5,575 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way, but he will be aware that there is no plan to ensure that that 2030 target is met. At a time when we have short-term cuts in operational spending, the Secretary of State must feel a certain amount of disappointment that we do not have a firm plan in place, because if the Treasury do not sign off the numbers, then nothing really happens. That is true, is it not?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I rise to speak to my new clause 34. I regret that my pointing out that the Bill will not create a single new social home appeared to get under the Minister’s skin on Tuesday, but the fact is that the Bill does not create any extra housing. That is not a surprise, as it comes from a Government who have built just 26% of their target in nearly 50% of their time in office. None the less, it is simply not good enough. Moreover, in the places—few and far between—where the Government have tried to get Britain building, that has nearly always come at the cost of green belt protections, despite the fact that research from the Campaign to Protect Rural England shows that a large proportion of the Government’s lofty housing target could swiftly be met using brownfield land that already has planning permission. The CPRE estimates that up to 1.41 million homes could be built on existing brownfield land in England, based on data from local planning authorities’ brownfield land registers up to 2024.
The hon. Lady makes a reasonable point, but we are looking forwards, not backwards.
The hon. Lady says that the Government are making brownfield land development more viable. Where are the signs of that? There is no development happening. Development in this country has ground to a standstill under this Government. That malaise did not start under this Government—I will accept that criticism—but it is most certainly being exacerbated by this Government. They are doing nothing to turn back the tide. In fact, they are pushing it further. Those 1.41 million starts would amount to 93% of the Government’s manifesto pledge. That is why I have tabled new clause 34, which seeks to require the Government to publish a strategy for prioritising brownfield land for social housing development.
This is starting to become quite fun. I do not accept the Minister’s comments. We will seek to divide the Committee on new clause 34 at the appropriate moment.
I rise to speak to my new clause 53. Many people in social housing have come into their new home after a past marred by hardship and a lack of safety. When tenants finally have a roof over their head and a place to call home, they must not be left to face unsanitary or unsafe living conditions because of their property owner or manager. That is why we tabled new clause 53, which the hon. Member for Ealing Southall was absolutely correct to describe as a probing amendment. It would add an extra layer of protection for tenants and a fresh route to direct accountability for registered providers. The new clause would enable tenants of a registered provider to request an inspection by the Regulator of Social Housing, giving tenants new powers to ensure that their home is not just four walls, but a sanctuary. It is vital that social housing tenants be able to make the most of the regulator’s functions and that the regulator be not just a bureaucratic machine, but a voice for the vulnerable.
I rise to speak in support of new clause 34, which stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington. I have listened very carefully to hon. Members’ exchanges, and I have to say that I do not see what is particularly contentious about my hon. Friend’s proposal. It is not unreasonable to focus on the development of brownfield land first, as the previous Government did. We should therefore have a strategy to draw the strands together as we look towards the future. However many more years of this Government we have, the power is in their hands to do this. I do not see what is contentious about doing what my hon. Friend’s new clause proposes. I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Rugby, but I have a counterpoint to his point about development on brownfield sites. My constituency has a couple of towns in it and is right on the edge of Leicester, but it goes way up into rural north-east Leicestershire. The reality is that the developments on the edges of the towns or nearer the city often work most effectively, because there are bus routes and there is access to more schools, shops, businesses and employment opportunities. The challenge that we face locally is that in Leicester city, which has a Labour mayor and which I go through on my way from the station to my constituency, there are undeveloped, unmodernised and un-utilised brownfield sites or commercial sites that have fallen into disuse. Nevertheless, the mayor says that he cannot meet his housing targets and has therefore farmed them out to the rural areas in the county. That means a significant amount of development on the edges of villages—often with no bus route or only a sparse service, a full village primary school and a GP practice serving a whole range of rural communities—that are unable to meet the needs of the additional development. The pressure on local services is a real challenge. I have been pushing for a long time to see whether, when these applications are <span id="111" class="column-number" data-column-number="111"></span>brought forward, there is a way of having “i” before “e”—infrastructure before expansion—so that at least we know the services are there. There is one big challenge that previous Governments I served in did not solve, and which I suspect this Government will struggle to solve, because it comes down to the viability of development. We can, and local authorities do, ask developers for capital contributions for those services, but often the problem is the ongoing revenue cost of running them. That means that we can get an extra room in a surgery, but will the local NHS integrated care board be willing to fund the salary costs and commission extra GP practice services?
