Investing in Britain’s Future

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

The Barnett consequentials of the 2015-16 public spending round were set out in the Chancellor’s statement yesterday. On the resource side, the Welsh Assembly Government will see a small reduction in their budget and, on the capital side, a small increase. I am sure that they will work with him to ensure that the money is used wisely for the benefit of the people of Wales.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I welcome the A14 construction phase starting two years earlier, but I am particularly pleased by the publication of the draft strike prices. That should encourage SSE and ScottishPower to go ahead with their investment decisions in Galloper and the East Anglia Array, making Suffolk truly the green coast of the country.

[Danny Alexander]

The hon. Lady and I share a passionate commitment to green energy, and I hope that the strike prices now complete the picture for energy companies looking to invest. My message to the energy companies is, “You have the certainty you need, now bring forth the investment that the country needs.”

Economic Policy

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I said very clearly in my statement that that is a benchmark, but it is one of a number of benchmarks. The No. 1 benchmark was fiscal credibility and market credibility, which is precisely what the Government have delivered.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Anyone running a household budget knows that they have to live within their means, and that to start paying off debts, they have to reduce spending if they are not getting as much income. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that households will be worried about higher mortgage rates if we pursue the Opposition’s plans?

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we lose that credibility in the markets and are unable to convince the world that we can pay our way—that would be the case if we had a reduced commitment to fiscal consolidation—interest rates would go up, which would affect families with mortgages and small businesses with those crucial loans that are helping them to expand and take people on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are obliged to the Minister, but we will move on to one more question.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

16. What progress has been made in making compensation payments under the Equitable Life payment scheme.

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Sajid Javid)]

The scheme continues to make good progress. A detailed report will be published next week, which I am pleased to announce will highlight the fact that the scheme has paid more than £500 million to policyholders. I know that the resolution of Equitable Life is an issue that interests many Members, so I can announce that the scheme will now be moving to quarterly progress reports, with the next one published in May.

[Dr Coffey]

I welcome that answer from my hon. Friend. I am proud that our Government have started the payment scheme, although there are still some people who have not yet been assessed. I would encourage him to work with his officials to ensure that that happens as quickly as possible.

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend is right to be proud of the Government’s achievements on Equitable Life. The previous Government had a decade to help victims of this scandal and did absolutely nothing. As mentioned, more than £500 million of payments have already been made. I can assure my hon. Friend that I am in regular contact with the scheme administrators, and I will work closely with them on a regular basis to ensure that things can be improved.

Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Bill

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 17th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this vital debate, because the Government are putting their money where their mouth is—long gone are the days of make do and mend. I have, dare I say it, a 12-year-old British-built, Japanese-designed Toyota that has done 199,000 miles. It deserves credit for lasting, but I am sure that with a newer model—which this Bill will be encouraging across the country—I would be using less oil and petrol. The point is that we need to get more bang for our buck when the Government spend taxpayers’ hard-earned money.

Sadly, there were too many examples of the previous Government’s seeming to throw money away without getting value for that money. Even the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), as reported by The Guardian in July 2012, suggested that they wasted money on school buildings—he did not regret that the buildings were built, I appreciate, but suggested that they got poor value for money. There was outcry initially, at the beginning of this Parliament, over the reduction in the amount of money available for Building Schools for the Future, but actually it was right to tell industry that we needed better value for money. For a scheme in my constituency, we had to go back to persuade the Government, and instead of the £31 million blank cheque—we should remember that at the start of this Parliament we were told that there was no money left—we managed to get a cheque for £18 million, and there will still be a good academy building built in my constituency. I consider that better value for money.

One of the biggest white elephants was probably the road sign project along the A14, signed off not long before the election and on which £70 million was spent. For a couple of years, there were no messages at all, and about three months ahead of the Olympics, one of the most helpful messages was still, “Plan your Journey Early for the Olympics”. It felt like a complete waste of money. It was probably symptomatic of a conversation I had with a senior Government adviser not long after the election, when he suggested that the best thing the Government could do was pay one lot of people to dig holes in the road, and pay another firm to refill them. Those were the exact words of the head of a senior government agency. I thought, “Oh my word, if that’s been the attitude and the level of desperation so far, no wonder we’re in this mess.”

