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Tag: 2021

  • Chris Philp – 2021 Comments on Nightingale Courts

    Chris Philp – 2021 Comments on Nightingale Courts

    The comments made by Chris Philp, the Courts Minister, on 3 March 2021.

    We have achieved an immense amount in our battle to keep justice moving during the pandemic – restarting jury trials before anyone else, turbo-charging the rollout of video technology, bringing magistrates’ backlogs down, and opening more courtrooms for jury trials.

    These new courtrooms are the latest step in that effort, and I am determined to minimise delays and ensure justice is served for Londoners.

    That is why we are investing hundreds of millions to drive this recovery further, deliver swifter justice and support victims.

  • Guy Opperman – 2021 Speech on Pension Schemes Act

    Guy Opperman – 2021 Speech on Pension Schemes Act

    The speech made by Guy Opperman, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in the House of Commons on 2 March 2021.

    The Pension Schemes Act 2021 received Royal Assent on 11 February. We are now setting out next steps, delivering on the commitment made during the passage of the Pension Schemes Bill and following extensive engagement since report stage in the House of Commons. The Act will introduce:

    Three new criminal offences, including a sentence of up to seven years in jail for bosses who plunder or run pension schemes into the ground.

    The legislative framework needed to usher in pensions dashboards that will give savers greater control over, and awareness of, their pensions.

    The legislative framework to allow collective money purchase pension schemes to operate.

    Powers to require pension schemes to take the Paris agreement temperature goal into account, and other climate change goals set by the Government.

    Strengthened rules around pension transfers to prevent members being misled in relation to transferring their pensions pots.

    Measures to support trustees and employers to improve the way they plan and manage scheme funding over the longer term and enable the Pensions Regulator to take action more effectively to protect members’ pensions.

    We are now progressing the secondary legislation to ensure the UK’s pension system is safer, better and greener. The sequencing of the subsequent legislation will allow for proper consultation, engagement with key stakeholders and further parliamentary debate, through affirmative procedure where required.

    Following our consultation in January 2021 on climate change, we will lay these world-leading regulations this summer to come into force ahead of COP26. This will make the UK the first major economy in the world to legislate for, and bring into practice, the recommendations of the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, ensuring climate change is at the heart of the pensions system.

    On the Pensions Regulator’s powers, we will consult on the majority of draft regulations this spring, and will commence these powers and the criminal offences measures in the autumn. For the duty to give notices and statements to the regulator in respect of certain events, we will consult on the draft regulations later this year, for commencement as soon as practical thereafter.

    In early summer we plan to consult on draft regulations for scams and collective defined contribution schemes, with commencement on the scams measures from early autumn 2021.

    We aim to consult on proposed regulations for the pensions dashboard later this year and lay draft regulations before Parliament for debate in 2022. Delivery remains on track for 2023 in line with the plans published by the pensions dashboards programme.

    On defined benefit scheme funding, later this year we will consult on draft regulations, following promised engagement with key interested parties, working closely with colleagues at the Pensions Regulator as they develop the revised funding code, which will also be subject to a full public consultation.

    Both Ministers and regulators will continue to engage with both Houses of Parliament as these measures progress.

  • Rishi Sunak – 2021 Budget

    Rishi Sunak – 2021 Budget

    The text of the 2021 Budget, published on 3 March 2021.

    [in .pdf format]

  • Richard Burgon – 2021 Speech on Statutory Sick Pay

    Richard Burgon – 2021 Speech on Statutory Sick Pay

    The speech made by Richard Burgon, the Labour MP for Leeds East, in the House of Commons on 2 March 2021.

    The idea behind statutory sick pay is as simple as it is important: workers who are ill are financially supported so that they can stay off work to recover. But during a rapidly spreading virus pandemic, it also helps to prevent the spread of infectious illnesses. The test of whether a system of sick pay is working is whether it achieves those simple aims.

    Unfortunately, as has been shown time and again during this crisis, the UK’s statutory sick pay system is quite simply broken. In the middle of a global pandemic, it is failing to protect either workers who are ill or their wider community. This failure, like so many others of this Government—from Serco test and trace to the personal protective equipment debacle—has contributed to the virus having spiralled out of control and so many losing their lives unnecessarily.

