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  • Keir Starmer – 2022 Speech on Energy Price Capping

    Keir Starmer – 2022 Speech on Energy Price Capping

    The speech made by Keir Starmer, the Leader of the Opposition, on 8 September 2022.

    I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of her opening speech.

    We are in the middle of a national emergency. People are really scared, families do not know if they can warm their homes this winter and businesses ask if they can keep the lights on. That is why the Labour party spent the summer fighting for a price freeze, so that no household would pay a penny more on their bills. When we called for it, many people said we were wrong. They pretended that this crisis was something that just affected the poorest, as if working families on average wages could easily shoulder astronomical bills. They dismissed our call for support as “handouts”. But those objections could never last; the Prime Minister had no choice. No Government can stand by while millions of families fall into poverty, while businesses shut their doors and while the economy falls to ruin. So I am pleased that there is action today and that the principle of a price limit has been accepted, but under our plan there will be not a penny more on bills; under this plan, there will be a price rise.

    Several hon. Members rose—

    Keir Starmer

    I will just make some progress and then I will give way.

    This support does not come cheap. The real question before the House today—the real question the Government face; the political question—is who is going to pay. The Treasury estimates that energy producers could make £170 billion in unexpected windfall profits over the next two years. Let me repeat that: £170 billion in unexpected windfall profits over the next two years.

    Several hon. Members rose—

    Keir Starmer

    I will give way in just a moment.

    The head of BP has called this crisis “a cash machine” for his company. Households are on the other end of that cash machine—their bills are funding these eye-watering profits. That is why we have been calling for a windfall tax since January, and it is why we want to see the windfall tax expanded now, but the Prime Minister is opposed to windfall taxes. She wants to leave these vast profits on the table, with one clear and obvious consequence: the bill will be picked up by working people. She claims that a windfall tax will deter investment. That is ridiculous. These vast profits are not the reward for careful planning. They are the unexpected windfall from Putin’s barbarity in Ukraine. There is no reason why taxing them would affect investment in the future.

    Do not just take my word for it. Asked which investment BP would cancel if there were a windfall tax, the chief executive said, “None”—his word, not mine. The Prime Minister’s only argument against the windfall tax falls apart at first inspection, laying bare the fact that she is simply driven by dogma, and it is working people who will pay for that dogma.

    Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)

    Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept that this Government have already introduced a windfall tax, and energy companies today are paying 65% on their profits? What would he rather see that tax set at?

    Keir Starmer

    We are talking about what happens this winter and next. If the hon. Gentleman does not understand—[Interruption.] I will tell him something. Every pound the Prime Minister’s Government refuse to raise in windfall taxes, which is leaving billions on the table, is an extra pound of borrowing. That is the simple, straightforward argument. Every pound that she leaves on the table is an extra pound of borrowing, loading the burden of the cost of living crisis onto working people who will have to pay back for years to come.

    Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)

    The Prime Minister has been careful to frame her guarantee in terms of her refusal to tax, but will she not have a problem explaining to the British people how a levy on their bills in the future to repay the borrowing is not actually a tax?

    Keir Starmer

    This is the basic political divide. The Government want to protect the excess profits of the oil and gas and energy groups; we want to protect working people.

    Mr Perkins

    This Saturday, I and many members of Chesterfield Labour party will be out meeting voters in Chesterfield. If any of those voters have not been paying attention this week, they might still say, “You’re all the same.” But is it not absolutely clear now that there is a clear divide? When I knock on doors, every voter will know that political parties have a choice. The Government have chosen to be on the side of the energy generators; we have chosen to be on the side of bill payers.

    Keir Starmer

    I would be absolutely amazed if Government Members have not picked that up. Ask voters whether they think it is fair that they pick up the bill, rather than those companies that made profits they did not expect to make. There is only one answer to that question. It is a very simple question of whose side are you on.

    I am afraid this is not a one-off. Not only is the Prime Minister refusing to extend the windfall tax; she is choosing to cut corporation tax—an extra £17 billion in tax cuts for companies that are already doing well. That means handing a tax cut to the water companies polluting our beaches, handing tax cuts to the banks and handing a tax cut to Amazon. She is making that choice, even though households and public services need every penny they can get. Working people are paying for the cost of living crisis, stroke victims are waiting an hour for an ambulance and criminals walk the streets with impunity. It is the wrong choice for working people; it is the wrong choice for Britain.

    Mr Dhesi

    The Government appear to have decided to deal with this energy crisis on the backs of ordinary hard-working Brits, and to load huge levels of debt on to future generations, rather than properly taxing the billions of pounds of excess profits of the energy companies. Why are the Government on the side of big corporate rather than ordinary hard-working Brits? Is it because the Prime Minister is a former employee of Shell and is therefore on the side of oil and gas companies instead of protecting ordinary working British people?

    Keir Starmer

    I am grateful for that intervention. It comes down to this basic point. All hon. Members recognise that profits are needed for investment in all businesses, but in this case these are profits that the companies did not expect to make. When the chief executive of BP says that the windfall tax would not deter any investment, it is a bit rich for Government Members to say that he is completely wrong. He is the chief executive of BP. He has made his case and it is the complete opposite of the case the Prime Minister is trying to make.

    The immediate cause of this energy crisis is Putin’s grotesque invasion of Ukraine. We stand united in our support for Ukraine. If we are to defend democracy, defeat imperialism and preserve security on our continent, Putin’s aggression must fail. Whatever our political differences, the Prime Minister will always have my full support in that common endeavour. But we must ask ourselves why we are so exposed to changes in the international price of oil and gas. Why are we so at the mercy of dictators able to pull the plug on wells and shut down pipelines? Why is there such a fundamental flaw in our national security?

    Several hon. Members rose—

    Keir Starmer

    I will make my argument and then I will give way.

    It is about a failure to prepare, a failure to increase our energy independence and a failure to rapidly decrease our reliance on fossil fuels. The Conservatives banned onshore wind in 2015, and that cost us clean energy capacity equivalent to all our Russian gas imports in recent years—a policy disaster. The Prime Minister has been consistently opposed to solar power, the cheapest form of energy we have, and she has been consistently wrong. It is not just what the Prime Minister said in the heat of her leadership campaign this summer. When she was Environment Secretary, the Government slashed solar subsidies and the market crashed.

    Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)

    The Leader of the Opposition is being completely misleading, if I may say so. It is under this Government that the United Kingdom has the second highest offshore wind generation capacity of anywhere in the world. How is that created? It is through investment by companies, and this Government will allow for that to happen.

    Keir Starmer

    I take it from that intervention that the hon. and learned Gentleman does not quarrel with me that the ban on onshore wind since 2015 has been a policy disaster, along with the opposition to solar power.

    Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con) rose—

    Keir Starmer

    I will of course take the former Prime Minister’s intervention.

    Mrs May

    I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is talking about lack of preparation for the United Kingdom’s energy security. If Labour is so worried about that, why did it not build any new nuclear capacity?

    Keir Starmer

    I am grateful for that intervention and I will deal with it in full, because it is a very important point. Nuclear is vital to our future, and a new generation of power plants should have been built by now. Yesterday, the Prime Minister desperately tried to blame Labour, and that intervention goes to that point. I remember the exchange across the Dispatch Box in 2006 when Prime Minister Blair said that he was pro-nuclear, and the Leader of the Opposition, David Cameron, did not know where to look. If Members have not seen the clip, they should have a look. The uncomfortable truth for Members opposite is that the last Labour Government gave the go-ahead for new nuclear sites in 2009. In the 13 long years since then, not one has been completed.

    Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)

    Tony Blair may have said that he was pro-nuclear, but he did not actually build any nuclear power stations.

    On the windfall tax and the £170 billion that the Leader of the Opposition mentioned, it is my understanding that most of that is not profits of UK companies but from energy supplied to the UK, and it is not within our ability to tax it. We already have a windfall tax that taxes those profits at 65%. How high does he think a windfall tax should go?

    Keir Starmer

    What was the Conservative party’s position on nuclear when David Cameron was asked the question in 2006? He did not have a position on it. I think the right hon. Gentleman is wrong about the £170 billion. If there is any doubt, I invite the Treasury to disclose the documents so that we can all evaluate them.

    Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)

    Is not the bigger point that there is a simple choice about how to pay for this? It either all goes on borrowing, ordinary families and the never-never, or at least some of it is paid for by a windfall tax on unearned and unexpected income which Putin has put into the pockets of Shell and BP. That is the fundamental choice.

    Keir Starmer

    That is the fundamental choice and the fundamental divide in the House. Let the Conservatives defend their position of protecting those excess profits, and we will defend our position of standing up for working people.

    Several hon. Members rose—

    Keir Starmer

    I will make some progress: I have taken a lot of interventions.

    Let me turn to home insulation, which reduces energy consumption like nothing else. We have the draughtiest homes in Europe. The last Labour Government set about fixing that. Then the Conservative party said, “cut the green crap”, and the whole project all but collapsed. Installation rates fell by 92%—utterly short-sighted, and costing millions of households £1,000 a year on their energy bills right now.

    The Prime Minister is right to recognise that immediate support needs to be combined with longer term action. Fracking and a dash for gas in the North sea will not cut bills, nor strengthen our energy security, but they will drive a coach and horses through our efforts to fight the looming climate crisis. The Prime Minister should listen to her Chancellor, who is sitting next to her. What did he have to say on fracking just a few months ago? I see him leaning forward. This is a long quote, and I have tried to cut it down, but every sentence is worth repeating.

    “Those calling for its return misunderstand the situation we find ourselves in…if we lifted the fracking moratorium, it would take up to a decade to extract sufficient volumes—and it would come at a high cost for communities and our precious countryside.”

    Those are his words. I will go on, because this is so good. He said, just a few months ago:

    “Second, no amount of shale gas from hundreds of wells dotted across rural England would be enough to lower the European price any time soon.”

    He went on:

    “And with the best will in the world, private companies are not going to sell the shale gas they produce to UK consumers below the market price. They are not charities”.

    Spot on, Chancellor.

    What did the Chancellor have to say about North sea gas at the same time? He said that,

    “additional North Sea production won’t materially affect the wholesale price”.

    Indeed, earlier this year his previous Department helpfully put out a series of Government myth-busting documents. Here is one of them—Chancellor, your document:

    “MYTH: Extracting more North Sea gas lowers prices.”

    Answer:

    “FACT: UK production isn’t large enough to materially impact the global price of gas”.

    I have a copy for the Prime Minister.

    We do need to carefully manage our existing resources in the North sea, and the industry has an important role to play in our future as we transition to a different form of energy, but doubling down on fossil fuels is a ludicrous answer to a fossil fuel crisis. If all countries took the approach advocated by the Prime Minister’s new Energy Secretary of squeezing “every last drop” out of their fossil fuel reserves, global temperatures would rise by a catastrophic 3°. That would be devastating for our planet and for future generations, and it is totally unnecessary.

    Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con) rose—

    Keir Starmer

    I am going to make some progress, because other speakers need to get in.

