Social Security
Rosie Winterton Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call Minister Jesse Norman to move the motion. He is asked to speak for no more than 20 minutes.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
I beg to move,
That the Employment Allowance (Increase of Maximum Amount) Regulations 2020 (S.I., 2020, No. 273), dated 11 March 2020, a copy of which was laid before this House on 10 March, be approved.
This draft legislation allows the Government to increase the employment allowance by one third, or £1,000, giving more than 1 million small and medium-sized businesses up to £4,000 off their employer national insurance contributions bills. Employers pay secondary class 1 national insurance contributions on their employees’ earnings above the secondary threshold, which is set at £8,788 this year. Those contributions are charged at 13.8% and constitute the largest business tax by revenue in the UK.
The employment allowance was introduced in 2014 to help businesses with the costs of employment and to encourage them to grow and to hire more staff. It is claimed by more than 1 million employers in order to reduce their employer NICs bill by up to £4,000 per year. The Government recently restricted the employment allowance to smaller businesses with a national insurance contributions liability under £100,000, thereby ensuring that this valuable support is targeted at those who need it most.
At Budget, the Chancellor announced that we would deliver our commitment to increase the employment allowance for smaller businesses from £3,000 to £4,000 from April 2020. Businesses have been able to access that increased support from the start of the tax year. The draft regulations, if passed, will legislate for that increase to the employment allowance. More than half a million eligible businesses will benefit from the increase by up to £1,000. The Treasury expects the average gain from this measure to be about £850.
The Government are committed to supporting the UK’s smallest and often most entrepreneurial businesses, and this measure achieves that. Some 95% of the businesses benefiting from this increase are small and microbusinesses. Increasing the employment allowance to £4,000 means that 65,000 more businesses will see their employer national insurance liabilities fall to zero. Since introducing the employment allowance in 2014, the Government will have taken around 650,000 of the UK’s smallest businesses out of paying national insurance contributions entirely.
The Government are determined now more than ever to support people and businesses. At Budget, we increased the national living wage by 6.2% to £8.72 an hour. Along with increases to the income tax personal allowance and the national insurance primary threshold, that means an employee working full time on the national living wage is £5,200 better off today compared with April 2010.
However, we are aware that by supporting people at work through national living wage increases, we also increase cost for businesses. Increasing the employment allowance helps businesses to meet that cost. Businesses will now be able to employ four rather than three full- time employees on the national living wage without paying any employer national insurance contributions.
This increase will cost more than £2.3 billion over this Parliament; it is a large tax measure. It should be noted that in just four years, the Government have doubled the value of the employment allowance. The draft regulations legislate for a Budget measure that is already helping more than half a million of our smallest businesses with the costs of employment and has been supported by the Federation of Small Businesses.
Before I conclude, let me welcome the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) to the Labour Front Bench. I enjoin him and all colleagues in the House to join me in supporting the draft regulations, which I commend to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the shadow Minister, Wes Streeting, who is asked to speak for no more than 15 minutes.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP) [V]
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Like the shadow Minister, I do not intend to take anywhere near the quota of time on offer.
I thank the Minister for the motion. I dealt with him positively on the Roadchef Employee Benefits Trust issue and I hope we can continue to assist in progressing that matter. However, I must challenge him on his comments regarding the minimum wage. The minimum wage premium is not the real living wage. I encourage the UK Government to follow the Scottish Government’s lead by engaging with business to encourage more employers to pay the real living wage, if they cannot make it the minimum wage, and to remove the age discrimination that means under-25s cannot earn the same as their older colleagues for doing the same job.
As this is my first virtual speech, let me thank all those in the House staff who have gone out of their way to make the virtual House of Commons work and allow colleagues to hold the British Government to account. That includes Mr Speaker, you Madam Deputy Speaker and your fellow Deputy Speakers. Having spent considerable time on a committee with the Leader of the House, the irony of its being this particular Leader of the House who is proving that remote participation and eventually electronic voting can work, is certainly not lost on me.
