Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry

Lord Sharma Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Alok Sharma)]

We have had a detailed and wide-ranging debate on the Grenfell Tower public inquiry, but I start by congratulating all the Members who made their maiden speeches today: the hon. Members for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves), for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), for Leigh (Jo Platt) and for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones).

We heard some incredibly powerful speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith), for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) and for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), and we of course heard from the hon. Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad), who has been very involved in dealing with the residents and has been part of the response.

We also heard from various members of the all-party group on fire safety: my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) and the hon. Members for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) and for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter). I can tell the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), that I met them recently to hear their views. They will be writing to me in some detail to set out what they want to see happen in the inquiry.

Colleagues have had an opportunity to express a range of views—some obviously different from others—but the House is today united in the view that ultimately the people who matter the most are those who have been affected directly by this terrible tragedy. They must have their questions answered, and that is precisely what the inquiry will do.

In his opening remarks, the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), said that he will not rest until the residents have the help they need, until we get to the bottom of what happened, and until we make sure that this never happens again. I assure him that I, too, will not rest until all three of those conditions are met, and nor will the Secretary of State or, indeed, any colleague in this House.

I again put on record my deepest condolences to all those who have suffered such great loss as a result of this fire, which we all agree should never have happened. Colleagues from all parties have paid tribute to the victims, their families and the heroism of the emergency services, and I know that such heart-felt views will be heard and echoed throughout the country. This debate has provided an opportunity to reflect on the scale and human cost of this tragedy, but it has also given us a valuable chance to start to look ahead to what comes next—principally, the public inquiry that will establish precisely what went wrong, why and who is responsible.

Colleagues have raised a range of issues, and before I continue with my speech I shall take a few minutes to respond to some of them. On the help available to those who are directly affected, Members will know that we have made first offers to all those who are ready to have such offers made to them. A large number of second offers have been made, and 19 of the families have now accepted an offer. I just point out that, as I know Opposition Members have acknowledged, we need to go at the pace that the families want us to go at. That is incredibly important. I know that some of them will want to move into permanent homes rather than into temporary homes, and we accept that. We have had a discussion about Kensington Row, and I hope we will soon be in a position where we can start viewings of the flats there. We are also looking to secure similar accommodation so that we have net additions to the social housing, rather than take up homes that others might have occupied. The key thing is that nobody is going to be forced into a home that they do not want to go to.

On funding, I can report that 120 of the households have received a grant of £5,000, and many others have also received the £500 cash payment. In total, almost £4 million has been paid out from the discretionary fund. Colleagues have raised issues relating to trauma support, which of course is being made available to those who need it. Given the exceptional nature of the incident, we have agreed that MOPAC—Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime—funding will be used for this, even though no crime as such has been committed that we are aware of.

We heard a discussion on the Government’s response and the testing regime that we have put in place. The Secretary of State has led right from the start on that. I have been by his side, so I can tell Members that he has led on it. I ask hon. Members to look on the Government website because it will tell them about all the letters we have written to local authorities and housing associations, and all the tests that we have suggested are done. Yes, 211 tests have come back as positive—or negative; it depends on how one looks at it—but I just say that we are working with the Local Government Association and others to encourage housing associations, local councils and private landlords to send in the cladding for testing. What I say to every Member here, as they can help with this, is that I know they will be in touch with their local authorities and housing associations, so please help us. They should ask their local—

[Ms Buck]

For clarity, will the Minister confirm that half or more of all the high-rise towers identified at the earlier point in this discussion have not submitted materials to be tested? That is the clear implication of what he was saying.

[Alok Sharma]

I am saying that we want to get this testing done as quickly as possible. We have the resources available for that. Let me just say that there are some cases where local authorities will have sent in one piece of cladding for testing from a building and may have had a number of buildings that were re-clad at a similar time, so we are hoping to establish whether that is the case or not. An awful lot of work is going on, and I just recommend to right hon. and hon. Members that they look on the website as it will tell them, in great detail, what the expert advisory panel is doing and it will tell them about all the tests that have been carried out.

Members have also talked about insulation, and of course when we wrote to local authorities on 22 June we asked them also to look at that. On 6 July, the independent expert panel announced that it would be recommending wider systems checks of cladding, and that it would be testing a combination of ACM panels with two of the most commonly used insulation materials as well.

