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Tag: Speeches

  • Therese Coffey – 2023 Speech on the Environmental Improvement Plan 2023

    Therese Coffey – 2023 Speech on the Environmental Improvement Plan 2023

    The speech made by Therese Coffey, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in the House of Commons on 1 February 2023.

    I would like to update the House on the next steps that the Government are taking to help nature recover through our new environmental improvement plan. It is a delivery plan setting out how we will achieve our ambitious, stretching environmental targets, the most critical of which is to halt the decline of nature by the end of this decade. We can and must achieve that, both here in the UK and globally.

    We are already under way. In this Government’s first 100 days, we have already delivered with legally binding targets to halt nature’s decline, clean up our air and rivers and support a circular economy; playing an instrumental role in a new global agreement for nature at the UN nature summit COP15; enacting the legal duty on Government, national and local, on considering biodiversity; publishing our environment principles policy statement; setting out in detail our transformational farming schemes with the full range of actions we will pay farmers and land managers to do to restore nature; announcing we will ban the most commonly littered single-use plastic items from October 2023; agreeing to enact mandatory sustainable urban drainage systems for new development, which will reduce the risk of surface water flooding and pollution; putting in place the plant biosecurity strategy for Great Britain, a five-year vision for plant health to protect native species, with plants providing an annual value of £15.7 billion to the UK; and agreeing with the devolved Administrations our approach to managing fisheries. There is much more I could add.

    Nature is a crucial part of our islands’ story and our shared future. We know what is special with our rare habitats and our iconic species, and we also know the pressures it is under. We rely on our natural capital for a secure supply of food, for clean air, and for clean water, as well as for leisure and genuine joy. However, nature has been taken for granted for too long and used freely as a resource with little thought for the consequences. We have to reverse that and respect nature.

    Seventy years ago, people were waking up to the devastation of the great flood of 1953, in which more than 300 people died, reminding us that the full force of nature can bring us challenges. We took action then and it is why we have continued to invest billions of pounds in protecting people’s homes and in better protecting more than 100,000 local businesses to safeguard around 100,000 jobs. However, nature can also help us to tackle some of our great challenges, so we need to help protect nature too. Undoubtedly and understandably, the pandemic set us back in some areas, as we responded to the emergency at hand. A silver lining to that experience, if any is to be had, was the opportunity for us to reconnect with nature, and I am particularly pleased by our pledge in this plan to bring access to a green or blue space within a 15-minute walk of everyone’s homes, be that parks, canals, rivers, countryside or coast.

    Our focus is on picking up the pace and scaling up at home, and around the world, and that is why we are putting nature top of the international agenda as well. We brought nature into the heart of our collective response to climate change under our presidency of COP26 in Glasgow. At COP27 the Prime Minister said that

    “there is no solution to climate change without protecting and restoring nature”.

    The House may have heard me before extol the marvel of mangroves as the ultimate example of how investing in nature is an essential, effective and cost-effective way to take on a multitude of challenges. The key achievement of 2022 was the agreement reached at the UN nature summit, the Convention on Biological Diversity COP15 in Montreal.

    To level with the House, there is much, much more to do to restore the natural world. Some of the challenges are not always so easy or so quick to fix as we might all hope, yet I assure hon. Members that with our new legal duty to consider biodiversity, guided by our environmental principles policy, we are embedding nature in the heart of every decision that Government will take for the long haul. We have a plan for the whole of Government to support this national endeavour and we have already started the journey with a great many improvements.

    We are replacing the EU’s bureaucratic common agricultural policy, which did so little for farmers or nature, and rewarding our farmers for taking action to help nature retain and regain good health, reduce emissions and produce food sustainably. Those things are absolutely symbiotic and we are leading the way in making this essential transition. We have cleaner air, with major decreases in all five major pollutants. Emissions of fine particulate matter, PM2.5, the most damaging pollutant to human health, decreased by 18% between 2010 and 2020. I want our air to be even cleaner. That is why we are working with farmers to tackle ammonia emissions.

    Councils ask for a lot of powers, but I need them to use the powers they already have, including on tackling litter and fly-tipping, rather than just asking for more. I will be publishing what they are doing and seeking to share best practice across the country.

    We are accelerating the rate of tree planting. The Forestry Commission will start growing its estate and increase planting, fulfilling its original statutory obligation to help to rejuvenate the forestry and timber industry. We have strengthened the financial support through our environmental land management schemes and we will continue to promote urban tree planting so children everywhere can enjoy their local woods.

    On the chemical status of our water bodies, the science and modelling are clear that it will take decades to recover and heal completely, but we are keeping a spotlight on water quality and getting industry to clean up its act. We are restoring 400 miles of river through the first round of landscape recovery projects and establishing 3,000 hectares of new woodlands along England’s rivers, as well as doubling funding available for the catchment-sensitive farming programme to £30 million in each of the next three years, to cover all farmland in England. We have already seen a huge improvement in our bathing waters. Last year, nearly three in four beaches were deemed excellent—only about half of them were back in 2010—but I share people’s concern about sewage in our waters. That is why we, a Conservative Government, turned on the monitoring, and why we are holding industry to account on fixing this issue. Through our storm overflows discharge reduction plan, we are requiring water companies to deliver their largest ever environmental infrastructure investment, an estimated £56 billion of capital investment over 25 years. We have set clear expectations on improvements on which we will track performance. The next formal review will be in 2027, so if we can go further and faster, that is exactly what we will do.

    This issue remains an international endeavour as well. We have a globally recognised track record of action, helping communities protect and restore their national treasures. Reinforced by our science expertise and financial support, we are helping nature around the world. That is the right thing to do and it is absolutely in our interests as well. Having committed to doubling UK international climate finance to £11.6 billion, and to spending at least £3 billion of that on nature, we are building on decades of action, backing efforts to take on the whole host of threats that now face the world’s flora and fauna well beyond climate change alone. We are doing that through the blue belt programme, protecting an area of ocean larger than India around our biodiverse overseas territories, through our world-renowned £39 million Darwin initiative, and through the illegal wildlife trade challenge fund. We are ploughing all that expertise and experience into our newly established £500 million blue planet fund, and our £100 million biodiverse landscapes fund, to help some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities restore, protect and connect globally important but fragile habitats.

