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Tag: Anthony Browne

  • Anthony Browne – 2023 Speech on the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Bill

    Anthony Browne – 2023 Speech on the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Bill

    The speech made by Anthony Browne, the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, in the House of Commons on 3 March 2023.

    I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) on bringing forward this private Member’s Bill, and on his birthday as well—hopefully, seeing his Bill pass its Third Reading will be a fantastic birthday present for him. Like my various colleagues, I welcome the scope extension to include tradesmen and their tools, but I will concentrate my comments on the original rural focus of the Bill.

    Like my various colleagues, I have a rural constituency; I have many farmers in my constituency, and whenever I ask them what their key concerns are and how we can help, rural crime is always one of their top concerns. Indeed, just at the end of last year, I had a meeting with local farmers in the village of Abington Pigotts, which incidentally has a wonderful pub called the Pig & Abbot. Anyone who is in the area should visit that pub. There were 30 farmers there, and we were talking about rural crime. I did a little poll: I asked, “Who has experienced rural crime in the past year?”, and every single one of those 30 farmers stuck up their hand. Every single one had been a victim of rural crime in the past year.

    The police do their best. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham mentioned the hard work of the police, and I know they work hard in Cambridgeshire, but it is often very difficult to crack down on rural crime. As my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) mentioned, urban crimes have a 25% higher enforcement rate than rural crimes. That is not just in South Cambridgeshire, obviously, but in all rural areas: when the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution did its big farming survey, 38% of farmers said that they had been victims of rural crime in the past year. Cereal farmers, who make up a large part of my farming community, are the hardest hit, with 51%—more than half—being victims of rural crime. As such, I fully appreciate and support the intent of the Bill.

    It is easy for people to dismiss the seriousness of rural crime; it is often seen as something that we do not really need to worry about. Quad bikes and ATVs, which are the focus of the Bill, are often viewed as leisure vehicles by many members of the public—they see advertisements for quad bike adventures, something that can be done in my constituency as well—but for farmers, they are serious working vehicles. Various hon. Friends have mentioned how dependent farmers are on their equipment to make a living. For farmers, those quad bikes and ATVs make them far more efficient when covering large areas; without them, they simply cannot do the work. Many farmers work on very tight margins, and having farm equipment operational makes the difference between making money for the year, enabling them to pay their wages, and losing money. Having proper, working farm equipment is crucial to people’s livelihoods. That is why agricultural machinery theft was reported to be a top priority for the police to tackle in the 2020 rural crime survey.

    Quad bikes and ATVs make particularly attractive targets. They are obviously transportable: a thief can load them on to a trailer or a lorry and whisk them away very easily. They often have poor security features that do little to deter those thieves. Their value on the second-hand market has increased recently, making them even more attractive as targets—that is because of the supply chain issues that make it quite difficult to order new ones, as we heard earlier. Currently, it takes three to six months to get a replacement vehicle, which is an incredibly long time for a farmer to cope without vital equipment.

    As such, I fully welcome the measures in the Bill to clamp down on this problem: they make a lot of common sense. Cars have had immobilisers on them for over 20 years, and it is time that ATVs and quad bikes followed suit. Immobilisers act as a significant deterrent by making vehicles much harder to steal. As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham mentioned, this is not just about making it easier to catch vehicles afterwards, but about deterring the crime in the first place.

    A vehicle register also seems like a natural step to take, as better record keeping will help put an end to the grey markets that the criminals tend to operate in. During my research for this speech, I came across the CESAR scheme—the construction and agricultural equipment security and registration scheme—which has a database of ownership and covert markings. That scheme has reported a 60% decline in thefts since it came into operation in 2008, and I hope this Bill will be the catalyst for a similar trend in quad bikes and ATVs.

    The Bill will save farmers much aggravation from the fallout and cost of theft. It will be good for police, because it will hopefully reduce the amount of work they have to do, and if there are cases of theft, they will be easier for police to track down and solve. It will also lead to a reduction in insurance premiums over time, which will be incredibly welcome for farmers while energy prices and the cost of living are so high.

    This and any Bill that tackles rural crime will always have my wholehearted support. We need to level up our response to crimes committed outside cities. I am glad to see that organisations such as the NFU and the Countryside Alliance, which I know are important in my constituency and elsewhere, fully support the Bill. I support it, and I hope it makes speedy passage through the Lords.

  • Anthony Browne – 2023 Speech on Luton Flightpaths

    Anthony Browne – 2023 Speech on Luton Flightpaths

    The speech made by Anthony Browne, the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, in the House of Commons on 9 January 2023.

    I am glad that we are saving the best until last. I am also grateful for the opportunity to discuss changes to flightpaths into Luton airport or, to use the technical name, the Swanwick airspace improvement programme—airspace deployment 6.

    There are good arguments in favour of changing flightpaths in some way and I welcome the overarching ambition of the programme. Prior to the implementation of the new flightpaths last February, Luton and Stansted airports shared the same holding stacks for arrivals. For the UK’s fifth and third largest airports, that was a problem, because delays at one airport could lead to delays at the other. Separate arrival routes, combined with a dedicated holding stack for each airport, will be less prone to delays and will be safer, especially in the light of potential expansion at both airports, but the implementation of those changes is a major cause of local concern.

    Behind the rather bland, technical-sounding name—airspace deployment 6—is a tale of deep distress for local residents in my constituency and neighbouring ones. South Cambridgeshire is quintessential English countryside, scattered with tranquil villages where many residents have lived their entire lives. Others moved there precisely because they wanted the peace and quiet. They wanted to escape the hustle and bustle of urban life.

    All that changed in February, when the area became the new home of Luton airport’s holding stack. These once serene villages now have their tranquillity shattered by the roar of jet engines flying overhead. Rather than the soporific sounds of songbirds, residents are awoken by the sound of air brakes screeching overhead as aeroplanes prepare to land. Unsurprisingly, I and fellow MPs have received a huge number of anguished complaints from our constituents about this. They have told me about the distressing impact it has had on their mental and physical wellbeing. A few accounts particularly stick in mind.