Regarding the regulations, it is a pleasure to be able to respond on behalf of the SNP. Colleagues will be relieved that I do not intend to speak for very long. The business before us is uncontentious. We of course welcome an increase in employment allowance, but would have liked to have seen it go further. That is not an opportunistic position that we take for the afternoon to nit-pick or find division where there is none; our manifesto committed us to an increase in the employment allowance from £3,000 to £6,000 per employer, per year. Of course, that was the manifesto that helped the SNP win 80% of the seats we contested in December’s general election.
I welcome the shadow Minister to his place on the Opposition Front Bench. Like him, I encourage the UK Government to do more to assist small employers across the UK during the covid-19 crisis. The job retention scheme and business support schemes have massive gaps that so many of our constituents are falling through, and that is before we get on to the unsatisfactory self-employment scheme. I share the calls from the shadow Minister on bringing about flexibility to the furlough scheme. Something I would like to see on top of what he called for would be an appeals process, where an employer refusing to furlough a member of staff, leaving them without an income, can be challenged. The CBIL scheme is also not helping all those who need support. For many, incurring debt is just not an option. There needs to be much more in the way of grants available. Similarly, not all charities are covered in the third sector scheme, such as research-based charities, so I hope they will look at those areas again.
Short of the full powers of independence, we want the UK Government to devolve control of national insurance to Holyrood, so that the Scottish Government can use economic levers such as these measures to make decisions that support employers to create jobs. At the moment, our control over economic policy is very limited and largely rests with the UK Government, who take decisions that may favour other parts of the UK and may not be in Scotland’s best interests.
We will also continue to oppose the UK Government’s decision to restrict eligibility for employment allowance. In our view, it should cover all firms and all employers. The UK Government estimate that about 7% of all employers will no longer be eligible for the employment allowance. By removing this relief, they will be levying an additional £3,000 in tax on those employers.
In conclusion, we will not be forcing the regulations to a Division—I am sure that that will please those still testing remote electronic voting—but we would have liked the UK Government to have been more ambitious to support job creation by halting the eligibility restrictions and by expanding the relief that is available.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I am now introducing a time limit of five minutes. I advise hon. Members who are speaking virtually to have a timing device visible. I call Kim Johnson.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP) [V]
I very much welcome the Minister’s announcement today and the Government’s commitment to it. I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak.
Initially, the employment allowance was set at £2,000 but was increased to £3,000 from April 2016. From April 2020, the allowance may only be claimed by employers with employers’ national insurance contributions of below £100,000 in the previous tax year, a change announced in 2018. HMRC estimates that the annual cost of the allowance is around £2.2 billion.
I absolutely understand the reason for the inclusion of this measure in the Conservative party manifesto and the Minister’s announcement today, but I am a wee bit concerned that we need to be doing more to help the small and medium-sized businesses that continue to employ large numbers of people across my constituency and the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In my constituency and across Northern Ireland, we probably have a higher per capita percentage of small and medium-sized businesses than the rest of the United Kingdom. I welcome this measure, but we need to ensure that these small and medium-sized businesses are able to return to the position they were in, so that they can give the opportunity of employment and wages and give the economy a bit of a kick-start.
I want to say an incredibly large thank you to Frances and her staff at my local social security office, who have helped many people and given advice during this crisis. It is important that their hands are not tied by a system that understands the rules but has no discretion to understand individual circumstances.
I welcome the help that will be coming for the many charities that we and many others contribute to. I think of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Cancer Care, Marie Curie, St John Ambulance and the Cancer Fund for Children here in Northern Ireland. All those charities have no or little fund raising at the moment. The moneys coming into them are direct donations. There may be other moneys coming in, but there is no fund raising taking place. The help that the Government have offered charities is very welcome, but it will never bridge the gap for the incredibly large amounts of money that they are losing.
I was very happy with the Chancellor’s decision to allow workers to be furloughed, although there will be no payment until June for the self-employed. I think also of self-employed directors—I asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions a question about this yesterday, and I raise it again now—who put their profits back into the business, so do not have much in the way of savings. Unfortunately, they do not get the real benefits here that they could.
