Energy Prices: Support for Business

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As I have set out, there will be a review and an announcement, giving people plenty of time for 1 April.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Many churches and charities in my constituency will expend more energy over the coming months because they are providing warm banks. What additional support will they be able to apply for so that they can provide the resilience our communities need?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

This support is comprehensive across the non-domestic sector.

Energy Update

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

That is one of the reasons we are investing £6.6 billion over this Parliament in energy-efficiency measures, which will include the ECO4—energy company obligation—measures that we debated in this House in July. We will have to see what energy-efficiency measures may be forthcoming from the Prime Minister in the coming days.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Many of my constituents are already cancelling their contracts with their gas companies. They are absolutely terrified. Churches and charities want to step in, but they are exposed to the commercial rates, with charities often seeing a tenfold increase. They want to provide warm banks to keep their communities safe, warm and well fed this winter. What steps are the Government taking to support charities and churches to ensure they can provide the warmth their communities need?

[Greg Hands]

The hon. Lady makes a strong point that this is not just about consumers and businesses; everybody is being affected by the global rise in energy prices. This is not just a UK phenomenon, but a worldwide one. If she has cases of charities and others being unable to take out contracts or cancelling contracts, I would be happy to look into them with her to find out what is going on and to ensure that those vital services continue to get an energy supply.

Net Zero Strategy: High Court Ruling

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

I return to what I said earlier. The situation we inherited from the last Labour Government is that renewables provided only 7% of our electricity mix; it is now 43%. When it comes to oil and gas taxation, the Government’s energy profits levy—the hon. Gentleman will know this, as I very clearly remember him debating it in the Chamber—is set to raise £5 billion this year, which is considerably more than the tax proposed by the Labour Front Bench, which he backed.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I just remind the Minister that it was Labour’s Climate Change Act that called for those targets to be set—in section 4. However, it seems that this Government were asleep at the wheel, knowing that there is a 5% deficit in terms of being able to attain—this is what the judgment said—their net zero target. Therefore, the Government’s inaction has led to the decision of the courts. The Government’s inaction is also leading to the absence of a new green deal for York. We have been promised that by his Department, which supports 4,000 jobs and the upskilling of 25,000 people with a new green deal, yet the Minister has not come forward with the money. When are we going to get that?

[Greg Hands]

I was referring to the adoption of net zero, of course, which was by this Government in 2019. I answered a question earlier about the jobs being provided through our action on climate change and our move into renewable energy, which I would hope the hon. Lady supports. The hon. Lady suggests that this Government and this party are not taking the tough action that we need and not putting the money there, but we have pledged £30 billion to combat climate change over this spending review. That is a considerable sum and a considerable political commitment by this Government.

Employment Agencies and Trade Unions

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jane Hunt]

I thank the hon. Member for his question. I will talk about that a little later; it is a reserved right.

Some trade unions appear to be looking to create maximum disruption in a bid to stay relevant, rather than constructively seeking agreement with employers and avoiding conflict. In the light of this, the Government have reviewed the current industrial relations framework and have come to the conclusion that change is needed.

The first change we are making is to remove the outdated blanket ban on employment businesses supplying agency workers to clients when they would be used to cover official industrial action. Employers can, of course, already hire short-term staff directly to cover industrial action, but this change would give them the ability to work with specialist employment businesses to identify and bring in staff. The change in no way restricts the ability of workers to go on strike. It will, however, give employers another tool they can use when trying to maintain the level of service they offer to the public.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Has she considered the 100,000 vacancies we currently have in the NHS that we cannot fill? The staff who work for agencies are also unionised and will not cross a picket line, so how will she fulfil this legislation?

[Jane Hunt]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. It is, of course, their choice. It is also their choice to take up an agency position.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Stephens]

Well, it was about what implements could be used to discipline a worker. The hon. Gentleman may want to reflect on that, because the Whips might have done something to him last week when he was taking his industrial action.

