Levelling Up

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Eddie Hughes]

Where do I start? I would like to trade analogies with the shadow Secretary of State. He reminds me of a man who has been out for an evening with friends, and at the end of the night, when it comes to splitting the restaurant bill, he is the guy who complains about the division of the bill because he did not have a pudding. [Interruption.] I am here setting out an incredibly bold future for the country in a post-pandemic environment, with a very optimistic and enthusiastic Prime Minister who sees ambitious things for the future of our country, and the shadow Secretary of State is talking about methodologies and whether this constituency or that constituency did not get the funding. I am talking about levelling up across all four nations of the United Kingdom. He is talking about whether individual constituencies get their pudding today. Really, we need to move on. We are talking about significant investment over an extended period and a bright future for this country.

The shadow Secretary of State says that some councils are unhappy about the amount of money that has been spent on consultants. Many councils do not have the capacity to build up a bid of the standard required for this funding, which is why we are providing £125,000 each for those in category 1, so that they can develop those bids.

The shadow Secretary of State says that the methodology has been twisted in some way to benefit one constituency over another; I say tell that to Oldham and Gateshead, which I strongly suspect are very grateful for the funding they are getting and the opportunity to develop bids.

The shadow Secretary of State asked why we excluded deprivation as one of the factors; I say that we decided to leave the criteria to civil servants. We set out the expectation—what we hoped to achieve—and left it to civil servants to decide the criteria so that we did not have any of the political influence that he suggests.

The shadow Secretary of State also asked us to publish all the data associated with the methodology; I am not going to do his homework for him. All that information is freely available. He might be able to get some of his research team to get to work on that.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

For the record, the shadow Secretary of State said, “I always have a pudding.” Very wise.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con) [V]]

I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to his place on the Front Bench. He has made a great start.

Will my hon. Friend confirm that the levelling-up fund will welcome applications from rural areas, such as Ryedale in my constituency, which may look prosperous from the outside but whose average earnings are below the regional average, partly because of a past lack of infrastructure investment? The situation could be reversed if funds were provided to important projects such as the improvement of railway stations in Malton and in Thirsk.

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[Eddie Hughes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, but this is quite a significant pie—if we are going to continue to use the food analogy—that we are talking about splitting up. As I mentioned in my statement, £600 billion will be invested over the coming years. I completely understand that when you have a successful Government providing funding across all regions, people see that and want more. That is no surprise. I am glad that hon. Members are ambitious for their region. Stockton-on-Tees is a category 1 in the levelling-up fund, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will support a bid for his area.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I do not know what it is about this statement, but I am absolutely hungry now.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con) [V]]

In Lowestoft and Waveney, there are significant areas of poverty, and yet, as part of the wider East Suffolk Council area, we are in the priority 2 category. I would be most grateful if my hon. Friend could provide an assurance that applications from the Waveney area that support the creation of much-needed new jobs will be given full and fair consideration and will not be disadvantaged by our being in a lower category area.

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[Eddie Hughes]

What a great finish—questions from England, Scotland and Wales, and good news for those areas, as we explain the funding that this Government will provide to them. I hope that my hon. Friend works with his local council to develop a priority bid that he can support, and I will ensure that the Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government and the Secretary of State are aware of the invitation to visit the area, so they can see the excellent bids on offer in Llangollen.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank the Minister for his statement, and for responding to 30 questions. Before I suspend the House for three minutes, I want to say that when we go on to the main business after the ten-minute rule motion we will start with a three-minute limit, in continuation of the debate from yesterday. I will remind everybody about that later. Everybody should leave the Chamber in a covid-friendly manner in order for us to sanitise the Dispatch Boxes.

Local Government Finance (England)

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in a local government finance debate, because it is an area close to my heart. I want to begin by echoing words that have been spoken on both sides of the Chamber: councils have absolutely played a blinder during the pandemic. We have asked a lot of our local authorities at every level, and they have consistently delivered in the most challenging circumstances. Those circumstances are challenging not just because of the pandemic, but because of the financial situation councils have faced over the past few years.

The structure of the settlement between local and central Government needs to be reformed. There is something fundamental about the revenue support grant and financial settlement that needs to be reformed. Put bluntly, it is broken. We cannot keep bailing it out year after year. The fair funding review, which was set to come in about 18 months ago, and then again this year, was a very good way of going about that reform, and I commend the Department for the work it has done to identify and address the issues. It is unfortunate that emergency measures had to be put in place during the pandemic and that we did not get to the stage we needed to in implementing the review.

The problem is that it is about much more than simply tweaking the formula. We need to look at the whole relationship between where revenue is raised and where it is spent, and that involves looking much wider than simply at council tax, formula grant and the new homes bonus, which has been such a lifeline to councils over the last few years. We need to look at how we reform business rates. Some in this Chamber have argued for 100% retention of business rates, and there is definitely an argument for that, although it might make some London authorities richer than some small European countries. Some might see that as no bad thing, but we need to make sure that there is an equitable distribution of business rate revenue that supports our wider goals.

It is those wider goals that I want to spend a couple of moments talking about. The first is levelling up and the second—not to sound like a broken record from the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee—is of course social care. Let us take levelling up first. We cannot level up until we reform the way we distribute financial support for house building. At the moment, we are supporting houses in areas where the markets need it; what we need to do is recognise that housing is part of the solution to levelling up. We have to make a choice: are people going to live in an area, or are we going to put the jobs there? It is about pump-priming, and we need to make a call on investing in housing in the former red wall areas and other areas that need levelling up. I am passionate about that, and I know that the Minister and the Secretary of State are aware of that.

We also need to recognise that we do not level up without providing sustainable enterprise—jobs for the people who live in those houses. We need to make sure that we are not just looking at this from a departmental point of view, but working across Government to realise this country’s ambition to be truly one nation and a global Britain in a newly connected world.

Looking specifically at the problems we face in the formula grant and the amount allocated to local government to spend on services, the elephant in the room is of course social care. Reforming the social care element of funding—how the revenue is raised and how it is distributed —is urgent now. It is the one big thing we need to fix. There are many solutions, and I believe there is cross-party support for many of them. We are in the middle of dealing with a pandemic—in fact, no, we are hopefully near the end of dealing with a pandemic—and now is the time to reach across the aisle, to look at how we fund social care in a sustainable way and to take these things forward in a non-partisan manner.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

There will now be a time limit and I hope that Dame Diana Johnson has been told that it is six minutes—[Interruption.] No? Well, you know now, Dame Diana. I am sure you will be incredibly flexible with your speech. The wind-ups will begin no later than 7 o’clock.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab) [V]]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am very pleased that both the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State opened the debate by paying tribute to the vital role that local government has played in our national response on covid. I would like to personally thank all the local government officers in Hull for their amazing work over the past 12 months in supporting our community. In my view, local government must be central to any serious plan for levelling up that the Government bring forward, but sadly, in Hull over the past decade it has felt more like levelling down.

The Chancellor, who was previously so adept at locating the forest of magic money trees, has made the deliberate and calculated political decision to underfund local government by around £2 billion and to invite local councillors to make up that funding shortfall by levying a large council tax increase of up to 5%. That would be around 4% above the current rate of inflation even before the fire and police precepts were added. I find it disgraceful that the Chancellor is playing political games at a time of a national public health and economic crisis, devolving blame and not power, and yet again providing only a sticking plaster solution to the issue of social care, despite the Prime Minister’s promises. As the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), said, there was a joint report from the Health Committee and the Local Government Committee a few years ago—I was a Member of the Health Committee at the time—that set out a way forward. It is unfortunate that we still have not had a response from the Government on those very sensible proposals.

