The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Graham on 2015-11-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many delays to benefit payments there were in (a) Gloucester, (b) the South West and (c) England in each of the last five years.
Priti Patel
The information requested is not available.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Graham on 2016-10-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she made of the value gained for the public of Government funds given to the Football Association in each of the last five years.
Tracey Crouch
Football continues to be the nation’s most popular team sport, with over 1.5m more weekly participants than any other team sport. Public funding has gone into programmes delivered by the FA that sustain that interest and also that encourage more people from all ages and backgrounds to take part in the sport.
Sport England has challenged the FA to deliver results for the public money it receives. In 2014, £1.6million was taken away after the FA failed to reverse a decline in the number of people regularly playing the sport.
Since then, outdoor 5-a-side football has seen an increase in participation from 744,200 people per week in 2010 (APS4) to 795,700 in 2016 (APS10 Q2) showing changing customer demands which the FA must continue to respond to.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Graham on 2015-11-03.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what support his Department is providing to local authorities who have not adopted or updated their Local Plan.
Brandon Lewis
Sixty five per cent of local authorities have adopted a Local Plan, compared to only 17 per cent in May 2010. We want to see full up-to-date plan coverage. The Department provides targeted support to local authorities and funds support from the Planning Advisory Service and the Planning Inspectorate.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Graham on 2015-11-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the cost to the public purse of provision of (a) accommodation and (b) support services for asylum seekers was in Gloucestershire in each of the last five years.
James Brokenshire
The Home Office does not record the cost to the public purse of provision of (a) accommodation and (b) support services for asylum seekers within individual counties.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Graham on 2015-11-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what his Department’s current targets are for processing benefit payments.
Priti Patel
The Performance of the processing of benefit payments is regularly monitored internally against a set of planning assumptions but there are no published targets
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Graham on 2015-12-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when he plans to publish the White Paper on supporting people with health conditions and disabilities to get into work.
Priti Patel
As announced in the Spending Review, the Government will publish a White Paper in 2016 that will set out reforms to improve support for people with health conditions and disabilities.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Graham on 2016-01-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what progress he has made on making the Post Office a front office for Government; and if he will make a statement.
George Freeman
The Post Office is the largest provider of counter-based Government services in the UK. In 2013 it won a cross-Government framework contract which allows all Government Departments and their Executive Agencies to contract with the Post Office easily and cheaply. Key contracts with the DVLA and the Passport Office have been moved onto this new framework, as has the Post Office Card Account contract which has been extended to at least 2021.
The Post Office is well-placed to bid for and win important contracts, with its extensive geographic reach and key role in the heart of communities. Government cannot simply award contracts to the Post Office; services must be procured competitively to ensure value for taxpayers’ money.
The speech made by Richard Graham, the Conservative MP for Gloucester, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons, on 7 December 2022.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this timely debate, and for his continued, strong advocacy for both marine energy in his constituency and the great work done by EMEC—which he has referred to—and, more widely, for the cause of marine energy across the United Kingdom. It is interesting that, in this small but passionate debate, we have representatives from constituencies across all parts of the United Kingdom; this is a sector that, in geographical terms, wonderfully complements the work that is being done on offshore wind on the east coasts of both England and Scotland.
I pay tribute—unusually, perhaps, in such a debate—to the Department. BEIS has played a huge role in recognising the value of tides and waves, and the cause of marine energy, to renewable energy made in the UK: it contributes to the energy baseload, domestic energy security, community sustainability—that is an aspect that should not be overlooked—and the creation of green jobs around the northern, western and southern coasts of our island. The work of the Department includes both officials, who have worked hard on the detail, and the commitment of Ministers. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland may have referred to this, but that was epitomised by the visit of the previous energy Minister but two, my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), to EMEC in summer 2021, and by the commitment of the Secretary of State at the time—the former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng)—who was absolutely committed to the business of recognising that support for marine energy would be one of the best long-term investments that this country could make. Of course, the truth is that, in adding a separate pot in allocation round 4, the Department effectively moved from philosophical understanding of the issue to practical assistance in a way that had never been done before and, for those not yet convinced about marine energy, not a penny of taxpayer funds is due until the energy is generated.
