I strongly support my hon. Friend’s last point. I know from my experience in my previous role that when we electrified bus depots and the bus fleet in Greater Manchester, the running costs of the system came right down, which helped us to sustain the £2 fare cap that had been removed elsewhere. That is proof that action on climate can reduce the cost of living. Those two things should not be pitched as opposites—they can be causal. We can act on climate and we can bring down the cost of living. I will be at COP31, as he said. I recognise the importance of the rain forest, and we continue to provide support in the form of loans to support work to conserve it. I look forward to working with him on these issues and I hope to see him in Turkey.
I thank the leader of the SNP in Westminster for his very kind words, which my family will appreciate. When I left this place, I could relate more to what I used to hear from SNP Members than when I used to be here, particularly when I sometimes found frustrations, let’s say, with Westminster and the way it works, but that is precisely why we need to rewire the system and get power out of Westminster and into the country. In my view, we do that and we keep the United Kingdom together, because then all parts of it will feel that it is working for them in the way that perhaps they do not feel at this moment in time. When it comes to energy bills, I have acted already to bring in that VAT cut on electricity bills. I recognise that is just a start, but I hope the hon. Gentleman sees it as a sign of intent.
I will be a staunch defender of the Potteries in this House, if not their football clubs. I do not know whether the Potteries are the north-west or the west midlands, but I am certainly very fond of them and I know the crucial importance of the ceramics industry to that part of the country. I do think that there is much more that we can do with public procurement in Britain to support crucial industries; I do not think that we have done enough in the past. Social value weighting can be applied to all public procurement, which makes it more likely that contracts will be awarded to British-based entities. I do not think that we should allow the culture of sending everything outside this country to continue—this will be a big change under this Government.
It is good to see the right hon. Gentleman again, and I appreciate what he said in endorsing my criticism of the water industry. We need to find significant reform; if that can be done cross party, so much the better. I am not familiar with the planning situation and the issue that he mentions, but I will look out for him, have a word with him and see if I can do something to look into it.
I was really pleased to visit Port Talbot last week. I know the importance of the steel industry in my hon. Friend’s part of the world—the history of it. I came away with a clear sense of what is possible: carrying through an industrial transition that will set up steelmaking for the rest of this century. Industrial transition is definitely another one of the things I have spoken about today that this country has not done well—in the past, we have allowed deindustrialisation before trying to help industry into a new era—and we need to make it work this time in south Wales. I said it to the trade unions last week, I said it to the leadership of Tata and I will say it to my hon. Friend in this House: we will make that happen, and we will guarantee steelmaking in south Wales for generations to come.
I do not know if the hon. Gentleman was listening a moment ago when I was talking about how renewables can bring down the cost of living. I gave a very clear example in Greater Manchester: it costs £30 to charge a bus with electric charge, but it costs £200-plus to fill a tank of diesel. He really does need to look into the facts a little bit more before he makes statements like that in this House. Solar panels on people’s homes can bring down the cost of their energy. Yes, we need to be pragmatic—we will still need to rely on oil and gas for some years to come. The mistake he makes is saying that it has got to be one or the other, for political purposes; the truth is that it is going to have to be both.
I thank my hon. Friend for her work on this matter, and on apprenticeships in particular. What she has just said needs to be understood when we consider the Milburn report, because the decline in apprenticeships for young people lies behind some of the statistics that Alan Milburn has revealed. I give some credit to the Conservatives, because my experience in Greater Manchester was that the work placements that came with T-levels were a huge and positive innovation. Those 45-day work placements made a difference for young people. It was enough for them to feel that they could belong in the place where they were. I would like to work with Members across this House to see if we can turn a commitment of a 45-day work placement into a guarantee to all young people as part of our response to the Milburn report. The evidence I have is that those placements are hugely successful. Alongside that, we need more apprenticeships at 19 and more degree apprenticeships beyond that. That is how we give strong, structured pathways to our young people. The technical route is not bringing back stupid, but bringing back hope.
