Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill
Order. I am overseeing the debate. If the hon. Member had been in the wrong debate, I would have pointed it out.
Showing every spoken contribution, including 5,750 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
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Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill
Order. Mr Rosindell, can I check that you are nearing your conclusion?
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Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill
Marvellous.
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Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
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Grassroots Sports Facilities
This has been an incredible year for women’s sport, with both the Lionesses and the Red Roses inspiring a generation with their fantastic performances and historic successes on the pitch. The previous Conservative Government worked in partnership alongside the national lottery, Sport England and various national bodies to help to support these incredible athletes with investment in grassroots facilities, including the £30 million Lionesses fund, which directly increased opportunities for women’s and girls’ sports. Beyond the sentiments that the Secretary of State has already expressed today, will she confirm whether her Government will support a new Lionesses and Red Roses fund specifically for women’s sports? Will she also confirm that fairness and safety will remain the key pillars of guidance for female sports?
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Grassroots Sports Facilities
I thank the Secretary of State for her answer; hopefully she can pick up the point about fairness and safety in women’s sport in her next answer, because that was also part of the first question. The Secretary of State will be aware that, alongside investment from Government and national sports bodies, voluntary donations and corporate sponsorship play a key role in funding our grassroots and professional sports clubs and leagues. For example, Flutter’s Cash4Clubs programme has invested £7 million in grassroots clubs since 2008. Does the Minister therefore share my concern that the Chancellor’s proposed racing tax will not only see thousands of British jobs lost across the country, but damage key sponsorship of a number of UK sports, especially British horseracing? Will she confirm that her Department has made it clear to the Treasury that it opposes this tax raid on our British sport?
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Business of the House
On 14 March, my constituents Sue and Dave Evans lost their 18-year-old son, who was the passenger in a car being driven by a newly qualified driver. Yesterday, Sue and Dave were in Parliament with the RoadPeace charity to call for graduated driver licensing, to save other families from the devastation of losing loved ones in a preventable accident. When can we expect the Government to bring forward a road safety Bill, so that this House can consider proposals to reduce deaths caused by newly qualified drivers?
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
In a certain way, the citizens assembly is the electorate, and there is an election for mayors. Why does the hon. Lady feel the need for more engagement and more citizens assemblies, when there is a ballot and a free and fair election?
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
The Minister has said previously, “We want to empower local communities,” “We want mayors to have freedom,” and, “We want mayors to have choice,” but in this case she is prescribing which organisations should be around the table. How do those two opinions meet? In some cases, she is saying she wants mayors to have the freedom and the choice to drive local communities, but in this case, she is prescribing organisations that should be at the table.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
This is one of the good clauses in the Bill, but I would like the Minister to clarify this. A number of authorities want this power now to combat the issues she just spoke about, so where strategic authorities do not exist, is there any way for even county authorities to get those powers, if the Bill receives Royal Assent?
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
In that sense, if an authority wants one now but is not on the devolution priority programme and does not have a strategic authority coming, will it be able to get those powers upon Royal Assent?
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting)
I rise in support of amendment 300, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner. It is important that we bring in more powers to tackle this issue. When I was leader of Broxbourne council, about six years ago, we were asked whether we wanted to be a trial area for e-scooters—we said no, thank goodness. My constituency is right next door to London, and we have had a number of issues with people parking on the outskirts of London and taking the vehicles out of where they are licensed. Walking around London—not just the Palace of Westminster, but the wider community—we see large problems with hundreds of scooters all in the same place, which I suspect are very popular locations for pick-up and drop-off. We need more powers for local authorities to tackle the issue. I mentioned earlier that many of councils will want this power now, rather than having to wait for mayoral combined authorities to be set up. Amendment 300 would be important in holding these companies to account. They are getting away with far too much at the moment and it is putting people off walking, especially if someone is pushing a buggy or is disabled. There are lots of issues. I am sure there will be cross-party support, as we have all seen this problem when out and about. We really need to regulate this. I am not always in favour of more regulation, but the companies could have done much more without legislation and have failed to, so it is time for stricter regulation. The amendment would be important in solving some of these issues. Question put, That the amendment be made.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Sixth sitting)
I am in favour of the two amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the shadow Minister. I have served on a district council and a county council. Some of the powers to do with highways will sit with the constituent authorities and some will sit with the mayor, so we could end up in a scenario in which a person is elected as mayor with one thing in their manifesto, a council is elected on another manifesto and the two things contradict each other. I was leader of Broxbourne council, and we have the A10 going through the entirety of my constituency. That was not a priority for Hertfordshire county council, which had some highways authority powers over it, and that caused a lot of tensions about where we were going to have growth and where the investment was going to go.