    New wind and solar power are now nine times cheaper—nine times cheaper! We need a clean energy sprint, urgently accelerating the rollout of offshore wind, onshore wind, solar, nuclear, hydrogen, and tidal. Last year, I set out a new national mission to insulate 19 million homes and cut bills for good. If the Government had taken me up on that challenge, 2 million homes would already be insulated by this winter.

    Britain needs a fresh start. We need a Government who will never leave working people to pick up the tab for excess profits in the energy industry. We need a Government who plan for the long term rather than leaving us badly exposed to the whims of dictators, and we need a Government who will drive us forward to energy independence rather than doubling down on fossil fuels. The change we need is not the fourth Tory Prime Minister in six years; it is a Labour Government.

  • Lindsay Hoyle – 2022 Statement on Personal Conduct of Liz Truss

    Lindsay Hoyle – 2022 Statement on Personal Conduct of Liz Truss

    The statement made by Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons, on 8 September 2022, before the start of the statement on energy made by Liz Truss.

    Before we start the debate, I want to put on record that I am very disappointed that a written ministerial statement that is relevant to it has only just been made available, in the last five minutes. Such statements should be made available, whenever possible, at 9.30 am. When they are relevant to a debate, as is the case today, it is doubly important for them to be available in good time. I am sorry that this has happened. I consider it to be discourteous to the House, and I hope that is not the way the new Government intend to treat the House. Rather than judging it to be deliberate, I will put it down to bad management or incompetence.

    We now come to the general debate on UK energy costs. Before I call the Prime Minister to open the debate—[Interruption.] This is not the day for that, given the way the House has been treated. I am defending Back Benchers and I expect a little more decorum from you.

  • Tobias Ellwood – 2022 Statement on Government Funding for Small Modular Reactors

    Tobias Ellwood – 2022 Statement on Government Funding for Small Modular Reactors

    The statement made by Tobias Ellwood, the Independent MP for Bournemouth East, in the House of Commons on 7 September 2022.

    Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker, for chairing this timely debate on modular nuclear reactors in the United Kingdom. Until recently, we took our dependence on electricity generation for granted. Policy has rightly been influenced by our ambitions to reduce our carbon footprint, arguably faster than many other developing and developed nations, but we may have been a little complacent over the past few years in regard to the security of energy supply.

    Our world is getting more dangerous, not less. The war in Ukraine has been a massive reality check, exposing how reliant we are on—and therefore how vulnerable we are to—access to international energy markets to keep our lights on. We require imports of gas, oil and coal to fuel our power stations. All too regularly, we have to import electricity from the continent through the interconnectors when we cannot generate enough power ourselves.

    The security situation in eastern Europe is clearly complicating matters. Putin is weaponising Russia’s distribution of oil and gas, causing large-scale economic harm across Europe. The cost of living crisis here has many components, but arguably a major contributor is the spike in global energy prices and the volatility in the energy markets. All this requires a sense of urgency in finding short and long-term solutions. We expect that tomorrow the Government will spell out their support to get us through the crisis. There is much speculation that energy bills may be frozen, helping us to get through a very difficult winter, but we also require a longer-term strategy to become far more energy self-sufficient as we enter a decade in which global security is on the decline.

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    I congratulate the right hon. Member on securing the debate. Does he agree that the use of small modular reactors, in conjunction with nuclear energy, gives more solid certainty about sustained energy, particularly in relation to my constituency of Strangford in Northern Ireland? Northern Ireland has no nuclear production, so it is essential for the type of energy to which he refers to be UK-wide. It is needed across the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

    Mr Ellwood

    I agree. I welcome the Government’s action to bolster our energy resilience: finally increasing UK gas storage capacity, investing in better insulation for our homes, growing the contribution of wind and solar to our energy mix, and of course investing in new nuclear. As the Government’s energy and security strategy sets out, Britain will accelerate new nuclear, including modular reactors, which will form a key part of the energy mix.

    Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)

    Will the right hon. Member give way?

    Mr Ellwood

    I will make some progress, if I may.

    We have Hinkley Point and Sizewell C coming online, adding 3,000 MW to the grid, but it will be a full decade before they start to add their power. We do not have the luxury of waiting that long. Energy consumption here and across the world will only increase as we move towards a cleaner fossil-free environment, especially across Africa, as economies and industries grow, placing ever greater demands on the ability to generate power.

    Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)

    Will the right hon. Member give way?

    Mr Ellwood

    I will make a little more progress and then give way. I know that this is an important debate.

    That last point brings me to the subject that we are discussing today: Britain’s development of modular nuclear reactors. The concept is not new; Rolls-Royce has been building small reactors to power our Royal Navy submarines for decades, so one would think the UK well placed to be the first nation to have one up and running.

    The benefits are very clear, and I am sure that the list will be added to in this debate. Each single reactor from Rolls-Royce generates approximately 470 MW of energy, enough to power 1 million homes. They cost only £2.2 billion each, versus the £20 billion that their bigger brothers cost. Once the first five reactors are built, the concept can be proven and we can start looking at exports. The export market for Rolls-Royce is worth £54 billion to the UK. This will not only help the UK, but help other nations to address their crippling energy prices and meet their COP26 targets.

    Liz Saville Roberts

    Trawsfynydd, in Meirionnydd, is entirely publicly owned, and is a nuclear-licensed site. As such, it offers an unparalleled opportunity for the fastest deployment of SMR technology at any UK site. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the Welsh development company Cwmni Egino are working together on proposals for siting, and hopes are high that construction will begin in 2027. That is where the timing is so critical. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that Cwmni Egino’s development model provides a blueprint, which could be used not just in Wales but beyond, for the alacrity of development that we are all seeking.

    Mr Ellwood

    I am grateful for that intervention, which confirms that there is a desire to see these reactors built here in the UK. Initially they will all be built in a single factory, which, once it is up and running, will be able to build the components in months rather than decades. Just about all the moving parts are in place to make this happen: the design, the support from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy—represented by the Minister who will respond to this debate—the initial development costs, the private sector investment and interest, and the factory in Derby that has been earmarked, along with potential sites across the country. We would be creating 40,000 jobs and £50 billion of investment, and offering a revolution in clean energy supply.

    So what is the problem? If we have a workable design, a genuine solution to help resolve this energy challenge, a Government Department saying all the right things and offering support, and backing from the private sector, why did I need to bring this issue to the Floor of the House? The answer is very simple. The Rolls-Royce design is now stuck between the development and delivery phases, and that delay means that the built-in advantage that Rolls-Royce has—its experience of procuring nuclear reactors for the Royal Navy—is being lost because of unnecessary delays and bureaucracy. Obviously all nuclear reactors are complex and there should be no short cuts to their procurement, but this is not about design approval; it is about the political will. The Government need to formally agree to commission those first five reactors here in the UK. That would allow Rolls-Royce to secure the funds to build the factory, and thus allow more reactor orders to be honoured.

    Jamie Stone

    Dounreay, in my constituency, was the site of the very first nuclear reactor built in the United Kingdom. The site is licensed, it has a very skilled workforce today, and it has huge local support. Does the right hon. Member agree that it should be considered as a site for one of these new reactors?

    Mr Ellwood

    I would love to be the one who gifts these locations, and I would be grateful—I am sure the Minister is hearing this—if those five locations then received potential building permissions, but we need first to cut through the red tape that is stuck in the Government. I stress that the problem is not the Department represented here today; it is, I am afraid, the Treasury.

    Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)

    As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on small modular reactors, I thank my right hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene in this important debate.

    Rolls-Royce SMR has secured funding of £210 million from UK Research and Innovation, and a further £280 million from private investors. We now need to move to the next stage, which is all about deployment. We need to agree with the UK Government on plans for siting and funding. Manufacturing plants have been earmarked for Rolls-Royce SMR across the UK, including Deeside, which will benefit north Wales and my constituents in particular. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the next stage is important because it will unlock more private sector investment and result in new factories and more high-skill jobs in the UK during this Parliament?

    Mr Ellwood

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I commend her work in chairing the all-party parliamentary group. I hope that her comments will fall on the welcome ears of the Minister, who is soon to get to his feet.

    My plea to the Minister is simple. I ask him please to recognise that the scale of the energy crisis we face necessitates a leaning into this project to secure the greater political alignment that would allow funding models to be completed during this Parliament. That is entirely possible.

    Europe is once again at war, and it is time for us to move to a warlike footing if we are to reduce our dependence on overseas power sources which are exposed to volatile international prices and, indeed, adversarial interference which we cannot control. We can enjoy greater energy self-sufficiency with cheaper bills by generating cheap, clean, reliable power within our borders. We have the know-how, we have the desire, we have the industrial advantage; I simply ask the Minister for the political will to make it happen.

  • Graham Stuart – 2022 Speech on Government Funding for Small Modular Reactors

    Graham Stuart – 2022 Speech on Government Funding for Small Modular Reactors

    The speech made by Graham Stuart, the Minister for Climate, in the House of Commons on 7 September 2022.

    Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

    I want to begin by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) on securing this important debate and speaking so passionately about the benefits that can come from this fascinating development of a UK capability in nuclear power. Tonight’s debate gives us the opportunity to build on the discussion on small modular reactors and energy security in the UK convened by my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) in January this year.

    As Climate Minister I am proud to support not only the Government funding but the private investment that we are sometimes seeing facilitated by that Government funding in the nuclear sector. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East has said, the global energy crisis created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underlines our resolve to develop new nuclear capacity in order to boost our energy security. I am sure that all of us who take an interest in this will have been gladdened by the fact that there is such strong support for that across the House this evening.

    As we make strides towards delivering net zero, the demands on our electricity system will increase. Electricity will be increasingly important, potentially providing around half of final energy demand as its use for heat and transport increases. That would require a fourfold increase in clean electricity generation, with the decarbonisation of electricity underpinning the delivery of that overall net zero target. Our analysis shows that all low-cost, low-emission solutions that will take us to this net zero-compliant electricity system are likely to require a combination of new nuclear, combined cycle gas turbines and carbon capture, utilisation and storage, in addition to growing levels of renewables. It is a complex piece, but we need all the bits to come together to meet the challenges that my right hon. Friend has set out.

    Nuclear power is important for the UK’s energy security. As the world has emerged from covid-19, global demand for energy has risen significantly, and this has been exacerbated by Putin’s malign invasion of Ukraine. But secure, clean and affordable energy for the long term depends on the transformation of our energy system, and that means more home-grown energy from increasingly diverse sources in order to reduce our dependency on imported fossil fuels and our exposure to the high and volatile prices in international markets that we can see today.

    Hon. Members will be aware that in April 2022 we announced the British energy security strategy. This set out our ambition to deploy up to 24 GW of civil nuclear power by 2050, which will meet around 25% of our projected 2050 electricity demand. New nuclear generating capacity is an important part of our plans to ensure greater energy resilience as well as having a crucial role to play in net zero. I am delighted that the British energy security strategy set out the Government’s intention to take a large-scale new project to final investment decision during this Parliament, and that two projects will reach that point in the next Parliament, subject to the necessary approvals.

