Heathrow Substation Outage: NESO Review
I call the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.
Showing every spoken contribution, including 5,779 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
- Hansard source
- Hansard source
Heathrow Substation Outage: NESO Review
I call the Liberal Democrat Front-Bench spokesman.
- Hansard source
Heathrow Substation Outage: NESO Review
I call the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee.
- Hansard source
Heathrow Substation Outage: NESO Review
I call the SNP spokesperson.
- Hansard source
Points of Order
I thank the right hon. Lady for giving me notice of her point of order. She will understand that this is not a matter for the Chair, but she has put an important concern on the record. I trust that Members on the Treasury Bench will have taken notice of it.
- Hansard source
Points of Order
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I am afraid that his request is simply, in procedural terms, not possible. The Chair is not responsible for the forming of such motions. The motion will be put to the House as it is on the Order Paper.
- Hansard source
Defence
Whenever my right hon. Friend and other members of the Conservative shadow defence team bring up the question of reopening this lawfare against our veterans, Government Ministers say, “We will be sure to give veterans maximum support.” To me, that implies not protecting them from the lawfare, but supporting them as they go through the process; but the process is the punishment. Everybody knows that people involved in fatal incidents would serve only a limited prison term if, heaven forbid, they were convicted, but the probability is that they will not be convicted; the punishment lies in what they have to go through before they are acquitted.
- Hansard source
Defence
On the point about not enjoying community support, when we were having these debates in great detail, the highly divided communities would always stand up and say how this was unacceptable and that was unacceptable, and then their representatives would quietly come up to us and say, “For goodness’ sake, go on doing what you are doing.” The Minister may have some legal problems to overcome, but let him not be fooled by what is said in public about what really needs to be done.
- Hansard source
Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism
I must say that I never thought the day would arise when I as a non-lawyer would be advising a Government of lawyers that they need to be sure of the legal basis for what they are doing. As I said in an intervention on this subject on 23 June, “it would do the country and the Government no favours if they were to lose in court a challenge to the process of proscription, because whereas the secret sabotage of planes would certainly have been an act of terrorism leading to proscription, the fact is that this was a performative act that these people announced they had done.”—[Official Report, 23 June 2025; Vol. 769, c. 893.] My question for the Government is this: will they at least adopt a belt-and-braces policy when it comes to the prosecution of the people who did that terribly irresponsible and wrong-headed act of sabotaging those planes? Will they also prosecute them on the basis that they have done criminal damage, and have attacked the forces of the Crown and thereby done something that borders on sedition? Otherwise, by using the wrong aspects of the law to pursue people who did some very bad things indeed, I fear the Government will end up scoring an own goal, and these people will walk free with a court triumph under their belt. Although it is justified by the unacceptable behaviour of the perpetrators, I am not convinced that the policy that the Government have adopted will stand up in court, when there are plenty of other legal methods that could be used to deal with this form of extremism. It is extremism, but it does not, in my opinion, pass the threshold to be classified as terrorism, in the legal sense. If I had been able to accept the Minister’s offer to have a word with me on Privy Council terms before the debate—I thank him for that offer, and I am sorry that I was not able to take it up—he may have been able to tell me things about Palestine Action that would have convinced me that it crossed that threshold. However, if the Minister is not able to say those things in public—there may be very good reasons why he is not—then I suspect he will not be able to tell them to the courts, either. Nobody can accuse me of being soft on anti-militarist extremist groups, but I say to the Government, with the best will in the world, that they must adopt a legal belt-and-braces policy when it comes to prosecuting this group, and not rely on this proscription alone, because I fear that I see trouble ahead from m’learned friends.
- Hansard source
Spending Review 2025: Scotland
Order. I hope the hon. Gentleman will tailor his critique of the SNP Government to the spending review. I appreciate the thrust of his remarks, but he will understand my advice.
- Hansard source
Spending Review 2025: Scotland
Order. This debate is not really about welfare in Scotland; it is about the spending review. [Interruption.] I take the point, but I would like the remarks to be tailored to the subject at hand.