The Bill is a great opportunity to consider areas where the Government are keen to develop infrastructure. One is telecoms. I am sure that everybody welcomes the money that the Government are giving to broadband in rural areas and for super-connected cities. I know that there are still one or two problems with state aid that the Government are working hard to solve, but it is vital that everybody in the country is connected to a good speed network, if not a superfast network, because it will help to diversify jobs and enable people to work from home. Every part of the country must be connected. That could help not only with wealth and job creation but with public service reform by enabling better value for money in the delivery of public services. That is something we all need to do.

I am conscious that the A143 in Suffolk, which is not in my constituency but which is still an important artery, is one of the roads nominated for improved mobile coverage. It is vital that we roll out that programme. The roll-out of 2G masts will also benefit 4G coverage, on which we need to keep pressing Ofcom to ensure that the auction goes ahead as soon as possible. I give credit to other telecoms operators that have already started to use their research and development to ensure that 4G can start to be rolled out on existing frequencies, and to Ofcom for allowing that to happen, despite the law suits that could have been launched because it was perceived to be unfair. It is right that every barrier to innovation in the use of infrastructure be removed.

In their update to the national infrastructure plan, the Government rightly refer to the preparations at Hinkley C. As a result of that work, a significant chunk of change has already been spent in the north Somerset economy. I hope that the same will follow in my constituency at Sizewell. I ask, however, that all Departments work together—I asked my right hon. Friend the Chancellor this the other day—and strain every sinew to enable these investment decisions by our partners, including EDF and others, and ensure that they can go ahead with certainty in respect of the next stages of development of nuclear power stations. I have not looked at the other projects, but I draw the attention of the House to the inquiry by the all-party group on off-gas grid that is about to be launched. At the moment, we are still not connecting enough people to the mains gas grid. Perhaps we should consider that as part of our inquiry in providing the Government with ideas.

I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) will speak adroitly about rail. There is no question but that we need to invest in the infrastructure of the east of England, which we all believe has the opportunity to become the California of Europe, with its diverse economic centres, its focus on research and development, innovation, manufacturing and software, and its position as a key link to London. One of the things that the Government have to do—I am sure that they will under the new Transport Secretary—is continue the journey towards how we reduce costs. Rail desperately needs to be done in a cheaper way. I do not have the time to tell a story about the amount of time and cost involved when three MPs tried to be part of the ground-digging at a platform with our county councillors. It was all done in the interests of safety when common sense would have dictated otherwise for something that should have been as simple as walking along a pavement. There are orders for rolling stock and other franchises, and we want to see some of that on the great eastern main line.

The A14 is a critical road connecting the midlands to the east of England. I know that the Government have been considering different options, but I would offer a word of caution. I do not think that many Conservative Members of Parliament are opposed to tolling for new capacity, but I am concerned, because we do not want the people of the east of England to end up as the sole pilots if those in other ports or key infrastructure areas throughout the country are not subject to potential tolling in the future. It is not just about the port of Felixstowe, in which Hutchison Whampoa has invested a lot of money, creating the deepest berths in the country and taking the biggest boats from around the world, but about ensuring that there is a level playing field when we introduce the plans, which I hope the Secretary of State will announce before the end of the year.

It is key that money is spent on assets that will be used. That may seem like a ridiculous thing to say and I may be a lonely voice, but business people regularly complain to me about empty property rates. I have been trying to persuade the Government that they should put their scarce resources—while allowing for some time to find new tenants—into assets that generate wealth, not assets that are sitting empty and not producing. That is a key point.