It is not just that local authorities in the poorest areas have had the deepest funding cuts since 2010. The areas that those councils represent also have the poorest families who have been hardest hit by the decade of austerity and then by the covid crisis over the past year, as unemployment, which is always higher in those areas, has risen sharply. Many of those families are currently having to choose between heating and eating, and they simply cannot afford the large increase in council tax made in Downing Street. The council tax is a regressive tax that hits hardest the low-income working families who are just outside the scope of benefit entitlement, so a 5% council tax hike would be a major act of austerity targeted at those families at the worst of times.

In Hull, a 5%-plus council tax increase would raise little for local services such as adult social care and children’s services, which are already under huge pressure; it would instead cause disproportionate misery for families who simply cannot afford any extra tax burdens at this time. Council tax increases also raise less for services in disadvantaged and deprived areas than in wealthier areas. A 1% council tax hike in Hull who would bring in around £883,000. In the East Riding, our wealthier neighbour, that same 1% would bring in £1.7 million. So a 5% council tax increase in Hull would generate £4.4 million, but that would not close the budget gap of £13 million that Hull City Council will face in 2022-23. Given the 80-seat Tory majority, this council tax bombshell will no doubt be forced through the House tonight. It will then fall to local councillors to make the unenviable choice of whether to pass on this austerity measure made in Downing Street to low-income working families to maintain services, or to reject this austerity made in Downing Street and make further cuts to services. This puts councils between a rock and a hard place.

In conclusion, it is worth reflecting once again, in this centenary year, on the events in Poplar in 1921, when Labour borough councillors rejected the idea that the poor should keep the poor and refused to impose austerity on the poorest families. They went to prison for it. Their victory secured equalisation of the rates—a fairer system of local government finance that lasted decades, apart from a few episodes such as the poll tax, until the Tories and the Lib Dems in the 2010 coalition Government started year by year to dismantle the idea of fairer funding for poorer areas. We now face the renewed need to battle for a fairer deal for areas such as Hull and other disadvantaged areas in our country, and for funding that works for working families in those communities.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I am sorry, Dame Diana, that you were not earlier informed of the time limits. I understand that you have been, Nickie.

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[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab) [V]]

I begin by paying tribute to the hard work and dedication of Wirral Council workers and Wirral Council throughout the pandemic.

Sadly, financial challenges are nothing new to our local councils. More than a decade of Conservative Government austerity has put immense pressure on our local authorities and pushed many of the services that we all rely on to near breaking point. According to the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities, Wirral Council has had its spending power reduced by £124 million, or 30%, since 2010-11. The authority was in a position in which it had to save around £40 million next year, and it has recently been forced to consult on difficult proposals that impact on public services because of the Government’s austerity measures. Other councils up and down the country have also found themselves in extremely difficult positions because of the Government’s actions. In addition—and as a result of the pandemic and measures to combat it—councils around the country face huge financial uncertainty over the next few years and into the foreseeable future.

It is therefore a matter of real concern that the Government have given no clarity over funding levels after March 2022. As the Local Government Association has called for and as council officers in Wirral have emphasised to me, it is vital that the Government provide a multi-year settlement in 2022-23 to put councils on a long-term and sustainable footing. Ministers must also demonstrate meaningful progress towards a solution to the funding crisis in adult social care. Hidden in the fine print of the Chancellor’s November spending review was an assumption that councils would raise council tax by up to 5%. Surely the Chancellor must have been aware that such a move would place a significant financial burden on households, particularly those in hardship, in a year of economic uncertainty.

Our country has had the worst recession of any major economy, and families up and down the country are already worried about paying the bills and putting food on the table. A decade of irresponsible choices by the Conservatives has had an impact on household finances, even before covid hit. A quarter of UK households went into the covid-19 crisis with less than £100 in their bank; 3.6 million people were trapped in insecure work; and the UK was one of the most unequal countries in Europe. To make matters worse, the Government plan to cut universal credit by £1,000 a year, despite campaigning by Labour and numerous charities on this issue. In November last year, a coalition of more than 60 organisations, including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Child Poverty Action Group and the Trussell Trust, said that this cut would be “a terrible mistake” and that,

“The removal of this support would not only be immoral, but it will also damage the UK’s recovery”

from the pandemic.

The Office for Budget Responsibility estimated at the time of the 2020 spending review that the number of unemployed people would surge to 2.6 million by the middle of this year. For the Government to undermine council funding to such an extent that local authorities have to increase council tax to continue paying for crucial services such as adult social care is nothing short of shameful.

Ministers should address the crisis in social care and come forward with the necessary funding. It is disappointing that the public health grant for 2021-22 has still not been announced, leaving councils with yet more uncertainty. I have made this point previously in the House, but it is worth making again: the Government must increase the public health grant for next year. The Health Secretary told me in November that the Government would increase it, but that is not what the Treasury said; it said that the public health grant would simply be maintained. The Association of Directors of Public Health has said:

“In the current circumstances, and following years of cuts to public health, it is completely incomprehensible that the Government is not increasing the public health grant”

to local authorities next year. I urge the Minister to work with colleagues across the Government to ensure that local public health teams get the funding they need to continue to meet their public health responsibilities.

In March last year, the Government told more than 300 council leaders that they stood ready to do

“whatever is necessary to support councils in their response to COVID-19.”

However, they later backtracked and said that councils would not be fully reimbursed for costs during a pandemic and that they should not

“labour under a false impression that what they are doing will be guaranteed funded by central government”.

This is a complete betrayal of our communities and the councils that serve them by the Government at this extraordinarily difficult time. Instead of putting councils in the position of having to increase council tax, the Government should stand by their pledge to do whatever is necessary to support councils and give them the funding they need to run local services. The Government should also give local authorities the confidence that they need to plan ahead in these desperately uncertain times by giving them clarity over longer-term funding.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We now go via videolink to Ian Liddell-Grainger. [Interruption.] Ian, have you got a jacket, please? You should have a jacket. We will pause briefly while the jacket is put on. Thank goodness we cannot see below the jacket.

Towns Fund

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con) [V]]

We promised to level up towns like Scunthorpe, and the £3.6 billion towns fund provides just the opportunity to make some of the meaningful, real-life differences that we have talked about before in this Chamber. We have a Conservative council in North Lincs. I served on it for five years. I know that it is used to getting the absolute most from every single pound that it has available to it. We are not backward in coming forward in Scunthorpe, and we have already secured future high streets funding of over £10 million, but there is more to be done.

I have lived in the Scunthorpe area all my life. I love my home town and I want our young people, many of whom I have met over the past year, to have opportunities and jobs that mean they want to stay close to home too. Scunthorpe is a great place to live, to build a family and to grow a business, and we can make it even better. In addition to this, our area has applied for free port status. Connectivity is another of our strengths, and it will amplify the returns of a towns fund investment. Situated south of the Humber, we are a strategic mid-point between Immingham dock, Humberside airport, Hull, Lincoln, Grimsby and Doncaster.

As a region, we are really ambitious. The Minister will see that our towns fund proposals bring to life the Government’s levelling-up goals. Under the diligent chairmanship of Mary Stewart, the board has listened to residents’ views, and in true northern style we have eked out the best possible value we feel we can get for our area. These proposals will deliver real bang for our buck. I hope that the Minister will share my enthusiasm both for the projects and for my home town.