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Ada Lovelace Day
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I feel I should donate some of my minutes to some of the other hon. Members present, who, by the time they had finished their contributions, had effectively given a rap to the audience. [Laughter.] It was highly skilled. I loved the potted, warm biography of Ada Lovelace and the tribute to her own beautiful daughter by the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge). I was glad to hear of another father who has three girls, including chemists. My dad has three girls, but unfortunately one of them became an MP rather than a scientist—and this MP has not even got the brainpower to remember everybody’s constituency names, so I apologise. This morning I had the special privilege of visiting the Royal Society in St James’s, and I was lucky enough to get a glimpse of its incredible archive. Founded in 1660, the Royal Society is the world’s oldest continuously existing scientific academy. It was established by natural philosophers and physicists, including Christopher Wren and Robert Boyle. Its motto, “Nullius in verba”—“Take nobody’s word for it”—reflects the commitment to evidence and experimentation that has defined British science for over three and a half centuries. Archivist Keith Moore brought out the most incredible selection of gems, including the society’s founding register, which has the original signatures of Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, Francis Crick and Stephen Hawking. It is simply extraordinary. The first female signature comes only after 1945, the point at which women could be admitted as fellows. Since then the register has included the Nobel laureate Dorothy Hodgkin, who revealed the structure of penicillin; Dame Anne McLaren, whose research laid the foundations for IVF; and Dame Sarah Gilbert, the Oxford scientist behind the covid vaccine. Margaret Thatcher, a chemistry graduate, is also listed, and this month we mark her centenary. These are utterly remarkable scientists, who stand on their own merits and happen to be female. Keith also shared with me a letter from Ada Lovelace herself, who happened to be born at the wrong time to be admitted as a fellow. It reads: “You were quite right to make your letter mathematical. I can understand that language better than any other.” Today, we mark Ada Lovelace Day, not only to highlight women’s contributions to science, but as an opportunity to encourage more women into STEM—and my goodness, what can be achieved by them if we do. Just recently, I found myself walking in the middle of a three-carriageway road junction next to the M25 as the junction 28 works neared completion. My guide was an inspirational young female engineer, around 30 years old. She had completed a degree apprenticeship in civil engineering, gone straight into the workplace and was now building the bridges and roads that impact thousands of my constituents’ journeys daily. That is a practical, clear example of success in getting women into STEM careers. Other examples have been cited today, including that of women in nuclear technology by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour). Right now, however, there are too many young people leaving university to a very tough job market. At the same time, too many employers in STEM industries are wondering how to get people with the right skills into their businesses. We have to get much better at matching those two challenges so they can solve one another. Since 2010, successive Conservative Governments have worked on those challenges. Education reforms have raised standards, with a focus on maths, science and a knowledge-rich curriculum. Apprenticeships have been expanded, the apprenticeship levy introduced and skills bootcamps launched to support retraining in digital and technical skills. In my constituency, New City college has been awarded a prestigious accreditation as a STEM centre of excellence with strong industry partnership. I also have local job fairs to match companies such as AstraZeneca to young jobseekers in my constituency—other Members, including those elected in 2024, may wish to do that as they get more experienced. We have things such as the Women in Innovation programme to support hundreds of female entrepreneurs, with women-founded tech firms raising £3.6 billion in 2022. The STEM ambassadors network reaches thousands of schools, providing role models in science and tech. The STEM returners programme helps women resume careers after a break, which has been discussed by a number of hon. Members. Indeed, the hon. Member for Congleton (Sarah Russell) made an excellent point about free childcare for PhD students. I fully understand as a working mother the unbelievable costs of childcare but had not been aware of the issue in relation to PhDs. Will the Minister touch on that? We also have the Turing scheme, which funds international placements for students in STEM subjects, and we have heard about many other initiatives today. The former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), made mathematics a personal focus, recognising numeracy as the foundation of opportunity. The importance of maths was also referenced by the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom). There are still challenges, however, and we have heard some of the stats today, including from the Lovelace report and those cited by the Royal Society, which show the disparity between girls and boys in their interest in STEM subjects. Teacher recruitment in STEM subjects is an enduring challenge. The hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) highlighted an example where he had provided inspirational leadership to a student simply by asking whether they had considered going into astrophysics at university. That is an incredibly insightful moment. What steps are the Government taking to get inspiring science and maths teachers into the classroom to encourage the next generation of female scientists and mathematicians? I am also keen to know what is being done to combat youth unemployment, especially among graduates, and on a new skills policy to match skills gaps, especially for those seeking to work in STEM subjects. Also, what are the Government doing to make sure that, in the long term, we retain our position as a leading science and technology nation, especially in the life sciences? We have seen particular challenges in that area in recent weeks, with the loss of important investments such as that of Merck in King’s Cross. From Ada Lovelace’s letter in the Royal Society archive to that young engineer I met building our infrastructure, I have seen what incredible scientists and engineers can do. I hope we will see many more young women with fantastic science and tech careers ahead of them, who will utilise their talent not just for themselves but for the good of others.