- Hansard source
ECO4 Scheme Redress
I remind hon. Members that the Member in charge does not have the opportunity to wind up the debate. I call the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
Speaking long before I was born, G. K. Chesterton said that “big business…is now organized like an army. It is, as some would say…militarism…without the military virtues.” Heaven knows what he would say if he was alive now, as global corporations have such influence on all our lives. Yet it is the small and medium-sized businesses in my Lincolnshire constituency and in constituencies across this country that are the backbone of our economy. They also provide the particularities—the colour and shape —of the places that each of us calls home. Those small and medium-sized businesses reinvest in the communities of which they are a part and provide opportunities for local people. We all know them from our daily experience as customers, but we also know them from the representations they make to us as Members of Parliament. Today, I speak in the interests of those small businesses, those entrepreneurs, those people who devote so much of their time, skill and energy for the common good—for the national interest and the common good drive all that I do in this place. Small and medium-sized businesses employing up to 250 people make up about 99% of businesses, but just think of the influence and effect of the other 1%. When SMEs are accused of wrongdoing or even of breaking the law, they often have little in the way of resources to defend themselves, so they are at the mercy of powerful regulators and the caprice of giant competitors. In contrast, the big multinational companies, which have come to dominate too much of our economy, have armies of compliance officers, lawyers and spin doctors to bat away legitimate concerns. The fear that many of us in this Chamber have about two-tier justice runs parallel to our certainty that there is a two-tier economy. Faceless, heartless multinational firms often have little in the way of roots here, and many tech firms use such rootlessness to justify decisions to pay little, if any, tax. Corporate behemoths have grown ever larger, ever more dominant in their sectors, ever more detached from their customers, and ever more determined to bend rules and evade justice. In recent years, we have seen profiteering by, for example, the major supermarkets, which very often give their suppliers—primary producers such as the farmers and growers in my constituency—a raw deal. We have seen them distort the food chain, yet take advantage of the disruption brought by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Indeed, the pandemic exacerbated the power of greedy globalists. Following research on 17,000 big firms, the trade union Unite has highlighted that average profit margins have soared by 30% compared with the pre-pandemic period. In 2022, the profits of the 350 largest companies in Britain increased by about 89% compared with pre-pandemic levels. Contrast that if you will, Madam Deputy Speaker, with the plight of smaller businesses, which face ever greater costs and ever more unfair competition from their giant competitors. What of the claims of the enthusiastic globalists that the world would be a better place as a result of their activities? Do you remember the globalists—those people who were addicted to modernity and change? Who has really benefited? In an economy in which standards of living are falling, productivity has stalled and the state grows ever bigger in the face of rising worklessness, it seems to me that the only beneficiaries of globalisation are a few people at the top of those corporate businesses. We need not monopolies, but a multiplicity of businesses, such as start-up firms, local firms, and firms that innovate and engage in new activities in the economy, rather than cement existing practices. Let us give those businesses what they need, which is greater freedom, while the big corporate monoliths need to be regulated so that they do not exploit the marketplace they dominate. Think for a moment of the banks. I have a vision of banking—I hope you might too, Madam Deputy Speaker—rooted in a sort of “Dad’s Army” approach: a Captain Mainwaring figure committed to his community, in close touch with his customers and caring about the businesses they run. That was not just a fiction in my younger years. I well remember going to a bank as a young man and asking if I could borrow £500 to buy an old car—I was a student at the time. The manager, a bit like Captain Mainwaring in character, invited me in, gave me a glass of sherry, interrogated me for half an hour and eventually said, “Yes, I think we can probably lend you the £500.” Imagine that scene now. At best, you would have an online connection with someone remotely situated—
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
I think my right hon. Friend is referring to the £500 he still owes me from the days when I used to work for him. The point is that nowadays the connection between customers and suppliers has become at best detached and at worst remote. As I say, now you would have a conversation with some remotely situated person who knows nothing about you or your circumstances, and probably cares less.
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
I will happily give way. Is it about the £500?
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
My right hon. Friend, as ever, makes an apposite comment. The trading of data by big businesses has become a business in itself, in the way that he sets out. By contrast, we need firms to practise responsibility, not parrot slogans and virtue signal. They concentrate power and wealth with little regard to the community in which they sit, or even the country in which they are situated.
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
As ever, the hon. Gentleman makes an apposite and worthy contribution to our considerations. I simply say this to the Minister. The Government have a lot of power in all kinds of ways. They certainly have the power to regulate the kinds of unfair practices I have begun to set out, but they also have power as a customer. Government procurement has never, under successive Governments, been used as well as it might be to support British businesses, and in particular British small businesses. My challenge to the Minister is to look at that again. Let us look at how the Government, as a huge customer of all kinds of businesses, can support small and medium-sized firms. Decades of non-intervention, driven by the mistaken belief in the triumph of liberal economics, have resulted in extraordinary numbers of foreign takeovers of British firms. It is also a matter of who owns these corporate giants and overseas companies that own our critical national infrastructure. The Government recently approved the Vodafone-Three merger, and the latter company is owned by a Hong Kong-based conglomerate. I wonder how closely the Competition and Markets Authority looked into the owners and leadership of Three’s parent company, the CK group, and I wonder whether that group has ties with the Chinese state—perhaps the Minister can inform us tonight. This merger must not become yet another corporate bonanza for shareholders at the expense of our national interest and the common good. I sought this debate in particular following a meeting with a constituent who was previously a Vodafone franchisee, along with others from across the country. I am mindful, Madam Deputy Speaker, of a legal case involving those Vodafone franchisees; I have taken advice from the Table Office and amended my speech heavily as a result. However, I do think it is important to set out some of the context, in the broad terms that I have described, which relates to the behaviour of large companies that adopt the franchise model.
