Oral Answers to Questions
Peter Grant Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Simon Hoare
I am intrigued by what the right hon. Lady proffers to the House. Only a few weeks ago, in the debate on the local government finance settlement—none of her colleagues apart from the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who chairs the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, and those on the Front Bench could be bothered to turn up and speak on it—the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), who is sitting next to her on the Front Bench, said:
“As I will come on to say shortly, we will have a review to look at the long-term plans. We understand the problems that local government is facing.”—[Official Report, 7 February 2024; Vol. 745, c. 326.]
May I say to the right hon. Lady that part of the job of being in Opposition is to work out the policies that she may want to deliver in government?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Felicity Buchan)
We have been clear that anti-Muslim hatred has absolutely no place in our communities. I feel that strongly, as I represent one of the most diverse constituencies in the country. We have provided over £6 million to the anti-Muslim hatred monitoring and support service Tell MAMA, and just shy of £13 million to schemes protecting mosques and faith schools. Funding for both measures had been uplifted in response to increased reporting since October.
Peter Grant
An extreme right-wing Conservative MP was allowed to go on an extreme right-wing Conservative-funding TV station and make a series of vile Islamophobic remarks. The MP was not suspended for Islamophobia; he was suspended for refusing to obey an order from his party leader. Does the Minister understand why it is that, not only among Muslim communities but across a much wider range of believers and non-believers, people are becoming increasingly concerned that, in the eyes of this Government, Islamophobia is seen as somehow less abhorrent than other forms of racism?
Felicity Buchan
The Government were absolutely clear that those were not appropriate comments. That is completely clear. Any form of religious hatred is not acceptable in our society.
Levelling Up
Peter Grant Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Some Members may have an advantage on me in that they have seen the details of the allocation, which I have been handed just this second, so I will give a completely constituency-neutral response to the Minister’s statement.
However hard the Tories try to hide the truth, the fact is that these days, the word most people will apply before Britain is “broken”. Most people support genuine levelling up—who could argue with it?—but when the Prime Minister’s constituency got more than the whole of Glasgow last time around, and when most people think their high streets are getting worse rather than better, we have to ask what the real agenda is.
Will the Minister confirm how much of the money he boasts has been committed since 2019 has actually been spent? How does it compare to the overspend on HS2, for example?
The Scottish Government have decades of experience—Scottish Governments of various political persuasions, by the way—in successfully allocating EU funding, for example, in true partnership with local authorities. What discussions did the UK Government have with the Scottish Government, given their statutory role in culture and transport, and their role in pride in place, before he made today’s announcement? What discussions did they have with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to get a consensus view on what Scottish local authorities need? Or is this decision just being made by somebody in a ministerial office in Whitehall who is as out of touch with Scotland today as they will be out of office next year?
Jacob Young
The hon. Gentleman describes being out of touch with Scotland; he also mentions Glasgow. I should tell him that Glasgow has received £15 million in this round, so I suggest that it is he who is out of touch with Scotland. The Government have a responsibility to all people, businesses and communities across the whole United Kingdom across all three rounds of the funds. As I mentioned in my statement, we have invested £1 billion of levelling-up funding in local authorities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The hon. Gentleman should consider his argument: it seems somewhat bizarre that he is frustrated at the funding that we are spending in Scotland. He should focus on what the cash is delivering, rather than on who is delivering it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Peter Grant Excerpts(9 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Rachel Maclean
The hon. Lady will be pleased to hear that this is a priority for us. I take issue slightly with her comment that we have a poor record of disposing of public land. Often, that public land is needed by hospitals and the MOD. So we are working closely and looking at where such land can be brought forward for housing. If it can, we absolutely will be doing that.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Among the SNP failures that the Secretary of State chose not to mention is the fact that, since the SNP came to government in 2007, we have been building new council and social-rented houses at nine times the rate of any Government covering England. Does the Minister accept that if successive Labour and Tory Governments had followed the SNP’s example in Scotland, the housing crisis in England would be far less than it currently is?
Michael Gove
Once again, my hon. Friend makes a brilliant case on behalf of the residents of Solihull borough.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Fife Council is currently working on the details of the levelling-up fund, which gave us some of our own money back under the last round. Most of that money—over £14 million—is for connectivity projects related to the very welcome reopening of the Levenmouth rail link. Since the bid was put together, it has become clear that by far the most important connectivity project associated with that reopening is the construction of a pedestrian footbridge to maintain the ancient public right of way at Doubledykes crossing in the middle of my constituency. If it becomes clear that the project has support from the community, will the Secretary of State allow Fife Council to reallocate the funding—
Mr Speaker
Order. Please—these are topicals. I have given you the advantage of having two goes. Don’t take advantage of the rest of the Members, please.
Christianity in Society
Peter Grant Excerpts(1 year ago)
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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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Nick Fletcher
I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution and for her continued support; I was actually going to mention William Wilberforce in my next sentence.
It was the Christian faith that moved John Locke to develop our understanding of religious toleration. It was the Christian faith that compelled William Wilberforce, who my hon. Friend has just mentioned, to fight the slave trade, set up homes for the elderly and establish the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It was the Christian faith that moved Lord Shaftesbury to campaign for better working conditions and provisions for the mentally ill. It was Christianity that inspired Hannah More to set up free schools for the poor. Again, it was Christianity that prompted Josiah Wedgwood to revolutionise working conditions in his factories. It was the Christian faith that led Elizabeth Fry to campaign for prison reform.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
I commend the hon. Member for bringing this debate to the House. There is no doubt that it was people motivated by Christian beliefs who achieved all those social advances. It was also people who claimed to be Christians who introduced all those evils into the United Kingdom’s society in the first place.
Nick Fletcher
I thank the hon. Member for his contribution. Obviously, lots of people throughout the entirety of history may not have used their faith or interpretation of the Bible in the way that I and many Christians today believe they should have. However, the list of people I just read out did some wonderful things.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
It is a real pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Mundell. I am pleased to begin today’s summing up, which will not be politically based, as it often is in Westminster Hall debates, because this has not been the usual type of debate and there has been a significant degree of consensus.