Of course we must and we will continue to celebrate our world-class steelmaking and our proud industrial heritage. However, we also recognise the importance of resilience and industry diversification. This includes the delivery of an advanced manufacturing park, the creation of a new cultural arts and heritage offer in our urban centre, and sustainable, lifelong integration of skills.

Through the formidable business team led by Lesley Potts, we have seen our local council demonstrate their ability to deliver these projects, time and time again. We are a really safe pair of hands for the towns fund. We are genuinely ambitious for our area, and look forward to working with the Government on the towns fund to deliver for local people.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Before I call Charlotte Nichols, I will inform everybody how the rest of the afternoon is going to go. At 4.38, I will call Patricia Gibson to wind up for six minutes, then Steve Reed at 4.44 for eight minutes, and then Luke Hall at 4.52 for eight minutes. We are grateful to Paul for forgoing his last two minutes at the end of the debate.

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[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con) [V]]

In Truro, we are at an exciting point; just last week, our investment plan was submitted to the Department for consideration. A huge amount of work went into it by everyone involved, but I want to pay particular thanks to the chair of the Truro town fund board, Carole Theobald, and vice-chair Dr Alan Stanhope, as well as Mel Richardson and all board members, who have worked tirelessly to make the Truro plan exciting, thorough and optimistic for the future of Truro and for everyone who lives and works here. It has been a privilege to play just a small part, as part of that board, in the fantastic effort that has gone on.

Granted city status in 1876, Truro is Cornwall’s only city and situated at the head of the Fal estuary. Surrounded by farmland mid-way between Cornwall’s north and south coasts, it has always been a meeting place. Its natural assets—particularly the water—and location have made it a port, a trading and administrative capital, and a centre for skills and education. That continues today. Truro is the civic, retail and health centre for Cornwall, providing employment for 30,000 people, mainly in the public sector, with Cornwall Council’s headquarters on the edge of Truro, as well as Truro cathedral, the Royal Cornwall Hospital, and the Knowledge Spa, where I recently took part in the Novavax covid vaccine trial.

Last summer, when the covid regulations allowed, we welcomed my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to Truro to meet the Truro town fund team at the water’s edge to talk about plans we have to reconnect Truro to its three rivers. There used to be as many as 60 cargo ships using Truro and Newham as their home port. However, the silting of the river led to a decline in the sea trade after the second world war. Truro’s commercial centre appeared to fall out with its maritime past, and part of our bid aims to resurrect that relationship. Delivering that means overcoming many challenges that have held us back in the past.

So what do we want to achieve? We want to reinvigorate our neglected waterfront community spaces on Lemon Quay and provide a new community space where all residents are welcome to meet, learn new skills, access support and feel part of our evolving city. We want to create a sustainable transport solution, using new paths and cycle routes, and a bridge to connect the city, and digitally focused, new, innovative learning and living environments that will help to create jobs in high-growth and high-value businesses. We want to repurpose vacant buildings for commercial and residential use, breathing new life into the city centre while enhancing our heritage, and create an active leisure attraction, including an indoor climbing wall, water-based activities and sports facilities, as well as performance areas. This town deal is a chance to future-proof Truro for generations to come. By working with Government, we hope we can be ambitious for the future.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Jane, you are not going to get the full three minutes, and I will have to stop you at 4.38 pm.

[Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con) [V]]

I am delighted to sneak in to speak in this debate about the towns fund, which is a policy that will accelerate the Government’s levelling-up agenda and breathe new life into so many communities.

As a born and bred Wulfrunian, I was delighted that Wolverhampton was one of the first places to be invited to bid for up to £25 million of investment. We submitted our bid last year and are eagerly awaiting some good news. Our board decided to submit a larger bid, as there is a clause in the prospectus allowing a proposal that is transformative of a wider region to bid for more money. Whether we meet the criterion is, I am sure, being considered as our bid is discussed, but I hope the bid makes clear the ambition and determination of Wolverhampton to generate, to regenerate and to prosper.

I am sorry that Opposition Members are seeking to politicise the towns fund. Wolverhampton has three parliamentary seats. Only one was a Conservative target seat before the last election, and we have a Labour council. I am really pleased that, while the Opposition is dividing the House, in Wolverhampton we are working together constructively on a cross-party basis with local businesses. Like many Wulfrunians, I have looked on as our city has declined, and I welcome this investment, which will lift up our city.

Since my election, we have already seen huge investment from this Conservative Government, with £16 million from the future high streets fund and £15 million for the national brownfield institute. I am hugely grateful to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for engaging so enthusiastically on the towns fund and for putting up with my persistent lobbying. Most of our bid was focused on the city centre, but I was determined that places such as Bilston and Wednesfield, our two towns, should also benefit.

In the very short time I have left, I want to pay tribute to the people in Wednesfield. It is a brilliant place that has been in need of regeneration, and I have pushed at every stage to get local people involved in the decision making around the towns fund. I am pleased to say that I will be meeting some of our brilliant local traders this evening to talk about how the initial accelerated funding of an additional million-pound investment is already being spent to improve the local area. I am immensely grateful for the—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Sorry, we have to leave it there. We are going to try a timing-up clock for Patricia Gibson. You have six minutes, but the clock is just to help you.

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[Luke Hall]

My hon. Friend is a passionate advocate for his constituency and I know he will champion any bids that come in, as he is absolutely right to do. I am of course always happy to speak to him about his representations.

The levelling-up fund will be open to all local areas and allocated competitively. We will prioritise bids that drive growth and regeneration in the places that need it most—those places that face particular local challenges in upgrading their infrastructure and those that have received less Government investment in recent years. We are also developing the UK shared prosperity fund, which will succeed EU structural funds and provide vital investment in local economies, free of the bureaucracy that thwarted European funding. The new fund will allow us to target funding better and support those who are most in need. The towns fund, the levelling-up fund and the UKSPF will be vital tools for levelling up in our country.

I thank all Members for their contributions to this debate. The Government are levelling up: we want everybody, wherever they live, to benefit from increased growth and prosperity, and the towns fund is helping us to achieve that. We are investing in the places that need it most and putting local communities in charge of the decisions that affect them. The towns fund marks just the start of that. There is, of course, much more investment to come and much more to do through the levelling-up fund and the UK shared prosperity fund. We want to see more towns such as Barrow, Torquay, Blackpool and Mansfield benefit so that everybody, wherever they live in our great country, can be part of a brighter and more prosperous future.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Towns Fund.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

As the Adjournment debate is entirely physical, I thank the technicians and broadcasting unit for all their help in facilitating the work of Parliament this week. In order for Members to leave safely and to allow the sanitisation of the Dispatch Boxes, we will suspend for a brief moment before the Adjournment debate.

Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con) [V]]

No one will ever forget those awful images of Grenfell Tower ablaze, or black and smouldering, nor will we forget the individual stories of suffering and loss, or the pain of the local community. The legacy of Grenfell looms large for all of us this evening, and it is something that occupies daily all those charged with this responsibility in government. I thank the Minister for Housing for setting out very clearly the fact that this is a priority for the Government and the decisive steps that they have already taken. I welcome the very significant amounts, totalling £1.6 billion, that Government have allocated so far to pay for cladding to be removed, and I am thankful that the vast majority of ACM cladding has either been removed or that work is under way to do so.