    Gareth Squance is a former Metropolitan police officer, who sought solace in the village of Gamlingay in my constituency. During his time in the Met, he was intentionally run over and left for dead while promoting safe cycle week. That incident left him suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, for which noise is the primary trigger. Immersing himself in nature and recording the ambient noises provided a coping mechanism, but now the new plane noise forces him to leave the house with noise-cancelling headphones to avoid triggering a state of panic.

    Suzie Smith is the third generation of her family to farm in the area. The aeroplane noise is keeping her up at night, which is affecting her ability to perform her duties around the farm in the early hours of the morning. She does not know what to do. This is the area she grew up in and loves, but the plane noise is making farm life unbearable. It has driven her to make countless complaints, which have only received generic, automated responses from Luton airport.

    Maddy McKenzie suffers from complex health issues and struggles immensely with hypersensitivity. She finds the plane noise a relentless torment, and she is powerless to escape it. The noise is taking a toll on her physical and mental health. If she could move, she would, but instead she is trapped by the endless plane noise when all she wanted was a quiet life.

    I have heard myriad similar tales from my constituents. Many residents are suffering sleepless nights as they are awoken every time a plane goes overhead, which can be up to every two minutes in busy periods. Other residents say they feel like prisoners in their homes, unable to use the gardens that were once their pride and joy, but are now echo chambers for the all-consuming plane noise. It has led some to conclude that enough is enough. After decades of living in these villages, the noise pollution has forced them to move. These people are valued members of their local community, and they are being forced out. Some people feel those that can move are the lucky ones. Others must accept their lot for a range of reasons from financial to health-related concerns. They are demoralised and cannot see any way out of this predicament.

    The strength of emotion and the explosion of local outrage have led to a number of new campaign groups determined to end the noise. There are three groups I am aware of that are working tirelessly for a better solution: Reject Luton Airport Stacking, or RELAS; Community Alternatives to Luton’s Flight Path, or CALF; and Against Luton Airport Stack, or ALAS—my favourite acronym. We must ensure that their grievances are given a fair hearing, and that is the point of this Adjournment debate tonight.

    I acknowledge that this is only one side of the coin. Air travel plays a vital role in our increasingly globalised world. Just recently, I was speaking about the business opportunities that new routes from Stansted to other life science hubs such as Boston and San Francisco could bring to Cambridgeshire and to the country as a whole. Like many others, I enjoy the opportunity to go on holiday, often travelling by plane. We must accept that some people will be affected by noise pollution from planes. Often people are aware of the impact and make calculated decisions about where they are going to live based on their tolerance levels. For example, many Londoners can cope with plane noise every day, and it blends into the cacophony of other city noises.

    Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)

    Will my hon. Friend give way?

    Anthony Browne

    I am very happy to give way to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour.

    Mr Djanogly

    I congratulate my hon. Friend and Cambridgeshire neighbour on securing this debate, which is very important to many of those in both our constituencies, especially in the villages surrounding St Neots, and in my case in Great Gransden and Abbotsley in particular. My hon. Friend is making a very good case on noise levels, with which I totally agree—namely, that acceptable ambient noise levels are based on levels in urban areas, and are therefore inherently prejudicial to rural people. Does he not agree that this should be changed?

    Anthony Browne

    I thank my hon. Friend for that insightful intervention and I fully agree; I was going to make exactly the same point, but he beat me to it.

    The people who chose to live in South Cambridgeshire did so because of the quiet rural life. They moved there for this reason and chose to bring their children up there for this reason. Very few, if any, ever foresaw the radical change that flightpaths could have on the area. It must have been quite a shock to hear that first plane soar noisily overhead.

    Of course, there was a consultation beforehand, conducted by Luton airport and NATS. That consultation lasted five months and received over 2,000 responses. However, it took place in unusual circumstances, due to the ravages of covid. Engagement was virtual rather than the usual town hall meetings, and many people seemed unaware that the consultation was going on.

    Since society has rebounded to some sense of normality, it is easy to forget the extraordinary times that prevailed during the pandemic. Air travel was down 90% on its pre-covid peak at certain points and people’s concern over flightpaths were crowded out by their more immediate health concerns about the pandemic. It is not for me to judge the adequacy of the consultation, although others may have their views, but I can say that I am disappointed that, as a key stakeholder, South Cambridgeshire District Council was not engaged more during the process. For many residents, the idea of planes above 5,000 feet sounded quite abstract and distant and of little consequence to their daily lives, but in reality they can often see the logos on each plane as it flies past, and the disruptive noise has permeated their daily lives.

    Mr Djanogly

    My hon. Friend is very kind to allow me to intervene again. He makes an important point, and this unintelligible consultation has worked only to the benefit of those in the flying industry who understood it. When we secured an increase of height for flying above the stack over my constituency, from 8,000 to 9,000 feet, there was no intimation at that point that planes would fly so low coming out of that stack and so quickly, to the prejudice of our constituents. Does he agree that the consultation should be rerun and the whole system should be revised?

    Anthony Browne

    The idea of rerunning the consultation is very interesting; I had not thought of it but will do so, as it sounds like a good idea.

    It is clear from what my hon. Friend says and the correspondence from my constituents that the impact and disturbance has been much greater than people were led to believe when the consultation was taking place—they thought it would be very mild. I would argue that this was inevitable, given the current guidelines provided to NATS and Luton airport for the creation of the new flightpath. The guidance states that noise pollution below 51 decibels will not unduly impact the quality of life of those affected. As my hon. Friend said, for urban areas near airports that is perfectly reasonable as the aeroplane noise blends into the other staple sounds of city life. For instance, a street with traffic can consistently be around the 70-decibel level, so 51 decibels would not add much—the planes are only an additional, minor irritant. The same cannot be said for rural areas, however. In South Cambridgeshire the ambient noise levels are far lower, as I am sure they are in my hon. Friend’s constituency: during the day it is around 31 decibels and at night around 18—really very quiet. This means that aeroplane noise has a far greater impact. For context, if we are within 10 metres of a heavy goods vehicle passing, the noise is roughly 48 decibels. For someone living in a local village, such as Dry Drayton in my constituency, planes coming into land at 11 pm are very disruptive; it is the equivalent of many HGVs in quick succession passing close by their house.

