I want to return the Secretary of State to the question asked by the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) about the many businesses that are part of the 3 million ExcludedUK group. They include over 2 million people who are essentially self-employed but have been disqualified from help under the self-employment scheme for various—often arbitrary—reasons. In many cases, this is not simply rough justice but deep unfairness. Many of these individuals are not high earners. Will the Secretary of State give an indication that he recognises that this is an injustice, and can he tell us how he plans to address it?

This issue of 3 million people being excluded is not going away. Let me ask him about the winding down of the furlough scheme. Yesterday, Make UK, the manufacturers’ organisation, said that a furlough extension was vital to prevent a “jobs bloodbath” in aerospace and automotive. We see the looming threat too in sectors that have not yet reopened, such as events and exhibitions, and those operating well below capacity, such as hospitality. Yet from next week, the Government are insisting that every single employer, whatever their industry, will have to start contributing to the furlough. Does the Secretary of State not recognise that this decision to phase out the furlough, irrespective of circumstances, risks handing a P45 to hundreds of thousands of workers?

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. We support the principle of maintaining the UK’s internal market, which is vital for trade, jobs, and prosperity across the whole United Kingdom. The way the Government go about that has profound implications for whether we drive up standards across the UK, or drive them down, and for whether that issue becomes a source of tension across the four nations of the UK. We believe in our United Kingdom, and there is a big responsibility on the Government to seek to build consensus, and ensure that we do not drive a wedge between our nations or give an excuse to those who wish to do so.

By those standards, there are significant problems in the announcement. On the process, for example, the Welsh Government were promised a draft of this White Paper last March, yet when I talked to the Welsh First Minister yesterday afternoon, the Government had still not shared it with him. That approach does the Secretary of State and the Government no good. On the substance, we should be honest that there is a real challenge regarding how we maintain an internal market without barriers in the UK as we leave the European Union, while at the same time respecting devolution when issues such as food standards and labelling, animal welfare, and other important environmental issues are devolved.

For the past 40 years, including 20 years of devolution, that has been achieved by the EU setting minimum standards, which all four nations had to abide by. The crucial question is not whether we have an internal market, which we need, but how we now set minimum standards to ensure that each nation has a proper voice in doing so, and a means of resolving any disputes that arise. By answering those questions, we can do what we need to do, which is both keep the internal market and respect devolution. Unfortunately, despite the warm words from the Secretary of State, the approach of the White Paper as presented for England, Scotland and Wales appears to be simply to legislate that the lowest standard chosen by one Parliament must become the minimum standard for all.

The risk is that one legislature would be able to lower its food safety standards and animal welfare standards, and force the other nations, which would have no recourse, to accept goods and services produced on that basis— in other words, a race to the bottom. The Secretary of State talks about levelling up, but there is a real risk of levelling down. That is not in the interests of consumers, workers or businesses, and it does not adequately respect devolution. For Northern Ireland, if standards in the UK diverge significantly below those of the EU, there is a real risk that checks on food and other products going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland would increase in parallel.

The Secretary of State must, in the course of this consultation, provide better answers for how we avoid that race to the bottom, so let me ask him four specific questions. First, will he explain what is the mechanism, if any, by which the four nations of the UK will agree minimum standards that respect the voice of each nation? He mentions the common frameworks process and an ongoing process of dialogue, but he must realise that that is superseded by the White Paper, which simply states that the lowest standard among the nations wins. If the framework process is to prevent that danger, how will it be incorporated into legislation?

Secondly, there needs to be a means of resolving disputes that can command confidence. The White Paper states:

“The Government will consider tasking an independent, advisory body to report to the UK Parliament”.

That is far too weak. Surely the Secretary of State must recognise that any independent body, if it is to respect devolution, must be accountable to all four nations, with its functions agreed by all four nations.

Thirdly, the Secretary of State must understand that the anxiety caused by the White Paper is partly due to the gap between the Government’s warm words about raising standards—we heard them again today—and their deeds. They had a chance in the Agriculture Bill to agree that no trade deal would be signed that lowered animal welfare, environmental protection or food safety standards, through an amendment tabled by their own side, but they refused to do so. The spectre of a Trump trade deal that would drive down standards and be imposed on the whole of the UK hangs over this White Paper. For years they have denied that their real agenda is a bonfire of much-needed standards. Great, but if they do not plan to lower standards, why cannot the Secretary of State agree to legally binding commitments?

Fourthly, the state aid rules need to be in place in just five months’ time, but even after this White Paper we still do not know any details about how they will work. Will the Secretary of State tell us when we will get the Government’s plans?

I want to end by saying to the right hon. Gentleman that we absolutely need to maintain the internal market from 1 January, but it is time the Government showed—in deeds, not just in words—their commitment to levelling up, not levelling down. It is time, too, that they showed a desire to build constitutional consensus, rather than risking constitutional conflict, and the White Paper is not a good start. The Secretary of State and the Government must do better in the weeks and months ahead.

May I start by thanking the Business Secretary for the constructive conversations that he and I have had on the Bill? As he knows, we support the measures contained in it.

The wider context to this Bill is the economic crisis that we face, the scale of which we have not seen for a very long time. As an Opposition, we have tried to work constructively with Government. Indeed, we have welcomed a number of steps that the Government have taken. We called for the furlough scheme and indeed have welcomed it, though we believe that too many people remain excluded from support. We called for the 100% underwriting of Government-backed loans, and we have welcomed the bounce back loans, too. We have also supported the Government on the difficult decision to move from 2 metres to 1 metre-plus where 2 metres cannot be observed, although we do have concerns about the test, track and trace system.

I hope that we can agree that the past few months have shown the power of Government to step in and protect jobs and businesses at a time of crisis. My case today is that that power has not gone away, and neither has the need for it to be exercised. The Government must not shrink from that, because, let us be clear, we are not at the end of this economic crisis, but just at the beginning of it.

Let me deal first with the provisions in the Bill. It is a short Bill and there is a large degree of agreement on it. The headline provisions, as the Secretary of State has said, will enable the hospitality industry to reopen quickly and serve a greater number of customers in a safe environment. We welcome the temporary loosening of planning regulations to enable bars, restaurants and cafés to serve customers outside their premises. I take the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) has made about the need for some caution here. It is important that local authorities continue to have discretion in these matters because they are best placed to make the judgments about the local impacts. It is also right to put on record the concerns of the shop workers’ union, USDAW, which has worried about the safety of staff. The guidance is very clear about the mitigation and reduction of risk that is needed if 1 metre-plus is in place, and I am sure the Secretary of State agrees that that is really important, and that it is also very important that the Health & Safety Executive takes a tough line in enforcing safety as well.

