5,731 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them
I have asked the Minister about this before, and she did not answer. Maybe I will get an answer this time. One thing she might set those additional support services to do is let people know when perpetrators will get out of prison earlier because of the Government’s decisions. Can she at least commit to writing to victims to let them know in advance that their perpetrator is going to be let out of prison earlier?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. As we are discussing health, I should declare that I am a former NHS doctor and my wife is an NHS doctor. I thank the hon. Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) for her detailed and highly researched speech, as well as all other Members who have spoken. This has been a most concerning debate in relation to the systemic impact of health promotion, and it has thrown up bigger, more fundamental challenges that we, as a society, must start to grapple with. I will come to that later in my remarks. My first job in the psychiatric training scheme—and my first consultant job—was on a women’s ward in south-east London. That was one of the most amazing jobs I have ever done: looking after very poorly women and doing my bit to deal with complex physical health issues and to promote women’s health. I totally appreciate and agree about the importance of reducing what is—let us face it—ridiculous stigma and social taboo around women’s health issues, but I come at this as a doctor, so I have a particular perspective. Equally, I am mindful that my perspective—how I look at society—has changed during my 44 years. If someone had asked the Ben of 20 years ago, “Do you think we live in a society that is equal for men and women?” he would have said, “Yes, of course we do.” In the past 15 years, I have come to know that that is completely wrong, things are nowhere near where they should be and we still have a huge amount of work to do. Sadly, what we have heard in this debate, and the list of de-promoted words that the hon. Member for Milton Keynes Central handed to me, are further evidence of the challenges that we must tackle. She is 100% right to raise this topic, among others, and to call out what has been happening. But—and there is a “but”—this issue is not simply about access to information. This is not just a question of whether the information should or should not be accessible—in my view, it absolutely should be—or of how to determine the threshold between adult content and factual material. The debate also relates to decisions made by private companies to impose limits on what they permit or promote on their sites. That is the nub of the issue: should companies be allowed to make those decisions, or should it be the role of Government to regulate those choices or actions? To be clear, I do not believe that this debate is about the scope of the Online Safety Act, which does not restrict companies in the publication of factual health information. At no point does that Act says that information on breasts, vaginas, fertility, menstruation or menopause, or on any other body part, condition or medical term, should be restricted or classified as adult material. The way that that information or imagery is presented may indeed come within the scope of the Act, but its existence does not. Inappropriate adult content should not be accessible to children—that is right—but factual and educational material should not meet that criterion. It is also worth bearing in mind that, in some ways, this is not a new issue. I am sure that, just as people looked at information in anatomy textbooks for educational purposes before the internet, plenty of people looked at it for other purposes—but, again, that is not a matter for Parliament or the Online Safety Act. Under our current legal framework, private companies have the right to choose what information they permit on their websites. That is a commercial decision, and if we are not happy with such a decision—my very strong view is that we should not support the restriction of information relating to women’s health—we should call them out and persuade them to change their position. Algorithmic transparency is important, but it is also critical, given the evidence that we have heard in this debate, that companies are not able to hide behind the Online Safety Act. A bigger problem that we will have to tackle or process at some point is the status of social media in our society. Is it private or is it something bigger? Should it be regulated, like news outlets? That would be a huge change in our position, creating such regulatory burdens as to make the UK wholly uncompetitive in the market and having an extreme impact on people’s access to information. It would also be counterproductive, because it is nigh-on impossible to do. I look forward to hearing from the Minister, whom I welcome to his place. This is the first time I have had the pleasure of being opposite him at the Dispatch Box. I reiterate the Opposition’s strong support for what Members from both sides of the House have said about the importance of destigmatising these matters. I hate even using the word “destigmatise” because I worry that that is stigmatising in itself—it is ridiculous, in some ways, that we have to have this debate in the modern age, but we are where we are. We must ensure that everyone has access to sensible and appropriate information, without the biases that have been mentioned in the debate. Finally, as a former NHS mental health doctor, I point out that social media is not the only online source of health information. I signpost people who have questions to the NHS website, where there is plenty of stuff on all health areas—I looked it up on my phone during the debate. We do not have to rely on big-tech social media; we have plenty of services in which other information is available.