    I remind Members that SMRs will play an important part, as well as those larger nuclear installations, and will be a critical part of delivering new nuclear for the UK. They offer the opportunity for flexible deployment options—we have already heard various bids to host them—and could bring regional and socioeconomic benefits, including the creation of high-value manufacturing and engineering jobs on site and on the site of manufacture.

    In November last year, as my right hon. Friend has said, we announced £210 million in match funding for Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd to develop the design for one of the world’s first small modular reactors. Funding for this project was predicated on Rolls-Royce matching the Government’s contribution with private investment, which has been found, giving the design the capability of being deployed in the UK by the early 2030s, if not before. The Government funding for Rolls-Royce is part of the advanced nuclear fund, which is a significant Government commitment of up to £385 million, both to develop domestic SMR design and to demonstrate the viability of innovative advanced modular reactors by the early 2030s.

    In addition to investment in SMRs, the Government plan to invest in the AMR research, development and demonstration programme, which, as I say, should get something going by the early ’30s. It is focused on high-temperature gas reactors for low-carbon electricity generation and would allow the production of very high-temperature heat that could be used, for instance, for the increasingly efficient production of low-carbon hydrogen, to help to decarbonise industrial process heat, or even for synthetic fuel production.

    I am pleased to remind Members that we launched the future nuclear enabling fund, or FNEF—I have realised, on my first day, that BEIS is full of acronyms galore—on 2 September 2022. The FNEF—they are never terribly well crafted—is a £120 million fund announced in the Government’s “Net Zero Strategy: Build Back Greener” in 2021. It aims to help mature potential nuclear projects ahead of any Government process to select future projects. We expect to make awards from the fund at the end of this year or at the start of 2023.

    Alongside the launch of the FNEF, we are setting up Great British Nuclear, a body to enable nuclear projects and get us on a pathway to meeting our ambitions for new nuclear, with the aim of ensuring the kind of rapidity that my right hon. Friend is right to press for from Ministers such as me. We intend to initiate a selection process in 2023, with the intention that we will enter into negotiations with the most credible projects to enable a potential Government award of support as soon as possible.

    I was pleased that Parliament backed the Nuclear Energy (Financing) Act 2022, which was granted Royal Assent in March and established a new regulated asset base—or RAB—funding model for all new nuclear projects.

    Mr Ellwood

    I hope my hon. Friend will forgive me for not having congratulated him on securing his new position. He is a round peg in a round hole; I know how passionate he is about the environment. Will he join me in paying tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), who was previously in charge at BEIS? He is now in the Treasury and therefore perfectly placed to advance this idea. During the war there was an effort to create munitions, and we leant into that project because there was a necessity, and during covid there was a necessity to create personal protective equipment. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is now a necessity for us to lean into this idea and expedite it—within the safety parameters—to make sure that we can become more energy resilient?

    Graham Stuart

    I thank my right hon. Friend, and I am happy to do that. He will forgive me, perhaps on this one day only, for not leaning in to chastise any other Department or the Government in general on day one, self-confident though I always try to be. If we look at what we have done, we see that we have reduced our emissions by more than any other major industrialised nation, and offshore wind has been a triumph.

    I am looking forward to learning more about the detail of these programmes, but I have no doubt that with the right will and the proper prompting by colleagues from across the House we can ensure that we move with the speed necessary. We need to, because as he rightly says, we are not alone in pursuing and seeing this opportunity, and there have been instances in the past when this country has been in a position to lead and has not moved quickly enough, and multibillion-dollar opportunities—let us call them that—have ended up going elsewhere.

    I am determined that we shall not only deliver on our green obligations in this country, but build our industrial capability so that even the most sceptical person comes on board as we say, “Look, we are not just dealing with climate and not just cleaning up our domestic situation. We are developing major industrial capability so that we can sell that to the rest of the world, help it with the net zero challenge, and also produce jobs and prosperity here.” It is not a hairshirt that we want; we want to get the policy right so that we are part of a global solution, and to do so in a way that boosts jobs and prosperity and carries the support of everyone, regardless of their views on climate-related matters.

    We believe that the RAB could cut the costs of financing these projects, enabling companies to finance new ones and ending our reliance on overseas developers for finance, resulting in savings for consumers. On day one, I can reassure my right hon. Friend that a lot of work is going into making sure not only that we can move at pace, but that we do so with the most solid base possible.

    We fully support the development of small modular reactors and the exciting opportunities that they can offer the UK in energy security and reaching net zero. We have demonstrated our intent to build new nuclear capacity in the UK over the past year, and we have made the decisions that we believe will provide the confidence needed for investors and businesses to get behind it. From the energy White Paper to our landmark British energy security strategy to funding for small modular reactors and the future nuclear enabling fund, I hope we have shown our dedication to energy security, net zero and nuclear. I thank my right hon. Friend and other colleagues once again.

  • Maria Miller – 2022 Statement on Lithium-Ion Battery Storage

    Maria Miller – 2022 Statement on Lithium-Ion Battery Storage

    The statement made by Maria Miller, the Conservative MP for Basingstoke, in the House of Commons on 7 September 2022.

  • Rehman Chishti – 2022 Statement on Jagtar Singh Johal

    Rehman Chishti – 2022 Statement on Jagtar Singh Johal

    The statement made by Rehman Chishti, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, in the House of Commons on 7 September 2022.

    I am grateful to the hon. Member for asking the urgent question, and I pay tribute to his tenacious support for his constituent Mr Jagtar Singh Johal since his arrest in India in 2017. I appreciate what a difficult time this must be for Mr Johal’s family and friends. Again, I pay tribute to his Member of Parliament for all that he is doing for his constituent in these challenging circumstances.

    Consular assistance to British nationals overseas is the primary public service of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and a priority for the Foreign Secretary. Since Mr Johal’s arrest over four years ago, Ministers and officials have consistently raised our concerns about his welfare and treatment directly with the Government of India. With Mr Johal’s consent, this has included raising allegations of torture and mistreatment, and his right to a fair trial. The former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) raised Mr Johal’s case with Prime Minister Modi in April. The then Foreign Secretary raised Mr Johal’s case with the Indian Minister of External Affairs, Dr Jaishankar, most recently in Delhi on 31 March. Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the Minister of State with responsibility for south Asia and the Commonwealth, is also in regular contact with his counterparts across the Indian Government. Since 2017, Ministers and officials have raised Mr Johal’s detention on almost 100 occasions, and they will continue to do so.

    In May, the UN working group on arbitrary detention published its opinion that Mr Johal is arbitrarily detained. We take this seriously, and we are committed to doing what we can to assist Mr Johal. On 9 June, the then Foreign Secretary met the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) and Mr Johal’s brother Gurpreet to discuss this matter.

    In February this year, lawyers acting for Mr Johal issued a civil litigation claim against Her Majesty’s Government in the High Court. Last month, they detailed their allegations. We must let the legal process take its course, and I will therefore not comment on this matter, in line with long-established practice, as I am sure all Members will appreciate and as you, Madam Deputy Speaker, outlined before the start of the urgent question. I can assure the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire and the House that we will continue to do all we can to support Mr Johal and his family.

  • Trudy Harrison – 2022 Statement on Avanti West Coast

    Trudy Harrison – 2022 Statement on Avanti West Coast

    The statement made by Trudy Harrison, the Minister of State at the Department for Transport, in the House of Commons on 7 September 2022.

    The current west coast franchise agreement is due to expire on 16 October. As with all contract awards, the Government will act in accordance with the Railways Act 1993 section 26(1) franchising policy statement, and a decision has yet to be taken by the Secretary of State. Given the market and the commercially sensitive nature of the outcome, further information cannot be provided at this time.

    Like all operators, Avanti has used a degree of rest-day working to operate its timetable. In essence, this means that drivers have been volunteering to work the additional shifts over and above their contracted hours. The industry arrangement has been in place for many years, to the benefit of the drivers, the operators and indeed the passengers. Avanti has a rest-day working arrangement that remains in place with the ASLEF union, which represents about 95% of the drivers.

    However, on 30 July this year Avanti experienced an unprecedented, immediate and near total cessation of drivers volunteering to work passenger trains on their rest days. This left Avanti unable to resource its timetable and, in the immediate term, resulted in significant short-notice cancellations. Avanti has reduced its timetable in response to the withdrawal of rest-day working. Reducing the timetable provided better certainty and reliability for passengers as it reduced the number of short-notice cancellations.

    The Department continues to work closely with Avanti to monitor performance, while Avanti continues to review the demand data and the position regarding train crew availability to inform options to reliably increase services. An increase in services between Manchester and London remains an absolute priority and Avanti will continue to look for opportunities to support passengers and businesses along the route.

    Navendu Mishra

    I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. It is disappointing that the Secretary of State is not here, as this issue impacts millions of people in our constituencies.

    Many of us saw the chaos at Manchester Piccadilly, London Euston and several other stations over the summer as Avanti West Coast slashed its timetables and suspended ticket sales at short notice, cutting key towns and cities off from each other. Now, in September, the problem has persisted and the chaos continues to blight the lives of thousands of people not only in my constituency but across the north-west of England and other parts of the UK. Avanti says that this has been caused by “unofficial strike action” and

    “the current industrial relations climate”—

    phrases that serve only to abdicate management responsibility for ensuring that the trains are properly staffed.

    ASLEF and National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers members across the country have indeed recently been on strike in defence of their pay, terms and conditions—I pay tribute to those members for doing so—but their strike action has no bearing on the fact that Avanti has a business model that expects train drivers to work their rest days as a way of maintaining the service, rather than having sufficient staffing levels.

    We know that there have been underlying problems at Avanti for a long time. Figures from the Office of Rail and Road for the first three months of the year show that Avanti’s performance was already behind that of other franchises, such as those on the great western and east coast main lines. The company was paid £17 million in performance and management fees from the public purse in just two years, including for “operational performance”, “customer experience” and

    “acting as a good and efficient operator”.

    Anyone who has been on Avanti trains knows that that is absolutely untrue.

    Now, customers are unable to purchase return tickets when seats for one leg have not been released, forcing people to buy two singles or open returns at greater cost; there continues to be a lack of clarity and certainty around the release of tickets; and many outlets still say “sold out”, leading people to believe there are no tickets left. My constituents, and all those who use this vital service, need and deserve clarity. We have seen poorer performance, with the threat of the closure of ticket offices, yet higher fares. It simply does not add up.

    The previous Prime Minister and his Government preached levelling up, but by failing to address this crisis the Government are causing huge economic damage to Stockport, Greater Manchester and other areas across the north. As cleaners, guards, drivers and other rail staff work hard to provide a good service, the company and its management continually let the public down.

    Did the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), approve the decision to cut Avanti’s timetable? Could the Minister tell the House who is incurring the revenue loss following the cuts to Avanti’s timetable—the train operator of the taxpayer? When will the Department for Transport come up with a proper plan to end this chaos so that the route is properly up and running again? Rail passengers deserve much better.

    I am very grateful to you, Mr Speaker—thank you.