The fact that work has been completed on buildings in the social sector is a good example for others to follow. Of course, the Government recognise that other cladding needs to be removed in all types of buildings, and that, too, is their focus and objective. The Minister was very clear when he hold the House that it was the responsibility of building owners to make buildings safe and that the Government would work with owners to fulfil their obligations and protect leaseholders, using both carrot and stick.

The related issues along the way are also being addressed in what I view as a pragmatic and effective way: a £30-million waking watch fund to help ensure that these measures are truly temporary; and work with RICS to address the mortgage issues arising from EWS1 forms. I particularly welcome the independent review commissioned by the Government of how some players in the construction industry were able to game the system and play fast and loose with people’s safety, abusing the testing system and shaming reputable companies in the sector. There is indeed much work to be done, but we are making progress towards completion of the vital effort to right the wrongs of the past and to look at what improvements need to be made in the future.

The events of June 2017 shook this country to its core and fundamentally changed the way in which we think about safety standards. I welcome the Government’s determination to protect leaseholders in both the long and short term. I know how important it is to help to restore that feeling of safety and security for those affected, and I do not doubt the Government’s commitment to completing that herculean task.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Thank you, Julie. There was a seamless changeover of the Chair during your speech. I call Florence Eshalomi.

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The list of Members currently certified as eligible for a proxy vote, and of the members nominated as their proxy, is published at the end of today’s debates.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We are going to suspend for three minutes to allow for the safe exit and entrance of Members, and the sanitisation of the Dispatch Boxes.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2021

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind) [V]]

It is an honour to have the opportunity to address the House today as we commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day 2021. The theme this year is “Be the light in the darkness”. In the world of today, where injustice and persecution are par for the course in so many lands, this is a powerful, pertinent message. The animus of hatred that drove the Nazi persecution of the Jews and many other marginalised groups such as the Roma, LGBTQ and disabled people remains manifest in the world today, and all of us must be a light in the darkness that will confront that hatred and stop it in its tracks.

Even today, 76 years after the liberation of the inmates of Auschwitz-Birkenau, there are vulnerable minorities around the world who suffer identity-based persecution, discrimination and violence. From the Rohingya in Myanmar to the Uyghurs in China, millions of people across our planet are subjected to deliberate, ongoing oppression and attempts at extermination of their culture, way of life and personhood. How we respond to these horrors is a living, every-day test of whether we are the light in the darkness that the memory of the estimated 6 million Jewish people and millions of others murdered by the Nazis calls on us to be.

Across Europe, too, discrimination against and persecution of many marginalised groups continues today. We cannot be complacent about the antisemitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Traveller, homophobic and transphobic attitudes that prevail in our societies. I pay tribute to organisations such as Human Rights Watch, HOPE not hate, and Tell MAMA, which continue to document rising hatred and persecution domestically in the UK and around the world. I pay tribute to the Holocaust Educational Trust, which does excellent work in schools across the UK, including in my constituency, educating our young people about the horrors of the holocaust and other genocides. I have had the privilege of listening to the deeply moving testimony of Mala Tribich, a survivor of the holocaust who, alone with her brother Ben, was the last member of her family to have survived Nazi persecution.

In conclusion, it is impossible to overstate the importance of these personal accounts. It is paramount that we remember those dark times when the darkness was everywhere and lights were few. It is vital that they are passed on to the next generation, so that the light of memory inspires other lights, other acts of resistance to even the darkest evil. Let us all be such lights.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

For the convenience of the House, I inform everybody that the winding-up speeches will start at 19 minutes past 3, with eight minutes for each of the three Front Benchers and two minutes for Stephen to wind up further.

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[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

It is a real privilege to take part in today’s debate. It might be 76 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, but it remains as important as ever that we remember what happened.

This year, the theme for Holocaust Memorial Day is to be the light in the darkness. Light is an incredible thing: it brings hope, it brings knowledge and it exposes. It is this light which showed us the scale of horror and devastation inflicted by the Nazi regime: 6 million Jewish people and millions more—Soviet citizens, Polish people, gay people, Gypsies and many, many more. The number of victims is almost incomprehensible to us and it is an evil brought about by our fellow man, showing us what can happen if we look the other way. It is a sobering reminder to all of us who sit in this place of the deep and humbling responsibility we have, and it is why I support a permanent holocaust memorial next to Parliament.

Earlier this week I spoke to the Jewish Leadership Council, the Antisemitism Policy Trust and the Community Security Trust, three organisations which do incredible work to protect Jewish people in this country and ensure we never lose sight of the work we still must do to end antisemitism. It is a sad reality that far from eradicating antisemitism, it appears to be on the rise. We know there are places on the internet where it thrives alongside other hate and extremism. Those are not dark, unknown corners of the internet, but the platforms many of us use: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, as well as the more obscure ones, including the ones explained in such great detail by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford).

Antisemitism is not just confined to the internet. Burnley does not have a large Jewish population, but last year one of my constituents, Ashley, who is just 18 years old, was attacked for no other reason than his Jewish faith. I want to recognise Ashley’s bravery in coming forward, and thank the CST for the support and help it provided to him. Ashley is a light in the darkness, showing the problems that still exist.

We have heard so many powerful speeches in this debate, including the one from my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). They show us why we should stand vigilantly. We must stand ready to protect those who need it; not to stand by, but to stand up.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Patricia, I understand that you are having difficulties seeing a timer, so I will gently ask you to finish after three minutes if you have not already done so.

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[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab) [V]]

It is a privilege to be called to speak in this debate. In 2013, I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. What affected me more than anything else, more than the watch towers and the crematoriums, were the signs of life—the human hair, the family suitcases, the stacks of shoes. Today in Parliament we remember the 6 million Jewish people and the millions of Roma, Sinti, LGBT and disabled people who were murdered by the Nazis. We also remember the resistance to the Nazis, the resistance seen when Hanukkah arrived and a menorah was lit on a Berlin windowsill even as swastikas flew outside, when the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose up in one of the most inspiring acts of human history and when prisoners in Treblinka and Sobibor rebelled in the shadow of the gas chamber and killed Nazi oppressors. Alongside the horrors of the holocaust are these accounts of the human spirit—of people standing up to the most brutal of evils. Today, we must treasure and defend the daily reminders of the Nazis’ defeat—from every synagogue service and every Jewish family who pass on their traditions to the next generation to our rejection of racial hierarchy and our celebration of multiculturalism.

History is not over. Antisemitism and the far right are on the rise. Earlier this month, we saw fascists wearing Nazi iconography storming Capitol Hill. A man who called white supremacist protesters “very fine people” held the world’s most powerful office. In Hungary, the Prime Minister spreads Soros conspiracies and lauds generals who sent tens of thousands of Jewish people to Nazi concentration camps. In Brazil, the far right president attacks the rights of LGBT people, indigenous people and trade unionists. Here in Britain, antisemites still spread conspiracies about the Rothschilds and George Soros.

Antisemitic violence remains a growing threat to Jewish people. Our communities are still divided by racism. Frantz Fanon, an intellectual of the anti-colonial struggle, said that whenever he saw an antisemite, he knew that he, too, was threatened. That was not only because plenty of antisemites are white supremacists, but for a deeper reason. It is because that kind of thinking that produces antisemitism blames social ills on minority groups. It is a thinking that encourages us to turn on each other and to treat our neighbours as our enemies. So long as that thinking exists, Fanon said that none of us are safe from denigration and attack. That is why we all have a stake in fighting for each other, in combating antisemitism and racism in all of its forms. When we come together and link our struggles, we are all made stronger. There is safety and solidarity, and today and every day, I extend my solidarity to Jewish people and everyone facing—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I call Dean Russell.