I appreciate where the hon. Lady is coming from, but unless I am wrong, those examples are all within the auspices of the OSA.
In his business statement, the Leader of the House rightly referred to fly-tipping waste criminals. Will he allow for a debate in Government time to consider a different sort of waste perpetrated on our constituents, which is that arising from so-called energy-from-waste plants, otherwise known waste incinerators, which are more polluting than burning coal and for which the UK is already overprovisioned. We have too many of these things, they are not wanted and it is time for a moratorium. Can we have a debate on that?
The announcement on red diesel will be welcomed by my farming constituents, who will await the details on the tariffs the Chancellor has cited with a great deal of interest and a certain amount of trepidation. Does she acknowledge that a third of the world’s fertilisers pass through the strait of Hormuz, and that the increase in the price of fertiliser is bound to have an impact on British agriculture and therefore on prices in the shops? What will she do to relieve some of that—in some cases existential—pressure on farms in the United Kingdom?
The behaviour of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir brings shame on all of us who consider ourselves to be friends of Israel. Given that the joint comprehensive plan of action was not working and Iran continued to advance its plans for a nuclear weapon, how would the Minister have de-fanged the regime? While he is right to claim some credit for the FTA with the gulf states, will he give credit, too, to his predecessors, who did a lot of the heavy lifting, and will he at least concede that the whole thing would not have been possible if we were still in the European Union?
In keeping open the options that the Secretary of State hints at, has he had any discussions with his colleagues in the Ministry of Defence? At least for the foreseeable future, there will always be a need for virgin steel for certain defence applications.
Will the Chief Secretary to the Treasury reassure me that the Treasury really understands that in rural areas the cost of fuel not only relates to what motorists pay for driving but affects everything—all the goods and services provided—on sale in the shops? Therefore, rather than trying to put caps on the things that are on sale in shops, the best way to help keep costs down in rural areas is to keep fuel costs down.
May I begin by sending my commiserations to the family and friends of Scottish rugby legend Scott Hastings, who died recently aged only 61? Scott was an inspirational figure, both on and off the pitch. I am sure the Leader of the House shares my concern about the outbreak of Ebola that is affecting both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. Hundreds of people have already died. Can we have an oral statement when the House returns to hear what the UK is doing to prevent the spread of the outbreak? The UK played a pivotal role in stopping the previous serious outbreak, in Sierra Leone, and must have much to offer by way of expertise in relation to this one.
Will the Chancellor expand on her discussions with the supermarkets and their role in keeping prices down? When the supermarkets make special offers or reduce prices, there is always a concern that rather than absorbing the costs themselves, they pass them on directly to farmers and their suppliers, who are not in a position to absorb them because of their fixed production costs.
While the trade agreement with the GCC is obviously welcome, why does the Minister think it is possible to reach a trade agreement with the GCC but not to influence its members to play a more positive role in resolving the issues in Yemen, Sudan and elsewhere? They have a key role to play in these disputes. I know that he takes a very specific issue on Yemen. What more can he do to make the United Arab Emirates, for example, play a more positive role there and elsewhere?
The Employment Rights Act is one of the reasons given by one in eight business leaders for considering leaving Britain. Indeed, 30% of the Sunday Times rich list have already fled this high-tax socialist Government. The family business tax is another. Will the Minister please lobby the Chancellor for another U-turn, this time to adopt our policy of scrapping the family business tax?
I will carry on with the same theme, because it is clear from all sides that there are real issues with the element of the steel strategy that imposes a 50% tariff on 1 July. It is affecting manufacturing businesses up and down this country, and it is being done in a way that not only threatens manufacturing jobs, but increases inflationary pressures. Can the Minister tell the House what impact assessment he has done on the effect of these measures on inflation and on jobs?