What the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) said was correct. I do not think the Conservatives understand what happens in the workplace. That is the issue here. They think that agencies will replace the striking workers, but that is just not going to happen. An agency worker who can choose between crossing a picket line to get a shift and not crossing the picket line and getting a shift somewhere else will choose the latter option.

[Rachael Maskell]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. It is also the case that employers in safety-critical industries will not want to hire agency workers because they know that the liability will sit with them when the injuries and the accidents occur. Those roles often feature in safety-critical areas. These workers are simply irreplaceable.

[Chris Stephens]

That is absolutely true. There is a suggestion that the rail industry could bust the current rail dispute by hiring agency workers. Where are the unemployed signalmen who are sitting at home saying, “I cannot wait for the railway workers to go on strike so I can get a shift”? Those people do not exist. This is completely wrongheaded, and utterly impractical. In the gig economy, so-called key workers fighting for better employment terms and pay seem to be expendable under a Tory Government who do not care. Where is the employment Bill that the Government have been promising us since 2015?

There is another point that I forgot to make at the beginning of my speech. Last week, after his resignation, the Prime Minister made a commitment not to introduce legislation that was not in the Government’s manifesto, and not to introduce controversial legislation. Well, by any measure, this is controversial legislation, and, crucially, it was not in the Conservative party manifesto, and therefore it should not be introduced.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the compatibility of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses (Amendment) Regulations 2022—which we are discussing today—with the Human Rights Act, the trade and co-operation agreement with the European Union, and the UK’s commitment to the International Labour Organisation’s fundamental conventions, including convention 87, article 3?

We have heard about the impact assessment, but what consultation have the Government had with the rail industry employers, rail industry unions and rail industry regulators, including the Rail Safety and Standards Board, about the risk assessment of the use of agency workers in safety-critical parts of the rail industry? What consultations have the Government had with devolved Administrations, local authorities, health boards and other public services? I am guessing that they have not had such consultations, because if they had, they would have been told that these proposals were not workable. And what consultation have the Government had with the employment agencies themselves? We have already heard that the agencies do not support this legislation.

We in the SNP will certainly be opposing this statutory instrument and supporting the Labour prayer. My friend on the Labour Front Bench, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne, is a good Unison comrade and I have known her for 15 years. I know that the trade union is proud of her working here, as well as of other hon. Members.

It is madness to say that no impact assessment has been produced for this SI because no significant impact on the private, voluntary or public sectors is foreseen. Fining trade unions for pursuing strike action that is deemed unlawful is a deliberate Tory attack to undermine the ability of trade union members and working people to pursue their aims. Instead, the Transport Minister should be negotiating with the trade unions—sitting down with them and seeing if he can help to resolve this dispute. It is quite incredible how this Government do not understand working people or how modern trade-unionised workplaces operate. This statutory instrument that they are proposing should therefore be placed in the bin.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

There is a lot in that question, but the scenario the hon. Lady paints is very extreme. She will know that we are looking actively at what we can do on the storage side. On producing energy, I find it a bit rich of the Labour party to criticise us. This is the party that said, in 1997, that there was no economic case for new nuclear power stations; the party that increased, rather than cut, our dependence on gas, which went from accounting for 32% of our electricity generation to 46% of it; and the party that failed to invest in renewables, which, over 10 years, have gone from accounting for 7% of our electricity generation to 43% of it. We will take no lessons from the Opposition on helping people with energy generation and with their bills.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

11. What steps he is taking to support business and social business incubator and accelerator hubs.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (George Freeman)]

Incubators and accelerators across the country play a vital role in helping our high-growth start-ups and scale- ups. That is why we continue to fund the strength in places fund, and are investing £100 million to pilot new innovation accelerators. That is also why, on my various tours around clusters, I recently went to the Leicester space and satellite hub, the Leeds digital health and medtech hub in the hon. Lady’s county, the Northumbria University and Ashington further education hub, and the BioYorkshire hub in her area.

[Rachael Maskell]

York’s economic future depends on releasing the talent of our entrepreneurs and social enterprises. To do that, we need to ensure that they have space to innovate and grow. In each of the last four quarters, however, we have seen the loss of 100,000 entrepreneurs, so what investment will be made to ensure that we have the infrastructure in place for the acceleration and incubation of the future business industry?