I put on record my thanks to the Government and to Ministers for all that they have done. They have reached out to many people. As elected representatives, we are made aware with each passing day of others who perhaps do not tick the box—who do not fit into a certain category—and I am thinking of them. We therefore bring those people to the attention of Ministers whenever the opportunity arises.
Many of us will be in receipt of a paper from Ian Geary of the Salvation Army referring to the report that has already been mentioned, entitled “Understanding Benefits and Mental Health”. We cannot let this go by without reflecting—in a small way for this debate but in a big way for the individuals themselves—on the barriers that vulnerable groups experience, and on some of the multiple mental health challenges that they are facing. That paper emphasised that the aforementioned findings were collated before the current crisis, but it has highlighted the lack of resilience experienced by many people who need help at this moment.
Again, I welcome the provisions that we have today, which benefit the many who fall within the criteria, but there are others who perhaps fall just outside the criteria or outside the box-ticking exercise that Departments sometimes do. We need to identify and support vulnerable claimants. We need to help those with mental health issues. We need to support businesses and those self-employed people who cannot create the opportunity—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his speech but we now have to move on to the Minister.
Contingencies Fund Bill
Rosie Winterton ExcerptsTuesday 24th March 2020
(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I wish to inform Members that under the Order of the House of today, notices of amendments, new clauses or new schedules to be moved in Committee of the whole House may be accepted by the Clerks at the Table before the Bill has been read a Second time. In order to be eligible for selection, Members should table amendments within the next five minutes.
Loan Charge 2019: Sir Amyas Morse Review
Rosie Winterton Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Colleagues will see that a number of hon. and right hon. Members wish to speak in this debate and the next debate. If we are to get everybody in fairly, I would ask that speeches should be five minutes.
Budget Resolutions
Rosie Winterton Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Obviously, we had a long statement and there are still a lot of people to get in, so after the next speaker I will reduce the time limit to five minutes. I call Martin Vickers.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
There is still a lot of pressure on time, so after the next speaker I will take the limit down to four minutes.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. There are two more speakers, and I hope the remaining two speakers will take three minutes each, in which case we will have time to squeeze both of you in.
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)
This will be a Northern Ireland double act. In my limited time, I wish to mention the impact of the Budget on Northern Ireland. Spending in Northern Ireland per capita is higher than in most other parts of the UK, but that reflects our legacy of division of violence, and there has been a lack of opportunity to restructure our economy over recent decades. I stress that only three out of 12 UK regions are net contributors to the UK Treasury.
Before the coronavirus crisis, the Northern Ireland economy was struggling to make ends meet—that was a result of 10 years of austerity, as well as of domestic mismanagement, and our failure to reform public services, or address the cost of managing a divided society where there is a lot of duplication. We need to get our house in order, and I welcome our feet being held to the fire in that regard, with things such as the forthcoming fiscal council.
There is an ongoing shortfall of £600 million to begin with, just to keep the lights on, never mind fulfilling the commitments in the “New Decade, New Approach” document. We need assistance and ongoing mature discussion between the Executive and the Treasury, about how we can better finance such issues. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, we have a particular crisis with coronavirus. Northern Ireland is different from other parts of the UK, including in terms of our economy, and although we welcome a lot of the initiatives that were announced over the past week—even tonight I think more money was announced for the devolved regions—it is unclear how far that will go to address our particular circumstances.
There is an issue with our ability to replicate the welcome 100% rates relief for small businesses in Northern Ireland, but that needs to happen. We have a particular dependence on tourism and hospitality, and we must ensure that those sectors are protected and able to survive. It is important that we get through this crisis with our economy in decent shape, and that we do not lose too many businesses along the way. Measures to support businesses and workers are important.
We can learn lessons from what is happening in other jurisdictions. In the Republic of Ireland, the Taoiseach has spoken about support for workers who would otherwise be laid off, and the Government should say to businesses, “We will make up that shortfall. Please don’t lay workers off.” In France, President Macron is offering to ensure that no business will go bust, and those are the types of lessons we need to learn for Northern Ireland. Hopefully, the Chancellor and Treasury will look favourably at that, and have a mature discussion with the Northern Ireland Executive over the coming days, to ensure an economic recovery plan for Northern Ireland.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the shadow Minister, Anneliese Dodds.