    That brings me to my first ask of the Minister—who I am glad is here tonight; thank you—which is to revise the guidance to reflect the differing ambient noise levels of urban and rural areas, the point my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) made so eloquently a minute or so ago. What is important is not the absolute noise of an aircraft, but its relative noise compared to the normal ambient noise of an area. Therefore, there should be a separate noise limit, lower than 51 decibels, for rural areas. That will encourage the design of flightpaths around areas where they will cause relatively less nuisance and distress due to the high levels of existing ambient noise, such as over cities. This should be reviewed with the upmost urgency and considered as part of the post-implementation review for the new Luton flightpaths —or part of a rerun consultation, as my hon. Friend suggests.

    NATS and Luton airport are doing a post-implementation review of the flightpath changes. I welcomed an initial extension of this review to June 2023, as a result of concerns that flight volumes were still recovering from the pandemic levels, but I do not think that goes far enough. If the consultation is not redone as a whole, as my hon. Friend suggests, will the Minister ask the Civil Aviation Authority to extend the review by a further three months to September 2023? I wrote a letter to the authority on the matter on 2 December, but I am advised that it is still under consideration. Extending the review for three months to September would allow it to encompass the peak season of travel in July and August at normal operating levels. It is important that we understand the impact of the noise of the holiday season on constituents.

    I also want to take the opportunity to raise my concern about the review process. It alarms me that it is the responsibility of NATS and Luton airport to report back to the Civil Aviation Authority on the success or otherwise of their flightpaths. There is no direct recourse for residents to lodge their complaints to the Civil Aviation Authority. That is tantamount to NATS and Luton airport marking their own homework. There is a real risk that the assessment is neither objective, nor seen to be by residents. That leads me to my third ask of the Minister.

    Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con) rose—

    Anthony Browne

    I am happy to give way.

    Richard Fuller

    I am on tenterhooks to hear what my hon. Friend will say. I thank him for calling this important debate. That my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), a neighbouring constituency, is also in his place shows its importance to our constituents. In my case, its importance is to those constituents from Potton through Sutton and down the eastern part of my constituency. To his point about rerunning the consultation and NATS and Luton airport marking their own homework, does he not agree that the change was made because Luton airport wants to expand—it is not about managing existing levels of air traffic but to facilitate a substantial 50% or 60% increase in flightpaths—and that that is another good reason for him to pursue the course that he suggested?

    Anthony Browne

    I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He makes the very important point, which I touched on briefly, that this is about expansion of the airport. That makes it even more important to get it right now, because whatever the noise levels are now, they will get far worse as traffic at Luton expands.

    I will take my hon. Friend off his tenterhook—I was about to make my third ask of the Minister. Can the CAP1616 process for changing airspace be reviewed for this and future consultations to ensure that there is a more independent analysis once new flightpaths are implemented and that NATS and airports do not mark their own homework?

    Richard Fuller

    The other aspect of marking their own homework, which the Minister should be aware of from the debate, is that the land on which Luton airport is based is owned by Luton Borough Council, and that council gets to decide on planning issues to do with the expansion of Luton airport. By my reckoning, the council gets £20 million a year into its coffers at the moment—that will probably double—and not a penny of that money gets shared with constituents in Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire or Bedfordshire whose lives are impacted in the ways that my hon. Friend has suggested. Is it not incumbent on the Minister to look for legislation to say that if an airport is to be expanded, there needs to be a greater sharing of the benefits and that, basically, Luton needs to pay up for the rest of us who are affected and not put all its money in the council’s own pockets?

    Anthony Browne

    I thank my hon. Friend for raising that powerful point. I had not been aware of those financial implications.

    My fourth and final ask for the Minister, in addition to those from my hon. Friends, is to join me in calling for greater transparency from National Air Traffic Services and Luton airport. The final decision on flightpaths has the potential to significantly impact many people’s lives for the foreseeable future, so it is vital that we gather all the data necessary to make a comprehensive and informed decision.

    In October, I convened a meeting with National Air Traffic Services, Luton airport, the Civil Aviation Authority, campaign groups and my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon. In the meeting, National Air Traffic Services said that it was happy to share its automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast and radar data with the campaign groups, but it has subsequently made excuses that it would be too time consuming for its staff to do so. It would be an act of good faith if it shared that data, which would help bring much-needed transparency to what is actually happening. If National Air Traffic Services is confident that the terms of the consultation are being adhered to, it should be happy to share that information.

    I ask the Minister to leave no stone unturned in ensuring that the most appropriate decision on Luton flightpaths is reached, and no stone unturned in ensuring that residents can have confidence in the whole process. The current settlement is causing distress to a large number of people across a large part of the country. While I accept that there must be winners and losers from a change in flightpaths over inhabited areas, I find it difficult to accept that stacking planes over a once-quiet rural area is the right solution. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response and to working with him on this matter.

  • Anthony Browne – 2022 Speech on the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

    Anthony Browne – 2022 Speech on the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

    The speech made by Anthony Browne, the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, in the House of Commons on 9 December 2022.

    I, too, want to start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) on introducing this important Bill. It is humbling to speak after so many passionate speeches; there have been more than in any other debate I have been involved with, particularly from the female Members. I think in particular of the speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Newbury (Laura Farris) and for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), my hon. Friends the Members for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) and for Scunthorpe (Holly Mumby-Croft), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes). We heard a lot of incredibly informed and powerful speeches.