[George Freeman]

The hon. Lady makes an important point about social enterprises being mainstreamed in the business community. She may have seen the recent report by the all-party parliamentary group for social enterprise, of which I have long been a supporter, that argued that we should mainstream social enterprise in the BEIS policy framework, which is an interesting proposal. We have just announced the biggest increase in research and development and innovation funding—an increase of £25 billion over the next three years. I have asked UK Research and Innovation to focus on that incubation hub infrastructure around the country, so that we can continue to support the university and small business networks that create the opportunities for tomorrow.

UK Diagnostics Industry and Covid-19 Recovery

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point and invites me to signal again my support for what is going on in Northern Ireland. If we look at the cancer outcomes in Northern Ireland, the Queen’s University team that has been working on biomarkers and earlier detection has ended up driving not just investment, but much quicker and better outcomes for the people of Northern Ireland. The real power of the sector is that it delivers better healthcare for everybody within the values of the NHS, but also attracts investment and drives industry. I would go so far as to say that in the new landscape, companies such as Randox will develop affordable consumer diagnostic kits that can help drive earlier detection, building on to a digital interface. We can then support patients to get into trials earlier and drive research medicine. Belfast is on the frontline of that.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

This evening’s debate has been excellent. In York, we had a company that was developing aptamers to be used in the diagnostic process. The Government did not have a grip on the governance or an understanding of what could be produced and the quality that that would bring. How is that mapping being done to ensure that every part of the manufacturing process is brought together?

[George Freeman]

The hon. Lady, not for the first time, makes an important point. As I am not a Minister in the Department of Health and Social Care, I had better defer to them on where they are on that specific mapping point. In terms of my responsibility at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, we are looking to grow the innovation economy by mapping the clusters of expertise around the country, including BioYorkshire, which I visited recently, and to ensure that we are aware of and supporting those clusters of research. Given that I have been invited to comment on other geographies, I will highlight how proud I am that the Norwich research park was the first place in the country to establish a local testing facility and local testing infrastructure to support it.

One thing the pandemic revealed was that, whether it is test and trace, data or epidemiological control, the best people to get on top of it are those on the ground locally. One of the lessons of the pandemic is that, yes, we need strong national leadership, but we also need to free up and trust the clinical and professional judgment on the ground.

For the record, it is important to speak about the scale of the diagnostics challenge in the pandemic. At peak, more than 700,000 PCR tests and 74,000 genomic sequences were done daily. It has been the most extraordinary turbocharging of our diagnostics infrastructure. I think everyone is aware of what we owe the diagnostics industry—that needs to be put on the record—but also that the infrastructure must be maintained for future events.

Genomic sequencing technology has been fundamental. The groundbreaking analyses of the combined SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences and epidemiological data have supported the uploading of 2.7 million of 10.7 million genomes in GISAID—the global initiative on sharing avian influenza data. We are leaders in the global networks for genomic sequencing because of that genomics investment. More than 2 billion lateral flow tests have been provided across the UK.

I am conscious of the time. With permission, I will deal with the detailed questions that the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath has raised in writing. I hope that I have reassured colleagues that we have absolutely learned the lesson that the diagnostics industry will never again be the poor relation. Emergencies require us to learn the lessons—we will not have got everything right, and the official inquiry is important. I would like to take the politics out of it and ensure that the clinical lessons are learned. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are determined to ensure that the industry is put at the heart of our life sciences vision.

Question put and agreed to.

Energy Security Strategy

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Ceramics, yes. All those industries are covered by the energy-intensive scheme that we want to promote.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

One of the greatest constraints on decarbonisation is the skill supply. Will the Secretary of State publish a workforce plan for the energy sector, so we can ensure that we are making the necessary investment in the skills that we need, both now and in the future?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. That is why, when I was the Energy Minister, I—along with my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson), the then Education Secretary—set up the green jobs taskforce, working with unions across the sector. We came up with some very good proposals. We are driving that forward, because we recognise the skills gap and want to close it.