We also welcome the measures in enabling construction sites to get back to work more easily through extended working hours. Again, and I am sure that Members across the House will agree with me, it is in the interests of local residents that local authorities have discretion in these matters.

My hon. Friend in her customary eloquent way anticipates my next point. We have seen—and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed), the shadow Secretary of State for local government, for giving me the exact figures—£10 billion of costs loaded on to local authorities during this crisis, and only £3.2 billion provided by Government, despite the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government saying that the Government would stand behind councils and give them the funding they need. We have another Bill that puts yet more pressure on local authorities, but with no clear plan about how they will be reimbursed, and our new clause 5 speaks to that issue.

We also welcome the changes to transport licensing and the removal of the unfair relationship provision in the Consumer Credit Act to ensure that bounce-back loans are more easily accessed.  I am grateful to the Secretary of State for the detailed discussions that we had about that particular provision.

Those are the main provisions of the Bill and, as I said, there is cross-party agreement on them. Obviously, there will be detailed discussions in Committee. However, I have to say to the Secretary of State and the House that we are under an illusion if we think that the measures in this Bill will go much of the way towards addressing the crisis that we face: 4 July represents a reopening of pubs and restaurants, but it does not represent recovery.

It is important to note that many sections of our economy employing hundreds of thousands of people, including gyms, leisure centres, live entertainment venues, beauty salons, conference facilities, night clubs and swimming pools, will still not be able to open for public health reasons. We support those public health decisions. Other parts of our economy will open only with severe restrictions, including large parts of our hospitality industry, which employs 3 million people or one in 10 of the whole workforce. The British Beer and Pub Association says that 25% of pubs will not be able to reopen even at 1 metre. The Government themselves acknowledge, in the scientific assessment of the change to 1 metre, that the hospitality industry will lose 25% to 40% of its revenue even at 1 metre distancing. That revenue translates into a risk to hundreds of thousands of jobs. Live performance remains prohibited, which affects the theatre sector, employing 290,000 people. Manufacturers, too, are reeling from the fall in domestic and worldwide demand.

I say all that not to cast doubt on the public health measures being taken or to speak against the Bill, but to point to the wider context, which is that the Government are taking a one-size-fits-all approach to the furlough, for example, demanding an employer contribution from August and a cliff edge at the end of October. The shadow business Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), received this letter from a venue in Manchester in the past week: 

“As the Government furlough scheme draws to a close, I will be making very difficult decisions this week so that I can give notice during the period of 80% furlough contribution to commence a redundancy consultation with the majority of my venue staff. With zero income and no appropriate financial Government support, I have no choice but to make these decisions.”

We are not asking the impossible of Government; we are saying, “Look at what other countries are doing”, whether that is Spain, Italy, New Zealand, France or Germany. They are taking a sectoral approach to the furlough. They are saying that specific sectors are more affected by the public health measures and that, therefore, the economic measures have to match that.

Of course there are, but just because we cannot do everything does not mean that we should not do anything. The grants programme that the Government introduced was done by sector—retail, hospitality and leisure. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about boundaries, and some business organisations would raise that issue, but I worry that technical concerns about boundaries, which have been overcome for the grants scheme, stop us doing something that makes real sense.

Of course it is not easy, but the hon. Gentleman’s implication is that nothing can be done for those sectors that are obviously more affected by the public health measures.

The hon. Gentleman is shaking his head. If things can be done, they should be done, but my point is that the strength of the Government response is that it has been comprehensive. It has used the power of Government and it has not necessarily taken a one-size-fits-all approach. I am worried—we see this in the evidence that has been brought forward—about the one-size-fits-all approach.

I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman that it is important that we have had the furlough, but I disagree that it should be cut off at the end of October, because I really worry about the economic impact. We have 2.8 million people already claiming unemployment-related benefits, and I worry about the implications for these other industries.

The tragedy is that the Government have spent £22 billion on the furlough, but I fear that we will throw away some of that investment  by not recognising that specific sectors face specific challenges. I urge the Business Secretary —he knows this, as he talks to the same people that I do—to use all the powers of his office to make representations to the Chancellor to find a way of fixing that, so that we have a sector-specific approach to the furlough, including an extension beyond October.

Just as I do not believe that the furlough should be abruptly ended, I believe that there are issues of access to loan finance. As I have said, the bounce back loans scheme has been successful at getting money out of the door, but the same cannot be said of the other small business loan scheme, the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme. In the case of CBILS, only half of all applications have been approved, and the supposed freeing up of the scheme as a result of bounce back loans being made available is yet to materialise. We still do not know why 48,000 out of 98,000 CBILS loans are stuck in a holding pattern, and we do not know how many have been rejected and how many are still in the queue. One of the things we are asking for in the Bill is for the Government to publish data on the true number of rejections and the total number of inquiries.

The problem is not just with the small loan scheme. We have seen a wave of job losses in manufacturing, from Rolls-Royce to McLaren to Jaguar Land Rover. Make UK is predicting that as many as 170,000 jobs could be lost this year in the manufacturing sector alone. Any talk of levelling up will come to nought if we lose those jobs—I am sure that sentiment is shared across the House—and I urge the Secretary of State to look at the international comparisons of France and Germany, which have protected and supported strategic sectors of the economy, such as steel, aerospace and automotive, in a number of different ways. That is why our amendment to the Bill calls on the Government also to publish the true number of rejections in respect of the larger loan scheme, the coronavirus large business interruption loan scheme, and explain why 400 larger businesses have not been able to access support through the scheme. Again, we do not know whether they are stuck in a holding pattern and still waiting in the queue or have just been rejected. These sectors are calling for tailored Government support to help them through the crisis, but it has not been forthcoming. The big point is that, from hospitality to leisure to manufacturing, this is a general recession, but it was also much more acute in specific sectors, and the Government need to recognise this far more in their response.

If one part of the Government’s strategy is about shielding sectors of our economy from the sectoral recession, the other part must be about job creation and employment. We are to have a speech tomorrow from the Prime Minister. It is a shame that we do not have a Budget; I do not really understand why we do not have a Budget in what is potentially the worst recession in 300 years. If now is not the time for a Budget, I do not know when is the time for a Budget, but there is a speech tomorrow and big promises are being made about it.

The Bill rightly talks about what can be done in the construction sector. The way to help the construction sector is not just to tweak the operational hours, although that is important, but also to deliver on some of the promises the Government have made. Again, I think this view can be shared across the House; I do not often quote the Conservative manifesto approvingly—[Interruption.] —or at least not enough, but it promised £9.2 billion for energy efficiency in public and private buildings. Conservative Members all stood on that manifesto and I am sure that they support it.