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Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
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Business of the House
I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business. I want to start by paying tribute to Lord Ming Campbell, a former Member of this place and former leader of the Liberal Democrats. He was a hugely respected parliamentarian, and I know he will be much missed. I would also like to express my deepest sympathies to those killed, injured and affected in the horrific terrorist attack at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue in Manchester. I am substituting today for the shadow Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), who is in Poland with the Defence Committee. What an interesting conference recess it has been. I was in Manchester for a fantastic Conservative party conference, but also out and about at home in my beautiful constituency in the Scottish Borders. From spending time with the Scouts in Hawick to fighting LNER’s plans to cut the number of train services in the Borders, it has been a busy few weeks. We have seen six party conferences during recess. The SNP maintains its age-old obsession with independence rather than sorting out Scotland’s struggling NHS, schools and transport system. The right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) continued auditioning to become a circus act, and the Labour party continued its own internal chaos, drama and division. We had a direct challenge to the leadership of the Prime Minister, with the Mayor of Greater Manchester no less, Andy Burnham, parading himself around as the next leader, an act he managed to keep up for just a few days, before he scuttled out the back door of the conference centre. How embarrassing for the—[Interruption.]
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Business of the House
How embarrassing for the Labour party. I am sure the Leader of the House is relieved to no longer be the Government Chief Whip, although perhaps he thinks he could have done a better job than his successor at attempting to manage the increasingly rowdy mob lurking behind him. The Labour party conference was also deeply disrespectful to this House, with Government policy announcements galore. It was like a King’s Speech scattered over four days, with major policy announcements, all made to the party members and trade union barons in Liverpool, not to this House, where Members have had to wait for over two weeks to hold Ministers to account. That is simply not acceptable. What will the Leader of the House do to ensure that this Government show MPs and this Parliament the respect we deserve? The most controversial announcement was the plan to introduce digital ID. Can the Leader of the House confirm when that legislation will come before Parliament, so that MPs can finally scrutinise what is being planned? I visited many local businesses in the Scottish Borders during recess, and they are quite frankly terrified of what the Chancellor plans to do to them in her Budget; and yesterday, the Chancellor admitted what we all knew. She is going to raise taxes in the Budget once again, because this Labour Government have destroyed our economy. Unemployment is up by over 17% since Labour came to power, with another rise this week, fuelled so sadly by rising joblessness among young people. The International Monetary Fund says we will have the highest rate of inflation of any country in the G7. That is the reality—more people’s jobs and livelihoods on the line, people’s household bills getting bigger and bigger, and a cost of living crisis. The Chancellor should listen to the challenges facing households and businesses across the nation. Will the Leader of the House say whether the Government will set out a plan for how they will help households across the UK with the increasing cost of living? In contrast, the Conservative party conference in Manchester could not have been more different from Labour’s—costed, bold plans for a stronger economy and stronger borders; reducing the cost of buying a home; cutting the cost of people’s energy bills; reducing the size of the welfare state; leaving the European convention on human rights to take back control of our borders; cracking down on crime; and much, much more. While we have been doing the hard, detailed work to decide which taxes we will cut, the Chancellor was deciding which ones she wants to put up. Finally, I know that Members are deeply concerned at the collapse of the China spying trial. Earlier this week, the Government claimed they could not publish the evidence relating to the collapse of the trial because the Crown Prosecution Service would not allow it, a claim that the CPS said was completely incorrect. There are key questions for the Government. What additional evidence did the CPS request from the Government? Did the Prime Minister authorise the withholding of that information? Was evidence withheld by the Government to win favour with the Chinese Government? This House deserves to know the truth. We need to see the China files. Yesterday, a number of Chairs of House of Commons Committees met the Director of Public Prosecutions, and there will now be a formal inquiry. Will the Leader of the House ensure that all parts of the Government fully co-operate with that inquiry? China remains a real and present threat. Unless the Government act, all of our security is at risk.
