62 Mike Wood debates involving HM Treasury

Tue 2nd Apr 2019
Business Rates
Commons Chamber
(Adjournment Debate)
Tue 24th Jul 2018
Wed 7th Mar 2018
HMRC Staff: Dudley
Commons Chamber
(Adjournment Debate)
Thu 25th Jan 2018
Trade Bill (Third sitting)
Public Bill Committees

Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Wed 5th Jul 2017

Discrimination in Football

Mike Wood Excerpts
Thursday 11th April 2019

(5 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Mims Davies Portrait Mims Davies
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I thank the hon. Lady, who always highlights the beauty of her football club. I intend to meet UEFA and FIFA in due course. These international bodies have a chance to work with us and use their global standing to make change. No one is going wait any longer.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
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West Bromwich Albion pioneered the fight against racism in football in the 1970s with club legends such as Cyrille Regis, Brendon Batson and Laurie Cunningham. Will the Minister support police in the west midlands and across the country in bringing charges against those who subject players, fans and officials to racist abuse from the stands?

Business Rates

Mike Wood Excerpts
Tuesday 2nd April 2019

(5 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Mel Stride Portrait Mel Stride
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Earlier in my speech, I went through at length the large number of reliefs that we have brought in to make sure that across the piece we are bearing down wherever we can, particularly in respect of those smaller businesses that might find expenses of this kind particularly arduous. Given that we have had a rather lengthy debate preceding my remarks—

Mel Stride Portrait Mel Stride
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I will not give way at this moment.

We have listened carefully as a Government and will continue to bear down on business rates. I look forward to having further discussions about that with my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds and welcome the full and comprehensive debate we have had.

Question put and agreed to.

Beer Taxation and Pubs

Mike Wood Excerpts
Thursday 28th March 2019

(5 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
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I beg to move,

That this House has considered beer taxation and pubs.

I am delighted to have secured this important debate, alongside the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans), and I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allocating us this time.

In the short time that I have available, I hope to set out a compelling case as to why the Minister should recommend to the Chancellor that he cut beer duty in future Budgets, reform business rates and continue to look at new ways of reducing the disproportionate tax burden on pubs and breweries. Representing a Black Country constituency as I do, and as chair of the all-party parliamentary beer group—the largest Back-Bench all-party group in this House—I know what an important issue this is for many of our constituents. My own Dudley South constituency is home to three very distinct and individual brewers: Bathams, dating back to the 1860s; Black Country Ales, which is a much more recent and fast-growing brewery; and Ma Pardoes, one of the original Campaign for Real Ale breweries.

Kevin Brennan Portrait Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
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I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his great work as chair of the all-party parliamentary beer group, of which—like many other hon. Members—I am a member. Does he agree that, although it is very welcome that the Government extended rates relief to pubs, it is disappointing that they did not also extend it to small music venues, where people often also drink the occasional beer?

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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Of course, the business rates relief extension was part of the support for high streets and community pubs in particular. I think there is a particular value to that, but I certainly would not be opposed to the kind of measures to which the hon. Gentleman has referred.

When we last debated beer duty in this House—in Westminster Hall in October 2017—I said that there were 75 pubs in my constituency. I am afraid that there are now only 73, despite my very best efforts.

Rupa Huq Portrait Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
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The hon. Gentleman talks about disappearing pubs in his constituency. A person does not actually have to be a drinker to enjoy the benefits of pubs. Jo Cox, our late and much missed friend, talked about the loneliness agenda. I am a non-drinker, but I am very upset that we are losing the Goldsmiths Arms in East Acton, which has been there since 1826 when it was a coaching inn. The petition to keep it open has been signed by 2,180 people, but under this Government it often feels that people power and planning law are in conflict, and greedy developers often have too much power on their side.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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I would caution against trying to turn this into a party political issue, because although the number of pubs is still reducing at far too high a rate, it is a rather slower rate than was the case before 2010. There are a number of factors that lead to pub closures, some of which are more in the control of the Government and public authorities than others. Where the Government can act to slow down, stop and reverse pub closures, I would very much encourage them to do so.

Greg Knight Portrait Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
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Does my hon. Friend agree that the closure of a public house often has a far more devastating effect in a rural area, where the pub is the centre and heart of the community, often acting as a shop, a music venue and a tavern to the local people?

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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My right hon. Friend is quite right. I will speak about the particular importance of rural community pubs later, but pubs are often key to local identity even in our towns and high streets. In fact, more people probably give directions with reference to pubs than to road names.

Stephen Crabb Portrait Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
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My hon. Friend is making a superb speech, as always. On the subject of the decline in the number of pubs, we should not forget that one area of enormous growth in the industry over the last 10 years is the proliferation of craft brewers. I am sure that every single Member here has an excellent craft brewery in their constituency, and these breweries often run tap houses. Does my hon. Friend recognise the importance of the small brewer’s relief to the growth of craft brewers, and will he make that part of his discussion with the Chancellor and the Treasury?

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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My right hon. Friend pre-empts the later part of my speech, and the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North is similarly indicating that she may just touch upon this topic later. Yes, the rise in the number and variety of smaller breweries, and particularly craft breweries, over the last decade and a half has been one of the key features of the sector. This is partly down to the success of the small brewer’s relief.

Toby Perkins Portrait Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
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I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. He is absolutely right about rural pubs. However, the importance of the last pub on the council estates in many of our towns is often overlooked. The last pub has closed on many of those estates, and that has a huge impact on the facilities available for people to get together. Although I entirely support what he says about rural pubs, let us make sure that we do not forget the issue with regards to council estates.

Lindsay Hoyle Portrait Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
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Order. Mr Perkins, if you want to speak, we are on a five-minute limit. I do not want to have to drop people down the list; I want everybody to have the same fair chance. If those who are speaking would take fewer interventions, it would help us all.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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I consider myself duly reprimanded, Mr Deputy Speaker. Suffice it to say that, once again, I strongly agree with the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins), as I have also seen the impact of derelict pubs of varying sizes standing monument within housing estates and town centres across the Black Country.