We know how behind the Government are on building retrofits. The Committee on Climate Change recently said that there has been “negligible progress since 2015” and that the challenge of retrofit and renovation has gone “largely unaddressed.” We know that investing in retrofit is the ultimate win-win. This is the ideal opportunity —it would help the construction sector, not just in relation to operational hours, and could create tens of thousands of jobs—but today there are reports that it is being blocked by none other than Dominic Cummings. Apparently, he is uninterested and thinks it is “boring old housing insulation”. The Secretary of State and I have a good relationship, and I am happy to give way to him so that he can say that the £9 billion is going to happen. We need the £9 billion, so I am happy to give way. He has overruled Dominic Cummings on Sunday trading; now is the time to overrule him on this.

Let us also bring forward the £12 billion of social housing spending that has been promised. All these things are important, and they are also part of job creation. I think the idea that we need a green recovery is shared throughout the House, as least at the level of principle. Some people—assiduous readers—will have read over the weekend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster’s rather long speech, which mentioned Franklin Roosevelt 17 times. [Interruption.] I see Members nodding. Let me tell the House about Roosevelt: he put 3 million people back to work in the Civilian Conservation Corps. We need that kind of ambition on retrofit; on manufacturing low-carbon engines; on adapting our towns and cities to walking and cycling; on creating green spaces; and on reforesting and rewilding. We need what I call a zero-carbon army as part of a youth jobs fund.

We should see all these things as part of the green new deal because—this is the point—we face an unemployment emergency in this country. We should be under no illusions: a million young people are forecast to be out of work this year. We need a scale of action that matches that. That is my point. The Government measures we have supported over the past few months have recognised the power of active government in a crisis like this. My appeal to the Government is not to shrink from that now, because we are just at the beginning.

To conclude, we welcome the Bill as a step to help the hospitality and construction industry to reopen, but it is not nearly enough. The Government have shown that they are willing to take action, but we face the deepest and sharpest recession, possibly for hundreds of years, and Government power has to be continued to be used. The decisions taken by the Government in the coming weeks will determine how many jobs are lost and how many businesses survive. The commitment to do whatever it takes cannot be a hollow promise. We are calling for an extension to the furlough for specific sectors; an urgent job-creation programme with a green recovery at its heart; and real action on infrastructure, not just words. I urge the Government not to step back when our economy, our businesses and our workers desperately need support.

I join you today, Mr Speaker, in both mourning and remembering Jo Cox.

I welcome much of the help that the Government have provided, but, according to Make UK, we could see the loss of 170,000 manufacturing jobs this year. In France, steel got loans within 10 days of applying for them, and aerospace is benefiting from billions of pounds of support, including for low-carbon engines. Here, three months after the crisis began, 60% of companies that have applied for large loans are still waiting and there has been no targeted help for our manufacturers. Will the Secretary of State tell us when specific help will actually materialise for sectors such as steel and aerospace?

I urge the right hon. Gentleman to get a move on when it comes to those sectors, because they really need the help. I want to ask him additionally about sectors such as hospitality, tourism and the creative industries, which have just been raised. They will take longer to reopen and recover because of public health measures, and I want to ask him about the impact on them of the one-size-fits-all winding down of the furlough. Can he explain to thousands of pubs across the country how they are supposed to find an employer contribution for furloughed employees from August when they are struggling even to survive? Is not the risk of that approach, and we have seen the jobless figures this morning, that hundreds of thousands more workers will lose their jobs, and all of us will end up paying the costs in higher benefit bills and a weaker economy? Would it not be better to have a different approach for those at-risk sectors?

I begin by thanking the Business Secretary and the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), for the constructive conversations that we have had about the Bill, including with the shadow Business Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell). We are very much approaching this in a constructive way, and we welcome the discussions.

I want to focus on the provisions in the Bill and the wider policy context around insolvencies, which will determine what happens to millions of businesses in our country. As the Secretary of State implied, we face potentially the most dramatic recession in 300 years. What is more, we know that it is a recession necessitated by the essential public health measures that have been taken to contain coronavirus. Just as we are mutually dependent on each other when it comes to controlling the pandemic, I believe there is agreement across the House that that sense of mutual dependence should extend to the businesses of our country, because it is the right thing to do and because it is in all our interests. Every viable business we save will make the recession less deep and the recovery easier. Every business lost is disastrous not only for that business and its workers, but for our economy and all of us.

We know the great distress that many businesses are facing, and I join the Secretary of State in paying tribute to businesses up and down this country that are keeping going in these circumstances, with one fifth temporarily pausing or ceasing trading during lockdown and another quarter saying that their turnover was down by at least 50%. That is the context in which we should test our approach as a country. I acknowledge that this challenge is bound to test the imagination, speed and responsiveness of any Government, and that is why we want to work constructively with them.

In that context, we welcome the measures in the Bill to help reduce insolvencies and will support their passage. As I will explain, we do not think the Bill does enough to address the dangers for what we might call the less powerful interests—particularly employees—when it comes to insolvency and the new restructuring provision, and I will explain what I mean by that.

Let me say something about the headline provisions, many of which we agree with. As regards the permanent measures, we support the moratorium to give breathing space to firms. We welcome the measures to prevent suppliers from sending businesses into liquidation, suspending so-called ipso facto provisions, and I will say something in a minute about our views on the new restructuring plan provision.

I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is very important that the approach is UK-wide, and I welcome that.

Let me say something about the temporary measures in the Bill. We think it makes sense to remove the threat around winding-up orders, for example, to deal with the issue around landlords. We welcome the measures that the Secretary of State put in place, but there is another way around, as it were, which is a landlord issuing a statutory demand followed by a winding-up order. We think that the suspension of personal liability for wrongful trading while insolvent makes sense as a measure, but for a strictly time-limited period. It is important, as I think is clear, that other duties continue to apply to directors.

In addition, easing the requirements on company filing deadlines and AGMs makes sense. Indeed, given proceedings yesterday in this House, the facility in the Bill for virtual proceedings at AGMs carries a certain irony. If only the Business Secretary had told the Leader of the House, perhaps we would have been spared a lot of trouble and a lot of queuing yesterday.

As the hon. Members for Dudley South (Mike Wood) and for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) have both said, there is clearly a case for a longer period than to 30 June. This is no disrespect to the people writing the Bill, but I think we can agree across the House that the temporary measures will need to be in place for longer. We would be happy to see an amendment that puts the end of September in the Bill, and one of our amendments would do that. I accept the Secretary of State’s point that the change can be made by statutory instrument.

Having given the Bill a broad welcome, I want to raise some issues.

