The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mike Wood on 2014-07-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to introduce service standards and set processing time limits for visa applications made at overseas posts.
James Brokenshire
Service Standards are in place for the processing of visa applications submitted overseas.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mike Wood on 2014-07-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average time taken was from a visa appeal being granted at tribunal to the post issuing the visa in (a) Mumbai and (b) Islamabad in the most recent period for which figures are available.
James Brokenshire
From 1st January to 31st March 2014, it took on average 34 days in Mumbai and 31 days in Islamabad to issue a visa after the tribunal decision was received in the respective post.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mike Wood on 2014-07-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many serving military personnel have been arrested and charged with indictable offences by civilian police forces in each of the last five years.
Mike Penning
The information requested is not collected centrally by the Home Office. Aggregated data on arrests supplied to the Home Office do not include information about whether persons arrested were serving military personnel.
The comments made by Mike Wood, the Conservative MP for Dudley South, on Twitter on 23 October 2022.
We need a PM with the experience and credibility to meet the huge economic challenges facing the world. Stabilising the economy means protecting people’s jobs and mortgages and giving people greater security. No other candidate can match Rishi Sunak.
The tribute made by Mike Wood, the Conservative MP for Dudley South, in the House of Commons on 10 September 2022.
It is a privilege to pay tribute, on behalf of people in Dudley South, to our much-loved late monarch, Queen Elizabeth, and to offer our condolences to His Majesty the King, and to the royal family.
There is a poem popular at funerals that begins,
“Do not weep that I have gone,
but rejoice that I have been.”
It seems appropriate, for while we grieve for the loss of a beloved sovereign, we rejoice at all that she has given to us, our country, and the Commonwealth. Whether through providence or good fortune, we are blessed to have been granted such selfless service from one of the world’s great leaders for so very long, but it is not just because of her longevity that she will surely be remembered, long after we are gone, as Elizabeth the Great, to use the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson).
Her late Majesty has guided our country since its rebuilding after the ravages of war, and since rationing was still in place, and saw it become a modern, 21st-century society. She took a disintegrating empire and created a strong Commonwealth family of nations. She was integral to our national identities, and embodied so much of what we like to think of as particularly British values and qualities. She united communities and helped to heal divisions between countries and Governments. Queen Elizabeth will be remembered for her contribution to every part of our national life, for she not only reigned over us but was there alongside us. She celebrated with us during times of national jubilation, and she provided comfort and constancy at times of great challenge. She met more people than possibly anybody else in history, and for all who met her, it was an experience that they never forgot.
Her late Majesty visited Brierley Hill, which is now part of my constituency, in 1957, not long after the start of her long reign. It was the first of three visits to Dudley borough and, 65 years later, people still have vivid memories of the day that the Queen came to town. More recently, as a student barrister, I was privileged to meet her during a training weekend at the Westminster estates, and I can only hope that the Prime Minister and other Ministers were more coherent when they were sworn into the Privy Council than I suspect I was on that day.
The Queen has been such a central part of our national life for so long that, even now, it is difficult to truly accept that she is gone. May she rest in peace and rise in glory. Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth, His Majesty the King and the royal family will always remain in our thoughts, in our prayers and in our hearts. God save the King.
The speech made by Mike Wood, the Conservative MP for Dudley South, in the House of Commons on 8 September 2022.
The speed and scale of the support announced by the Prime Minister is hugely welcome and, obviously, hugely necessary for the many households that simply could not have afforded energy bills of £3,500. Together with the £400 payments to each household, the £650 to those on low incomes and the £300 to pensioner households, it will make a real difference. I hope that we can have some clarification on the position of those residential properties that are on commercial meters, perhaps because they were converted from commercial businesses.
The support will also make a real difference to many businesses, whether they are energy-intensive businesses, such as those in ceramics and glassmaking in my constituency, or whether they are in hospitality. Similarly, perhaps we can have further clarification on the position for those businesses that have recently had to enter into new contracts. Will they still be able to switch to the new price cap or the support that has been announced?
Let me deal with the criticisms that have been made. There is some superficial political attraction to extending the windfall tax—of course, we already have a windfall tax set at 25% on top of the 40% tax already paid by British oil and gas producers. The attraction is more superficial and political than real and effective, because the revenue that an extension would raise would be small in comparison with the cost of the necessary support. It would affect less than half of the oil and gas we use in the UK, because that is what is produced in the UK. Making UK oil and gas production less competitive will, in the medium and long term, reduce our energy security at the worst possible time. That is something that we cannot afford.
It has also been suggested that the package will affect price signals. As a reformed economist, I know that economists can sometimes dwell a bit too much on good theory and ignore the real world, but I find it hard to credit that people would be less careful with their energy when the price cap is at £2,500 than they would be if it were £1,000 higher. Clearly there would be a huge impact if energy were free, but we are already at a level at which people are being very careful with what they use.
This is the right package, and it is an effective package. We need to get it into the pockets of households and businesses—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order.
The speech made by Mike Wood, the Conservative MP for Dudley South, in the House of Commons on 21 July 2022.