I hesitate to disagree with the hon. Gentleman, for whom I have a lot of time, but no, they are not doing that, certainly not in my constituency. There is a Mayor of Leicester, but there is no mayor of Leicestershire, so we do not get any of the benefits. The Minister’s colleague—the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon)—will make a statement in the Chamber in about 20 minutes, so he may be about to change the position, but currently we do not have those benefits. A lot of the challenges around service provision are not addressed by what the Chancellor set out yesterday. Take the NHS funding model, for example: in my area, the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland integrated care board is having to make in-year savings to live within its financial envelope. We have GP practices that are full—one practice in Melton Mowbray has 37,000 patients on its books—and yet the ICB says it sees no reason to expand to meet the need. The development has not happened yet in Melton, so it will not expand until the need is demonstrably there, by which time a whole range of people will have moved into the new development but will not be able to get on the list for the surgery, or will be waiting a very long time. I am not saying that this is a challenge that suddenly appeared in July 2024. Governments of all political complexions have grappled with it. I have a lot of time for the Minister; I hope this issue is on his radar.<span id="112" class="column-number" data-column-number="112"></span> On brownfield sites, the proposal from my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington should not be contentious; it is a sensible approach to draw together all the different strands of work that the previous Government did to push the development of brownfield sites. Let me give a few examples. The national policy planning framework had a clear focus on the issue. We required local authorities to publish reports and registers of available brownfield sites for development. We reviewed permitted development rights and changes in use class rules to make it easier for commercial sites to be repurposed for development into housing. Alongside that, we put £4.3 billion into the housing infrastructure fund and £550 million into the brownfield housing fund. That is tangible investment to persuade and support local authorities to prioritise brownfield first. The problem in my patch is that the Labour Mayor of Leicester simply did not do it. We can see the brownfield sites everywhere, and we can see the development being pushed out into the county because the city has failed to do what it needs to do. My hon. Friend’s modest amendment would compel the Government to draw together all the strands of work that the previous Government did, and that this Government are also doing, into a clear and coherent strategy that would prioritise brownfield sites much, much more and would give local authorities and others the means, the support and the policy back-up to make this work a genuine reality on the ground. I will finish by simply emphasising my support for my hon. Friend.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray), although I suspect that we will have slightly different assessments of this Budget. In my view, this is a thin gruel of a Budget, and with its 98 measures tinkering at tax and spending, it is not un-reminiscent of Emperor Nero in Rome, fiddling while it burned. This is ultimately a Budget of delay: it kicks the big decisions into the long grass; it is anaemic in terms of its assessment and forecast for growth; and it quite simply does not set out a compelling vision for our economic future. That inertia has a cost, which is obvious in two areas. The first area, of course, is defence. We are living in an increasingly unstable world. It is negligent—a failure of a duty of government—not to properly fund our armed forces. A consequence of having a plan for a road map to 3% of GDP is that there is no strategy whatsoever. I am afraid that the absence of that plan, from this particular Chancellor especially, does nothing to enhance his credibility in front of the British public and the markets. The second area, which I will touch on briefly, is welfare. I will touch on it briefly because there was barely any mention of it in yesterday’s Budget, and yet welfare spending is predicted to go up by £19 billion this year, and total welfare spending is anticipated to be £431 billion by 2031-32. That is utterly unsustainable. I want to concentrate on a particular hidden tax measure in the Budget. It is buried in section 6.147 of the Red Book, but it has enormous implications for those who are self-employed and pay their tax under self-assessment. I am one of those individuals, from my historical earnings at the Bar and my aged debt. <span id="535" class="column-number" data-column-number="535"></span>Under the new proposal, individuals will pay their taxes perhaps on a monthly or quarterly basis—it is unclear yet—and some 50% of tax returns will almost certainly be brought forward in terms of when they are paid. The obvious effect for the Treasury is that receipts in year 1 will increase by £1.3 billion and by year 3 that will be £1.8 billion. However, it will be ruinous for the individuals concerned because they will end up paying tax on issues that they have not yet received. It does not reflect the seasonality of payments and it is, quite frankly, a rather silly policy that has been cooked up by those who have no understanding of business at all.