    I am so proud that the UK is leading, co-leading and actively supporting the global coalitions that are committed to securing the maximum possible ambition and achieving the greatest possible impact on everything from taking on the scourge of illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, to persuading countries to agree a new, legally-binding global treaty to end plastic pollution by 2040, to supporting efforts to establish a global gold standard for taking nature into account across our economies.

    I could spend hours talking about nature, about our mission, about what we have already achieved. As the Member of Parliament for Suffolk Coastal, I am blessed to represent a very special part of our country, with many precious habitats and protected sites, on land and offshore. I always said it felt like I had had six years of a perfect apprenticeship before I became the Environment Minister in 2016. There are many more parts to the plan that we published yesterday. I recognise that we have work to do, and our aim is to catalyse action across Government, across the economy and across the country, with the whole Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs family, our agencies, including Natural England, the Environment Agency and the Animal and Plant Health Agency, our delivery partners and regulators, the whole of Government, and individuals, communities and businesses, from farms to finance, all working together to bring this to life.

    Nature needs us to accelerate and scale up our help if we want to enjoy nature and have its help for generations to come. Together, we can achieve it. Whether someone lives in a city or town, in the countryside or on the coast, we all have a part to play in the truly national endeavour and the decade of global action that we need now to see this through. I commend this statement to the House.

  • Stuart McDonald – 2023 Speech on the National Police Response to the Hillsborough Families Report

    Stuart McDonald – 2023 Speech on the National Police Response to the Hillsborough Families Report

    The speech made by Stuart McDonald, the SNP MP for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East and the party’s spokesperson on Home Affairs, in the House of Commons on 1 February 2023.

    May I also start by commending the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) and his colleagues not just on securing the urgent question, but on all their campaigning work on behalf of survivors and families affected by Hillsborough? The persistence, bravery and decency of the people of Liverpool over these 34 years has been utterly extraordinary in the face of cover-up and smear, but they need more than warm words—they need a comprehensive response. The long overdue police report, while a start, does not provide a complete response. That needs the Government, and we should have had a Government response before now.

    As Bishop Jones has said, the wait has been “intolerable”, and the families are speaking about the bishop’s report gathering dust. I appreciate that questions are being raised that will not be answered today, in the light of the announcement of a spring publication, but can the Minister at least assure us that when that long overdue response from the Government is published, we can have a full debate on the Floor of the House on its findings?

    Secondly, the Minister referred to engagement with the families. There has been some good engagement, but there have been some ropy times as well, so can he say a little more about what form that engagement will take going forward?

    Chris Philp

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and for the sentiments he expressed, which I completely understand. In relation to a full debate, scheduling business in the House is not my responsibility, but it would seem to me like a reasonable request to make, and I will certainly pass it on to my colleagues who are responsible for scheduling parliamentary business. Families have been fully engaged. One reason why the independent pathology review, which had been commenced, has been temporarily paused is to allow for more engagement to take place, because families rightly felt that they wanted to be more involved. That engagement is continuing. Critically, before the Government response is published, there will be more such engagement, for the obvious reasons that the hon. Gentleman rightly points to.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2023 Speech on the National Police Response to the Hillsborough Families Report

    Yvette Cooper – 2023 Speech on the National Police Response to the Hillsborough Families Report

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary and Labour MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, in the House of Commons on 1 February 2023.

    I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne), and all the other Merseyside MPs, for pursuing this matter, and I thank my hon. Friend for securing this urgent question.

    Ninety-seven people lost their lives as a result of what happened at Hillsborough on that terrible day 34 years ago. We remember the football fans who never came home, and we must also never forget the shameful cover-up that followed. The Hillsborough families have fought for decades against obfuscation and lies to get to the truth. Everyone hoped that the report from the Right Rev. James Jones would be a turning point, and I welcome the work that the former Home Secretary did in commissioning that report, but it is five years on. The police have rightly said:

    “Police failures were the main cause of the tragedy and have continued to blight the lives of family members ever since.”

    Nevertheless, five years is too long, and what makes this even more shameful is the fact that there is still no Government response to what has happened. The Home Secretary said yesterday that it was because of active criminal proceedings, but those finished 18 months ago, and the work could have taken place even while those proceedings were ongoing.

    In September 2021 the Government announced that the response would be published by the end of the year, and we are still waiting. The Home Secretary also said yesterday that the Government were engaging with families, but what engagement has taken place? Has the Home Secretary met the families? Has she met the bishop? And I have to ask, where is she today? Previous Home Secretaries have shown respect to the families and acknowledgement of the appalling ways in which they have been wronged by being here to respond, and it is a devastating failure of responsibility and respect to them for her not to be here to respond.

    The key measures on which we need a Government response are well known: the duty of candour, the public advocate and the elements of the Hillsborough law. The Labour party stands ready to support that law and get it into statute. Will the Government now commit themselves to supporting it, and recognise what the bishop has said about its being “intolerable”, given the pain of those families, not to have a response? The report is entitled “The patronising disposition of unaccountable power”. Does the Minister accept that that is exactly what this continued delay will feel like to so many families and survivors now?

    Chris Philp

    I entirely agree with the shadow Home Secretary’s opening comments—and, indeed, with what has been said by other Members—about the appalling impact that this has had on the families of those who so tragically lost their lives. When I took my own son to a Crystal Palace football game a few weeks ago, I thought about how awful it must have been to be trapped in those circumstances, which is a terrible thing to contemplate.

    As the shadow Home Secretary said, the police have apologised for the terrible failings that took place on the day and in the years subsequently. It is right that they have apologised to the families, and to the country as well. In relation to the timing, I have already said that there were legal proceedings ongoing. It has been 18 to 21 months since those concluded, which is why since I was appointed I have asked for the work to be sped up, and it will be concluded rapidly and it will respond to all the points in full.

