Space Policy

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement.

We welcome this investment in the UK space sector. The global space economy, currently valued at about £160 billion, is estimated to be worth £400 billion by 2030. The UK should be leading the way. But why has it taken the Minister so long to come to the House with an announcement that was briefed to the papers three days ago? I hope he does not see the sector as merely a means to positive headlines for a beleaguered Government.

I have characterised Government policy in this area as “lost in space”. While this announcement is a step forward, it certainly does not mean it’s coming home. The Minister is right to talk about the inspirational nature of space and its down to earth economic benefits. At this morning’s Foundation for Science and Technology roundtable, which I attended, NASA’s chief technologist was able to set out the spin-offs from its programme. I look forward to a UK Minister being able to do the same. However, while the Government’s industrial strategy promised £1 billion in space technology investment over four years, this week’s announcement amounts to much less than that. So I ask the Minister: when will the Government announce the release of further funds for space? Will that be impacted by the £5 billion cost of his Galileo replacement? When will the space sector deal be published?

The thriving industry that we all want to see requires a strong regulatory framework and engagement with industry, yet the Space Industry Act 2018, passed earlier this year, is but a skeleton. When will the secondary legislation be in place to provide the regulatory certainty the industry needs? In addition, drones can affect the launch of spacecraft, but they are not covered under the Act. When will the Government bring forward the promised legislation to deal with them?

As Lord Heseltine made clear in his response to the Government’s industrial strategy, the European Space Agency is a great example of proactive industrial intervention by British Government at European level. This Government could learn a lot. Four fifths of Government investment in space is made through the agency, but the Government’s chaotic Brexit is endangering public and private investment, with Airbus announcing in April that it would relocate work on a €200 million ESA contract from Portsmouth to the continent. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure the UK continues to play a leading role in the ESA post Brexit? How will we maintain space sector supply chains, and the exchange of space scientists and engineers on which they depend?

The proposed Sutherland spaceport will be the northernmost operational spaceport in the world. As a Newcastle MP, I am all for going north. However, spaceports are overwhelmingly sited near the equator where the Earth’s rotational speed is highest, allowing rockets to harness an additional natural boost. Does funding take into account the potential extra costs associated, and what factors were taken into consideration when choosing the location far from the equator, although close to Tory marginals?

As the Minister said, the entire country should benefit from the amazing opportunities posed by space. What steps are the Government taking to ensure the fair regional distribution of space sector supply chains, creating good jobs across the country and ensuring that those jobs should be open to all in a diverse and inclusive space sector?

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank the Opposition spokesperson for recognising and welcoming the good news this week.

The announcement was made at Farnborough, but my statement demonstrates that there is far more going on in the Government’s space policy than that specific announcement: deeper collaboration with NASA in the US; collaboration with the European Space Agency; investment in our capacity at Harwell; and a space sector deal. So this statement goes far beyond what was announced at Farnborough earlier this week, and it is all good news that I think the House will welcome and, hopefully, celebrate.

On the European Space Agency and our role in Europe, the hon. Lady will know that the ESA is not an EU institution; it is independent of the EU and we are, and will continue to be, a leading member. We see the ESA as key to our strategy for international collaboration—and it is worth recognising that the fact it has “European” in its name does not make it an EU institution, as was suggested.

All the announcements made today are in addition to what we will do with regard to Galileo. We have made it clear in our EU negotiations that our first preference would be to continue to participate in all elements of the Galileo system; that would include the security and sensitive parts of the system, but it should also include UK industry’s being able to participate in it. Were that not forthcoming, we have the option of building our own satellite system. The UK is a proud and independent country, and as a lot of the know-how and skills for the Galileo system is from UK-based companies, I am confident that we could build our own. To that end, the Prime Minister has set up a taskforce to look at the feasibility of doing so, and once that information is available it will be made public to the House and more widely.