Stephanie Peacock Portrait Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
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Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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I will take one last intervention and then I must move on, otherwise you will shout at me, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Stephanie Peacock Portrait Stephanie Peacock
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I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and on his powerful speech. The Black Bull pub in Barnsley East closed last year, and the 250-year-old building is due to be demolished. Does he share the sadness, and what does he think we can do to improve the situation?

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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I share the sadness whenever a well-used pub closes for any reason, and there is a particular impact on the community when that pub is a heritage building in a town, city or village.

Last autumn, 116,000 people up and down the country signed the Long Live the Local campaign—many of them emailing their MPs. It was launched by Britain’s Beer Alliance, and quickly garnered public support from licensees, beer drinkers and many more groups. I know that the success of that petition due to everybody who united behind the campaign was pivotal in persuading the Treasury of the need for action to support beer and pubs. I am delighted that the Chancellor listened to those passionate calls and froze beer duty once again.

The beer and pub sector is vital to our country. Nearly 900,000 people up and down the United Kingdom rely on the industry for work; 43% are younger people aged 16 to 24, and more than half are women. Supporting the pub trade is a fantastic way to reduce youth unemployment and develop skills among young people. This House saw at first hand the impact of apprenticeships across the hospitality sector and the opportunities available, during the apprenticeship showcase in National Apprenticeship Week.

Marcus Jones Portrait Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
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My hon. Friend is making an extremely good point about the opportunities for people in the industry. Does he agree that this is one of those industries where someone can quite literally start behind the bar and end up as the chief executive or the chairman of quite a big company?

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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My hon. Friend is spot on. When I was helping to judge the parliamentary pub chef and young pub chef of the year competition this time last year, we spoke to a number of people who were not yet in their mid-20s and were not only running their own kitchen but, in a number of cases, were now running multimillion-pound turnover businesses in their own right. There are very few other sectors where people can go into an industry at a young age with next to no start-up capital and have such opportunities for rapid career progression resulting in running their own business.

Brewing is also a true success for home-grown British manufacturing. A staggering 82% of all beer consumed in this country is made in this country, and we have over 1,800 breweries in the UK, 149 in the west midlands alone. In my own constituency, the sector accounts for 1,068 jobs, 315 of them held by people under 25. It contributes over £34 million in gross value added to the Treasury’s coffers, for which I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister is very grateful. Nationally, the sector adds nearly £23 billion to the UK economy and contributes almost £13 billion in taxation to the Treasury. Some of us would argue that that is a little disproportionate. One in three pounds spent in pubs goes straight into Treasury coffers, with an average of £140,000 for every pub in the country being raised for the taxman every year. I therefore strongly welcome the Chancellor’s announcement of a review of small brewer’s relief.

Peter Aldous Portrait Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
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Small brewers such as St Peter’s in my constituency have a proven track record in exporting their beers all around the world. They could expand, open up new markets and create more jobs if export volumes were excluded from small brewer’s relief. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Treasury should consider this exclusion as part of their review of small brewer’s relief?

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point, which is one of those that needs to be considered. I understand the Treasury’s concerns about the risk of fraud, the ability to actually enforce it, and particularly, at the moment, legality under the current European duty framework.

Beer duty has divided this House in the past, but there is now a general agreement on all sides that it is already high and we certainly need to avoid rises. When the hated beer duty escalator was introduced by Gordon Brown, beer duty rose by a staggering 42%, while beer consumption in the UK fell by 16% overall and by nearly a quarter in our pubs. Almost 7,000 pubs called time for good, and more than 58,000 beer-dependent jobs were lost. This was a very expensive policy failure, and the price was paid by beer drinkers, publicans and employees alike. I am delighted that, as a country, we are now drinking more beer but also paying less tax on it as a proportion of the cost. However, the amount of this beer being sold in pubs continues to fall, and while the rate of pub closures has slowed, as I said, they are still closing at a disturbing rate.

Helen Whately Portrait Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
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I commend my hon. Friend on his speech. Pubs are very important in my constituency, where the brewery Shepherd Neame is the largest employer as well as the producer of excellent beer. I see colleagues nodding. Lower-alcohol beers are becoming increasingly popular, so does he agree that there may be a case for looking at the threshold at which brewers get duty relief for such beers?

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) would also agree, with St Peter’s being a major advocate of this argument as well. The European Union, within its beer duty framework, is in the process of changing those thresholds. I would hope that the Treasury, regardless of what form of Brexit we end up with, will make sure that, at the very least, we follow the mechanisms that are already in place, amending the threshold for low-alcohol beers to one where it is rather more viable for brewers to produce at that strength. Encouraging people to go down from over 4% to around 3% is better for their health, and if we can make sure that it is fiscally better for the brewer as well, then so much the better.

As CAMRA has made clear, one of the opportunities as we leave the European Union—we know from last night’s discussion that there is an element of disagreement as to what should happen next—is that we are able to take back control of our excise duty regime. This gives the Chancellor an opportunity to look afresh at how we tax beer in pubs, in particular—how we can use fiscal measures to help pubs to thrive, to support responsible drinking, and to redress the competitive disadvantage that our community pubs have as against, in particular, supermarkets that are able to stack drinks high, sell them below cost, and use them a loss-leader.

Mary Glindon Portrait Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
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Does the hon. Gentleman agree with Colin Shevills of Balance North East, who commissioned an independent survey of publicans, that it is cheap alcohol—cheap booze—in the supermarkets that is most dangerous to our pubs and causing more closures than alcohol duty?

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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There is a range of factors. Beer duty is certainly part of it, but business rates are a massive factor in the pressures affecting our pubs. For these pubs to flourish, to remain the beating heart of our communities, and to continue to compete as businesses, they need the investment that comes, and is only possible, if the tax burden is kept at a sensible level.