    I repeat the point I made earlier that a number of things have happened already. The right hon. Lady mentioned the independent public advocate. As she will know from her own time in government, where a public consultation has taken place, it is generally speaking a prelude to action. On the question of co-operating with inquiries, the 2020 statutory professional standards for policing did introduce that requirement, but the response needs to cover all the points, and that will happen soon.

  • Theresa May – 2023 Speech on the National Police Response to the Hillsborough Families Report

    Theresa May – 2023 Speech on the National Police Response to the Hillsborough Families Report

    The speech made by Theresa May, the Conservative MP for Maidenhead and the former Prime Minister, in the House of Commons on 1 February 2023.

    The apology from the police is, of course, welcome, but it would have been far better for them to have done their job properly on that fateful April day, 34 years ago. If they had done so, families of the 97—and, indeed, the whole Liverpool community—would not have gone through the suffering and anguish that they have had to bear over the past 34 years.

    Let me say first to my right hon. Friend that I do not think saying vaguely that the Government’s response will be available this spring is good enough: five years on, they must now publish it. Secondly, does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the elements that can be put in place to help families if, sadly, such an event—a tragedy of this sort— happens in the future is the introduction of an independent public advocate, which was promised in the Conservative party manifesto in 2017? Will he give a commitment now that the Home Office will not put any barriers in the way of the work of the Ministry of Justice in introducing such a body?

    Chris Philp

    As I mentioned, for approximately four years following the publication of the report there were ongoing criminal legal proceedings which nobody wanted to prejudice, but, as I have said in the House and as the Home Secretary said yesterday, we do now want to get on and respond quickly and comprehensively to the bishop’s report. As for the introduction of an independent public advocate—a measure being worked on by the Ministry of Justice, as the right hon. Lady said—a public consultation has taken place. The response is being worked on in the usual way, but it is happening at pace.

  • Ian Byrne – 2023 Speech on the National Police Response to the Hillsborough Families Report

    Ian Byrne – 2023 Speech on the National Police Response to the Hillsborough Families Report

    The speech made by Ian Byrne, the Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby, in the House of Commons on 1 February 2023.

    Since that awful day on 15 April 1989, 97 people have died directly from the actions of South Yorkshire police and other agencies, including the emergency services, the Football Association and Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, with families destroyed and survivors traumatised—so traumatised that many have since taken their own lives.

    The lies and smears from the cover-up by the establishment, which acted with impunity and arrogance because it could, meant that justice was never delivered for all those who have died and suffered since. In 2017, Bishop Jones delivered the report “The patronising disposition of unaccountable power: A report to ensure the pain and suffering of the Hillsborough families is not repeated.” Shamefully, we have not yet had a Government response to his recommendations in the report commissioned by the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May).

    Yesterday, Bishop Jones said that the delay was intolerable. His recommendations are, in essence, the Hillsborough law, which so many in this place and outside have since campaigned for. We must always remember that these recommendations are to ensure that no other community goes through the suffering that we have endured since 1989. They will hopefully futureproof the ability to gain justice.

    Yesterday, we finally had the response to the report from the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council. This was the first apology from the police force for its actions since the disaster 33 years ago. For so many, including myself, it is far too little and far too late.

    Yesterday’s recommendations from the police did not go anywhere near far enough to change the culture that we came up against in our quest for justice. I ask the Minister whether this Government will do the right thing for future generations in our nation and implement a Hillsborough law containing Bishop Jones’s recommendations with immediate effect. The families and survivors of so many disasters and consequent state cover-ups deserve nothing less, and these injustices must never again be allowed. If a Hillsborough law had existed in 1989, we would have had a chance of justice for the 97; without it we had none.

    Chris Philp

    I fully understand and respect the sentiments that the hon. Member so powerfully expressed in his remarks. On the timing and the years that have passed since the bishop’s report, for much of that time there were ongoing legal proceedings and, of course, no one wanted to prejudice those for obvious reasons. That accounted for about four years—from 2017 to about May 2021—but about 21 months have passed since then and I agree that the Government response does need to come out quickly. Indeed, since my appointment a couple of months ago I have asked for it to be sped up, and I want to make sure that that happens this spring, following, of course, consultation with the families, which is extremely important. That will include responses to the points that the hon. Member made.

    I reiterate that the statutory changes made to the professional standards for policing in 2020 include a duty of co-operation on police officers in relation to inquiries, which, as he has said, is very important. He is right: we do need to get on and respond comprehensively to the bishop’s recommendations, which is what I am working on.

  • Chris Philp – 2023 Statement on the National Police Response to the Hillsborough Families Report

    Chris Philp – 2023 Statement on the National Police Response to the Hillsborough Families Report

    The statement made by Chris Philp, the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, in the House of Commons on 1 February 2023.

    I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I know this is a subject with profound personal resonance for him. I pay tribute to him and many others for the work they have done and continue to do in memory of the victims of this awful tragedy and to ensure that the lessons are learnt.

    The Hillsborough disaster was an awful, devastating tragedy. Its impact continues to be felt to this day, especially by the families and friends of the victims. I am sure the thoughts of the whole House are with them. It is imperative that lessons are learned from the experiences the Hillsborough families have gone through, so I am very grateful to Bishop James Jones for the report he produced, which highlighted a number of points of learning for the Government, the police and other agencies.

    As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said during yesterday’s debate, the Government are fully committed to engaging with the Hillsborough families prior to the publication of the Government’s formal response. Since arriving in the Home Office two or three months ago, I have asked for this work to be sped up, and we are expecting it to come out in the course of this spring. The National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing published their response earlier this week. I welcome their commitment to avoid repeating the mistakes that were made, and I welcome the apology that they gave. They made it clear that strong ethical values and the need for humanity and humility in the police response to public tragedies are critical. One of the commitments they rightly made earlier this week was to substantially strengthen and update their own code of ethics in relation to these issues.