One of the most inspired decisions of the Government reshuffle was the appointment of Paul Deighton, the chief executive of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games who presided over the great delivery of the Olympics and Paralympics, of which we are all proud. He is certainly not a bulldozer—I see him as a bridge builder—but I notice that he has been given a remit to do whatever it takes to clear away not the cobwebs but the barriers, in order to make sure that the national infrastructure plan is delivered. The Government may also wish to take note of his friend, Sir John Armitt, the chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority, which built the infrastructure that put in place as many small projects as possible, not just the big games in town. On that note, I am delighted to support the Bill’s Second Reading.

Oral Answers to Questions

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about unemployment; 900,000 private sector jobs have been created in this economy over the past two years, and we are rebalancing the economy away from the dependence on debt and the unaffordable public sector that he presided over when he was in the Treasury. [Interruption.] He says that borrowing has gone up, but we have cut the deficit by 25%. He has also said that Labour needs a credible deficit reduction plan. He has had all summer to think of one. Where is it?

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

T3. Building our energy infrastructure is a key element of the national infrastructure plan. Preparations by EDF are already under way at Hinkley, and I hope that they will soon start at Sizewell in my constituency. Will my hon. Friend assure me that the Treasury will strain every sinew to ensure that EDF can make a positive investment decision later this year and build the power stations that that lot on the Labour Benches did not build?

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Sajid Javid)]

My hon. Friend is passionate about this issue, and she will be pleased to hear that the Government are removing unnecessary obstacles to investment in nuclear power plants and that new power stations will come forward. For example, the Government are undertaking electricity market and planning reforms and introducing an energy Bill. As it happens, I am meeting representatives of EDF later this afternoon, and I would be happy to share her concerns with the company.

Bank of England (Appointment of Governor) Bill

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Friday 6th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

I shall come to that almost Jesuitical distinction between Executive roles.

It is critical that the right person be appointed to the crucial role of Governor of the Bank of England in this coming period. The new Governor will need to demonstrate not only that he or she is professionally competent, but that they can exercise sound ethical judgment. They must be able to convince the public and the markets that they can turn the liner that is financial services around. To have any credibility they will need to demonstrate that they have the confidence of not only the Chancellor of the Exchequer but of Parliament as a whole, and that they are independent—no crony, no place person, no political appointee—and able and willing to give robust independent advice. Given the scale of the task facing the new Governor and the heightened political atmosphere and context in which the banking reforms are to be developed, now, more than ever, this critical appointment cannot be left in the hands of a single Minister.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but there is a significant difference between having confidence in the Treasury Committee and having its consent. At the moment, Select Committees have the power to suggest changes, but I am not aware that they have a veto.

[John McDonnell]

The hon. Lady needs to recognise that the Treasury Committee has a veto over the appointment of senior members of the OBR, but I will come to that point, because it is a valid one and was also raised by the hon. Member for Watford (Richard Harrington).

Finance Bill

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Miss Smith]

My hon. Friend is an ardent voice on behalf of small businesses in his constituency and elsewhere. He is right to point to the nuances in the costs of running a business.

Deferring the August rise will cost about £550 million this year. We will finance that through greater than expected savings in Government spending. That will avoid increasing the national debt, which is vital to our country’s well-being. That is our tough but fair plan to deal with Britain’s debts. Our actions to reduce the deficit and to rebuild the economy have secured interest rates at near record lows, benefiting businesses and families and keeping mortgage rates low.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

This morning, my hon. Friend and I were together on the train pressing the case for investment in rail. Are the Government, of whom she is a proud member, not showing the right example to the country by taking their foot off the accelerator and driving more economically? Will this measure bring the growth that the FairFuelUK campaign said it would?

[Miss Smith]

This morning, I was indeed speaking in my constituency capacity about my wish that our regional economy will not be left in the sidings. The same is true of our national economy. We must ensure that Britain remains competitive. Our actions, which are part of a credible national plan, have kept Britain safe from the global turmoil around us. It is within that plan that we have listened and acted.