So far, so good—but what next? Without repeating too much of what the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said, I will highlight four quick things. First, we must keep going; we need a continued pipeline of opportunities to stimulate manufacturing scale and innovation research. The work done on FastBlade by Babcock and the University of Edinburgh partnership at Rosyth, which I saw in the summer, is a model of its kind; it will help to both improve the technology and reduce costs. Secondly, we must reduce the hidden cost of process—that has been referred to in terms of some of the detail around marine licences and the section 36 consent. We can probably all agree that the process, as it is, is both opaque and slow, and could be made much less opaque and much faster. I propose the production of a combined paper on its details from the Marine Energy Council—the chair of which is well known to the Department—which the all-party parliamentary group on marine energy will give to the Minister by the end of January for discussion, consideration and, I hope, implementation as quickly as possible. The Minister has been a great supporter of green energy, work on climate change and the environment in general. I hope that, as soon as possible after he has seen the paper, he will happily come and discuss its implications and what might be done with the all-party group.
Thirdly, and curiously in this context, let us not forget England. One of the problems at the moment is that the strong support, particularly from the Scottish Government, but also from the Welsh Government, means that English bids for the CfD project are rather disadvantaged by not having the same amount of local financial support. A very good project from the Isle of Wight has been put forward. I encourage the Minister to look at that; it needs help to make sure that that area, too, can be levelled up and be competitive in this space. Some approvals are already in place, so it is a case of putting them into action.
The fourth point is to not forget tidal lagoons. I know the Department has a lasting bruise from the saga over the Swansea tidal lagoon project, in which I had a strong interest, because the business behind it was headquartered in Gloucester. Ultimately, that project fell partly on confidence in the management to deliver it, and partly on an assumption that the project was far too expensive. As the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), recognises, it now looks pretty good value and—guess what?—it would have been up and running any moment now, had it been approved. There will be new and alternative ideas on tidal lagoons, which the Department should look at.
David Duguid
The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. I hate to interrupt him, but I could tell he wanted a quick sip of water there; I was also going to ask whether he would agree that marine energy in general, and tidal stream energy in particular, has the opportunity to be an exportable commodity to the rest of the world, not only for Orkney and the rest of Scotland, but for the whole of the UK. Tidal stream for the UK could be what offshore wind has been for Denmark.
Richard Graham
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, both for the marine energy that I was able to take, and for his thoughts on exports. The Minister will know that the parts of the world that I am most interested in exporting to are in south-east Asia. By happy coincidence, huge opportunities for tidal stream energy have already been identified in Indonesia in more than one place, and potentially also in the north of the Philippines. There will be other places, but those two stand out at this time.
It would not be easy, but if we wanted to add a fifth point to my thoughts for the Minister to consider, that might be looking closely at how we can help exports of tidal stream capability and technology be part of a strategy to deliver more than just a huge contribution to domestic UK security. That would help to make sure that the manufacturing benefits stay within the UK, we keep Nova based here and we are able to export successfully both the skills and the manufacturing equipment that goes with them around the world.
There are huge opportunities here. The Government have been very supportive. It is a niche interest at the moment, but colleagues in Scotland, Northern Ireland—let us not forget Strangford Lough; I am sure someone will remind us of that—and Wales have all got an interest. It is a wonderful UK project, which, with the support of the Government, can become something to be very proud of.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Graham on 2015-10-21.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of tax incentives for savings and pensions.
Mr David Gauke
The government is committed to supporting savers at all stages of life and has taken a number of steps to support saving through the tax system, including making ISAs more generous and flexible and introducing a new Personal Savings Allowance from next April. We are also reviewing pension tax relief to make sure it provides the right incentives to save for retirement.