    Some important steps have been made by the Government in the past few years, which have addressed a number, but not all, of the points that Bishop James Jones published. For example, in 2020 a suite of police integrity reforms was introduced, on a statutory basis, via the professional standards for policing, which included, crucially, a duty to co-operate with inquiries. Other initiatives have already been taken forward to support bereaved families, including the removal of means-testing for exceptional case funding to cover legal support for families at an inquest, which broadens the scope and access for families; and the refreshing of our “Guide to Coroner Services for Bereaved People” so that it is more tailored to their needs and provides improved guidance for others involved in the inquest process. The Inquiries Act 2005 also provides a statutory process for funding legal representation requests. Last year, the Home Office also established an independent pathology review, and additional consultation with the families is now taking place. A consultation has also taken place on retaining police documents, which was the subject of a recommendation made by the bishop, and the Ministry of Justice has also consulted on establishing an independent public advocate.

    Those steps are important. They go a long way to improving the situation, but they do not cover everything that the bishop recommended, which is why we will be responding in full. We intend to do so in the spring, but after, of course, full and deep engagement with the families concerned.

    The Government are committed to making sure that these lessons are learned following this awful tragedy and I, as the newly appointed Police Minister, will do everything that I can to work with Members across the House, particularly those representing the affected communities, to make sure that this does now happen quickly.

  • Liz Truss – 2023 Article Reflecting on Her Time as Prime Minister

    Liz Truss – 2023 Article Reflecting on Her Time as Prime Minister

    A small section of the article written by Liz Truss, the former Conservative Prime Minister, in the Sunday Telegraph published on 5 February 2023.

    The date of what inevitably became known as the mini-Budget was set for Sept 23. In hindsight, perhaps we could have delayed it for a few days. However, much longer than that would have meant not sticking to our commitments.

    There were concerns in some quarters that the announcement would not be accompanied by forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). However, the OBR’s core purpose is to produce twice-yearly forecasts on whether the Government is on track to meet its fiscal targets. Commissioning a report at that juncture would not have been appropriate, given that the forecast would have been unable to take into consideration the future spending decisions we planned to outline in the Medium Term Fiscal Plan a few weeks later.

    It’s also worth recalling that no OBR forecast has accompanied many other fiscal announcements, not least the Covid-19 furlough scheme, which cost £70 billion.

    As I had spelled out during the leadership campaign, I wanted to go for growth by reversing the proposed rises to corporation tax and National Insurance and implementing a programme of economic reform in order to prevent recession and stagnation and put the UK on a positive path.

    But this was not in line with the instinctive views of the Treasury or the wider orthodox economic ecosystem.

    I saw first-hand during my two years as chief secretary to the Treasury that pessimism and scepticism about the growth potential of the British economy are sadly endemic at the Treasury: serious planning reform was dismissed as not politically deliverable; discussing monetary policy was a taboo; deregulation of financial services and other industries was viewed as undermining the prospects of a deal with the EU; and Brexit was seen as a damage-limitation exercise rather than a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

    Instead, the focus from the Treasury was on micro, top-down tinkering such as productivity initiatives trying to encourage firms to become more efficient, along with government intervention.

    Our Plan for Growth was a conscious break from this orthodoxy – focused instead on stimulating competition and economic freedom with incentives from the ground up. The plan comprised the energy package, reversing the tax rises, some additional tax simplification measures, and a package of economic reforms to help grow the economy and build long-term gains in its growth potential.

  • Andrew Griffith – 2023 Speech to The City UK’s Annual Dinner

    Andrew Griffith – 2023 Speech to The City UK’s Annual Dinner

    The speech made by Andrew Griffith, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, to The City UK’s Annual Dinner on 2 February 2023.

    Good evening, everyone, and thank you for the invitation to speak to you. And thank you Miles for your kind introduction.

    Your contribution to the sector, to the economy, to people’s lives is well known.

    Along with related professional services, you contribute over 10% of the country’s GDP, 2.2 million jobs. The largest capital market in Europe and the second largest in the world. And that’s before we think about nearly

    £76 billion in total taxes which is enough to fund the entire police force and school system.

    The UK is fortunate to have such a strong sector. We know that you have a choice of where to locate and will never take you for granted.

    You are part of our history.

    London was one of the first ever stock exchanges to be founded.

    This year marks 250 years since a group of stockbrokers

    moved to Sweeting’s Alley to set up a formal club.

    Before then, for close to a century, they’d be working out of the City’s coffee houses because they were deemed too uncouth and rude to be allowed into the Royal Exchange, the City’s centre of commerce.

    Of course, I’m sure nobody at all would have that view today!

    But in all seriousness, from those humble coffee house roots – shared by insurers at Lloyds Coffee Shop – the entire financial services sector has become a data and markets giant.

    From early trading in precious metals, to the telegraph revolution, ticker tape and real time prices. And in between all of the innovation, supporting war efforts, funnelling money into infrastructure and tackling the issues of the day.

    We are at our best when we are contributing to solutions to national and global challenges.

    It was almost a year ago today that we received intelligence about tanks amassing on the Russian border with Ukraine.

    As Putin’s barbaric invasion got under way, you came together to help deliver the biggest economic sanctions in history.

    With the help of the UK insurance sector – really the world’s insurance sector – we followed this by implementing a price cap on Russian oil, further undermining Russia’s ability to profit from aggression.

    And finally, when people’s livelihoods were at risk from a global pandemic, you stepped in to help us support businesses and families with your payments capabilities. So for everything that everyone in this room has done and your individual leadership – thank you.

    As we emerge from a difficult few years for our country, we need to turn our attention to the long-term.

    We have five clear priorities.

    Halve inflation. Grow the economy. Reduce debt. Cut waiting lists. And stop the boats.

    Three of these priorities are about the economy. That’s because the prosperity that it’s our job to deliver can only come on the back of economic stability and growth.

    Yes there are economic headwinds, but we have the highest employment rate for half a century, inflation is lower than 14 other EU countries, and the private sector has grown by 7.5% in the last year.

    And last week a survey of business leaders by PWC said the UK was the third-most attractive country for CEOs expanding their businesses.

    As the Chancellor said last Friday, our vision for the UK is an enterprise culture built on low taxes, reward for risk, access to capital and smarter regulation.