    I think it is important for me as a man also to speak about this, for two reasons. The first is that this Bill is about a problem that affects us all. As other Members have mentioned, we men have daughters, wives, mothers, sisters and we are also directly affected by this; I want all my loved ones not to have to live in fear. Secondly, it is important for men to speak about this because although this problem primarily affects women—it does affect some men as well—it is primarily and overwhelmingly men who are the perpetrators of it. The problem is not women’s behaviour. The problem is men’s behaviour and it absolutely need to change, and that is what we hope this Bill will succeed at. We also need to educate men about the importance of changing behaviour and about how a lot of what they currently do is unacceptable. Wolf-whistling is unacceptable, so is deliberately following women down streets at night and so is leering over them in the tube and making sexual comments—it is not okay. Men have to change their behaviour, and we need to educate young men, boys, children in schools that that behaviour is unacceptable.

    Attitudes have changed over time. I recall as a child going past a building site where various builders cat-called, wolf-whistled out to a woman, who was clearly very distressed by it, and other people nearby found it acceptable that that was happening. It was a sort of “joke”, although clearly it was not a joke for her. Nowadays, people would find that far less acceptable, but clearly attitudes need to change far more. One clear lesson from this morning’s debate—I will not recite all the statistics that other Members have used, although I have them here—is that this is still a very widespread problem. It is far too prevalent. Clearly, it is completely unacceptable that the majority of the population live in fear and we absolutely have a duty as a Parliament to deal with it.

    As the hon. Member for Walthamstow mentioned, we already have a law for this. The Public Order Act 1986 does cover harassment, not sex-based harassment, and there are penalties for it. Clearly, however, the current legal framework does not work, because this is still a problem. That is why it is clearly necessary to up the ante, have a particular sexual harassment-based crime and increase the penalties, as this Bill does. That should sent out a message to three different groups: the police, the victims, and the perpetrators. The message to the police, law enforcement agencies, courts and judges is: society and Parliament expect you to treat this with the seriousness it deserves; this is not something you can expect victims to shrug off or “man up” and deal with. Some people have talked about that.

    The police and the courts have an absolute duty to clamp down on this. Increasing the penalties and having a specific law for it will make it clear to them that they need to do that. It sends a message to victims as well that it is important that they get the protection that they want.

    It sends a message to victims as well that it is important that they get the protection that they want, and that there is a law out there to protect them. The law enforcement agencies, if they step up to the plate—we expect them to—will make it clear to victims that the harassment they are experiencing is not acceptable. The victim should therefore feel more empowered to come forward and report it. At the moment, few do so, because they know that it will be ignored, but the Bill will ensure that such cases are taken seriously.

    The third message—this is perhaps the most important one—is to the perpetrators: that such behaviour is totally unacceptable, that they absolutely must stop doing it and that, if they do not, they could face up to two years in prison. Perpetrators should know that cases will be taken seriously, that victims will report them and that the law enforcement authorities will treat them with the seriousness that it deserves.

    I am proud to speak in favour of the Bill and glad that the Government are supporting it. Again, I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells for bringing it forward.

  • Anthony Browne – 2022 Speech on the Finance Bill

    Anthony Browne – 2022 Speech on the Finance Bill

    The speech made by Anthony Browne, the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, in the House of Commons on 28 November 2022.

    It is a pleasure to speak at the back end of the debate following so many fascinating contributions from the Government and Opposition Benches. I particularly enjoyed the comments from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ealing North (James Murray), positioning Labour as the party of small business. I have long believed that that is true—the best way to create small businesses is to start with a big business and then elect a Labour Government.

    I support the Government overall and this well-crafted autumn statement. It balances the books in a way that bears down on inflation without harming growth, and it has been done in a fair way, as many hon. Members have said, helping households who are struggling. The energy price guarantee and the retention of the pensions triple lock are particularly welcome. I also welcome the extra money for health and education. Like my fellow Conservatives, I do not like the fact that taxes are going up to the highest level for 70 years, but I accept that that is necessary and that we must accept sound money before tax cuts.

    The main focus of my comments will be on an issue raised by several hon. Members: research and development. I very much welcome the fact that the Government are committing to £20 billion a year of public money for research and development, but my concern is about the changes to the R&D tax relief system. The Government have made major changes, with the system becoming more generous to big firms to make them more internationally competitive, but the rate of relief for small and medium-sized businesses effectively being cut in half, from 33% to 18.6%. It is a bit more complex than that, but that is the gist. Why are the Government doing that? As the Chancellor said in his autumn statement, it is to tackle fraud. Indeed, fraud is a problem—I have looked into that as chair of the Conservative Back-Bench Treasury committee —and we do need to tackle it. However, the trouble with this way of tackling research and development fraud is that it punishes legitimate research companies as much as fraudsters and chancers, lumping them all in together. There are better ways of doing that.

    I am talking about this because it is a particularly big issue in my constituency. South Cambridgeshire is the life sciences capital of Europe. I have literally hundreds of life science companies, from the global headquarters of AstraZeneca down to the newest start-ups. Almost every village has a science park packed full of life science companies. Those small start-ups are at the cutting edge of research and development in life sciences. More research and development in life sciences is now done in small businesses than by the big pharma companies. Without them, innovation would be very slow and the UK would lose its position as a life science superpower. We talk about becoming a life science superpower, but we are one already, and most of the rest of the world recognises that.

    It is in the nature of those small companies that they are research-heavy, but clinical trials mean that it could take 10 to 15 years to bring a product to market before they make any revenues. They are funded not by revenues from global sales of blockbuster drugs, like big pharma companies, but by investors who fund research for a decade or more before they have any chance of a return. Their financial models depend on the research and development tax credit regime, which is fundamental to them in leveraging funds from investors from around the world. It has been successful in making the UK an attractive place to do research.

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    It is important to have research and development. It is also important that those companies can do their research on Parkinson’s, diabetes and heart disease, and all those things must have research and development investment. Does the hon. Member feel that the Government need to enhance that to their betterment and find cures for Parkinson’s, pancreatic cancer, diabetes and heart disease?