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[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

To be number 73 on the list and to be able to make a contribution is quite an achievement, so thank you for getting me in, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I am very pleased to make a contribution in the holocaust debate on man’s barbarity to man. I am a pro-Israeli person and as a Christian I want to speak up for the Jewish nation. I also declare an interest as chair of the all-party group for international freedom of religion or belief for those with Christians beliefs, other beliefs and no beliefs. I am also my party’s spokesperson on human rights and chair of the all-party group on Pakistani religious minorities.

When we think of this debate—I have spoken at every one there has been in Westminster since my time of coming here—and 6 million Jews murdered owing to man’s hatred, we think it can never happen again. There would not be an occasion when the tears do not well in our eyes whenever we look at the programmes on TV or check the contributions in the press even here in Northern Ireland. Today’s debate reminds us never to forget the horrors of the shoah, but we should also reflect on more recent events and our reactions to them. My constituency had many of the Kindertransport children who came across during the second world war, and some of them stayed and married and their relatives are still an important part of our life here. The Millisle farm in my constituency is very much a part of that.

I want to speak about the IHRA definition of antisemitism. It was announced in December 2016 that the Government had adopted that definition, but only last year the Secretary of State for Education highlighted the fact that only a handful of universities had adopted the definition. Also, I say respectfully that Members of this House promoted the Palestine Solidarity Campaign lobby day in December, actively promoting an antisemitic trope—that Israel is an apartheid state—given as an example by the IHRA, but this House did nothing. If there is no penalty for breaching the IHRA definition, its adoption is worthless. If we have learned nothing from the past, we can be certain that it will be repeated. This cannot and must not be allowed to happen.

Genocide has been repeated in other areas. We think of the Uyghur Muslims in China, the Baha’i in Iran, Falun Gong in China and the Rohingyas. This morning, I and other hon. Members had the opportunity to get more information about West Papua in Indonesia, where thousands of people have been murdered and thousands more displaced. Also, Christians all over the world are affected, including in Kashmir and in Russia, where human rights and civil liberties are trampled on directly by Governments. So we say that this must never be repeated, and today we have an opportunity to say clearly that we stand with all those people across the world, to be that voice for the voiceless, to speak up for them whenever they cannot do so, and to remember all those who died in the second world war.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We are now coming to the Front-Bench contributions, and we are putting the clock on for the obvious reason that the internal clocks here are not right. This is just for the aid of those making Front-Bench contributions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Crabb]

In concluding this marvellous, inspiring debate, I thank all 76 Members of this House, drawn from all parties and from all corners of our United Kingdom, who contributed with moving powerful, intelligent and well-informed speeches. I believe that the best of the House is represented by the debates we have on Holocaust Memorial Day, which has become such an important feature of our national life and our parliamentary calendar. The strong commitment shown by all parts of the House this afternoon underlines and reinforces again the deep commitment that there is in this House to ensure that the holocaust has a permanent place in our nation’s collective memory. I am particularly grateful for the contributions from the three Front-Bench speakers at the end of this debate, all of whom spoke extremely well. I was particularly grateful for the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who spoke also very powerfully last night in the national commemorative ceremony and has a deep personal connection to the issue.

It was good to hear the shadow Secretary of State reaffirm his own personal commitment and his party’s commitment to honouring the memory of those who fell during the holocaust by challenging wrong sentiments and challenging prejudices that may still linger in the political party and in this place.

To conclude, I thank everyone who has participated. It is has been a very good debate.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau for the first time last year, and I will never forget what I saw there and nor should I. In 2021, we must all remain on our guard and shine that light until the end of time.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Holocaust Memorial Day 2021.

The Future of the High Street

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I agree with my hon. Friend that local high streets are a valuable asset in our local communities and it is absolutely right that local businesses and stakeholders should be consulted and that we should get their buy-in. Any high street development should always be supported by local businesses and stakeholders.

We have acted quickly and our package of economic support is one of the most generous and comprehensive in the world. The Government announced in the spring that the business rates retail discount would be increased to 100% and expanded to all eligible properties across the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors for 12 months. We have sought to bring a much needed breathing space to business tenants by bringing forward a moratorium on commercial evictions and restrictions on statutory demands, and by winding up petitions.

The use of commercial rent arrears recovery has provided landlords and tenants with time and space to agree reasonable adjustments to rents and lease terms, including terms for the payment of accumulated rent arrears. I am pleased that so many stakeholder bodies have signed up to the voluntary code of practice to encourage constructive dialogue between tenants and landlords. We will continue to work urgently to identify further measures of support that can be put in place to assist them during this time.

We recognise that our high streets and the businesses located on them need to adapt to the changing way in which consumers are using high streets, so we are supporting areas by funding investment in infrastructure and place. Our £3.6 billion towns fund and the future high streets fund competition will create jobs and build more resilient local economies and communities as we begin to recover from the impact of coronavirus. We are now in the final stages of assessing the proposals from the shortlisted future high streets fund applicants and expect to announce the outcome of the competition soon. We have brought forward £81.5 million from the towns fund for investment in capital projects that will have an immediate impact. Each of the 101 towns selected to work towards a town deal has received accelerated funding dependent on their population.

The new £4 billion levelling-up fund for England that was announced in the spending review will be open to all local areas and allocated competitively. To support levelling-up opportunity across the country, we will prioritise bids to drive growth and regeneration in places in need—those facing particular local challenges and areas that have received less Government investment in the past.

A call for evidence was published on 21 July for the fundamental review of business rates, inviting stakeholders to contribute their views on ideas for reform in all elements of the business rates system, including future reliefs. Government are now considering the responses to the call for evidence, and the review will conclude in the spring.

We are also ensuring that our planning system is ready to support our high streets and communities in recovering from this pandemic and changing consumer habits. We have introduced reforms that create a new “commercial, business and service” use class, which encompasses a wide range of purposes, allowing businesses to attract people to high streets and town centres. That includes offices, shops, cafés, gyms and other uses that are suitable in town centres. The new class also allows for mixed use, to reflect changing retail and business models. The reforms also create new “learning and non-residential institutions” and “local community” use classes, ensuring that valued local assets such as community shops and libraries are protected. Businesses will have greater flexibility to adapt and diversify more quickly to meet changing needs and circumstances.

However, the success of a high street is about more than just funding. It requires local people to be empowered with the tools and resources they need to help their town centres and high streets adapt for the future. It is about having an ambitious vision for the future that the whole community can buy into. That is why Government are supporting local leadership through the high streets taskforce, which is doing this in four ways: building local authority capacity by providing on-the-ground experts; improving place-making skills through access to training; improving co-ordination nationally and locally, to ensure that high street plans reflect the needs of their communities; and improving the use of data and best practice.

The taskforce is being run by a consortium led by the Institute of Place Management. Over the next four years, it will provide expert guidance to those working in local authorities and business improvement districts, while supporting town centre managers and community groups to help their high streets adapt. In response to the pandemic, the taskforce published a covid recovery framework to inform local places in planning their response to the pandemic. I know that a number of high streets have found this useful and that St Helens, Norwich and Solihull have been among the early users of the framework. The taskforce will be providing in-person expert support to those high streets that need it most, offering expertise on subjects such as planning, design and place making. We continue to explore what more can be done to help our high streets and town centres quickly recover and adapt.