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
That is certainly the risk. I think mergers more generally need to be looked at closely. It is why we have the Competition and Markets Authority, and why these things are indeed considered in the terms I have described. More recently, of course, as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) will know—as a former member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, of which I remain a member—the Government introduced other legislation in respect of security, large businesses, mergers and all kinds of similar and related matters. It is important to gauge the national interest in all kinds of ways when one considers business activity.
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
However, I will say no more about that, as it would be digressing from my main theme, and I can see an eagerness to intervene—I give way to my neighbour.
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
I have worked closely with the hon. Gentleman—as ever, he and I are on the same page here. He is absolutely right that franchising can be used as a method to exaggerate the power of the business at the heart of the franchise and to weaken the position of franchisees. My assertion is that that is common and is particular in the case of Vodafone.
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
I will give way to the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) and then to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith).
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
I give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green.
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who takes a great interest in these matters, and that is precisely why I posed the earlier question to the Minister about how closely he and others had looked at that merger. I will say no more about it than that, but it does seem to me to be a legitimate question to ask: were those things considered in this particular case, and how are they generally considered? If my right hon. Friend is right that there are threats that result from this, under existing legislation and regulation it is perfectly possible for the Government to become involved in these kinds of commercial affairs.
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
I will give way once more and then will make a little more progress.
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
I am again grateful to the hon. Gentleman. It seems to me that there is a mood across the House tonight that more must be done. This Minister, as an experienced Member of the House, will have gathered that that mood could easily, from this small beginning, become a crescendo that might endanger the very safety of his office and the Government as a whole, so let us hope that this is the beginning of a journey, for both the Government and the Minister, towards a regime that counters the very things that have been described by Members across the House.
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
Because I am a long-standing friend of the hon. Gentleman, I will certainly give way to him, but then I must make progress.
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
I am most grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support. During the pandemic, the UK Government introduced the business rates relief package, which allowed businesses with commercial leases to claim relief on their business rates. That was designed to help firms with physical stores compensate for lost footfall during the lockdowns, and it was an essential lifeline to those smaller businesses. This automatically applied to businesses through local councils. From 11 March 2020 to June 2021 the relief was 100% with no cash cap, and ratepayers with more than one property were entitled to relief for each eligible property. Franchisees were eligible to receive this relief, and it would have been automatically applied to stores operated by companies such as Vodafone and not through the franchise programme. It is worth noting that some corporations that benefited from that scheme, such as Tesco—although I hold no candle for Tesco generally—have since returned the money to the Government. The question is how Vodafone used that money: did it achieve its original purpose—I would be interested to hear the Minister’s answer to that question—or was it redirected in some way that was out of tune with the Government’s intention and the proper purpose? It is worth noting that that was available not only to Vodafone, but to all those organisations that had franchises. I wonder how other organisations handled the matter and how that compares with the circumstances surrounding Vodafone. The important thing to consider as we debate these matters is that the franchisees are small business owners with families—this was important to them. Business rates relief was of huge significance and made a meaningful difference to people, as intended by the Chancellor at the time, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak). The Government’s stated purpose for covid-19 business relief was to assist small businesses to carry on trading at a financially difficult time when profits in bricks and mortar shops were much reduced. The question is, was that the reality? The fact that the Government later introduced caps on the relief indicates that it was intended to help small businesses—those to whom £100,000 makes a great difference—not to subsidise large globalist corporations with hundreds of stores and access to other types of relief. What is the Minister’s assessment of how that kind of funding was used during the covid pandemic? Too often, franchisees’ payments from those who franchise them are cut drastically and with little or no explanation. Contracts are often terminated with just a few days’ notice and stores repossessed with little notice, often without valid reasons for doing so, leaving debts and loans to be repaid with no income. Franchisees claim that they faced fines and clawbacks that were grossly disproportionate to the errors in question. In some cases, the errors that led to fines were the results of failures in major corporation systems, yet the financial burden was often unfairly placed on franchisees. Communications raising serious concerns, though made, were often unanswered and pressing issues