We had a discussion about building regulations, and I respectfully point out that they were put together in 2006, not when the current Government were in place, so this idea that somehow deregulation has played a part is unfair. Let me also make reference to the Lakanal House fire and what the coroner wanted to happen. The coroner recommended simplifying the fire safety guidance under the building regulations, not a change in the standards. I accept that that has not happened as yet, but clearly in the light of this tragedy we need to reflect on the previous plans for consulting. Clearly, if anything emerges from the investigation where we need to take immediate action, we will do that.

The expert advisory panel, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has appointed, is considering a range of matters, particularly whether there are any immediate additional actions that need to be taken to ensure the safety of existing high-rise buildings.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for his comments about high-rise buildings. Will he clarify whether the testing and the regulation-reviewing that the Government are undertaking also extend to other buildings that may be affected, such as schools and hospitals?

[Alok Sharma]

Yes, I can. That work is ongoing.

There was a discussion about the independent recovery taskforce, which was appointed by the Secretary of State. Let me point out that if we had gone down the road of appointing commissioners, that would have been a statutory intervention, which would have taken longer. Our view is that we need to get people in there now and to focus particularly on housing regeneration and community engagement. People from that taskforce will report directly to the Secretary of State.

[Andy Slaughter]

Will the Minister enlighten us on who they are and where they are?

[Alok Sharma]

That information will be published very shortly.

The hon. Member for Hammersmith talked about product safety. The Government have a working group on product recalls and safety, which has been asked, as a matter of urgency, to review its final report in the light of the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

Finally, on social housing, I know that we will have opportunities to debate these matters in the months and possibly years ahead, but may I just point out to the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne, that, during the period of 1997 to 2010, the number of social rented homes fell by 420,000. Since 2010, we have delivered 333,000 new affordable homes. [Interruption.] That is a debate for another day. May I just return to the public inquiry?

[Mr Betts]

The Minister did say “finally”, but he has not yet come back to the issue of what funding will be available to other local authorities carrying out this essential work and what criteria will be used to assess any funding applications.

[Alok Sharma]

The Secretary of State and other Ministers have been absolutely clear: we do not want local authorities and housing associations to stop doing anything that is necessary to keep people safe. If they do not have the funding, we will work with them on the funding process.

[Clive Efford]

rose—

[Alok Sharma]

No, I will not give way as I really must get on.

A range of views have been expressed about the cause of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. What is vital is that we have a full independent public inquiry with a remit that goes way beyond the design, construction and modification of the building itself. An effective and prompt inquiry will necessarily have to follow defined terms of reference, and setting those is obviously crucial. The terms will be set formally by the Prime Minister, but she will do so following recommendations from the chair of the public inquiry, Sir Martin Moore-Bick. Sir Martin was appointed to head up the inquiry on 29 June and on that very day he visited the site and spoke with some of those who had been affected by the tragedy. Sir Martin has been absolutely clear in his desire to consult the affected residents about what the terms of the reference should be. I know that he has been meeting them to hear their views. He has also said that he welcomes the views from the wider community. Those are the actions of a person who wants proactively to engage with those directly affected right from the start. I urge hon. Members who have concerns or ideas about the terms of the inquiry to raise them with the team. The details are available on the inquiry website: grenfelltowerinquiry.org.uk.

During today’s debate, some concern has been expressed about Sir Martin’s suitability for the role, but as the First Secretary of State has said, he is independently appointed, extremely well qualified and totally impartial. Sir Martin is a hugely experienced former Court of Appeal judge. Judges decide cases solely on the evidence presented in court and in accordance with the law. As a senior judge, Sir Martin has worked across a range of cases. There have been cases where Sir Martin has been praised by civil liberties lawyers and cases where he has found in favour of housing association tenants, but in each case he will have made decisions based on the law and the evidence—nothing more, and nothing less.

Opposition Members may be aware that from December 2005 to December 2009, Sir Martin was chair of the legal services consultative panel, which advises successive Lord Chancellors on the regulation and training of lawyers, legal services and other related matters. The Lord Chancellors whom he served were Lord Falconer and Jack Straw. I have previously noted in this House that it is vital for Government, central and local, to work hard to win the trust of those people directly affected by this tragedy. I have no doubt that Sir Martin is similarly aware that he needs to foster that trust. I am sure that, as his dialogue with the local community continues, they will note that his only motivation is to get to the bottom of what happened.

