Kerry McCarthy
MP for Bristol East · Labour · United Kingdom
“We see that in four main ways: physical risks, including floods, wildfires, droughts and storms; transition risks as economies move away from high-carbon industries; nature-related risks affecting food production and natural resources; and systemic risks, where shocks spread rapidly across sectors and markets.”
“The glaciers of the third pole function as Asia’s water tower, feeding major river systems that support nearly 2 billion people. When rising temperatures accelerate glacial melt, the consequences extend far beyond the mountains.”
“Following the heatwaves and wildfires across Europe this summer and the destruction caused by the glacier collapse and catastrophic flooding in Nepal and Tibet, the message is becoming impossible to ignore: the consequences of climate change and environmental degradation are real, not some distant future threat.”
“Personally, I cannot see that Rosebank is compatible with meeting our climate objectives, but I recognise that the process should be followed. Green Alliance has reported that the gas being wasted in the North sea would be enough to heat 570,000 homes.”
“I too worked in the financial markets, although I think I have done a better job of hiding it in my 21 years in Parliament. I was more on the debt market side. In fact, I am so old that I was part of the salvage operation for Barings bank when it went under. That brings me to the right hon. Gentleman’s point about regulation.”
“My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that I very much agree with the point that he just made. We have some excellent, innovative businesses in Bristol that came up through the Science Creates innovation hubs and attracted private capital.”
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Every one of 6,322 lines we hold for Kerry McCarthy, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 17 of 127.
“It is a pleasure, as always, to see you in the Chair, Mr Bone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) on securing the debate. I could wax lyrical about the woes of being an EV car owner who is not able to charge at home, because I live in a block of flats, but I will resist the temptation to vent about that and stick to some of the facts. As we have heard, we have seen a bit of a success story, with the number of EVs on the road exceeding expectations, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to charge. I have a lot of questions for the Minister, but one is about regulation and ensuring the reliability of charging points. Perhaps he could say something about that. In addition, to what extent should the charging point provider be blamed if the wi-fi is not working or there is no access to the premises?”
“I thank the Minister for his response. Scotland has huge potential for green investment, but all that is being put at risk by an exodus of capital, given what Joe Biden is doing with the Inflation Reduction Act 2022 in the US. What is the UK Government’s response to the Inflation Reduction Act so that we can secure investment in Scotland and in the rest of the UK?”
“A company in my constituency called LettUs Grow, working with HM Prison Hewell in Worcestershire, is introducing prisoners to vertical farming, which is an excellent way of not only growing food for the prison but teaching prisoners new skills. However, it is disturbing to note that many prisons are doing less in the way of food growing and involvement in farming. Is the Minister planning to roll out this pilot to other prisons?”
“The Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act 2022 makes investing in the US very attractive, particularly for innovative green technology. How are we going to compete?”
“The Chair of the Committee will know that the gap between market rents in Bristol and the local housing allowance is among the worst in the country. The vast majority of private rented homes are simply not available to people on benefits. I note that the Committee was told that that was a matter for the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions, but does he intend to carry on pursuing this issue of the failure of the local housing allowance to keep pace with market rents?”
“It is the kind of vision that British industry and this country are crying out for.”
“We will invest £28 billion per year to tackle the climate emergency through our green prosperity plan, which will allow us to insulate 19 million homes within a decade; to deliver a clean power system by 2030; to establish GB Energy, a publicly owned clean energy company to ensure the benefits of our green investments are returned to the taxpayer; and to set up a national wealth fund to invest in those green industries that the Government seem happy to ignore and drive overseas. That means investment in new gigafactories, renewable-ready ports, green steel plants, green hydrogen, net zero industrial clusters and carbon capture and storage. It means good green jobs and growth for every corner of the UK. That is the kind of vision that this report makes clear is necessary.”
“How many times do the Government need to be told that before they get their act together? Given the repeated warnings about the snail’s pace progress towards net zero, the huge uncertainty for investors and the staggering lack of ambition on crucial policy areas, I have little faith that the Government will finally step up a gear. I hope that the creation of the new Department is a sign that it will, but we will be there to hold them to account if they do not. If this Government do not act, the next Labour Government will. We have put forward a transformative agenda for Government, with a fairer, greener future at the core.”