<Question HRSContentId="{56B77845-4BA4-41EE-993F-81694678B042}">9. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{03BF5E8D-BF64-4751-8F74-030D9A2AF3AE}">What assessment she has made of the adequacy of the DVLA’s performance levels. </QuestionText></Question>
An increasing number of constituents are coming to me with problems getting their licence. One example was a lady who had dementia; she passed all the tests but had months of delays trying to get her licence, eventually having to take her complaint to the chief executive to get an answer, only for the licence to be backdated, meaning she will have to go through the whole rigmarole again in a few months’ time. That is not an isolated case. I have constituents with diabetes and epilepsy, who are all suffering. What is the Minister doing to ensure we can speed the process up so that people can get back on the road as soon as they are medically fit?
We heard from the Conservative Front Bench that we do not meet the criteria to rejoin the EU. How do the Lib Dems suggest that we get around that problem?
The hon. Gentleman is talking about doing everything that we can. One way to bring in some funding is through gas and oil tax receipts. Page 94 of the Office for Budget Responsibility report explicitly says that Rosebank is baked in as being granted. Does he support Rosebank?
I had to check that the Chancellor had said what I thought he had, and it was referred to again today by the Defence Secretary. They said that this is the first 100 days of a Government, with a new 10-year plan. By my calculation, the Government have been in for 847 days, with their third Budget being delivered yesterday, and we are over a quarter of the way through the last 10-year plan. Rather than this being a baby Budget and a fledgling Government, they are more an adolescent Government, and this really is a bum-fluff Budget. It has got wispy bits and patchy bits, but no one really knows what they are, where they are going or even if they should be there. We can see that by the fact that we have 98 announcements within the Budget, which is a record, but the value per project is one of the lowest on record. When I saw the Budget, I was pleased that there were some bits that I have been working on that have finally come to fruition. First, pensioners are being taken out of paying tax on their state pension. There is also the freeze on fuel duty. Those are in response to things that were warned about, but put in by a Labour Government. The hole was dug by a Labour Government, and they have now had to half-fill it. That is exactly what we see with the NEETs situation. We have record unemployment of young people, certainly when compared with the EU average, with more than a million people not able to get through into jobs, so what do the Government do? They put on that <span id="530" class="column-number" data-column-number="530"></span>toxic concoction of tax increases and red tape, and now they turn around and say, “We will give you £3,000 to take someone on.” The Government should get out the way. It would be far simpler to let businesses take on people and grow as they need. The same applies to the hospitality industry and the leisure industry. It is welcome that the Government have made some changes to their rates, but we should remember that the Government took away the support in the first place, put up the rates and added the toxic concoction on top. It is a hole that has been half-filled, and we see that time and again. We often hear about the money that went into the NHS, but we should remember it was taken away with the jobs tax that hit hospices, care homes, GPs and pharmacies, which are all feeling it. With energy, £100 has been given, but we know that Ofgem says the cap will see a more than £400 increase. We should remember that Labour promised £300 lower bills when it came into office. I hope that we see this beard grow into a full bushy shape. Whether it is Keir Starmer’s continuation or Andy Burnham’s new direction—
Forgive me. I mean the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) and his new direction, with a lovely new moustache.
Does my right hon. Friend believe that the reason they cannot be here is that their prayer cards were taken out?
Talking about structural problems and difficulties, a press release has just come out from the Labour party that says: “Exclusive. Chancellor tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy that Labour will not bring welfare bills down in this Parliament”. Does the Minister stand by that?