Rural drivers in West Worcestershire will be delighted that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has seen the political reality that it would have been mad to put another 5p on petrol on 1 September, but can she explain to my constituents why we are not allowing oil and gas extraction from our own basin yet we are allowing an increase in Putin-produced oil and gas?
I thank the Minister for advance sight of both the long and short versions of his statement. We support the Humble Address and continue to support full transparency in this matter. I have just a few questions. I think the Minister said that this is just the start of a full disclosure. Will he share with the House whether there will be further disclosure, or is this the final amount? If there are to be further tranches, will he give the House a clear and final timetable for when the process will be complete? Is the absence of a formal record of due diligence or any vetting process evidence that the Government raised no questions at the time about the appointment? Where, if anywhere, are the documented concerns or challenge from officials or Ministers at the time? When will the full set of files that this House requested relating to Lord Mandelson’s role, and particularly any advice, correspondence or due diligence connected to his appointment, be released to the House? Finally, the Minister has a large trade envoy programme under his responsibility. What due diligence are the Government doing on appointees to that trade envoy programme, and do those appointees follow a code of conduct that governs their behaviour?
This has been an interesting debate, because it has brought out the strategic love of nationalisation for the sake of nationalisation among Government Members. With our reasoned amendment we have tried to put out a different approach. We also heard clearly from Reform that it is in favour of nationalisation for the sake of nationalisation. This Bill will satisfy neither our camp nor their camp. With this Bill, we have a chaotic, unplanned, non-strategic journey that will end up burning through taxpayers’ money at every stage. We can see that the decisions that the Government have taken since they came to power have delivered the worst of all possible worlds for this crucial industry.
I promised Madam Deputy Speaker that, in the interests of time, I would not take any interventions. This Bill is an emergency intervention with mounting public costs that have no clear limits for the taxpayer. This legislation will certainly not put things on a secure footing. We were told this time last year, when we were brought in on a Saturday for the first time since the Falklands war, that nationalisation was not the plan. The Prime Minister went to China with the Secretary of State and failed to secure a deal for British Steel, so we have this Bill. It does not resolve any underlying issues. Instead, it just opens the door to an indefinite and infinite bill for the taxpayer, and that is not all. It has a sunset clause that, would the House believe it, can be extended indefinitely. There are far too many unchecked powers in this Bill. It does not address, as the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee mentioned, that Britain has the highest energy prices in the developed world. We cannot have an industrial policy for steel unless there is an energy policy for industry. In addition to the Chair of the Select Committee, we had an interesting speech from the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney). She spoke about how we could turn this Bill into temporary, emergency legislation and about the path to returning British Steel to the private sector. We also had powerful interventions from Opposition Members, including from my hon. Friends the Members for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson), for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) and for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti). They spoke up for the businesses in their constituencies that will be so badly affected by the inflationary 50% tariff on imported steel as of 1 June. This afternoon is a chance for the Minister to answer some questions. Why were the Government unable to strike a deal with the Chinese owners? When exactly did the Government decide that nationalisation was the right path? Did they decide that before the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Act 2025 was introduced? If so, why was the House not told that at the time? Why should the taxpayer be the one who foots this bill? How is this value for money for the taxpayer? Do we even know what the total cost to the taxpayer will be from these ongoing losses, the capital investment and the enormous liabilities? This Bill commits the taxpayer to ownership of an asset that loses hundreds of millions of pounds each year. What assessment has the Minister made of the chilling impact that the measures in this Bill will have on other inward investors into the United Kingdom, and what is his exit strategy, if he has one? If the Government propose to nationalise a steel company on the basis that it meets the public interest test, can the Minister explain how the same asset could ever be returned to private ownership without contradicting their own public interest assessment that it is in the national interest? Or is the reality that once the threshold is crossed, the British taxpayer is locked into permanently underwriting a loss-making asset, with no timetable for it to return? Why is there no requirement in this Bill for a proper impact or value-for-money assessment before the Secretary of State exercises the powers? Why have the Government not taken us up on our cheap power plan, which addresses one of the root causes of this sector’s difficulties? Can the Minister—I think I heard him say it from a sedentary position, but I would like to hear him say it again—urgently commit to look at the impact of the 50% steel tariffs on our steel manufacturing sector? This House should not be required to sign a blank cheque. We cannot and will not support legislation that appears to be nationalisation in search of a rationale. I urge all colleagues to support our reasoned amendment.