“Member for Waveney talked about. I hope the Minister tells us whether and how the Government are planning to respond to the huge international investment in green industries. Or have they simply given up? As much as I welcome the report’s findings, it has only told us what we already know about the Government’s progress towards net zero. We are simply not going far or fast enough. The right hon. Member for Kingswood is far from alone in that opinion. His report is merely the latest in a string of scathing assessments of this Government’s record on climate change. The Climate Change Committee said in last year’s progress report that the Government’s climate strategy “will not deliver” net zero. The High Court said that the net zero strategy is unlawful and inadequate.”
“I asked about that at International Trade questions this morning and I think the Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade, the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) had a slip of the tongue and replied that she was talking to green lithium companies about investing in the US. I suspect that she meant the UK. But there was not a concrete response to IRA and there needs to be if we are not to be left behind. We should be seizing the initiative, not sitting on our hands. The Government should work night and day to ensure that we do not lose a penny more in green investment because of the failure to make the UK attractive to green industries, especially those at the cutting edge of innovation. The companies doing something new and taking the risks really need that Government support and catalyst that the hon.”
“The United States has just announced unprecedented support for green industries through the $369 billion Inflation Reduction Act. Much of that support is linked to support for domestic green industries and designed to attract investment from overseas, too. The European Union has been quick and clear in its response to that Act, with more support for green industries that need it, and proposals for a net zero industry Act and a critical raw materials Act. How has the UK responded? With a deafening and perplexing silence. I tabled a named day question on the first day back in January asking what our response to the Inflation Reduction Act would be. I keep being told that the Government are not ready to reply.”
“Economic opportunities are being missed today because of weaknesses in the UK’s investment environment. The right hon. Member for Kingswood mentioned falling behind the curve—we are in danger of doing that. These missed opportunities are blindingly obvious to anyone paying attention. We have lost Britishvolt in Blythe, the electric Mini in Oxford and Arrival’s electric vans in Bicester, and we are losing our steel industry piece by piece. It was worrying to hear the new Business and Trade Secretary being asked this week whether Britain would retain a steel industry. She said: “Nothing is ever a given.” We need to green and retain our steel industry here. Other nations are not facing the exodus of jobs but are actively encouraging their own green industries. They understand that green investment pays for itself.”
“They do not care about the politics of who is doing it; they just want that certainty, stability and sense of direction. It is clear also that the Government are not doing enough to make green technologies affordable for ordinary households. It is clear that this Government’s decision to axe support for home insulation in 2013 is the reason for plummeting energy efficiency improvements. It is clear that this Government have failed to set out a proper plan to restore nature or balance land-use pressures. It is crystal clear that we are falling behind in the global race to seize the economic opportunities of net zero. That last point is particularly important. The review states that we must act quickly “to cement the UK as a prime destination for international capital”.”
“He sacked the President of the COP26 climate summit, tried to duck out of attending COP27, attempted to resurrect the ban on onshore wind and was whizzing around the country by private jet, which I gather he was at again this morning. Those are hardly the actions of a climate champion. Given that context of two Prime Ministers who, let us be frank, clearly could not care less about the climate, I am pleased that this review is not the greenwash many of us expected it to be. It does a comprehensive job of highlighting the many areas where the Government are falling woefully short in getting us to net zero. It makes clear that constant U-turns and lack of continuity make it impossible to plan and invest. All the businesses that I speak to in my role are telling me that time and again.”
“It calls it “the economic opportunity of the 21st century.” We know this report was originally commissioned to take the heat off a Government who were hellbent on doubling down on polluting expensive fossil fuels, regardless of the cost to the taxpayer or planet. The then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) desperately needed political cover while she tried to push through her attempts to bring back fracking and ban new solar developments. Thankfully she did not stick around for long enough to do that. We hoped that the next prime Minister would learn from the mistakes of his predecessor and embrace climate action as the huge economic opportunity that we know it to be. However, what were his first moves in office?”