    Mr Speaker

    And so you should be!

    Trudy Harrison

    The hon. Gentleman raised a number of points. I completely understand the frustration and disappointment, but more than anything the need to give passengers the confidence in our rail sector to know that their train services will be safe, affordable and reliable.

    This is a long-standing challenge. As I have already set out, the rest-day working agreement has been in place for many years, but it is a way of working that can no longer continue in a modern-day rail service. Part of the challenge is with recruitment and retention, which is why we are working to improve the gender balance among drivers, which is woefully low, and to improve the age diversity of drivers. When the average age is 51 years and the average age of retirement is 59, we clearly have a problem with retention. That is where we are focusing our efforts, in partnership with Avanti and all train operators.

    Mr Speaker

    I call the Chair of the Select Committee, Huw Merriman.

    Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)

    I am grateful to you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker. At the heart of this are the passengers who are losing out yet again, and I absolutely agree with the Minister that we cannot run the rail system in such an antiquated fashion, with train operators not able to fix in advance when their staff will be rostered. I hope there will be some changes on that. The transport Bill and the formation of Great British Railways will provide many of the solutions to transform the railways. Is the Bill’s Second Reading still on track to be delivered this autumn?

    Trudy Harrison

    Great British Railways was a manifesto promise and that will continue. We are working with the House to secure the time and support required to continue with that legislation.

    Mr Speaker

    I call the shadow Secretary of State, Louise Haigh.

    Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)

    Thank you for granting this important urgent question, Mr Speaker.

    Avanti West Coast’s decision to slash services on the UK’s busiest rail route has left passengers facing chaos; it has lost more than 220,000 seats per week between our major towns and cities. The damage that this shambles is doing to the regional economy and the public purse is enormous, yet, incredibly, it was signed off by the Government. Ministers have let this failing operator get away with appalling performance for far too long: the fewest trains on time; more complaints than any other operator; and a wholesale failure to train new drivers. A serving Transport Minister in the Lords has admitted that its performance is “terrible”.

    Despite that, this Department has handed tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money in performance and management fees, which have then been pocketed by shareholders, including—you could not make this up—a £4 million bonus for “customer performance”. What passengers need to hear today is a plan to get this vital line back on track, because those who rely on this service are tired of excuses. It is not sustainable or reasonable to continue to rely on the good will of drivers to work on their rest days, so will the Minister demand an urgent plan from the operator to restore the timetable, as she is perfectly entitled to do under the contract? Will she commit to claw back taxpayers’ money for services that have not run? Will she tell the House why, despite a contractual obligation to train new drivers, Avanti has comprehensively failed to do so? Above all, will she ask the new Secretary of State to guarantee that there will be no more reward for failure and to strip Avanti of its contract when it comes up for renewal next month? This ongoing fiasco is causing real damage to the economy, passengers and the public. The Ministers must stop washing their hands of responsibility and, finally, intervene.

    Trudy Harrison

    I completely agree with the shadow spokeslady on the need to modernise the workforce. People volunteering to work rest days is no longer a sustainable way to run the rail sector, and that is what we are tackling. On timetabling, however, it is surely better to provide certainty over uncertainty. The timetabling decision was made so that at least passengers could be provided with the confidence that the trains they see on the timetable will be running—they certainly were not previously. She will know that the rewards decision is an independent decision, and in some aspects Avanti performed well and in others it certainly did not. As I am sure she will know, the decision to be taken on 16 October is a commercially sensitive one, which I will not discuss, not least because I am not the rail Minister. I have every confidence, because the Secretary of State said so yesterday evening, that she will be meeting stakeholders, including those in the rail sector, and a new rail Minister will be appointed very shortly.

    Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)

    I congratulate my hon. Friend on her response to this urgent question. The blame lies on both sides: the unofficial strikes are completely unwarranted and are causing immense trouble for my constituents, who are given the most appalling treatment as a result of those strikes. Furthermore, Avanti itself has got to get its act together, and get it together soon. I have been using this line on the west coast for 37 years, since I first came into Parliament, and I have never seen it in such a state as it is in at the moment. Finally, as HS2 is part of this argument, I just want to say that it is a white elephant, and I hope the Prime Minister will get rid of it as soon as possible, certainly from Birmingham northwards.

    Trudy Harrison

    As ever, my hon. Friend makes excellent points. I wholeheartedly agree that the situation is untenable and needs to be improved. I also travel frequently—indeed, most weeks—on my journey down to London on Northern, TransPennine and Avanti services into London Euston, so I share the challenges and the pain that those undertaking journeys to Birmingham, Liverpool, Glasgow Central and Manchester are currently enduring. That is why we are working hard in the Department for Transport with our train operating companies, particularly on the matter of recruitment, diversity and retention, to ensure that we have train drivers who are trained so that we can operate a safe, affordable and reliable service in future.

    Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)

    The inflammatory tone and language the outgoing Secretary of State used regarding the ongoing industrial relations dispute has been echoed by many operators, including Avanti. That is very much to be regretted, and I hope that new leadership changes this.

    Reports last week suggested that Avanti was being considered for a long-term contract award. Is there any truth to those reports, and what discussions are taking place about using the operator of last resort to take over services? Avanti paid out £11 million in dividends to shareholders last year, 30% of which went to the Italian state-owned operator Trenitalia. It is a clear sign of the failure of privatised rail operators when profits are being used to subsidise public transport in Italy, rather than the UK, so what discussions are being had with the Scottish Government about the situation at Avanti and, more broadly, how Scotland was able to nationalise our franchise and how DfT can learn from that process?

    A quarter of TransPennine routes are also being suspended next week, in addition to the Avanti crisis. This is becoming a critical situation for Scotland and the north of England. Where does that leave the integrated rail plan? Lastly, what assessment have the Government made of the economic impact on the north of England and Scotland of Avanti and TransPennine scrapping their services?

    Trudy Harrison

    I understand the challenges, particularly on that Glasgow Central train, which I travel on as well. All options are on the table for the discussions on 16 October as to how we will proceed, but information about those discussions is commercially sensitive at the moment.

    Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)

    I thank my hon. Friend for her statement to the House. Given that ASLEF, the train drivers’ union, has pumped in a quarter of a million pounds to the Labour party, does she also call on Opposition Members to condemn these strikes? Those who have a lot to say should make clear their other interests, which I am not sure they have done so far.

    Trudy Harrison

    My hon. Friend speaks from experience and makes an excellent point. I think all of us across this House want the same thing: for passengers to be sure that they can enjoy a safe, affordable and reliable train service. As to how we are moving forward, when 95% of train drivers are represented by ASLEF and the remaining train drivers are predominantly represented by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, any of us in this House with communication channels open to those unions could make the point that the way we will have a sustainable rail sector in future, with more passengers travelling by train, is for those passengers to be confident that those trains will be driven, whether or not it is a rest day.

    Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)

    The Minister said that she would prefer passengers to have certainty, rather than uncertainty. I think we would all agree, but the only certainty for passengers at the moment is that they still cannot book a seat on Avanti services on virtually any weekend between now and November. When will the Government demand a legally binding plan—as they are entitled to do under the contract—to restore the timetable, and when will that proper timetable be restored?

    Trudy Harrison

    I understand the challenge, but however we cut this cake, we need the same ingredients: we need train drivers to drive the trains. There is a finite number of qualified, trained train drivers who can drive those routes, and it takes on average two years to recruit and train a train driver. Avanti has a particular challenge because it only had the contract for 16 weeks before we, the Government, stepped in on 1 March. That is not an excuse—I am just pointing out the facts to the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle). That is what we are dealing with; that is the challenge that my Department, Avanti and, indeed, all train operators face. This challenge is not limited to just Avanti: it is affecting all train operators at the moment, which is why we are so focused on the solution.

    Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)

    The service provided by Avanti on the west coast is incredibly important to my constituents in Rugby, especially as the railways are shifting towards being used more for leisure than for business commuting. Does the Minister agree that part of the solution to the problem is to get train drivers who work in a service that operates seven days a week to work to the same terms and conditions as workers in hospitality, health and care, and elsewhere who also serve the public at weekends?

    Trudy Harrison

    My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. Of course trains need to operate seven days a week, which is why the system of train drivers volunteering to work on those rest days is no longer sustainable. A 35-hour shift and volunteering to work rest days, while it has provided considerable extra income for train drivers, is no longer sustainable. That is exactly what we will tackle through the modernising workforce programme and Great British Railways.

    Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)

    The Minister talks about partnership with Avanti. May I suggest to her that, if she looks at it objectively, that partnership is not working, and the best thing she could do is plan to get out of it? She should sack Avanti, which is not only not running services to Manchester—it has cut those services by two thirds—but, when it eventually gets passengers on to its trains, drops them off at unpersoned stations in an unsafe position. This is not just about running services: Avanti is a dreadful company, and should not continue with this franchise.

    Trudy Harrison

    As I set out previously, Avanti has particular challenges that other train operating companies do not, in that it took over from Virgin and had 16 weeks before the pandemic hit. The very nature of training drivers requires close contact in a cab, which has prevented Avanti from being able to recruit and train the necessary number of drivers. Again, that is not an excuse; it is the reality of the situation.

    I met with Avanti and the West Coast Partnership yesterday at the Women in Transport event, where we discussed the need to improve the current 12% level of women train drivers. When 51% of society is women, the train driving sector and the transport sector more widely are clearly missing out on incredible talent across this country. We are talking to Avanti about how they will recruit those train drivers, because whoever runs these trains, they do need to be driven.

    Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)

    There is now, at best, one through train per day from Holyhead to London. Any travellers from north Wales who wish to go along the north Wales main line have to change once, or perhaps twice; in other words, the north Wales main line has been reduced to the status of a branch line. Whether that is the fault of Avanti—and I am bound to say that I do attribute a lot of blame to Avanti—it is an unacceptable state of affairs for the travelling public of north Wales, so can my hon. Friend give her best estimate as to when a decent train service will be restored to north Wales?

    Trudy Harrison

    My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct: the service to north Wales is unacceptable. That is why the decision that will be taken on 16 October will bear in mind how swiftly we can improve that service to north Wales and, indeed, all the other stations that Avanti West Coast connects people to.

    Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)

    Avanti West Coast is causing chaos for my constituents, who are still unable to book a seat on virtually any weekend between now and November. When I contacted the Secretary of State’s predecessor about this issue over the summer recess, his Department had the temerity to blame the disruption on unofficial strike action rather than on Avanti’s woeful failure to recruit new train drivers. Those claims have been rightly denounced by the rail unions as untrue. Will the Minister today commit to making a clean break with the failures of the past by refusing to reward failure and by stripping Avanti of its franchise unless immediate action is taken to restore the timetable?

    Trudy Harrison

    All options remain on the table, and the decision will take place on 16 October. I think I have already set out the acute challenges that Avanti faces and I make the point again that it takes, on average, two years to train a train driver. These things cannot be resolved overnight. A long-term programme is needed to recruit train drivers to the rail sector.