    Anthony Browne

    Absolutely. Many companies in my constituency and publicly funded institutes are doing research on those diseases. That is critical to people living healthy lives as well as to the economy, and the Government are absolutely right to support it.

    The sudden cutting in half of research and development tax relief is a major challenge to the life science companies in my constituency, which are shocked at what is proposed —seemingly out of the blue. Many, if not most of them, are suddenly having to rethink their research plans. They are in shock particularly because it was proposed at such short notice—it will come into effect next year—and without consultation. They are having to go to their investors now and say that they will no longer have the money they thought they would and that they will have to cut back research and jobs.

    Let me give the House a few examples of real companies in my constituency that I have been working with. PhoreMost combines artificial intelligence with drug research. I went to the opening of its laboratories in the village of Sawston. Neil Torbett, the chief executive officer, said:

    “The current R&D tax system has been instrumental in our growth as a Cambridge-based Biotech, which has grown to over 50 highly skilled staff, raised £45 million in investment and entered into multiple pharmaceutical industry partnerships. Receipts from R&D tax credits form a critical part of our funding equation, and the proposed SME R&D tax relief cut will materially adversely affect our future growth plans within the UK.”

    I opened the offices of bit.bio, another company in my constituency, which does the most amazing genetics research—I have mentioned it before. Mark Kotter, the chief executive officer, said:

    “The assistance at the current level is a cornerstone of our financial projections, which also help us to attract equity funding, and any reduction in the claimable amount will have a significant impact on our ability to invest and grow at the desired rate.

    As part of our forecast, we will be looking to increase our current headcount of 175 by approximately 30% in the next year, but quite simply this will not be possible if the tax relief changes announced in the Autumn Statement become reality.”

    I could give countless other examples. This is dramatically changing the prospects of life science research in Cambridge.

    I know that the Government want to champion life sciences as part of their ambition to ensure that we are a life sciences superpower. I have worked with the Government on that. Indeed, I welcomed the life sciences Minister—the Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince)—to my constituency just last week. I know that they want to tackle fraud in the R&D tax credits regime. As a taxpayer, I very much want us to do that; it is a duty of Government to ensure that the taxpayers’ money is well spent. We share those dual objectives, but there are better ways to tackle fraud without harming research. We can throw out the dirty bathwater without throwing out the baby.

    Here are some suggestions. We can ban contingent fee—no-win, no-fee—tax agents. A whole industry of people are trying to make money out of encouraging other people to put in fraudulent tax credit claims. We could ban that. We should resource HMRC so that it can scrutinise the claims. Most claims are automated and there is no scrutiny of what is put in. That encourages and gives an easy ride to fraudsters.

    We can also limit claims for soft innovation—that is, technical maintenance and updates that would have been made anyway and which people would not normally think of as research and development. They should not be getting research and development tax relief in the first place. Lastly, to distinguish between the life science companies that we all want to encourage and the fraudsters and chancers, the Government could create an R&D tax regime for knowledge-intensive companies, which are already recognised in the tax codes; there would be no definitional issue, because those companies are already in the tax code. I am talking about companies with under 500 employees carrying out work to create intellectual property and expecting the majority of their business to come from that work within 10 years, or companies where more than 20% of employees are doing research roles requiring a master’s degree, a PhD or beyond.

    If the Government take those steps, they can promote research while tackling fraud. I urge them, on behalf of all the businesses in my constituency—dozens of which have been in contact—to delay the implementation of the change, consult the industry on it and to look at more specific ways to tackle fraud, so that we can distinguish between genuine research that we want to encourage and the fraudsters and chancers. Will the Financial Secretary or the Exchequer Secretary—I am not sure whether this applies to him or her—meet me and industry representatives urgently to talk about the impact of the changes in the regime on life sciences research in the UK? With that caveat—I realise that it is a big one for my constituency members—and assuming a positive answer, I support the Bill overall, and I commend it to the House.

  • Anthony Browne – 2022 Speech on the Supported Housing Bill

    Anthony Browne – 2022 Speech on the Supported Housing Bill

    The speech made by Anthony Browne, the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, in the House of Commons on 18 November 2022.

    First, it is a delight to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) and, with his background, his very informed contribution. I particularly want to commend my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for bringing forward this important Bill. To pick up one of his comments, he said that his previous private Member’s Bill was his proudest moment as an MP, and he could add this to it. This really shows the role that Back-Bench MPs can play in improving the lives of people across the country.

    I think across the House we all agree that protecting the most vulnerable in society is one of the core duties of Government, and that the Government also need to protect the taxpayer. On both these measures, the current legislation—or indeed the lack of it—fails abysmally. Exempted sheltered housing is a vital part of the support given to many vulnerable groups, as we have heard. As Conservatives, we certainly believe in helping people to help themselves, and some people need more of a helping hand than others. Supported housing provides a vital stepping-stone to a normal life, and if it fails to provide a supportive environment, people can become stuck in the system, trapped and end up far worse off.

    As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) mentioned, many good organisations and local authorities already provide fantastic support with exempted housing for vulnerable groups. For example, victims of domestic abuse often take seven years to extract themselves from their abuser, and they need supported housing as a waypoint between such a vicious circle and being able to rebuild their lives. If the supported housing is unsafe and squalid, they may end up back in the hands of their abuser. We have heard several examples of very similar situations in which people were actually in rooms next door to their abusers or attackers. Other vulnerable groups, whether those recovering from drugs or refugees, need places of calm and stability to help them find their feet and become productive members of society again.

    However, despite all the good work that lots of good organisations and local authorities do, a minority are clearly abusing the system. We have heard many examples of that. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East talked about some of the horrors, and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood, who is no longer in her place, gave many examples of abuses from her city, as did the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones). I am glad that I have yet to come across any such abuses in my South Cambridgeshire constituency, but they clearly happen across the country.