    From the very start of this crisis, I have been contacted by constituents who simply cannot get by on statutory sick pay. Before this debate, I invited my constituents to share their experiences of having to rely on statutory sick pay. The stories that people from my constituency sent to me were quite simply heartbreaking: workers forced to use up their annual leave to self-isolate because the sick pay they would get is not enough to keep them going; families who found that sick pay did not cover even a quarter of their bills; and people forced to use a food bank to feed their family and go into debt to pay their bills after just three weeks of relying on statutory sick pay.

    I have described just a glimpse of the horrific social harm inflicted on people in this country by this Government’s refusal to provide proper financial support during this crisis. People are being forced to choose between putting food on the table and self-isolating to protect their community and their colleagues. This is happening in every constituency of every Member across the country. MPs in this House know it is, and those who refuse to call for better sick pay have to take responsibility for the consequences.

    The two biggest problems with sick pay have been clear from the very start: the level that it is paid at is far too low and, even then, huge numbers of workers are excluded from actually getting it. At £95.85 a week, statutory sick pay is an 80% cut in income for an average worker. Many workers simply cannot afford the immediate loss of income. And who can live off £14 per day? The TUC found that two fifths of workers would have to go into debt or miss paying bills if they had to take statutory sick pay.

    Of course, the terrible consequences of this unacceptably low level of support are not felt equally. Many of the workers hardest hit by it are the same workers on the frontline fighting this pandemic. Let us look at social care. The GMB trade union has revealed that the majority of the UK’s social care workers are entitled only to statutory minimum sick pay, with no additional sick pay from their employer. When the GMB consulted its members who work in social care about what they would do if they had to rely on statutory sick pay, a full 81% said that they would be forced in to work. The Office for National Statistics found that care homes where staff got contractual sick pay above the level of statutory sick pay were less likely to have covid cases than those where staff were forced to rely on the statutory minimum. It is hard to imagine a more fatally self-defeating system during a pandemic than one that leaves care workers forced to go in to work when they should be self-isolating. How many people died in care homes because of this Government’s refusal to properly support workers financially when they are unwell?

    As if the paltry level of sick pay was not enough of a problem, nearly 2 million of the lowest paid workers do not even qualify for sick pay because they do not earn enough. The lower earnings limit means that those earning less than £120 a week are prohibited from accessing sick pay—a discriminatory measure, given that 70% of the workers excluded by that limit are women. Millions of self-employed workers are also excluded. That is the stark reality of working conditions in this country in the 21st century: millions of workers—disproportionately women, black and minority ethnic workers, and those on zero-hours contracts—excluded from even the most basic and limited support by the Government.

    From the start of the pandemic, Labour has called for urgent action to remove the barriers to sick pay that have left the lowest paid workers without support. Throughout the pandemic, trade unions such as Unite the union have made consistent demands on the Government to increase statutory sick pay to the level of the real living wage, and to remove the minimum income requirement so that every worker who needs to self-isolate is supported to do so. The Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union has also called for the Government to legislate for full rights to contractual sick pay for all workers from day one, paid at 100% of wages. Outside the Conservative party, there is even widespread support in Parliament, with MPs from seven parties signing up to support my motion calling for sick pay at a real living wage level.

    I am sure that the Minister’s response will include reference to the Government’s £500 self-isolation support scheme. It is true that, six months into the pandemic, the Government introduced a scheme to give a one-off payment to some people on low incomes who have to self-isolate. Unfortunately, the scheme is woefully inadequate. Only one in eight workers qualify automatically for the main payment; the rest have had to apply for a discretionary payment, and figures suggest that 70% of applications for support from that scheme were rejected.

    Back in November, I asked the Government how many people had applied for that payment. It took more than 100 days to get an answer, and when it finally came, it was that the Government still did not have the figures. No one could honestly look at the scheme and claim that it is an adequate alternative to providing proper sick pay at real living wage levels.

    We know that covid is increasingly a disease of the poor. Those living in the most deprived neighbourhoods have been more than twice as likely to die from covid as those in the least deprived. People in some of the lowest-paid manual jobs are three times more likely to die of covid-19 than those in higher-paid, white-collar jobs. Covid is still circulating at higher levels in the poorest neighbourhoods than in the wealthiest. Proper levels of statutory sick pay would disproportionately help those in poorer areas and in manual occupations, and that is what needs to happen. When we look at why the Government have never acted on increasing sick pay as a priority, perhaps that is the real answer.