I meant what I said earlier in praising the hon. Member. He has done a huge amount of work in this area, and I recognise it. He mentions Housing First. I think he was one of those who persuaded Sajid Javid, when he was in the Communities Secretary role, to pilot Housing First in three big city regions: the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and Liverpool. Exactly as the hon. Member said, it was hugely successful. It was about prevention, rather than paying for crisis. What I have experienced in my career is that it is more expensive to leave somebody sleeping rough than it is to give them simple accommodation every night, because of the cost of many visits to A&E, long stays in hospital or time in police custody, which add up to be more expensive than the simple provision of a room. I will look at the Bill that he mentions, and I will speak to the Communities Secretary about it, but this is something we can fix. When issues are fixable, we should work across the House to fix them. We can end rough sleeping—we did it in the pandemic, and I see no reason why we cannot do it again.
I thank my dear friend for her question, and I will certainly look up the Select Committee report. In answer to her point about the middle east, before I became Prime Minister, I issued a statement saying that I thought we needed to look again at the approach that we had taken, and to be clear about our values and what we believe is right. Obviously, matters are changing quickly. We have seen the worrying statement about the E1 settlements extension and the fast-track tender process. I think that that would lead to decisions being made before the Israeli election, which I understand could imperil, if not end, the two-state solution. These matters are urgent and need to be confronted, and I believe that we will be updating the House on them soon.
These issues are very much at the forefront of my mind. As the father of two daughters, I think about them a lot, while remembering the change that we introduced in Greater Manchester following the appalling murder of Sarah Everard. It was a moment that created a powerful change in the conversation, challenging men, lads and boys for their behaviour and making it absolutely clear that violence against women and girls of any kind, including everyday harassment, is an issue with which they must be confronted and which they must address.
In recent days, I have met Georgia Harrison, who is doing amazing work in campaigning to protect women online and making the very reasonable request for any non-consensual explicit video to be taken down immediately rather than being removed after 48 hours, which is the current totally unsatisfactory approach. I can tell the hon. Lady that I will support her 100% in implementing that change, and also that we will think about the other points that she raised.
I know that this issue matters to my hon. Friend personally, as it does to me. The leader of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), pointed out during our cross-party talks—and, powerfully, in the media—that family carers are often simply not seen, and sink slowly as the situation becomes more and more unbearable and unsustainable for them. I know that from my own family experience.
I give my hon. Friend my word from the Dispatch Box that social care will be a huge priority for me. We do need to support family carers, as the right hon. Gentleman said, and we also need to give much more support to paid carers, who, as I have said, are working on poverty pay. I will not leave this role until we have introduced a social care system that we can be proud of.
I appreciate that the Cunliffe report takes us forward, but it was to some degree limited in what it was able to consider, and I believe we need to look at all possible solutions for the water industry. I do not think we are in a position to say that what is being proposed will solve everything. It is very regrettable that the privatisation of water has left us in a position that we will find it very difficult to reverse. What has happened is that funding has left through salaries and dividends. Bills were kept low for a period of time, but it is the infrastructure that is suffering. Now, when we need to put those infrastructure problems right, it is bill payers who are being asked to pay 20%-plus on their bills—not those who siphoned the money out in the first place. It is an unsatisfactory situation. It is an industry where the shareholders never lose and the bill payers never win, and I say to the hon. Lady that it is simply wrong and unsustainable.
I say to my hon. Friend that I was truly appalled when I heard about what happened, and I feel for any family who was a victim of that despicable crime. Today I offer him a meeting, on behalf of those families, to listen and to see how we can build a programme of change that will meet what has been exposed by this terrible crime.
I thank the right hon. Member for making a point that I made myself in the Makerfield by-election. I do think that there is more we need to do to support our high streets. I have made a start with pubs and live music venues, but I do believe we need to go further, in exactly the way he describes. I think it is a case of rebalancing the system—some of the large entities and warehouses do not, in percentage terms, pay the same amount in business rates—so that we can support those businesses on the high street that are doing public good and they are able to get a reduction to enable them to survive. That is something that I am looking at. I think we need to get serious about our high streets. We need to take action on those that cause harm—I have mentioned vape shops and adult gaming centres—and we need to do more to support those that do good.
I recognise the importance of the issues my hon. Friend is raising, for the reasons I gave earlier. The Bill we will debate later this week is a start, but I do not think that anyone on the Government Front Bench is saying that that is the end of the matter. We do need to go further. I encourage her to engage with the defending democracy taskforce and, certainly, I have an open mind about what those further measures might be.
