Shotton Steelworks: 125th Anniversary

Debate between Matt Western and Mark Tami

Wednesday 1st December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mark Tami]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We have to look at the whole picture, not just part of it.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I listened closely to what my right hon. Friend said about energy. On the point about costs, the Labour party’s proposal to introduce a total review of business rates is critical to the industry. As we know, comparison of business rates in this country with their equivalent in Europe shows a disadvantage for the UK of something like 70%.

[Mark Tami]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Every which way the industry turns, it seems to be at a disadvantage to its neighbours.

I implore the Government: instead of turning their back, will they turn towards the people they serve, provide a proper industrial strategy for the industry and the workers, support the industry to decarbonise, and put stronger targets in place to buy British? It is our duty and our place to stand up and represent the industries and businesses providing a livelihood for the people we represent, which are the lifeblood of our areas, while taking steps to secure a green and sustainable environmental future for us all.

Shotton has provided communities in Alyn and Deeside with secure employment since its inception, has supported the local and global economy and has provided vital quality products for infrastructure developments. The Government must recognise and support the Tata Steel group in its effort to transform into a green steel producer. I will continue, as I am sure hon. Friends will, to demand that funding is properly directed to that area. Above all, I will continue to stand with the workers of Shotton Steel, the trade unions and the management, for it is their skill and dedication that maintain production and innovation. It is they who keep Shotton at the heart of the community, and it is they who will be central to the next 125 years of steel making in Alyn and Deeside.

Working People’s Finances: Government Policy

Debate between Matt Western and Mark Tami

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. We all have to understand that it is easy to talk about numbers and statistics in the abstract, but the reality for so many people, as he illustrates, is that they do not just have the uncertainty and insecurity of zero-hours contracts and the pressures of the cut to universal credit, but having so little money in the bank brings pressures on households. And here we have inflation about to rip into those households through the energy price increases I am going to come on to talk about.

I talked about the Chancellor and the Prime Minister. Those in corporate business and in senior positions in Government must know what is happening to inflation. They must know what forecasters are saying. When commodities are bought, all energy costs are forward priced—they know what is coming down the track—so the Chancellor could suggest only a 1% increase for nurses when he knew all along that there was likely to be a significant spike in inflation coming. Energy costs are a major issue, one that has perhaps been the driver to this particular debate, alongside the cut in universal credit. We have long known for months that there was going to be an increase in gas prices of 12% in October. That will have a significant impact on household bills. The average gas and electricity bill for customers will go up by £139 a year to just under £1,300. Now, we have to rely on the Government to get a grip to avoid further increases as a result of this unfolding crisis.

It is fundamentally a failure of long-term Government planning over the past decade that we, as a country, are so exposed and vulnerable to rising gas prices. We should have been building energy resilience, instead of being one of the countries most reliant on foreign gas. We should have been investing in domestically produced renewable energy. Instead, we squandered 10 years burning fossil fuels. When I was working on Warwick District Council as a councillor seven years ago, I proposed the Warwickshire energy plan to save people money, create energy resilience and address energy poverty. Sadly, there was not the gumption to follow through on that, and I am disappointed it never materialised.

[Mark Tami]

A perfect example of the point my hon. Friend is making is Wylfa nuclear power station in north Wales, in Anglesey. Building could have started on that and it would have been part of a growing nuclear programme, but the Government failed to support it. A spin-off would have been high-tech jobs, but the Government are not interested—they just step back.

[Matt Western]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that point. I think the important thing is that the Cameron-Osborne Government in particular became obsessed with fracking and took their eye off the ball with other energy sources. In Warwickshire, we had Algy Cluff come and visit; he was a significant donor to the Conservative party, I think, and he was really interested in having blocks under Warwickshire that he would frack. That undermined long-term planning for projects like the one that my right hon. Friend mentions.

If the Government had followed through, we could have been building zero-carbon homes since 2016. Instead, the Cameron, Osborne and—dare I say it—Liberal Democrat Government scrapped the regulations for housing developer donors. A million homes could have been built since 2016, but something like 10% of households in my constituency are in fuel poverty already and I can only see that figure rising. Several thousand homes in my constituency could have benefited from forward-thinking house building and zero-carbon homes, because we have seen such an explosion in house building across south Warwick and south Leamington.

Council Housing

Debate between Matt Western and Mark Tami

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western]

I thank my hon. Friend for her informed intervention. My very next sentence was going to address that point. If something is already expensive, making it 80% of expensive is still expensive. That is where we find ourselves.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend mentioned right to buy. Some of the right-to-buy houses that were originally bought by their renters have now been sold on, often to landlords. Some of those properties are not in the best condition and on many estates they are the ones that really stick out, often because rogue landlords are not looking after them.

[Matt Western]

I thank my hon. Friend for his timely intervention. He is of course absolutely correct. One issue we have had over recent decades is that so much of this property has fallen into the hands of landlords and others, the investment has not been made, and they are now charging extortionate rents. Had it been left to local authority provision, those renting would be able to afford the properties more readily.

Organisations that bid for Government grants were told to re-let homes for low-cost social rent at the new so-called “affordable rent”. It is now estimated that 150,000 homes for social rent have been lost in the past five years. More recently, the Government proposed to add to the sell-off by extending the right to buy to housing association tenants, funded by an extraordinary forced sell-off of council housing to the highest bidder.