On why the first space launch in the UK will be in Scotland and not near the equator, I can reassure Members that equator launches tend to be large satellites to geostationary orbit, but the growth we are talking about here is in small satellites and these tend to be polar. That is why we are ideally located as a country to take advantage of that emerging technology.

This is a huge opportunity for this country, and we are determined that all of the UK should benefit. Not only Scotland, but Cornwall and Snowdonia have the potential to benefit, and the announcements this week will allow market development in all of these areas. The private sector will of course ultimately carry this forward, and there is nothing to stop local authorities working with the private sector to capture the benefits of this huge development for our economy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Richard Harrington]

I hope the hon. Gentleman does not think my eyes are too wide. Despite your efforts last week, Mr Speaker, there seems to be a shortage of Members on both sides of the Chamber who have actually read the White Paper. I would be very happy to give one to him.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Moving to electric vehicles should be transformative for our country and our £77 billion car sector, creating new markets and jobs in manufacturing, services, the supply chain and battery recycling. What are the Government doing? Their Faraday challenge does not cover manufacturing or skills, they have ditched renewable energy investment, delayed the £400 million investment in charging infrastructure and allowed the takeover of GKN’s world-leading battery technology, and yesterday they voted for a customs plan that will sever automotive supply chains, putting more than 800,000 jobs at risk. Is it not the Government’s role to help create high-skilled, high-productivity jobs, not destroy them?

[Richard Harrington]

I totally agree with the hon. Lady: it is the Government’s role to do exactly that. That is why we have the Faraday battery challenge, which covers skills, and why the Government are putting so much effort into battery technology and clean technology for this country. I am very proud of that. I have seen skills in the automotive industry when I have visited car factories and the schools around them. The number of apprenticeships shows that the Government are totally committed to skills. We have a very bright future with batteries.

Leaving the EU: Airbus Risk Assessment

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

It is imperative that we do not do that. I am actually more optimistic than my right hon. and learned Friend about the prospects of a deal that will avoid that. Part of what this company and others have said is that it is strongly in the mutual interest of this international business that there should be an orderly agreement that allows a very successful company to continue to trade without friction. I think that that is in prospect.

We are leaving the European Union; that decision has been clearly taken. The task before us is to make an agreement that implements that decision and which, at the same time, ensures that these avoidable threats of frictions and tariffs do not take place. That is absolutely within our grasp and it is what the whole House should back during the months ahead.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) on securing it and on so eloquently setting out the importance of Airbus to our economy and the 110,000 workers whose livelihoods depend on it.

Airbus is not alone. Last week we heard from: BMW, which has 8,000 workers; Unipart, with 6,000 workers; Siemens, with 15,000 workers; and INEOS, which has 18,500 workers. These are the ones that have put their heads above the parapet, to be shot down by their own Government. The Secretary of State may say that he is listening, but the Health Secretary calls Airbus “completely inappropriate”, the Trade Secretary blames the EU and it would be unparliamentary to fully quote the Foreign Secretary, wherever he is.

Businesses are told to shut up when they call for clarity, Labour MPs are accused of scaremongering and Conservative MPs are called traitors. This Government are so insecure—so at odds with themselves and the country—that they cannot stand scrutiny. Their chaotic handling of Brexit is dividing the country, not bringing it together, and it is risking our industrial base. They should abandon their red lines, rule out no deal, accept that a new customs union and single market is in all our interests, and give business and workers the certainty that they need—or step aside for a Labour Government who will.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

It is for the Scottish Government to make their own budget representations, but as we have always said, we are committed to the roll-out of superfast broadband across the UK. Some 95% of the country has superfast broadband, thanks to the work of this Government.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Science is a great British success story, supporting jobs and growth across the country. With Europe’s funding for UK science down a fifth, more than 6,000 engineers and scientists denied visas in this year alone and universities reporting that Brexit chaos is freezing them out of Europe’s new £90 billion science fund, UK science risks crashing down to earth. Does the Minister accept that his threat to spend the entire UK science budget on duplicating Galileo because the Government have bungled negotiations on this £9 billion UK-EU collaboration is final proof that his science strategy is lost in space?