    David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)

    I have previously expressed my concern that, having built up an extensive timetable to Lockerbie station, which is served by both Avanti and FirstGroup, passenger confidence has been completely undermined by the unreliability of services. TransPennine is part of FirstGroup, which is also part of the Avanti partnership. I do believe that some blame lies with First and the way in which it is managing these franchises. Does my hon. Friend agree that it urgently needs to not just get rid of the managing director of Avanti, but address its part in making sure that services are available and that passengers, particularly in a rural area in Scotland such as the one that I represent, can be confident in the reliability of services?

    Trudy Harrison

    Absolutely. I, too, live in a rural area and recognise how important a safe, reliable and affordable rail service is for passengers, especially when they do not have other options. I reiterate that a decision will be taken on 16 October. All options remain on the table. There is no excuse for Avanti’s inability over recent years to recruit sufficient numbers of train drivers. However, we do have a finite number of train drivers in the UK, and so recruiting more train drivers must be our priority. The most important thing is to recruit more people into the transport sector. We can all play a part in that. There are fantastic careers and brilliant qualifications in the transport sector, as I learned yesterday at the women in transport event. My message to all parliamentarians is to work with me in the Department for Transport to convey the great opportunities and careers that are available in the transport sector and also for train drivers.

    David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)

    I declare an interest as vice-chair of the west coast main line all-party parliamentary group and as someone who spends a huge amount of my life on the west coast main line. If we follow the logic of the Minister’s argument that some of this comes down to staffing and the workforce, would she agree that the Department for Transport and Avanti have to move away from the anti-union rhetoric that was perpetuated so often by the former Secretary of State? We have heard today, in several contributions, Members talking nonsense about unofficial strikes. If she thinks that the workforce is the most important element here, how does that inflammatory language help the situation?

    Trudy Harrison

    I certainly have not used inflammatory language. My husband is a member of the GMB union and I believe that my salary contributes every month to its upkeep.

    On the west coast main line, 500,000 seats are still provided every week. Yes, we have seen a dramatic reduction, but I do agree that we need to work with all partners and all stakeholders to resolve this urgent situation for the benefit of passengers, to decarbonise the transport sector, to reduce emissions, to cut the congestion on our roads and to ensure that we have a sustainable, safe, affordable and reliable train service in the future. That is common sense.

    Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)

    I am grateful to the Minister for her update. I, too, met Avanti representatives last week. They told me that they had reduced the number of trains from Euston from nine to four an hour. My constituents are telling me that they are unable to get advance tickets more than three days before travel. Will the Minister take some practical steps with Avanti and, now that it has a core emergency timetable, ask that it release advance tickets further in advance— perhaps at least three or four days in advance of when people need to travel—so that constituents know that they can travel with some certainty?

    Trudy Harrison

    My hon. Friend makes a brilliant point. I will ensure that the new Secretary of State hears that suggestion and that we work with Avanti to be able to provide those advance tickets, giving passengers that certainty as soon as possible.

    Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)

    When just 53% of Avanti trains are arriving on time, it comes as no surprise that I have been inundated with complaints. I have lost count of the number of constituents who have been in touch with me really frustrated by their experience of Avanti. They talk of trains being cancelled, trains being delayed, and seats being double booked. Does the Minister think that the £4 million bonus that Avanti got for customer satisfaction and performance would perhaps have been better spent on driver recruitment and training?

    Trudy Harrison

    Any performance fees that are being referred to relate to last year’s service, not this one.

    Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)

    As my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour well knows—she often travels on the same train as me between London and Cumbria—the quality and quantity of services have dropped significantly. These short-term cancellations are really affecting our constituents. They are missing their connections with Northern, which, by the way, is experiencing similar issues on its line. Whether these problems are down to unofficial strike action or problems with Avanti and Northern management, will my hon. Friend assure me that the new Secretary of State will be getting a grip on this issue so that our constituents do not have to live with this for much longer?

    Trudy Harrison

    Absolutely. I understand the challenges, particularly on the Cumbrian coast line. I have spoken to passengers who have suffered the pain of having their last train cancelled. I for one would like to see that policy come to an end. That is why we have taken the difficult decision to reduce the timetable so that we can provide certainty and avoid people expecting a train to be running and then being told at the last minute that it will not run. That is in nobody’s best interests. On whether these are unofficial strikes, the reality is that, for something like 20 years, train drivers have been happy to work their rest days. The fact is that they are now no longer willing to do so, which has taken out of service around 40 of the 50 drivers who regularly work their rest days. We can all appreciate the immediate challenge that that has placed on Avanti, which, as I understand it, is the only train operating company to have endured such a harsh, urgent and immediate step by their train drivers.

    Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)

    Passengers are sick and tired of delays, cancellations, reduced timetables, and an inability to book tickets in advance. We have a bizarre situation where Avanti received £4 million as a reward for customer service. It is now time for the Minister and the new Secretary of State to intervene and remove the franchise from the company and put in place a publicly owned and publicly controlled franchise.

    Trudy Harrison

    So the hon. Gentleman says. I am not so convinced by what he says. There have been considerable benefits from the privatisation of the train sector. We have seen a doubling of passengers and many, many improvements. Nobody is saying that the current situation is acceptable. That is why we are looking at this and why all options remain on the table, but I am not quite as convinced as he might be about the solution.

    Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)

    I thank the hon. Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) for tabling this urgent question. Even though Avanti has a reduced timetable, it has not provided reliability. It is still cancelling trains and it still will not take advance bookings. Whether it is ASLEF and its actions, which are not helpful, or the effect of covid and many drivers’ not coming back to work, my hon. Friend the Minister is quite right to acknowledge that Avanti’s system of running its business is the main aggravator. We must put out thanks from my constituents in Lichfield, who at least are able to use London Northwestern Railway, which after a shaky start is now providing a very reliable service every hour down to London, but what steps can the Government take, perhaps in October, to ensure that the position with Avanti does not remain as it is?

    Trudy Harrison

    I agree with my hon. Friend that many train operators are providing a much better service than Avanti, and I am grateful that that is the case. We will learn from them and we will continue to speak to, challenge and probe Avanti about exactly how it will come to an agreement with its workers to ensure that we have sufficient train drivers to drive the trains as soon as possible. We recognise the importance of having a safe, affordable and reliable train service.

    Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)

    My constituent Lucy contacted me this week to express her concerns. Trains to London have been reduced to one per hour and are regularly at full capacity, yet ticket costs keep rising. Some constituents say they have been unable to accept work or cannot visit family because of Avanti’s poor service. Does the Minister agree that that is unacceptable? If so, why are the Government considering renewing Avanti West Coast’s contract in October?

    Trudy Harrison

    We are considering all options, and all options remain on the table. Withdrawing Avanti’s contract is one of those options, but we must bear in mind all the implications of that. As I said earlier, we can cut this cake however we want, but ultimately we need the drivers to be driving the trains. That must be the absolute priority. One service an hour is completely unacceptable.

    Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)

    Across the west midlands and in my city of Coventry, commuters have faced a summer of nightmare travel disruptions, causing untold damage to the local economy. Commuters across Coventry deserve to be able to travel without facing delays caused by the Government’s inaction. When will the Minister finally hold the management team of Avanti West Coast to account for failing to provide an adequate service to commuters in Coventry?

    Trudy Harrison

    I fear I am repeating myself. I have said consistently that those conversations, that probing and that challenge are happening right now across the Department and a decision will be taken on 16 October this year.

    Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)

    The train service to Bangor in my constituency was never great, but now it is dire, with trains cancelled, trains late, trains packed, ticket prices sky-high and no reliable service to and from London. Visitors to north Wales are abandoning the train in Crewe and taking to their cars, and my constituents are driving all the way to London rather than taking the train. So much for Union connectivity—so much for green travel. Is it not clear to the Minister that Avanti West Coast should lose the franchise and be replaced with a public service as in other, more developed countries such as Germany?

    Trudy Harrison

    While I have deep sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, and indeed with everybody who has endured the pain of an unacceptable, unreliable train service for far too long, I also want to point out that we are working with Avanti and all train operating companies, which have had a particularly difficult time during the pandemic. I agree that it is unacceptable that people should feel the need to drive all the way from north Wales to London, because that flies in the face of our decarbonisation targets, adds to congestion, increases emissions and, frankly, is not the most pleasurable way to travel across the country.

    I for one thoroughly enjoy my train journey from my community down to London, and I want many more people across this country to travel by train. That is why we have taken the steps we have, not only to challenge Avanti and all train operating companies on their recruitment, their diversity, on improving the fact that only 12% of train drivers are women and the fact that the average age is approaching the average retirement age, but to relay to the public the advantages of travelling by train, on which I am sure he can agree with me.

    Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)

    A number of times throughout this discussion, the Minister has agreed with hon. Members from across the House that Avanti is delivering a service that is simply not acceptable. Will she admit that her Department’s only logical step to improve that service must include removing the franchise from Avanti?

    Trudy Harrison

    While it is my job to answer the questions, my question to the hon. Gentleman would be: “Where are the drivers going to come from?” That is the challenge here. However we cut this cake, the ingredients are the same. We need drivers to drive the trains, and that is what we are focused on.

    Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (Ind)

    The Government seem to think that state ownership should not be necessary, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) pointed out, much of the UK’s railways are already in state ownership—the states of Germany, the Netherlands and, in the case of Avanti West Coast, Italy. Is it not time that the Government learned lessons from Scotland and followed the Scottish Government’s example by bringing the railway operators and any profits they might make back into public ownership?

    Trudy Harrison

    The reality is that we, the state, are currently paying for the train service, because it is unsustainable for train operators to pay for it themselves. I will take deep interest in comparing and contrasting ScotRail with other train operating companies; if there are lessons to be learned, I welcome them. All options are on the table, and the decision will be made on 16 October about which option will best serve our passengers, who are the most important people in this discussion.

    Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)

    I want to highlight to the Minister the impact of Avanti’s cuts in service to one per hour from Manchester to London, and of passengers being unable to book at weekends. A young constituent of mine who is a wheelchair user was due to travel to London next Sunday. She is nominated for a Shaw Trust Disability Power 100 list award. She has had weeks of uncertainty and now she has to travel by coach and car. There will be many more people in that situation who need accessible transport. The Minister mentioned certainty, but there is no certainty in Avanti West Coast services or with this timetable. Will she and her Secretary of State now act, and recognise that Avanti has failed in the provision of rail services and that its contract should not be renewed?

    Trudy Harrison

    I spoke with a member of Andy Burnham’s office yesterday at the Women in Transport event, along with Avanti and the West Coast Partnership members that were there. I have every sympathy; I am disappointed with the service and frustrated that the hon. Lady’s constituent has had to endure such a difficult journey. The solution is to have train drivers working.

    Whether we call this an unofficial strike action or not, a system whereby drivers were willing to work their rest days for extra pay has worked for nigh on 20 years, and with almost immediate effect one train company, Avanti, has not been able to persuade its drivers to work their rest days, resulting in about 40 out of 50 drivers who usually work their rest days not being willing to work more than 35 hours. I think I am setting out the challenge very clearly. Whether the franchise is state owned or privately owned, the challenge remains: these trains need to be driven, safely, by people who are trained. It takes two years to train a train driver. That is the challenge.

    Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)

    Today I think we have truly gone through the looking glass. We have heard from those on the Government Benches about unofficial strike action, but it is not unofficial, because the Trade Union Act 2016 makes sure that it is not. If Avanti thinks that it is, it has mechanisms to challenge it. The Minister has spoken about drivers working on their rest days, but the clue is in the title—it is a rest day, and there is no compulsion for a driver to do so. Does the Minister agree that the decision to award Avanti West Coast a £4 million bonus for operational performance, customer experience and,

    “acting as a good and efficient operator”,

    would have been better spent on training and recruiting the new drivers she keeps going on about? Is it not time that Avanti was stripped of this contract?

    Trudy Harrison

    I reiterate the point that the decision on those awards is independent from Government, and was based on last year’s performance data.

    Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)

    The Minister must understand that the problems at Avanti did not begin with the change to the timetable. Avanti has been a disaster for the communities on the west coast main line. It is not acceptable that we have just one train an hour from Greater Manchester to London; that we cannot book in advance; and that the cost of tickets is far more expensive than the equivalent on the east coast main line. Avanti has failed, so in October will the Minister look objectively at all the evidence and strip Avanti of this contract, because it has broken its deed and its word, which it gave to the Government when the contract was awarded?

    Trudy Harrison

    Of course we will look at all the evidence. One service an hour from London Euston to Manchester is completely unacceptable. I agree with that; I think that everybody agrees with that.

    Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)

    My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) and I are due to meet the rail Minister next week to discuss the Chester to London line, so I hope whoever the new rail Minister is will honour that meeting. We have been asking for a meeting for six months, during which time the service has gone from terrible to non-existent. When I asked the previous rail Minister why in those circumstances Avanti would be granted a new contract, I was told that it was important to do so to ensure value for taxpayers and continuity of services for passengers. The question to the Minister is: how can we have continuity of services when we do not have any services?

    Trudy Harrison

    I will ensure that that meeting goes ahead as planned.

    Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)

    One of my constituents has written to me to describe the chaos that she is experiencing. She travels on Avanti west coast to London for work on a fairly frequent basis. She explains that when trains are cancelled, particularly at short notice, the other trains are really busy. On one occasion she was on such a train. It was so busy that she could not get off to make her connection and she ended up going to London when she wanted to go to a completely different part of the country. Bearing in mind that level of chaos, why are the Government even considering renewing the contract with Avanti, and is it not time to bring our railways into public ownership?

    Trudy Harrison

    I am not convinced that bringing the railways into public ownership at this stage in the way that the hon. Lady has described will provide the solutions that passengers are looking for, and that is why we are going to look at all the evidence when making our decision on 16 October.

    Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)

    As the MP for Glasgow Central, I know that the cancellations and lack of reliability from Avanti have had an impact on business, leisure, tourism and the many events that Glasgow hosts. People have to travel for longer and they have to go through Edinburgh, for goodness’ sake, which is a huge inconvenience and imposition. There is a particular difficulty for disabled people and those travelling with children when changing trains, so can the Minister tell us exactly why we have to wait until 16 October to get this sorted? Why can she not do more now?

    Trudy Harrison

    Avanti’s decision to provide a reduced timetable was certainly part of the solution, although not a satisfactory one—far from it. I have said before that one train service an hour is not acceptable at all. I agree with the hon. Lady about disabled people and people travelling with children—I am a mum of four, and I remember when my girls were all under five what a challenge it was to travel by train on a good day. To endure delays and cancellations, and to be stuck on a platform with young children, or for people who are disabled, is doubly difficult. I have absolute sympathy with all rail passengers who have endured the trials and tribulations of delayed and cancelled trains. We feel the pain—I certainly feel the pain, because I am a frequent train passenger—which is why we are taking action to remedy this situation and provide passengers with confidence that they can be sure of a safe, reliable and affordable train service in future.

    Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)

    The Minister has varied between apologising and criticising Avanti. The one thing that she has not mentioned is the need to tell Avanti something very clear: get round the negotiating table with ASLEF and the other unions and sort out the industrial relations problem. It is a lousy employer, and a bit of industrial peace would move the railways forward.

    Trudy Harrison

    Again, it is common sense. That is already happening, which is why I am not calling for it. It needs to continue, and a solution needs to be found to provide an effective rail service—that is absolute common sense.

    Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)

    Is it not absurd that the Government are pouring billions of pounds into companies owned by other countries’ Governments? Whatever the ownership of the companies, they are failing to deliver services but have been awarded multi-million-pound contracts by the Government. Avanti is supposed to run HS2. Should that really happen in the light of the catastrophic delivery failures, and will the Government look at a new operator for HS2?

    Trudy Harrison

    I repeat that all options are on the table. The decisions on HS2 are a bit further away. As HS2 Minister, I can say that we are having those conversations. I am certainly speaking with Avanti and visiting all phases of HS2, both in development and in construction. Those conversations are live.

    Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)

    The service is a disgrace. Does the Minister understand that there is an urgent need for a solution—not a solution in two years’ time—and that it would be quite unconscionable for this failing company to be re-awarded the franchise in October? May I just say that it is for the Government to grasp the urgency of this situation? If Avanti and no other operator can run this service, may I gently point out that the east coast main line, which was taken into public ownership, runs more efficiently and reliably, and the fares are cheaper?

    Trudy Harrison

    The hon. Lady makes fair points on the comparisons with other train operators, and we will that take into consideration as we make the decision on 16 October. To reiterate, that is 16 October this year, not 2024—we are not waiting two years to make a decision.

    Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)

    It is highly regrettable that the Minister has blamed workers in relation to this particular mess. May I recount a story from a constituent who is a lawyer who commutes to London? She could only get to London last week via Leeds at extra cost and extra time, which is an absolute disgrace. She said that that showed the Government’s disregard for the north. She has made a decision to stay in the north and reinvest her salary in the north, but apparently that does not matter. Is this the last-chance saloon for Avanti? Given that it is five weeks until 16 October, what will happen in the meantime? Are we going to have another five weeks of this mess?

    Trudy Harrison

    Personally, I would say that the north is the best place to run a business and to live. I have considerable experience, having lived all my life in the north. On what we are doing now, Network Rail and Avanti are working to resolve the ticket issues so that they can provide those advance tickets, as I have mentioned. The decision on 16 October will be significant, which is why we need to take time to consider all the options, and to understand the evidence about which will provide the best solution for passengers, because that is the absolute priority.

    Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)

    My constituents, too, want to make trips for work or to visit family and friends, and they still cannot book a seat on virtually any weekend service for the next two months. News that the TransPennine Express is also reducing services seems to be yet more evidence of a managed decline of our railways under the Conservatives, so what guarantee can the Minister give the House and my constituents that, under the Government, they will have access to the services that they need, and when that will happen? The Government have known about the issues about months, so waiting again for months and months is just not good enough.

    Trudy Harrison

    This Government are absolutely backing the rail sector, with more than £90 billion being invested in the integrated rail service. Great British Railways will seek to address many of these challenges, not least the modernisation of the workforce, which is absolutely necessary. I have absolutely not condemned the workers for this situation, but the fact remains that workers have been willing to work on their rest days for something like 20 years and they are no longer willing to do so, certainly with Avanti. We need to find a solution to that challenge, working with the unions but also recruiting more drivers and a more diverse set of drivers, and ensuring that we have drivers who are trained to safely, affordably and reliably operate the train service we all want—particularly this Conservative Government.

  • Anne-Marie Trevelyan – 2022 Statement on the Department for International Trade [September 2022]

    Anne-Marie Trevelyan – 2022 Statement on the Department for International Trade [September 2022]

    The statement made by Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the then Secretary of State for International Trade, in the House of Commons on 6 September 2022.

    Since the House adjourned for the summer recess, the Department for International Trade has made good progress on a number of areas. This statement provides Parliament with an update on progress with Ukraine reconstruction, the UK’s trade negotiations with India, negotiations towards accession to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, and the developing countries trading scheme.

    Ukraine reconstruction

    At the end of July, following a competitive procurement process, we appointed Mott MacDonald and Crown Agents on a 12-week programme to act as Ukraine reconstruction industry advisors to the joint UK-Ukraine Infrastructure Taskforce. They will provide technical and logistical assessments, work with our counterparts in country to identify and prioritise current and future reconstruction projects, and provide technical support to the joint taskforce. At this stage the joint taskforce will focus on the Ukrainian Government’s immediate priorities—rapid replacement of essential housing and bridging infrastructure damaged by the conflict. Successful delivery of these projects is likely to support the Ukrainian economy and unlock new, larger mutually beneficial opportunities for UK businesses and Ukraine in later stages as we continue to support its post-conflict recovery and reconstruction. To ensure we can deliver the most effective reconstruction solutions through the infrastructure taskforce, we will work in close partnership with our brilliant UK businesses to unleash their full potential. UK Export Finance remains open for business in Ukraine with £3.5 billion of financial capacity available for UK exporters and Ukrainian buyers, subject to Treasury approvals.

    Comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership

    The first in-person accession working group following the United Kingdom’s application to join the comprehensive and progressive trans-Pacific partnership took place in Tokyo, 24 to 28 July 2022.

    The UK team negotiated market access with CPTPP parties in the following areas: goods, services and investment, Government procurement, financial services and temporary entry.

    Negotiations will continue over the course of the autumn with planning currently underway for the next round of talks. The Government will ensure that membership of CPTPP is achieved on terms that work for UK businesses and consumers.

    Joining CPTPP offers numerous benefits to the UK. It will provide greater market access for British goods and services to one of the world’s largest free trading areas, with a combined GDP of £9 trillion in 2021. Reductions in tariffs and investment barriers will give UK firms increased opportunities to a growing market.

    Beyond the immediate economic opportunities there is a significant geostrategic case for joining CPTPP. Membership will demonstrate that the UK is a global leader in free and rules-based trade. It will further establish the UK’s commitment to deeper engagement within the Indo-Pacific region in support of increased security and prosperity.

    CPTPP will help the whole of the UK capture the benefits of global trade opportunities, by supporting jobs, wage growth and the levelling-up agenda. The Department’s preliminary analysis from the CPTPP scoping assessment suggests that every nation and region of the UK could be set to benefit from CPTPP membership.

    The Government will keep Parliament updated as these negotiations progress.

    UK-India trade negotiations

    The fifth round of UK-India free trade agreement negotiations took place between 18 and 29 July 2022. The negotiations, at official level, were conducted in a hybrid fashion, with some negotiators in a dedicated Indian negotiations facility, and others attending virtually.

    Technical discussions were held across 15 policy areas over 85 separate sessions, with detailed draft treaty text discussions.

    In addition, intense negotiations have continued throughout the summer, again in a hybrid fashion, with India hosting UK negotiators and the UK also hosting Indian officials.