I assure hon. Members that the Government will co-operate fully with the inquiry, and I hope that the same will be true of the local authority and any other individual or body whose work falls within the inquiry’s remit. It is absolutely vital that no stone is left unturned and that anyone who has done wrong has nowhere to hide. To help get to the truth, survivors of the fire and the families of the victims will receive funding for legal representation at the inquiry. Details of how they access that legal funding will follow once the inquiry is up and running.

Some concern has been raised about the lack of a coroner’s inquest into the deaths at Grenfell. Let me assure colleagues that there will be an inquest. The coroner is already investigating the deaths; that is a statutory duty. The police-led investigation is already under way in conjunction with the London Fire Brigade and the Health and Safety Executive. The police investigation will consider potential criminal liability. The police have been very clear: arrests will follow if any evidence of criminal wrongdoing is found. Unlike a coroner’s inquest, a full, judge-led public inquiry will allow us to look at the broader circumstances leading up to and surrounding the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower. It will also allow us to take any action necessary as quickly as possible to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again.

A number of colleagues have expressed concerns about timing. Of course, we want the inquiry to be completed as quickly as possible and the main priority will be to establish the facts of what action is needed to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. It will be for Sir Martin to determine the timescale for the inquiry, but I am certain that he will be aware of the universal desire for an interim report to be published at the earliest opportunity.

In cases of some past disasters, such as Hillsborough and the sinking of the Marchioness, it took far too long for the whole story of what happened to emerge. We do not want that to be the case with Grenfell Tower. That was why the Prime Minister ordered a full public inquiry as soon as the scale of the tragedy became apparent. Regardless of politics or ideology and of what we think is the best course of action, all of us here want one thing: the truth. It might prove uncomfortable for some and it might not fit the preconception of others, but the truth must come out. I am confident that Sir Martin Moore-Bick will see that the truth does come out. The survivors of the Grenfell fire and the families of those who were lost deserve no less.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Grenfell Tower fire inquiry.

[Mr Speaker]

We will soon come to the matter for which a good many Members are probably waiting—I rather imagine they are; if they are not, they should be. They could be awaiting the Adjournment debate with eager anticipation, bated breath and beads of sweat upon their brows, but quite a lot are probably waiting for the announcement of the results of the elections for Chairs of Select Committees. Before we come to those, I will take a point of order from Jenny Chapman.

Panama Papers

Lord Sharma Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Well, it is a shocking scandal: we now know that the Prime Minister divested himself of all his shareholdings before he became Prime Minister and has paid his taxes in full.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

Exactly—shocking.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Shocking. However, there is a wider question that I would like to put to the Prime Minister, and it follows the question from the Chair of the Treasury Committee. As long as we have the longest tax code in the world after India, will not hard-working families always use legitimate ways to try to minimise their tax bill? Some of us have been arguing for years for a flatter tax system to merge rates. Let me give the Prime Minister a suggestion. The best way to stop people avoiding the payment of inheritance tax—that iniquitous tax—it is to abide by our manifesto commitment and abolish it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

Of course there is bad practice, not least in some of these jurisdictions, and that needs to be dealt with. That is what tax transparency, the sharing of information, the registers of beneficial ownership and all the rest of it are about. The other thing to recognise that happened last week is that the £11,000 personal allowance came in, so people can now earn £11,000 before having to pay any income tax at all. That completed our work of taking 4 million of the lowest paid people in our country out of income tax altogether.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

The Prime Minister has paid his taxes and behaved perfectly properly, and I commend him for standing up to those who have sought to besmirch his father’s reputation and memory. Will he remind us how much extra money has come into the Exchequer as a result of his Government’s closing the loopholes that were set up under 13 years of Labour government?