[Mr Gyimah]

As I said, we have the biggest increase in science and innovation in this country for 40 years. As for the UK-EU science collaboration, the EU Commissioner himself said:

“It is very important for the UK and it is very important for the EU to have a relationship in science and innovation. We’ve had this relationship for so long”.

On Galileo, negotiations are under way and we have made it very clear not only that it benefits the UK but that EU member states stand to lose skills and other important issues without the UK’s involvement.

Industrial Strategy

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

This has been a timely, well-attended and generally well-informed debate. Members on both sides of the House have come together to call for an industrial strategy that brings good jobs to every region in our post-Brexit world. I listened with considerable respect to the contributions made by the hon. Members for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) and for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey), the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies), my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), the hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey), my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), the hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), the hon. Members for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) and for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney), and the hon. Members for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) and for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley).

Given the Secretary of State’s predecessor’s refusal to utter the words “industrial” and “strategy” in sequence, the current Secretary of State’s rhetoric is to be welcomed. But it is just that: rhetoric from a Government forced to accept the reality facing working people. The White Paper, while lengthy—it was generously padded out to 256 pages with glossy pictures and large type—did little to turn that rhetoric into reality. To take just one example, my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State pointed out that the Government’s target of spending 2.4% of GDP on research and development by 2027 is inadequate. By contrast, Labour would raise investment in R&D to 3% by 2030, ensuring that the UK has the greatest proportion of high-skilled jobs in the OECD as a consequence. My hon. Friends the Members for Aberavon and for Glasgow North East called for just such an economy.

The Government’s strategy is not only under-resourced but sectoral, favouring sectors and areas that are already well organised and can push to the front of the queue. As Sheffield Hallam University researchers found last year, the Government’s pledges would have an impact on only 10% of our manufacturing base and only 1% of the whole economy. Many Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for West Bromwich West and for Luton North, considered the implications of this disparity for their constituencies. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North implied, this is not so much about picking winners as rewarding those who have already won.

Let me take one example: Cambridge, a city that has contributed so much to the country’s innovation economy. With a population of 285,000, it has as many private R&D jobs as the whole of the north, which has 50 times more people. This must not be an either/or. We need an industrial strategy that maintains our current centres of excellence, while ensuring that other areas can grow successful innovation-intensive economies as we move outside the European Union. Unlike the Government, we are not just focusing on headline-grabbing tech trends. We are committed to putting innovation at the heart of the lowest-paid and least productive sectors, for example by creating a retail catapult to support the 2.8 million people in our retail sector.

The Government’s industrial strategy has no strategy to it and it has nothing to say about the fundamental workings of our economy. As the world-leading economist Mariana Mazzucato argues in her new book, “The Value of Everything”, at the heart of capitalism’s fundamental failure is the two faces of financialisation. The first is the way in which the financial sector has stopped resourcing the real economy. Instead of investing in companies that produce stuff, finance is financing finance. Why would someone lend money for a manufacturing plant that can take years to yield a return and cannot easily be sold on when they could bet on some options hedged with other options and virtually guarantee a return in a few weeks? With so much financial engineering demanding investment, real engineering does not stand a chance.

The second is the financialisation of the real economy. With industry driven by short-term returns, this results in less reinvestment of profits and rising burdens of debt, which in a vicious cycle makes industry even more driven by short-term considerations. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington emphasised, the sale of GKN to Melrose demonstrated that this Government are not prepared to step into defend our long-term economic industrial assets when they are under threat. Every time, short-term interest takes precedence.

We need a real industrial strategy that lays out a vision for the high-wage, high-skill, high-productivity economy that we want to build. As well as the two existing missions that my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State laid out earlier, our industrial strategy is based on a platform of strong horizontal policies—from our national education service making lifelong learning free at the point of use, to our £250 billion national transformation fund to deliver much-needed infrastructure improvements across our country and our diversity charter challenges to ensure that businesses draw on a wide range of talents.