    Sick pay was already broken before the pandemic struck, yet even in a global health crisis, the Government have chosen not to fix it, helping the virus spread out of control. The Government cannot claim not to have been warned in advance of the scale of this problem, because just months before the covid crisis struck, their own consultation on sick pay said that the system of statutory sick pay

    “does not reflect modern working practices, such as flexible working,”

    and looked at

    “widening eligibility for SSP to extend protection to those on the lowest incomes”.

    I, along with many in the labour and trade union movements, have been demanding better sick pay for workers for almost a year. In fact, it was a year ago tomorrow—when the UK had a total of just three deaths from covid—that the TUC published a report warning the Government to urgently make our sick pay system fit for purpose. The report called on the Government immediately to raise sick pay to the level of the real living wage and make it accessible to all workers, including the lowest paid. Those recommendations were ignored. It was also last March that the Health Secretary himself said that he could not afford to live off statutory sick pay, but, 12 months on, his Government have done nothing to raise it. If only the Health Secretary were as generous with the payments to working people as he appears to be with his friends when handing out Government contracts.

    The Government’s refusal to act decisively has meant that the virus has spread more than it would have done, and people have lost their lives who otherwise would be with us still. The Government knew about this problem from day one but chose not to address it. The decision not to raise sick pay to a level that workers can actually live on is a deliberate political calculation from this Government. They feared that if sick pay was improved during this crisis, they would never be able to lower it again in the future; it would be a permanent gain for working people. This Conservative Government cannot allow that because it would go against the grain of the constant undermining of our welfare state. Fundamentally, the Conservative party sees the social security system as a means to punish—be that by setting universal credit deliberately low or the cruel bedroom tax— rather than it being there to support people when they need help.

    The Chancellor has a chance finally to sort this issue out tomorrow at the Budget. If he does not, once again he will have shown which side this Government are on, and it is not on the side of working people and their families.

  • Preet Kaur Gill – 2021 Speech on Yemen

    Preet Kaur Gill – 2021 Speech on Yemen

    The speech made by Preet Kaur Gill, the Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, in the House of Commons on 2 March 2021.

    The Government’s announcement yesterday at the high pledging conference discarded the British people’s proud history of stepping up and supporting those in need. In the middle of a pandemic, when millions stand on the brink of famine, the Government slashed life-saving support to the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, halving direct aid to Yemen weeks after they announced £1.36 billion in new arms licences to Saudi Arabia. This is a devastating reminder of the real world impact that the Government’s choices to abandon their manifesto commitment on aid will have on the most vulnerable people and shows that this Government just cannot be trusted to keep their word.

    After six years of brutal conflict, two thirds of the Yemeni population rely on food aid to survive and thousands of people in the country are at risk of famine. Cutting aid is a death sentence that this Government have chosen to make, so will the Minister take this opportunity to apologise? Alongside this cut in humanitarian support, the UK continues to sustain the war in Yemen. Will the Minister follow the lead set by President Biden by stopping all UK arms sales to the Saudi-led coalition, so that we can use our role as the penholder on Yemen to help bring this brutal conflict to an end?

    If the Foreign Secretary is willing to brazenly slash support to people living in the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, despite claiming for months that humanitarian crises were a priority, then the question is, what is going to happen to the rest of the aid budget on other priorities? The Minister has refused

    “to talk to the aid and development community about what will be cut”

    because he is ashamed. He is ashamed that the Government’s cuts will put millions of people’s lives at risk. This Government cannot continue to pretend otherwise. So will they publish a full list of the cuts made in 2020 and of the cuts to be made in 2021 by the end of this week?

    What we saw yesterday are not the actions of global Britain. That phrase rings hollow. Make no mistake: as the UK abandons its commitment to 0.7%, it is simultaneously undermining our global reputation. Does the Minister believe that he has the support of this House to make this appalling cut and, if so, will he bring forward a vote on the 0.7% commitment? Tomorrow, the Chancellor has a choice. He must reverse his decision to make the UK the only G7 nation to cut its aid budget. He must reverse his Government’s retreat from the world stage and celebrate Britain’s proud history as a country that stands up for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable in society. That is the true test of global Britain.