My hon. Friend is a brilliant champion of those industries and other industries in his constituency, and I agree with him. I will come on to the particular sectoral challenges that the Secretary of State and the Government are facing.

Let me mention the areas where we would like to see improvements made to the Bill. First and most importantly, the Government’s case on the restructuring plan provision is that it could have benefits in enabling companies to restructure and not go into liquidation and in stopping large creditors from forcing companies to do so. I accept the case. I think I am right in saying that the cross-class cram-down provisions—it is not a very beautiful phrase—apply across the EU under EU law and apply in the United States as well. What is important about the provisions is that they mean that even if a class or classes of creditors object to a rescue plan, it can still go ahead providing they are better off than in the other most likely scenario, which is often going to be liquidation. That is why protecting those without power—creditors and others—is so important.

What cannot be allowed to happen—I know the Secretary of State agrees with this—is for the RP provision, which has wide scope and is not just for companies that are insolvent, but for those who fear they might become so, to be used to ride roughshod over the rights of employees, including their pensions. Given the nature of the crisis we are in, it is essential that there are proper safeguards.

To give an example, the Secretary of State will have heard earlier the deep concerns across the House about the actions of British Airways, including sacking its employees and apparently offering worse terms and conditions. The RP provision cannot become a charter for more of that sort of action, and it is our mutual responsibility to make sure it does not become so. I know the Secretary of State shares that view.

I welcome what the hon. Gentleman says, and the answer is yes, because lots of businesses do not have trade unions, and the question is what rights employees will have in those circumstances. The US experience is quite informative: I mentioned the US hazard provision, and at American Airlines and General Motors we saw employees lose out very significantly. The hon. Gentleman’s point about pension provision is absolutely part of this. I very much hope—this is the spirit in which we are approaching the Bill—that the Government will seek to improve the protections that are in place. Our new clause 5, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, seeks to ensure mandatory discussions with the trade unions once a company enters a restructuring process. That will ensure that employees are provided with all the information made available to the court and fully consulted on any restructuring plan, and the court could then take that into account. There may be better and more comprehensive ways to build in such protection, but it is essential that we do so. Perhaps the Minister can come back on that in his winding-up speech and, indeed, in Committee.

Secondly, we are concerned about similar issues when it comes to insolvency. Unsecured creditors are left to bear most of the risk of insolvency, so they are often at the back of the queue when it comes to being protected. The protection of unsecured creditors, or the greater protection of them, could be provided through strengthening the ring-fencing of the proceeds of sale of assets when a company becomes insolvent, increasing the proportion of the proceeds reserved for them to 30%, and removing the financial limit, which is what we propose in one of our amendments. We also believe that pension schemes—this goes to the point that the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) made—should be made a priority creditor in the event of insolvency so that they get to have a role as a class, because currently I do not believe that they necessarily will.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I once used the word predatory in relation to companies and it was rather controversial, but I think the consensus may have changed. [Interruption.] Government Members are saying it has not; it was worth a try. The hon. Gentleman makes a really important substantive point on which I think Members from all parties can agree, and it goes to the width and breadth of this provision: we have to make sure that companies cannot use it as a way to take their employees for a ride. I know from my conversations with the Secretary of State and the Minister that the intention to make sure that that does not happen is shared throughout the House, but we have to give expression to it in the Bill, and I hope the Government will indeed do so.

Let me turn to some things that are not in the Bill—

I believe I am right in saying that the hon. Gentleman knows a lot about this, and I congratulate him for his work on the all-party group dealing with the whole range of these issues, but I am talking about the situation after secured creditors and others have been dealt with. There is currently a provision for 20%, but up to a limit of £800,000. Our amendment seeks to make that 30%, and to raise the proportion, but remove the limit. We must ensure that we do all we can for employees and small businesses—my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central will correct me if I have got those figures wrong, but I think I am broadly right.

Two sets of issues are not in the Bill, although we would have liked them to have been included, as I believe they are missed opportunities. First, in 2018 the Government consulted on a set of corporate governance safeguards in the wake of the scandal at Carillion, and indeed at Thomas Cook, which came after that. I understand that the Bill relates to the immediacy of the coronavirus crisis, but it would have been better if the Government had acted on those vital corporate governance issues in the Bill, and we would have supported them in doing so. Given that this crisis makes corporate distress more likely, it is strange that the Government have not chosen to introduce such measures. The risk is that we will get more Carillions and Thomas Cooks, with all the consequences of that for employees.

In 2018 the Government were committed to greater accountability of directors in group companies, legislation to enhance powers for insolvency practitioners, and further raising standards by ensuring an explanation about the affordability of dividend payments. Labour supports all those measures—indeed, we have tabled amendments to insert them into the Bill—and we do not think they cut across the need to protect businesses through the coronavirus crisis. Will the Government explain what plans there are for those improvements to corporate governance? I understand that the Bill must go through at speed, but it would have been better if it contained those measures.

Secondly, like the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire, I wish to mention late payments to small businesses, and the important role of the Small Business Commissioner. If larger companies do not make good on their payments to small businesses, that could be the thing that pushes them over the edge. We believe that the Bill could be used to strengthen the powers of the Small Business Commissioner to help businesses that are struggling with cashflow and liquidity, and such a measure would have improved the Bill.

As I have said, we want to facilitate the passage of the Bill as it is important to protect businesses up and down the country, and we hope it can be improved in the ways I have set out. Having dealt with its specific provisions, however, let me deal with the wider context. The measures in the Bill can play a part in preventing insolvencies, but as the House knows, the number of businesses that go out of business depends on the external environment and on what the Government do in response to that. I welcome the action taken by the Government so far. There are lots of measures that we support, but we also believe there are gaps and other areas where the Government need to act.

I wish briefly to outline four sets of issues that go directly to the question of insolvency. First, I fear that the support system introduced by the Government is still not working sufficiently for our SMEs, and it risks worsening the insolvency problem. We called for the 100% underwriting of loans six weeks ago for smaller firms, and we welcomed the bounce back loan. Clearly, however—the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) made this point—those loans do not do enough for SMEs that need more than £50,000 of liquidity.

The bounce back loan was intended to improve the working of the CBIL scheme, but I am afraid that has not happened. I have the figures for what happened to the CBIL scheme in the past few weeks—I am sure the Secretary of State is as in touch with them as I am—and the number of facilities approved each week is going down, and the gap between the total numbers of applications and approvals is widening. Somebody contacted me the other day who will not be counted in those figures. He waited two months to be told by his high street bank that he was not eligible and that there was no point in him applying for a loan under the CBIL scheme. He will not be counted in those statistics, and hon. Members across the House will have heard of similar experiences.