    We are continuing to work towards the target, as set out by both Governments on 22 April 2022, to conclude the majority of talks by the end of October.

    The Government will keep Parliament updated as these negotiations progress.

    Developing countries trading scheme

    On 16 August 2022 we launched the developing countries trading scheme. The scheme is a major milestone in growing free and fair trade with 65 developing nations that are home to more than 3.3 billion people. It is one of the most generous trade preferences schemes in the world and has been designed to boost trade with developing countries, helping them to grow and prosper. It delivers on commitments in the integrated review and international development strategy to harness the power of trade to support long-lasting development and it benefits the UK through reduced import costs, greater choice and improved economic security.

    The developing countries trading scheme demonstrates that, as an independent trading nation, the UK can go beyond what we were able to do as a member of the EU. It introduces more generous, less bureaucratic trading rules that reduce tariffs, simplify rules of origin and simplify the requirements to access better tariff rates. It has been designed to boost jobs, drive growth and make supply chains more resilient.

    Developing countries in the scheme collectively export over £20 billion of goods to the UK each year, such as t-shirts from Bangladesh, flowers from Ethiopia and bicycles from Cambodia. The developing countries trading scheme reduces import tariffs on these products and thousands more, saving businesses and consumers in the UK over £750 million per year and helping to tackle the cost of living.

    The developing countries trading scheme proposals have been shaped by a public consultation held between July and September 2021. Responses were received from a broad range of stakeholders, including businesses and non-governmental organisations and overall supported a simpler, more generous developing countries trading scheme. A summary of consultation responses has also been published:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/designing-the-uk-trade-preferences-scheme-for-developing-nations.

    Key aspects of the developing countries trading scheme include:

    Least developed countries continue to get tariff-free trade on everything but arms and ammunition and now benefit from more generous and simplified rules of origin, making it easier for them to participate in regional and global supply chains serving the UK.

    Low income and lower-middle income countries benefit from more tariff reductions and removals. Nuisance tariffs and some seasonal tariffs have been removed.

    Goods from India and Indonesia that are competitive in the UK domestic market are excluded from the scheme.

    Eight countries immediately benefit from more generous tariffs as access to these tariffs is now based purely on economic vulnerability and not on the ratification of international conventions.

    Powers to suspend countries from the scheme have been expanded. For the first time, climate change and environment related obligations are included in the grounds for suspension as well as those relating to human rights and labour rights.

    For more detail on the new scheme and how it differs from the UK generalised scheme of preferences which it replaces, please see the comprehensive Government policy response:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/developing-countries-trading-scheme-dcts-new-policy-report.

    The developing countries trading scheme will come into force in early 2023, giving businesses time to prepare for greater UK market access.

  • Alan Mak – 2022 Speech on Independent Brewers: Small Brewers Relief

    Alan Mak – 2022 Speech on Independent Brewers: Small Brewers Relief

    The speech made by Alan Mak, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, in the House of Commons on 6 September 2022.

    I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) on securing the debate and commending him for his ongoing advocacy on behalf of the brewers and distillers from his constituency. I join him in congratulating the organisers of the 20th anniversary celebration he mentioned. As he said, he has some notable examples of beer and gin producers in Midlothian. I understand that brewing in Scotland dates back to the neolithic period—truly some very small brewers indeed.

    As the Member for Havant, I too am proud of the brewing heritage in my constituency. In fact, the combination of a thriving local malt trade and fine spring water meant that beer was a mainstay of Havant’s local economy for centuries. Although it is many years since the final kegs rolled out of our last active brewery, that legacy is still visible in some of our town’s buildings.

    Let me also thank the other hon. Members who have taken the time to contribute to this debate, and who represent all four nations of the United Kingdom, which reflects the appeal and significance of our first-rate alcohol industry. I particularly recognise the contribution of my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), who played a key role in initiating the review.

    Before I address the various points raised today, I will briefly explain the wider reforms, the rationale for them and why they are important. The key point is that the Government are making changes to outdated alcohol tax laws—laws that are arbitrary and inconsistent. Crucially, the result of these reforms will be a system that is much fairer, simpler and more aligned with public health goals than the system we inherited from our membership of the European Union. EU law contains many inconsistencies and barriers to simplification, including, for instance, preventing member states from taxing all types of drink in proportion to their alcohol content.

    In contrast, the Government’s proposed reforms, as set out in last year’s autumn Budget, radically simplify the system and tax all products in proportion to their alcohol content, which ensures that higher-strength products pay proportionately more duty. We are also introducing new reliefs to support pubs and help small producers to expand and thrive. The Government remain committed to delivering alcohol duty reform. We are considering the feedback that we have received and we will respond in the coming months.

    Put simply, the reform of alcohol tax laws is long overdue. These laws have barely changed since the 1990s, partly because the incoherent and prohibitive EU rules that we experienced in the past have hindered that much-needed change. In the current system, for instance, a high-strength white cider pays less duty per unit than a low-strength beer. Sparkling wine—a sector in which the UK is starting to lead the world—pays much more duty per unit than still wine, even when it contains substantially less alcohol. Fortified wines, which are made with the addition of spirits, pay less duty than a liqueur made with spirits, even if they are the same strength.

    The plain fact is that we inherited 15 rates from the EU across five different products with three different methods of taxation. As such, the current system is complex and archaic. In fact, the Institute of Economic Affairs think-tank has said that it “defies common sense”. For their part, producers, importers and exporters in this country have called the system “distorted” and

    “perversely incentivised to produce stronger drinks”.

    They have welcomed the opportunity for reform.

    Now that we have left the EU, we have an opportunity to create alcohol laws that are more rational, and that support the many and varied producers and traders in this country. At the autumn Budget last year, the then Chancellor laid out the significant benefits we planned to introduce with our reforms, which include a radically simplified system that slashes the number of bands from 15 to six and taxes all products in proportion to their alcohol content; taxing all products in the same way, which is a rational policy that was banned by EU law; ending the premium rates on sparkling wine and equalising them with still wine, and substantially reducing duty on rosé; introducing new rates for low-strength drinks below 3.5%, which will encourage innovation and reflect consumer preferences for low or no alcohol drink alternatives; and cutting duty on a 3.4% beer by 25p a pint.

    We are also modernising the taxation of cider, targeting unhealthy and problematic white ciders while cutting the duty for lower ABV, craft and sparkling ciders; freezing duty rates for the third Budget running, saving consumers £3 billion over the coming years; and, of particular interest to Members tonight, we have introduced small producer relief, supporting the many small artisan alcohol producers who continue to create world-beating products in this country.

    The hon. Member for Midlothian asked about the possible behaviour and role of global producers and the cost of reducing the rate for beer below 3.5% ABV. The Government’s intention is to encourage reformulation and innovation in lower-strength products, including by larger brewers, and this proposal received broad support from the sector during the call for evidence. The costs of these alcohol duty reforms were published at autumn Budget 2021, and they took account of the impacts of reformulation between bands. A tax information and impact note will be published alongside the draft legislation in the usual way.

    The hon. Gentleman mentioned that, since 2002, small brewers relief has provided reduced rates of beer duty for small producers. The rapid and successful growth in the sector since that relief was introduced has undoubtedly contributed to the diversity and quality of beers on the market. This is good for producers and good for consumers. However, we must also recognise that responses to the technical consultation the Government ran on SBR pointed to flaws in the system. Some called it “too generous”, going beyond the relative cost disadvantage experienced by small producers. Others called it “distortive” and “flawed”. Alongside our other generational reforms, we have the opportunity to improve on the positives of SBR and extend those benefits to other industries.

    While no final decisions have been taken, the new relief we announced at the Budget includes expanding the relief across all categories, allowing small producers to diversify their product range to other products below 8.5% ABV, while still benefiting from reduced rates; introducing a more progressive taper, removing the cliff edges from the previous scheme, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned; expanding the scheme to products below 2.9%, encouraging innovation in the growing low or no alcohol market and in turn helping consumers make healthier choices while still supporting our outstanding alcohol industry; and, let us not forget, introducing draught relief, a move that directly supports the great British pub with reduced duty rates on draught beer and cider so that consumers can enjoy the fantastic products made by our small producers in their favourite local.

    The hon. Gentleman mentioned, and the point was reinforced by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar), the issue of container size, and the fact that small independent brewers and community pubs often use 20 and 30-litre containers for their beer. I want to assure them both and the wider alcohol community that, while I cannot make any announcements tonight, we have listened and we understand their point.

    The hon. Member for Midlothian also raised the issue of help for the sector as it recovers from covid-19. While the final design of the alcohol duty reforms will be confirmed shortly, I want to reassure him that the Government recognise the pressures facing the sector. I remind him that the Government have already introduced a range of measures that continue to provide significant support for businesses, including cutting business rates by 50% for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure businesses in this financial year. He asked about support for energy costs, and as he will have heard from the Prime Minister this afternoon, announcements will be made this week and in the coming weeks, so I reassure him that he can look out for those.

    The hon. Gentleman also asked whether the full SBR rate will be maintained at the new lower rate, whether total production across all alcoholic products will be used to calculate the SPR and whether the SPR will be launched at the same time as the other alcohol duty changes. I reassure him that the Government recognise the success that SBR has brought to the industry, and we look forward to seeing the benefits shared with other sectors. While I cannot make any announcements tonight, I hope he understands that the Government are carefully considering the feedback stakeholders shared with us through the consultation and we will publish our response shortly.

    The benefits I outlined earlier would not have been available to this country before we left the EU. The reality is that we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve an outdated system, providing new incentives for producers to grow and innovate and a major boost for pubs. Our reforms are more rational, fairer, better aligned to public health goals and more in tune with consumer preferences, and they support the Great British pub and the small producers delivering fantastic world-class products.

    Let me again thank the hon. Member for Midlothian and all hon. Members across the House who have contributed to this evening’s debate. I also wish to assure them that we will soon confirm the details of these wider reforms and publish the draft legislation, alongside the Government’s response to the consultation.

    If, indeed, we have been brewing alcohol on these islands for thousands of years I see no reason why we should not continue, with even greater success, for thousands more. Given a chance, I am sure those neolithic producers of beer would have enjoyed the benefits afforded by small brewers relief, and they would almost certainly have welcomed the opportunity to expand their operation with the reformed small producer relief.

  • Nick Gibb – 2011 Speech to the North of England Education Conference

    Nick Gibb – 2011 Speech to the North of England Education Conference

    The speech made by Nick Gibb, the then Minister of State for Schools, on 11 January 2011.

    The timing of the conference could not be better, with the white paper published at the end of November and the Education Bill to be published shortly.

    And the theme ‘Our World, Our Future’ could not be more appropriate.

    The context in which this conference is held is dominated by global factors – the growing dominance of the emerging economies of China and India; the global economic crisis; and the indebtedness of nations that during the boom years overspent and are now on the brink of financial collapse, as the global capital markets no longer regard them or sovereign debt as risk-free investments.

    Greece and Ireland are still teetering as they struggle with their structural deficits. And it is to avoid that fate that the Coalition Government has had to take some very difficult decisions.