Support for New Adoptive Parents

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Ms Ghani, for calling me to speak. It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair.

I thank the Petitions Committee for selecting this topic for debate, particularly given the number of signatures, because we know that everyone who has petitioned will either have personal experience or know of others with personal experience of what it is to be self-employed and to adopt, and the challenges that brings.

Before I home in on the petition itself, I want to pay tribute to the families who provide safe, loving, forever families for children. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on adoption and permanence, it is a privilege to engage with the whole community involved in adoption, from young people themselves, birth parents and adoptive parents to those in health and social services, the professions working around the child and our secretariat, Adoption UK and Home for Good.

We strive to make the adoption journey one of the most supported and safe journeys around the child: one that puts a young person very much at the centre; one that ensures that funding and services are there; and one that looks at good family making and good family building, with secure foundations. We recognise that many challenges can arise. When we identify those barriers, we need services to respond and Government to use their agility to fix the challenges.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very important point about how we need to support adoptive families and children. I have been campaigning on the rather niche issue of regulating the sale of sperm online. Colleagues might be horrified to learn this is widespread in Facebook groups and on other social media. It is causing children to seek alternative means of finding out where they come from—via AncestryDNA, for example—which causes a lot of problems.

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to look at all the services that support adopted children and their families in the long term, especially in the online and regulated space?

[Rachael Maskell]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue, on which she is probably more of an expert than I am. We have recognised the role of digital and the fact that many children in adoptive settings can be traced or can trace their birth parents without having support around them. We have to recognise the digital age in which children are growing up in order to keep them safe and to protect them. I am sure we will talk more about this subject.

The Minister for Children and Families, the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince), is committed to building stable families and providing the care and support that young people and their parents need. He has a sizeable task. Over 80,000 children are in care. I trust that, with the imminent publication of the review by Josh MacAlister, he will simultaneously fix the gaps in the adoption journey. We welcome the commitment of £144 million for the adoption support fund and £19.5 million for the implementation of the adoption strategy over the next three years. It is a sound investment, on which we will see a return.

We need a workforce plan to support children in the care system and their families. There is a deficit in timely support for families, and the scars of trauma emerge in various expressions. Three quarters of children experience abuse or neglect prior to adoption. They need support to be in place at the right time. In our APPG’s “Strengthening Families” report published last year, we identified the importance of aiding parents in the matching process. It has been more challenging through the pandemic, but we cannot let a recovery period delay the process of family building. We are particularly concerned about black and minoritised children in the care system, as well as older children and young people who have been in care the longest. As an APPG, we have more work to do, but so do the Government.

Self-employed parents need help, too. The crucial period of bonding as a family forms is vital in forming attachments and a new rhythm in a child’s life. The self-employed need the same opportunities as other parents to dedicate time to this. Denying statutory adoption pay is nonsensical. I trust that the Minister agrees. We await the legislative response to the Taylor review. I ask that the Minister ensures that the voice of adoptive parents is not lost in that process.

The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) made a powerful plea for other parental rights to emerge in such a Bill. I ask that adoptive parents do not suffer any detriment either. If we, as a society, value parenting and recognise its importance, there is no excuse for exclusion. I hope the Minister will forgive me, but I am impatient. Self-employed parents need support now. We know how hard self-employed people work to make their businesses a success.

We heard from the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) about the challenges of the pandemic and how hard people worked to make their businesses thrive. They cannot juggle work around bonding with their child. Ensuring that the right attachments are made is a full-time task. That is why we need to ensure that the self-employed get the financial underpinning to not have to worry about paying their bills, not least at a time when the cost of living is such a challenge to all families.

Adoptive parents should not have to go cap in hand to their local authority either. Special guardians, kinship carers and adoptive parents need recognition that they, even more than birth parents, need to be 100% focused on family building. There is time for the Government to carry out a consultation on the Taylor review prior to their promised employment Bill. I ask the Minister to commit to that consultation today.