I know that the Secretary of State is dealing with a range of issues to do with companies in distress. As I understand it, the idea was to get rid of the forward credit check for the CBIL scheme, but that does not seem to be doing the business and we need to understand why. I personally would be open to having 100% underwriting slightly higher up the scale, but we need a solution.

Secondly, beyond SMEs, I am deeply concerned about particular sectors, with manufacturing top of the list. We have seen thousands of redundancies at Rolls-Royce, real problems in the aerospace sector, issues in the car industry and massive issues facing steel. In France, steel received support within a fortnight of lockdown, whereas here our companies are still waiting. We read stories in the Financial Times about public equity stakes being considered—the so-called “Project Birch. It sounds like an interesting idea, but I say to the Secretary of State that this is taking too long, both for larger companies and for the SMEs in the supply chain.

My hon. Friend has been powerfully advocating for the steel industry, along with other hon. Members in all parts of the House, and there is real urgency in this respect.

Let me just say something about the CLBIL—Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan—scheme, which is for larger loans. We are talking about more than £45 million. I fear that this is Treasury orthodoxy, so I will not expect the Secretary of State to comment. We all know Treasury orthodoxy—I do, as I used to work there. The good news is that the Chancellor raised the limit to £200 million for the amount that companies can get, but the bad news for companies is that the CLBIL loan has to become their most senior loan—it has to be top of their list. The problem is that that means companies then have to renegotiate their other most senior loan, so they are caught in a Catch-22 situation. I suspect the Secretary of State agrees with me, but he cannot say; perhaps the Chancellor is watching. I say to the Secretary of State that companies such as McLaren have said, “We have tried to get this loan but we cannot get it because of this Catch-22 situation.” This is urgent and I urge him to get it sorted. We have had only £1 billion paid out under this scheme; 191 firms have got loans, but that is out of 579 that have applied. This is about manufacturing largely; it is about lots of large manufacturers across our country who are really in distress. There is more to be done in advancing some of the money that is already in the budget for low carbon. That is true in relation to aerospace, where I believe there is a fund—I am hoping that can be advanced— and to steel.

Let me refer to some other sectors, as one of my hon. Friends did earlier. With the public health measures that are necessary, it is obvious that sectors such as hospitality, tourism and the arts will face much greater pressures for longer; they are going to take longer to reopen and recover. To give the House a sense of the scale, I should point out that the British Beer and Pub Association has warned that up to 40% of Britain’s pubs cannot survive beyond September with the current level of financial support; that one third of jobs in tourism-related areas are estimated to be at risk; and that the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre estimate that 70% of the 290,000 jobs in that sector are at risk. Those are dire warnings we are being given.

That brings me on briefly to the furlough scheme. It has been a really good innovation, but I do not understand why the Chancellor is pursuing a one-size-fits-all policy on that scheme, because the public health measures mean that some sectors will take longer to reopen and recover. Whether through the furlough scheme or a second wave of support, these sectors are going to need extra help. I know the Secretary of State is working on this, but I underline its importance: we are talking about thousands of pubs across our country, hundreds of theatres and arts venues, and jobs in tourism. These things are the lifeblood of our constituencies.

Thirdly, I want to raise with the Secretary of State the issue of the “month 13 problem” of insolvency. This is a bit further off, but it is still an issue. Even if the Government fix their loan schemes and provide the sectoral support required, the more debt there is weighing down companies, the greater the danger of insolvency down the line—this debt overhang is also bad for our economy when it comes to recovery. [Interruption.] I hear the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire muttering about borrowing from a sedentary position, but I am talking about private debt. The Federation of Small Businesses has been suggesting for some time that loans need to become income contingent. It has suggested a student loan-type approach. In other words, when businesses get to a certain level of financial health, they can start repaying the loans. There may be other ways forward, such as converting the loans into equity, but we are going to need solutions for these firms.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. We need innovative thinking in this area. We are going to have to do things—I think that the Chancellor has said this—that we would not have done in normal times, but we cannot send businesses back out into an economy that is recovering, with this massive debt overhang. [Interruption.] I will not give way again because I need to get on with it so that other Members can speak; I can see the beady eye of Madam Deputy Speaker.

Fourthly, crucial to helping businesses through this crisis is an economic stimulus that matches the moment. In particular, I hope that plans for a green recovery, which the Government have been talking about, will be at the centre of what they do. This is the way to get our economy moving, help to save businesses and meet our climate goals.

The Bill is a step forward. We continue to have worries about the protection of workers in the event of restructuring and insolvency, and hope it can be addressed as the Bill passes through both Houses. I wish that the reforms to corporate governance had been included.

I will end by mentioning the wider economic context. We are only at the end of the beginning of the economic crisis that we are facing, and there is a need for urgency, boldness and action in the coming weeks and months. The Chancellor has said that he will do whatever it takes. In my view, that means support for specific sectors, reform of the loans scheme, imaginative solutions to the debt problems facing the small and medium-sized enterprise sector, a commitment to building back better and a green recovery. It is in the interests of everyone across the country for the Government to act; if they do, they will have our support.

I have a long list.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, and add my thanks to all the workers and businesses that have kept our country going during these past few weeks? I say to him that we do not underestimate the challenges of lifting lockdown in certain parts of the economy. We agree that it is in all our interests for it to happen if it can be done safely, and that there are difficult decisions confronting Government, businesses and workers, who have to adapt to these unprecedented circumstances. I also want to welcome a number of steps forward in the guidance published last night, which he has talked about in his statement. They do represent progress from previous proposals, and I also welcome the tone of his statement.

However, I also say to the Secretary of State that what really matters to workers and businesses in these highly sensitive and difficult matters is proceeding in an orderly and judicious way. The confusion and mixed messages of the past 48 hours have been ill-advised and avoidable. Let me ask him six specific questions. First, on the impact of the Government’s change of emphasis on going back to work in phase 1, Ministers say that the reproduction rate of the disease—the R number—is currently between 0.5 and 0.9. How many extra people does he expect to go back to work as a result of the Government’s change of emphasis? What is the scientific advice about the impact on the R number?

Secondly, we are being told that in our daily lives, outside our places of work, that we must not come within 2 metres of those from other households, for reasons I understand. I listened carefully to what the Secretary of State said, but for workplaces the overview document he has published asks for an observance of 2-metre distancing only “wherever possible”. If it is not possible, the only requirement is that employers should “look into” various mitigation measures. I understand that in some workplaces 2-metre distancing may not be possible, but can he explain why there is no requirement for mitigation if social distancing cannot be observed?