Rating and Valuation
Rosie Winterton Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
I beg to move,
That the Local Government Finance Act 1988 (Non-Domestic Rating Multipliers) (England) Order 2019, which was laid before this House on 4 November 2019, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.
This order makes a small but important technical change to business rates. Specifically, it changes the annual inflationary increase in the business rates multiplier from the retail prices index to the lower consumer prices index for the coming financial year. As hon. Members may know, the multiplier is effectively the tax rate applied to the calculation of business rates, be it through the standard multiplier or the small business multiplier. Historically, these multipliers would rise in line with the preceding year’s RPI figure. On this basis, the multipliers were due to increase to reflect the September 2019 RPI figure, which was 2.4%. In Budget 2016, the Government announced that they would switch the multiplier uprating from RPI to CPI indexation from April 2020. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Will Members leaving the Chamber do so quietly, please?
Jesse Norman
The autumn Budget 2017 brought forward this implementation date to April 2018. The switch makes a reduction to business rates that is estimated to be worth more than £6 billion over the next five years, and the benefit to business will continue to grow as the business rates multipliers are uprated by the lower rate of inflation year on year. The Government introduced regulations to make this change for previous years, and we are bringing forward this order to do the same for 2020-21.
Before I proceed to outline the detail of the order itself, I would like to set out some of the background for the benefit of the House. The Government recognise that business rates can represent a high fixed cost for some businesses—indeed, many businesses—and we have taken repeated steps to reduce the burden of the tax. Reforms since Budget 2016 include, first, making 100% small business rate relief permanent and doubling the threshold of this relief from April 2017. As a result, more than 675,000 of the smallest businesses do not pay business rates at all. Secondly, increasing the threshold for the standard multiplier to £51,000 from April 2017 has removed many properties from the higher rate of the tax. Thirdly, moving to more frequent valuations by bringing the next revaluation forward one year to 2021 and moving to three-year revaluations after that will make bills fairer by ensuring they more closely reflect properties’ current rental values.
Finally, introducing a new retail discount has cut the business rates bills of small retailers by one third for two years from April 2019. This is providing up-front support to the retail sector at what is proving to be a challenging time for many retailers, and it is worth about £1 billion to businesses.
Looking forward, as confirmed in the statement I made on 27 January, from 1 April this year the Government will increase the retail discount to 50% in 2020-21, and extend eligibility to independent cinemas and grassroots music venues for the first time. We will provide additional support to pubs through a £1,000 discount for pubs with a rateable value of less than £100,000. We will extend the duration of the £1,500 discount for local newspaper office space for a further five years. However, it is important to be clear that the Government recognise that concerns remain about the impact of the tax. That is why we are committed to a further review of business rates, details of which will be announced in due course.
The order before the House is the necessary secondary legislation required to effect the change in the inflationary increase for business rates from RPI to CPI in the financial year 2020-21. It sets out the new equation for setting the business rates multipliers for the coming financial year, so that the September 1.7% CPI figure is used instead of the 2.4% RPI figure.
Given the difference in the multiplier from uprating this year, the small business multiplier in 2020-21 will be 49.9p, rather than 50.3p. The standard multiplier in 2020-21 will be 51.2p, rather than 51.6p. That change represents a cut in business rates every year, benefiting all rate payers and freeing up cash for businesses. The order applies to England—unlike in the last debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, there has not been quite the same interest from Scottish nationalists about this measure, although both provisions apply to England. The Government will provide the devolved Administrations with funding to enable them to offer similar support if they wish, and they will fully compensate local authorities for the income they will lose as a result of this measure.
This measure should not be viewed in isolation, and as I have said, it is one of many introduced by this Government, and their predecessor Governments, to support business. I have mentioned numerous cuts to business rates, including the two-year business rates relief for small retailers. Looking more widely, the UK corporate tax regime remains highly competitive, with the Government having lowered corporation tax from 28% in 2010 to 19% today—the lowest rate in the G20. Beyond that, businesses are benefiting from enhanced tax incentives, including the introduction of the new 2% structures and buildings allowance, and a temporary increase in the annual investment allowance to £1 million.