While the media’s focus may be on the comings and goings in Westminster, local community groups make a huge difference to the lives of people in Dudley South week in, week out. The last recess covered the platinum jubilee celebrations, and it was a real pleasure to join the events at Oakfield community centre in Brierley Hill, St Mary’s church in Kingswinford and the Dudley Hindu Cultural Association to mark the incredible service that Her Majesty has given during seven decades as our Queen.
We are fortunate in having many amazing community organisations in Dudley. I shall not try to match Sir David, but I would like to mention just a few I have encountered in recent weeks. Harry’s Café is run by the Top Church Training charity and helps disadvantaged jobseekers into work in catering and hospitality, as well as providing free food packages and online cooking classes. There is also Kingswinford British Legion, who I supported over Armed Forces Weekend as they raised funds to help ex-service personnel and their families.
As a former scout, it was a pleasure to join Dudley District Scouts to thank leaders and volunteers for everything they do to make sure that local young people have opportunities that otherwise just would not be available. It was a privilege to meet and support Stuart Bratt, whose Tough Enough to Care charity tackles male suicides by encouraging men to be open about mental health. The £80,000 lottery funding it has received will allow it to do even more to support even more people, and we want more local good causes in Dudley to get funding. That is why I organised a national lottery funding workshop last week. I thank Sinead from the National Lottery Community Fund for explaining to dozens of local groups how they can get funding and give themselves the best chance to succeed and do more for our community.
As we look forward to the Commonwealth games coming to Birmingham, it was great that Stuart was one of the local heroes, as well as Jennie Bimson and Councillor Shaz Saleem, taking part in the Queen’s baton relay; I look forward to it coming to Brierley Hill on Sunday evening. One of the baton bearers is from Pens Meadow School. I was pleased to see its amazing new forest school, which is an exceptional facility for its special needs pupils aged three to 19. I am delighted that Dudley Council has committed the funding for a new school building that will allow them to combine their two sites into one, providing better education and care on a single site for vulnerable pupils.
I also thank Dudley Council’s cabinet for blocking plans to build on precious green spaces at Lapwood Avenue, Bryce Road, Severn Drive and Bent Street. I hope that the Association of Black Country Authorities will also safeguard green-belt sites at Holbeache and the Kingswinford triangle when it meets next week, and that the Government’s Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will further strengthen green-belt protection.
Our green spaces are important to us in the Black Country, and it was heartbreaking to see large fires at the Fens Pool nature reserve and Ridgehill Woods during this week’s extreme temperatures. Disgracefully, some of them might even have been started deliberately. I join our community in sending a big thank you to everybody from West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service for their bravery in fighting and containing those fires.
Mr Deputy Speaker, as you know, last week marked Black Country Day—the anniversary of Newcomen’s engine. We are proud of our industrial heritage and it was wonderful to join pupils from Brierley Hill Primary School at Brierley Hill library as they unveiled the displays on our local history that they had created for the public to enjoy. It is now a decade since Gracie Sheppard designed the Black Country flag, which has become one of the biggest selling and most recognisable regional flags in the country. She designed it as a 12-year-old at a local school and it is now literally seen around the world—whether at The Ashes, the Indy 500 or Glastonbury.
Alicia Kearns
My hon. Friend rightly raised the importance of local flags. Leicestershire was the only county in the country without a flag until last year, when I secured the first ever flag for Leicestershire. It flies proudly outside Parliament this very day. I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising the importance of flags, given their pride of place and the message that they send of unity in our communities.
Mike Wood
My hon. Friend is proud of her local area and flies her flag proudly.
As we look at the ongoing Conservative leadership contest, I shall be pressing whoever wins to keep levelling up right at the centre of their agenda, and to make sure that my constituents in Dudley South can have opportunities every bit as good as those enjoyed in other parts of the country. Finally, Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish you and all the staff of the House a very happy and, I hope, restful and peaceful summer.
The speech made by Mike Wood, the Conservative MP for Dudley South, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2022.
Yes, this House can have confidence in Her Majesty’s Government, because faced with unprecedented challenges over the past three years, it has got far more of the important decisions right than wrong. Have there been mistakes? Of course. I am not aware of any Government, of any nation, even in the most benign times, who could claim to have made none. Of course, these have not been benign times. On the big questions facing the Government, our country is in a better position, with the Prime Minister having been in charge for the past three years, than it would have been in if the Leader of the Opposition had had his way.
On the decision to respect the referendum result, the Prime Minister broke the deadlock over Brexit that threatened to leave the country paralysed with indecision. There are still important issues to resolve, but it is clear that any of the five Conservative candidates to replace him will continue that work, and will secure Brexit, not reverse it. We know what the Leader of the Opposition wanted to do if he became Brexit Secretary in 2019: hold another referendum to overturn the first one. We know what he promised Labour party members in order to become its leader: free movement across the EU. However, he is now telling voters that he would not take us back into the EU internal market. People are bound to ask: who is he telling the truth to? This Government and this Prime Minister called it right.