Order. I will try to get all Members in, but I encourage them to ask very short questions. There are two more statements and the main business to come this afternoon, and we are getting a little tight on time.
I thank the Chancellor for her statement, but I am obliged to point out that, in fact, Peppa Pig World, on the edge of my constituency, is the finest attraction in the country.
I am setting a three-minute time limit, which will allow most Members to get in, but not all.
That brings us to the Front-Bench contributions. I call the shadow Minister.
11. What steps he is taking to support pubs in Bromsgrove constituency.
I thank the Minister for her response, but I am afraid that the picture she paints is not one that pubs across my constituency will recognise. A typical pub in my constituency is paying around £2,500 in additional costs a month compared with two years ago, because of a rise in energy costs, employment costs and business rates. If the Minister is serious about supporting the hospitality sector, will the Government look at a permanent cut to business rates for pubs and exempt pubs with accommodation from the overnight levy?
T8. The Government’s new steel tariff and quota regime, due to come in in a few weeks, means that many businesses face a cliff edge. One in my constituency recently got in touch to tell me that it faces either a slow death or a swift death, and that it faces calling in the administrators before Christmas. Will the Minister keep an open mind about extending the transitional period, and will he agree to meet me and a very small number of my constituents who will be affected?
Having worked in the oil industry, I understand the flow of oil products around the world quite well, and it is unquestionable that the Government have eased the prospect of Putin’s oil flowing into the UK’s oil market—that is beyond doubt. I have three questions for the Chief Secretary. Can she explain the Treasury’s calculation of the extent to which this move may benefit UK motorists? Can she explain why the Government have decided to do this, and can she tell us what she thinks the cost will be to the Government’s integrity and whether it is worth it?
Obviously, the Minister is not aware that the previous Conservative Government froze fuel duty for 14 years. Some of us lobbied for the Government of the day to abolish the escalator, but we did not do it. However, may I ask her one key question? How much extra money has the Treasury obtained as a result of the rise in the wholesale price of fuel at the pumps?
As we approach the end of the domestic football season, it is only right that we congratulate Aston Villa on winning the Europa league last night. Indeed, it was only a year ago that I was celebrating Tottenham winning the Europa league. If I may say so, however, the most vital game on Sunday is Tottenham versus Everton. I thank the House for re-electing me as Chair of the Backbench Business Committee. I am glad that there will be a motion on the Order Paper to reappoint five Members to the Committee. On that basis, we will try to meet on Tuesday 2 June to consider applications. I understand that there are 11 new applications already, adding to the 42 we had left when Prorogation took place. I note that the Chairman of Ways and Means has granted two of those debates in Westminster Hall to reduce our burden. Will the Leader of the House grant time in the Chamber as soon as possible for the Backbench Business Committee? For those colleagues who are on the existing waiting list, the Committee will decide whether we continue with it or clean it out. I ask colleagues not to reapply until the Committee has made that decision. Mr Speaker, you will know that I have been a champion of homeless people throughout my parliamentary career, and I was delighted that the Government eventually got through the abolition of the Vagrancy Act 1824 in the last Session. However, a statutory instrument is required to abolish the Vagrancy Act for good. Will the Leader of the House therefore arrange for the relevant Minister to make sure that the statutory instrument is brought forward forthwith, so we can get away from a position where people who are homeless can be prosecuted for being homeless? That is unacceptable and needs to be consigned to the history books.