Yes, I have only just got back to this House and already my PPS is lobbying me from behind, which is obviously helpful. My hon. Friend is right to do so and the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) is right to raise this issue. I remember, as chair of the Rail North Committee in my previous role, the concern of people in his part of the world. The rail connections to my part of the north are nowhere near what they should be. I heard scepticism on the Opposition Benches. If he is interested, I will fix a meeting for him with the team at No. 10 North so that he can put his case. This is why we took public control of the railways: so that we can start to put services back. There is no point in having public control if it does not deliver public benefit. In my view, every area needs a basic level of connectivity if we are to connect people to opportunity and get growth going in every postcode.
I have had a number of approaches from colleagues in Glasgow on how we can support them to move the bus system forward. I was surprised to hear how expensive bus fares are in the city. I believe that there have been moves to put them back under public control, but I am not aware that they have been supported by the Scottish Government. I hope the Scottish Government will provide funding and support to enable the Greater Glasgow area to move in that direction. [Interruption.] If I am wrong, I am happy to be corrected, but I did have a lot of people coming to me saying, “We’re not getting any support; can you help us move things forward?” A great city such as Glasgow should have public transport under its own control. From what I see in Scotland, there is something of the same problem as in England, where the capital city has a public transport system that is way beyond what anywhere else has. It is not that we are anti-London or anti-Edinburgh—it is great that they have those transport systems—but all parts of the UK need to have a level of infrastructure that is seen to be fair and, as I said before, connects all people to jobs and opportunities. Glasgow deserves that, too.
It was a serious offer that I made at the Dispatch Box earlier today, to say that there could be a devolution deal for every part of England with or without an elected mayor. I do believe that it will only work if it is based on unitary local government. I do not think it will work with a two-tier system, but that is why I said to colleagues in Cornwall that I am quite happy to see if a deal can be done for a single unitary authority. That is what I understand Members of Parliament for Cornwall to want, working with the leader of Cornwall council. If that is the settled view, I am not going to try to impose anything else—let us work with that. The same could be true in Shropshire, but it needs to be effective and functional, and to be able to stand on its own two feet.
That is entirely what the Hillsborough law is about. It builds on a duty of candour that was already there in the NHS, but will now go further to those running NHS organisations and all NHS bodies. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this in more detail, because I can see how much it matters to her. I hope that is a helpful commitment.
I think the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood what I said. I answered a media question on a visit to Northern Ireland before meeting the various parties. The question was whether a proposal was being put to the meeting about a border poll, and my answer was that the purpose of the visit was to get functional Government in Stormont, because in my view that would most serve the people of Northern Ireland right now, and that I was not there to distract from that to other issues. I am very aware of every word in the Good Friday agreement, and I will stick to it 100% as Prime Minister. I care about Northern Ireland, which I visit often, and—how do I put it?—that situation pre-empted the meeting we were about to have and I was not there to discuss that.
The Good Friday agreement—if the hon. Gentleman reads it, as I am sure he has—is quite clear on the circumstances in which that issue arises, and as I have said, I honour the words of the Good Friday agreement. However, our common challenge right now is achieving functional Government in Stormont, and I believe everybody should work together to achieve that. I have asked the Northern Ireland Secretary to support that process, and I recognise the concerns people have about the budget in Northern Ireland. Those are the issues to be dealt with first and foremost, and that was the answer I gave to the media.
I am ready to work with the leader of the Greens in this place, because I carry from my last role into this one a clear commitment to a carbon-neutral future. I do not resile from that in any way; I am proud of what I have done on that front. What the hon. Member has said is almost the opposite of what the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) said a few moments ago, but the wrong approach here is to be one or the other. We are going to have to find a way to make a transition from oil and gas to a renewable future, and that does not mean that it is all one or the other. There has to be a process where we can make a transition and do it as effectively and affordably as possible.
I recognise the work of the former Prime Minister, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras, who changed the conversation with Europe when he came into office. I have had that played back to me from a number of European leaders. There is something to build on; good steps have been taken. The UK-EU summit is in front of us; it may be the month after next—we are still waiting to finalise. I hope we can make further progress there. There is no doubt that our growth has been hit in the last decade. There is no prospect of getting what we want for our farmers if we take an isolationist approach. We have to work more closely with Europe. That is the approach that I will take unapologetically. I hope my hon. Friend will have some success to celebrate soon.