I want to present a slightly different view, and I say this as a lifelong committed Christian who shares many of the values that have been expressed. We need to be careful about how we talk about the history and future of Christianity in our nations and elsewhere. As I indicated in my intervention, although there is no doubt that people motivated by Christianity have been responsible for extraordinary acts of kindness, courage, bravery and selflessness, from the days of Christ himself, we cannot hide from the fact that people who claim to be acting in accordance with Christian teaching have been responsible for some of the most heinous acts ever committed on God’s earth.
Slavery was set up by people who claimed that it was God’s will. Apartheid was set up and maintained by people who claimed that it was God’s will. We have seen acts of cruelty and barbarity during wars and crusades throughout the Christian era on earth. They were carried out by so-called Christians, but I find that impossible to reconcile with any of the teachings of Jesus, or indeed anything else among the teachings of the Church.
I had the good fortune to spend five years on the court of governors of the University of St Andrews. On the day that it had its annual chapel service in memory of the founders and current benefactors, we would go outside as soon as that was done. Just outside St Salvator’s chapel, the initials “PH” are built into the pavement, and we would have a memorial service there. Patrick Hamilton was a devout Christian, and the stones mark the spot where he was slowly roasted alive by another group of devout Christians because he was devoutly the wrong kind of Christian. Later in the history of St Andrews, the tables were turned, and the other form of devout Christians were starved to death and thrown out the windows of St Andrews castle.
Tales of such barbarity between Christians have been going on for almost as long as Christianity has existed. I say that not to suggest that Christianity has been an evil influence on the world, as some people suggest, but when we talk about all the good that it has brought, we also have to be willing to recognise that it has not been a one-sided story. We have to recognise that many people across the world still find it difficult to break the bond between Christianity and slavery, colonisation, persecution and empire building—the exploitation of other lands and their people. The people responsible for those crimes were not acting in a Christian way, but in the minds of a lot of our brothers and sisters across the world, there is still an association between Christianity and the darker side of their history.
I do not accept the concept of anywhere being a Christian country. It is a matter of fact, certainly for most of our recent recorded history, that all our countries have been led by people who purported to be Christians, but that is not the same thing as being a Christian country. I point out to the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) that while he is rightly proud of a lot of the history and heritage to which he referred, a lot of it is not the heritage of all of us who attend this place; it is a heritage of one nation in the United Kingdom.
Magna Carta, for example, is an exclusively English document. We should not mention Magna Carta without recognising that, by today’s standards, anyone who published it would be arrested because it was one of the most antisemitic documents that has ever been produced. It was very much of its day. While we might celebrate the liberties that it gave to some people, we have to recognise that for Jewish people in England at that time, Magna Carta was not going to liberate them from anywhere. The same is true, coincidentally, for the Claim of Right for Scotland because, by today’s standards, that is an extraordinarily anti-Catholic document.
Much of the heritage that the hon. Member spoke about is, indeed, a rich heritage that anyone is entitled to be proud of. It is also not the heritage of this Parliament. It might be part of the heritage of many of the buildings in which this Parliament sits, but it is a heritage of one of its predecessor Parliaments: the English Parliament, which, with the Scottish Parliament, was combined by the union of the Parliaments. In fact, technically, the United Kingdom Parliament has been going since only the early 1800s. While we can talk about the heritage of the building, we should not make the mistake of thinking that the institution that now uses this building necessarily inherits all that heritage.
As one example, the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) mentioned the religious iconography that we see in many places around here, and that is absolutely correct. However, the legacy of John Knox in my country was to destroy hundreds of years-worth of religious iconography. When we talk about Christian heritage as it is applied in this place, if this place had been in Scotland, a lot of the treasured iconography would have been destroyed. Again, it would have been Christian iconography being destroyed by people who said it was a Christian thing to do.
I certainly agree with one of the most poignant parts of the speech by the hon. Member for Don Valley, when he said he could not do this job without his faith. That is one thing with which I can wholeheartedly agree. I could not do anything that I have done in my life without my faith, and anybody of genuine belief in any of the faith traditions would say that.
I want to put on the record that, in almost 31 years as an elected politician, I have never felt under any pressure from anybody to speak or vote in a way that went against my Christian conscience. I know some of my colleagues have found it very difficult, but I have never found it difficult to separate what my faith tells me I should do in the way that I run my life and thinking that it then gives me the right to legislate over how other people run their lives. I remember the difficulties that some of my family and friends had when I supported the scrapping of section 28 many years ago, because the Catholic Church at that point was against scrapping section 28. I took the view that the Catholic Church tells me and I try to follow the teaching about how I practise my own sexuality, but it does not give me a right to legislate as to how anyone else practises theirs, any more than it would give me the right to legislate to say, “You have to go to mass on a Sunday, and you are not allowed to eat meat on Good Friday or Ash Wednesday.”
In fact, I find that my Christian beliefs attract not nearly as much animosity on social media as some people’s do, but any abuse I get on account of my faith on social media tends to come from other people who claim to be Christians. I do not think I have ever had any kind of religious-based abuse from anybody who did not make it clear that they claim to be a Christian of some kind.
Hon. Members have spoken about, for example, the decline in respect for not only Christianity generally, but the displaying of recognition of the great feasts. It saddens me that most Christians do not realise that we are coming up to the most important day of the year. Easter in the Christian tradition is significantly more important than Christmas, but we would not think it from looking at the way it is celebrated, or not. The decline in respect for Easter, and, indeed, for the true spirit of Christmas, started long before there was any noticeable number of people in these islands who professed other faiths. It probably started in days when 80% to 90% of the population would have described themselves as being Christian.
Essentially, although this is maybe too deep a subject to go into just now, the decline in Christianity that we see in the United Kingdom has been caused by Christians giving up, losing interest or just stopping being particularly concerned about it. It has not been caused by outside influences. It is a problem that has been created here within our own Christian faiths, and it can be addressed only from within Christian faiths.
There was some discussion during this debate that perhaps Church leaders should focus on the spiritual and religious message and not be talking so much about other things. I cannot speak for people of other faiths, but as a Catholic living in Scotland, I certainly have not noticed a shortage of statements from the leaders of the Catholic Church in Scotland in which they extol the essential spirituality of our faith or in which they continue to remind us what Easter, Christmas and a number of other days are really about, for example.