    Unscrupulous landlords often provide appalling accommodation and care to residents who deserve far better. In addition to the cases that we have heard about, I have read stories about 65 residents having to share three baths and two showers. There are countless stories of abuse and mistreatment of vulnerable people while in supported housing.

    On the landlord side, we have all heard the stories about the creation of special-purpose vehicles to make huge profits out of the financial support given by the taxpayer to support the vulnerable. As we have heard, they can make millions of pounds of profit in a single day by flipping sales of properties back to back, which are leased to help the most vulnerable people in society. Those private landlords are generating completely unjustifiable profits by abusing the most vulnerable in society. That is clearly a major failing of the system, which enables unscrupulous landlords to abuse both residents and the taxpayer. It needs to change. That is why I welcome the Bill and the increased regulatory glare that it will bring to that unsavoury corner of the current system.

    The Government will set standards for exempted sheltered housing so that local authorities, landlords and—most importantly—residents will know exactly what is expected. Landlords of exempt housing will have to apply for licences from their local authorities, who will be empowered to properly manage the system and ensure that standards are upheld.

    There has been discussion about the need for a national regulator to back that up and about exactly what the enforcement mechanism and role of the local authority should be. I will make a wider point about property regulation and ombudsmen, which is an area that I have been involved with in the past. There is a proliferation of ombudsmen and regulators in the different property sectors, with the new homes ombudsman and the social housing ombudsman and regulator for as well as an estate agent regulator and the property ombudsman. In my previous role I dealt a lot with financial services, where there is one regulator and one ombudsman—the Financial Conduct Authority and the financial services ombudsman—to cover the entire spectrum, rather than having a series of them.

    The advantages of having a single ombudsman for a sector are that: they are far more high-profile, so people know who to go to; they can share expertise across subsectors; and they can be independent from lobby groups. There is a real risk that a regulator or ombudsman in one specific area can become captured by the industry and over-influenced by it. A single ombudsman and regulator can generally attract far higher quality and more experienced staff than a proliferation of smaller ombudsmen. I therefore urge the Minister, whom it is good to see in her place—she is a former fellow member of the Treasury Committee, where she did many years of good service—to give a thought to the overall regulatory and ombudsmen regime for the property sector, with all its different parts and the downsides of having a really fragmented system along with the advantages of a more co-ordinated system.

    We have also heard about the data that will be collected under the Bill. As someone with a mathematical background, I have always tended to approve of data-driven approaches and having better data—we can never have too much data. Indeed, I was surprised by the lack of data that we have about the supported housing sector. It is quite concerning as we look into it how little we know about what the different organisations are, how many people they have and where those people are. That really limits their accountability. If we do not know what we are spending or who is there, we cannot hold the providers accountable. Who are they?

    These are not small, insignificant amounts of money: the best estimates that I have seen are that the total bill is more than £2 billion a year. Therefore, with the greater oversight that the Bill would provide, we could ensure that public spending went to the right places and not into the pockets of rogue operators. I note that in a pilot conducted last year, the greater scrutiny and understanding of the system prevented the five councils involved in the pilot from paying out £6.2 million in error. Hopefully, the Bill will help to unearth similar errors and misspend, to deliver better value for money for taxpayers. The exempted sheltered housing sector has elements of the wild west about it, and the Bill will help to drive out the cowboys, and protect residents and the taxpayer. I fully commend it to the House.

  • Anthony Browne – 2022 Speech on the State Pension Triple Lock

    Anthony Browne – 2022 Speech on the State Pension Triple Lock

    The speech made by Anthony Browne, the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

    It is wonderful to see Labour, the Conservatives and the SNP, and the Liberal Democrats at one point, so united not just by a successful Conservative policy but by a Conservative manifesto commitment. It is delightful to speak in a debate in which the Opposition are calling for the Government to support their own manifesto commitment.

    Another thing that unites the House is that we all support dignity in retirement and financial security in old age. The Government have an absolute duty to support pensioners and to reduce pensioner poverty. Pensioners, as various Members mentioned, are on fixed incomes. During a cost of living crisis, as we have at the moment, they cannot go out and get a second job, work extra hours or demand that their boss gives them a pay rise. They have to live on their state pension or their occupational pension, which is why I am so grateful for all the measures that the Government have introduced during this cost of living crisis, including the energy price guarantee, the £300 winter fuel payment, the £150 increase to the warm home discount and the £400 energy bill support scheme for all homeowners. Pensioners and those on means-tested benefits will also receive an extra £650 of cost of living support.

    All those measures are very welcome, but this debate is about not the Government’s emergency tailored support but the state pension. At what level should it be? Should we keep the triple lock? These questions have been at the centre of a political tug-of-war for a decade. In recent times, as I mentioned in my interventions, the state pension has been at record lows as a proportion of average earnings. Under the last Labour Government, it went down to around 16% of average earnings between 2000 and 2008—that is the lowest rate of the modern era. Various colleagues mentioned Gordon Brown’s offer to increase pensions by 75p a week in 1999, which is a derisory amount.

    The whole House has spoken in praise of the triple lock, which was introduced by the Conservatives and has been a manifesto commitment ever since. I point out to the Opposition Members who deride the Government’s track record that, actually, the state pension is now far more generous than it ever was during 13 years of Labour Government. Labour’s state pension increases were initially by inflation only, which led to the 75p increase, and then in 2002 Gordon Brown introduced an increase by either a 2.5% upper limit or inflation. Labour never brought back the earnings link, which first came back in 2011 when we introduced the triple lock.

    The triple lock has worked well. Since 2012-13, pensions have gone up by 2.5% four times, by earnings three times and by the CPI rate three times, which shows that the triple lock does kick in. Since 2010, we have increased the state pension by £2,300, which is 31% more than if the state pension had increased by just earnings or inflation—that is £720 more. As a result, the basic state pension as a proportion of earnings is at its highest rate for more than 30 years—higher than at any time during the last Labour Government. The new state pension is now 25% of average earnings, a historically high level.