    With volatile markets and high inflation, sound money must come first but our ambition is to have nothing less than the most competitive tax regime of any major country.

    Delivering stability means making sensible choices on spending to tame inflation: not exposing the most vulnerable, but also not believing we can simply spend our way to prosperity.

    As a former CFO myself, I know the importance of balancing the books and I recall graphicly what it was like trying to issue capital in the uncertain markets post 2008.

    But we are well placed. All of the natural advantages which have brought us here remain. Our language, culture, great cities and the rule of law.

    Our universities are ranked second globally for their quality and include three of the world’s top ten. In order to support the ground-breaking work they do, the government has protected our £20 bn research budget, now at the highest level in history.

    Your government has a mandate and a majority and only this week Parliament was passing important financial services legislation.

    The Prime Minister has set out five domains of outsize growth and potential where Britain is up with the very best in the world.

    Advanced manufacturing, the clean energy revolution, life sciences and digital technology. And of course, financial services.

    As your champion I make the case that we count twice. For without efficient and effective capital markets we cannot hope to exploit the potential of the others.

    We are fortunate to be one of the world’s top two financial hubs and the world’s largest net exporter of financial services. Your capability to deploy capital behind innovation combined with our research strengths, makes our aspiration to be a technology superpower ambitious but highly achievable.

    One would think it was self-evident that growth is good.

    As Robert Colvile, Director of the Centre for Policy

    Studies, argues in his report “The Morality of Growth” that to some, growth has become the enemy.

    Obviously, I disagree. This entire Government does.

    That’s important because the private sector, we must never forget, is what drives growth and lets us invest in public services.

    And, as Colvile writes, “firms are most effective at doing good when they do well – when they are profitable and successful and attractive employers”.

    Let me speak personally for a moment. As we chart our course in a globally competitive marketplace, we have to be clear eyed about what it is that we want to be good at.

    My view is simple: if we can’t be globally effective in financial services, we should all go home now.

    It is my job to help you achieve that. To remove friction, to support and celebrate risk takers and to shape regulatory frameworks that are well regarded but agile.

    As I’ve said before, this sector has had more reviews than Netflix. Many of the authors and contributors are here tonight. We know what we want to do. Now is the moment to get on and deliver.

    We are taking this forward in a number of ways: through the Financial Services and Markets Bill, and through the Edinburgh Reforms.

    Unleashing the sector, realising potential, delivering for you and for UK plc.

    My ambition is for us to be the global financial hub – using our strengths to enhance strong relationships with jurisdictions all around the world, attracting investment and increasing opportunities for cross-border trade.

    I want to work hand-in-glove with you this year on the priorities I have agreed with the Chancellor.

    First, is to deliver the Financial Services and Markets Bill.

    To get that on the statute book by Easter so we can unlock the reforms it contains.

    Second, as I’ve alluded to, is boosting competitiveness by delivering the Edinburgh Reforms.

    Third, and related, is to unleash private capital to invest in all those growth sectors I mentioned earlier.

    And fourth, I want us to bolster financial inclusion and support retail savers and investors.

    Good regulation has the power to be a positive tool to enable you all to compete in a global world.

    I am grateful to TCUK for your work on how the regulators’ authorisation processes can be made more efficient.

    This is an important area, and one that I have raised with the leadership of the FCA and the PRA.

    I am pleased that they have committed to make improvements and I am grateful for their collaboration.

    In order to strike a better overall balance, the Financial Services and Markets Bill will introduce a new secondary objective in law for the PRA and the FCA on growth and international competitiveness.

    That’s important, and taken with a number of other measures, we do expect to see a real change.

    And I want to put to bed any idea that this is about a race to the bottom: the government’s vision is about making UK regulation more proportionate and simpler whilst retaining high regulatory standards.

    Nor do we seek to diverge for divergence’s sake. In running international businesses, no one wants to add extra complexity or difference. The ambition of a European MoU remains.

    Whether it’s implementing the outcomes of Lord Hill’s Listing Review or making regulation more tailored for the UK market, we’re ensuring we remain one of the best countries in the world to do business.

    As the Chancellor laid out just days ago, if we’re going to have successful Enterprises – growing companies need capital.

    That is why we have selectively used the regulatory flexibility we now have.

    One of the most tangible examples – one that will unlock over £100 billion of pounds for productive investment, creating jobs and prosperity – is reforming Solvency II.

    It is a change that will unleash capital into productive investments, such as offshore wind.

    It will allow the insurance sector to play an ever-greater role in providing opportunity to left behind communities and our transition to Net Zero, with the industry expecting to invest more than £100 billion over the next decade.

    Good for business: good for the country.

    And then there’s an issue close to my heart: financial inclusion.

    What does that mean?

    It means making sure all people, regardless of their background or income, have access to the useful products and services which help them succeed in life.

    And let me be clear: this isn’t woolly talk.

    We’re driving tangible measures.

    Take access to cash. You don’t need telling that one of the macro trends we’re likely to see continue this year is a move from cash to electronic payments.

    Yet cash is something that millions cannot currently live without.

    Those in rural communities, the elderly, those who use cash to manage personal finances.

    That is why, for the first time since the ancient Kelts began minting coins in the British Isles, this year will see communities’ benefit from new laws to protect access to cash.

    It is also a personal mission to foster an environment that supports individual savers and investors.

    This is a government that will always be on the side of those saving for the future or their retirement.

    It’s these steps – and more – that show we mean it when we say financial services need to deliver for everyone.

    Finally, one of the reasons this sector is so successful is innovation. We want to do everything we can to ensure that UK financial services are at the forefront of technological advancements.

    Just look at fintech – what an incredible UK success story.

    Despite a challenging economic backdrop, the sector attracted $12.5 bn of investment last year.

    That’s second only to the US globally. It’s more than the next 13 European countries put together.

    We are committed to turbocharging the growth of the UK fintech sector with the new Centre for Finance, Innovation, and Technology – CFIT.

    Indeed, today we’ve heard the exciting news that Ezechi Britton has been appointed as the CEO of CFIT.