[The Prime Minister]

The point is that we raised an extra £12 billion in the last Parliament, and we want to raise another £16 billion in this Parliament, stretching out to 2021 the figures that I gave. Also, by having a lower rate of corporation tax, we have actually seen more corporation tax come in. Low tax rates, but tax rates that people pay—those are our watch words.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Sharma Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Those decisions must be made by local authorities in the proper way, under the planning regime we have. Personally, I hope that, over time, unconventional gas sites will go ahead, whether in Lancashire or elsewhere, because I want our country to exploit all the natural resources we have. I want us to keep energy bills down and I want us to be part of that revolution, which can create thousands of jobs. I also want to ensure that we can exploit our own gas reserves rather than ship gas from the other side of the world, which has a higher carbon footprint. We should do that, but if the Labour party wants to paint itself into a background of not wanting any unconventional gas at all, it should say so.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

Q9. Labour-controlled Reading Borough Council recently received a damning report from Ofsted for not doing enough to help struggling schools under its control. Will the Prime Minister tell us what the Government intend to do to ensure that systemically failing local education authorities such as Reading do not continue to ruin the life chances of our young people?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that. Frankly, one extra term in a failing school is too long for our children. In the past, Governments and LEAs have been too tolerant in allowing schools to continue to fail year after year, so this Government have set a very testing regime for failing schools and for those that are inadequate. As my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary set out this week, we will do similar things to schools that we would define as coasting and that could be doing better. We can now see the model of academy chains taking over a failing school, changing some of the leadership and putting in place the things that are necessary. We can see radical increases in the results, which is what we want. We will today talk about how we tackle poverty in the long term. Tackling sink schools and educational underachievement is vital to the life chances of our children.

Iraq: Coalition Against ISIL

Lord Sharma Excerpts

Friday 26th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is absolutely spot on with that point. There are a number of things that we need to do. First of all is action at the UN, which has now been taken, to cut off the financial flows to ISIL. We need to take action to tell the world that ISIL, supposedly the enemy of Assad, is actually selling oil to Assad and making millions of pounds from it. American air strikes have already dealt with some of the so-called mobile oil refineries that ISIL has been using to raise funds, but clearly more needs to be done to persuade those who may have backed organisations such as ISIL in the past, because they were seen as Sunni Arab organisations, that they made a terrible mistake and should not do it again. That was very much what was being discussed around the table at the UN Security Council and is an issue that I would support.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

I thank the Prime Minister for giving way. I was going to make a point about ensuring that we can cut off funding to ISIL, but will he expand a little more on that in terms of what is going on with international pressure to ensure that ISIL’s funding is squeezed? At the end of the day, it is currently a well-funded organisation and squeezing its funding will ensure that it cannot operate in the way that it has been up until now.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. Part of the reason why ISIL has got hold of so much funding is because it has the oil and also simply took money out of banks in some of the towns it took in northern Iraq. A long-term squeeze must be applied in this case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

I congratulate the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition on the constructive and measured way in which they introduced today’s debate.

This intervention is different in two respects. For the first time, war is fought using social media as a tool. The power of the internet is becoming increasingly apparent. We have all been shocked by the slick propaganda. For most of us, the first we heard of ISIL was through YouTube. This is the world that we live in today. The second is the young age and radicalism of our opponents. Albert Einstein once said that old men start wars but younger men fight them. Well, not any longer. The ISIL and al-Qaeda commanders are in their 30s and the old men are the refugees.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. One of the most powerful weapons that IS has been using is social media. What should Governments around the world, like ours and like that of the US, be doing to ensure that social media are not used, that sites are blocked and that IS is stopped from getting its publicity out into the public domain?

[Sir Richard Ottaway]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I think he has answered his own intervention. I think the Government should be addressing that and recognising that soft power is now a tool of war, and should be addressed very seriously indeed.

I was saying that our opponents are young and radical. Up against them are the slow, clunking democracies of the west and the civilised world. But these democracies are our strength. This building and our electoral mandate—they give us a legitimacy that ISIL and similar rebel groups will never have, and that is what will ultimately undermine them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Andrew Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman pre-empts a point that I will come on to later.

My second point is that Britain’s involvement must be in training, arming and giving strategic support and planning. Many have already suggested that links with the Free Syrian Army, the Kurds and the Iraqi army need to be enhanced, but this is an area in which the British military excel. We need to ensure that we do everything that we can to help train, arm and provide strategic support and planning. Those are issues at which Britain is undoubtedly one of the best in the world.