The statutory instrument that we are legislating for today will contribute to the Government’s efforts to reduce the burden of business rates and make them fairer for taxpayers. As I outlined, on top of the reliefs already in place, the Government are committed to a review of the business rates system, details of which will be announced in due course. In conclusion, this order will change the annual inflationary increase in business rates from the retail price index to the consumer prices index in financial year 2020-21, thereby reducing costs for all business rate payers in England and giving the economy a further boost. I commend the order to the House.
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation of the order, and broadly supportive of its contents. It does, however, raise some significant questions about the Government’s continued use of the retail price index as against the consumer prices index, and about their approach to business rate reform and local government funding more widely.
Members will be aware that there has been continued argument about the use of RPI as an inflation indicator, as against CPI and CPIH. RPI was de-designated as a national statistic back in 2013, yet it is still often used in areas such as the regulation of train fares, student loan debt, and many occupational pension schemes. CPI has been adopted in this case, but we have no clear explanation why the use of RPI continues in other areas. The Royal Statistical Society has been highly critical of that approach.
After many years of confusion, the Chancellor has now agreed not to cease the production of RPI statistics, but to slowly align them with CPIH, thus ending the situation of, as The Financial Times put it,
“the Office for National Statistics and UK Statistics Authority publishing a key economy measure every month which they accept is wrong, but doing nothing to improve it.”
That is what has been happening over the past few years. I therefore find it quite revealing that, rather than amending the Local Government Finance Act 1988 through primary legislation to make that change permanent, the Government choose to make it yet again, year on year, through secondary legislation. Is this use of orders, rather than primary legislation to designate the relevant inflation measure, to retain flexibility for the Government, or for some other unexplained reason? Either way, it creates a potentially unstable environment for businesses and local authorities, perhaps up to 2025 or beyond.
We have seen no uprating in the existing thresholds at which discounts on business rates apply. I accept that the retail discount has increased from one third to 50%, and been extended to some additional categories of economic operator. I am probing, through parliamentary questions, what proportion of rateable businesses are actually covered, given the low thresholds at which those discounts apply, especially in areas of high property costs.
The Conservative manifesto said that the Government would go further and fundamentally review the business rate system, so it was disappointing that the Minister said—twice—that this would happen “in due course”. Will he please tell us once when that review will at least begin, and what its scope will be? According to the British Retail Consortium, 2019 was the worst year for retail in 25 years. We need some urgency from the Government in dealing with this issue. We also need to deal with the impact of the business rate system on preventing the investment that is required to ensure environmentally friendly business and manufacturing.
Finally, we need to put rating in the context of the overall local government funding settlement. It was disappointing that the Minister did not talk about that at all, but merely about compensation for this measure in the settlement. All Labour Members realise that the Government are suggesting a real-terms cut to local government. Even worse, the alleged increase they are putting into local government is predicated on all councils increasing council tax by the full amount, which they blatantly will not do—smoke and mirrors yet again. We have seen a concerning trend where funding from local authorities in less affluent areas is stripped back at a far faster rate than it is in more affluent areas. The Government’s laughably named fair funding approach would see almost three-quarters of the so-called red wall seats losing out even further. There is great concern among those in local government that reforms to business rates could make this even worse, with 77% of councils saying that they lack confidence in 100% business rate retention.