I have to wonder whether people who get uncomfortable when church leaders comment on social matters are uncomfortable really about the fact that their church leaders are telling them that what they are doing, the way they are acting, is not in keeping with the teaching of their faith. Certainly when I look at the principles of Catholic social teaching—it is one of the things that drive me in this place—I find it difficult. I would not challenge people’s sincerity for a minute; I can only assume that those who promote some of the things that I see in this place feel that they can reconcile that to Christian social teaching and to Catholic social teaching. But—I am sorry—I find it very difficult to make that reconciliation.
Perhaps what we need to do is to recognise that how people promote their Christianity can draw people into the Church or push people away. If people speak of Christianity in one way and act in a different way, that is always going to give us a problem. I have never found a passage anywhere, in any part, of the Bible where these words appear: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, unless they came here in a small boat.”
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Mundell. I thank the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for his efforts in securing the debate. As I am shadow Minister for local Government and faith, it is my joy and privilege to praise and talk up the vital, meaningful work of the countless religious groups that we have across the UK, especially during this time of year, which is, as has been mentioned, a special, holy time for many religions. Easter is upon us. Last night, I joined the other members of the all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims as they broke fast in the Speaker’s House. I look forward next week to hearing more about and seeing Jewish traditions around the marking of Passover in the UK and across the world.
In my constituency of Luton North, the interfaith community is long established and a source of cohesion and strength. The Luton Council of Faiths received an award from the late Queen for its important—vital—work on faith but, importantly, community cohesion as well. I mention this interfaith work because everybody has talked about their background and I grew up in not just a mixed ethnicity, race and heritage household, but a mixed faith household, both Buddhist and Christian. When I see scenes such as those that we saw last night at Manchester Cathedral, with more than 1,000 people of all faiths and none breaking fast and coming together, welcoming each other into the cathedral in much the same way as the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) talked about— opening the doors—it is to be welcomed and celebrated.
As we approach Holy Week, when Christians across the UK and the world will reflect on both the sombre and the celebratory nature of the Easter story, it is right that we reflect, too, on their value in our society. They are moral guides, whether they are bishops leading on pressing ethical issues in the House of Lords or peacekeepers in struggling communities. Particular examples come to mind: the former Bishop of Kensington providing comfort to the traumatised survivors and relatives following the Grenfell tragedy, and providing leadership in challenging the injustices and continued injustices that have been exposed; the retired Bishop of Liverpool, who did not leave the side of those affected by the Hillsborough disaster throughout endless let-downs, setbacks and injustices; and Pastor Mick, who has used his life experiences of violence and addiction to set up the Church on the Street and serve vulnerable people in Burnley.
We all know that, beneath those who make the headlines, many more Christians are working quietly and thanklessly on the ground, in all our constituencies, to support those who have fallen through the gaps of poverty and misfortune. Their generosity and compassion became most evident during the pandemic, when, alongside all people of faith and those of none, people relied on churches, mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras, mandirs and temples to get the message of public health and public safety out, to keep their communities fed and to meet a variety of other needs.
Peter Grant
The hon. Member is giving a very powerful speech. Does she agree that the circumstances she is describing, whereby people of a variety of faiths and people of no particular faith have all come together for the common good, are a reminder that although many of us would hold fast to what we regard as Christian values, those values are not exclusively Christian? If we recognised that a lot of those values are shared worldwide by people of many different faiths, maybe we would get on better than we do just now.
Sarah Owen
I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. It is always important to note where we share values—and that always plays to our strengths.
My hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) made a powerful point about the vital support that churches and charities provide on a non-judgmental basis not just to Christians, but to their wider communities and everybody who needs support. Churches and Christian organisations have been stepping forward where the state has largely stepped back for over a decade, and I see examples of that in my constituency. When we had fires in tower blocks, St Luke’s in Leagrave provided warm banks, despite the fact that its bills are going through the roof. Christchurch Bushmead, which is at the centre of our community, has provided support for those in need. We all know about the food banks in our constituencies that are run from churches by Christian charities. As food prices climb, energy costs soar and wages fall, we cannot expect the need for food banks to diminish any time soon.
There are also the night shelters. They are less typical at this time of year, but every winter Christian organisations go above and beyond to provide warmth and shelter for homeless people. They do so not because they have an abundance of money, space or resources, but because their faith compels them to do and give what they can. I note that hon. Members have mentioned and recommended books throughout the debate, and I would love to take the opportunity to recommend a book co-written by my dear friend and the chief executive of the Christian charity Jubilee+, Natalie Williams, entitled “The Myth of the Undeserving Poor”. We can add that to our reading list for the Easter recess.
Vital support, including the debt services provided by organisations such as Christians Against Poverty, is long standing but has never been so needed as it is now. CAP partners with churches of all denominations around the UK to offer personal budgeting courses and employment support, helping people to break free from the paralysing chains of debt. I will never forget the personal testimony that I heard from CAP when it came to Parliament to speak to parliamentarians about the vital work it does.
That is just a brief selection of Christian charities working domestically. Globally, there are organisations fighting bravely for religious freedoms and human rights, and tackling poverty and famine. Colleagues will be aware of the fearless work of Open Doors, which works in some of the most dangerous regions of the world to serve persecuted Christians. Over Easter, we must keep in mind worshippers and believers in places such as North Korea, Nigeria, China, Hong Kong, Afghanistan and many more, who will risk their lives to worship God at this time.
I pay tribute to International Justice Mission, which works internationally to end modern slavery; Tearfund, which has been providing disaster relief for over 50 years; and Christian Aid, which continues to lead progressive and powerful campaigns on the climate emergency. Despite how needed and important their campaigns are, such organisations are struggling. The cost of living crisis has meant that, while demand is higher than ever for food, shelter and financial support, the public’s capacity to donate has declined. The fact that wages are falling far beneath inflation is forcing ordinary working people to cut back where they can. For many, that means reducing or ending charitable giving. This is where we need Government action.
I ask the Minister to go back to her team and other Government Departments, and look at what more can be done to protect our churches and charities from further financial struggle. Stronger interventions on energy costs and business rates would be a very good place to start. After 13 years of Conservative Government, where does the Minister think our country would be without the safety net provided by Christians and other faith groups? If families, children, and those out of work or struggling with addiction had only the Government to rely on, what state would our economic and social health be in? She should ask herself, honestly, whether the Government have allowed themselves to become complacent in presuming that faith groups will always be able to step forward and make up for state neglect and failure. On the contributions of Christians to fighting global issues of injustice, will the Minister update us on efforts to return the level of overseas aid to 0.7%?