Thirdly, on enforcement, the challenge is, as the Secretary of State said, not the vast majority of employers, who want to do the right thing, but the small minority who do not. I welcome £14 million more for the HSE budget, but it is a drop in the ocean compared with the £100 million of cuts over the past decade. Given the challenges of enforcement, will he discuss with the trade unions how their tens of thousands of health and safety reps could player a bigger and, I believe, constructive role in ensuring covid-19 compliance, including in non-unionised work- places?

Fourthly, can the Business Secretary now provide an answer for parents who are being asked to go back to work tomorrow but are not deemed “essential” workers and therefore have nobody to look after their children, because they cannot send them to school or nursery? What are parents in those circumstances supposed to do?

Fifthly, can the Secretary of State clarify the position on the 2.5 million workers who are deemed clinically extremely vulnerable and are advised to shield at home until at least the end of June?

Currently, they have no automatic right to be furloughed and many have felt pressured to keep working. As workplaces reopen, the pressure will become greater. To protect their health and provide clarity, would it not make sense to place an obligation on employers to furlough these individuals if they cannot work from home?

The chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, said at the press conference last night that the reopening of workplaces was dependent on whether they can be made safe for work. Can the Secretary of State confirm that workplaces that are not safe should not reopen tomorrow and that, by law, workers who have a reasonable belief that they will be in danger do not have to be at work?

Finally, the Secretary of State will know that it is the highest paid workers who will generally carry on being able to work from home and lower paid workers who are being asked to go back to work. We also know from yesterday’s figures from the Office for National Statistics that, among men, construction workers have so far been more than twice as likely to die from covid-19 as the average member of the population. I know the Secretary of State will agree that working people are being asked to go back to work to help us all. Whatever the economic pressures, their health must be protected. They deserve to be safe. That is what the Government must take every action to ensure.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

I can tell the Secretary of State that we are committed to working constructively with the Government on all issues, and we welcome the recent changes to the loans system. I have two specific questions about his draft guidelines on workplace safety. We share the desire for a return to work as soon as it is safe, but he will know that firms with more than five employees are obliged by law to carry out risk assessments on safety. First, does he plan to ensure the publication of these risk assessments to give confidence to workers? Secondly, on enforcement of safe working, the Health and Safety Executive is operating on substantially reduced resources. What will he do to ensure that the guidelines are enforced so that all workers can feel safe?

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer, and I hope that he will come to the House to make a fuller statement on these matters at the earliest opportunity.

I want to ask about another aspect of the lifting of the lockdown, which is financial support for businesses and workers. Does he recognise that there will need to be a second phase of financial support for those businesses that will have to stay closed for longer, including an extension of the furlough scheme, with more flexibility for part-time working? Secondly, on the hospitality sector, which he knows is facing very challenging times, can I urge him to look favourably at the proposal, which has the support of over 80 of his own Back Benchers, to extend business support grants to businesses with rateable values of up to £150,000? It would make a difference to tens of thousands of pubs, restaurants and other businesses that are the lifeblood of our communities.

I welcome the Secretary of State to her post. She is deeply committed to this issue, and she certainly has a big task in front of her.

COP 26 is obviously an important moment not just for Britain but for the world. We will be trying to persuade Europe, India, China and others to ramp up their ambition for 2030, because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has told us that we have 10 years to turn round the path of emissions. Can I therefore suggest to her that, as well as having a net-zero target for 2050, we need to ramp up our ambition for 2030? Will she therefore ask the Committee on Climate Change to look not just at the pathway to 2030 but at what more we can do as a country so that we can persuade others to follow us?

I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). There is something paradoxical about the fact that this is a low-key debate on a Monday evening, but one thing that it indicates is that there is a great deal of consensus on the need for action, and that is a good thing. The fact that there is not a huge row going on shows that, on both sides of the House, we want to act.

I shall make three substantive points. The first is about the target itself. It is based on the recommendations of the Committee on Climate Change, and I welcome it, but I believe that it should be regarded as—I hesitate to use this word—a backstop. [Laughter.] I could not think of a better word, although I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) for one.

The reality is that the science is heading in one direction, towards more urgent action. Let me draw the House’s attention to a document that was produced for the Committee on Climate Change by its international advisory group, chaired by Peter Betts, an excellent former civil servant who was responsible for the international negotiations. In that document, the group said that we should set a net zero date no later than 2050, and that there was a case for 2045. As the Minister said, it is good that there is a review clause, and I think that we may well have to bring that point forward.

My second point is this: if you will the end, you have to will the means. I am glad to hear that the energy White Paper is coming, and the Minister has built up my expectations about what it will contain. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West talked about cars. By the mid-2020s, the lifetime costs of electric vehicles will be lower than the lifetime costs of petrol and diesel vehicles. As the Committee on Climate Change says, the economically sensible choice is to make an earlier rather than a later transition. That is not to say that no issues are involved, but that makes a profound point about the benefits of m oving forward.

Thirdly, if we will the means as well as the end, we should think not just about the 1% to 2% of GDP that this will cost—on top of what we already spend—but about the 98% of other economic activity. I raise the issue of the Heathrow third runway gingerly, but if we are so serious about this climate emergency, I do not see how we cannot look at all the things that the Government and the private sector are doing and ask whether they make sense in a net zero world. I hope that the comprehensive spending review will have a net zero carbon budgeting process attached to it.

My final point concerns the international negotiations. It is excellent that we shall be hosting the conference of the parties next year, but let me say to the Minister and to the House that this is a massive challenge. It is an incredibly important moment for the world, when every country has to update its Paris targets. In a way, this is the last chance for us to get on track for what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has described to us as a really dangerous and urgent situation. Let me say this to the Minister. Of course Brexit will be ongoing, at least for a bit, but will he please ensure that all the political and diplomatic muscle of Government will be put into this process? It is a massive thing for the world, and it will require a huge focus from the Government. This is an important moment, and I welcome it, but, in a sense, the hard work is only just beginning for all of us.

I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement and join those who have paid tribute to the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth, because this idea had been lying around for a couple of years in the long grass of Government and it was she who took it out of that long grass and helped make it happen. I also welcome the five-year review mechanism because we might well need to bring forward the net zero date from 2050; that might not be the original intention of the review mechanism but it may be necessary. May I however ask the Secretary of State to recognise that in its advice the Climate Change Committee said very specifically that as well as setting the target itself, the Government must put in place the policies to meet the target? That means, as it said, a 2030, not 2040, cut-off date for new petrol and diesel vehicles; a proper decarbonisation plan for our 27 million homes, which we do not have; and an end to the moratorium on onshore wind—a moratorium I believe is now economically illiterate as it is now our cheapest fuel available? Can the Secretary of State assure us that henceforth there will be leadership not just on targets but on action?