I hope the Minister will address these concerns, outline a timetable for the review of business rates, indicate whether that review will include considerations of local government, and, above all, let us know whether we will see an end to the current uncertainties around CPI adoption.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
It is with great pleasure that I call Paula Barker to make her maiden speech.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder if you could assist me. When we have a public health scare, we expect the Government to be in control. Yesterday, I raised the serious issue of how information about the coronavirus infection was being shared and how getting communications right was crucial to alleviating public concern while also protecting the public. Today we have learnt that the information provided concerning those infected with coronavirus was incorrect. The student did access student accommodation—Vita Student accommodation—despite our being told they had not. There is confusion over how information is being gathered and shared, which could have a serious impact on public confidence in how the coronavirus is being managed. The Government need to get a grip as we may be in the early stages of the management of this infection. Could you, Madam Deputy Speaker, advise the House on whether the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care intends to make a further statement to the House, in particular to address the management of communications surrounding coronavirus, in the light of the latest developments?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order, and for giving me notice of it. Obviously the Secretary of State is responsible for the accuracy of what he says in the Chamber, and for the information that is given to the public about this extremely important matter. I have not heard of any intention on the part of Ministers to make a further statement, but those on the Treasury Bench will have heard the hon. Lady’s point of order, and I know that she is well aware of the further routes that she can pursue if she remains dissatisfied with the situation.
Economy and Jobs
Rosie Winterton Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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John McDonnell
The whole process of cuts in HMRC over the years has been a self-defeating one, by which we remove the expertise we need to ensure a fair taxation system and to tackle tax evasion and avoidance.
There is a desperate need to harness our economy effectively, as we will discuss at a later date, and to end our dependence on fossil fuel and to do so much sooner than the inadequate target date of 2050. We will still have some opportunity to address these issues in the run-up to the Budget, but for now let me conclude by cautioning the Government that this Queen’s Speech fails dramatically to demonstrate the sense of urgency and scale of action needed to provide the decade of renewal they promise. Our people have endured a decade of decline. On the basis of what is laid out in this Queen’s Speech and the policy direction laid out so far by the Chancellor, they face not a decade of renewal but a decade of disappointment. We already have had a foretaste of the dangerous politics that disappointment and disillusion creates. We must avoid it, and I ask Members to support our amendment.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
As the shadow Chancellor said, a great number of colleagues wish to speak this afternoon. Just to warn Members wanting to speak, let me say that I will impose an eight-minute time limit immediately after the Front-Bench contributions. I am sure that the Chancellor and the Scottish National party spokesperson will bear that in mind.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The eight-minute limit will now come into force.
Sir Edward Leigh
Of course they need good public services, and we are a party of good public services, but we do not believe that the only way of improving public services is by increasing spending in real terms year in, year out. The best way to downgrade productivity and efficiency in the public services is by rapidly increasing spending without tight cost controls on outcomes. I am sure I can rely on the Treasury in that regard.
Where the Opposition have a point, and where we do have an argument, is that some of the big companies, particularly the American digital companies and tech giants, are not paying their fair share of tax. There is also an increasing feeling in this country—this is the one nation point—that the employment rights of some of the people at the bottom of the heap are being downgraded. The Conservative party has an historic opportunity to build on its alliance with working people to improve standards, workers’ rights and the ability of those big companies to pay taxes, and we can do that while also being an enterprise Government and rewarding hard work. By doing that, we can achieve a great deal.
The last part of the jigsaw—this alliance with working people—is the question: why do they vote Conservative? Why did they vote for Brexit? It is because they are fed up with cheap labour being imported into this country and fed up with their rights and employment opportunities being downgraded. If the Chancellor is now looking to the world in terms of immigration, let him ensure that we will no longer downgrade the rights of workers in this country by importing cheap labour. Let us have good-quality labour—people who have something real to contribute.
I believe that there is a real, historic opportunity for the Conservative party to build on this alliance with the working people in the north of England who have felt forgotten for so long. That opportunity is here, and I am confident that this Chancellor will deliver it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
It is a great pleasure to call Beth Winter to make her maiden speech.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
It is a pleasure to congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your election to the Chair and to say that it is the first time in almost 10 years in this place that I have heard the time limit go up for a debate. New Members should not regard this as the normal practice.
It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant), who speaks passionately about some of the issues facing Scotland, and to have heard the maiden speeches, including the two from my hon. Friends the Members for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) and for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon). I am my very own doughnut tonight. The way in which they spoke with passion about their constituencies and communities left no one in any doubt about why they are in this House.
