss of funding for the UK science sector. I think it far more important to speak directly to researchers, businesses and taxpayers about our commitment to getting the right deal than to engage in party politics here.
Wera Hobhouse
We in Bath have two fantastic universities, the University of Bath and Bath Spa University. Their leaders continue to worry about losing talent from Europe, and the Government have worsened the position by proposing a 66% increase in visa fees. Will the Secretary of State explain what that increase will mean for UK science, and how it accords with the Government’s stated ambition to bring the best and brightest to this country?
Chloe Smith
We continue to run a range of successful talent programmes that bring the best and the brightest to universities and indeed to those in the hon. Lady’s constituency. I welcome her representing them here today. The point is that we have to get the right deal on Horizon, as I have laid out, and we also have to strike a balance with the needs of policy across Government. That is what she has heard from me and other Ministers at this Dispatch Box, and that is how we will ensure that we get the right deal for Britain, both in terms of talent and of science programmes.
Oral Answers to Questions
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister
As my right hon. Friend knows, the United Kingdom was a founding member of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. I would very much like the United States to rejoin and I am happy to help make that case.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Lady knows, we have supported the Bill and we are working on it. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities is very happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss the measures further.