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Official Secrets Act Case: Witness Statements
The Minister knows the Prime Minister well, having been one of his close advisers as well as his Parliamentary Private Secretary. Why, when he learnt that a major trial concerning spying on Members was going to collapse, did the Prime Minister do nothing? Why did he not ask if anything could be done to stop the trial collapsing? Is that what he wanted to happen, and if not, why did he not act?
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Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme
8. What recent discussions she has had with relevant stakeholders on the potential impact of changes to the listed places of worship grant scheme on listed places of worship.
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Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme
I am grateful for the Minister’s answer, but I am not sure the Government have understood the level of uncertainty and panic that has set in following their approach to this grant scheme. Some of the most cherished buildings in our constituencies are waiting on clarity for when the Government will come forward with concrete steps to extend this scheme. What will happen after March 2026? I would be grateful if the Minister could give us that clarity now.
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Topical Questions
T4. In a stunning setting with superb facilities, Garsington Opera in Stokenchurch provides incredible training opportunities for young people who want a career in the arts. Does the Minister agree that this is a vital facility, and what more will she do to ensure that all young people who want a career in the arts have those training opportunities?
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Topical Questions
T2. As a committed if rather untalented member of the Lords and Commons tennis team, I am aware that the vagaries of British weather make participation difficult, particularly in autumn and winter. Will the Secretary of State allow any of the £400 million for grassroots sport to be used to create more covered tennis facilities, so that participation can be encouraged and the future of British talent can be nourished?
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Official Secrets Act Case: Witness Statements
The CPS has independence from Ministers; civil servants do not. The whole point of our constitution is that civil servants can never be thrown under the bus because Ministers are responsible. They own everything the civil servants do. There is no carve-out because someone has this high title of being a National Security Adviser. They are a civil servant. It was not once; it happened repeatedly in an iterative process by which the CPS asked for and said there is a gap. What is it? Will the Minister please stop trying to make out that we have a different constitution from the one we have, in which he suggests that somehow Ministers are not responsible for the behaviour of their civil servants when that is the foundation of accountability within our parliamentary system?
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Official Secrets Act Case: Witness Statements
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have taken a close interest in this issue, Mr Speaker—the fact that it goes to the heart of this Parliament on the protection of Members of Parliament and the secrets that we sometimes hold. I am sure that you will share my concern that someone on their very first outing has been sent out on this issue and that the Prime Minister used yesterday’s Prime Minister’s questions and has not faced proper scrutiny in this House in a statement. May I gently ask whether you would seek to have him make a statement to the House?
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Official Secrets Act Case: Witness Statements
The battle with China is not just an economic one; it is also a battle of ideas about how the state should operate, and the fact that this case has collapsed is making a complete mockery of our arguments about how the state should operate compared with how China does things. I suggest to the Minister that, along with the Prime Minister, he is in danger of inadvertently misleading the House. He has been asked a number of times about the content of the statement in relation to the Conservative party position at the time, and he has insisted that the statements made only reflected the position of the Conservative Government at the time. Will the Minister explain, then, why the exact wording in the Labour party manifesto in relation to China and its role, ended up in that statement?