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{BB43BE6E-C42C-449E-9D6B-CA258205E46B}"> </QNum></strong> Mr Whelan, we heard from the previous panel about the potential to offer discounts to local residents. Does M6 toll do that at present? How would that work?<span id="20" class="column-number" data-column-number="20"></span> <em><strong>Michael Whelan:</strong></em> We have done that. About two and a half years ago we put in place a new toll system—we spent £20 million on it—and that enabled us to introduce new toll pricing. We reduced prices for locals to £4, and we have held that there for the two and a half years. We have not increased it. That is something we are conscious of and have actively looked at, as well as having new products, some with discounts and some without. Interestingly, the account product that does not have a discount is our most popular one.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{03F7364F-793C-4838-A6AD-FC96AC8D2C70}"> </QNum></strong> Which one is that? <em><strong>Michael Whelan:</strong></em> The Lite account.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{315490A8-E145-4D01-A324-8F6421A5B142}"> </QNum></strong> What does that do? <em><strong>Michael Whelan:</strong></em> It provides an easier way to get a receipt. It also provides the ability to drive through what we call our breeze lanes, on which the gates will open automatically if your account is in good status.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{873A7891-A7BE-4671-A14C-CAAEFE1BB63A}"> </QNum></strong> Mr Garratt, you mentioned that you would like ministerial assurance that the Bill will not be used more widely across the rest of the country. Is ministerial assurance enough, or would you like to see something in the Bill to ensure that it is not a Trojan horse, as the Minister says it will not be? <em><strong>Ben Garratt:</strong></em> Our sense is that the way in which the Bill is drafted is relatively strong. That is why we are seeking assurances on the record, rather than amendments. We do not want it to be used as a Trojan horse to spread this across the country, but there is a particular case for it on this particular route. Given the wording at the moment, to have assurances would be proportionate.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{869FFEE8-7AEF-4486-8A7B-4F455485C558}"> </QNum></strong> We have heard that moving to a smart motorway and using the hard shoulder could increase capacity, meaning that tolls could be charged. <em><strong>Ben Garratt:</strong></em> Again, it would be good to get an assurance that that will not be the case, but that is not our reading of the Bill at the moment. That does not mean that others could not interpret it differently at some point, when looking at it in the future. That is why we are seeking a strong assurance that this is about adding actual new trunk road capacity and not doing things like what you just said.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{AB901A24-1CAA-47BA-9559-6EBCB660CC8D}"> </QNum></strong> Mr Pang, do you have any concerns? <em><strong>Declan Pang:</strong></em> We are concerned about how the Bill could be applied to introduce tolls. We want greater reassurances from the Department about that. Clause 81 in particular gives the Secretary of State the power to direct any road to be made a trunk road, so we are concerned about what could be brought into scope. We want greater reassurances.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{CE9D449B-78F3-4804-B120-A01AD813070F}"> </QNum></strong> We heard from an earlier panel that the operator has limited incentives for cost control and that there is a risk of taking “costs off the book without any level of scrutiny.” Do you understand what they are talking about in that? <em><strong>Will Godfrey:</strong></em> I think “without any level of scrutiny” is something I would take issue with, certainly as I would see the arrangements working. We have had good discussions with old colleagues of mine at Ofwat about the arrangements they had, for example, for the Thames tideway tunnel. There, both the rhythm—by which I mean the frequency of reporting, monitoring and scrutiny of costs during construction—and the importance of having a dependable, expert, independent technical assurer on the costs are really important for making sure you have that right level of visibility and scrutiny. I would question the nature of unchecked costs. I am not denying that cost pressures would arise, but that is the whole point of having arrangements like an independent technical assessor.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{62BA81A3-8AC9-4226-AE43-F4EDB9157FAD}"> </QNum></strong> Is it true that there are limited incentives for cost control? What is the incentive for the operator to keep the costs down? <em><strong>Will Godfrey:</strong></em> I will go to both costs and schedule. There are instruments that you can bring in through a licence—such as cost-sharing rates. The point I was trying to make earlier is that you do not necessarily design a price control—at the moment, if there is a cost shock, it just goes through to end-user prices, so cost-sharing arrangements are one example. You can also bring in thresholds to make sure that the company is incentivised to remain on schedule as well.