  • James Cleverly – 2021 Statement on Yemen

    James Cleverly – 2021 Statement on Yemen

    The statement made by James Cleverly, the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, in the House of Commons on 2 March 2021.

    I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for raising this urgent question. The situation in Yemen remains among the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Two thirds of the entire population—more than 20 million people—require some form of humanitarian assistance. The UN estimates that in the first half of this year, 47,000 people will be in famine conditions and 16.2 million will be at risk of starvation. Improving the dire circumstances faced by so many Yemenis continues to be a priority for this Government.

    Yesterday, I attended the high-level pledging conference for the United Nations humanitarian appeal for Yemen. I announced that the UK will provide at least—I repeat, at least—£87 million in aid to Yemen over the course of financial year 2021-22. Our total aid contribution since the conflict began was already over £1 billion. This new pledge will feed an additional 240,000 of the most vulnerable Yemenis every month, support 400 health clinics and provide clean water for 1.6 million people. We will also provide one-off cash support to 1.5 million of Yemen’s poorest households to help them buy food and basic supplies.

    Alongside the money that the UK is spending to reduce humanitarian suffering in Yemen, we continue to play a leading diplomatic role in support of the UN’s efforts to end the conflict. Yesterday, I spoke to the United Nations special envoy, Martin Griffiths, and we discussed how the UK could assist him in ending this devastating war. Last week, the United Nations Security Council adopted a UK-drafted resolution that reiterated the Council’s support for the United Nations peace process, condemned the Houthi offensive in Marib and attacks on Saudi Arabia and sanctioned Houthi official Sultan Zabin for the use of sexual violence as a tool of war.

    Just last night, a Houthi missile hit and injured five civilians in southern Saudi Arabia. I condemn that further attack by the Houthis on civilian targets in Saudi Arabia and reiterate our commitment to help Saudi Arabia defend itself.

    We are also working closely with our regional and international partners for peace. On 25 February, the Foreign Secretary spoke to the Saudi Foreign Minister, Faisal bin Farhan, about the Yemen peace process, and he also recently discussed this with the US Secretary of State. I discussed Yemen with the Omani ambassador to the UK on 4 February and spoke to the Yemeni Foreign Minister on 20 January regarding the attack on Aden and the formation of a new Yemeni Cabinet.

    The UK is also leading efforts to tackle covid-19 in Yemen and around the world. This month, as part of the UN Security Council presidency, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary called for a ceasefire across the globe to allow vulnerable people living in conflict zones to be vaccinated against covid-19. The UK, as one the biggest donors to the World Health Organisation and GAVI’s COVAX initiative, is helping ensure that millions of vaccine doses get through to people living in crises such as Yemen.

    I thank my right hon. Friend for raising this question and thank hon. Members for their continued interest in Yemen. The conflict and humanitarian crisis deserves our attention, and the UK Government remain fully committed to doing what we can to help secure a better future for Yemenis.

  • Victoria Atkins – 2021 Statement on Controlling or Coercive Behaviour Offence

    Victoria Atkins – 2021 Statement on Controlling or Coercive Behaviour Offence

    The statement made by Victoria Atkins, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office, in the House of Commons on 1 March 2021.

    Today, I am pleased to announce the publication of the Government’s review into the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour (CCB) in an intimate or family relationship—as provided for in section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015. The review follows a commitment made in response to the 2018 consultation on domestic abuse.

    The review considered the available data and research to understand how the CCB offence has been working since its introduction in 2015. It found that since the offence came into force in December 2015, police recorded CCB offences, as well as CCB prosecutions, have increased year on year. These increases demonstrate that the CCB offence is being used across the criminal justice system (CJS), indicating that the legislation has provided an improved legal framework to tackle CCB. However, the review recognises that there is still room for improvement, particularly with regard to raising awareness of what constitutes CCB among the public and across the CJS, and improving the ability of the CJS to record, evidence and prosecute these crimes. The review also considered views from a number of stakeholders who expressed concern that the cohabitation requirement within the offence is preventing some victims of this abuse from seeking justice, and poses challenges for police and prosecutors to evidence and charge abusive behaviours that are not captured by other legislation.