I want to come back to what the Minister said earlier about the war in Iran. She knows full well that the Leader of the Opposition did not say that she would take us into the conflict, and she knows full well that it was a NOFORN—no foreign nationals—operation and that there was never an opportunity for the UK to be involved. If she does not know that, she should go and speak to the Defence team and get up to date with the details. She has some cheek, considering that the Government have just decided that they are going to row back on the pressure they put on Russia. Given that the Minister did not explain it in her media round this morning, will she now explain exactly why the Government decided to exempt oil and oil products that originate from Russia under commodity codes 2709 and 2710?
Back in March, the Chancellor announced the £50 million crisis and resilience fund to help families with the price of heating oil, which is a big issue in rural constituencies such as mine. Does she have any plans to extend or repeat that scheme come the autumn, given that we are likely to have a similar crisis with the strait of Hormuz still shut? To what extent will the Russian oil that will come via a third country under commodity code 2710 form part of the fuel mix?
Although I welcome some of the measures announced today, the reality is that instability in the middle east is having a direct impact on the UK economy and on the price paid by British households. Can the Chancellor therefore outline what steps her Department is taking to work across Government to ensure a stable region, including by boosting our defence spending? Will she finally commit to spending 3% of GDP in this Parliament and to working collaboratively towards reopening the strait of Hormuz?
First, I congratulate the Government on securing the Gulf Co-operation Council deal. Success has many authors, and Members on both sides of the House have been part of these negotiations as Ministers, but a win is a win. These are—[Interruption.] These are our historical friends and allies, and this is part of a growth agenda. Summer is approaching and young people are graduating. The Office for National Statistics reported this week that, as a direct result of this Government’s choices, one in six young people is looking for a job, but cannot find one. Sectors like retail and hospitality are shedding jobs by the thousands. Will the Secretary of State finally accept that, well-intentioned or otherwise, the Government have got it wrong?
I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. I hope he would agree, cross-party, with the Tony Blair Institute, which has said that the UK must restore “dynamism” to its labour market, rather than imposing restrictions such as the Employment Rights Act 2025. Could the Secretary of State, who is a good man, at least promise me that, if he gets to serve as Chancellor in a Government led by his friend, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), he will use that chance to change the Government’s approach?
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add: “this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill because it believes that politicians should not be running businesses; because expropriating businesses sets a precedent that will deter inward investment into other UK businesses; because the Bill exposes taxpayers to unlimited liabilities; because the powers that the Bill confers on Ministers are far wider in scope than would be required for its stated purpose; and because it fails to contain any measures that would address the issues which are currently making domestic production of steel unprofitable such as higher employment costs and policies in pursuit of net zero, such as carbon taxes and associated regulations and levies.” Conservatives will never be neutral about the deindustrialisation of our country, but we do not believe that politicians or Whitehall bureaucrats should run businesses. Instead, we need a Government who do fewer things better, such as defending our nation, securing energy supplies and restoring the nation’s finances. We believe in British steelmaking and the importance of sovereign capabilities—not just steelworks, but the steel supply chain, critical minerals and many defence- related technologies—but that is not what this Bill does. This Bill is the Government’s attempt to break out of a mess we warned one year ago they were getting themselves into, and it fails even in the Government’s own terms. It does not keep the blast furnaces open and it does not guarantee that military needs can be met domestically. Let us be clear what we are doing today. We are being asked to nationalise British Steel, and put the British taxpayer permanently on the hook for a business that this Government had every chance to keep in private hands, but chose not to. They ignored plans to open electric arc furnaces on Teesside, and chose to let the situation deteriorate until the only option left was the one that suited their ideology. The Prime Minister went kowtowing to China, gave it an embassy spy base and, instead of a deal on Jingye, came back with a box of fortune cookies with only a bill for the taxpayer to be found inside.