This Easter, I will be celebrating the inspiring Christians around me in Luton North; the church leaders, their congregations and communities across the UK; and the charities working here and abroad to serve humanity. We can all be inspired and grateful for the hugely powerful impact that Christians have in our society, but we must never be ignorant of what they need from Government or overconfident that they will always be able to clean up our mistakes.
Oral Answers to Questions
Peter Grant Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Michael Gove
Our changes to the national planning policy framework are designed to do exactly that. I talked to the new chief executive of the Planning Inspectorate earlier last week to reinforce the point that my hon. Friend has consistently made on behalf of his constituents in Cleethorpes.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Earlier today, the Minister was keen to pray in aid the Electoral Commission in support of the Government’s voter ID plans. Will she remind the House: in the commission’s detailed analysis of the 2021 elections across the whole of Great Britain, how many cases of voter impersonation produced enough evidence to lead to a police caution? If she does not know the exact number, I will give her a hint: it is half the number of people on the Government Front Bench right now.
Dehenna Davison
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The point is to ensure that the integrity of our democratic system is maintained, which is something I will never apologise for.
Oral Answers to Questions
Peter Grant Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Michael Gove
I do, and our new infrastructure levy in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill is designed to do just that. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend and with the new Minister of State for Housing and Planning, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch, in order to make sure that the infrastructure levy delivers as we both would want.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
While people in Levenmouth certainly welcome the fact that the levelling-up process gave us some of our own money back again, can the Secretary of State identify a single measure of need or deprivation by which the Prime Minister’s constituency is as needy and as deprived as the Levenmouth area in my constituency, and more deprived than the entire city of Glasgow?
Michael Gove
First, as I mentioned earlier, the reason that money has gone to the Prime Minister’s constituency is that it is going to help service families who do so much in order to make sure that we are all kept safe and protected. Secondly, I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman acknowledges that it is a good thing that the UK Government are distributing this money in this way. It is the case that his party used to oppose that, but we are now delivering that money; for two successive years, cash has been delivered to Glenrothes, to Glasgow, and to other communities.
The third thing I would say is that I hope the hon. Gentleman is not the SNP MP quoted in The Times at the weekend as saying that the thing about the Scottish Government is that they cannot even—
Oral Answers to Questions
Peter Grant Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Michael Gove
The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill and our forthcoming national planning policy prospectus will address precisely that question.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s new-found enthusiasm for the Scottish Parliament. Does that enthusiasm extend to recognising the mandate that Parliament has to honour the manifesto commitments on which a clear majority of its Members have been elected in 2021, 2016 and 2011?
Michael Gove
In 2014 the people of Scotland voted to remain part of the United Kingdom and were told at the time by the Scottish National party that it was a once in a generation vote. Eight years on from that vote it would be folly indeed, at a time when there is war on the European continent, we face cost of living challenges and we are all committed to working together to deal with the legacy of covid, to spend even more money attempting to break up and smash the United Kingdom instead of working to heal and unite.
Oral Answers to Questions
Peter Grant Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Michael Gove
My hon. Friend raises an important question, and here I have an opportunity to thank those developers, as well as the House Builders Federation, who have acknowledged that they were part of a regulatory system and that even those who sought to do the right thing were on occasions required to accept an ethic of shared responsibility; they have accepted it and for that reason leaseholders, who have no responsibility and no blame to shoulder, are protected.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (Michael Gove)
The United Kingdom Government have engaged with each of the devolved Administrations on the design of the UK shared prosperity fund both at official and ministerial levels, and our engagement with Ministers from the devolved Administrations in the weeks leading up to the publication of the UKSPF allocation helped to inform the most appropriate mix of interventions and specifically the allocations for each nation.
Peter Grant
No doubt one thing that will have been raised in those discussions is the fact that this year Scotland’s share will be £151 million less than we would have got in EU structural funds had we not been dragged out of the EU against our will, despite the fact that both the Tory party manifesto in 2019 and a personal pledge from the Secretary of State at the Holyrood Finance and Public Administration Committee earlier this year assured us we would get at least as much as would have come from the European Union. Why have those two promises been broken, and, most importantly, what has happened to Scotland’s missing £151 million?
Michael Gove
The normally pertinacious Member is misinformed: it is the case that Scotland receives just as much. I fear he is probably missing out the money Scotland receives from the European Union as a result of money we gave to the EU, and as funding slowly moves down, the great thing about leaving the EU is that we have control of how these funds are spent; we can decide how they are spent. If the hon. Member wants to take us back into the European Union perhaps he will explain to voters in Scotland why he wants to take us back into the common fisheries policy, why he wants to abandon the trade deals we have secured that benefit Scotland’s distillers and farmers, and why he wants power to be exercised by unaccountable bureaucrats in Brussels rather than elected representatives here.
Budget Resolutions
Peter Grant Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Michael Gove
The hon. Lady has made an important point. There are specific and long-standing issues in Knowsley and other parts of Merseyside that we need to address as part of levelling up. However, I think she does herself down slightly, because I understand that thanks to her advocacy in her constituency two levelling-up bids succeeded, and although they do not affect Knowsley, they do affect Liverpool. Some £20 million has gone towards helping Liverpool City Council with regeneration, and £37 million has gone towards recovery. Those sums are not insignificant.
Nevertheless, I take the hon. Lady’s point about Knowsley. I think it important to remind her, and indeed the House, that the £1.7 billion in the levelling-up fund which was allocated by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is just one third of the total sum allocated over the course of the spending review, and I look forward to working with her and with other colleagues to make sure that the remaining funds can be allocated effectively.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
I do not know whether the Secretary of State heard this, or indeed whether the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) heard it, but when the hon. Lady asked what her constituents had to do to get their fair share of levelling-up funding, the clear message from the Tory Back Benches was that they had to return a Tory MP. Tory MPs clearly think that it is all about putting money into Tory-held constituencies. Does the Secretary of State agree with his own MPs that levelling-up funding will be targeted at Conservative constituencies, or does he need to have a private word with them afterwards to stop them giving away party secrets?
Michael Gove
We do not need to look into the crystal ball; we can just read the book. There are a number of Scottish National party MPs whose advocacy has ensured that they receive levelling-up funds in their constituencies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) on securing £16 million for UK Government money for the Granton gasholder in her constituency. The hon. Members for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) and for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn)—and even the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford)—have managed to secure money from either the levelling-up fund or the community ownership fund in this Budget.