My third point is that the humanitarian protection of civilians is absolutely essential. I remember during the Libyan campaign, when I had the honour of sitting on the National Security Council, the personal attention that the then Defence Secretary took to ensure that targeting was of such quality and standard that civilian casualties were absolutely minimised. There would be nothing worse than the damage that will be caused by an air campaign if huge numbers of innocent civilians are attacked, as they have been in other campaigns but as they were not in Libya. Libya was successful in that respect at least. We must ensure precise targeting and the protection of civilians. We must give absolute priority to that and must ensure that protecting those who are at grave risk in this conflict is right at the top of the list.

My fourth point, which brings me directly to the point of the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), is that anyone who thinks that this crisis will be solved by smart weapons from 12,000 feet is completely and totally wrong, which is pretty widely accepted, at least in the House. It is absolutely critical that there is a plan for when the crisis is over and that the plan is enunciated now, because we need to ensure that we split off the hardliners, those who are intent on military action and advancing their cause through weaponry and ordnance, from those who are biddable and who may be brought back into more sensible dialogue and international comity.

[Alok Sharma]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

Lord Sharma Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

I am pleased to have secured this debate on behalf of the all-party group on European Union-United States trade and investment, which I chair, and to have done so with support from the hon. Members for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), and for Ceredigion (Mr Williams). I am also pleased to see that the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), is on the Government Front Bench and will respond to the debate. It must be rare, if not the first time, for a Cabinet Minister to respond to a debate such as this. I take that as a good sign that the Government are at last starting to put some serious political weight behind the debate about securing a very good deal for Britain in the trade negotiations between the EU and the US.

It is seven months since the House last debated the transatlantic trade and investment partnership. That debate was also secured and led from the Back Benches by members of the all-party group. It took place in July, just a week before the first round of negotiations began. Since then, there has been very strong progress, with three rounds of negotiations and a fourth round set for next month. The European Commission has taken the unprecedented step of setting up an advisory panel of business, trade union and consumer interests, and of freezing any discussion on dispute resolution while it conducts a consultation. We have seen a level of political and media attention on both sides of the Atlantic that is markedly and unprecedentedly up on that for these sorts of deals in the past. Last week, we had a top-level political stock-take led by Commissioner de Gucht and US trade representative Michael Froman on progress so far.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

Like everyone in the House, I want this partnership to succeed and for us to get to an end point. On the stock-take, the EU Commissioner noted that the areas of difference between the parties are still larger than the common ground they share. Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern that there may be slippage in the timetable?

[John Healey]

There may indeed; the hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. He has been part of the cross-party efforts in this House in taking the debate about the potential for this deal out more widely into the country, and he spoke at a business debate in Reading in his constituency.

What I fear more than slippage in the timetable is that we are entering a period in the life cycle of any trade negotiations when the uncertainty and the risks are greatest. It is still unclear what exactly is on the table, those with specific concerns are voicing them fiercely, those with general support for the deal are still muted, and the specific tangible benefits that may come to Britain are still not really clear. This is a period of significant risk, when elections to Congress and to the European Parliament during the course of the year may detract from some of the political momentum and support. The onus on Parliaments and Governments such as ours to maintain that political support and momentum during the months ahead is therefore greater than ever.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Sharma Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

Parts of my constituency are suffering from flooding. I want to put on record my thanks to the council officers from West Berkshire council and Reading borough council, the volunteer flood wardens in places such as Purley and the soldiers of the 7th Battalion the Rifles for the work they are doing to help my constituents. I welcome the schemes the Prime Minister has talked about to help individuals and businesses. Will he ensure that the details of those schemes are made available to everyone affected, so that they can make use of them?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I know that he is working very hard to bring people together in his own constituency to make sure that everything that can be done in Reading is done. Obviously, they will be concerned about the rise in the Thames. We will publish details of all the announcements I have made, and we will add into that the fact that the major banks are coming forward with more than £750 million of financial support, which will mean repayment holidays, reduced or waived fees, loan extensions, increased flexibility of terms and specialist support teams deployed on the ground for businesses and farmers who desperately need help. It is a time for our insurance companies and our banks to demonstrate real social responsibility. I believe that they are beginning to do that and we should encourage them to do so.