Mary Robinson Portrait Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
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Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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I really cannot—I ought to have finished by now.

The three duty cuts and two beer tax freezes that we have seen under successive Conservative Chancellors have secured thousands of pub jobs and hundreds of pubs. They have boosted confidence in our brewing and pub businesses, which have continued to invest in the sector. They have increased beer sales, boosting the Treasury’s total tax take from beer. This is a win-win situation, and I encourage the Minister and the Chancellor to win even more by giving us a fair deal on beer taxes. I ask the Minister to encourage the Chancellor to go further. Hard-pressed UK beer drinkers still pay 40% of all Europe’s beer duty despite drinking only 12% of the beer consumed. One could argue that 12% is possibly not yet enough. Crucially, seven in 10 alcoholic drinks sold in pubs are beer. By helping British beer, we are helping British manufacturing and also helping our community pubs. We have to address business rates. We need fundamental reform. The relief announced in the Budget last autumn was enormously helpful, with about 80% of pubs benefiting, but they are still hugely overtaxed. Despite only making up about 0.5% of total business turnover, our pubs represent nearly 3% of all business rate payments.

Beer and pubs are a great British success story. We can help them to prosper and to succeed if we can spare industry and consumers from the burden of high beer duty and unfair business rates, and use our duty framework to support our community pubs. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for finding the time for this debate, thank Members for supporting it, and look forward to the Minister’s response.

None Portrait Several hon. Members rose—
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--- Later in debate ---
Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions today. We have had well over 20 contributions from Members representing six out of the seven parties in the House and all four nations of our United Kingdom. The contributions from the Minister, the shadow Minister and the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), showed the breadth of agreement and support for British beer and pubs and the need for us to support them where we can.

If people watching this debate take away just one message, I want it to be that British beer and pubs are a force for good in so many ways. As the hon. Members for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) and for Aberdeen North said, they are good for jobs and local economies. As my hon. Friends the Members for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) and for St Albans (Mrs Main) pointed out, they are good for communities and for families. My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) said that pubs are good for charities and for community sport, the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) said that they are good for promoting local investment, and the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) said that they are good for attracting tourism.

There are other non-economic benefits, too. As the hon. Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) and for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) pointed out, they are essential for tackling loneliness and strengthening the social fabric. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) referred to the vital role that good community and high street pubs play in offering a safe place for responsible drinking. Pubs are a force for good in so many ways. Think just how much more good they could do if we can get the tax burden under control, give our beer and pubs a fair deal, and support these key industries and the role that they play in our communities.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered beer taxation and pubs.

Grassroots Football Funding: Wembley Stadium

Mike Wood Excerpts
Tuesday 22nd January 2019

(5 years, 3 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Justin Madders Portrait Justin Madders
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I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. That is one of a number of ways in which we can harness the wealth that is in the game to better effect, and as I say, that is something I encourage Government to look at closely.

While we are here, I will say a few words about the future of Wembley. Obviously, the proposed sale split public opinion, and I, like many others, had concerns. I do not know whether another offer will come along, but I understand that the Government will have a say over whether any sale goes ahead, so if that does come to pass, I ask the Government first to consider what we have discussed today about harnessing that money. Secondly, I ask the Government to consider whether safeguards could be put in place so that important domestic and international games always take precedence at that stadium; what measures we could put in place to meet the needs of fans, in terms of kick-off times and the availability and price of tickets; and what assurance there would be that any future purchaser beyond the initial one could be held to any agreements that were made on initial sale with the FA. As I say, we are not in that place now, but I would be interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on that.

Finally, I will take this opportunity to say a few words of thanks to the thousands of people who give up their time to voluntarily run the teams, organise the fixtures, paint the lines, mow the pitches, put up the nets, and all the other jobs. Without those people, grassroots football would not exist. Their love of the game means that millions of people up and down the country get to participate, and their dedication gives youngsters opportunities to emulate their heroes. They often have to do so while getting changed in car parks in the freezing cold, facing frequent cancellations and bobbly pitches that are mud baths, so it is not surprising that kids sometimes prefer to spend their time playing football on the Xbox, rather than in real life. We all know about the need to encourage healthy living and exercise, and we all know about the many distractions kids have that do not involve them getting off their couches, so we need to make the playing experience as genuinely enjoyable as possible. There are probably not many pastimes that bring as much pleasure as scoring the winning goal in the last minute of an important game, but we know those occasions are few and far between, so we need to make sure that when kids play, they are encouraged; they are comfortable; and most of all, they enjoy themselves.

Football is more than just a game, and certainly more than just a business. It is an integral part of our culture, something that needs nurturing and protecting, and I firmly believe that the fruits of this golden age in the professional sport should be used to help secure its future so that everyone can enjoy it.

Philip Hollobone Portrait Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
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The debate can last until 4.30. The hon. Member is standing.

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Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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Sorry, I had understood that it was a 60-minute debate. I will sit down.

Philip Hollobone Portrait Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Thank you. We now move on to the very sporty Sports Minister for her to respond.

Mims Davies Portrait The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Mims Davies)
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It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) for securing this debate and for his insightful contributions, and to other Members for the points they have made.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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rose

Mims Davies Portrait Mims Davies
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I am happy to be interrupted by my hon. Friend if he has something equally as insightful to say, which I am sure he does.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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I thank the Minister for giving way. I would not claim to be particularly insightful, but I know how much Ministers enjoy being urged to enter into negotiations with Treasury colleagues. Will she urge them to look at the UK guarantee scheme and how it relates to educational facilities, and whether that could be used to provide financial guarantees for bodies wishing to invest in community sports facilities?

Mims Davies Portrait Mims Davies
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. As we head towards the spending review, our Department is consistently urged to hold conversations with the Treasury.

