Rural Banking Services

Robin Millar Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Fay Jones]

I agree with the hon. Member. I hope the Minister will cover that in his summing up. As a beautiful constituency, we have one of the lowest broadband availability rates in the entire country, so those are twin-track problems that we need to fix at the same time.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. She could well be describing Aberconwy: it is beautiful and rural, and it has trouble with broadband and, unfortunately, the withdrawal of banking services. In my constituency, the experience of the residents and small businesses of Llanrwst is that first they saw banking and counter services withdrawn from the town and going down the coast to Llandudno, and they were told that they could travel to Llandudno. Now, they hear that the counter services in Llandudno are closing, at some banks, and moving further along the coast. These are areas that do not have the benefit of extensive public transport, so it is physically difficult to move from the valley to the coast—

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions must be brief. I call Fay Jones.

Northern Ireland Protocol

Robin Millar Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for choosing this debate. Something I have learned in my time in this House is that the importance of the Back Benches—and the voices on them—is not as well appreciated outside the House as it is within. Of course, I pay my compliments to my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) for securing this debate, which is of great importance. Of course it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

For hon. and right hon. Members’ interest, I am the chairman of the Conservative Union Research Unit. We are a Back-Bench group and we were formed for one simple purpose: to strengthen the Union. I speak here in my capacity as the Member for Aberconwy, but I think that is an important interest to declare. We are of course delighted that the Government share our interest in strengthening the Union.

Our interest then, to be clear, is in the Union. I differentiate that from the protocol, important though that is—and, indeed, it brings us here today—and from the Belfast agreement, again, important though that is. My comments, therefore, will focus on the Union and the impact of the protocol on the Union. My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) referred earlier to the Good Friday agreement as the bedrock. I suggest that the bedrock is the Act of Union of 1800, which has been an enduring cornerstone of this United Kingdom. Indeed, we stand here in this Parliament—the Parliament of this United Kingdom—today.

Interest in the Union of course extends beyond any party; it is not the possession of any one party. I note the contributions from many different parts of the House to the debate today and I am encouraged by that. But on this side of the House we are of course the Conservative and Unionist party. If we are not concerned with the Union, then what are we?

The group I chair has over 80 Back-Bench Members, each of us active on account of the Union to promote it in this House and among our constituents. So when we heard Mr Justice Colton agree with Government counsel that article VI of the Act of Union had been impliedly repealed by the protocol, Members can imagine our concern. It is, as Madam Deputy Speaker said earlier, a matter of national concern and a matter for the whole of the UK to take note of.

I acknowledge the complexity of this situation and these circumstances. I also acknowledge the mechanisms wisely placed within the protocol for remedying its shortcomings and the considerable efforts of Lord Frost and others in Government to do so. But in the light of Mr Justice Colton’s remarks, I am bound by duty and urged by many to ask: what is the Government’s plan for remedying that change to our Union? If not in this House, where are we to consider this, and if not at this time, in the light of his remarks, then when? I would be grateful if the Minister could give us some direction in her response to this.

National Insurance Contributions Bill

Robin Millar Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 14th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak today and to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and I take this opportunity to reiterate his unequivocal statement that Northern Ireland is indeed part of the United Kingdom.

I welcome this opportunity to make a few brief remarks in support of the Bill’s provisions on freeports and the benefits that it will represent for one in north Wales, in particular. But before I do, I note that the Bill demonstrates once again the Government’s commitment to levelling up. It is also set to reduce the tax avoidance that disadvantages our small and medium businesses, which cannot afford access to the specialist experience available on avoidance, as has been referred to. In addition, it seeks to offer the dignity of decent employment to our veterans, which, again, I welcome.

Freeports are a common feature of the world’s most ambitious free-trading nations and are used by many of our closest allies. They have propelled many previously impoverished nations to prosperity and have proved a valuable means of ensuring structured investment in export-led industry. The right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) asked for evidence, and he might consider the words of the directors of the World Customs Organisation and the former director of the Swedish customs body, who noted that freeports create local supply chains beyond the facility, so long as firms have ease of access. In that way, freeports have the potential to boost investment and trade in the surrounding region. For an island nation such as Britain, with a rich history of trade across the globe trade—trade that, despite criticisms of it, has driven developments, innovations and improvements—investment in freeports is a signal to the world of the Government’s commitment to secure the UK’s place at the heart of global trade.