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World Menopause Day
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate the hon. Member for Neath and Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for securing this important debate on an issue about which we know she is extremely passionate and has campaigned for a long time. In recent years, our country has made good progress in female empowerment. Today, women occupy 43% of company board roles and 35% of leadership positions at FTSE 350 firms. More women than ever before are partners in law firms, consultants in hospitals, entrepreneurs and executives managing successful businesses in every part of the country. None the less, there is a serious fault line running through that progress. Most women reach the professional apex of their careers in their late 40s to early 50s, after accruing many years of experience. For thousands of women across the country every single year, that moment of career maturity tragically coincides with the onset of the menopause. An abrupt change to the menstrual cycle can happen; sometimes there are sudden floods of menstrual blood, hot flushes at inopportune moments throughout the working day, problems with concentration, low self-esteem, migraines, aches and itches—all things that make it more difficult to fulfil the employer’s expectations, let alone, as we have heard, fully rest in the precious hours of the night. Symptoms can be truly debilitating, running from months to years and fluctuating unpredictably over time. They leave some women with an impossible choice: their health or their career. I have heard from professionals in my constituency who love their job but felt there was no option other than to step back. I have seen it while working as a consultant in the NHS, too; some colleagues, amid the worst of their symptoms, go from thriving to just about surviving. When that becomes commonplace, our economy pays a price. Every year, the UK loses 14 million working days to menopause-related absence. Graver still, we are losing many thousands of women from the workforce every year because of overwhelming symptoms and lack of support. The NHS Confederation tallies up the damage to a staggering £1.5 billion. I am proud that the previous Government recognised the scale of the challenge and took concrete action. In 2022, aware that not enough focus was being given to women-specific issues like the menopause, they published a women’s health strategy for England. That set out 10-year ambitions, including for people to be informed of the menopause at an early age and provided with access to the full range of treatment options, improved understanding among healthcare professionals, and increased research of alternatives to HRT. I am proud that the previous Government made good on those ambitions. They also launched the national menopause pathway programme, providing optimal care pathways to ensure more women get the right care the first time around. Recognising that almost nine in 10 adults were never educated about menopause in school, the previous Government changed the curriculum to add menopause to relationships and sex education for secondary school students. They also reduced the cost of HRT in England by making prescriptions available on an annual basis; 500,000 women saw their costs decrease by up to £200 as a result. That is what real progress looks like, but the current Government have undermined those achievements. Many women I speak to are incandescent at the Government’s callous decision to disregard the women’s health strategy and replace it, seemingly, with nothing. It does not stop there: this Government have also compromised women’s healthcare provision by scaling back targets in NHS guidance and binning the commitment to roll out health hubs across all ICBs. Can the Minister explain what impact these changes are going to have on support for menopausal women? What do the Government plan to replace the women’s health strategy with? I commend the Government for appointing a menopause employment ambassador—having a champion focused solely on the menopause in conversation directly with employers gives the issue exactly the attention it deserves—but women are best served by good execution and delivery, not just good intentions. That is where my concerns with the Government’s strategy lie. The Employment Rights Bill will impose a new duty on firms with more than 250 people to publish menopause action plans. We know the menopause affects women in different ways, so I question the value of uniform plans, which will give some human resources managers cover stories for doing little of actual substance. How will the increased administrative burden translate into better support for menopausal women in the workplace, rather than simply becoming a cost for business? What metrics will the Government use to ensure that women are materially helped by menopause action plans? We know that many businesses with more than 250 employees are just as stretched as those with 25 employees—and no less so due to tax increases by this Government. What are the Government doing to prevent a two-tier system emerging, whereby the quality of workplace support hinges on not need but the size of an employer? There is much the Government can do to help menopausal women that does not necessitate wielding the regulatory sledgehammer—for instance, improving public awareness, as the hon. Member for Neath and Swansea East talked about. Most adults were not taught about the menopause in school. Thousands of women are enduring excruciating symptoms without always recognising what is happening to their bodies, or realising that there is NHS support readily available for their symptoms in the form of HRT. This is a problem that can be solved. The Menopause Charity ran a highly successful national campaign last year under the banner “educate yourself”. This year, as we have already heard, we have witnessed Asda and Tesco, among several other retailers, partnering with GenM to develop menopause aisles in their stores, replete with information to improve awareness and help women easily identify products that are capable of alleviating symptoms. Can the Minister explain what the Government are doing to encourage and amplify such voluntary initiatives by national charities and businesses? The Government can also learn lessons from abroad. Ireland launched a nationwide campaign in 2022, deploying advertising across public displays, newspapers, magazines, radio and social media—a highly effective way to raise the awareness that British menopause advocates have long called for. Can the Minister say whether the Government have considered rolling out a national menopause awareness scheme? I recognise that the Minister and the Government want to help menopausal women, but goodwill must translate into effective delivery. The previous Government made good progress on managing the menopause, which is why women want that progress to be built on, rather than dismantled. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I appreciate that some of these points are not in her brief, but within the scope of the Department of Health and Social Care. If she is not able to answer my questions herself, I would be grateful if she would commit to sending a letter in reply.