The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston raised issues relating to volunteers. I echo his love for the game. People in our communities give so much to the grassroots, and that should be encouraged because of what it gives to our children and to the game as a whole. My father-in-law did exactly that as a football ref in Wales for many years, and he also organised games for homeless youngsters. It is important that we recognise the volunteering that takes place up and down the country. It is absolutely vital. Football is not just a business; it has a responsibility to the grassroots, as we all do.

I absolutely hear the message regarding the safeguards for Wembley ticket pricing, future purchase and controls. I will come on to some of those issues further into my speech, but as we heard earlier Wembley is iconic in terms of what it means to football and to us as the public. It is important that we have a national stadium that is able to host the biggest sporting events; Wembley has delivered that over many years, and we want it to continue to do so. UEFA’s decision to hold seven matches, including the semi-finals and finals of next year’s European championship, is proof that Wembley remains a top-class venue, hosting some of the world’s biggest and most important sporting events. If we are to bid for any future major sporting tournaments—Members might know what I am alluding to—we will need to make sure that we have the right stadium for World cup finals, one that resonates with the rest of the world. That is essential.

Last year, when the FA said that it was considering selling Wembley Stadium as a means of generating extra funds to re-invest in the grassroots, the Government were, naturally and rightly, keen to listen. Nobody would argue that a sport with more than 2 million regular participants could fail to be further helped by the promise of such additional funding. However, at the same time we recognised that Wembley has a special place in the heart of football fans. When listening to the proposal, the Government’s prime consideration as a public funder of the stadium was to protect the public interest, as is absolutely right. Going back to the hon. Gentleman’s point, custodianship of it would be absolutely important in any future new arrangement, no matter who owned Wembley stadium. The stadium should always be protected for future needs. The fact that the FA executive was considering the sale of its most prized asset raised more than a few eyebrows. In its response, the executive was clear in its view that the sale would free up funds to help provide greater financial support, which it felt was needed to help the sport from the bottom up.

Public Sector Pay

Mike Wood Excerpts
Tuesday 24th July 2018

(5 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

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Elizabeth Truss Portrait Elizabeth Truss
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Personnel will receive that payment alongside their 2% pay rise this year. Many armed forces personnel will also receive pay increments—we saw an average of 1.3% last year—on top of the bonus and the pay rise.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
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What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the announcement’s impact on the recruitment and retention of prison officers?

Elizabeth Truss Portrait Elizabeth Truss
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Prison officers will receive a 2% rise and a 0.75% bonus. Prison officers who were newly recruited on fair and sustainable terms will receive additional progression pay to make sure that we retain those really important workers.

HMRC Staff: Dudley

Mike Wood Excerpts
Wednesday 7th March 2018

(6 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Lord Austin of Dudley Portrait Ian Austin
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My hon. Friend is completely right. Everybody knows how hard he fights for jobs in Coventry and that it cannot afford to lose those jobs, just like the Black country cannot afford to lose the ones in Dudley. The city council passed a motion unanimously, probably in no small part due to his campaigning.

It was announced that the Dudley office at the Waterfront and Merry Hill would be taken on by the Department for Work and Pensions, and that staff would transfer to that Department; a small number of staff would have transferred to the Birmingham office. Staff at that office employed by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to work on tax credits were told in 2015 that they would be transferred to the DWP to work on the introduction and implementation of universal credit. As recently as last October, they were told that they would remain at the Waterfront offices to work on the new benefit. Instead, at the end of January it was announced that the Government had changed their mind, that their jobs were at risk and that the office would close. That came as a huge shock to the hard-working, highly skilled and loyal staff. On the same day, DWP announced up to 150 job vacancies at the Waterfront site. Inquiries have been made and they are fixed-term appointments, although local discussions have revealed that they could become permanent. The announcement had little detail and more was promised, we were told, in April 2018.

It was originally envisaged that the Birmingham regional centre would have a capacity of about 3,200 full-time equivalent staff, but when the site of the Birmingham office was announced in October, that figure was reduced to 2,600. No official reason has been given for that, but sources are very clear that it is based on the high costs of premises in Birmingham. The figure of 2,600 did not include the Merry Hill staff, because they were due to go to DWP.

We have discussed the situation in Coventry, where hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), have been campaigning. The same is true in Wolverhampton, where MPs also want their HMRC office to stay open. It has 300 staff and the local council also supports the campaign. Discussions have opened with Andy Street, the West Midlands Mayor, based on the combined authority agreement, which was signed by the then Chancellor with all of the West Midlands combined authority councils, and which uniquely states that there should be a regional Government hub in Birmingham and sub-regional hubs elsewhere in the region.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
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I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate on the closure of the offices in my constituency, which will affect many of his constituents. Does he agree that the success of the surge and rapid response team at the Waterfront demonstrates exactly the kind of modern capabilities that would add so much to delivering universal credit, and that the redeployment should be reconsidered, whether with DWP or with other bodies, to make use of the existing staff and skills at the Waterfront?

Lord Austin of Dudley Portrait Ian Austin
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The hon. Gentleman is completely right. I will make that point later. These are highly skilled, highly trained staff, who are very experienced in dealing with complex benefits. No better group of people could be employed for the introduction of universal credit. That is the case we are making to Ministers tonight and I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman is here to do so, too. I very much hope that Ministers will listen to and consider the argument over the next few weeks.

That is a really important point, because for staff in Merry Hill the closure will present grave difficulties. A high proportion of them have caring responsibilities which would make the journey to Birmingham impossible; I have spoken to mothers in exactly that position. A number of the staff came from offices that closed in the 1990s, and the journeys would make such a move impossible or impractical for them. The recent closure of the office in Walsall left more than half the staff without jobs, and the closure in Worcester is affecting nine out of 10 staff, who now face voluntary or compulsory redundancy; the majority of those staff have caring responsibilities.