There has been speculation in the media in recent months as to what levelling up means. I speak as a representative of the region—north Wales—in which I grew up, and I have seen it change over the five decades I have known it. Indeed, I have spoken in this place before about how residents of north Wales have grown used under devolution to being overlooked and underfunded for much of the past two decades. However, I am also a Conservative, and it is a hallmark of conservatism to see constituencies such as mine not only in terms of handouts but in terms of their potential—to treat them according to their distinctiveness and not to mistake equal treatment as sameness. That is why I describe Aberconwy not solely in terms of needs or deprivation, for there are both, but also in terms of its potential, and that potential will be different for every other constituency across the UK—a point the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) might consider.

The practical provisions set out in the Bill will help to realise that potential. Despite north Wales being one of the UK’s most under-invested regions, the British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association notes that it is also one of the fastest growing parts of Wales. North Wales is part of an expanding advanced manufacturing cluster worth more than £30 billion a year to the UK economy. We have world-beating green energy research in Ynys Môn and an industry-leading centre for 5G telecoms innovation at the University College of North Wales. Our Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board has a vision for a best-in-class medical school and primary care underpinned by technology.

We also occupy a significant strategic location. The Romans may have built the first version of the A55 on ancient paths across our hills, Thomas Telford may have developed it, and Irish MPs may have driven the development of our road and rail links to ensure their smooth transport to this place, but today north Wales finds itself astride a trade route stretching from Dublin to Moscow. In its day, the tunnel carrying the A55 underneath the Conwy estuary was the largest construction project in Europe. Today, fully four fifths of our UK trade to Ireland passes through Wales, with most of it going through our Holyhead port in Ynys Môn.

That is potential, and it needs unlocking. A freeport offers a remarkable opportunity to build on those natural advantages and offer a site of structured relief for international investors. The practical provisions in this modest Bill will help to secure that; they are practical incentives for investors and employees, and I suggest that that that is at the heart of levelling up.

This Bill demonstrates how, beyond the provision of a simple designation as a freeport, supporting legislation and incentives such as those before us, can create an exciting opportunity for investors and an opportunity for co-operation with other parts of Government—even the Welsh Government in Cardiff. Indeed, I urge all parties to do what can be done to bring this opportunity to north Wales. Given the strategic importance of Holyhead to trade with Northern Ireland, such co-operation would also be an investment in our Union.

To conclude, it has been said that ports are the power cables to the UK economy. A Bill such as this, creating incentives by removing national insurance on workers, will help flick the switch, so I will be supporting the Bill.

Finance Bill

Robin Millar Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Monday 24th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), although he will forgive me for not taking any economic advice from him. He talks about economic assessment with no sense of self-awareness that he was the man responsible for the 2019 Labour party manifesto. I believe I am the first Member to speak who shall represent a freeport area, so, on behalf of the people of Teesside, may I say thank you to the Government for designating us a freeport zone?

I wish to speak against new clause 25, which would only delay the implementation of our new freeport policy. I direct Members to my recently updated entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as a member of the new—currently shadow—Teesside freeport board. If we consider the intentions behind new clause 25, we will see that they are ones that Teessiders know all too well. Labour never wanted our new freeports, despite them being in places such as Redcar and Cleveland, Middlesbrough and Hartlepool, places that Labour used to say it cared about. True to form, new clause 25 is the Labour party in desperation to see our freeport policy fail, so that it can simply say, “I told you so.”

The same attitudes were shown in Labour’s position on the EU referendum, and the people of Teesside have already shown them how they feel about that. Our new freeport in Teesside will create 18,000 jobs over the next five years, and since the freeport designation in the Chancellor’s Budget, we have already seen the announcement of more than 2,000 jobs coming to Teesside, with GE picking Teesside as the destination for its new wind turbine blade manufacturing, supporting the Government’s plan for a green industrial revolution. Adding more bureaucracy, form filling and complications through new clause 25 would only delay those new jobs and prevent us from getting on with the task at hand, which is the transformation of Teesside.

In Redcar and Cleveland we are proud of our area’s industrial heritage and the vital role the steelworks and foundries have played in the past, providing those raw materials to build the railways, ships and bridges that were once the envy of the world, and in many cases still are. The fires in our furnaces were the beating heart of the industrial revolution, and now with hydrogen, wind power and carbon capture all promised and planned within our freeport zone, it will be Teesside’s innovation and technology that leads our green industrial revolution.