New clause 1 will defer the fuel duty increase that was planned on 1 August this year to 1 January 2013. As the Chancellor said last week, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) has noted, this decision means that pump prices are 10p a litre cheaper than they would have been if we had not abolished the previous Government’s fuel duty escalator. It is a real help for families, businesses and motorists across the country. The AA has said that it is

“great news for all motorists”.

The RAC Foundation has said that it is

“good news for drivers and good news for the country.”

The Government have taken action upon action to support motorists and have done more than any other Government. We have avoided the two years’ worth of increases planned by the previous Government. More than that, last year we abolished Labour’s fuel duty escalator, which increased fuel duty by above inflation every year until 2013. We have successively cancelled and deferred duty to deliver the longest period of unchanged fuel duty for more than five years. As a result of that repeated action, average pump prices are now approximately 10p a litre lower than they would have been. To put that in context, a typical Ford Focus driver will be £159 better off and an average haulier £4,900 better off between 2011 and 2013 than they would have been under the plans left by the previous Government.

This support for motorists is part of our broader plan of helping with the cost of living and promoting business growth, while reducing the deficit and rebalancing the economy. That has included freezing council tax and raising the personal allowance.

Green Economy

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) who crafted such a genius motion, covering so many strands and industries and laying open the field for us to speak on a number of topics. I have been beaten by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), however, who has already given a full and comprehensive speech on the merits of Suffolk, supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter).

I said in my maiden speech that I hoped our coast, the Suffolk coastal area combined with the coast around Lowestoft in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney and round into Yarmouth, would be known as the green coast, and I am delighted to say that our county councils, working with the local enterprise partnership, as has already been mentioned, are doing their bit to try and make sure that that vision becomes a reality. That was further enhanced when an enterprise zone was granted in a neighbour’s constituency and has been designated one of the centres for offshore renewable engineering.

I am delighted to say that the Suffolk-Norfolk rivalries are not quite as strong as they once were: we now reach across the border and our county councils, our LEP and, I understand, Essex county council work together to make sure that we have an energy skills strategy that reaches right across our area. That was evidenced by the decision to allow Norfolk university technical college to be based in Norwich, the city represented by my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary. That is a great opportunity and I am delighted to say that Suffolk and Norfolk are getting a grip on it.

With regard to the fiscal and regulatory framework, I was not surprised by the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), because I know that he holds strong views on these matters. I understand perfectly why he feels that energy costs are unnecessarily high: he blames the subsidy and thinks it is a problem for other industries. I take a very different view: that if we are to encourage self-reliance in energy, we have to invest in our energy infrastructure. It is not about subsidy; it is about an incentive to attract investors from around the world, and nowhere more so than at Sizewell C. I have seen the strong commitment of EDF and British Gas to continuing their planning application work not only at Hinkley Point, but at Sizewell C. Frankly, all the talk about subsidy is nonsense. It is an incentive to have green energy infrastructure on which we can all rely.

I hope that we in Suffolk Coastal will be vying with my hon. Friend and neighbour across the river with the coming online of the Greater Gabbard, Galloper, and East Anglia wind farms and so on, as many of those come onshore in my constituency. That does not mean pylons in my constituency, although sadly it does in one nearby. We are seeing for ourselves the future of green energy, and we are proud to be part of it.

I say to the Minister—she has heard me talk about this before—that it would be lovely if the contribution those communities are making to green growth was reflected in the allocations from the coastal communities fund. They deserve the lion’s share of that money. Frankly, I feel that we should get our share of the revenue that the Crown Estate secures from offshore wind farms and other such activities. [Interruption.] I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet seemed to say, “Hear, hear” to that.

On other routes to market, I think it is telling that one aspect of green growth is trying to reduce the amount of energy we need for anything. I am delighted that the Government have put in place the money for rural broadband roll-out. I hope that the director general for competition in the European Commission does not put a spanner in the works by trying to prevent that money—our money—being used to ensure that we get broadband throughout the country. The other investment that my right hon. Friends in the Government are making, of course, is the investment in rail. I am sure that the Minister will not mind if I plug the future launch, which we hope will be very soon, of our prospectus for increased investment in rail, because we believe that it will generate a huge economic return for our region and the country.