Our approach is positive and practical. It speaks to the student who is anxious about their future, the single mum working two minimum wage jobs and the Redcar steelworker wanting a job to be proud of. It addresses the crisis in productivity, skills and wages that keeps us poorer, even with unemployment relatively low. The Secretary of State has already borrowed from our approach to an industrial strategy on more than one occasion—imitation is the sincerest form of flattery—and I urge him to do so again for the good of our economic future.

GKN: Proposed Takeover by Melrose

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) for calling this important debate and acknowledge the many impressive contributions by Members on both sides of the Chamber. We heard that GKN is one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious engineering firms. As an engineer myself, I can imagine people’s pride at knowing they are following in such an illustrious tradition. I appreciate the pride of the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) and my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) at having GKN in their constituencies, and that of other Members, too.

GKN is at the centre of the fourth industrial revolution, boasting of strengths in defence, aerospace, automotive, batteries and the internet of things. My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West set out the significance of its economic contribution, and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) emphasised the significance of its investment in R&D in the United Kingdom. As the shadow Minister for industrial strategy and a chartered engineer, I believe that all those factors make GKN an important part of our future innovation economy. As my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) and for Caerphilly emphasised, it plays an important part in our national security, too.

Members on both sides of the Chamber critiqued the Melrose bid. Unite, which represents most GKN workers, has called the bid “predatory” and Melrose an “asset-stripper”. It calls for the Government to halt the bid, as does the Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves). Melrose contests that, but admits that it would cut GKN’s management, deliver a “fundamental” culture change, sell sections of the company and boost the firm’s profitability through what its CEO calls

“the catharsis of a change of control.”

It sounds like Melrose is an advocate of Schumpeterian creative destruction, but with little regard for what is destroyed or, indeed, created. In practical terms, that could mean the closure of sites and divisions across the UK, the loss of jobs, a threat to pensions, as we heard, and the disappearance of crucial engineering expertise.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington emphasised, Melrose’s record does little to assuage those concerns. It does not make purchases for the long term. The biggest example is its stewardship of Brush Turbogenerators, bought as part of FKI in 2008. Since then, the firm has had five different managing directors, and just last month it announced that it would cut up to 270 jobs in Loughborough and shift production overseas, despite the fact that last year Melrose paid out bonuses worth £160 million to only four people. My hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) remarked earlier this week that meeting representatives from Melrose was like “meeting neoliberalism in person.”

However troubling we might find Melrose’s practices, this is not about just one company; it is about how our economy works. The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy hosted and attended the first meeting of the University College London commission for mission-oriented innovation and industrial strategy, chaired by world-leading economist Mariana Mazzucato. In her new book, she argues that the “two faces of financialisation” are at the heart of capitalism’s fundamental failure. The first is the way in which the financial sector has stopped resourcing the real economy—making stuff. Instead of investing in companies that make stuff, finance is financing finance.

The second aspect is the financialisation of the real economy, with industry driven by short-term returns, which results in less reinvestment of profits and rising burdens of debt in a vicious cycle, which makes industry ever more driven by short-term considerations. Such finance is not neutral but changes the nature of what it finances. As we have seen in Melrose’s approach to managing Brush, its short-termism has led it to neglect the difficult, costly business of maintaining sunk assets such as factories or developing new technologies, such as those we heard about in the automotive sector. Melrose’s expenditure on R&D is proportionally less than a fifth of GKN’s.

Melrose’s track record indicates that it will focus on strategies such as offshoring jobs that neglect people and places but provide an immediate financial return. A Melrose takeover would therefore lead to the financialisation of GKN, placing UK jobs under threat and eroding our industrial base. That was very much the point made by Tom Williams, the chief operating officer of Airbus, when he said it would be practically impossible for his company to give new work to GKN after a Melrose takeover.

The debate is not about Melrose alone but about how our country’s economy works. As the Leader of the Opposition said last month at the EEF conference:

“The next Labour Government will be the first in 40 years to stand up for the real economy. We will take decisive action to make finance the servant of industry, not the masters of all.”