While covid-19 has posed huge challenges for our high streets, we have also seen some inspiring examples of businesses adapting and communities rallying round to support their local independent shops through the pandemic. For some communities, this lockdown has led to a reconnection with the local. We know that footfall has returned to our district centres at a quicker rate than it has in our larger town and city centres, with people wanting to shop and socialise closer to home. Research from PwC and the Local Data Company also suggests that independent shops have fared better than chain stores over the course of the pandemic. That may give a glimpse into the future of our high streets as places of commerce but also unique spaces that reflect the needs of the local community.

That has been underscored by my Department’s experience of running the Great British High Street awards. What linked all our winners was a unique offering and sense of belonging, and it is this sense of local community—this intrinsic link between our high streets, our town centres and our society—that we will re-establish and strengthen as we emerge from this pandemic. I believe that we can renew our mission to help our high streets adapt, not only to support their recovery from the effects of covid-19 but to help them continue to evolve and flourish for generations to come.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

A considerable number of Members have put in to speak, so I am afraid that we will start with a time limit of three minutes for all Back Benchers. If any Back Benchers who are on the call list wish to withdraw, they should get a message to the Speaker’s Office or come to the Chair and inform me. Please do not assume that the list is exactly as it was, as a number of Members have withdrawn already, and if you miss your place, you will be put to the very bottom. I call Steve Reed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. There will now be a three-minute limit on all remaining Back-Bench contributions.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Neill]

Nobody else has been giving way, with every respect to my hon. Friend. Other people want to get in. I have said what I have to say. In fairness, he and I could happily go on all day about this in a friendly manner of disagreement, but I think possibly that is for outside the Chamber, rather than in it. I say that in the nicest possible way.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I will call Mr Scully to close the debate no later than 2.30 pm.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak today, having been unable to do so on Monday.

Because of the international law-breaking clauses, I believe that insufficient attention has been given to how this Bill affects the devolution settlements, which is a matter of great regret. Throughout its passage, my colleagues and I have been keen to work constructively on that aspect. Now that the law-breaking parts have been taken out of the legislation, I hope we can ensure that the voices of the devolved nations are listened to.

At earlier stages I tabled amendments to ensure that the devolved Administrations had input into the membership of the Competition and Markets Authority, following the precedent set by the Scotland Act 1998. The Lords have made amendments to the common framework and the functioning of the Office for the Internal Market, and on engagement with the devolved Administrations—amendments that build on the devolution settlement rather than undermine it.

I have found the Government’s rationale for refusing these changes to be highly frustrating. A case in point is the interaction between the common frameworks and the UK internal market. Why do we need this legislation when the common market frameworks have buy-in from all the devolved nations? The Government tell us it is because the internal market deals with cross-sector issues, whereas the common frameworks deal with specific sectors. Yet when the Minister appeared before the Scottish Affairs Committee, I asked him whether he could give an example of a cross-sector issue that the Bill will help to solve. He could not. When he wrote to the Committee on this matter—I am grateful to him for doing so—he said:

“We would refer you to pages 81-83 of the White Paper, which sketch out a cross-sector example in the form of an illustrative supply chain in the agri-food area.”

I think that says it all. The Government cannot provide a real-life example of an affected product that is cross-sector. Indeed, the implication in the White Paper is that there are no common frameworks in those different sectors. I do not see how, if the common frameworks are in place, there should be an impact. Therefore, there is no need for the Bill’s provisions.

The Government’s refusal to support Lords amendments on common frameworks, in particular amendments 1B, 1C and 1D, is therefore frustrating, but I am also concerned by the Minister’s response to the Committee on the role of the Office for the Internal Market, which will have huge powers. The worry is that parties involved in trade deals—the example I gave in the Committee was that of US investors—could sue the devolved Administrations or indeed the CMA. The Minister’s response to that point was:

“The CMA is therefore able to accept reporting requests from bodies and individuals with relevant concerns connected to”

the operation of the internal market,

“including those from outside of the UK.”

Although the letter then suggests that such reports would not interfere in devolved competences, can the Minister confirm that, by submitting a request to the CMA, foreign investors could potentially interfere with devolved Administrations? If the CMA refuses such a request, could those foreign investors then challenge that in the court?

The Minister has insisted that is not a political Bill, but given that the Paymaster General just this morning was unable to confirm to me whether the Government would bring forward international law-breaching clauses in future business, such as the Taxation (Post-transition Period) Bill, which the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) referred to, if the outcome of the EU negotiations is no deal, then it is clearly nothing but.

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[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown). I rise to support the Lords amendments in respect of devolution. Northern Ireland is allegedly sorted out now, and the international lawbreaking parts of the Bill have gone, but what of Scotland? According to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, businesses in Northern Ireland will enjoy “the best of both worlds”: access to the single market and, at the same time, unfettered access to the rest of the UK market. Presumably this means that when Scotland becomes independent and a member of the European Union, Scotland too could have the best of both worlds: access to the single market and to the rest of the UK market, with no hard border and no infrastructure on the border. We shall see, but one thing is for sure: the Conservative party can never again be allowed to get away with claiming that Scottish independence means that a hard border with England is inevitable.

Scotland has yet to vote for independence, but that is only a matter of time. In the meantime, we want to protect what we have. Scotland did not vote for Brexit, but Scotland did vote for devolution in very significant numbers in 1997. This House should not use Brexit, which Scotland did not vote for, to undermine devolution, which we did vote for. The Lords amendments are designed to protect some of the essentials of the devolved settlement. It is very telling that Lord Hope, who I count as a friend and who is a former Lord President of the Court of Session, former Deputy President of the UK Supreme Court and also a Unionist, said that initially, when he heard SNP politicians talking about a power grab, he thought it was an exaggeration, but after reading the Bill, he agreed with us. That is not a nationalist—that is a Unionist, so Government Members would be wise to listen up.

Others in the Lords did not fall for the Government’s sleight of hand in the Bill either. As my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) said, Lord Thomas said yesterday:

“the clause without my amendments would enable the UK Government to spend in devolved fields and bypass the devolved Governments and Parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who have been elected to be responsible for those fields. It would, in effect, hollow out the devolution settlements.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 December 2020; Vol. 808, c. 1294.]

Lord Adonis warned:

“This Bill is deliberately intended to cut across and undermine the devolution settlements because the Prime Minister does not agree with them”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 December 2020; Vol. 808, c. 1294.]

The game’s up, and Government Members should realise that the heads of voters in Scotland do not zip up the back. Devolution is very popular in Scotland across parties. It is supported by the vast majority of voters in Scotland. Even some Scottish Conservatives—some, not all—support the current devolved settlement. Donald Dewar set it out carefully, making a delineation between reserved and devolved powers, and that is what this Bill is driving a coach and horses through. We must not forget today that Scotland’s Parliament—the democratically elected voice of Scotland’s people—has voted against the Bill by a margin of 90 to 28 MSPs.

I say to the Minister that we are sick to the back teeth of the Government’s disingenuous words, saying that they listen to the Scottish Government. Listening is not enough; they have to have respect for the democratic voice of Scotland, which is expressed through our Parliament. Our Parliament has said it does not want this Bill, and if the Government do not listen, then a vote for independence is inevitable. I say, “Bring it on.”

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

To sit down no later than 2.30 pm, Mr Tim Farron.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). The Government’s position throughout this Bill, as it is on every other piece of legislation, is directed at an audience. The audience that was listening to their intentions to break international law was an international audience. While of course it is welcome that those clauses have been withdrawn, it is ludicrous that they were ever on the table in the first place. International opinion of the United Kingdom has been measurably affected by that as a consequence.