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{78111477-0441-4D0A-AF19-B1697F1BDD48}"> </QNum></strong> If an operator in future was not making any money and was going under, who would step in? Would it be you? <em><strong>Will Godfrey:</strong></em> Before we get to that point, it is worth bearing in mind whether there are other potential investors willing to buy out the company that is struggling. There may be particular reasons why—maybe it was not well managed or well financed. There is the potential in principle for someone to come in through normal mergers or acquisitions and take responsibility. In the event that the company is really struggling against a particular settlement, that is a challenge for a regulator to manage. There are certain provisions on the limit, where things ultimately are pushed to the point of non-recoverability, which are envisaged within the Bill. One of the jobs of the regulator is, first, getting that first price control settlement right. As I say, at the moment that is being set by the Department, but getting that projection on the allowed cost is key—get it right at the start. Then, that rhythm of regular monitoring is really important to make sure that you anticipate that point. What you do not want to be doing, particularly with a construction project like this, is to get to that point with some element of surprise. What you need to do is keep that regular rhythm of monitoring and scrutiny, so that you can act before you get to that point that the company has nowhere to go.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{04343CE7-7C19-497F-9ADB-DD359EAB0DC4}"> </QNum></strong> I guess you could step in and increase the costs and have them earning more to try to keep them on a sustainable footing.<span id="46" class="column-number" data-column-number="46"></span> <em><strong>Will Godfrey:</strong></em> At certain points it is possible that a regulator could introduce things like cost limits, beyond which there was then a redetermination of a price allowance, but not necessarily one that was a simple “costs have overrun by CX, therefore tolls increase by the same amount.” It would not be an automatic pass-through; it would be subject to that efficiency and economy test.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{5DF0C166-6A83-4CAD-8315-906076F6CA2C}"> </QNum></strong> Andrew, I think you said earlier that one of the issues was uncapped cost overruns for the contractor. What is the consequence of that? Does it scare some contractors away? <em><strong>Andrew Truscott:</strong></em> Not for the contractor; for the investor. Sorry—if I said “contractor”, I meant “investor”. Apologies. I do not care about the contractors. <em>[</em><em>Laughter.</em><em>]</em><span id="54" class="column-number" data-column-number="54"></span> It is not because we do not understand and price risk; that is what we do for a living. It is just that I cannot go to my investment committee and, when asked, “Okay, Andrew, what is the maximum amount of equity you are going to put into this project and therefore what is the return you are expecting to get on it?”, give the answer, “I don’t know.” That is not a conversation—well, it could be a conversation, but it would be the last conversation I have with my investment committee.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{1835AE8C-A454-4BEE-A206-DDC50F4812EA}"> </QNum></strong> What do we need to do to change that? <em><strong>Andrew Truscott:</strong></em> Again, I am getting well over my skis, so apologies, but it is about being smart. I am not just suggesting that this all lands on the country balance sheet, whether it is the National Wealth Fund taking excess risk above a certain threshold and therefore becoming an equity investor as a consequence, but it would be sensible to be smart and think innovatively about how to cap the number, so that I can then go to my investment committee and say, “This is the amount of capital we’ll commit, with any excess being provided by somebody else in exchange for an economic interest.” Rather than trying to give answers, I would say that being thoughtful and innovative about how that cap can be constructed is definitely worth putting on the agenda.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{F1B0C1ED-A38F-4387-BBFC-0EBB57317AC4}"> </QNum></strong> But it does not drive away investors as it is just now, does it? <em><strong>Andrew Truscott:</strong></em> I think it will.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{FA40C80E-D69A-4996-A716-930B6D4E1A6C}"> </QNum></strong> Okay—so it is something we need to look at urgently. <em><strong>Andrew Truscott:</strong></em> I cannot speak for the entire investment community, but I can repeat what I said earlier. I think we are fairly typical—I mean, we are brilliant, but we are fairly typical—and an uncapped equity commitment is almost impossible for us to write.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{4B11EA99-5B5F-47AE-8F11-037A1229C73E}"> </QNum></strong> Minister, we heard from the last person who gave evidence, the investor, that he would not be able to invest because of the uncapped cost overrun risks. You heard that as well. Would you look at it again to make changes to ensure investors are not so scared away by that risk? <em><strong>Justin Madders:</strong></em> I am not too familiar with the factors he takes into account when investing, but my advice from officials is that the soft market testing that has been taking place has shown a lot of interest in this. He also said in his response that there would be quite a lot of people who would be looking to invest in this. That conversation is ongoing. Having the legislation on the statute book will actually help give more certainty to investors. Clearly one of the reasons why the project has already started is to de-risk it to some extent. All the indicators I am getting are that we are putting this in a strong position to attract investment.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{436DAE4C-370F-41E1-9BFD-BB093B211BA0}"> </QNum></strong> Will you not make any changes after hearing the comments today? <em><strong>Justin Madders:</strong></em> I do not think that this is covered by the Bill anyway, but I will certainly take it away to see if there is anything to reflect on. I assure you that this would not be proceeding if there were no interest in investment.