I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley); it is good that there is all-party support for this debate. I want to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) on his brilliant speech and on setting out his case so eloquently. I am speaking in this debate because I want to see justice for the retired miners in my constituency of Doncaster, North and, indeed, across Doncaster and the whole country. Miners worked their backs off for this country at great cost to themselves, often causing themselves ill health and a shortened life expectancy. Their families watched their loved ones risk their lives for this country, and the least we owe them is fairness and justice, which is what this debate is about.

As my hon. Friend said, the average payment under the scheme is just £83.98 per week—around £4,000 a year—so we are talking about people for whom every pound will make a difference. It cannot be right that £4 billion—and counting—has gone to the Government and not to the miners. That does not seem fair or right, and I think that that is recognised across the House. My hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman have spoken eloquently to the current injustice, and the hon. Gentleman said that if we look at the scheme now, it just does not seem fair. The specific and relatively brief point I want to make is actually about the past, because if the scheme does not seem right now, I think we have strong grounds for thinking that it was not right in 1994 either, when the original decision was made. That might look like a matter of historical detail, but I do not think it is. We are where we are now because of that decision, which Governments of both parties have abided by.

I am particularly grateful for the conversations I have had with my constituent Les Moore, whom the hon. Gentleman mentioned, and his organisation, the UK Miners Pension Scheme for Justice and Fair Play Association, which, along with the NUM, has toiled on this issue for years. The 50-50 split was decided and announced in April 1994, and we all know what happens when a decision like that is made: inertia sets in. The Treasury is getting billions of pounds as a result, and nobody wants to revisit the matter. No Chancellor, Conservative or Labour, wants to give up that amount of money. But what was the basis of that original decision? Remarkably, it is 25 years old and we still do not really know the basis for it.

I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), because she asked the most material question of all to the Minister last year. She asked the Government to publish the actuarial advice on which the surplus sharing arrangements were made. As my hon. Friend the Member for Easington said, the reply was, extraordinarily, that no such advice was obtained. If there was no actuarial advice behind a decision that had billions of pounds-worth of implications for hundreds of thousands of miners and their families, that really was negligence of the highest order.

The more closely we look at this decision, the more dubious it becomes. A document from September 1993 was released under a freedom of information request in 2016. It is a report carried out by the Government Actuary, and it is the closest document that anyone can find that is relevant to the time. It is not about the future arrangements, but it does talk about the current practice at the time and implies that at that point miners were enjoying not 50% of the surplus but 70%. So the question then arises: if 70% was the basis of the scheme then, why did it change to 50%? We just do not know the answer to that question.

My point about the history is that Governments of both parties have said that the decision was properly made in 1994, but the increasing evidence is that the decision was not properly made at the time. I have a simple request to the Minister, which is that he should publish the papers underlying the decision that was made in 1994. Then we could all see for ourselves to the first time how and why the decision was reached and what has changed since then. My simple belief is that the decision was not fair then and that it is not fair now. Miners gave so much to our country and we need to repay our debt to them. On that basis, and on the basis of the case set out by my hon. Friend, I believe that it is high time the Government launched a review so that there can be justice for my constituents and for tens of thousands of mineworkers and their families.

The motion states:

“That this House calls on the Government to carry out a review of the existing arrangements for the sharing of the surplus generated by the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme.”

As I understand it, the Government will not vote against the motion, so will the Minister tell us what he is going to do after the motion passes, because it calls for precisely such a review?

But this House is about to pass a motion agreeing to a review, so the Government are going to have to do something about that. That is the point, and I think we would all be interested to know what the Minister intends to do.

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) having secured this debate, the House has now passed a motion stating:

“That this House calls on the Government to carry out a review of the existing arrangements for the sharing of the surplus generated by the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme.”

I wonder whether you could give us some guidance, Mr Speaker. With the House having passed, without opposition and for the first time in 25 years of this scheme’s operation, this very important motion, can we use your good offices to persuade the Government to carry out the will of the House? It was very open to the Government to divide the House on this motion, but they choose not to do so, which must mean that they agree with it. Presumably, that means they are going to do something about it, if this House’s deliberations and possible votes are to be meaningful.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), who made some important remarks about Brexit and the risks we face.

I want to start my remarks about the Budget with the words of the Prime Minister at the Conservative party conference in 2016. She said this about the EU referendum:

“It was about a sense – deep, profound and let’s face it often justified – that many people have today that the world works well for a privileged few, but not for them. It was a vote not just to change Britain’s relationship with the European Union, but to call for a change in the way our country works – and the people for whom it works – forever.”

I agree. The referendum told us that the status quo was not good enough—in fact, was not nearly good enough. Surely, then, the test of the Budget is whether someone listening to it and seeing its contents would conclude that this was a Government determined to live up to her words.

One or two policies in the Budget look somewhat familiar. The energy price cap used to be part of a Marxist universe; now it is Government policy. The “use it or lose it” policy on land banking was described by the Foreign Secretary—an eminent person—as “Mugabe-style” land expropriation; now it is on the way to becoming Government policy under the wise counsel of the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin)—an unlikely authoritarian Marxist.

On the fundamentals, however, on the underlying economic strategy, I am afraid it is not change, but more of the same. I want to highlight two issues: the refusal to address deep inequality in our country and the continuation of austerity. We all know about the cost-of-living crisis—it is not contested any more, although the Secretary of State did not really talk about it. I will give people just one fact: on the path suggested by the OBR, the average worker will not get back to 2008 earnings until 2025. That is the scale of the challenge we face. Are the Government making things better or worse when it comes to this and the gulf in living standards between the top and bottom? I am afraid they are making it worse. According to the Resolution Foundation, tax and benefit changes since 2015, including those in the pipeline, mean:

“The poorest third of households will lose an average of £715 a year compared to average gains among the richest third of households of £185 a year.”

The Prime Minister apparently believes that the message from the Brexit result was that people felt that the country worked for a privileged few but not for most. The Budget, however, makes the position worse rather than better.

I should love to hear from whoever winds up the debate what Ministers’ defence of these distributional figures is, because this is discretionary Government policy. It is a political choice, not an economic necessity. We need only look at what is happening to corporation tax to understand that. Corporation tax has been cut by more than £10 billion since 2010—and, by the way, businesses have not even been asking for those cuts. The Chancellor could have pointed out that the current rate of 19% was the lowest in the G7 by some distance, and that there were other priorities, but no: he is going to spend billions more pounds on cutting corporation tax to 17%. It seems that he can afford to spend those billions, but he cannot afford to keep benefits at the same level and has to cut them. That is the political choice of this Budget.