I assure the right hon. Gentleman that No. 10 North will be as much at the service of Scotland and his constituency as it will anywhere else. Members of this House will get used to seeing what an improvement it might be in getting answers out of Whitehall on many issues, including the one that he has just raised. I will give the right hon. Gentleman an honest answer: I am concerned about those plans too. I know that some of my constituents in Makerfield rely on Freeview. There is perhaps an opportunity to look at that as part of the BBC charter renewal process. I cannot give him a final answer today, but I recognise that he has raised a genuine issue that is of concern to his constituents. Let me have a proper look at it.
I thank my hon. Friend for what she said; it is my intention to bring back a bit more optimism around the country, to give people the feeling that things can be fixed. That is my style—to face things and fix things. It is the approach I will take to water, too. I do not know whether those on the Opposition Benches were supporting the status quo—it sounded like it, to a degree—but it is not defensible, in my view, for precisely the reasons my hon. Friend just gave. We are looking at options. I believe that we need a strengthened response, particularly when it comes to legislation. I am happy to work with my hon. Friend and plot out a path to repair our water infrastructure, bring down people’s bills and ensure that it is not always the public who are expected to pay for everything.
It is good to see the right hon. Gentleman again. I thank him for his comments; I am bringing a problem-solving approach. There will still be the odd point scored here and there—it would be a bit dull if I did not do a little of that—but where we can find common ground, we should. The public expect it. I think they are fed up of watching the television when things are broken and seeing us playing politics with those things. Let us see where we can make progress, and score the points where we cannot.
The right hon. Gentleman raises a very serious issue. As I said a moment ago, I was in Northern Ireland last week, where I met his colleagues as well as colleagues from other parties. I know there has been a serious loss of trust in the commission, and I know it needs to be addressed. The Northern Ireland Secretary has taken some action, but I believe more is to come.
As I said to the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale), I believe we need to do more to support the businesses that my hon. Friend talked about, and there will be more to come. The cost of doing business is too high. As I have said this afternoon, energy bills are too high for businesses and households, and we need the determination to bring those bills down and lower the cost of doing business. There will be more to come on that. This will be a pro-business and pro-small-business Government. Nobody should make any mistake about that. The approach that I led in Manchester was all about the public taking control of what they need to do in order to make a place functional for businesses and people. That is Manchesterism, and that is what we will bring nationally. It is all about setting businesses up to succeed. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend to improve that business, and her high streets, too.
I will take on that challenge and ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to consider what the right hon. Gentleman has said this afternoon. These changes do benefit from having the maximum consensus. On the Thatcher Government, we will probably have to agree to disagree, but I make one observation: we have a public housing stock that has 1.5 million fewer homes than in the ’80s and ’90s, and we now have 1.5 million people on housing waiting lists up and down the country. I would put it to him that that is a cause of further public cost, in terms of the number of people who are in a crisis situation. I think we can do better. I have been prepared to criticise the Government that I was in; maybe one day he might criticise the one that he was in, and then we will be able to find some solutions.
I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. I point to my record as Mayor of Greater Manchester: I had the back of all the thousands of officers who were out serving, keeping Greater Manchester safe, day after day. I pay tribute to the families of those officers we lost in Middlesbrough in the line of duty, sacrificing themselves for their community.
I also want to assure my hon. Friend that I heard the voice of PC Andrew Harper’s family before making my decisions on early release. Before I was here, this House passed Harper’s law. The spirit of that legislation really should have been honoured in that early release scheme, and it now will be. It always should be that this House gives the maximum recognition to those who put themselves at risk for our safety and that of everyone else.
I am ready to have a constructive conversation with the First Minister, as I did when I met him in July in my first week in office. I believe from my own experience that a form of local devolution in Wales and Scotland might further strengthen the economy and public services. That is the point that I am making in relation to buses in Glasgow and other services as well. Where power is too centralised and too remote, sometimes poor decisions are made. My agenda is all about putting power in the hands of people at the community level, so that they can drive changes that are right for them. There is a model of local devolution that could be made to work in Scotland, in Wales and possibly in Northern Ireland, and I am ready to support that, if that is what the right hon. Lady wishes.