May I just put it on the record that the Tour de France will be passing through my constituency twice?<span id="419" class="column-number" data-column-number="419"></span> Will the Secretary of State investigate the position on Kirkconnel station in my constituency, on the Nith valley line? Kirkconnel is a former mining community with an older population, and many people are unable to use the station because of infirmity or poor mobility.
I do not know whether you or the Leader of the House are cinemagoers, Mr Speaker, but this weekend you could visit the Lonsdale cinema in Annan for its range of Halloween films, including a 30th anniversary screening of “Scream”. I commend Alan Towers, the proprietor of the cinema, on the fact that Lonsdale has been nominated as Cinema of the Year at the British Independent Film Awards, and further commend Alan and his team for keeping the cinema going through sometimes difficult times and providing a much-valued entertainment service for people across the south of Scotland and beyond.
It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Alec, and to be speaking on behalf of the official Opposition in this debate called by everybody’s friend, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—the Member of Parliament above all others for whom the term “indefatigable” could have been coined. It is a very important debate, and I commend him on the clarity of the three asks that he has put to the Government; we look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. On an average day, air ambulances undertake 137 missions. We have heard in the debate about the great work of air ambulances across the country. The hon. Member specifically mentioned their work at Strangford lough at the end of the Ards peninsula. It is a part of the world that he knows I know well and is a very good illustration of the importance of being able to move people quickly when the roads are slow to pass. In my constituency of East Hampshire, we are very lucky to have a fantastic team at the Hampshire and Isle of Wight air ambulance, which can reach almost anyone in Hampshire or on the island within 10 minutes from take-off from its new airbase and headquarters at Southampton airport. They have flown 907 missions so far this year. In the single month of August, their doctors, pilots and paramedics responded to 250 missions. During the August bank holiday weekend, the teams were deployed eight times a day on average, coming to the rescue in the aftermath of car crashes, cardiac arrests and accidental injuries. I know all Members join me in commending the work and generosity of air ambulance charities and their supporters. The supporters are very important. As a number of colleagues have mentioned, air ambulances are not part of the national health service; they are charities. Yet, as the hon. Member for Strangford highlighted, most people do not know that they are independent from the NHS. I hope that this debate plays a part in addressing that lack of awareness. Fundraising is a vital activity for air ambulances. It costs the Hampshire and Isle of Wight service £17,750 a day to keep their vital service operational. They are particularly creative fundraisers—from the clothes recycling points and the charity lottery to “brew for the crew” coffee mornings and the “dash in the dark” and many corporate and commemorative fundraising initiatives. I commend everyone involved with the Hampshire service and with air ambulance charities right across the country for their amazing—indeed, in many cases, lifesaving—efforts. In code red cases, where there is a medical emergency such as cardiac arrest or internal haemorrhaging, the minutes saved by air ambulances can really make the difference between life and death. When a patient has suffered skeletal head, chest or abdominal injuries and local hospital facilities are not sufficient, air ambulances can fly the injured to major trauma centres that would take a long time to reach by road. Of course, for this to work, hospitals need suitable helipads for crews to take off and land, and here lies the issue that we are discussing today. Research from the all-party parliamentary group for air ambulances—I thank those who support that group, some of whom are with us today—highlights that access to safeguarded on-site hospital helipads is inconsistent <span id="234WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="234WH"></span>across the country. More than a third lack either 24/7 access or an operational helipad. When helicopter transfers are not possible, it then costs hundreds of pounds in secondary ambulance transfers, with delays to care leading to longer hospital stays and more intensive treatment. In 2019, Health Ministers allocated £10 million to nine ambulance charities supporting air ambulance services to move towards 24/7 operations and improve seven airbase facilities. During the pandemic, we provided £6 million of emergency