    There is no doubt that the triple lock is expensive, which is why we are having this debate. We spend more than £100 billion a year on state pensions, which is £7.9 billion more than if the triple lock had never been introduced by this Government. We clearly have an economic black hole at the moment, and we need to work out where the money comes from. I am very supportive of the triple lock, and I was elected on that manifesto commitment. I know all my colleagues are very supportive of the triple lock, but I am also not a Minister, so I am free to speak out in support of the triple lock. I fully appreciate that the Government are going through a budgetary process for the autumn statement, so they cannot say, “Yes, we support this.” They have to look at everything in the round and make sure that we live within our means. As a result, I fully support the Government’s position of not stating their position on the record at the moment. We will hear the autumn statement next Thursday, and I look forward to the Government’s pronouncements.

  • Anthony Browne – 2022 Comments on Rishi Sunak Becoming Prime Minister

    Anthony Browne – 2022 Comments on Rishi Sunak Becoming Prime Minister

    The comments made by Anthony Browne, the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, on Twitter on 21 October 2022.

    For the new PM, we need someone with economic credibility, who is popular with voters, and who hasn’t already been forced to resign as PM. I am backing Rishi Sunak!

  • Anthony Browne – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

    Anthony Browne – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

    The speech made by Anthony Browne, the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2022.

    You have asked for a more moderate, positive tone, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I will endeavour to achieve that.

    I have full confidence in this Government, for three reasons. First, no captain is more important than their team, and on the Government side of the House we have a very strong team. Secondly, the Government have delivered for the country as a whole; a lot of my colleagues have rehearsed the arguments about Brexit, covid, Ukraine and, indeed, net zero. Thirdly, this Government have delivered for my constituency of South Cambridgeshire. I was elected to represent the interests of my constituents, and the Government have had a real impact on their lives.

    The Government have delivered for healthcare in South Cambridgeshire. We have the new Royal Papworth Hospital—a gleaming, state-of-the-art hospital, the most important heart and lung hospital in the UK. Just a couple of weeks ago, we opened the Heart and Lung Research Institute in South Cambridgeshire, with the biggest concentration of heart and lung researchers in the whole of Europe. More is coming: the Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital will be opened in 2025, and the Cambridge Children’s Hospital—the first such facility in the east of England—will be opened shortly afterwards. It will be the first hospital of its type to combine the mental and physical wellbeing of children.

    The Government have delivered for transport in South Cambridgeshire. Cambridge South station will be opening in 2025; it is going through the processes now. The A428 has started dualling, we have finished dualling the A14, and the Government have started looking at the Girton interchange.

    The Government have delivered for the environment in South Cambridgeshire. One of the big issues for us is protecting the chalk streams. The Government have set up a chalk stream taskforce and passed new legislation on sewage discharge, which all the Lib Dem MPs voted against. Shame on them—they voted to dump sewage into chalk streams. We have brought in new laws on hare coursing, which is a really big issue in South Cambridgeshire. I had meetings with the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about it, and we finally brought in laws to stop that terrible crime.

    Education spending is a really important issue in South Cambridgeshire. Historically, we had one of the lowest levels in the country, but we have had a 21.3% increase in real-terms education funding in Cambridgeshire since 2014. Just in the past two years, there has been a £453 per-pupil increase in education spending, and schools are starting to feel the difference. We need more, but it has already made a difference.

    When we had the covid pandemic, the Government delivered support for businesses and individuals. Some 17,000 people were on furlough, with their jobs saved by the Government. There was more than £50 million in funding for businesses. A lot of my small businesses, especially in hospitality—pubs in particular—were saved by the intervention of this Government and the support they gave.

    Research is a very big thing in South Cambridgeshire, where we have literally hundreds of research institutes and companies. The Government have increased funding for research and development to £22 billion a year by 2025, which is making a real difference for South Cambridgeshire.

    Finally, we now have record numbers of police officers in Cambridgeshire: 1,671 as of March. We have never had more than we have at the moment.

    For all these reasons, the Government are delivering for South Cambridgeshire. I have full confidence in this Government.

  • Anthony Browne – 2022 Speech on Achieving Economic Growth

    Anthony Browne – 2022 Speech on Achieving Economic Growth

    The speech made by Anthony Browne, the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, in the House of Commons on 18 May 2022.

    It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, which has ranged over the entire Queen’s Speech in the past four hours. It has been interesting to hear Opposition Members make the case both for tax rises and for tax cuts, and I enjoyed the case made on the lack of desirability of economic growth. I am in the camp where economic growth is largely a good thing, although this is not without some reservations in certain circumstances.

    I serve on the Treasury Committee, where we take evidence from a range of different economists the whole time. The good news is that the UK economy is fundamentally strong. However, we have had too low growth for too long, and we are facing unprecedented challenges, as many people have mentioned. We have had a pandemic and a war, and before that we had a global financial crisis. Someone described the Chancellor as the “unlucky Chancellor” and that is absolutely true, as he has faced greater challenges than any Chancellor since probably the second world war, but he has dealt admirably with the challenges thrown at him. We have inflation at a 40-year high, which is causing a lot of challenges to a lot of households, as we have been hearing this afternoon. But that it not purely a UK thing; it is a global inflation crisis.

    I wish to put on record my continued support for Bank of England independence. The Governor of the Bank of England appeared before the Treasury Committee earlier this week, and various media reports questioned that independence, saying, “This shows that the Bank of England cannot be trusted with inflation.” That is not true. Monetary policy was never suited to and never aimed at dealing with the current global supply shock—it is not the right tool. That does not mean that the system we have for the Bank of England is not working. It has worked very well over the past 25 years and the way to judge it is whether it brings inflation back in the next year or two to the 2%.