I think I am right in saying that the Leader of the Opposition made strong statements early in the year—going back to January—on this very issue, and I indicated then that I supported the strongest action, recognising the damage to children’s mental health that social media has been doing. That is an example of how I work and how I will work in this role. Where something is obviously wrong and causing harm, particularly to children, it is incumbent on all of us to act. From my point of view, there is no watering down; we do need to take action. Those of us with children can sometimes see the damage being done, and we should not just accept it. I will lead from the front on this issue.
May I say clearly to the hon. Lady and to the country more broadly that I fully understand the pressure that businesses are under? The cost of doing business is higher it than it should be, owing to the pressures from energy costs and other things. I do not come into this position in any way in denial about that. We need to take further steps to reduce the cost of business, and I have indicated a direction of travel on that today.
These are matters that we need to give the utmost consideration to. We need to get growth up. The hon. Lady tried to give an analysis, but we have had a decade of low growth—these issues go back, and are much deeper—which is why, in my statement, I laid out the issues very clearly, and put forward a plan for growth. That plan requires us to be pro-business, and to provide what support we can.
If we are closing down digital space for young people, it is incumbent on all of us to open up more physical space in communities, and to repair the damage to youth services that was done 15 or so years ago. We will not get crime down without that. That is the other side of the coin to increasing police officer numbers. My hon. Friend has my commitment on that.
On my visit in the summer, I heard concerns about the availability of vaccine, and the time it was taking for farms to access it, so I am aware of the issue. I will seek an update from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary and, if necessary, I am prepared to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss this.
As I said before, and I am pleased to give my hon. Friend this assurance, I want to ensure that we do not have a two-tier England in which rural and coastal areas feel in some way shut out or left behind. There is a devolution deal that can be done for everywhere; he has my commitment on that. I encourage him to look at the letter from the First Secretary of State about No. 10 North; it is about providing for practical areas. I also encourage Members on all sides to start being practical about agreeing a combined authority, where that can be brought through. That, in our experience, is the best way to secure a building block for economic growth and to sustain important services. I want rural areas to benefit from exactly the same.
My new constituency—in fact, it includes a good chunk of my old Leigh constituency, so I know it well—has been hugely developed over the years, and we have brought through significant new housing. Anyone who visited during the by-election will know that the infrastructure is struggling to cope with the number of houses that have been built in the constituency. All I am saying to the right hon. Lady is that I support taking a balanced approach where there has been significant development, but I do not think that it is sustainable to turn our back on all development completely. It is about a balance, and I will work in this role to find that balance with the right hon. Lady.
I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and we will absolutely work in the way that she has described. The commitment is real, and it is not a temporary commitment. The money that she mentions is, as far as I am concerned, ongoing. “Everyone in” should be and will be the permanent policy of the Government that I lead. I do not believe that we should accept that anybody sleeps rough on a British street at any time, but I also know that if we are to help people on a journey away from the streets, it requires a whole-person approach, with all Departments working together. It can be done and I look forward to working with my hon. Friend on it.
I have given quite a few commitments to meetings today, so I will say to the hon. Gentleman, recognising the seriousness of the issue, that I will ensure that the relevant Minister meets him at his or her earliest convenience, given the seriousness of the issue and the report that he has done.
It is a real commitment of mine to ensure that the right powers are held at local level to take action on issues that matter to communities. We have had similar issues with illegal waste tipping in constituencies that leave people feeling that there is no accountability—almost a sense of lawlessness—and we cannot allow that to continue. I absolutely will look out for my hon. Friend to discuss this further. We can do more to empower local authorities, and he will have heard something I said in my statement: it was a real commitment to taking resources from a national level and bringing them back down, particularly to support local councils, which have in recent times, I am afraid, seen themselves hollowed out and they do not have the enforcement capability that they once had. We need to find ways of putting it back so that the people who do these things in communities can be held accountable and councils can enforce their own laws.
I do recognise the need to fund education in exactly the way the hon. Lady describes. This goes back to the point I made about investing in success rather than paying for failure. We need to be serious about giving all young people a path to success, and therefore reducing the number of young people dependent on benefits in their 20s. This is a shift that we need to make. The Milburn report will hopefully lay out a way to do that, and I look forward to working with the hon. Lady on this important issue.