Deregulation Bill

Lord Sharma Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Government Policy (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I will begin by saying something that several in the House might find mildly surprising in the context of this debate: regulation is often sensible and necessary. It is no part of the Government’s plans or our view of life to suggest that regulation is never useful. Indeed, like previous Governments, this Government are presiding over an immense amount of regulation, much of which is constructive and helpful. Nevertheless, it remains true that what we inherited in 2010 was not just a rational set of regulations that anybody who looked at them carefully would have sponsored. There were all sorts of regulations that, frankly, made no sense at all. What we set out to do in 2010 was to review the entire regulatory scene. We have put in an enormous amount of effort, and I am immensely grateful to those in the civil service and outside who have helped us.

As we have gone through regulation after regulation, we have in many instances discovered that there are things being regulated that no longer exist. There are regulators doing things that no longer have any useful purpose, and bodies that are provided for in regulations that no longer function. We have also found that there are things being regulated that do exist, and for which regulations are still operative, but on which such regulation ought not to exist. I suspect that dealing with such matters would be uncontroversial among hon. Members, and I shall give the House two minor, slightly amusing, examples.

On inspection, it turned out that every time the Mayor of London or a borough of London wanted to set up a statue to any grand figure of our past, they had to seek, under a regulation, the specific approval of the Secretary of State. That is clearly completely mad, so I am glad to say that the Bill will remove that particular amusement. A second example—it is a particular favourite of mine, as it has taken a very long time to get this changed—is that until we manage to get the Bill enacted so that clause 40 becomes law, I regret to tell the House that it remains the case that it is an offence to sell liqueur chocolates to under 16s. I can sort of see why someone had the crazy idea to legislate for that at some point, but it does not make any sense, so we are getting rid of it.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is starting to outline a delicious smorgasbord of deregulation. I am particularly pleased about the clauses that will cut red tape for business. When the Departments looked at everything that could be deregulated, were there examples that they wanted to include in the Bill, but could not because they are overridden by EU legislation?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

The hon. Gentleman would be pleased if his Government had our record on growth and business starts.

We now know where the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) has been hiding for the past year. He has been off with the Minister for Government Policy tackling big issues such as deregulating the sale of knitting yarn, freeing our children to buy their own chocolate liqueurs and decriminalising household waste. When the Prime Minister told people suffering from high energy bills to put on a jumper, the Minister sprang into action by making it easier for them to knit their own.

[Alok Sharma]

rose—

[Chi Onwurah]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has something to say about knitting yarn.

[Alok Sharma]

My right hon. Friend the Minister for Government Policy made the point that there is a lot of regulation that we can do nothing about because of EU regulation. If the hon. Lady cares so much about regulation, why will she not support the European Union (Referendum) Bill?

[Chi Onwurah]

I know that the Government face a real challenge in keeping their Members off the subject of Europe, but perhaps in this debate on deregulation, they will understand that we are not here to discuss the potential of a referendum. I will come on later to talk about the relevance of Europe to the matter under discussion. Europe is not the issue that confronts my constituents today. My constituents are being hit by the cost of living crisis and the measures that this Government, not Europe, have brought in to ensure that their wages do not rise at the same rate as prices.

It is nice to know that when the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government spoke eloquently about every Englishman’s right to have the remnants of their tikka masala collected promptly, the Minister boldly made sure that they would not face prosecution if they placed it in the wrong receptacle. It is all in this Bill—farriers, road humps and late-night takeaways. This is the Christmas tree Bill to end all Christmas tree Bills. In fact, Christmas trees are one of the few things that are not covered by this Bill.

[Alok Sharma]

rose—

[Chi Onwurah]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has something to say about that.

[Alok Sharma]

It appears that the hon. Lady is going to oppose every measure in this Bill. Is that the case?

[Chi Onwurah]

There are some measures in this rag, tag hotch-potch of a Bill that are welcome and that we do not oppose. What we oppose is the approach of this Government to a cost of living crisis, which is to attack the rights of ordinary working people.