HMRC insists that 90% of staff will have a job in the centres, despite the fact that all the closures so far have resulted in much higher job losses. The loss of these skilled and hard-working staff is very risky and it contradicts recommendations made by Committees of this House, which have called for a halt to the office closure process. Staff in Merry Hill believe that the DWP explanation that it has sufficient staff for universal credit to work properly flies in the face of all the current information we have about this complex new benefit’s introduction, as we heard a moment ago. Staff who work there are highly skilled: they have dealt with tax credits work since those were introduced, and they are helping with the changeover to UC from tax credits already. They were also stunned that the DWP vacancies were not even considered when the announcement was originally made.

Another point that I know will be of interest to the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) is that the office is in the middle of a recently announced enterprise zone, DY5, and the roles undertaken by HMRC staff completely fit into the Government’s vision for this enterprise zone. This brings me to my final point, which is about unemployment in Dudley.

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Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
- Hansard - -

I shall keep my comments very brief. As the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) has said, these proposals are particular and differ from many of the wider reorganisation proposals for HMRC. Some very specific plans were put in place—the workforce at HMRC in Merry Hill were consulted and told that staff would be transferred from the tax credits team to the Department for Work and Pensions to work on universal credit delivery. That was thought to be the position two months ago, but suddenly, out of the blue, the proposals changed. It came as a shock to HMRC staff based at the Waterfront and to their representatives—both those in the trade union movement and their elected representatives.

The hon. Gentleman set out some very good reasons why the Government should look again at how we can maintain and retain both the staff and the facilities at the Waterfront. The skills provided there are absolutely first class and would be a credit to any part of the civil service that could make use of them. As I mentioned earlier, the surge and rapid response team that has been operating out of the Waterfront—originally from HMRC and the passport service—has shown the adaptability of the teams that are based there. There is no doubt that the tax credit team could similarly transfer and provide a fantastic service, whether it is in conjunction with DWP, other parts of HMRC or Her Majesty’s Treasury.

The Waterfront is a growth area. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the DY5 enterprise zone that many of us worked so hard to secure. On top of that, we have the new tram links connecting to that enterprise zone, which—I almost said coincidentally, but it is almost tragically—is due to open at almost exactly the time when these jobs are scheduled to be taken away from the Waterfront.

I urge my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to look again at both the content of these proposals and the timetable for them, to see whether the Government are doing absolutely everything they can to find the right way to make full use of the fantastic talent that we have at HMRC at the Waterfront, to give employees the certainty that they need, to retain the skills and experience that we need in the civil service, and to set an awful lot of minds at rest in my constituency and that of the hon. Member for Dudley North.

Trade Bill (Third sitting)

Mike Wood Excerpts
Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 25th January 2018

(6 years, 3 months ago)

Public Bill Committees
Read Full debate Trade Bill 2017-19 View all Trade Bill 2017-19 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 25 January 2018 - (25 Jan 2018)
None Portrait The Chair
- Hansard -

I remind everyone that we have until 1 o’clock at the latest for this session.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
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I declare an interest as a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary furniture industry group, for which the British Furniture Confederation provides the secretariat.

None Portrait The Chair
- Hansard -

Thank you. Would the witnesses introduce themselves for the record, starting from our left?

David Scott: I am David Scott, senior director of Tepnel Pharma Services.

Jonathan Hindle: I am Jonathan Hindle, chairman of the British Furniture Confederation—coming from the industry.

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp: I am Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, chief executive of Business for Scotland.

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Faisal Rashid Portrait Faisal Rashid
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Q Are you aware of any consultation system in any other country that we can adopt as a starting point?

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp: I am not an expert on other nations. For almost all my life, we have been in the EU. We did not need to study what other people did. We are just making it hard for ourselves now.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
- Hansard - -

Q Mr MacIntyre-Kemp, you spoke about your concern that the Bill is not clear on the Government’s powers to conclude trade deals, and you talked about chlorinated chicken from the United States. I just want to check that you understand that the Bill is perfectly clear that it would not give any powers to the Government to conclude any trade deal with the United States, regardless of whether it included any type of chicken.

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp: You are talking specifically about it not allowing anyone to do a deal to do with chicken, but I was using that as an example to point out that the actual wording of the Bill seems to allow a significant amount of power in one particular place and to not have sufficient levels of consultation. Basically, afterwards, it would indeed be applicable across many different sectors, food being one of them.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
- Hansard - -

Q Just to go back to my point, it does not allow any type of deal containing anything for the United States.

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp: In my opinion, what it allows is too free a hand post-Brexit to do deals without the right level of consultation. Sorry if that has not been clear, but I have said it four or five times.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
- Hansard - -

Q I do not know whether I am not making this clear. You seem not to be quite answering the question. You do understand that this Bill covers only those countries with which the European Union currently has a trade deal, which does not include the United States? There is nothing in the Bill that would give the Government any powers to conclude any trade deal with the United States.

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp: Right. I understand what you mean now.

Alan Brown Portrait Alan Brown
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Q I have a question for David. Looking forward, as well as establishing the trade agreements that the Bill is meant to carry over, am I correct in thinking that your industry has an understanding of the licensing arrangements that will be put in place with the EU, and the research and access to labour issues that need to progress as well to give the industry an overall view?

David Scott: Absolutely. I would refer you to the Industry Leadership Group position paper written by Dave Tudor, the chair of the Industry Leadership Group for Life Sciences Scotland. There are four key points. One is regulation, which we have talked about already: maintenance of regulation on a harmonised basis. There is trade and supply, which we are obviously talking about today. Access to talent is a key thing. In Scotland, we are a diverse community. Research and development are best done using a diverse set of people, so that freedom of movement and the ability to attract people not just into Scotland but into the UK is fundamental for us. That is not to downplay our abilities, but a mix of different people helps us bring the best ideas to the table.

Again, from a Scottish point of view, we have a heritage of innovation in the medical sciences that we are very proud of, and we want to continue to use our talent base and other talent to help us achieve that.