funding to air ambulance charities to help them with the pressures they were then facing. Members often speak about postcode lotteries and it is a phrase that has come up again today. Given the nature of the incidents that air ambulances respond to, patchwork coverage really can make the difference between life and death. It is one of the most sharply important postcode lotteries to address. Since taking office, what have the Government done to reduce unwarranted variation in emergency care by place? Specifically, what are they doing to provide the reliable infrastructure that air ambulances need? A written question was posed to the Minister in the other place asking whether the Government had considered a contingency fund to secure future helipad provision. The response was that a fund was not under consideration and NHS organisations must consider competing priorities within available resources. Can the Minister confirm that the Department of Health and Social Care underspent its capital departmental expenditure limit by some hundreds of millions of pounds in the last financial year? Was any of the underspend considered for helipad projects? We talk about prioritising within available resources, but overall, people working in the health service note that available resources are reducing. Integrated care boards are pencilling in cuts to services and NHS trusts are planning to axe many jobs. Yesterday’s Budget deepened the cuts to the NHS to around £1 billion of capital cuts over the next four years. Can the Minister tell us what the impact of that will be? Which programmes will be cut and, specifically on the subject of this debate, what are the implications for helipad capital? To ensure that no good deed goes unpunished, this Government decided to reward air ambulance charities with a new jobs tax. For every employee on average earnings, air ambulance charities, alongside others of course, must pay an extra £900 to HMRC. Is the Minister willing to raise the plight of air ambulances with Treasury Ministers? Does she think it is wrong that money that has effectively come from charitable donations should have to be diverted to help pay for the cost of the previous Chancellor’s mismanagement of the public finances? As colleagues have noted, air ambulances are also suffering the consequences of soaring energy prices. The cost of aviation fuel surged more than 80% this spring, adding tens of thousands of pounds to air ambulance charities’ annual fuel bills. Earlier this summer, my right hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) wrote to the Government asking Ministers to ensure that air ambulances are included in fuel resilience planning and recognised in NHS emergency services fuel access arrangements. Can the Minister update Members on actions taken by her Department since receiving that correspondence?<span id="235WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="235WH"></span> The Government rightly have high ambitions for the health service: reduced ambulance times, shorter hospital waits, faster discharges. We of course share those ambitions, but there is a huge gulf between where the NHS is now on some of those key performance indicators and where we all want it to be. The National Audit Office estimates that 1.2 million patients waited between 12 and 24 hours in A&E last year. NHS waiting lists have been climbing, with the number of trauma and orthopaedic cases with a decision to admit higher than at the time of the change of Government. Charities providing critical medical transport are having to cope with the weight of the extra taxes from the Government on top of those pressures from high energy prices. In this debate, Members from across the House have called on the Government to act by putting forward a clear framework and road map for hospital helipads, establishing clear standards for NHS estates and exploring options for financial support so air ambulances can afford to stay in the air and keep saving lives. Again, I commend the hon. Member for Strangford for the clarity with which he set out his three asks. I urge the Minister to listen to air ambulance charities, their supporters and all those who are delivering high-quality emergency care. We look forward to her response.
The Government are very good at imposing on people things that they do not want. In Staffordshire Moorlands, the Government want to impose the end of Staffordshire Moorlands district and the end of Staffordshire police—reorganisations that will have different timeframes and will lead to great confusion. Will the Minister consider my proposal for local government reorganisation—this has been my proposal all along—which is to leave our councils and local authorities in the state they are in? The Government can give us a mayor, if that is what they want, but we really do not need any more distractions for our local government officials, who need to get on and deliver services.