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Official Secrets Act Case: Witness Statements
The deputy National Security Adviser is clear in his evidence that China is the greatest state economic threat to the UK. Does the Minister agree with that? Is he seriously trying to suggest that the deputy National Security Adviser, given what he has said in his evidence, did not clear what he was doing with the CPS with his superiors, Jonathan Powell or Ministers?
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Stuart, and to resume consideration of the Bill. The Opposition are proud that the general power of competence was introduced when we were in government during the coalition years. It was something that I, as a serving local authority councillor at the time, lobbied hard for. The then Secretary of State, now Lord Pickles, was very receptive to the view that local authorities should have a greater remit, rather than being constrained to do those things that they were specifically permitted to do by law. I have a question of clarification for the Minister. She said that the general power of competence could be exercised for economic purposes. Will the authorities have the full general power of competence, or will the power be constrained to a specific set of mayoral functions? Constraining it would not be entirely consistent with what was said in previous proceedings about the use of precepts.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
The Opposition are not entirely persuaded of the argument for this amendment, although the point is well made. We will be listening attentively to what the Minister has to say. We are always very conscious that there is a risk with this legislation of creating conflicts. I know you have done a lot of work in the past in the field of education, Mr Stuart; we have seen that the well-intentioned education policy of school autonomy can come into conflict with the statutory duties placed on a local authority. We need to ensure that is resolved. As we heard from the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole, education is a good example of where conflict can crop up—for example, a university technical college is part of the skills economy, but is also, for the purposes of the Bill, a school. There is a need to ensure that all those statutory duties are squared off. Although we are not persuaded of the need for the amendment, we would like to hear what the Minister has to say so that we can be confident that those points have been fully taken into account.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
We have concerns about these measures; I will briefly explain why. As we have seen in the passage of the Bill so far, much of what is proposed for mayors will cut across different Government Departments. It could have financial and legal implications for constituent authorities, and there is plenty of scope for disputes to arise, not least where there might be different political control across different authorities. Our concern is that if we go down the route of using the negative procedure, there is a risk that the awareness of the issues in government will not be triggered and that what we will, in fact, be doing is setting up the authorities to fail by not having the appropriate procedures for getting the issues resolved at the first point where they arise, rather than waiting until they are the subject of disputes in the courts. So we are not content that this is the best way to address the issue.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
I beg to move amendment 295, in clause 21, page 24, line 27, leave out subsection 3. This amendment would remove the requirement on local partners to respond to a meeting request from the Mayor.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
The purpose of the amendments is to continue a theme that we have woven throughout our amendments to the Bill: to ensure that this is genuine devolution and that it is the mayor and local authority that make the decisions rather than the Secretary of State. There seems to be an inherent contradiction. We are talking about a devolution Bill that increases the decision-making powers of the Secretary of State to determine what goes on in each local area. The amendments seek to ensure that it is the mayor—the elected local person, of whom we have heard a great deal—who makes the decisions, and that where disputes arise, where one of the local partners feels it is not appropriate to respond to a meeting, there is provision in the legislation for that to happen. I think particularly about how the previous debate is relevant to this one. If we look at the situation in London, the mayor has decided to spend a proportion of the mayoral precept on funding free school meals, but has not funded them sufficiently, so local authorities are faced with bills for making schoolteachers redundant because of budget shortfalls caused by that mayoral decision. There needs to be a process for resolving such issues. Simply assuming that everyone will have a meeting and that that will resolve it will not resolve those kinds of hard-edged issues. We need to make sure that local discretion works in practice and that it is not simply a matter of the Secretary of State dictating it from Whitehall.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
My major concern is that it sounds like a mess. We can easily imagine situations, given the diverse job of the mayors and some of the ambitions envisaged for them as part of the legislation, where there will be a high degree of confusion about what is expected of whom and who has what obligations. To simply say that it will be the subject of a permissive regulation when drafted seriously risks setting this up to fail, particularly when it comes to the envisaged economic partnerships. The Committee has not seen that regulation, and has no idea how it will work in practice at a local level. We will push these amendments to a vote, which is all we can do at this stage. I am sure we will return to this issue during the later passage of the Bill. Question put, That the amendment be made.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