In the immediate term, as Members on both sides have said, there are powers that the Government can use to stop the Melrose takeover. When I mentioned that in the Chamber to the Secretary of State, he said, correctly, that according to the Enterprise Act 2002 he could intervene

“only in mergers that raise public interest concerns on the grounds of national security, financial stability or media plurality.”—[Official Report, 13 March 2018; Vol. 637, c. 711.]

As others, including Unite and the BEIS Committee have made clear, the proposed takeover raises national security concerns, given GKN’s close involvement with sensitive defence projects. While the Minister cannot answer in detail, will he answer in principle whether the Government believe that Melrose’s proposed takeover could raise public interest concerns on the grounds of national security? Will he explain what process the Government will go through in reaching a conclusion?

The Secretary of State also praised his Government’s corporate governance reforms, which

“have ensured that GKN had longer to prepare its defence, preventing the kind of smash and grab raid that Cadbury’s was subjected to under the previous Government”.—[Official Report, 13 March 2018; Vol. 637, c. 711.]

That has been mentioned in the debate. Kraft’s takeover of Cadbury in January 2010 did prompt changes to the takeover code in 2011 and further amendments to the takeover regime with the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2012, which set up the Competition and Markets Authority. I served on the Bill Committee, when Labour proposed amendments to strengthen the new CMA and broaden the scope of the public interest test. For example, one amendment would have allowed the Secretary of State to consider the effects of the proposed merger on the long-term competitiveness of the UK economy as part of the public interest test.

I sat and watched as the Government voted down amendment after amendment that would have provided them with a framework to act. Will the Government now explore and legislate for the expansion and broadening of the public interest test, which they failed to do six years ago? That would not be without precedent—for example, the financial stability clause, added in 2008 during the financial crisis. Can we tighten the financial stability test to include considerations of long-term financial viability, as suggested by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black)?

Only this morning, Unilever announced that it will relocate its headquarters from London to Rotterdam. One key factor in that decision was the greater protection afforded to the company by Dutch takeover law. Will the Government look at improving the protection offered by takeover rules to British companies?

Both Dana and Melrose have questions to answer with regard to the future of pension schemes that GKN is currently responsible for. Will the Minister explain what assessment has been made of the schemes and what assurances the Government have sought?

The Secretary of State talks of building an economy for the long term, just as his predecessor did. This is a litmus test for his industrial strategy. It cannot hold if time and time again our most successful and innovative companies are taken over and then taken apart. Investing in innovation is a long-term bet; Melrose is a short-term player. Do the Government have the will to build a high-skill, high-wage, high-productivity economy, or is casino capitalism what our future holds?

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Minister, I ask him to leave three minutes at the end to allow Adrian Bailey to sum up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is a champion of this sector. The Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), has met the vice- president of Brookfield and expressed our continuing support for Springfields to have a future in providing fuel for plants in this country and overseas.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

GKN was forged in our country’s first industrial revolution. It built the tanks used in the D-day landings, and its innovative battery technology will power our future economy. The Government’s industrial strategy identifies batteries as a key technology and manufacturing as a priority sector, yet the Secretary of State has nothing to say about the hostile takeover of that great firm. Why is it that all too often, as with Arm and Unilever, his industrial strategy seems to leave great British success stories less great or less British?

[Greg Clark]

I would have thought that the hon. Lady would have informed herself as to the responsibility of Ministers under the Enterprise Act 2002. That Act, which was passed under the previous Labour Government, states that Ministers can intervene only in mergers that raise public interest concerns on the grounds of national security, financial stability or media plurality. She should know that the Government’s corporate governance reforms have ensured that GKN had longer to prepare its defence, preventing the kind of smash and grab raid that Cadbury’s was subjected to under the previous Government, and that provision has been made for legally binding undertakings to be given in takeover bids. Those are intended to be used, and I would be surprised and disappointed if any bidder did not make their intentions clear, extensive and legally binding.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I gently remind colleagues that at topical questions progress is expected to be much quicker? We need short, sharp inquiries; people should not simply seek to bring into topicals what they would have asked had they been called—which they were not—in substantive questions. Pithy questions; pithy answers.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I shall try to be pithy, Mr Speaker.