It is fantastic that we have Scottish National party MPs petitioning my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to bypass the Scottish Government in order to spend UK Government money in their constituencies. [Hon. Members: “More! More!”] And indeed there will be more, because in the forthcoming community renewal fund allocations, more money will be going to constituencies represented by Scottish National party MPs. That is because, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer pointed out in his Budget speech, we are stronger, better and wealthier together. It is great that Scottish National party MPs are putting the UK Government’s money where the Scottish Government’s mouth isn’t.
Levelling up is about making opportunity more equal across our whole United Kingdom. It is a recognition, as the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have said, that while talent is spread equally across the United Kingdom, opportunity is not. If levelling up is to succeed, yes, we need funds such as the levelling up fund, but we also need a systemic approach to how the Government support local government, other institutions and the private sector in order to spread prosperity.
One of the challenges that we face when it comes to levelling up is that the difference between the more economically successful areas of the United Kingdom and those that are less successful involves a kind of “Anna Karenina” challenge. In the first line of that novel, Tolstoy points out that all happy families are happy in a similar way, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. We can apply that to communities that need more help. The challenges that Knowsley faces are different from the challenges that Grimsby faces. The challenges that Bury faces are different from those that Burnley faces. We need to recognise that while all the challenges faced in coastal towns, in satellite towns around our major cities and in rural areas have common features, they all deserve to be addressed in a unique way.
If we are going to improve economic productivity and wellbeing, we need to recognise—as the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), has pointed out—that for levelling up to succeed, we need to ensure that local leadership improves and that we build on the success of, for example, combined authority Mayors such as Andy Street and Ben Houchen. We also need to improve living standards where they are lower, and to improve public services, particularly where opportunity has fallen behind. We also need to play a part in helping to restore pride in place, so that communities feel in a genuine sense that they have taken back control.
The Budget succeeded in addressing many of these challenges by ensuring that the funding was there to focus on each of the ingredients that require to be in place if we are to have levelling up. One of the first and most important areas in which the Budget made provision for change was in education, particularly in further education and in skills. An additional £3.8 billion is being spent over the course of the spending review period. That is a real-terms increase for those 16 to 19-year-olds who are in full-time education, and there is additional money to ensure that our groundbreaking T-levels are more available. There will be additional hours for those in further and technical education to ensure that they get the very best tuition, and there will be skills boot camps to ensure that we can accelerate the move of people into the labour market.
There will also be eight new institutes of technology—prestige further education institutions concentrated in the areas that most need levelling up. On top of that, the multiplier programme will provide more than £500 million to improve adult numeracy across the United Kingdom. All of this comes together in a package to recognise that, as well as building on the success of our education reform programme in schools, we also ensure that adult, technical and vocational education at last receives the focus, attention and funds that it deserves.
As well as investing in skills, we are going to invest better in small and medium-sized enterprises, which are of course the engine room of our economy. That is why the Chancellor outlined plans for the British Business Bank to expand in order to ensure that SME finance is more readily available. Regional funds are being extended across the northern powerhouse. The existing success of the BBB’s Cornwall operation is being extended to cover the whole of the south-west, and there will be new branches of the bank opening in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in order to build relationships with small businesses and to ensure that they have access to the debt and equity finance that they need.
Alongside that, there will be increased investment in research and development. An additional £20 billion will be spent over the spending review period, going up to hit our £22 billion target, and this research and development money will move outside the greater south-east, where so much research and development expenditure has been concentrated in the past, in order to ensure that, whether it is in Manchester or Newcastle, areas of university excellence that require additional investment to ensure the smarter diffusion of innovation into the economy are supported in the way that they should be.
On top of that, we have the global Britain investment fund: £1.4 billion that will ensure those sectors that are strong and growing in our economy get the additional inward investment they need to drive up economic growth. We know inward investment is often the route to higher productivity, and that is why there will be £1.4 billion specifically targeted on the automotive sector, on renewables and on life sciences.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
It is a privilege, as always, to lead on behalf of Scotland’s national party in this or any other debate.
Anyone watching today’s proceedings or any of the proceedings on the Budget who thinks this was a sensible way to take decisions about billions upon billions of pounds of public money really needs to get out and look at what happens in proper Parliaments in proper democracies where those Parliaments are given a chance to scrutinise budgets for weeks, if not months, and where Opposition parties are invited to put in their proposals and sometimes get them accepted by the Government of the day. Several Conservative Members have demanded to know what Labour would do if this was its Budget, knowing perfectly well that it would not matter how brilliant an idea came from the Labour Benches, or any other Opposition Benches, it would not have a cat in hell’s chance of getting into the Budget, because the single criterion that matters most for the way that a suggestion is taken in this place is not how good it is but what side of the House it has come from. It is no wonder that this place is in such a mess.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
Can the hon. Gentleman explain how he believes the Scottish Budget will take place this year now that his party has gone into a coalition of chaos with the Scottish Greens? Will there be a similar adoption of ideas from the Opposition parties in Scotland?
Peter Grant
During the previous time that there was a pro-independence majority in the Scottish Parliament, that majority Government did in fact open their door to discussions with the other parties, and the hon. Gentleman’s party was quite happy to take advantage of that. He may remember, in fact, that it was an initial suggestion from his party that led to the Scottish Government introducing and maintaining to this day a record of 1,000 additional police officers compared with the maximum number that ever existed in Scotland under the previous Lib Dem-Labour coalition.
This will be seen as the year the Tories finally ditched any pretext that Budget day has anything to do with the public finances, helping the economic recovery or sustainable growth. Budget day has become purely and simply a propaganda exercise for the Government, and particularly for the Chancellor. That is what the days and days of utterly inexcusable leaks were about—leaks that until 10 years ago would have meant automatic dismissal or resignation for the Chancellor. The Chancellor seems to measure its success not by how effectively it closes the gap between rich and poor, because it does not, or by whether it delivers on any of his party’s manifesto promises—that is on the off chance that anybody can find any that havenae been broken—but on how many favourable headlines he gets in the right-wing press. It is almost as if the Chancellor has worked out how important the right-wing press is going to be in choosing the next Tory leader in a year or two’s time when the present incumbent gets fed up with being Prime Minister and goes off to do something different.