“I just hope that the net zero and climate change side of it does not get too swamped by the energy side, because the Government have made pretty good progress on decarbonising the energy sector. Much more, however, needs to be done in other sectors, and as the report we are discussing today says, there needs to be faster progress on that. It cannot just be seen as the energy Department with the occasional reference to other aspects of achieving net zero. This report makes clear what we have known for some time now: this Government are failing to grasp the economic opportunities that come with net zero. I am pleased that the report is so unambivalent about the benefits that can come from a transition to a greener economy.”
“Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) talked about the local context, how enthusiastic young people in her constituency are, the impact of Heathrow and the fact that new social housing should be low carbon, as well as electric vehicle charging infrastructure, which is a subject dear to my heart. She said that local leaders need support to deliver this agenda. The right hon. Member for Kingswood will know what Bristol is doing on that front in trying to lead the way in becoming a net zero city. Again, I thank him for his support on that as a near Bristol MP. My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) mentioned the creation of the new Department, which I welcome.”
“I certainly agree that this Government could do more to act as a catalyst. I might leave it to the new Minister to respond to the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who does not like solar on agricultural land, does not like onshore wind, and says there is not much point doing anything because China is not doing anything. As the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) pointed out, that is not quite the case. I point out that we are hoping that the Government will produce a land-use strategy before too long, which will hopefully thrash out some of these issues, such as the balance between making sure that good agricultural land is used for food growing and having solar. My hon.”
“I thank my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West for that enthusiastic endorsement. May I welcome the new Minister to his place and thank the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), another constituency neighbour, for authoring this important review? As the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) said, it was a Herculean task, and I know how much effort the right hon. Gentleman put into it and how many meetings he had to have. I also thank him for being so open to briefing MPs from all parts of the House about the report’s contents since it was published. The hon. Member for Waveney also said it is vital that the Government act as a catalyst, so I hope he listens avidly to what I have to say a bit later in my speech about what a Labour Government would do with our green prosperity plan.”
“I agree with everything the hon. Lady is saying. I have two points to make about attracting private-sector investment for these nature-based solutions. First, we have to be very clear about the carbon offsetting value of the projects. Secondly, when the biodiversity net gain details of that strategy come forward, we need to be clear that they are creating more diversity. Does she share my concern that we are not really at the stage where we can properly measure the multitudes of benefits of investing in such schemes?”
“The debate is about climate change, as opposed to just climate change adaptation. I appreciate that adaptation is in the DEFRA brief, but I am a little concerned that there does not seem to be that joined-up thinking about the importance of nature-based solutions for climate change mitigation as well. Those can be incredibly powerful for carbon sequestration, whether that is wetlands or planting trees. Is the Minister talking to colleagues in the newly created Department for Energy Security and Net Zero about how to ensure that those two things work together?”
“It seems that the only certainty we have with this bonfire Bill is uncertainty. We do not know how many laws will be affected by it, although we know it will be in the thousands. We do not know how it will work with the existing Northern Ireland protocol, or with whatever revised protocol may exist in a few months’ time. With this legislative chaos hanging over the heads of Northern Ireland businesses, how are they expected to make plans for the future?”
“Q6. This week is Children’s Mental Health Week. We know that adverse childhood experiences—whether that be growing up in poverty in the UK, or, indeed, living through the horrors of war in Ukraine—can have a lifelong impact on mental health. With the number of children in mental health crisis increasing year on year in the UK, does the Prime Minister believe that he is doing enough to address the causes of childhood trauma?”
“and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) said about assessments in the prison system. We know that about a quarter of the prison population meets the threshold for an ADHD diagnosis, and up to 19% may be autistic. Particularly at young offender institutions, we need to crack that if we are to stop that lifelong criminal offending. Finally, we are still waiting to hear about the SEND Green Paper and the improvement plan. The consultation document was co-authored by the Department of Health and the Department for Education, but there was not much in it about the overlap with CAMHS. My final plea is that we need to ensure that, particularly in the case of children, we look at this as a SEND issue and are getting the EHCPs, but that, where mental health support is needed, the two organisations are talking to each other.”