    The review made a number of recommendations, including:

    Building on the work of the Office for National Statistics in 2017, to develop robust estimates of the prevalence and characteristics of CCB;

    In consultation with victims and support services, to develop suitable measures for victim outcomes;

    Further work to assess the levels of awareness and understanding of the offence across the criminal justice system.

    The review also recognised calls for legislative change, highlighting in particular the removal of the cohabitation requirement as well as some calls to extend the maximum sentence length and to remove the requirement to evidence a “serious effect” on the victim. As such, the review made the following research recommendations:

    If legislative changes are implemented, the operation of the legislation should be monitored and reviewed closely to assess the impact and identify any unintended consequences;

    If legislative changes are not made at this time, further research should be undertaken to ascertain the need for, and impact of, such changes to the legislation.

    CCB is an insidious form of domestic abuse and this Government are committed to ensuring all victims are protected. We recognise that coercive or controlling behaviours may escalate following separation, and that members of a victim’s extended family may be involved in control or coercion. We have heard the calls from experts on this matter, and I am very pleased to say that the Government will be removing the cohabitation requirement contained within the offence through an amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill at Report stage in the House of Lords. This amendment will bring the controlling or coercive behaviour offence into line with the statutory definition of domestic abuse in clause 1 of the Bill and send a clear message to both victims and perpetrators that controlling or coercive behaviours, irrespective of living status, are a form of domestic abuse.

    We recognise that the review also raised questions around the need for other legislative change, including reference to increasing the maximum penalty for the CCB offence in line with the current maximum penalty for stalking, and removing the evidence requirement to prove that the behaviour had a serious effect on the victim. Given the review acknowledged that evidence for these changes is currently limited, we will continue to monitor the offence and keep these other proposals for legislative change under review.

    This summer we will be publishing a domestic abuse strategy which will build on work to date to help transform the response to domestic abuse, tackling perpetrators and placing the needs of victims at the heart of our response. We will consider the wider policy and data recommendations made in the review throughout the development and implementation of this strategy, and will of course continue to engage with domestic abuse organisations throughout this process. We will also update the statutory guidance for the controlling or coercive behaviour offence to reflect both the findings of the review and change to the legislation.

    Domestic abuse is an abhorrent crime and this Government are committed to doing all that we can support victims and tackle offenders. I am delighted that, in removing the co-habitation requirement within the CCB offence, we are able to take another step in ensuring every victim has access to the protection that they need.

    A copy of the review will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

  • Stephen Morgan – 2021 Speech on Fire Safety Remediation for Leaseholders

    Stephen Morgan – 2021 Speech on Fire Safety Remediation for Leaseholders

    The speech made by Stephen Morgan, the Labour MP for Portsmouth South, in the House of Commons on 1 March 2021.

    Happy St David’s Day, Mr Deputy Speaker. I rise to speak about the ongoing issues faced by leaseholders in my constituency and across the country in securing funds for the remediation of unsafe non-aluminium composite material cladding systems through the building safety fund. I am pleased to have secured this debate on this important issue, which continues to cause great distress to leaseholders in my constituency. I am aware that many Members would like to contribute but will be unable to do so because of the virtual format. I will, however, endeavour to cover a number of points that those Members would have liked to raise, and I hope that the Minister will be generous with his time to allow others concerned by this important issue to place their points on the record.

    Uncovered by the tragedy of Grenfell, now three and a half years ago, the process of remediating unsafe cladding on high-rise buildings has unfortunately become a lengthy and complex saga. I want to focus specifically today on the experience of leaseholders in non-ACM-clad buildings in my constituency. I want to highlight the ongoing difficulties faced by building owners and residents in accessing the building safety fund, as there are still fundamental questions about its scale and administration. I also want to discuss buildings below 18 metres and encourage the Government to address the flawed building regulation system that the ongoing cladding scandal has exposed. Most urgently, however, this a safety issue. Through no fault of their own, residents find themselves in potentially unsafe homes and vulnerable to huge costs that may still not be covered by Government funding. It is these residents—constituents in my city and across the country—to whom I would like the Minister to provide assurance this evening.