This Government have a track record of spending millions of pounds on pushing soundbite slogans that are utterly meaningless. [Interruption.] I will give way to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) if he has got—[Interruption.] Okay, if he does not want to intervene he can keep his mouth shut. In 2015, George Osborne gave us a “long-term economic plan” that changed, on average, every three months until he resigned. In 2017, we had “strong and stable”, leaving Britain weaker and less stable than it has ever been in peacetime. In 2019, we had “get Brexit done”, which meant we all got done over by Brexit, and in 2019 also we had an “oven-ready deal” that left most of us feeling that we had been stuffed like Christmas turkeys. This month’s catchphrase is “levelling up”. Looking at the detail of this “levelling up” Budget, it is like claiming that you have levelled out the potholes on the road by digging a massive great hole somewhere else in the road to supply the rubble to fill in the original potholes. It is about filling in holes left behind elsewhere in our economy and in our public services by 11-and-a-half years of a failed Tory Government trying unsuccessfully to maintain a failed British state.
The Government want us to believe that they are making things better for some people without making them worse for anybody else. Some people will get a bigger piece of pie, but nobody will have to make do with a wee-er piece of pie. You cannae do that unless the pie is getting bigger, but the fact is that the pie is still much, much smaller than it was when the Tories came to power.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said in response to the Budget:
“For most departments, the budget increases announced today will be welcome, but not enough to reverse the cuts of the 2010s.”
If the best the Tories can say about this Budget is that, with a following wind and a wee bit of luck, they might just be about be able to remediate most of the damaging cuts they have inflicted on us during their term of office, that does not strike me as a cause for celebration. That is why they will not see a great deal of positive responses to the Budget from those on this side of the House.
Andrew Bowie
I understand and respect that we have political differences on our respective sides of the House, but surely the hon. Gentleman can join us in welcoming the fact that this Budget delivers the largest ever block grant to the Scottish Government in history since the Scottish Parliament was created. Perhaps he can expand on how he will be pressing the Scottish Government to spend that extra funding that we have delivered from the UK Government to Edinburgh.
Peter Grant
The sad thing is that no matter how much anyone in this House presses the Scottish Government on their decisions, a record amount of that money coming back to Scotland has already been decided not by the elected Members of the Scottish Parliament, but by Members of the UK Parliament who could not get elected in Scotland. Record amounts of that money come with strings attached and conditions attached that tell the Scottish Government how they have to spend our money.
In response to the hon. Gentleman’s specific question about the amount, if he looks carefully, he will see that, yes, there are welcome increases for capital spend, but the day-to-day service provision budgets of the Scottish Government will continue to be under intense pressure. While we welcome the increase in capital spend, the Departments of the Scottish Government—just like the Departments of this Government and the departments of local authorities the length and breadth of England and Wales—will find that the resources to meet the ever-growing demand on their day-to-day services will be as tightly pressed as ever.
While the Government will try to pull the wool over our eyes and say, “It is all covid’s fault”, we cannot and will not let them forget that the British Government’s management of the economy during covid has been among the worst of the world’s major economies. The International Monetary Fund has predicted that the long-term economic damage from covid in the UK will be worse than in the other G7 economies. Even that does not tell the whole story, because while the Secretary of State rejoiced in the fact that we hope the long-term economic damage of covid will be restricted to 2%, he forgot to tell us that Brexit is twice as bad as that. I wonder why he forgot to mention that the long-term, self-inflicted damage of Brexit is likely to be twice as bad as the long-term damage of covid.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
In talking about the self-inflicted damage from this British Government, whom people in Scotland have not voted for by majority since 1955, does my hon. Friend accept that when Government Members talk about how kind the UK Government have been in giving money to the Scottish Parliament, more often than not the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government are having to use their resources to mitigate bad decisions that come from this place, such as the cut to the universal credit, which renders the Scottish child payment, described by charities as a “game-changing” child payment, as utterly useless?
Peter Grant
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Giving spending powers and in some cases tax-raising powers to the devolved Parliaments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland was never supposed to be a way of making up for the cuts to those same budgets coming through from Westminster, but all too often that has been happening.
To return to the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, his response to the Budget was:
“This is actually awful. Yet more years of real incomes barely growing. High inflation, rising taxes, poor growth.”
How can anyone think that is something to celebrate? The IFS also said that someone on median earnings might see their pre-tax pay just about keep ahead of inflation, but after paying the higher income tax that the Government are imposing, plus the higher national insurance tax, that median earner will be worse off in real terms. An analysis published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that many of the worst off—people on universal credit who do not have a job—will be poorer as a result of this Budget. Even the reduction in the universal credit taper, welcome as it is, does not make as much difference as the Tories are claiming. For 40% of universal credit claimants in Scotland it will make no difference at all, because they have not got a job. [Interruption.]
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North thinks it is funny that many people will not benefit from the Budget. I do not see what he finds funny at all. While 40% of universal credit claimants in Scotland will get no benefit at all from the changes to the taper, 100% of his constituents on universal credit will be £1,000 a year worse off. I look forward to him defending that to his constituents—I would not try to defend it to mine.
All of that prompts a question: if people on average earnings will be worse off, and if the worst off—the lowest earners in our society—will be worse off, who really benefits from the Budget? The Chancellor’s banker buddies will benefit, thank you very much. Many of them will be raising a glass to toast a 5% cut in the corporation tax they pay, while the customers who pay their wages—individuals and small businesses alike—will struggle to cope with increased taxes. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) alluded to last week, the Manchester Uniteds of this world who think it clever to take a 10-minute flight to go to a football match will gain, and the champagne quaffers in the members’ enclosure at Ascot will have something to cheer, but very few of my constituents will have anything to cheer at all.
I welcome the news that alcohol excise duties are to be reviewed at last, but let us see the result of the review before we welcome it unconditionally. As I said in a Westminster Hall debate, it cannot be right that the duty on a glass of whisky is 16% higher than the duty on a glass of wine that contains exactly the same amount of alcohol. I make no apology for reminding the House that, over the summer, all those people in the enclosures at Ascot, Henley or wherever almost certainly enjoyed the product of the skilled workforce of the Cameronbridge distillery in my constituency. It is the biggest grain distillery in the whole of Europe, and it swells the Treasury’s coffers to the tune of about £3.6 billion a year in excise duties alone. That is £3.6 billion a year from one manufacturing establishment in my constituency. The fact that for decades many people in the towns of Methil, Buckhaven, Methilhill and others have been living on or below the breadline close to a distillery that generates such massive wealth for the coffers down here in Westminster is testimony to the failure of successive British Governments to put the wellbeing of the people front and centre of their taxation and spending plans.