By my count, the 69 clauses and 17 schedules cover at least 12 Whitehall Departments. As I have said, although there are many parts of the Bill that we support or do not oppose, there are some very disturbing proposals hidden beneath the knitting yarn, which we will vigorously oppose. There are fresh attacks on employment rights, with the removal of yet more powers from employment tribunals. Those are measures that the Government’s own impact assessment claims will have a negligible effect on businesses or even cost them money. We will not support any new attacks on working people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

I know that almost 1 million young people are unemployed and that 1.3 million people in part-time work are seeking full-time work. I also know, because I speak to these people in my constituency, that some people who are supposedly in jobs with zero-hours contracts are getting no work, cannot make any plans and cannot go out and spend money. That is the working environment that this Government support and that the next Labour Government will change.

Let us turn to the first, and most worrying, part of the Bill—the general measures affecting business. Exempting self-employed people in certain industries will create confusion about who is covered and who is not. The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, the chartered body of health and safety practitioners and the world’s largest health and safety professional membership organisation, is opposed to that, calling it

“a very short-sighted and misleading move”,

and saying that

“it won’t actually help anyone; it won’t support business; but it will cause general confusion.”

Even the Federation of Small Businesses, which supports the change in principle, says that the implications are not well understood and it is particularly concerned about the unintended consequences for insurance, which will need to be considered further in Committee if the Bill gets there.

The Bill will also remove employment tribunals’ power to make wider recommendations to employers who have been judged to have discriminated against someone unlawfully. Such recommendations are only advisory—they are not mandatory and they promote good working practice. Why are the Government trying to prescribe the ability of tribunals to make observations? What are they afraid of? The Prime Minister says that we are in a global race, but that race cannot be won by attacking employment rights at every opportunity. The Opposition will not support a race to the bottom.

The House of Commons Library considered the impact assessment for that measure and found that despite the Minister labelling it deregulatory and counting it as an out under the Government’s arbitrary one in, two out system, business will incur a cost as a result of the removal of the power. Only this Government could propose a supposedly deregulatory measure that costs business money. Those on the Front Bench look slightly puzzled; this is work by the House of Commons Library.

[Alok Sharma]

I am not sure how often the hon. Lady talks to business, but perhaps she saw the submission from the British Chambers of Commerce, which said:

“The BCC supports the thrust of this Bill. The BCC welcomes measures to reduce unnecessary health and safety regulations on the self-employed”.

She should talk to business more before she comes to this House.

[Chi Onwurah]

I have just quoted the FSB, which stands for the Federation of Small Businesses—I hope that the hon. Gentleman is aware of that. I talk to business regularly and if he disagrees with the FSB, we would be pleased to hear the evidence on which that is based.

The Government sacked hundreds of staff at great expense several years ago, and they are now seeking to re-employ them through a recruitment firm, hiring at least half of them. I have seen the job advert, and apparently they will work on the Government’s red tape challenge and deregulation programme. [Interruption.] Well, it is certainly true that the Government need all the help that they can get, but I hope that they will succeed—

Tributes to Baroness Thatcher

Lord Sharma Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

It is a great honour to speak in this debate paying tribute to Baroness Thatcher. Many colleagues have spoken with great eloquence about their personal experiences of Baroness Thatcher and her kindness. I did not know her personally and that is my personal loss. However, she was an inspiration to my family, my parents and me.

My father often remarked that Margaret Thatcher was not just the first British female Prime Minister, but the first British Asian Prime Minister. He was not joking—he does do jokes, but never about Baroness Thatcher. He always said that she might not look like us, but she absolutely thought like us. What he meant was that she shared and empathised with our values, experiences and ethos. She faced prejudice not because of her race but because of her gender. As the Prime Minister said earlier, in his moving tribute, she understood what it took to break through the glass ceiling. For immigrant families such as mine, she was aspiration personified.

The Prime Minister and the Government are absolutely right to push forward policies to rebuild an aspiration nation. Baroness Thatcher was the original architect of the modern British aspiration nation. She believed in people working hard and being rewarded for it. She believed in education as a great leveller. She believed in helping entrepreneurs, business and the private sector to create the wealth to pay for our public services. She believed in respect for the rule of law. Those are all values espoused by many immigrant communities, such as the one I come from.

My parents started their own business in the late ’70s. As anyone who has run a business or tried to run one knows, it is pretty hard work when it first gets started. My parents certainly went through some pretty tricky times, but the one thing of which they and I am absolutely certain is that if it were not for the economic policies that Margaret Thatcher and her Governments followed, they would not have prospered—and without them, I would certainly not be here today.