    There are a number of buildings with unsafe non-ACM cladding in my city. Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government figures tell us that so far 23 of those have made applications to the building safety fund. Residents in these buildings have suddenly found themselves in unsafe homes and potentially liable to astronomical costs for remediation. This lets down everyone, from first-time buyers to pensioners. One of my constituents put it best when she wrote to me recently:

    “I may be asked to contribute between 20,000 to 30,000 pounds towards remediation. I am retired and I have very limited income. I will not be able to raise this sort of capital. I am very worried about whether I’ll lose my apartment. I did not cause this problem.”

    In many cases, these leaseholders are unable to sell their homes because of inconsistent EWS1 processes and so are consigned to long and nerve-racking waits to see if their building will obtain Government funding. In addition to the obvious financial pressures, I do not believe that the mental health and wellbeing implications have been properly discussed.

    Since this debate was originally secured, the Government have taken welcome steps forward. The creation and enhancement of the building safety fund is welcome, but there are still large holes in the safety net. I have been contacted by leaseholders and property management companies who have registered by the original July deadline and have been given no information on whether they will be invited to make an application to the fund, no sense of the length of time they will have to wait for a decision, and no direct means of contact to obtain clarity on the situation. Separately, Portsmouth City Council has registered 14 blocks with the fund. The Government have rejected 11 of these so far, some on spurious grounds such as their being deemed to be in a “non-critical location”. Lord Greenhalgh recently suggested that there are about 1,700 non-ACM-clad buildings in need of remediation work. However, there has been no proper assessment of the number of buildings across the country that need work. The first come, first served nature of the fund means that applications will not be considered or prioritised based on risk, and there is no hard deadline for the completion of works.

    Progressing remediation work on unsafe cladding systems must be an urgent priority if we are to avoid further catastrophes following the Grenfell Tower fire. It is therefore disappointing that the administration of the fund itself is preventing vital safety work from commencing and stopping leaseholders moving on with their lives. In the meantime, they have found themselves liable for yet more temporary safety measures, such as the 24-hour waking watch. While the Government have now established a welcome relief fund to cover the costs of this, progress on remediation has been painfully slow.

    Health and safety must be the priority, and Ministers should focus on the rapid disbursal of funds in the immediate term, while pursuing developers and recovery costs where possible. I wrote to Lord Greenhalgh summarising these issues on 8 December, but disappointingly have received no response, despite efforts to follow up. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister would provide an answer as to whether he will make regular updates on the processing of applications through the building safety fund, how the distribution of funds is being prioritised, and what steps he will take to speed up payments.

    The prospectus for the building safety fund also states that buildings under 18 metres in height will not be covered. This was of little comfort to those in the buildings affected in my constituency. The loan scheme recently introduced by the Government will relieve residents of having to pay a lump sum up front, but ultimately it still leaves them liable to pay to fix a problem that they did not create and that will likely mean they will still struggle to sell. The Government have drawn an arbitrary distinction on this issue, which represents a piecemeal approach to making these buildings safe. If cladding is unsafe, it is surely unsafe regardless of the height of the building it sits on. The building safety fund should therefore apply to buildings of any height. The Housing Minister recently suggested data was being collected on buildings between 11 and 18 metres high. I therefore ask him to update us on the progress of that work, whether it includes the buildings in my constituency and whether he plans to extend the fund to cover these buildings.

    Last week, this House considered amendments from the other place on the Fire Safety Bill. The Government had an opportunity to back Labour amendments that would have absolved leaseholders of burdensome costs, and set things right for the future by placing robust requirements on building owners and managers to implement recommendations from phase 1 of the Grenfell inquiry. The Government voted against both, so we have now reached the absurd situation in which this Government have voted against implementing the recommendations of their own review, which they promised to accept. The Building Safety Bill, which does include long-overdue reforms of the wider sector, is still without a date for First Reading.

    That brings me to my final point. Residents and building owners find themselves in these situations because of a systemic failure of regulation stretching back decades. These buildings were constructed with materials that were approved at the time. There is now little incentive for anyone in the long chain of those involved, from contractors to regulators to building owners, to take responsibility for sorting out this important issue, because it now comes with a hefty price tag. Some developers have now tacitly accepted the need for a levy and they are to be commended, but it is not a holistic solution.