    He brings extensive experience as a fintech entrepreneur and in venture capital investment.

    Building on our FinTech lead, we are going to go further, establishing a framework for regulating cryptoassets and stablecoins.

    Just yesterday we published a consultation setting out comprehensive proposals for regulating the sector. It’s a big potential opportunity – I want to get it right so am actively seeking your views.

    The golden thread here is innovation. Being at the forefront of change, is how we will make the UK the natural home of innovative financial services companies.

    Rather than looking enviously at our competitors, I want them to look to emulate us.

    Ladies and Gentlemen, Miles, I am excited.

    Excited to be in this job, and excited to be able to push ahead with a significant programme of work for the balance of this year.

    The opportunity we have is substantial and the moment to seize it is right now.

    Together we can continue to build the UK as one of the world’s most competitive locations for financial services.

    A financial services superpower that will help secure the long-term economic wellbeing of the country.

    Thank you again for your welcome, thank you for listening and thank you for everything you continue to do for this industry and this country.

  • Robbie Moore – 2023 Speech on Planning Policy

    Robbie Moore – 2023 Speech on Planning Policy

    The speech made by Robbie Moore, the Conservative MP for Keighley, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 26 January 2023.

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers.

    I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) on securing this important debate. It is important because planning policy impacts on everyone, and everyone has a view on it, whether that is negative or positive. Generally, it impacts on everyone’s life.

    I will pick up on some of the absolutely valid points made by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) about the fact that a lot of planning policy has to be community-driven. Sometimes, it has to be generated at the grassroots level, rather than top-down. As has been said, it is incredibly important that planning policy is community-led. It has to consider the environment and relate to the needs of what is required within a specific community. It is important that we develop houses that meet and enhance the health and wellbeing of the communities we all represent.

    I take a keen interest in planning policy because I studied architecture at Newcastle University and, in my year in industry, worked for a great company up in Newcastle that was involved in master planning exercises for housing regeneration schemes. One of the schemes we got involved with was in a deprived area of Sunderland, Southwick, and looked at how we could enhance a community through the quality of build of houses being developed. Indeed, I remember when I was at university, I did my dissertation on Byker and how the built environment can support communities. That is absolutely what planning policy should be about.

    There are a few issues I want to cover in my contribution. I will consider local plans and how we can ensure that the infrastructure we all like to talk about—whether that is roads, GPs, schools or parks—is supported and there to enhance people’s quality of life with regard to housing. I will also touch on affordable housing and what an industrial strategy looks like when we are talking about employment use, and I will finish by talking about telecom masts.

    My constituency of Keighley and Ilkley is going through a review of its local plan. Our local planning authority, Bradford Council, is looking at the local plan and will be putting it out for its second consultation in the not-too-distant future—I have been informed that that will happen shortly. One of the inevitable challenges is the drive to increase housing numbers across the whole of the Bradford district, which contains many different settlements, including not only Bradford city itself, but Keighley and Ilkley, which as towns are very different from the city. The complexity lies in the different make-up of those settlements and where the need is in those settlement areas.

    Through the first consultation on the local plan, it became clear that the local authority seems to have an incredible will almost to offload some of those housing numbers to the easy wins—the easy wins being most of the outlying areas in the greenfield or in green-belt areas where it might be easier to get those planning applications through at a later date. The local plans are being developed at the moment that will create the next 15-year housing strategy, which will, we hope, be adopted later this year.

    The concerns I have raised constantly are that the plan does not focus enough on prioritising brownfield development. We must refocus on those brownfield sites. Yes, they are more complex to develop—they may have contamination issues, issues with highways, challenges from some of the old mill settlements and so on—when trying to create a clean slate to drive that private inward investment into some of those sites. However, that has to be looked at because, unless we actually have a brownfield-first priority, we run the risk of not only reducing the soul of a settlement where those brownfield site holes in a settlement have been identified, but not actually developing houses where that need is identified.

    My concern is that, in several of the towns I represent, the housing numbers that have been proposed are dramatic. They are way over and above the need identified for those settlements. In some of the discussions I have been having with the local authority, I hear that it has allocated the housing numbers to those settlements based on the deliverability factor—that is, it knows it can deliver x houses in those settlements because can build it on greenfield or take green-belt land out of the green belt for housing, rather than having a proper focus on brownfield first.

    I will give some examples. There is Silsden—I should declare an interest, because that is the town that I live in. It is in the middle of the constituency, and it has had a proposed increase in housing numbers of about 580. Silsden is a relatively small settlement that has grown and grown; as we speak, we have an application from Persimmon Homes for 140 houses, to which I have put in an objection. We have had a Barratt Homes development; we have had Countrywide looking at putting in a development; we have Linden Homes currently building on site; and Skipton Properties has recently built a housing development.

    Bob Seely

    My hon. Friend is making a great speech, and I thank him so much for being here. Is not one of the problems with these big property companies, apart from the fact that they land bank, that they are interested only in really big sites? Since the great crash 10 or 15 years ago, a lot of the medium-sized and smaller building companies have gone out of business. We need to motivate smaller companies, or find financial incentives for developing smaller sites in a way that is much more acceptable to smaller towns and villages. That is better than Persimmon Homes, which, apart from anything else, has a dreadful reputation for the quality of its build, just plonking down 100 homes here or 500 homes there, and almost taking over and swamping the village.

    Robbie Moore

    That is exactly the point that I want to come on to, because Silsden is being inundated with houses. A live application for 140 houses is being considered by Bradford Council. I am completely opposed to it, but it is one of about six planning applications made over a period of time, and some of those houses are still being built. The point is that there has not been a sensible conversation about the impact on infrastructure and, as my hon. Friend pointed out, the quality of the build.

    The road infrastructure going through Silsden is not great at all. I drive through Silsden weekly, and the roads are tight and narrow. The pavements are not wide enough, let alone the roads. There are no conversations about the school, the GP services and the other facilities that the town needs in order to stay vibrant. Settlements sometimes need to grow organically; growth must be driven by the requirements of individual settlements. There sometimes needs to be a focus on brownfield sites first, or on development of niche, smaller sites, which could be grown at an organic speed and delivered in line with settlements’ need.