Americans often talk about the great American dream, and I can say that Margaret Thatcher inspired the great British dream. What she said to all of us, whether we were from the working class or were immigrants from wherever it might be, was that it was possible for each and every one of us to reach to the stars in Britain. That is something of which I am incredibly proud. Margaret Thatcher is someone to whom my family and I have an enormous debt of gratitude, and there are millions of families like mine up and down this nation who feel exactly the same way.

It was because of Mrs Thatcher that I got involved in the Conservative party. That is why I, like many other colleagues, started delivering leaflets for the Conservative party at the age of 11. I rejoiced in her victory of 1979 and I rejoiced again in her historic victory in 1987, having spent a few weeks being the bag carrier for my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) during the general election campaign.

Her leadership was aspirational, inspirational and transformational. She was a global phenomenon—a towering international leader who profoundly touched and affected people across the globe, not just in this country. When the sad news came that she had passed on, I—along, I am sure, with many other colleagues—received messages from friends throughout the world. Let me end by reading a short text I received from a friend who is a female politician in Indonesia who never met Margaret Thatcher. This is what she said:

“My deepest condolence for the passing away of Baroness Thatcher, who is a great inspiration, especially for many women. May she rest in peace.”

Charitable Registration

Lord Sharma Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce]

There are two more dichotomies: there appears to be no challenge to the rating exemption of gospel halls, provided that they have an appropriate notice outside; and, as devolved legislation, charity registration is dealt with differently in Scotland. I understand that the charitable registration of religious organisations in Scotland is not being challenged, so we could have a bizarre situation whereby, for example, a Brethren church in Scotland is registered as a charity and is able to claim tax exemption through the HMRC regulations, but its sister or brother church in England or Wales is not.

Earlier this year, the Charity Commission advised the Preston Down Trust’s solicitors that

“As a matter of law we are not able to satisfy ourselves and conclusively determine that Preston Down Trust is established for exclusively charitable purposes for public benefit and suitable for registration as a charity.”

That came as a complete surprise to the Plymouth Brethren organisation because it has been recognised as having charitable status for more than 50 years.

The Plymouth Brethren Church is a Christian Church that was established in 1828 as a breakaway from the Church of England and has some 16,000 members across the country. The Brethren’s Bible is the same Bible used by the Church of England and other mainstream Christian denominations with nothing added and nothing taken away.

The case is now the subject of an appeal by the Brethren to the charities first-tier tribunal and has been of extreme concern to Plymouth Brethren churches across the country since the Charity Commission refused the Preston Down Trust’s application, which was a sample application that effectively challenged the charitable status of up to 300 other Plymouth Brethren trusts, some of which are in Scotland.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate; there is clearly huge interest among hon. Members. In Reading, we have three gospel halls run by the Brethren that do very good public works. Does my hon. Friend agree that the case goes wider than the Brethren? The Charity Commission could be setting a precedent, which is something that none of us wants. Does she agree that we need to be careful to ensure that there is fairness and that we do not set a precedent that we will regret?

[Fiona Bruce]

I absolutely agree. Some smaller Christian denominations are seriously concerned. I know who they are, but they do not wish to be named for obvious reasons. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of independent free Churches that potentially also have cause for concern but, incidentally, do not have the resources to appeal, as the Brethren have, to the tribunal.

G8 and NATO Summits

Lord Sharma Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

When I went to Nigeria and met the UK Trade & Investment team in Lagos, I was hugely impressed by its work and its dedication, and also by the incredible links between British Nigerians and Nigerian British, as it were, working between the two countries. We work very closely with the Nigerian Government on security, because there are considerable security challenges, particularly in the north of the country. Security training and counter-terrorism co-operation between the UK and Nigeria can help produce major dividends both for that country and for trade and investment.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

Given that increasing exports to emerging economies needs to be a key part of the growth strategy of many of the G8 nations, will the Prime Minister update us on any discussions he has had with other European leaders on progress on the pending free trade agreement between the EU and India?

[The Prime Minister]

We had a number of discussions about the free trade agreements. There is a series of such agreements: the Indian one; the Canadian one; the chance of getting one going with Japan. My view is that all of them are good news. The Korean one has been a success, and we need to drive them all forward—and we are certainly in the vanguard of doing that.