I will mention briefly the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams). I have a lot of sympathy with his dedication to biomass. We have an anaerobic digestion plant at Adnams near Southwold and more are planned, but there is concern in East Anglia that biomass plants will be powered by straw that is sourced locally, because that would increase the price of straw for farmers elsewhere. With increasing welfare standards, which we all welcome, agricultural production will require more straw, which will start to become a scarce commodity. I have raised the issue with hon. Friends elsewhere—indeed, I am meeting the Minister to discuss the point—because we need to bear in mind the risk of distorting practices elsewhere through incentives on one side.

Finally, I will turn to the planning debate. There is no question but that I prefer offshore turbines to onshore ones, even though they are more expensive—the cost is coming down, as has been mentioned—especially as half my constituency is in an area of outstanding natural beauty. A very unpopular planning application was granted only the other day in Levington, which is in an AONB, and I was rather shocked and surprised that the four councillors outvoted three and the one who abstained. It was a great shame, because one of the things we need to do is get our communities behind the energy revolution and to share in it. Elsewhere in the constituency, communities have come together in wanting a turbine, so that they can use the proceeds from it. We need to develop an element of consensus on wind farms, because once they are in place, as my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney will know with the Kessingland turbines, there are still issues for residents that need to be solved.

I shall use part of my contribution to this debate to call on my local district councils and indeed councils throughout the country to take advantage of the recent Department for Communities and Local Government guidance on including a supplementary planning document specifically on renewable energy. Instead of councillors being beset by every single application and the Planning Inspectorate overturning decisions, I would like to see local councils develop their activities in a planned and structured way and be part of the process of making sure that the future is as green as the luscious fields that we have enjoyed since all this rain fell.

The future is green. One of our party’s slogans was “Vote Blue, Go Green” and I would like to think that under this coalition Government, we are doing more than ever to promote the green economy.

LIBOR (FSA Investigation)

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

First, the Opposition voted against the creation of the tripartite regime. Secondly, I remember the joyous occasion, when I was shadow Chancellor, at Mansion House in 2007 of all years, when the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), told us about the

“new golden age for the City”,

and the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) praised the virtues of the light-touch regulatory regime of which he claimed sole authorship, although these days, funnily enough, he does not talk about that very much.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as the report by the Economic Affairs Committee showed, under Labour’s failed system, it was unclear who was in charge of regulating the banks? Is it fair to say that, sadly, Labour just dropped the ball on this one?

[Mr Osborne]

It is true that the tripartite regulatory system—and one of the three parts was the Government of the day—failed. That is self-evident, which is why we are making these changes. It is disappointing that they do not command the full support of the Opposition Front Bench, but perhaps the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie), on his 40th birthday, will reconsider his position now that he has reached a new age of maturity.

Static Caravans (VAT)

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stuart]

According to the National Caravan Council, if we take Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs forecast of a 30% reduction in demand, home production will reduce to 10,689 units—the lowest production level on record—with inevitable consequences for manufacturers, suppliers and parks.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I suggest that there has been a misunderstanding in the Treasury about the proportion of people who own such homes and stay in them for long periods at a time as against regular weekly letting. Does my hon. Friend know that if people stay in a hotel for more than 28 days, VAT does not have to be paid? Some parallels could be drawn.

[Mr Stuart]

My hon. Friend is right. I am not sure that I am ever going to get on to the issue of the non-anomaly that this measure is tackling. We are fortunate that Roger Tym & Partners produced a report on the economic impact of UK holiday parks in January this year, showing that 85% of static units are privately owned and that the remaining 15% are rented out as part of a park’s letting fleet. The market that will be most hit is the one that drives profits on these parks and drives investment. I do not think that the Treasury factored that into its calculations properly.