    Since the tragedy of Grenfell, successive Governments have been irresponsibly slow at tackling this issue. Residents’ groups, campaigners and Members of this House have had to drag Ministers kicking and screaming to take responsibility for protecting residents in high-rise blocks with all types of cladding. And we still are not there. While recent, if overdue, efforts made by the Government to provide funding are welcome, we have yet to see an unequivocal commitment to removing costs from leaseholders, disbursing available funds as quickly as possible and recovering them from industry at a later date. On this last issue, the Government are not using important convening power to set expectations of developers, contractors and insurers that would benefit leaseholders who have been affected.

    I would like to conclude by summarising my asks of the Minister. First, the Government must finally lift the cost burden from leaseholders and redouble efforts to recover funds from the sector. They should distribute funds as quickly as possible and set a hard timeline for the completion of remediation works. They must recognise and repay interim funds in full. Finally, they must ensure that legislation includes a clear regulatory framework with a common standard to make sure this never happens again.

    Building safety issues threaten to turn dream homes into a nightmare for my constituents. The Government must keep to their promise that leaseholders will not pay for the consequences of their cladding crisis.

  • Kwasi Kwarteng – 2021 Statement on Vauxhall at Ellesmere Port

    Kwasi Kwarteng – 2021 Statement on Vauxhall at Ellesmere Port

    The statement made by Kwasi Kwarteng, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in the House of Commons on 1 March 2021.

    I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for the great work he did as Secretary of State. He was the first Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and I think that we can all say that we appreciate the outstanding work he did at that time.

    The Government are absolutely committed to ensuring the future of manufacturing at Ellesmere Port and to secure the jobs and livelihoods of the workers at the plant. Since I was appointed Business Secretary last month, I have held a number of meetings with both Vauxhall and its new parent company, Stellantis, to support the company to make a positive investment decision. Only last week, I also held a constructive meeting with the general secretary of Unite, Mr Len McCluskey. Over the coming days and weeks, I, fellow Ministers and officials at BEIS will continue this intensive dialogue with the company.

    More widely, the Government are continuing their long-standing programme of support to keep the British automotive sector at the forefront of technology and maintain its competitiveness, building on the work that my right hon. Friend did through the automotive sector deal.

    It is my priority as Business Secretary to ensure that the UK continues to enjoy the benefits from our transition to ultra low and zero emission vehicles by continuing to build an agile, innovative and cost-competitive supply chain, which we need to secure vital international investment. With that in mind, we remain dedicated and absolutely committed to securing UK battery manufacturing. As part of the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan, we have already announced £500 million to support the electrification of vehicles and their supply chains, and other strategically important technologies, through the automotive transformation fund over the next four years. We continue to work with investors through the automotive transformation fund, and to progress plans for manufacturing the batteries that we will need for the next generation of electric vehicles here in the UK.

    The Government and industry have jointly committed almost £1.5 billion through the Advanced Propulsion Centre and Faraday battery challenge to support the research, development and manufacture of zero and low emission technologies. Between 2013 and 2020, the Advanced Propulsion Centre has funded 67 collaborative R&D projects, creating and safeguarding nearly 47,000 jobs, with projected CO2 savings of 244 million tonnes.

    I repeat: we are 100% committed to making sure that the UK continues to be one of the best locations in the world for automotive manufacturing, and we are doing all we can to protect and create jobs while securing a competitive future for the sector here in the UK in particular, including at Ellesmere Port.

  • Tulip Siddiq – 2021 Comments on Funding Changes for Nurseries

    Tulip Siddiq – 2021 Comments on Funding Changes for Nurseries

    The comments made by Tulip Siddiq, the Shadow Minister for Children and Early Years, on 2 March 2021.

    Nurseries and childminders have provided an incredible service remaining open to all children in lockdown, yet the Government is rewarding them with funding changes that could force a quarter of all providers to close their doors for good.

    Early years providers need targeted support to survive this crisis, not to have the rug pulled from under their feet at the height of the pandemic.

    There is a real danger that the childcare sector will collapse unless the Government rethinks these funding changes, with young children, working parents and our economy paying the price.