    It’s not comfortable being a minister in a spending department in the midst of these problems, having to take decisions to reduce and refocus programmes on those in most need – programmes such as the Education Maintenance Allowance. And I know it isn’t comfortable either for those involved in local government, facing similar pressures.

    But it would be far worse to see our country’s economy plunge into crisis, as would happen if we failed to tackle our massive structural deficit. This year alone will see £156 billion added to our national debt, with an interest charge of £120 million every single day – enough to build 10 new primary schools.

    The independent Office for Budget Responsibility reports that without any further action to tackle the deficit, interest payments would rise to a staggering £67 billion a year by 2014-15. That’s almost two years’ total spending on schools: twice what we spend on the salaries of every teacher in England, twice what we spend running every state school in the country – just to pay the interest on the debt.

    And that all assumes, of course, that the capital markets would be willing to lend us these huge sums, which the experience of Greece and Ireland demonstrates that they would not. The longer the economy languishes in crisis, the later the economic recovery and the jobs that are so desperately needed, particularly for young people – the group who bear the brunt of a stagnant economy as companies freeze recruitment.

    But the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury do understand the importance of education to that recovery and to the long-term prosperity of this country.

    Education is a key priority for the Government which is why the Department for Education secured one of the best settlements in Whitehall.

    Spending on schools will remain at flat cash per pupil over the course of the spending review period, which means there will be extra cash for demographic increases in the school population.

    And on top of this will be the Pupil Premium, extra money for each pupil who qualifies for free school meals. This will amount to £430 per pupil in this coming financial year but will rise significantly over the next four years, to some £2.5 billion a year by 2014-15.

    But although we have secured the best possible settlement it still requires us to find cuts in the overall departmental budget of 3.4 per cent by 2014-15.

    Our approach has been to ensure we protect school budgets, while devolving as much autonomy as we can to headteachers by collapsing numerous funding streams into the main schools grant. We’re also giving local government far greater autonomy – streamlining 45 local government grants into just four funding streams.

    To ensure schools do receive this cash, we have had to take some difficult decisions over centralised programmes and ask ourselves this question: given that we have secured the very best possible settlement we could hope to have achieved from the Treasury and given the budget deficit, do we continue with a particular central programme and slice off a little from the amount we want to give to schools? Or do we end the programme and ensure that schools have that cash?

    Each programme has its supporters. Most of these programmes achieve things. Some – but not all – are good value for money.

    The problem is that the money isn’t there.

    Greater autonomy

    Our approach to spending – devolving as much control over limited resources as possible to the front line, to headteachers in particular – is the same approach that we take to education policy generally.

    Research from the OECD cites autonomy, combined with rigorous and objective external accountability, as the essential characteristics of the highest-performing education jurisdictions in the world.

    That’s the reasoning behind our drive to increase the autonomy of schools through expanding the academies programme and giving teachers and headteachers more control over their own destiny.

    We have always supported Labour’s Academy programme and pay tribute to the energy and commitment of Lord Adonis as Schools Minister in developing this policy and transforming so many schools.

    In the seven months since we came into office we’ve doubled the number of academies and hundreds more schools have applied to convert later in 2011.

    And we will support teachers, charities, parent groups and education foundations who have the vision and drive to open Free Schools where there is parental demand, particularly in areas of deprivation where poor provision is especially acute.

    And I hope that we can persuade some of the trade unions that Free Schools offer a real opportunity for teachers to put their professional expertise into practice. We would be delighted to see one or more of the teaching unions setting up their own Free Schools. They would certainly have our active support if they sought to do so.

    The case for change

    At the end of November we published our White Paper, entitled The Importance of Teaching, reflecting the earnestness of our desire to raise the status of the teaching profession and to return teaching to the centre of what happens in our schools.

    The theme of this conference, ‘Our World, Our Future’ is the right theme for an education conference, reflecting, as it does, the way today’s education system will determine the society we will have in 20 or 30 years’ time. It is a cliche to say that we live in a global economy. But like most cliches it reveals a truth, that young people will now be competing for jobs and income with the best-educated people not just in this country but from around the world.

    Which is why we need an education system that is on a par with the best in the world. And although we have some of the best schools in the world, the truth is that we also have too many that are still struggling.

    The attainment gap between rich and poor remains enormous – a gap we are determined to narrow and ultimately close; there are still too many weak schools in deprived areas; and teaching is rated by Ofsted as no better than satisfactory in half our schools.

    In 2010, 54.8 per cent achieved 5 or more GCSEs at grades A* to C, including English and maths. But of those eligible for free school meals just 30.9 per cent achieved this standard. And the gap between these two figures has remained stubbornly constant in recent years.

    In the OECD international performance table we’ve fallen from 4th in the year 2000 to 16th in science, from 7th to 25th in literacy, and from 8th to 28th in maths. The survey also showed that 15-year-olds in Shanghai, China, are two years ahead of our children in maths, and that 15-year-olds in Finland are two years ahead in literacy.

    Studies undertaken by Unicef and the OECD tell us that we have one of the most unequal education systems in the world, coming 55th out of 57 countries for educational equity and with one of the biggest gulfs between independent and state schools of any developed nation.

    And so our White Paper reform programme, and the Education Bill implementing that programme, is geared around the same simple truth that all leading systems share – that high-quality teaching is the single biggest determinant of a pupil’s achievement.

    The latest McKinsey report, Capturing the Leadership Premium about how the world’s top school systems are building leadership capacity, cites a number of studies from North America, one of which found that:

    … nearly 60 per cent of a school’s impact on student achievement is attributable to principal and teacher effectiveness. These are the most important in-school factors driving school success, with principals accounting for 25 per cent and teachers 33 per cent of a school’s total impact on achievement.

    Also in the McKinsey report, there’s an analysis of Ofsted inspection reports which concludes that:

    For every 100 schools that have good leadership and management, 93 will have good standards of student achievement. For every 100 schools that do not have good leadership and management, only one will have good standards of achievement.

    This is why the constant theme of the White Paper is the central importance, above all else, of the teaching profession and what we can do to ensure every child has access to the best possible teaching.

    Every single one of our reforms should be judged on how it equips teachers to do their job better – expanding the academy programme; encouraging new providers to galvanize and innovate; rigorous recruitment and training; strong discipline powers; a slimmed-down curriculum; robust assessment and inspection; and the Pupil Premium.

    Greater freedom

    We have some of the best headteachers and teachers working in our schools. But too often they say they’re constrained by needless bureaucracy, central targets and guidance, and an overly prescriptive curriculum that dictates, for example, that lessons should be in three parts, with a beginning, middle and end.

    We will slim down the National Curriculum. At present, the National Curriculum contains too much that is not essential, too much that is unclear and too much prescription about how to teach. Instead, it needs to be a tighter, more rigorous model of the knowledge which every child should be expected to master in core subjects at each key stage, to be a benchmark against which schools can be judged rather than a prescriptive straitjacket into which education is squeezed.

    Alongside greater control over budgets, we’ve scrapped the burdensome Self Evaluation Forms for school inspections and the overly bureaucratic Financial Management Standard in Schools.

    We are also committed to reducing central bureaucracy still further, cutting down on unnecessary data collection burdens and reforming Ofsted so that inspection is more proportionate, with fewer inspection criteria: instead of the 17 we will have just four – leadership, teaching, achievement and behaviour.

    Reading

    What underlies an effective education is the ability to read.

    Despite the hard work of teachers there are still too many children who fail to master this basic skill to a level that gives them the key to secondary education.

    15 per cent of seven-year-olds don’t reach the expected level in reading at Key Stage 1. One in five 11-year-olds leave primary school still struggling with English.

    And I’ve been to too many secondary schools where heads tell me that a significant minority of their intake has a reading age below nine or eight or sometimes six or seven.

    We need to identify early on those children who are struggling so they don’t slip through the net and so that schools can give those children the support and help they need.

    That is why we are introducing a new light-touch, phonics-based reading check for six-year-olds to ensure all children are on track with literacy at an early age.

    School improvement

    And because we understand why schools might have felt that the system – and Government – hasn’t been on their side in the past, there are also new measures in the White Paper to improve the exclusions process; ensuring that violent children cannot be reinstated against the wishes of the school, while improving alternative provision – and measures to protect teachers from malicious allegations by pupils and parents; including anonymity until charged with an offence.

    We want to move away from the top-down approach to education policy. That’s why we’re now giving schools the primary responsibility for their own improvement.

    This is not cutting schools adrift to let them sink or swim, as some claim. We will still set high minimum expectations for schools. For secondary schools, this means, at least 35 per cent of pupils with 5 or more GCSEs at grades A* to C including English and maths. And for primary schools, 60 per cent of the cohort achieving level 4 in English and maths combined and where progress is below the expected level. Crucially, both of these new floor standards will involve a progression measure as well as the raw attainment figure.

    But the onus should be on heads themselves to drive up standards, working together and drawing on the own wealth of expertise, experience, leadership and capacity within the system – without needing central government to mandate it through continual targets, ring-fenced grants and field forces.

    A culture of collaboration

    We believe that collaboration between schools and within the profession is a better and more effective means of school improvement than the top-down approach.

    The very best school leaders are characterised by their refusal to put a cap on aspiration for children and, consequently, tend to be those who are working in more than one school.

    This might mean that they’re an executive head in a federation where they lead two or more schools.

    It might now mean they’re an academy principal in an outstanding school working with another school to help them improve.

    Or it might mean they’re a national or local leader of education. I’m a huge admirer of all those heads who are NLEs or LLEs. They’re demonstrating that they want to go the extra mile to improve standards; not just for the children in their own schools, but in other schools too.

    That’s why we want to double the number of NLEs and will designate 1,000 over the next four years.

    We’re building a network of teaching schools.

    And we’re putting in place incentives for schools to work together – with a new £110 million Education Endowment Fund to encourage innovative approaches and inviting applications from schools and local authorities.

    We will also establish a new collaboration incentive worth £35 million a year to help schools support weaker schools.

    Role of local government

    I’ve been asked many times about the role of local authorities in a more autonomous school system, particularly as the number of academies continues to grow.

    We are clear that local authorities have a crucial role to play – as champions of children and parents, to ensure the school system works for every family; using their democratic mandate to challenge underperformance; and to ensure fair access to all schools for every child through the admissions system.

    The Secretary of State has established a ministerial advisory group with representatives from local government and education to work through what this means in practice – that local authorities would take action if there are concerns about the performance of any school in the area, using their intervention powers to act early to secure improvement in their own maintained schools.

    And where a local authority has concerns about an academy, it will be able to ask Ofsted to inspect the school and will, as now, be able to pursue those concerns with the Secretary of State.

    Conclusion

    There is a lot more I could talk about.

    But what I hope I have been able to demonstrate today is the seriousness with which we take education reform.

    And that at the core of that reform is the objective of closing the attainment gap between those from the wealthiest and poorest backgrounds.

    Deprivation should not mean destiny and it is ending that link that lies behind the urgency of our reforms.