    In Ilkley, the average house price is somewhere around £420,000. That is very high, but local plan proposals suggest that Ilkley needs to grow by another 314 houses. I am constantly pushing back, because the community and I need to see the requirement for Ilkley to grow by that number of houses over the next 14 years.

    Just down the road, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), Burley in Wharfedale has grown hugely recently—by about 700 houses. The implications for the GP service are huge. It has been a real challenge to unlock money, whether through section 106 or the community infrastructure levy, to improve the infrastructure. I have been helping out my hon. Friend with that.

    I will come on to the quality of the build, which my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight made a really good point about. I have mentioned Harron Homes in this Chamber before; the quality of its build has been shocking, and it is not great to say that. I will give another example. About 50 houses were built—again, in Silsden. Other Members from across West Yorkshire have made this point in this Chamber before. The site was finished, in the developer’s eyes, yet there were huge snagging issues. The road was not even sorted out; in fact, sewage from the site had to be disposed of by a lorry that came in and emptied the tank, because the connection with Yorkshire Water were not sorted out. How can we ensure more enforcement against property developers when build is not of the quality that residents, and we representatives, expect? What can the Government do to put more pressure on developers to enhance the quality of houses, and of the master planning of the community that is being developed?

    That brings me to industrial strategy. Inevitably, when it comes to planning, everybody likes to talk about houses, because that is quite an emotive issue, but I agree with the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight made about the use of compulsory purchase powers. On North Street in Keighley, there are many empty buildings with fantastic architecture. How do we use compulsory purchase powers to unlock those sites, and force the owners to change them into housing, or get them into some sort of community use, so that they do not sit empty year after year? Those sites could be used by the town.

    Dalton Mills is a fantastic building. It is an old mill—one of the biggest in Keighley—that has been redundant for many a year, although “Peaky Blinders” was filmed there. The quality of the site has deteriorated over many years, and last year there was a big fire— 100 firefighters and 21 fire engines came. The building unfortunately suffered a huge amount of fire damage, although the façades seem to be structurally sound. It is a unique site just outside the centre of Keighley, but we are unable to unlock it because the landowner seems aloof—we cannot get in touch with him. We cannot get traction with some of these key sites. How can we unlock them, in planning policy terms, using compulsory purchase powers?

    Let me turn to the speed at which local authorities operate. In order to drive growth and job creation, we want light industrial units in appropriate places, but it takes too long to get the planning applications through the system and get those units built. I have been shown many examples in Keighley. About four years ago, a planning application was submitted to the local authority for eight or 10 light industrial units. It did not get any traction from the local authority until the early in the covid period. During the covid period, the units got built and occupied, and now those businesses are flourishing. The demand is there; we just need to increase the speed.

    Of course we want to drive better connectivity, but telecom masts have to be in locations where they do not have an adverse impact on the beauty of a village, and they must not be too close to residential units. There needs to be a mechanism for putting pressure on organisations such as Clarke Telecom that drive some of the applications. We must ensure that they look at where the best sites are. I will give three examples.

    Unfortunately, a telecoms mast was approved in Addingham. It has a huge impact; it does not look good on the drive into the village. There would most definitely have been a better site for it. Putting it elsewhere would not have affected connectivity. All the residents of Addingham are impacted when they drive into the village and see that ghastly telecoms mast. An applicant applied to put a telecom mast on a site in the middle of Ilkley that was not even part of the public highway; they just thought they could get away with it. They had to withdraw the scheme, which will now be reconsidered. I put a lot of pressure on them. There was an application for a mast on a roundabout in the heart of the beautiful village of East Morton. We want to drive connectivity, but we do not want random applications for masts all over the place, with applicants seeing what they can get away with. That is not acceptable.

    We have covered loads of points. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight for securing this debate, because planning policy without doubt impacts all our constituents. Everyone is incredibly passionate about it.

    The Government are absolutely going in the right direction, and I commend them for listening to the many concerns that I have raised about housing numbers. The key point that I want to reiterate before I close is that planning policy has to be driven by need. What we need, rather than local authorities aiming policy at quick wins, is to create housing where it is needed, and a “brownfield first” policy.

  • Gagan Mohindra – 2023 Speech on Planning Policy

    Gagan Mohindra – 2023 Speech on Planning Policy

    The speech made by Gagan Mohindra, the Conservative MP for South West Hertfordshire, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 26 January 2023.

    It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely)—my good friend—on bringing forward this really important debate. I commend him and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) for the excellent work that they have done on the issue for a significant time. Most of that work was done behind closed doors, as critical friends of the Government. It allowed me, as a Government loyalist, the space to contribute positively, in a small way, to making sure that the legislation was exactly as we wanted, without been seen as disruptive or disloyal.

    As I have said many times in this Chamber, I come from a local government background. I was a councillor for 17 years before being elected to this place. Actually, there was a bit of overlap because of the pandemic. In that time, I spent many years on planning committees. Most recently, I was chairman of a planning committee in Epping Forest. I was a dual-hatter: I was also a county councillor in Essex. During my tenure as county councillor, I was responsible for strategic planning. In all those years in local government, I thought that local plans were better than what preceded them: the regional development agencies, which were part of a clunky, top- down model imposed on our communities from Whitehall. Although the local plan process remains emotive and, I would argue, quite difficult, it is part of a journey, and part of the future legislation, which will improve the process.

    I commend the Government for listening to the constructive criticism and feedback that people such as my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight have put forward. Top-down numbers are helpful, but they should not be a stick with which to beat local authorities. I am happy for provisions on the five-year land supply to be removed. I always thought that they were a tool that unscrupulous developers or applicants could use to put development in the wrong place. I think I speak on behalf of the whole House when I say that politicians are always conscious of unintended consequence. No politician, whatever their party, wants to put forward bad laws or policies. When it comes to encouraging councils to ensure a pipeline of future development, a hard five- year deadline would open up a massive can of worms; unscrupulous developers from around the country would get involved. Both my authorities’ planning departments were a bit under-resourced, through no fault of their own, which meant that they were in some ways swimming against the tide, and finding that increasingly difficult.