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist). I join my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) in paying tribute to Sue Holt. I was in Strasbourg with her only a few weeks ago when she was taken ill. It was a great shock to all of us to learn what had happened to her. I want to cover measures in the Budget that relate to my constituents, the Home Affairs Committee and my constituency, but I realise I have limited time so I will race ahead. It is pretty quick on the Home Affairs Committee side of things, because there was not very much in the Budget about such matters. In fact, there was only one mention in the speech: £15 million over three years for a misogyny prevention fund. We are yet to see what that actually involves, but I worry that priority is being given to perpetrators. Where is the money for victims? A victim-centred approach to violence against women and girls is essential. The Government have already said that £1 billion needs to be spent on tackling violence against women and girls during the life of the strategy, but the Red Book states: “the government is prioritising £55 million of funding over two years to accelerate delivery of the Violence Against Women and Girls strategy.” Again, £55 million out of £1 billion does not sound too much. On issues that were not mentioned but relate to home affairs, the Committee is conducting two inquiries at the moment. I am interested in the work that the Government are doing on apprenticeships and so on, but I urge them to look at the work the Committee did with Demos—a piece of deliberative democracy—looking at the public’s attitude to work-based immigration. They will find really interesting insights on the need to prioritise upskilling UK workers to take job vacancies, not just looking overseas to fill those roles. The Committee is also doing to a piece of work on the impact of serious and organised crime on local neighbourhoods. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon made some really interesting comments about the high street. It is the case that we have seen the hollowing out of the high street, and the measures that the Government have taken on national insurance, business rates and so on have left a vacuum that is being filled by <span id="522" class="column-number" data-column-number="522"></span>organised criminality. That is filling our high streets in a way that is inappropriate and that we do not want, so I urge the Government to deal with that issue. Moving on to issues that affect my constituency, I welcome the £100 for A to D council tax payers. We have a disproportionately high number of properties in bands A to D in Staffordshire Moorlands, so more people will be affected by that than in some other constituencies. However, there was nothing in the Budget for those who rely on heating oil, and they will not benefit from the abolition of gas standing charges. Those people really do need help; the price of heating oil is hideous and, as we come into winter, the numbers that have been quoted to fill a tank of heating oil are astonishing. Again, I join my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon in commenting that there was nothing about hospitality and tourism. As the Member of Parliament for Alton Towers and other great local attractions, including the Peak Wildlife Park, I know how much they welcomed the reduction in VAT over the summer and how much they want to see that made permanent. There was also nothing for farmers in the Budget. It would have been very heartening if the Chancellor had mentioned something about the family farm tax, to give farmers the respite that they need. The Government tell us we need to have local government reorganisation in order to benefit from many of the measures in the Budget. As I said following the Minister for Local Government’s statement earlier, if we are going to have a mayor, we do not need to reorganise the structure of our local government as well. Let officials and councillors spend their time and effort on delivering services and let the mayors have the strategic overview. That would be a much better approach. The Peak Cluster project proposes to enable the cement industry to continue in the Peak district through carbon capture, with plans to transport the carbon to Morecambe bay. This is of great concern. How much carbon is going to be emitted in building the pipelines that will go underneath the Peak district, Cheshire and other areas to get out to Morecambe bay, where the carbon can be put into an empty gas field? Surely, it would just be better to allow the cement industry to continue producing cement in as clean a way as possible in the United Kingdom, without the need to build the pipeline, with all the environmental damage that will cause. I welcome the comments around new battery storage, and solar farms needing to be connected to the grid to start with. That is a measure that many of my constituents will welcome.
I did not think that the Minister could make things for people in Worcestershire even more confusing than they were. They just want their bins taken out, their roads maintained, enough school places, adult social care provision and a say in planning. But now I understand that we will have to get councillors elected to district councils again next May, that we will have to get councillors elected to a new shadow authority the following May, and that this new entity in the south of Worcestershire will now not be created until 2029. I just cannot see how that is going to benefit my residents.
I am sure both you, Mr Speaker, and the Leader of the House will share my delight at the news that the Seabirds pub in Bridlington has reopened following a £300,000 refurbishment. It coincides with my “Pub of the Year” competition in Bridlington and The Wolds, where we are delighted to be home to 114 pubs. Will the Leader of the House join me in thanking every landlord and landlady across the country for all their hard work and <span id="454" class="column-number" data-column-number="454"></span>everything that they do for local communities? After my competition has closed on Saturday, will the Leader of the House join me for a pint in the winning pub?