GKN is a great British engineering company, forged in the first industrial revolution with strengths in defence, aerospace, automotive, batteries and the internet of things, which should place it at the heart of our future economy—high skills, high productivity and high wage—but the debt-driven hostile takeover threatens 6,000 UK workers, pension funds and the supply chain. The Secretary of State has said that he will not comment on individual cases, so may I ask him a general question? Does he believe that it is in the national interest for City investment houses to use debt to dismantle our industrial base?

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Lady understands the constraints that I have in any particular takeover. As a feature of our economy, it is very important that we have investment into our companies from those with the capital to do so. That is why we have a regime that limits the grounds for intervention, but there are certain grounds that I will have to consider during the time ahead.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I do agree with that, and I commend my hon. Friend as the former life sciences Minister who saw before many people the opportunities of the strategic approach. I think he has been honoured this very week by the learned societies for his contribution to promoting science in Parliament, and I congratulate him on that. He is absolutely right that we need to build on these successes. The life sciences sector deal is a demonstration that a long-term strategy can have immediate benefits; we have had more than £1 billion of investment on the basis of the confidence that the sector has in the strategy we have set out.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

With a few notable exceptions, I am sure we would all agree that technology has improved the productivity of this House, but the same is not true for our country: productivity has stagnated since 2010, and we produce 25% less in an hour than the Germans and French, crippling business and making us all poorer. Last week the Chancellor tried to blame disabled workers, but his own Budget fails to invest in science and productivity until 2021. Will the Secretary of State admit that the Chancellor’s ideological austerity, meaning we fail to invest in our engines of economic growth, is the real handicap here?

[Greg Clark]

I do not agree with the hon. Lady, and if she reads the industrial strategy she will see that the biggest increase in science and innovation investment for 40 years has been triggered by this. It is the right way to go, and it has been welcomed by all parties across the country. It would be helpful if the hon. Lady recognised that many other countries have benefited from a strong national commitment to improving investment in productivity, such as through science and innovation, and that gives confidence to overseas investors.

Draft Scotland Act 2016 (Onshore Petroleum) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2017

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2017 General Committees

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I thank the Minister for introducing the draft order. She, and your, Mrs Moon, have set out the title of the statutory instrument so clearly that I do not feel the need to repeat it. For the benefit of the Whips, and those Members with pressing engagements, I shall start by saying that the Labour party does not oppose the statutory instrument.

As set out, the Scotland Act 2016 provides for a range of devolved powers to Scotland. As recommended by the Smith commission, it was agreed that powers related to onshore oil and gas licensing would be devolved to Scotland. That was set out in sections 47 to 49 of the 2016 Act. At the same time, as the Minister has already set out, all aspects of taxation of oil and gas receipts remain reserved. The statutory instrument makes minor amendments to existing tax legislation, such that the wording reflects the new powers over licensing granted to Scottish Ministers through the 2016 Act. I will not go into those amendments now; suffice it to say, they are minor, technical and uncontroversial changes.

The statutory instrument, once it becomes law, will devolve licensing power for petroleum exploration and development to Scottish Ministers. Will the Minister confirm that that includes fracking, in addition to other more conventional forms of drilling? If, as I believe, it does, the statutory instrument means that there will be no fracking in future in Scotland—at least as long as the present devolved SNP Administration remains in place—because the First Minister has said that her Government are opposed to it. Does the Minister agree and appreciate that there will be no fracking in Scotland as a result of the legislation, and does she have any views on the implications for England as a consequence? Specifically, has she had any discussions with companies that are looking to frack in England and Wales and that may have wished to expand their operations to Scotland? That would change the size of the fracking market in the United Kingdom. Those questions aside, I have no opposition to the statutory instrument.