Business of the House

Mike Wood Excerpts
Thursday 11th January 2018

(6 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
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The Leader of the House is attending to Privy Council business in Sandringham, but the residents of Sandringham Place in Wordsley have had to put up with derelict shops falling into rack and ruin over many years. Can we have a debate in Government time on the power of local authorities to deal with derelict buildings and to bring them back into use, whether as shops, commercial or housing?

Paul Maynard Portrait Paul Maynard
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I can only applaud my hon. Friend’s dexterity in making his point. I know from experience that it often takes a long time for local councils to get details of the ownership of vacant houses, so he is right to raise the issue. I urge him to apply for a Westminster Hall debate to fully air the issue with Ministers.

Taxation: Beer and Pubs

Mike Wood Excerpts
Tuesday 31st October 2017

(6 years, 6 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.

Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.

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Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
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I beg to move,

That this House has considered taxation of the beer and pubs sector.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen, for what I think is the first time and particularly for this important debate on taxation of the beer and pubs sector. It takes place just three weeks before crucial decisions are made in next month’s Budget. It was pointed out to me this morning that seven years ago an Adjournment debate on this subject was initiated by my constituency neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson). I only hope that my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury is as keen to please the Government Chief Whip as I clearly am in repeating his initiative today.

This debate is taking place on Halloween, and pubs up and down the country are decorated with a wide range of ghouls, monsters, skeletons and witches. However, the scariest prospect for our pubs and brewers is surely that they could face a second duty rise this year after next month’s Budget and enormous rises in business rate bills over this revaluation period. I hope to set out, in the short time available to me, why the Minister should avoid that course of action.

In the UK, 30 million adults drink beer each year and 15 million of us visit the pub each week. Representing the Black country, the spiritual home of British brewing, and as chairman of the all-party parliamentary beer group, the largest Back-Bench group in the House, I know how important this issue is for so many of our constituents.

If the midlands is the engine of the British economy, beer is surely the fuel that helps to power that engine, and like all fuel, it needs to be well looked after. My Dudley South constituency is home to four brewers—Bathams, Black Country Ales, Ma Pardoes and the Pig Iron brewery—and no fewer than 75 pubs. The beer and pub sector is vital to our country. Nearly 1 million people across the UK rely on the industry for work. About 46% of them are young people under the age of 25, and just over half are women.

Chris Green Portrait Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
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Does my hon. Friend agree that having a healthy pub environment will do two things, namely promote healthy drinking and help to revitalise our high streets?

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
- Hansard - -

Absolutely, and I will come on to the specific role of pubs later. Supporting the pub trade has a more direct economic role in helping further to reduce youth unemployment and the number of young people not in education, employment or training.

Gloria De Piero Portrait Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate. May I place on the record my praise for the many microbreweries that have opened in Ashfield? They have totally transformed the high streets in my constituency. Does he agree that the tax break introduced for smaller breweries by the last Labour Government should remain intact to ensure that they continue to prosper?

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Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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Partly because of the small breweries’ relief scheme, we now have a greater variety and, I would argue, greater quality of beer than we have had in the past. It is important that smaller brewers enjoy support that reflects the higher marginal cost of brewing on that scale. However, we also need to look at whether the relief scheme as currently framed is preventing brewers from expanding, or even causing some to scale down.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
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I will give way just one last time and then I must make some progress.

Jim Cunningham Portrait Mr Cunningham
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

In the last Parliament, there was a Bill on this subject; I think that a Liberal Democrat introduced it. Certainly the landlords of Coventry’s pubs are voicing a lot of concern about this matter. There is a big effect on pubs—many are now closing—but also a big effect on high streets. Coventry has universities, and sometimes the students have jobs in the pubs, so they subsidise their—

Albert Owen Portrait Albert Owen (in the Chair)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Order. I call Mike Wood.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
- Hansard - -

The hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) of course makes an important and valid point in talking about the role not only of students but of young people more widely in employment, because the pub sector can generate an extremely fulfilling and constructive career for many that goes much wider than the stereotypical picture of students working in a pub until they are in full-time work.

Graham Stringer Portrait Graham Stringer
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
- Hansard - -

I must continue because a lot of colleagues are waiting to get in.

The beer industry is a true success story for home-grown British manufacturing. A staggering 82% of all beer consumed in this country is made in the UK. The UK now has more than 2,000 breweries, producing 25 million barrels of beer a year. With 923 million pints exported to 110 different countries, beer is the third largest food and drink export sector in the UK and it is worth £550 million to the UK economy. In my constituency alone, the sector accounts for 1,156 jobs, of which 313 are held by under-25s. It also contributes more than £37 million to our local economy.

Helen Whately Portrait Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Shepherd Neame, the pub and brewing company, is the largest employer in my constituency, so let me support the case he is making. Given the importance of these companies as employers, and the role of pubs in our villages, we must have a tax regime that supports this part of the economy.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
- Hansard - -

I thank my hon. Friend, who represents our oldest brewery. It is important that we support established breweries as well as more recent entries into the market. The beer and pub sector adds more than £23 billion to the UK economy, and I know that the Minister will be very grateful for the £13 billion of taxes that it contributes to the Treasury.

There has been a suggestion that duty changes have little or no impact on beer sales in pubs. That is simply not true and is not consistent with the available evidence. The last Labour Government introduced the hated beer duty escalator in 2008. It was hated because the escalator saw beer duty increase by a staggering 42%, hitting beer sales, making pints less affordable and closing pubs at a faster rate than ever. Beer sales have been falling for many years. However, we saw that trend accelerate sharply under the escalator. In the six years before the duty escalator, on-trade beer sales fell by about 3% a year. During the escalator years, on-trade sales fell by more than a quarter, which was about 5.4% a year on average. Almost 7,000 pubs called time for good, and more than 58,000 beer-dependent jobs were lost. However, although beer duty increased by 42%, beer duty revenues rose by only 12%. It was a very expensive failure of a policy and one that I hope the Labour party has put firmly in the past.