The 2013 statutory guidance on adoption states in paragraph 9.38 that

“The local authority should consider making a payment of financial support equivalent to the Maternity Allowance to adoptive parents who are ineligible to receive”

statutory adoption pay. Why is it that adoptive parents continually have to chase everything, and dedicate their time to feeding into the bureaucracy and trying to get it to work for them, as opposed to the Government addressing the issue?

Statutory pay will aid the recruitment of potential adopters and will assist in the success and stability of others. We know that 3,000 children are in need of a family. A full consultation was committed to by the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), who has responsibility for parental pay and leave, during his evidence to the Petitions Committee in 2020, but we must include adoption pay, too. The Government have committed to improving adoption, so this is yet another opportunity for them to do so, and I hope the consultation will therefore be inclusive. He said,

“it is crucial to the success of an adoption placement that an adopter takes time off work to care for and bond with their child.”

That must apply to the self-employed as much as to the employed. There is no difference in the eyes of that child, or in that child’s needs.

[Dr Poulter]

I am sure the Minister will find it difficult to disagree with the hon. Lady. She rightly mentions the barriers to adoption more generally. The coalition Government did a lot with my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson), in a previous guise, to reduce some of those barriers. He also highlighted the failure of previous Governments to have joined-up thinking, such as joining up the fiscal and financial incentives to support people in adoption. I hope the take-home message for the Minister is that it is time to do that. I hope he will commit to doing so at the Dispatch Box, and I hope the hon. Lady agrees.

[Rachael Maskell]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Normally it is the parent who does the joining up, and that is clearly not right. The Government need to make sure that the adoption strategy looks at every aspect of an adoptive parent’s journey and ensures that the facilities, support and services are in place to give the child the best possible start in life. It is exhausting for parents, who find themselves having to negotiate—this is where the law stands at the moment—with a local authority to see if they fit any of the criteria, on which there is no guidance. We know that cash-strapped local authorities may not be minded to pay specific attention to what is a very small cohort of parents.

The Government recognise how necessary statutory maternity entitlements are for parents to bond with their child, and they must recognise how much more important such support is for a child who has experienced multiple forms of trauma and who could have complex needs that need addressing. Life is often exhausting for an adoptive parent who is trying to form a new family and working to give their child the safest home possible. The services need to be there in a timely way to support and nurture that child, and to ensure they have the best start in life when perhaps their first start was not the right one.

The “Good Work” review does not accept that there should be a differentiation in the support received. On statutory adoption pay for the self-employed, we are not talking about a lot of people. It is not a high cost to the Government in the scale of things and, as well as the savings to the Government from ensuring that self-employed parents have the support around them, statutory adoption pay would be immeasurable for parents and for the child. Now is the time to act, and I trust that the Minister agrees.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Mr Jones, you arrived a tad late. If you wish to contribute, I am sure we can find time to accommodate you.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to you for pulling me up on that, Ms Ghani.

Moving on to the substantive point, as hon. Members will note, the Government have responded to the petition. It is on the website and those who take an interest in the issue will have seen it. No doubt there will still be a continuing conversation and people will continue to push the Government, but I want to spend a few minutes explaining the reasons behind the response. There will be people in the Chamber, and people watching, who have different views, but I hope at the very least to be able to explain the rationale for why we are here. The Government should always listen and always think through such issues in detail. They should always try to understand the tensions between different policies, and I will take a few moments to outline the situation.

The Government want to support all adopters, including new adoptive parents, to ensure that they can access the support that their children and family need at the early stages of adoption. As has been mentioned by hon. Members already, in July 2021 we published our national adoption strategy, which highlights the key improvements that we expect to see in the adoption system. There is an incredible amount in it and an incredible amount of ambition, and it will take time to get there, but that is the direction that the Government and my colleagues in the Department for Education want to go in.

The strategy sets out commitments to improve services in three main areas, the first of which is the recruitment of sufficient adopters. Hon. Members have already highlighted the importance of ensuring that children who need adoptive parents can be matched with them, and we also have commitments both to match approved adopters with waiting children and to provide support to adopted children and their families, which is exactly what we are talking about today.