were ignored for long periods of time, leaving franchisees without support or resolution to their problems. Moreover, it has emerged that whistleblowers had warned a series of senior Vodafone executives that scores of its franchise store owners face financial ruin. What steps are the Government taking to regulate corporate businesses’ relationship with their franchisees? As I say, we are not speaking of powerful businesses with deep legal departments and balance sheets to absorb losses but ordinary people—mothers, fathers, sons and daughters—who saw an opportunity when they became a franchisee to build a meaningful business of their own under the banner of a global household name and to make a difference to their family, their community and the towns in which they are situated. People put their savings, their homes and their reputations on the line because they believe that a franchise agreement with a company such as Vodafone—there are others too—would be safe and secure. Last month, the Competition and Markets Authority confirmed the merger of Vodafone and Three. Will the Minister confirm that the matter of the problems with franchisees were discussed ahead of that merger being approved? Indeed, more broadly, can such a merger really be said to benefit the British public, given that it is forecast to cost 1,600 UK jobs and that evidence from overseas shows that countries with fewer mobile phone operators tend to charge higher prices to consumers? Will the Minister confirm what steps the Government are taking to investigate allegations of inappropriate use of Government relief during the covid pandemic, specifically in relation to businesses with franchisees? Will the Minister confirm that all allegations of misappropriation of Government relief schemes intended for franchisees should be investigated as part of the inquiry into covid by the covid commissioner? Will the Minister urge banks to show leniency and support to those franchisees facing financial distress, and will he commit to looking afresh at the lack of enforceable regulations governing franchiser conduct? A key lesson from the Post Office scandal is that we must not allow the sophisticated power of a corporate body, or the impression created by an impressive balance sheet, to persuade us to ignore the voices of less powerful individuals who speak out. Many franchisees have given up stable jobs. Some have taken out personal loans, and some have remortgaged their home. They train staff, open stores, serve customers, and are told by the big business that they are partners; but when the going gets rough, when the commission cuts come with little warning, when franchisees’ performance plummets due to decisions beyond their control, and when stores are repossessed with inadequate notice, they are left out on their own, high and dry. No lifeline, no dialogue—just silence from the corporations that they once trusted. I cannot believe that this Minister does not feel as I do about corporate malpractice—about greedy, soulless, heartless firms that act irresponsibly and hide behind the high wall of their substance. Governments have a duty not only to promote entrepreneurship and business, but to protect entrepreneurs and ensure that businesses do not take unfair advantage of their staff. We must call time on the era of corporate giants using legal structures not as a framework for partnership, but as a shield for avoidance—for avoiding responsibility and decency. Brands that trade on their reputation and public trust must be held accountable for the actions that they take that cause real harm. We must move away from a globalist, faceless corporate model that has enriched a few, and towards a different kind of economic order, in which we shorten supply lines, encourage small and medium-sized businesses, and understand that economics must serve a civil purpose. I call that fraternal economics —an economics in which community and economic activity are bound together in a common cause. We can build that kind of economic future, but it requires Government to know when to step forward to support business, and when to step back and not suffocate entrepreneurship. That future is within our grasp, but it will require this Government—perhaps any Government —to think afresh about the power balance between large, faceless businesses, and smaller entrepreneurs. They are ordinary people, like most of us, I guess, who simply want to get on and do the best for their family and their community. I know which side I am on. I am on the side of those people, because I know that they make so much difference in my constituency, and across the whole of our kingdom.
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he is responding. There is a close parallel between the way the Post Office is constructed—its business arrangement, and the connection between independent post offices and the centre—and the matters that I described. Will he ensure that his small business strategy includes something on franchising? That is a really important part of getting right our approach to regulation on the relationship between smaller businesses and corporate giants.
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
The Minister is absolutely right, of course. Contract law is well established and business contracts are enforceable in the way that he sets out, but the problem with franchising is that it is a hierarchical relationship that creates a kind of dependency. The franchisee is dependent on the larger business, so there is an in-built advantage if that larger business is inclined to be permissive in the way that it applies the terms of the contract, or even varies its terms. The parallel I drew in my speech was with supermarkets and primary producers. The supermarkets have so much power that the primary producer is implicitly weakened in that commercial relationship.
- Hansard source
British Indian Ocean Territory: Sovereignty
The hon. Gentleman, for whom I have a huge amount of respect, keeps saying that the Government had no choice but to do this deal. I do not believe that to be true. My successor, Lord Cameron, did not believe that to be true either, which is why neither he nor I signed off an agreement. Will the Minister please explain to the House in detail why he believed that he had no choice, including what body, at what time, and with what jurisdiction?