I want to focus on my constituency and some of the issues raised in the Gracious Speech, particularly aerospace, nuclear and trade opportunities. My constituency is at the heart of the military air manufacturing and design industry in the UK. BAE Systems provides just shy of 7,000 jobs at Warton and another 4,500 up the road at Samlesbury. We currently manufacture Typhoon and Hawk and export them to many countries across the globe. More significantly, we do a lot of development work in cutting-edge technologies—work that is then rolled into other aircraft platforms in many corners of the world. The apprentices and the men and women who make those products have to be recognised and celebrated. The people who talk about the northern powerhouse need look no further than some of the technologies being developed in constituencies such as mine.
One thing that I would like to say to those on the Treasury Bench is that we should not only be recognising the work that we are doing at the moment, but always looking to the future. At the last Farnborough air show the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), announced the Government’s clear commitment to supporting the future fighter programme and, indeed, Team Tempest. That benefited not just BAE Systems but the likes of Leonardo and Rolls-Royce, to name but a few.
Many thousands of jobs will depend on the future independent UK manufacture of a military air platform. When the Treasury is considering support for Britain’s manufacturing sector, will it please continue to support programmes such as Team Tempest? In the future, not just thousands but tens of thousands of jobs will depend on such programmes. The solution is not buying in expensive technology from overseas, particularly from the United States, but growing our own technology, which we are very, very good at.
As I said earlier, the other issue on which I want to focus is nuclear. Much attention is rightly given to decarbonising the economy and building a low-carbon future, and, yes, renewables are central to that, but so too is nuclear. My constituency has the only nuclear fuel manufacturing facility in the UK, Springfields, which provides just over 1,000 jobs. This is about how we look to the future for nuclear fuel and, indeed, nuclear energy production in the United Kingdom. It is not just about building the big, very expensive power plants with which we are familiar, but about investing in modern technology such as that being driven by Rolls-Royce. I am, of course, referring to small and advanced modular reactors. This is technology that is UK-developed and UK-owned; it can also be UK-manufactured and UK-exported.
As I have said, we are very good at that, particularly in the north-west of England. There is an arc from Warrington to Preston and up into Cumbria, which, as we know, is at the heart of the whole reprocessing industry, and is represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison). However, we will be able to do it only with the continued support of Her Majesty’s Government. If we are ambitious about a low-carbon future and about earning our way in the world, we need to get behind the technologies that are UK-born and bred and owned and built and developed, and are sold abroad, such as nuclear and aerospace.
Finally, let me say something about trade. Far too often, we are passive when it comes to global trade—we are relaxed about inward investment—but I think that Brexit gives us an opportunity to be much more aggressive and bullish: to go out there and get it. I say that as a trade envoy. I see the work that our embassies do across the world, and they do fantastic work, but in my view they are under-resourced. They do not have enough support, be it in London or in country. The Germans and the French, let alone the Americans or the Canadians, will outmatch us every step of the way. However, we have a great story to tell. We are a fantastic exporting country. We are good at what we do.
I appeal to the Government not only to devise new strategies but to resource them properly, and to make people feel empowered to go out there and aggressively pursue the opportunities of foreign direct investment. We talk with great alacrity about going out and building a global Britain and bringing home the bacon, but we must ensure that we understand what a foreign direct investor wants from this country. What skills are required, and how can we work in partnership with our colleges and universities to secure them? In what areas of the country can we locate them? If we are free from European state aid rules, are there things that we can do involving tax policy or various other incentives to attract that foreign direct investment? Above all, we need to add value to the UK and its supply chain, and help to transform communities for generation upon generation to come.
That is one area in which the Department for International trade will play a role. This is not just about striking trade deals—which, in some respects, is an easy thing to do—but about building long-term relationships with countries and organisations across the globe. It is about being ambitious, and having the right people to fulfil our ambition. Let us aim high, and get a fair share of that.
If we include those elements in the northern powerhouse network, and if we help to transform towns and cities throughout the country but particularly in the midlands and the north, there will be a huge economic dividend, but also a social dividend, for the people who benefit from such life-changing opportunities. It is my great pleasure to support the Gracious Speech.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
It is a great pleasure to call Nadia Whittome to make her maiden speech.