When Labour lost Hartlepool, the front page of The Northern Echo held a column from a former Labour MP saying that Labour needs to listen. Well, now would be a good time to start, but instead, here we are again, with the public supporting our freeport policy and Labour voting against it. Labour Members may not want any election advice from me, but I have some for them anyway: stop dwelling on problems and start looking to the potential and to solutions. Stop standing in the way of our freeport policy and work with us to make it a success. Stop talking Teesside down and start helping us to turn it around, and vote against new clause 25 tonight.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young). Like him, I shall take this opportunity to make a few brief remarks in support of freeports, although, as hon. Members would expect, they will be in support of a freeport in Wales, and north Wales in particular. In doing so, I shall speak against new clause 25.

Freeports and free economic zones are a common feature of international trade, with dozens utilised by our closest allies. Not only have they propelled many of the world’s previously impoverished nations to prosperity, but there are well-established international frameworks for their operation. Indeed, the OECD code of conduct for clean free trade zones is an example, to which this Government have already pledged compliance.

The measures set out in new clause 25 are simply unnecessary, and the additional costs, such as the paperwork proposed, will only reduce the attractiveness of Britain’s ports. Let us make no mistake: the ultimate bearer of extra costs will be not multinational business, but the workers of this country who will miss out on prosperity from export-driven work.

Wales occupies a vital position in UK trade. If we consider just the Republic of Ireland, we will see that in 2019, two thirds of goods carried from the Republic of Ireland came via Wales, and four fifths of goods carried to the Republic of Ireland went via Wales. I also note that Holyhead is on the international trade routes that link Dublin to Moscow, such is the strategic importance of the location and role of Wales—particularly of north Wales. It is essential, therefore, that we create an environment there that is attractive to investment and private finance. According to the British Venture Capital Association, Wales has one of the lowest average investments from venture capital in the UK, accounting for just 3.3% of all funding over the period 2016 to 2018.

A freeport offers a structured environment for investment. Whether linked with the advanced manufacturing cluster of north-east Wales—Wales’s hottest economic growth spot—or the green energy projects and innovation found on Ynys Môn, or the leading telecoms research at the University College of North Wales, the structured reliefs and incentives of a freeport offer businesses and investors a clear and attractive proposition and are a clear demonstration of the Government’s commitment to the area.

This Finance Bill makes clear the Government’s aim of growth, development and levelling up for Wales. It also presents an exciting opportunity for co-operation and collaboration with the Welsh Government. With their assistance on, for example, the additional reliefs possible for the planning laws within their control, there is an opportunity not only to deliver a freeport in Wales, but to create one of the most attractive freeport models for investment in the UK.

In conclusion, our United Kingdom is an island nation and a trading nation, and our prosperity has always come from across the seas. Freeports are an essential step towards stronger trade and exports in a global Britain, and this Finance Bill will deliver that. In Wales, we know that, although we are outward-looking, our strength comes from within. For centuries, we have exported our goods and resources around the globe. North Wales slate has roofed the world, and copper from the Great Orme in Aberconwy was used to forge bronze-age implements used in areas ranging from Brittany to the Baltic.

A freeport in Wales—in north Wales—is an opportunity to ensure our connection to a global economy, to bring investment and growth that will bring jobs, and to secure our tradition of global export for another generation. I shall be voting against new clause 25.

[Jesse Norman]

I thank all Members who have commented or spoken in this debate on freeports. As the House will know, freeports are a very important part of the Government’s policy to level up the British economy and to bring investment, trade and jobs to parts of the country that in many cases have not had the economic vibrancy that we as a nation would have wished. They symbolise and reinforce the opportunities provided by this country’s status as an outward-looking trading nation, open to the world.

UK-EU Future Relationship Negotiations and Transition Period

Robin Millar Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

As I said, information about tariffs has been published on gov.uk. What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that we are negotiating to ensure that we can get a deal. I understand his concerns, but our efforts are to secure that deal. I hope he would join us in that effort and send a clear message today to the EU negotiating team that that is in the interests not just of his constituents, but of all citizens across the EU.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

There is no doubt that it is in the best interests of all parties to secure a deal. However, for many residents in Aberconwy who voted to leave, sovereignty was a key driver. It has been cited throughout the negotiations as a red line, so will my right hon. Friend reassure all our constituents that, come what may, deal or no deal, after we leave the negotiations, we will do so with our sovereignty intact?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I can give my hon. Friend those assurances. The Prime Minister has been very clear on that point and the EU negotiating team will recognise that it is a point from which we will not move.