Beer duty is now 20% lower than it would have been with tax rises previously planned under the escalator. In the years between 2013 and 2016, when duty was cut or frozen, the annual decline in on-trade beer sales was not 5.4%, but 2%, which year on year makes a significant difference to the number of jobs and the size of the industry. However, the return to a retail prices index-linked rise in this March’s Budget was disappointing. Announcing a second duty rise in the same calendar year would in effect take us back to the days of the beer duty escalator through the back door.

As the price difference between sales in pubs and supermarkets has widened, consumers have become increasingly price sensitive, especially pub-goers. A respected consultancy, Oxford Economics, which has consistently and accurately forecast the impact of duty changes in recent years, calculates that even a freeze in beer duty in next month’s Budget, rather than the planned increase, would boost pub sales by about 33 million pints per year against the current baseline and that that would mean more than 2,000 additional jobs.

The Exchequer Secretary will remember the front-page headlines praising the previous Chancellor for cutting beer duty. I cannot promise the Exchequer Secretary the front page of the Evening Standard—maybe he knows a man who can—but I have no doubt that if the current Chancellor freezes beer duty, the whole Treasury team would be carried shoulder high across Whitehall.

The financial benefits of the beer and brewing industry are clear, but just as great is the social impact of pubs and the detrimental effect that pub closures have on the fabric of our society, because pubs are a great addition to the social make-up of our country, at the heart of our local communities. They offer a safe environment in which drinking can be supervised and highly regulated, which is in stark contrast to much street drinking.

Damien Moore Portrait Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Does my hon. Friend agree that at a time when we are becoming more digitised and people are spending more time alone, the social interaction that pubs create is really important, particularly when loneliness is a major problem, not just for older people, but for younger people as well?

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
- Hansard - -

My hon. Friend goes right to the heart of this issue. Friends are made and communities come together in pubs. Research at Oxford University by Professor Robin Dunbar concluded that pubs play exactly that kind of vital role in tackling social isolation and contributing to wellbeing. People with a local are likely to be better off financially, physically and socially. They are likely to have a wider circle of friends. In a week when researchers have shown again the clear link between strength of social networks and resilience to conditions such as dementia, the social value to which my hon. Friend refers could not be more important.

People who drink in moderation in a pub are more likely to be healthier and register higher levels of happiness than people who do not drink at all. They are also likely to be better fed, with almost 1 billion pub meals sold annually.

We should not forget that pubs play a key role in tourism, being one of the attractions that tourists most want to visit when they are in the UK. Last year there were 600 million day visits to pubs by tourists, and more than half of all holiday visits to Britain included at least one visit to a pub.

Giles Watling Portrait Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a terrible shame that we lost some 10,000 pubs between 2003 and 2013, ripping the hearts out of many of our villages and communities? Does he also agree that pubs represent part of our British way of life that other people come here to see?

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
- Hansard - -

Absolutely. That is as true in our towns as it is in our villages. About 80% of pubs are community or rural pubs. They bring not just jobs, but a community focus, often in areas of the country where other traditional providers of jobs and community coming-togetherness might have been lost.

Graham Stringer Portrait Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The hon. Gentleman makes a profound point about the importance of pubs to rural villages, but does he agree that pubs in inner-city areas are just as important to the local community? There has been a migration of licences from inner-city areas into city centres, which has denuded our inner cities of many of the benefits of public houses.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
- Hansard - -

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is particularly troubling that those pubs that close in our towns and city centres are often housed in large buildings that are very difficult to fill and that remain as decaying monuments to the changing nature of consumer behaviour.

Stephanie Peacock Portrait Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Pubs and breweries in Barnsley East contribute more than £12 million to the local economy, but on the particular issue of pub closures, does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need to consider updating the compulsory purchase powers and the planning system, which would give more powers to local communities?

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
- Hansard - -

I think that is exactly what the Government have done over the past 12 months in changing the rules on permitted development in particular. Obviously, now we have to go through planning processes before pubs can be converted.

The licensees and customers at many of our pubs contribute in both a financial and practical manner to their communities, by funding and running sporting and other activities, such as football, darts, dominoes and cribbage, but also through community activities, a large number of which are run through our pubs. Of course, because pub customers are extremely generous people, initiatives such as PubAid are able to generate about £100 million each and every year for good causes in communities in all of our constituencies.

For all these pubs to flourish and remain at the beating heart of their communities, they need a transfusion of investment and custom that will come with a freeze in beer duty and a reduction in their business rate burden. I have set out why our beer and pub industry is so important economically and socially, but it faces the twin threats that I referred to earlier: the increases in business rates and in beer duty. The three duty cuts, last year’s freeze and the ending of the escalator secured about 20,000 jobs, boosted confidence in our brewing and pub businesses and meant that more beer was sold than would otherwise have been the case, boosting the Treasury’s total tax take, if we include both direct and indirect taxation. On business rates, the Chancellor has already recognised the pain caused to pubs by the disproportionate burden caused by valuation based on turnover; about half of that turnover may be beer duty and VAT that the pub is collecting on behalf of the Government.

The £1,000 pub relief announced in the March Budget is extremely welcome, particularly for smaller and medium-sized pubs. However, it is particularly important that that relief is now expanded and extended, because our pub sector pays nearly 3% of all business rates despite making up just under 0.5% of business turnover. It is hugely, disproportionately overtaxed through business rates.

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Portrait Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is ludicrous that pubs in Stoke-on-Trent pay more in business rates—in fact, more in total—to the Exchequer than Amazon does in its entirety? Stoke is paying more than Amazon.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
- Hansard - -

I could not agree more. The revaluation of business rates was often seen as an issue that affected only businesses in London or the south-east. As for everyone else, it was thought that some gained and some lost out, but that is completely untrue when it comes to pubs, which have experienced huge increases in every part of the country. The 27 pubs run by Black Country Ales across the west midlands and neighbouring counties will have experienced an increase in their rateable value of, on average, 40% by the time the transitional period is over.