Going into the global pandemic, the Government recognised that normal procurement and distribution systems would not get personal protective equipment to the people who needed it most urgently. The Leader of Opposition attacked the Prime Minister for putting in place too many checks, being too slow, and not awarding contracts quickly enough. Later, that criticism was reversed; suddenly there were insufficient checks and bureaucracy. Again, the Government called it right and struck the correct balance. They put in place the biggest job and business protection schemes in British peacetime history to make sure that our economy could build back once the need for lockdowns had passed: 9 million workers’ wages were paid; nearly 3 million self-employed workers were helped; and businesses right across our economy were supported. If the Leader of the Opposition had had his way, and the plans of the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) had been put in place, bankrupting the nation, we simply would not have been able to borrow the money for that emergency help.
Back when a covid vaccine looked a distant prospect, the Prime Minister and the Government backed a range of potential vaccines, as well as Kate Bingham’s superb taskforce, which the Opposition decried as waste and cronyism. The Opposition were wrong; the Prime Minister was right; and Britain got more vaccines more quickly than any other European country.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mike Wood
I really do not have time.
It was the Prime Minister’s personal intervention—he sent back early drafts of the roll-out strategy—that brought together the NHS, the armed forces and the private sector to get vaccines out quicker than other large countries did.
We can be proud that when Russian troops invaded one of our European partners, our Prime Minister did so much to lead international support for Ukraine. It is simply not credible to imagine that Britain would have stood as firmly against Russian aggression if it had been led by a man whose response to an assassination attempt on the streets of Salisbury was to demand that evidence be sent to Moscow.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
Was it the right response to that poisoning to fix a meeting with a former intelligence agent of the KGB—a meeting without officials, minutes, or any report to this House of what the hell happened?
Mike Wood
I will tell the right hon. Gentleman what the right response was: it was to co-ordinate the biggest diplomatic response since the end of the cold war. The Prime Minister, then Foreign Secretary, got more diplomatic responses than have been seen in decades. The Prime Minister has many achievements of which he should be proud. His successor will have a strong foundation to build on, thanks to the decisions that he has taken over the past three years.
Mims Davies (Mid Sussex) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mike Wood
I really should not.
It is for that reason, and many others, that the House should continue to have confidence in Her Majesty’s Government.
The speech made by Mike Wood, the Conservative MP for Dudley South, in the House of Commons on 17 May 2022.
Helping our constituents with the rising cost of living is clearly the most pressing challenge facing our country, and most other countries in western Europe and North America, over the next year. The issue was rightly at the top of the Queen’s Speech, because it needs to be right at the top of the Government’s agenda for the year ahead.
Prices are rising right around the world. A number of factors have come together. Some are supply-led; some crucial supplies are still suffering from the impact of the pandemic. Others are demand-led. Pent-up demand has been released, resulting in excess demand, as people make purchases that have not been possible over the past couple of years. There has been a switch to lower-carbon fossil fuels; people are moving away from coal and other dirty fossil fuels to cleaner fuels such as gas. That is all coming together to cause an increase in prices that few of us have seen in our adult lifetime.
A large package of support is clearly necessary. I welcome the support the Chancellor has already announced and introduced, and in particular the strong focus on helping low-paid workers and those most likely to be struggling. There is last month’s increase in the national living wage; the additional money through the universal credit taper, which gives well over 1 million families over £1,000; and, from July, the increase in the national insurance contribution threshold, which will put another £330 in people’s pay packets. Together, those measures will mean that the lowest-paid workers are significantly better off. That is part of a £22 billion package, which is an enormous amount. It is difficult to grasp quite how big a number it is. It is, for example, more than the budget for the police and Border Force combined. These are not insignificant figures. They also come on top of the sums that were spent to help to get people through the pandemic, when the wages of 12 million workers were paid, either through furlough or the self-employment income support scheme.
However, many of our constituents are still struggling. As prices continue to rise over the coming months, even more will struggle, so more will need to be done. The Government need to look constantly at what can be done to provide effective and sustainable support. I welcome the special Cabinet meeting last Thursday, and hope that it will be part of a long series of reviews to consider the measures that might be introduced. I urge the Treasury and other Ministers to look at how we can narrow the time gap between the calculation of consumer prices index and earnings growth figures for uprating pensions and benefits, and those increases coming in. The figures are calculated so far ahead of when they come in. In normal times, the difference between, say, September’s CPI figures and April might amount to half of 1% of a pension, or 50p or 60p a week. However, when there are very sharp increases in inflation, it can be £4, £5, £6 or £7 a week.
On a windfall tax, I would normally oppose retrospective taxation, but given the circumstances in the energy markets, it can be justified here. However, we need to be confident, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) said, that the benefits of such a tax outweigh the costs. We have to understand what the costs are, and the benefits are perhaps not quite as high as people imagine. They certainly would not pay for the package that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), the former Leader of the Opposition, set out. There would probably be about £14 billion or £15 billion spare. That would be about £5 per month per household, instead of the large amounts that the Government have delivered.