    My constituency of South West Hertfordshire is a beautiful part of the world. The Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty is to our west, and we have the border with London to the south. We have the best of all worlds: we have very good transport links with London, but we retain that village feel. We are about 80% green belt, so pretty much wherever we look, we see prime green belt, farmland and trees. Part of the joy of representing South West Hertfordshire is that, waking up in the morning, I am more likely to hear a bird than cars. That is not to say we do not need further investment in transport—and I will continue to bang on about the train network and the tube in the south—but it is a nice place to live. As a conservative with a small C, part of my role as the elected Member of Parliament is to retain what we love about the community. Pressures that we experience in the home counties and London, particularly pre pandemic because of the draw for better-paid jobs, mean that we will continue to have these debates on local planning issues.

    It is great to see the Minister in her place. My plea to her is to try to future-proof the local planning process. With the way people live their lives post pandemic, the south-east is less of a draw, because they can have a well-paid, good job with future career prospects without moving down to South West Hertfordshire or London. My generation, including a lot of my friends from the midlands, was drawn down to London. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for regeneration and development, I had a meeting with Birmingham City Council yesterday. After hearing about the exciting plans in that part of the world, I think that if I were an 18 or 20-year-old from there now, I would not necessarily see the bright lights of London as the real draw. People can still have a good quality of life, with reasonable house prices and a good work-life balance, and live in a vibrant community with lots of future plans.

    I represent half of the area covered by Dacorum Borough Council and most of the area covered by Three Rivers District Council. The two councils did a poll back in 2020, asking residents to name their favourite thing about living in South West Hertfordshire. Over three quarters of respondents across both council areas said it was the parks and open spaces. The silver lining of the pandemic is that people have really appreciated what is on their doorstep.

    As someone who still commutes into London every day, I may be a rare breed. A lot of people are still getting back to working full time in their office space, after being perfectly set up over the last couple of years to work from home. Avoiding a two-hour commute there and back, which I have to do most days, is a draw. However, as well as saving on the commute time and transport costs, the quality of life aspect is important. Planning, by its very nature, should be focused on the health and wellbeing of communities. As a Conservative councillor, my view was that when planning is done badly, not only does it create an eyesore, but the negative aspects of poor development lead to unhealthy outcomes, which mean an additional burden on the state in future years. As a Conservative, one of my values is offering value for money. Where we can reduce the cost burden for future generations, we should be proactively doing that. The way we do planning is very much part of that mix.

    Apparently, 1.2 million homes are lying dormant on brownfield sites. I referred earlier to the significant green-belt aspect of my community. Although there is always a draw to do what is easy—that is, if there is a piece of grassland, build on it—that does not mean it is the right thing to do. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight spoke about renewed emphasis on getting brownfield sites back into use. That is absolutely the right theme, which I hope my Government will continue to push.

    Some of the regeneration in our communities is to do with not necessarily new homes, but the quality of what people see outside their windows. For someone driving to the local shops, being next to a derelict site where nothing looks to have happened for five or 10 years has a subconscious bearing on how they feel for the day. Although new development is a pain in the short term, people feel the benefit of those brand new hospitals or schools, or additional classroom space. That is what the planning process is meant to do. It is meant to make the next generation living in that area have an easier life than the previous one.

    Strategic planning is absolutely required. We have had piecemeal planning, which we see occasionally from planning application appeals. Inevitably, those have led to a can of worms, with developments in the wrong place. They might make a lot of money for the developer at the time, but they have a significant impact on local authorities, especially when trying to offer a support network such as social services or NHS nurses, which have to go to out-of-the-way places that can be the wrong sites for such developments.

    From January last year to September, across all the Hertfordshire councils, about 12,000 applications were received, with about 11,500 decisions taken and, of those, 85% granted. The planning application process therefore does not seem to be the issue or a bottleneck. Planning remains complex, which it needs to be, with a lot of expertise required—I applaud the Government’s drive for digitisation, because more people will engage in the process—but there should be more motivation to do the right thing, although I do not yet know how to do that. Putting in an application just to increase the property value, without developing it—I know loved ones who have done the same—might be helpful in the short term, but it is a false economy as regards what is available or in the pipeline to be developed.

    In the south of my constituency, Three Rivers District Council is Liberal Democrat-controlled. For many years, since I was elected, I have pushed it to continue the momentum to get a local plan in place. As the constituency Member of Parliament, I would argue that the council is probably using the change in the forms in planning legislation that we are looking to make as an excuse not to get on and do it. In the north of my constituency, Dacorum District Council is Conservative-controlled, and it is just getting on with its plan, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) said at Prime Minister’s questions. While that is difficult, it is absolutely the right thing to do.

    My plea to the Minister is that where we think councils are using the situation to do the wrong thing, we need, whether by a quiet word, threats of sanctions or whatever—I do not know what tools she has in her armoury—to encourage such councils to get on and do their plan, because sitting one’s head in the sand is not the solution for planning. We need to have those mature, if typically emotive, conversations and for decisions to be made. Politicians are elected to make decisions, even when they are sometimes difficult to make.

    The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill is in a good place. There is more to do, but I would not expect that to happen in this piece of legislation. I am sure future legislation will be coming down the pipeline through the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

    The demand for housing in this country cannot and should not be ignored. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight spoke about start times, and that is a big issue in my part of the world. While people will remain emotive about new development, typically such new homes are for the local community. When people move out of mum and dad’s home, where will they live? In my part of the world, it means they have to move significant distances away.

    Brownfield land is very much there, and we need proactively to get it back into use, even more so than now. The counterpart to that is some green-belt land. The Government should encourage regular reviews of green belt, because it has various spectrums—if it is prime arable land, absolutely we should retain it in the green belt, but if a site is on the edge of settlement, has been dilapidated for 20 years and is of no help or environmental benefit, we should identify it and make better use of it. With the right plan and policies in place, we can maximise the benefits of planning and keep our green spaces safe.