The speech made by Richard Graham, the Conservative MP for Gloucester, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.
What a treat to be the tail-end Charlie on the Government Benches, and it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) and the very thoughtful speech from the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain), which shows that on the substance of the policy we all hope to hear announced on 17 November, there are few differences among the Members of different parties in this House. It is worthwhile, particularly with my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) in her place—I warmly welcome her as the new Pensions Minister, and earlier she was sat beside the former long-serving Pensions Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman)—just to run through how and why we are where we are.
The truth is that the story starts in December 2010, five months after the coalition Government were elected to take over from the previous Labour Government of some 13 years. The then Pensions Minister, the former right hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate, Sir Steve Webb, introduced it by pointing out that the first thing he was doing was reintroducing the link between the state pension and earnings—something that Labour had unfortunately failed to do during its 13 years in government. It was wrong to do so, and he was right to reintroduce it, but he went further, with the full support of the coalition parties, and linked pensions to a new triple lock of earnings growth, inflation or a minimum of 2.5%. That promise was part of ensuring that we would never again see a weekly rise in pensions of just 75p, which has been much alluded to today. No one should ever underestimate the impact that that had on pensioners around the country.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
Can the hon. Member confirm that the triple lock was introduced as the result of a commission that was appointed by Gordon Brown, and Gordon Brown was the one who set up the reasoning behind and the institution of the triple lock, but it was the Government after him who actually introduced it?
Richard Graham
No; I am sorry, but that is a historical rewriting of facts that does not wash. Gordon Brown was Chancellor and then Prime Minister for all those 13 years. He had many, many opportunities to reintroduce the link to earnings and spectacularly failed to do so. With apologies to the hon. Member, I do not accept that. It is true that a lot of consultation went on at that time, but the fact is that the coalition Government reintroduced the link five months after coming into government. That is important, because the link is responsible for today’s state pension being worth over £720 a year more than inflation, which was the link under Labour. The whole point of the triple lock was that Labour’s policy was inadequate and had to be corrected by the new coalition Government.
Indeed, on 17 February 2011, at the first social security benefit uprating after the triple lock was introduced—the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) will be interested in this—what did Labour Members do? They abstained—all of them except for 11, who voted against the uprating. Those who voted against included the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who was shadow Chancellor at the time of the last Labour manifesto. Not one Labour Member, including the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), voted in favour of the uprating that came from the triple lock. They were wrong not to do so.
There was, of course, more to it, because the basic state pension has risen considerably, and as Sir Steve Webb put it then, the strengthening of pension credit enabled the Government to
“focus resources on the poorest pensioners.”—[Official Report, 8 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 310.]
As he pointed out at that time, when both you and I were here, Madam Deputy Speaker, this is ultimately about
“a more appropriate, consistent and stable basis that is fair to individuals and the taxpayer.”—[Official Report, 8 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 311.]
We come to the issue today. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor have both highlighted that in their decisions to be announced on 17 November, they will act fairly and compassionately. I have no doubt that they will, and for the avoidance of doubt, that does imply, to me, maintaining the triple lock—no Minister can possibly anticipate what might be announced in the future, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State rightly explained.
Over the last 12 years, the record of this Government is that they have introduced the triple lock and the important new policy of auto-enrolment for almost 20 million people, whereas Labour’s legacy is the 75p a week increase. That was not done while the right hon. Member for Leicester South was an adviser to Gordon Brown, but he has two more issues to face when the announcements of 17 November are made. In the Labour party’s 2019 manifesto, it committed to £58 billion for the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign group. I have warned that group time and again that it will be led up the path and nothing will be delivered. The shadow Secretary of State needs to answer on that, and he also needs to answer on what Labour’s policy will be on universal credit, which it pledged to abolish in its 2019 manifesto. For today, I agree: let us keep the triple lock.