- Hansard source
Armed Forces Commissioner Bill
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 outlawed foreign Government ownership of UK media organisations, setting a limit of 5% on that process. The Government have now moved that from 5% to 15%, which is considerably higher. However, there has been only a marginal debate in a Statutory Instrument Committee. My concern—it has only just been passed—is that that is a major change. It would have been fair if the Government had set about having a proper debate on it here in the Chamber of the House of Commons, because newspaper ownership is a very significant issue. The other place will potentially get a much larger debate, yet we are the elected House. I ask your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, on how we may raise the issue again?
- Hansard source
Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism
I do have concerns about the last of the three organisations covered by the order, in relation to the application of the criminal law. There might be another way of doing it, but I support the Government’s position. However, this debate has cast into light the fact that we have taken no action to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Given all the elements that we are discussing today, this question sits like the elephant in the room: why are we not proscribing the IRGC? Why have we resisted doing that? That would have a huge impact on terrorism, or aspects of terrorism. Let us look at it carefully. The IRGC deliberately exports the Islamic revolution. It uses proxies and has been sponsoring terrorism—as has been demonstrated without dispute all over the world. It supports Hamas and Hezbollah and has supplied them with huge amounts of weapons. On whichever side of the arguments one sits, the fact is that this terrible killing would not have happened had that not been the case. The IRGC was heavily involved in that. It is sanctioned but not proscribed. Sanctioning does not give us enough powers to deal with its proxies and those who work for it. When in opposition, the Government campaigned to proscribe the IRGC. I remember quite happily working with various Members who were then on the Opposition Front Bench to do that. The Foreign Office endlessly says that we would lose all possibility of forming diplomatic relations or getting through to Iran, but how is that going? How has that gone over the past year? Not at all well. One cannot reason with these characters. A huge number of global attacks are rooted in IRGC money and training. It has high levels of activity in the UK, such as propaganda to try to build arrangements here, sometimes in plain view—there are even links on Facebook. It could be trapped, but it does it openly because nothing can be done to it at all. Of course, the IRGC supports Hezbollah, which is also proscribed. If we keep following this chain around and around, we come back to the IRGC. That should be the subject of the debate today. That should be the decision. That should be considered on the Floor of the House. The IRGC should be proscribed, because it is at the root of all terrorism that exists here and in the middle east. If we do not do that, it prompts the question of what we are doing here with these other three organisations.
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
You wouldn’t get a car for 500 quid though, John!
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
Yes—without interest. I agree with my right hon. Friend. I also agree about something else, which is that people do not realise that the really big global multinationals, for example Amazon, do not really make their profits on what they sell. They hold your data and that is what they really sell, subsequently. That is where they make their money and their profit. You derive no income from that data, but they make a lot of money off the back of it. To try to break that process down and make things more local, we have to start with what we have all been complicit in, which is the idea of getting something for nothing. It is not for nothing—there is a cost.
- Hansard source
Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment
I need not detain my right hon. Friend for long, but I very much supported the unions’ position on this, as I thought this was wrong at the time. Without straying into the issues of the bids, we should consider organisations such as CK from China. It now has links with and control over UK Power Networks, Northumbrian Water, Wales and West Utilities, and Eversholt Rail. The network it has now is intriguing, which is hugely around the power and communications networks. All of those are now falling into the hands of conglomerates that have nothing to do with the UK, but that are linked to Governments of a different country. This is the big problem we face: it is not that we do not like big businesses; it is just that so often now they operate from outside our legal empowerment.
- Hansard source
Defence
I am not sure there is much point in us just blaming each other on this matter. There are historical parallels. In 1935 we were spending only 2.5% of our national wealth on defence. There was massive rearmament following that and consensus on both sides of the House, and by 1945 we were spending the best part of 50% of national wealth on it. It would be much better if the two parties try to work together on this matter and realise that we are facing an existential crisis in the world, and that things are very different now from 2010 or 2015, or whenever, and that we should work together to massively increase defence spending.
- Hansard source
Secure 16 to 19 Academies Bill
We have had Borstals and approved schools, neither of which were particularly successful at reforming those who were in custody in them. Is the Minister confident that this new architecture, this new arrangement, will be more successful?
- Hansard source
British Indian Ocean Territory: Sovereignty
Can the Minister tell the House why he thinks China supports this deal?
- Hansard source
Heathrow Substation Outage: NESO Review
May I follow up on that and ask the Minister whether he will undertake to have a full, frank and open discussion with the relevant directorates within his Department about what it has learned from this disaster? In particular, what exercises, tabletop or virtual, must be undertaken to practise resilience in the event of future such failures? My right hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) is right to warn about the increasing fragility of energy security in this country. There is plenty of informed opinion that supports that view.