Economy Update

Robin Millar Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I can confirm that all our job schemes work on a UK-wide basis, treating everyone equally wherever they live, and that will continue always to be the case. I am also pleased to confirm today a £400 million increase in the up-front funding guarantee for Barnett consequentials for Northern Ireland, bringing the total to £2.8 billion, and I am sure that the Northern Ireland Executive can use that funding to support businesses in the way that the hon. Member describes.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the support that we have received. In Aberconwy, 8,800 jobs have been protected through the job retention scheme. Across Wales, 82,000 self-employed people have also been supported. Indeed, across Scotland, Northern Ireland and the whole of Wales, there have been unprecedented levels of support through schemes, through Barnett consequentials and more throughout this pandemic. Will he confirm again that this House stands for the whole United Kingdom, that it is our shared markets and strong economy that make this level of support possible and that all parts of our Union will continue to receive the attention and support of our Government?

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend puts it incredibly well. This is a crisis that has engulfed our entire United Kingdom, and we will get through it together as one United Kingdom. This Government will continue to support businesses and people, wherever they live.

Areas with Additional Public Health Restrictions: Economic Support

Robin Millar Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

The pace of those medically driven decisions is more, perhaps, a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who I know has been to the Chamber and answered such questions. I am willing to flag the hon. Gentleman’s concern about the transparency of that process.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for the generous and timely support that businesses and workers across Aberconwy have received during this pandemic. Sadly, the same businesses and workers, mainly in tourism, are struggling now under fresh local restrictions that have been brought in by the Welsh Government. I noted the Minister’s response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones). Will he press the Welsh Government, when they introduce local restrictions that are stricter than those in other parts of the UK, and do so at lower thresholds than in other parts of the UK, to also provide the funding that the businesses and workers struggling under them need?

[Steve Barclay]

As I said in reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), it is important that these decisions are shaped by the Joint Biosecurity Centre and that it takes a consistent approach throughout the United Kingdom. That helps not only with the consistency of support that can be offered to businesses across the UK, but with communication to constituents and the clarity of that message.

Finance Bill (Sixth sitting)

Robin Millar Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 11th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

We have no real issue with the clauses, as they are understandable in the context of the overall measures proposed.

I will draw the Minister’s attention to some technical concerns raised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, which I hope he can address. In September 2019, it wrote:

“Given the complexities which a business could encounter in identifying and quantifying DST revenues, we are concerned that notification within 90 days of the accounting period is unhelpful. It would make sense to tie this notification into the deadline for filing accounts—6 months for a plc or 9 months otherwise”.

The institute also states that there should not be a need to notify HMRC in advance of the payment deadline, as

“businesses will require more time to review their accounting records, analyse and quantify revenues to decide whether they are”

required to pay under the tax. It recognises that such obligations would not pose a problem for larger digital companies, but would be more problematic for marginal cases requiring “advice and review”, so

“the notification deadline should be aligned with the payment date.”

Regardless of whether we believe that the measures go far enough, or whether the tax is set at an appropriate rate, we believe that its implementation and administration should be fair, to give businesses—in particular those that fall on the margins of the scope of the measure—adequate time to provide accurate calculations of what they should be paying. I invite the Minister to respond to those points to provide some clarification.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

As much as we have heard excellent contributions on matters of delivery and on technical matters, which are far beyond my knowledge of accounting and such, it strikes me that, as we are talking about the introduction of a new tax, this is the moment at which we should reflect on its meaning and on the purposes behind it.

The phrase that caught my eye is in clauses 53 and 54 —“Duty to”. My sense is that tax should not be, or should not only be, a catch-up exercise—chasing after developments in industry and the disruption brought to different sectors. Nor should it be about how much money we gather, although that is clearly of keen and close interest to us. It is also about the privilege of membership of a community and of participation in the UK economy. I find it interesting that it falls to a Conservative Government to introduce a tax such as this, which I consider to be progressive in its nature and intent.

In support of that, I pray in aid consideration of the principle of permanent residence, for example. Permanent residence was traditionally attached to the ability to trade in a nation, and tax therefore followed. If not trading in—that is, without that permanent residence—someone would be trading with, so coming under a different regime. Now, we have disruption in the digital economy, which means that we are trading in even though there is no permanent residence.