The fact that Britain is a country that is prepared to break its word and break international law so flagrantly—for whatever purpose Government Members might think they have behind that—is heard, noticed and remembered. As a consequence, Britain’s standing in the world is reduced, Britain’s influence in the world is reduced and Britain’s sovereignty is reduced. That is why the sovereignty myth being peddled by the Government at the moment is so far off the mark of reality.

I will focus my comments in the moments ahead of me on the issues to do with mutual recognition and the differences between the four nations of the United Kingdom. Mutual recognition is embedded in this Bill and we seek to remove it, because it is about setting the United Kingdom’s formal negotiating position using the standards that are the lowest among the four nations. As we go and have a negotiation on food, farming and other trade issues with other countries, we will use the standards of whichever of the four nations has the lowest as the common standard across the United Kingdom.

That is appalling for two reasons. It is a race to the bottom when it comes to standards in agriculture and in other matters as well, and it is a threat to the integrity and the survival of the United Kingdom. Both those realities hurt my communities in Cumbria, first because of the impact on farming. The fact that the British Government continue to refuse to write into legislation minimum standards—particularly on animal welfare and environmental standards—leaves our farmers open to being undercut by cheap imports from other countries; people talk in particular about the United States, but there are other deals as well.

That is hugely damaging to our proud record of high-quality animal welfare and environmental standards and ethics in this country. Alongside that, the Government’s decision in 28 days or so to start removing a vast chunk of farm incomes in England through the basic payment scheme undermines family farming in this country to the extent that it will reduce our capacity to feed ourselves and fundamentally change the landscape of places such as the Lake District. That is wrong, and we need to ensure that those standards—our proud, high British agricultural standards—are written into statute.

However, from my perspective and that of most people here, it is also massively regrettable in how it undermines the integrity of the United Kingdom. In Cumbria, we share a border with Scotland. Animals raised in Dumfriesshire are sold at market in Cumbria, and animals raised in Cumbria are sold at market in Dumfriesshire. The border is pretty meaningless to most of us on either side of it. To undermine the integrity of the United Kingdom in this way, and to play into the hands of those who would want the United Kingdom to be split up, is utter folly from the Government. Some 95% of Cumbrian farm exports are to the single market, but the single market that matters most to us is the United Kingdom single market. My great fear is that Conservative Members increasingly know little, and care less, about what it would take to keep the United Kingdom together.

I run the risk of offending some people around me, but I say this to the English nationalists on the Government Benches whose modus operandi to win the elections of the past few years has been to blame all the ills of the country on people outside our borders: that has done you a lot of good in terms of electoral results in recent years, but it can happen to you in reverse, as nationalists north of the border point to the nationalists on your Front Bench and decide to make a call that it is time to end the Union. That is why we need to uphold the Lords amendments: because we believe in the future of the United Kingdom.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

A few references to “you” there, Mr Farron—you should know better.

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[Paul Scully]

I appreciate what my hon. Friend says. I think we will give the appropriate measures and protections, whatever form that comes as—if it is indeed needed; I hope that it is never needed in the first place. We will look to make sure that we protect Northern Ireland and its unfettered access.

My hon. Friend talked about state aid rules in Northern Ireland. They will apply to Northern Ireland as agreed under the withdrawal agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol, but they are not the same state aid rules that apply today, because there are new flexibilities of service providers. We welcome that agreement in principle in the Joint Committee, which was about managing the risk of reach-back into Great Britain and guards against the Commission taking an extreme or irrational interpretation of article 10 of the protocol. That means that there is no longer a need for the safety net.

The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) talked about the common frameworks and Scotland’s involvement. I hope I was correct in saying that I believed that the Scottish Government pulled away from discussions about the internal market, not common frameworks. I hope that is clear; if I did mis-speak, that was exactly what I meant to say.

We have now had 90 hours of scrutiny on this Bill across both Houses. I reiterate that I am grateful for how right hon. and hon. Members in this place have debated, scrutinised and engaged on the Bill. I said on Monday and again emphasise that we have been and will continue to be reasonable in discussions on this Bill. Since Monday, we have had a lot of good, positive movement and agreement and we welcome that, but ultimately, Government need to balance this with the need to deliver a Bill that provides the certainty that business wants and needs to invest and create jobs.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Perhaps somebody from the SNP could inform the Chair privately who its Tellers might be, should they go afterwards.

Question put.

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Committee to withdraw immediately; reasons to be reported and communicated to the Lords.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

In order to observe social distancing, the Reasons Committee will meet in Committee Room 11.

We will not be suspending, because the Dispatch Boxes were sanitised during one of the Divisions.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 7th December 2020 Commons Chamber

But the good news and the message that Conservative Members—and, indeed, those in the Labour party—should take away tonight is this: 15 opinion polls in a row in Scotland show that voters now realise what is happening and they do not like it, and a consistent majority of well over 50% want a second independence referendum and they want to vote for independence. The reality is that no matter what this House does tonight, it is increasingly irrelevant to people in Scotland and to the debate that we are having in Scotland. Before long, it will be Scotland’s turn to take back control, and we will not do so at the say so of this House or this Government; we will do so at the say so of the sovereign people of Scotland.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call Wera Hobhouse; please resume your seat at 8.50 pm.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The desire and the right of the UK as a sovereign nation to trade unhindered with all its regions and nations is undeniable, but it is what was part 5 of the Bill that is highly politically charged and controversial. It has serious implications for the relationship between the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and, most importantly, represents a direct challenge to the rule of law.

The rule of law is not just a domestic obligation, but applies to our international obligations, including the principles of good faith and co-operation with the withdrawal agreement that the Prime Minister himself signed only a year ago. If the Bill is unamended, it will severely undermine the UK’s reputation across the world and have a long-term global effect. Not only will it damage the UK’s current trade talks with the EU, which are on a knife edge; it will have severe consequences for any trade deals with any country. So why is it here?

I wonder to this day why those who so uncompromisingly campaigned to leave the European Union ever gave a serious thought about Northern Ireland. At the core of the Good Friday agreement is the ability of the people of Northern Ireland to look both ways—to the United Kingdom and to the Republic of Ireland—and of people, goods and services to move unhindered across boundaries. EU membership greatly facilitated the Good Friday agreement. The balance was always going to be severely upset by leaving the EU, and to this day Tory Governments of any shade have not solved the problem. With the unamended Bill the current Government have chosen the nuclear option not only to upset and destabilise a domestic settlement between all four nations but to blow to bits the remaining good will between the UK and the EU—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. My apologies to the seven Members who did not get in to speak. I call the Minister.

[Paul Scully]

I thank everybody who spoke in the debate today and all the right hon. and hon. Members who have engaged with the Bill throughout.

From many speakers, especially at the beginning of the debate, we heard about exactly what businesses and people throughout the country have wanted—the certainty and consistency that the Bill will deliver. Unfortunately, we have heard, as we have throughout the Bill’s passage, a lot of inconsistency from Opposition Members. We have heard the SNP talk about the fact that we are not going to get a trade deal with America but, by the way, when we do, we have to accept chlorinated chicken. Neither of those things are true.

We have heard that people want the Government to change and negotiate and work with the European negotiating team, but when we reach out to them to explain what part 5 of the Bill is all about and the fact that we will not need a safety net should we get successful talks in the Joint Committee, it is described as shambolic. Which would people like? Would they like change? I think we want certainty.