I entirely disagree with my hon. Friend—he has not been nearly vocal enough in expressing the level of his concern. The faults in new clause 19 are multiple. It would compel mayors, in a Bill that is supposed to be about devolution. Having spent a part of my life engaged with deliberative democracy and citizens assemblies, I agree with my hon. Friend. While I am sure they were an uplifting experience for all concerned, they achieved absolutely nothing. They wasted a huge amount of taxpayers’ money. If we reflect on the previous Labour Government’s Local Agenda 21, all the money was spent on meetings to discuss what to do about climate change, and there was nothing available to implement any of it. On Building Schools for the Future, years were spent on consultations and project planning, with not one brick laid and not one school roof repaired as a consequence. We have seen lots of examples where these kinds of processes have led citizens up the garden path. The point about trust and consent is an important one. I reflect on my own party’s experience in government during the pandemic of low-traffic neighbourhoods. A vocal minority argued for them, but did not remotely gain the trust and consent of the affected residents. That sparked a backlash, which has led to their removal, at great expense to the taxpayer, in order to enable people to go about their daily lives. Our experience with these processes is quite negative. If a mayor wishes to implement such a process, in particular on a specific policy area, they should be free to do so, but they should not be compelled. I suspect we and the Government will find common cause on that. The hon. Member for Banbury made reference to talking shops. We do not like talking shops in the Conservative party. I am sure he will find one quite easily if he wishes to continue his proposed debate about capital punishment and the death penalty—I am sure there are many people who would like to discuss that. It is really important that mayors are focused on the things that they can do on behalf of their constituents. We should not set up authorities that are there to talk; they should be there to do things on behalf of their constituents.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
I beg to move amendment 296, in clause 22, page 25, line 29, at end insert— “(7A) The guidance issued by the Secretary of State under section 7 may not include a role for trade unions.” This amendment would prevent the Secretary of State from creating a role of trade unions in the execution of mayors’ duty to collaborate. I shall speak briefly about the motivation for tabling the amendment. A concern that has run through the Opposition’s responses to a number of the Government’s measures, especially in the space of economic development, is that the Government have chosen not to enshrine the roles of businesses, entrepreneurs or local employers, but always to give a statutory privilege to trade unions to be part of discussions. Although it is wise for any local leader to include the broadest possible range of stakeholders, singling out one, which serves the interests of only one group—sometimes at the expense of others—is simply not a process that any democracy should envisage. We tabled the amendment to ensure that that is not the case in the Bill, and we will press it to a vote. We are clear that, following a change of Government, this is one provision that we would seek to repeal very rapidly.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
May I ask the Minister to clarify something? Some 70% of workers in this country are in an enterprise with fewer than five employees in total. Where is their voice at the table? Why is it only the unions representing large-scale organised labour that are compelled in legislation to be at the table when the mayor makes decisions?
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
I spent many years chairing employers’ organisations, negotiating with trade unions about all kinds of matters. I have a very high degree of respect for them in the space in which they have expertise, but I do not really understand the Government’s rationale for arguing for a model in which one specific group—perhaps coincidentally, a very large-scale Labour funding group—is given a privileged place at the table when decisions are made about political matters for which the mayor is elected. That place at the table is not protected in statute for anybody else affected by it. That seems to me to border on abuse of the political process. It is very serious to be putting trade unions in a position to make decisions on matters that are not remotely within their area of competence and for which they have no mandate whatever. It is simply unacceptable.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
I have finished my remarks.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
I beg to move amendment 297, in clause 22, page 26, line 22, at end insert— “(3A) If a collaboration request is denied by mayor B, the request may not be appealed or reissued for the same purposes.” This amendment would prevent a collaboration request which has been denied by mayor B from being appealed or reissued.
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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)
The purpose of amendments 297 and 298 is to forestall the possibility—with reference to the Minister’s earlier comments—that, when in response to a request to collaborate or engage with an issue an organisation legitimately says it is not prepared to do so, that is followed by multiple repeated requests, which would create a situation in which there was a foreseeable conflict that should be avoided. That is the purpose of the amendments, which sit together. We will see what the Minister has to say about how that particular risk will be managed.