If the Chancellor is genuinely concerned about improving living standards for people on low incomes, he should start by reversing some of the savage cuts that he has made and reinstating the election manifesto promises that he has broken. He should reinstate the pensions triple lock, reverse the £20-a-week cut to universal credit, reverse the hike in national insurance that penalises small businesses for each and every new job they create, and scrap the two-child limit and vile rape clause. If he really believes in a guaranteed living wage for all, let us hear him—or, at least, the Minister in summing up—commit to increasing the legal minimum wage later this month and every November to match the real living wage, measured not by how much the Government are willing to ask employers to pay but by how much independent analysis shows human beings in these islands need to live on.
The Secretary of State asked what we might do as alternatives. If the Chancellor is looking for ways to save money, he could look at the gross inefficiency in the Government’s own Departments. Recent National Audit Office reports show that eye-watering sums of money have been wasted in delays and inefficiency. In the Ministry of Defence, nuclear infrastructure, Crossrail, High Speed 2 and the national criminal intelligence database, hundreds of millions of pounds—billions of pounds—are being thrown away through waste and inefficiency. He should get a grip on that; then we could improve services without necessarily having to increase taxes.
If we want to see where we could stop spending money, we could start by scrapping the programme of new nuclear power stations that are designed to rig the system in favour of nuclear energy that, when it finally comes on stream, will cost more than twice as much as offshore wind power. Sooner or later, our constituents will be forced to pay that price increase. We should scrap the monstrous white elephant that is the nuclear weapons programme: a programme whose only purpose is to commit the worst crime in the history of the planet. The Government should ditch plans to spend a quarter of a billion pounds on a new royal yacht Britannia, although, given whose ego it is clearly designed to satisfy, perhaps we should rename it the good ship Borisannia.
This is a Budget that has been imposed on Scotland by a Government we did not elect and who will never have the consent of our people to rule over us. It is partly the result of a covid pandemic, which could perhaps have been predicted, but was not. We all have to live with the consequences of that. It is largely the result of a Brexit that our people did not vote for.
The Budget seeks to level down Scotland’s status to something approaching that of a forgotten English county. I want Scotland to be levelled up. I want Scotland’s status to be levelled up to that of an equal partner of our friends in Europe and elsewhere.
The Chancellor claimed that his Budget would strengthen the Union, but what he has done is increase the pace of Scotland’s journey to a true levelling up, and bring forward the day when the sovereign people of Scotland reassert our inalienable right of self-determination, the day when our place in the world is levelled up to match that of the other prosperous, outward-looking, inclusive, democratic and independent nations. If Conservative Members think that it is not coming, why have the Government given a 20% budget increase to the Secretary of State for Scotland, whose only purpose is to peddle the myths—[Interruption.] Why do they need to spend 17.5% to 20% more on a Department, the only purpose of which is to campaign for a no vote in a referendum that they say is not coming, but that we say is coming very soon?
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
I know that time is tight tonight, but I cannot let the speech from the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) go without some response. It was lacking much coherence and any credibility. We heard from him that the covid-19 pandemic should have been predicted. His party have been in government in Scotland for almost a decade and a half, and I do not remember at any point, prior to covid hitting, warnings about that pandemic.
As for credibility, I would have had a little bit of support for the hon. Gentleman if he could at least recognise that this Budget delivers £600 million of additional funding to the Scottish Government this year; and that, for the next three years, it delivers an additional funding pot of £4.6 billion each year for the Scottish Government added on top of what they already have, making it the most generous settlement since devolution in 1999. The SNP now has more money to spend as a Scottish Government than any of their predecessors, and it has to recognise that this has been a very good Budget for Scotland.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about a local distillery in his constituency and how the Government should look at the taxation scheme to support the employees in that distillery. I hope that he considers that when he goes to the SNP conference later this month, because a motion is laid down in its conference papers right now calling for his party to look at “raising additional revenue by taxing the significant profits of the Scotch whisky industry”.
Douglas Ross
I will give way, using my own time, to hear what the hon. Gentleman thinks about the proposal from his fellow SNP members to tax whisky even more.
Peter Grant
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the SNP policy is that spirits should be fairly taxed regardless of how they are produced, unlike the system that has been maintained in the United Kingdom since the day alcohol taxation was first invented? Does he accept that that is the SNP’s policy as of now?
Douglas Ross
I will come on to taxation, because the Exchequer Secretary is sitting on the Front Bench and I want to make my own comments about that. However, there was nothing from the hon. Gentleman, leading the SNP in the response to the Budget debate tonight, about what his party are putting forward for debate at its conference later this month, which would see taxation on Scotch whisky go up. What we have seen from this Government is a fifth successive UK Government Budget that has frozen taxation on Scotch whisky, and that is something that I welcome for the many distilleries in Moray and across the country. There has been nothing from him or any SNP representatives so far tonight about the £172 million being invested by this Government on levelling-up projects across Scotland. From the borders to Edinburgh, from Ayrshire to Aberdeen, those projects will get funding from this Government.
The hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan), another SNP speaker today, used a quotation to suggest that he would wash the money coming from the UK Government to deliver these projects. These are projects that have been outstanding in Scotland for years. If the SNP Government had acted to deliver them, they would not be looking for investment from the UK Government, but because we have devolution and Scotland has two Governments, we are seeing the UK Government delivering these projects where the Scottish Government have failed.
Finally, I want to comment on the duty freeze on spirits, which is very welcome in Scotland. We know that there is a wider review of alcohol taxation in the United Kingdom; the Prime Minister announced it at Roseisle distillery in 2019 on a campaign visit to Moray. While the Exchequer Secretary is on the Front Bench, will she reassure the distilleries in my constituency and the Scotch Whisky Association that this Government will be true to their word? In their briefing notes on the Queen’s Speech after the 2019 election, they said that the review would
“ensure our tax system is supporting Scottish whisky and gin producers and protecting 42,000 jobs supported by Scotch across the UK.”
That is what I will be holding this Government to. I hope to see a very good response in the near future.
Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill
Peter Grant ExcerptsThursday 9th September 2021
(2 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Act 2021 View all Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 9 September 2021 - (9 Sep 2021)
Peter Grant
I beg your pardon, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am standing to speak to the wrong provision.
The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government (Luke Hall)
I welcome the contribution from the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith). I shall start by responding to new clause 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) and the hon. Gentleman. I am grateful to him for his constructive words and the way in which he has approached the debate.
The new clause would require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the number of directors investigated and disqualified under the new provisions in the Bill every three months from the date that the Act is passed. I am grateful to hon. Members for the opportunity to confirm to the House that statistical reporting is routinely undertaken by the Insolvency Service. Regular three-monthly releases cover company insolvencies across the whole UK as well as individual insolvencies in England and Wales. The releases also contain underlying data and are published and available online to everybody.
As well as that, since the start of the pandemic, the Insolvency Service has been publishing experimental monthly releases of data concerning insolvency numbers. This was so that the statistics could act as an indicator of the impact of the pandemic on insolvencies. It may be of particular interest to hon. Members that the Insolvency Service also releases monthly updates about its enforcement activities. This information includes not only the number of companies wound up in the public interest, but the number of disqualification orders and undertakings broken down by the relevant section of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986, under which they were sought. Going forward, these numbers will include any orders or undertakings obtained as a result of this new provision. The reports also include information on lengths of periods of disqualification. Furthermore, there is an annual report on the nature of the misconduct being alleged.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman is reassured that a large amount of information is already provided that can be accessed easily through a quick online search and that future reports of enforcement outcomes will include any disqualifications made against former directors of dissolved companies. I would be grateful to him for withdrawing his new clause.
Let me just add one last point. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the new burdens on councils. I somewhat couched my answer the last time we spoke about it, so I just want to put on record that we will absolutely be meeting the new burdens cost, including the associated administrative and IT costs.
Peter Grant
I am pleased to make a brief contribution to the debate. As I did at earlier stages, I will restrict my comments to the disqualification of directors, which is the only aspect of the Bill that extends directly to Scotland.
The SNP supports the Bill. Our concerns are the same as those of the official Opposition: that much, much more is needed than is included. We need a much more comprehensive set of regulations, not so much to protect shareholders and directors as to protect customers, members of the public and investors from the scams that have all too often been committed by companies whose shareholders are the directors. A lot of company legislation was designed to protect investors against misaction or misconduct by company directors who are different people, but we are now looking at companies whose directors are the shareholders. They are not going to defraud themselves, but sometimes they may be willing to defraud others.
At earlier stages, I have repeatedly mentioned the conduct of a group of companies called Blackmore Bond and its directors Phillip Nunn and Patrick McCreesh. I will not go over even a fraction of their history, but why they were not at least investigated for disqualification long, long ago is beyond me. The Bill will not make it easier for such directors to be called to order, so we need legislation that fills in the gaps that are left.
As an indication of just how current such behaviour is, the BBC reported as recently as Monday that DialADeal Scotland Ltd has been fined £150,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office for making more than half a million illegal marketing calls, many to numbers that had explicitly opted out of such calls. DialADeal Scotland Ltd used false business names in its marketing, which is illegal. It disguised the number that it was calling from so that people could not phone back to complain, which is also illegal. The calls were about non-existent green deal energy savings schemes. That is not a telecoms offence; it is fraud or attempted fraud, and very probably conspiracy to defraud.
The fine was decided in September 2021, but clearly the action by the Information Commissioner’s Office started before then. In May 2021, the directors of the company, Calum Mckay Kirkpatrick and Yvonne Mccuaig, applied to Companies House to place the company in voluntary liquidation—almost certainly with the sole purpose of avoiding the financial penalty that they knew was coming their way, because if the company were dissolved before the order was made, its directors would get off scot-free. Fortunately, the Information Commissioner’s Office was able to lodge an objection with Companies House and the voluntary strike-off action has been suspended.
The same two individuals, Kirkpatrick and Mccuaig, were also directors of DialADealUK Ltd, which was voluntarily dissolved in September 2018, immediately before DialADeal Scotland Ltd was created. Coincidentally, shortly after they had started the process of winding up DialADeal Scotland Ltd, they set up another company called Simple Lead Ltd. Not one of those companies has ever filed a set of accounts with Companies House; DialADeal Scotland’s accounts are now over a year out of date.
Why is it that company directors can repeatedly avoid any kind of scrutiny? As I have mentioned in relation to Nunn and McCreesh’s companies, they can go for years and years without filing the very limited information that they have to file at Companies House, which just does not seem able to keep up.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
My hon. Friend makes a very good point about Companies House and its limitations. Does he share my concern that the UK Government just do not care enough about Companies House and the massive loopholes that they are leaving for people to be defrauded and company directors to get away scot-free with the wrong things that they are up to?
Peter Grant
That would certainly be many people’s interpretation of how long it has taken the Government to take any firm action. We keep being promised a comprehensive review of company legislation; it cannot come quickly enough. I hope that we will finally see an end to the scandal of the creatures called Scottish limited partnerships, which are too often set up purely as a means to fund organised crime.
Companies House needs to be reformed and probably better resourced. As the Opposition spokesperson—the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith)—mentioned, the Bill may place additional demands on the resources of the Insolvency Service. We know that the Financial Conduct Authority needs another complete sorting out. Either it is not doing its job or it has not been asked to do the right job; it probably does not have the resources to deal with fraud on the scale that is now going on right under our nose.
Although I welcome the Bill and we will certainly not oppose it—we have supported it all the way through—we look for assurances from the Government that it is not the end of the road. It can only be allowed to be one tiny step towards finally stopping these people. I remember one of the witnesses who gave evidence to the Bill Committee describing the United Kingdom as becoming one of the go-to places of choice for international fraudsters. That is not a badge that any of us should bear with honour. If that badge is applied to the financial services industry, and to the business community in the United Kingdom generally, it will take years—decades—to get rid of and honest businesses will suffer desperately.
The Government have to start to act now. I do not know whether the Minister is in a position to tell us today when the comprehensive review of company regulation will come forward, but I certainly hope that we will see it very soon. As DialADeal’s example makes clear, even since we started our consideration of the Bill, further scams have been inflicted on innocent people throughout these islands.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Dame Rosie Winterton will now take the Chair for our important debate on the legacy of Jo Cox.