Let me turn from the issue of distribution to the issue of debt and the deficit, which the Secretary of State talked about. I am old enough to remember when the Government said that they would balance the budget by 2015. In fact, that was not so long ago: it was in 2010. I am also old enough to remember the 2015 election campaign, when I was told that if we did not balance the budget by 2018, catastrophe would follow. What does Robert Chote, the director of the Office for Budget Responsibility, say? He says:

“If the deficit is to continue falling at the average rate expected beyond the end of this spending review, then it won’t reach balance until 2030-31.”

What an extraordinary failure! A deficit promise is to be kept not five years late, not 10 years late, but 16 years late, and the Government have the cheek to go on about the deficit. They have failed to deliver on the promises that they made, but they are pulling off a remarkable feat: they are both failing on those deficit promises and cutting spending. The Secretary of State did not mention that. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, there will be day-to-day departmental cuts of £10 billion per capita by 2022, with welfare cuts on top. If ever we needed proof that austerity had failed, that would be it. The Government are not meeting their deficit promises, and they are carrying on with the cuts.

There is a deeper point, however. The Prime Minister’s words were right. People were not just voting on immigration in Europe, although of course they were doing that; they were also voting for a big change of direction. Continued austerity, continued spending cuts and worsening inequality constitute not a change in direction, but more of the same. We know what the Government should have done. They should have realised that cutting taxes for the richest, and the largest corporations, is not the way to ensure that a country succeeds. They should have put an end to austerity and cuts in public spending, and they should have recognised, more than they did, the cruelty and pain caused by welfare cuts that we all see, as constituency Members—including what is happening with universal credit.

I do not know what the precise Brexit settlement will be, but it is already clear from last year’s autumn statement that the impact on the economy and public finances will make it harder—let us be frank about this—to deliver the fairer society that was one important part of the mandate of the referendum, which makes it all the more important for us to have a Government who are committed to action to bring that about. On that score, and by the standards that the Prime Minister set herself, the Budget fails. It proves to me, yet again, that this Government cannot bring the change for which the people voted in the referendum.

Given that this policy was once described from the Dispatch Box as “a con”, “a joke”, “disastrous” and “living in a Marxist universe”, it would be churlish not to welcome the Secretary of State’s conversion to it today. Well done. He is very welcome to the party. However, I still think his voyage into the Marxist universe is a bit slow, if I can put it that way, because this is a draft Bill. It is four months since the general election. He said that there would be help this winter. He could have chosen to fast-track this measure with the Opposition Front Bench and get the help in now. Why so slow? Why not do it now?

It is a privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman).

The Queen’s Speech debate after a general election is a chance to reflect on what we heard during the election. That is particularly important given the result we have just seen. Let us be honest across the House—we were all a bit gobsmacked by the result. Jon Snow went on television the day after the election and said, “I know nothing”, and I think that probably applies to many of us.

Having heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has departed, I am bound to ask, “If it is all going so well, why did it go so badly?” In other words, the result did not exactly meet Conservative expectations. I believe that there is a deeper explanation. It has been said that many people have

“a sense—deep, profound and let’s face it often justified—that…the world works well for a privileged few, but not for them.”

Those are not my words but the words of the Prime Minister in her party conference speech.

If we look at the remarkable turnaround that took place during the election campaign, we can blame the social care policy, we can blame the Prime Minister, but I think it is deeper than that. The tide is going out on a certain way of running the country—large inequality, the next generation seeing their chances diminish, and permanent austerity. The crucial point about the campaign—I think Conservative Members know this—is that the Prime Minister who stood on the steps of Downing Street as the agent of change became the agent of the status quo. The reality is that my right hon. Friend the leader of the Labour party became the agent of change. That is why we saw the change that we did in this election.

The question about this Gracious Speech is whether it shows that the Government understand the lessons of the election campaign. Listening to the Chancellor, one would think that it had all gone brilliantly and the Conservatives had got a landslide majority, as they had planned. They did not. I look at the Gracious Speech and I ask this question. Does it include an attack on the burning injustices that the Prime Minister promised in her words in Downing Street? Is there the transformation in life chances that she promised? Is there a determination to stand up to the most powerful as she promised? The answer, to coin a phrase, is no, no, no. We do not see any of that in this speech.

I want to make some positive suggestions about how Members across the House, working together, can rectify the gaps in the Queen’s Speech, and I will make three in the time I have. The first—it will not surprise hon. Members to hear me talk about this—is on energy prices. I do not normally read The Sun—people might recognise that, but on 9 May I read something that caught my eye. It said:

“I am making this promise: if I am re-elected on June 8, I will take action…by introducing a cap on unfair energy price rises…It will protect around 17 million families.”

That is brilliant, I thought. That is my policy, more or less. It was from the Prime Minister. Then I look at the Queen’s Speech—where has it gone? Where is the price cap legislation? All we have is a consultation and a letter to Ofcom—a U-turn on the U-turn, which happened yesterday as well.

Let me put it this way: 84% of people supported parties with a price cap in their manifesto. Not a soft cap but a hard cap. It was proposed by the Labour party and the Conservative party. So let us do it. I welcome the intervention by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) in the Queen’s Speech debate when the Prime Minister spoke.

Secondly, the Prime Minister says that she cares about insecurity. Zero-hours contracts may have started under the last Labour Government, but let us be honest about the situation. The number has gone from 168,000 in December 2010 to 900,000 by the end of last year. If we care about insecurity, it is unfathomable that we are not acting on this. We heard it from our constituents on the doorsteps. We heard that sense of insecurity; it is part of the explanation for the result of the general election.

Thirdly, the Chancellor of the Exchequer talked about corporation tax. We have cuts in corporation tax still to come that will cost £5 billion over the next few years. If there is no magic money tree, is it really the priority that Apple, Starbucks and other companies should pay 17% tax when ordinary families in Britain pay 20%? Why? Where is the fairness in that? Where is the sense of tackling the burning injustice that the Prime Minister talked about?

I want to end on this thought. Ever since 2015 I have stopped believing opinion polls—people will not be surprised to learn that. I make an exception in the following case, which is not about voting intention. I was reading the newspapers on 9 May, and people were asked by Ipsos MORI whether they thought that the country was rigged to the advantage of the rich and powerful—76% of people in Britain agreed and just 16% disagreed. The question for all of us, whether we like it or not, left and right, is what is our answer to that. For my money, the next election will be decided by who has the compelling vision to meet that desire for change. On the evidence of this Queen’s Speech, the Government have no answers and it will be up to Labour to provide them.