That was a waste of an intervention. If the hon. Member lets me continue, I will explain exactly what the Conservative plan is for British Steel, and it is a better plan and a more sustainable plan than we have heard from the Secretary of State today. This Government did not inherit—
When it suits the hon. Gentleman, he claims to be a fan of the late Margaret Thatcher, but he seems to have forgotten that most of her time in office was spent untangling the mess of Labour’s past nationalisations. Unlike him, she did not bend with the wind or find herself in the same Lobby as a Government who have hiked taxes to record highs, driven wealth offshore and drowned business in red tape. Members would like to know what our plan is, and our plan is to address the cause, not the symptoms. [Interruption.] Labour Members would do well to listen to this, and we might have more of a steel industry left if they do. We cannot have an industrial policy for steel without an energy policy for industry. Britain has the highest industrial electricity prices in the world, and every choice the Government are making has pushed those prices further up. This week, they voted against new licences in the North sea, choosing to import from Norway gas that could be drilled here, at a cost of 200,000 jobs and £12 billion in tax revenue. The Secretary of State knows this and his Back Benchers know this, but the Prime Minister is too weak to stand up to his windmill-fetishist Energy Secretary. We have offered an alternative. Our cheap plan would slash energy prices and improve energy security. Why would the Government not want that? If they were genuinely interested in securing the future of steelmaking, as well as those of many other industries, they could have come here today and adopted that plan. Instead, this Bill is an indictment—
I will happily give way, as long as the hon. Member is going to talk about our cheap energy plan.
The only way we are going to have a sustainable steelmaking industry in this country, and the same applies to the manufacturing sector and our defence supply chain, is lower energy costs. That is the only sustainable way.
We have a plan for sustainable steelmaking. The Government do not have a plan for sustainable steelmaking. Ministers themselves have admitted that the blast furnaces in Scunthorpe will close. They are reverting to a plan that already exists. The Bill is an indictment of this Government’s modus operandi—a spray and pray Government who write blank cheques from the taxpayer and call that a strategy. We are doomed to relearn the hard lessons of the 1970s: if it moves, tax the hell out of it; when it stops moving, subsidise it. It was socialist idol Tony Benn who wanted to nationalise everything that moved, and one result that the Government may care to look at was the state-owned Kirkby Manufacturing and Engineering company, which simultaneously made car radiators and orange juice. When the Government last ran British Steel in the late 1970s, the company’s losses hit £1.3 billion a year. Since Labour’s botched nationalisation of just a year ago, it has already spent £500 million of taxpayers’ money—£1.3 million a day. Where is the Government’s published, costed and scrutinised plan for what nationalised British Steel will look like in five years’ time, or even in one year’s time? I have read the Bill and there is not one. There is no provision for a proper impact assessment before the sweeping powers are used. There is no acknowledgment of the monumental decommissioning liabilities—in the billions—that will sit on the Treasury’s balance sheet. There is a sunset clause, but it can be extended indefinitely by Ministers—a sunset where the sun never sets. The House deserves better than this. We deserve a Bill with a proper thought-through plan. The Government have turned a negotiation into a crisis, a crisis into an emergency and an emergency into this nationalisation. We know that Ministers, however well-meaning, will be unable to resist using their power to tilt the playing field in favour of steel businesses that they themselves own: no longer the referee, they will be on the pitch wearing one of the teams’ shirts. There is no better example of that than their plans on steel tariffs.
The hon. Member would be better addressing that question to his own Ministers, who, notwithstanding the nationalisation, acknowledged that the blast furnaces will cease—they will go dark and close on this Government’s watch. The Bill does not protect blast furnaces and he should invite the Minister, when he winds up, to talk about the future there. There was a plan to invest in British Steel in Redcar to secure those jobs, but the Government pulled the chain—
There was absolutely a plan before the election to open arc furnaces in Redcar—that was absolutely case—and to move Scunthorpe operations to Redcar. I asked the Secretary of State to address the issue of tariffs. There is no better example of the folly of these plans—