    One mystery in economics at the moment, as we find in our Treasury Committee hearings, is how well the economy is going. Two years ago, when the pandemic started, we had all these apocalyptic—that word has come back into fashion—forecasts about the economy and how we were going to have the deepest recession ever, and that unemployment would go back up to 1980s levels of 3 million or so. As various Members have mentioned, however, unemployment is now at a historic low—it is at its lowest since 1974. For the first time ever, we have more vacancies than people who are unemployed and claiming benefit. We need to work hard to make sure that those unemployed people get into those vacancies. Obviously, we still have a big budget deficit, but that is getting managed down, and taxes are heading up. I am with my right hon. Friends the Members for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) and for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) on the case they made that taxes are too high and should come down. That must be the medium-term trajectory.

    A lot of this afternoon’s debate has been about the cost of living. I do not want to reiterate a lot of the points that have been made, so I will focus on the title of the debate, “Achieving economic growth”. There are reasons for that; a lot of the problems we face as a country could be solved by higher economic growth. It leads to higher incomes, which helps with the cost of living, and to higher tax receipts, which helps with funding tax cuts. That is why I welcome the Government’s drive to promote economic growth. I keep saying that their priority should be, “Growth, growth, growth”. The Chief Secretary highlighted the Government’s strategy of improving skills, infrastructure and innovation, and I fully support that. Obviously, many of the measures needed to promote economic growth are fiscal—they are related to taxes—and are reserved for a Budget rather than a Queen’s Speech. For example, in the spring statement the Government outlined their ambition to use tax cuts to promote business investment. Those measures will be enacted in the autumn Budget, which is welcome.

    Many measures in the Gracious Speech will drive up national productivity in the medium or longer term. The education reforms and investment in skills that others have talked about, the transport improvements, and the reforms to the planning system will all help to promote economic growth. I want to focus, though, on the Bills that are aimed directly at businesses, about which not many people have talked. There are 38 Bills in the Queen’s Speech and many of them relate directly to businesses or specific industries.

    The digital markets, competition and consumer Bill is most welcome. The almost duopolistic grip of Google and Facebook on electronic advertising is not good for businesses, competition, innovation or consumers. Google frequently reforms its algorithms in ways that are detrimental to ordinary businesses that rely on online advertising. They are forced to pay for expensive adverts if they want to reach their customers. Google also sets itself up in competition with businesses in a way that shows a clear conflict of interest and that damages innovation. For example, Google directs those who search “cheap flights to New York” to its own flight-comparison service rather than to independent companies such as Skyscanner or Expedia.

    The Government are absolutely right to give the Competition and Markets Authority powers to protect consumers, ensure the integrity of digital markets and stop market abuse by dominant players. It is, though, a fiendishly complex policy area, and the law will work only if the new digital markets unit in the CMA is properly funded and can offer competitive salaries for highly skilled staff, so that they are not immediately poached by industry—in the same way that the Financial Conduct Authority can offer sufficient pay to make sure its staff are not lured away by the City.

    The UK Infrastructure Bank Bill is long overdue. I used to work at Morgan Stanley investment bank, which does a lot of infrastructure finance, and not only is it often very complex, but there are limits to the risks that any private bank can take on in respect of massive projects. The power of the state is needed to arrange suitable financing. When I worked at City Hall in London, I was involved in sorting out the finance for Crossrail—or the Elizabeth line, as it is now known—and I really look forward to riding it next week. London was lucky to have the highly skilled finance team at Transport for London to help to arrange the financing for that £20 billion project, but most infrastructure projects do not come with such pre-formed finance teams. We need to leverage different forms of finance, including by attracting private investment, and there is a clearly defined role for the UK Infrastructure Bank, but, as with the digital markets unit and Bill, the proof will be in the delivery. It is essential not only that the UK Infrastructure Bank can operate independently from political pressures, but that it is funded so that it can attract high-quality staff.

    On the non-domestic rating Bill, the business rates system is a massive source of complaints—often justified—from businesses and needs to be modernised. The Bill will do that, but let me float one little thought. A cap on business rates of 10% of a company’s declared turnover would help start-up companies and a lot of smaller businesses without damaging the revenue received from larger companies. I am sure the devil will be in the details, but it is worth the Treasury considering that.

    On the genetic technology Bill, such technology is very big in my constituency—I probably have more genetic and genomic companies locally than any other constituency. The Bill is a huge opportunity for us, and it is quite possibly a Brexit opportunity, too. It is about not genetically modified organisms but gene editing, which is very different. It is about speeding up the breeding that happens naturally.

    We should have introduced an electronic trade documents Bill before. I cannot believe it requires legislation, but it will slip through Parliament quickly.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) mentioned the audit reform Bill—I think he has been the only one to do so. Everyone in finance knows that there is a major problem with auditing. It has always been in the “too difficult” box, the “too complex” box or the “I just don’t understand it” box. Thank God it is now being addressed, because we need that Bill to stop the series of scandals that have happened as a result of bad auditing.

    On the Procurement Bill, I was heavily involved in procurement when I worked at City Hall, and the EU rules on public sector procurement that we inherited were horrendously over-engineered to stop abuse across 28 different countries with 28 different procurement cultures and so on. They are a severe constraint on an effective and efficient public sector—often, the Government cannot deliver what they want because of procurement rules—and we absolutely need to streamline them.

    Finally, the financial services and markets Bill is a huge piece of legislation. We have looked at it a lot in the Treasury Committee, and I look forward to taking part in the debates on it when it comes to the House. It is the UK’s dirty secret that we had far more influence on the EU’s financial services legislation than any other EU member. That legislation is therefore not that bad overall, but compromises were often made, which meant that in a lot of ways it is not appropriate for a global financial centre such as the UK. We can make many reforms to it that will help our global competitiveness.

    There are real issues for Parliament here. It is right to give regulators more powers, absolutely, rather than relying on everything being in primary and statutory legislation, but that means that regulators must have more effective scrutiny. Parliament is not currently set up to do that, and we need to agree on how we can more effectively hold financial regulators to account.

    Overall, the Queen’s Speech has a very wide package of measures to promote business, help consumers and drive up economic growth, and I strongly recommend it to the House.