People have talked about the need for devolution in Northern Ireland and the need to respect Northern Irish businesses and the parties in Northern Ireland and give their businesses certainty, but Opposition Members will vote against part 5 and, in doing so, vote against unfettered access for Northern Ireland into GB.

We heard an SNP Member describe the UK Government as a boa constrictor, yet they want independence from the UK Government and from the other nations to go back to the boa constrictor that is the EU.

We need the Bill and these clauses now because parliamentary time dictates as much and we want the legislation to be ready for the end of the transition phase, whatever happens in the remaining days of discussions with the EU. I wish both sides well in their discussions.

To conclude, the UK’s internal market has been the bedrock of our shared prosperity for centuries. It has enabled businesses and individuals to thrive and has been the source of unhindered and open trade throughout the country. It has helped to demonstrate that our country is greater as a Union than the sum of its parts.

The Government are committed to safeguarding the Union. We fully support devolution and continue to put the Union at the heart of everything we do. I very much believe that the four corners of the UK are stronger together and that the Bill supports and respects the devolution settlements. Some Members have said that the Bill is a threat to devolution, but in reality they are trying to further their narrow political arguments rather than look at the wider political arguments. Their narrow political arguments about independence have nothing to do with devolution.

I stress that the proposals in the Bill are designed to ensure that devolution can continue to work for everyone. All devolved policy areas will stay devolved and the proposals ensure only that there are no new barriers to UK internal trade. Indeed, at the end of the transition period hundreds of powers that are currently exercised by the EU will flow back to the UK. Many of these powers will fall within the competence of the devolved Administrations, and this flow therefore represents a substantial transfer of powers to the devolved Administrations that they did not exercise before the EU exit.

The Bill is vital in preserving our internal market and continuing to provide certainty for businesses as we seek to recover from covid-19, prepare for the opportunities after the transition period and protect jobs. It will ensure that UK businesses can trade across our four home nations in a way that helps them to invest and create jobs, just as they have for hundreds of years. I want to emphasise again that the Government have been, and will continue to be, reasonable in discussions on this Bill. We made many positive changes, and they are on the table, but ultimately the Government need to balance this with the need to deliver a Bill that provides the certainty that businesses want and the need to invest and create jobs. I therefore call on hon. Members to support the Government in these objectives, which I believe we all share, when they vote today.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.

--- Later in debate ---

Lords amendment 49 disagreed to.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

As Madam Deputy Speaker informed the House earlier, Mr Speaker has given careful consideration to Lords amendment 50, which refers to state aid and the Office for the Internal Market. He is satisfied that it would impose a charge on the public revenue that is not authorised by the money resolution passed by the House on 14 September. In accordance with paragraph (3) of Standing Order No. 78, the amendment is therefore deemed to be disagreed to.

Lords amendment 50 deemed to be disagreed to (Standing Order No. 78(3)).

Lords amendments 51 to 57 disagreed to.

Lords amendment 61 disagreed to.

Lords amendments 2 to 7, 20 to 29, 35 to 41 and 58 to 60 agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83H), That a Committee be appointed to draw up Reasons to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to their amendments 1, 8 to 19, 30 to 34, 42, 44 to 57 and 61;

That Paul Scully, Michael Tomlinson, Jo Gideon, Mark Fletcher, Ed Miliband, Gill Furniss and Drew Hendry be members of the Committee;

That Paul Scully be the Chair of the Committee;

That three be the quorum of the Committee.

That the Committee do withdraw immediately.—(Mike Freer.)

Question agreed to.

Committee to withdraw immediately; reasons to be reported and communicated to the Lords.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

In order to observe social distancing, the Reasons Committee will meet in Committee Room 12.

PARLIAMENTARY WORKS SPONSOR BODY

Ordered,

That, under the provisions of Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act 2019, Sir Robert Syms having resigned as a Parliamentary member of the Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body, Ian Levy be appointed to the Body in his place.—(Mr Rees-Mogg.)

Exiting the European Union (Building and Buildings)

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mike Amesbury]

Of course, many of the products, whether ACM, HPL or insulation, have been tested, though some of those tests have been questionable. As my hon. Friend rightly says, any divergence beyond the arrangements that we have now for transition out of the EU—of course, we do not have a trade deal—may have a further impact, and building safety issues go much broader than cladding, whether ACM or HPL, affecting thousands of buildings and hundreds of thousands of people.

Of course, 1.5 million people are now trapped in flats that largely have a zero rating for a mortgage. They also have to pay additional costs for waking watch, which in some cases can be thousands of pounds a month. Going forward, measures in the building safety Bill have the potential to put even more charges on leaseholders. Does my hon. Friend concur that, beyond Reading, this is a national scandal—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I am sorry but this intervention is way too long. Has the hon. Member got the gist of the point?

[Matt Rodda]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I thank my hon. Friend on the Front Bench. He is right that this is a national scandal. I seek to give one example of one constituency and to represent local people. It is utterly abhorrent that millions of people in the United Kingdom face these dreadful problems and are living with the nightmare of an unsafe flat that they cannot sell or leave. It is dreadful that they are living through this utter nightmare. I call on the Government to step up their action and address this with far greater urgency. I find it staggering that, three years after Grenfell, it is still an issue on the scale that it is and that the Government are only now beginning to address it. I ask the Minister respectfully to explain—perhaps in front of the House, or he could write to me—how the Government will deal with the risk of confusion about regulation and the potential watering down of the current standards once we are no longer in the EU regime.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We have always been at the forefront of good design and product safety, and I hope that nobody in the House will assume that somehow, because they are EU regulations, those regulations must ineluctably be better than our own. We will make sure that we have regulations that are suitable for our markets. We will make sure that we have really good regulations and that, as we leave the transition period, we maintain EU regulations, which are being incorporated, as I have said, into British law.

The hon. Gentleman asked a question about enforcement. One reason why we need to introduce the amendments to amendments is to make sure that local authorities, which are usually responsible for the enforcement of such regulations, have the wherewithal in England, Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland to enforce the necessary regulations, whether they are the CE regulations that we are transposing in Great Britain, future regulations that we might apply or the construction products regulations that will continue to pertain in Northern Ireland. The enforcement regulations —I think Lord Blunkett asked about this in the other place, and my noble Friend Lord Greenhalgh replied—will be maintained as a result of these amendments.

What will happen in future? It is for my noble Friend Lord Frost and his negotiating team to win a great trade deal for the United Kingdom, and that is what he is endeavouring to do. I hope, given that the amount of trade in construction products is definitely in the European Union’s favour—something like £10.8 billion-worth of trade, compared with £4 billion and a bit the other way—it is in its interest to reach a good trade deal with the United Kingdom, to ensure that that trade continues to flow.

The Government believe that the regulations that we have laid before the House are needed to ensure that there continues to be a functioning legislative and regulatory regime for construction products at the end of the transition period and that it is, as I have said, in line with commitments set out in the all-important Northern Ireland protocol. I trust that I have answered all—or nearly all—the questions that have been put to me by Members in all parts of the House. If not, I am happy to write to them. With that, I conclude and commend the draft amendments to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the draft Construction Products (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, which were laid before this House on 15 October, be approved.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. We are going to suspend for three minutes so that the Dispatch Boxes can be sanitised.

Leaseholders and Cladding: Greenwich and Woolwich

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2020 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(David Duguid.)

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Before I call Matthew Pennycook, I remind Members that because of the technicalities, I shall put the Question again at 10 o’clock.