Earlier this month, we announced that the adoption support fund will continue to offer important support to adoptive and eligible special guardianship order families up to March 2025—to the end of the spending review period that we are in at the moment—through providing access to therapeutic services. When that was launched in 2015, it was a unique programme that provided funding to local authorities and regional adoption agencies so that they could access a range of support for families and tailor it, including psychotherapy and creative therapies following a review of locally assessed needs.

Supporting and ensuring permanency for children is a priority. I hope that it has been demonstrated that since 2015, through measures such as the support fund, we have been able to offer support to nearly 40,000 children. The additional funding just announced will take that to 10 consecutive years of funding. It is £144 million between next month and March 2025. I hope that demonstrates that the Government are committed to stabilising placements. It recognises the importance of the Government in that approach.

Today’s debate has been very reasonable and important, and the level of cross-party support, interest and gentle pushing—quite rightly—of the Government on such important issues demonstrates the willingness of Members from all parties to take the issue seriously and move it outside the normal bounds of party political knockabout that we often fall into in this place. I hope hon. Members and those in the Gallery recognise that there has been progress in recent years in trying to create a more level playing field for adoption and on making the processes easier and simpler, although there is still much to do in the future.

Let me turn to the specifics on maternity allowance. As colleagues know, there are two types of maternity pay available to pregnant working women and new mothers: statutory maternity pay and maternity allowance. Historically, both were primarily health and safety provisions that related specifically to people being in the workforce but needing safety and support for pregnancy prior to giving birth, for childbirth itself, and for breastfeeding. I recognise that the area is in tension, and I understand the clear arguments that have been made by Members from all parties, but because that support is based on the original principle the challenge is in recognising how we apply it. I am not saying, I would not dare to say, that there are not different challenges. The hon. Member for Sefton Central highlighted the challenges that adoptive parents go through at different times, but the principle behind the benefit that the petition seeks to equalise starts from a different proposition and a different perspective. That is why the Government are not coming forward at this time with the change that is being proposed.

[Rachael Maskell]

The Minister is right to say that the circumstances of an adoptive family are different from those of a birth family. However, the fact that there are different circumstances means that the Government should look at those circumstances specifically. My ask today is that the Government go away and consult on that, to have a better understanding of why these measures are so important.

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s comments, and she makes an important point. I am not in a position right now to talk about any future consultation. I know that this is an area where the Government are always keen to get views and that my colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and across Government elsewhere, such as in Education, will continue to look at the issue and take views from colleagues in the House and outside, and from those who have strong views. I understand and acknowledge the hon. Lady’s point.

Let me turn to a few points that have been made in the Chamber today. My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington, who introduced the debate so well, highlighted a number of issues that he was keen to put forward. He highlighted some challenges with guidance and clarity, and I am happy to confirm that I will take those away. I am keen to speak to him about them in more detail, so that I can pass them on to my colleagues to see whether there is anything that might be possible.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington talked about variation around the country. As he and other hon. Members know, there is an inherent tension about where and how we structure our policies, and about where and how we put national requirements at the centre, versus local discretion. One answer to the question we are debating is that, as outlined by the hon. Member for York Central—I accept her challenge on this—there is a recommendation and an indication that local authorities should be able to provide discretionary funding where it is necessary and proportionate to do so. Although I understand her point about the challenge of going through the process—such processes can often be challenging—it is there. I hope it is used and that people watching out there who are thinking about adoption and who may be self-employed contact their council, should they feel that that would be beneficial.

The hon. Member for Pontypridd talked about a specific area of the policy on adoption, and I am happy to take that back. I am afraid I do not have an answer for her today, but given the importance of the point, and the profundity of it, it merits being given back to my colleagues, and I hope they will take her points seriously.

My hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe highlighted the challenges and opportunities of self-employment, as well as articulating clearly her support for this change. It is something I understand on a personal level—I think I mentioned a few minutes ago that my dad was self-employed as a milkman for 30 years, and one of the reasons he was doing that was to look after me and my brother when we came home. It was not that common in the 1980s for dads to make the tea, clean the house and things like that, but he did it, and that is a demonstration of how self-employed people try to keep all these balls in the air, try to juggle things and try to make it work. I understand and accept why we are debating this issue today, and its importance to a group of people within that community.