Anne Marie Morris Portrait Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Ind)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. A pub in my constituency has seen its rates go up 83%. Does he agree that it is completely inappropriate for pubs to be measured by turnover? They get measured on their actual turnover, not the perceived turnover for the square footage, so there is no fair comparison with the way in which rates are levied and measured in other industries in our country.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
- Hansard - -

That is right. As well as a large part of that turnover being just business tax, it is a huge disincentive to invest in and improve the property.

We supported the Chancellor when he suggested he would look at business rates in the light of the increase in online businesses and the harm that could cause our beloved high streets. The message that has come from Members on both sides of the House is that the sooner that can be done, the better. We want to ensure that our community pubs, high street pubs and village pubs are properly considered when any new system is put together, so that we can all get together to protect the great British pub.

I applaud the Government’s work in reducing the deficit, and the measures that the Exchequer Secretary and his colleagues are taking to reinvigorate the economy, but I ask him to urge the Chancellor to go further. Hard-pressed UK beer drinkers still pay 40% of all Europe’s beer duty, despite drinking only 12% of the beer consumed in Europe. Some colleagues may think that means we need to drink more beer to keep up, but let us just focus on the duty. As a Yorkshire MP, the Exchequer Secretary will know that the Black Sheep brewery employs more than 100 people in the Yorkshire dales, but he might not know that it pays more in beer duty each year than it does on the combined costs of employing those 100 staff, buying all the raw materials to produce its beer and then distributing it around the country. Beer duty that is more than four and a half times as high as eBay’s UK corporation tax liability seems an undue burden.

Julie Cooper Portrait Julie Cooper (Burnley) (Lab)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is unfair that in this country, compared with other EU nations, we drink 12% of all the beer consumed in the EU, but pay 40% of the duty across it?

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
- Hansard - -

As I have indicated, I think that situation is not sustainable in even the medium term, and certainly not in the long term.

Britain’s growing ranks of brewers have much more growth potential, which would mean more investment and more jobs to underpin the economy. The Treasury needs to look at whether the way in which beer duty is structured is appropriate for the 21st century. In particular, there is a growing consensus in the industry that the small breweries’ relief scheme, which has done so much to allow new breweries and microbreweries to become established, is now preventing breweries from growing, and in some cases means that they are downsizing to receive the lower duty rates. I know that the Exchequer Secretary has already received representations on that issue.

To look further ahead, as we leave the European Union in 2019 there are also opportunities to consider whether it is appropriate that beer sold in pubs is taxed at the same duty rate as beer sold in supermarkets or other off-sales, and the role that a differential tax rate could play in supporting our pubs, helping keep more of them open, and the social benefits that come with that. The Treasury should also look at supporting reduced-strength beers by expanding the current bracket to cover beers between 1.2% and 3.5%, instead of just up to 2.8% as at present. I have written to the Exchequer Secretary on this subject. Britain has a strong tradition of brewing 3% to 3.5% beers, and if we can incentivise the industry to develop, produce and market beers at that end of the market, there will be an advantage to the industry and to our health. However, while all those areas for reform are important, none of them should distract us from the immediate need to freeze beer duty and tackle business rates in the Budget in three weeks’ time.

If the Exchequer Secretary is not already persuaded by the economic case against a further rise in beer duty, the social case for helping pubs and reducing their business rates, or the political case for doing something that is genuinely popular across the country, he might want to reflect on the personal-political benefits of backing beer. I have already mentioned that a previous proponent of this cause is now the Government Chief Whip. However, it might be even more pertinent for me to point out to the Exchequer Secretary that the three previous holders of his post who presided over recent cuts to beer duty—my right hon. Friends the Members for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), for Witham (Priti Patel) and for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan)—all went on to reach the giddy heights of Cabinet office. As a canny Yorkshireman, the Exchequer Secretary may want to reflect on the fact that cutting beer tax is clearly not a bad career move. In all seriousness, I ask him to do the right thing for the longer term: encourage the Chancellor to freeze beer duty in his autumn Budget, act on the disproportionate burden of business rates on pubs around the country, and invest in and support these great sectors, which do so much economically and socially in every part of Britain.

None Portrait Several hon. Members rose—
- Hansard -

--- Later in debate ---
Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood
- Hansard - -

I thank the Minister for making a generally positive response and for the many meetings he has had with colleagues and industry groups over the past few weeks, and will have over the next few weeks. I thank the many industry groups that have contributed to support Members in this event: CAMRA, the British Beer and Pub Association, the Society of Independent Brewers, the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers and the Small Brewer Duty Reform Coalition. I also thank the many hon. and right hon. Members—

Albert Owen Portrait Albert Owen (in the Chair)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Order.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

Public Sector Pay Cap

Mike Wood Excerpts
Wednesday 5th July 2017

(6 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

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Elizabeth Truss Portrait Elizabeth Truss
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the macroeconomic picture, and to point out that if we do not have a confident deficit reduction plan such as the one that the Government have pursued for the last seven years, the financial markets will lose confidence, and the effect on working people will be a rise in interest rates, a rise in housing costs, and problems for the Government in respect of our borrowing.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
- Hansard - -

I declare an interest: my wife is a primary school teacher who is currently working as a teaching assistant.

Will the Chief Secretary ensure that both the rising cost of living and recommendations of the independent pay review bodies are properly taken into consideration in the setting of public pay policy for next year’s settlements?

Elizabeth Truss Portrait Elizabeth Truss
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

That is one of the factors that the pay review bodies consider, along with issues such as recruitment and retention and ensuring that the pay settlement is affordable. They have the responsibility of speaking to people like my hon. Friend’s wife who work in the public services, hearing what they have to say, and making a determination. There are different issues in different public services, and I think it wrong to suggest that there is a “one size fits all” solution.