I also point to the development in the understanding of value over the years. At one point, value was measured in amounts of gold, so the question was one of setting a price, or offering gold in return for something; that was in essence a measurement of weight. The free trade argument slugged that one out with the mercantilist over many years, but the free trade argument won because it made the case effectively that the value of gold could be expressed in terms of the labour required to extract it. Discussions of value therefore moved from a physical object to the notion of labour.

As the Financial Secretary to the Treasury mentioned earlier, we are now talking about user-generated value. The notion of value itself has changed, and there are many debates about what value is and how it is best measured and captured. I suggest that they are extremely relevant to a discussion of tax, especially the introduction of a new one.

To look at tax solely in terms of being punitive, a “fair share” or a certain quantum, is to miss the point. Returning to the issue of leadership that was mentioned this morning, tax properly administered is surely more than a statement of how much money we can collect. It is more a statement of what we are trying to become—tax used as an instrument of government. What kind of society do we wish to become? It is not even, as might be suggested, a statement of how well we can co-ordinate with other nations. For this Government—I am interested in whether the Minister agrees with me—it is a statement of leadership, of what we are trying to become as a nation and, in particular, how we are trying to capture value through the proper encouragement of those industries as they participate in our economy.

[Jesse Norman]

Let me start with the interesting remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy. I think he is absolutely right to notice and bring to public attention the question of the basis of tax. He is absolutely correct to call upon an idea of tax as a privilege and obligation associated with membership of a community, and to highlight that that notion of tax, which in some sense has always been implicit in the idea of tax, is being drawn upon in this wider sense of a UK user contribution. He is absolutely right about that.

All government derives from the consent of the governed, as the cliché goes; but in order to give that consent, the governed must feel not merely that the tax is fair and equitable in its own right, but that it springs from a conception of government that fundamentally puts the wellbeing of society at its heart. In that sense, it is about not just an economic or fiscal change, nor necessarily who we want to become, but, as my hon. Friend said, who we are. It will come to no surprise to members of the Committee that I think Edmund Burke—one of my great heroes—put this well when he spoke about a nation as a moral idea. That is why the nation has historically been the basis of taxation: the nation provides the consent and, therefore, the guarantee of future taxation, which can underlie effective long-term public spending.

Going slightly beyond that point, it is notable that when crisis hits a country, that country and its Government must draw on that moral capital in pulling the alarm cable and using the power of taxation to secure future borrowing or future public spending that may be required to address the crisis. There is a very deep way in which my hon. Friend is getting to the centre of a very important fact about human life in democratic society, so I thank him for that.

On the more mundane and practical, but none the less vital points that the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South made about notification periods, I will simply say this: these are businesses that keep this data in real time. Of course, it is by no means only UK companies that are caught by this tax. The whole point of a UK user contribution is to capture companies’ revenue sources that might be derived from UK users and from that sense of community my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy mentioned, but without being resident as such in a formal tax sense in this country.

The data is immediate. The tax does not merely apply to UK companies. It does apply from the end of an accounting period—90 days after the end of an accounting period. We think that is a proportionate, appropriate and internationally recognised way of levying this tax.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 51 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 52 to 55 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 7 agreed to.

Clause 56

Meaning of “group”, “parent” etc

The Economy

Robin Millar Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

The significant economic interventions that we have put in place will help every part of the country, whether north or south, rural or urban—that is what they are designed to do. Businesses in the hon. Lady’s constituency will benefit from all the schemes. More broadly, the Budget set out an ambitious programme of investment in our regions to ensure that opportunity is felt wherever in this country someone happens to live. We remain incredibly committed to that agenda.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con) [V]]

At least one forecast has predicted that coastal communities will be hit the hardest by any economic downturn following the covid-19 crisis. Here in Aberconwy, our queen of resorts, Llandudno, has been singled out as one of those communities that may well be hardest hit in the UK. The situation is further exaggerated by the fact that we are still approaching the peak of the crisis in north Wales. What measures has my right hon. Friend put in place to ensure that he will reach that balance between stimulating our economy, particularly the hospitality trade, and making sure that that stimulus does not come too soon with the result that we get hit by a second wave here in north Wales?

[Rishi Sunak]

This is why it is so vital that we get the timing absolutely right. We are not there yet, as the Prime Minister said. We have made good progress but we are all concerned about the risk of a second peak, which is why we must meet the five tests that the First Secretary of State set out a little while ago so that we can restore our economy gradually but with confidence.