The hon. Member for Sefton Central made his characteristically very direct appeal to the Government on this, as he does on a range of other issues. I am grateful to him for sharing his personal experiences. I completely understand why this matter is so important to him on a personal level, and I respect and am grateful for those experiences being shared in public.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful for the request for clarification, because my point was about the general parliamentary process and the general opportunity for people to continue to campaign, to continue to make their voices heard and to continue to highlight things. I cannot give any commitments on behalf of the Government about what we will or will not do, other than what I have already said. At this stage, we believe that the position is as outlined in the response to the petition.

[Rachael Maskell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Lee Rowley]

If I can just say a couple more sentences, I will be happy to do so. I just want to draw towards a conclusion, before giving way to the hon. Lady.

We recognise that this is an important area of policy, we understand the challenge and we understand why the petition has been brought forward. I hope I have been able to articulate today the reason why the policy is the policy and to outline some of the discretion in the system, which hopefully has the potential to cover those who have concerns. I do understand the challenge, although I am sure the hon. Member for York Central is about to tell me about it for a final time.

[Rachael Maskell]

I just seek another commitment from the Minister. Will he meet the Children’s Minister to discuss this issue further, not least in the light of the Government committing to respond to the Taylor review in legislation? I would have thought that that would be a great opportunity to take this issue further and to ensure that we have the support in place for self-employed adopter parents.

[Lee Rowley]

I am very happy to give a commitment that I will meet the Children’s Minister and pass back the strength of feeling in the Chamber today. I hope the hon. Lady recognises the position I have outlined, which aligns with the petition response. I have set out the rationale for why the policy is the policy, the reason why we think discretion is in place and the hope, on that basis, that it covers sufficient scenarios, sufficient individuals and sufficient challenges, such that it is a reasonable and proportionate place to be.

Before I conclude, I again thank the petitioners and all those who have a significant interest in this issue. I also thank hon. Members for their willingness to debate it in such a serious and proportionate manner. The Government are grateful to people for continuing to raise these issues, even if at this time we think that the current situation and the current discretion should cover most of the challenges that we see on this policy.

Shale Gas Production

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is time that the Government’s policy moved from a pause on shale gas production to a full stop. The people of this country have moved on, and so has the science. On Friday, the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), was in York looking at the BioYorkshire project, which will change and transform the future of our energy supply through the biofuels industry. Will the Minister not invest in that instead of old technology that simply will not deliver?

[Greg Hands]

We do invest in biofuels. My hon. Friend had a very good and productive visit, and I thank everybody in York who received him. We do invest, and we make sure that this is part of our diversified energy mix. Diversification is absolutely key in the space of energy, as other countries have perhaps learned to their cost.

Russian Oil Import Ban

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend raises a really important point. With the dismal prospect of the ferocious aggression and violence that we are seeing, one of the things we are thinking about is a more sustainable future. A very thin silver lining on a very dark cloud is the fact that we are talking about resilience and sustainability, and I am absolutely delighted to be working with my hon. Friend and with right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department for Transport to make sure that we accelerate the adoption of sustainable aviation fuel.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The pace at which we divest from Putin’s fossil fuels is important for stopping this war. As a result, as in wars past, if we scaled up our manufacturing to see retrofitting and our renewables industry, that could be not only the saviour of the Ukrainian people, but the saviour of our planet. Will the Secretary of State not only scale up, but lead an alliance of countries that need to make such urgent diversification to ensure that we apply this pain to Putin’s regime as quickly as possible?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. We must work internationally across countries and come up with an alliance that can confront Putin in that way. That is why we are having an extraordinary meeting of G7 Energy Ministers tomorrow. However, it is relatively easier for us and American colleagues to shut ourselves off from that dependency than it is for colleagues in Europe, who are far more dependent on Russian gas and hydrocarbons.