“I tabled a written question to the Minister last month, and I was told that between July 2021 and June 2022, more than 95,000 children were in a position similar to Zac’s, with an open referral for suspected autism. That could be more than 95,000 children in limbo, up and down the country, just like Zac’s family. As I understand it, the Department of Health and Social Care does not collect data on ADHD assessments, so it is quite possible that many more thousands of parents of children with ADHD may be waiting. I know many other Members want to speak, so I will conclude. We have heard from other Members how much more likely people with ADHD are to attempt suicide. One study showed that 35% of autistic people have at some point planned to take their own life. It was very interesting to hear what the right hon.”
“He thinks that training teachers to recognise the signs of neurodivergence could mean that children’s needs are picked up sooner, so they might face less stigma and be mislabelled less often. I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about that. Obviously, she is a health Minister, but that role in schools is really important. My constituent Laura recently appeared on ITV News to talk about her son Zac, who is eight years old and has autistic traits. He was referred by his school in December 2020 and still does not have a diagnosis. When I raised it with the local autism hub, it said it was expecting to see him by summer 2022. Well, he has still not been diagnosed.”
“The number of children waiting for autism diagnostic assessments has gone down fractionally, and the health service is trying to recruit extra staff to carry out the assessments. For adults, particularly when it comes to ADHD, it is still pretty bad. At the moment, the waiting lists are about 14 months for children to be assessed for ADHD and autism. For adults, it is 12 months for autism but four years for ADHD. I met a constituent, Jacob, who goes by the name adhdfatheruk on Instagram and TikTok. He was diagnosed as a teenager and often struggled at school. Many labelled his hyperactivity as bad behaviour, and his inattentiveness was put down to laziness. He is very keen to press for greater awareness of ADHD in schools.”
“The mother of one of the children in my family was told that her child did not need another diagnosis because she already had physical disabilities linked to learning disabilities—it was like she had enough wrong with her, so she did not need something else. It was only when it reached crisis point that it was accepted that a physical disability is not treated in the same way as autism. Parents who come to us because they are struggling to get EHCPs really are at their wits’ end because of all the obstacles and the number of times they get pushed back by the system, particularly when they are suspected of being over-anxious parents. In Bristol, we are seeing some progress in EHCPs.”
“One of the things that struck me when constituents told me how they got their diagnosis is the role of GPs. It was sometimes very perceptive GPs who spotted that it might be ADHD after other people had not, and that was the gateway to a life-changing diagnosis. As well as talking about what mental health services can do, and about SEND and EHCPs, we need to ensure that GPs have the time to spend with their patients. They should be able to see their patients face to face if that is what is needed so they can play that crucial role. There is wider understanding about children, but that does not always translate into practical knowledge of how to manage their needs, particularly if they have complex backgrounds.”
“We have heard people’s stories about how much they have gone through, wondering what is wrong with them or why they do not fit into society, and about the obstacles that they had to get through to get a diagnosis, so no one should say that this is something people do just on a whim, because they want to look cool. It is unfortunate that people say that. Of the constituents who have come to me about this, a lot were diagnosed as adults. They had years of being misunderstood and having their abilities underestimated. A lot of them started out as very bright kids at school, but had something go wrong at secondary school, just because it was not designed to fit how they learned or how they conducted themselves in the classroom. They were often misdiagnosed as suffering from anxiety or depression, for example.”
“It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Fovargue. I congratulate the Petitions Committee on not just scheduling the debate, but the surveys and outreach work it has done, which has come a long way since the Committee was first set up. What it does is really valued. I also think that the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) once again did justice to the topic that he presented. Over recent years, awareness of neurodevelopmental conditions such as ADHD and autism has improved massively. I am slightly worried that we are seeing a bit of push-back, with people saying it is fashionable to have ADHD because a number of celebrities have come out and said that they have it, and almost casting doubt on the diagnosis behind that.”
“I thank the hon. Member for giving way, and I am glad that he is supporting the Bill. He has outlined some good measures, but does he share my frustration that it has taken an awfully long time to get them through? They are usually pretty simple Bills for which there is cross-party agreement; the Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019 took forever to get through the House—although that was probably before the hon. Member’s time. Does he share my frustration, and hope that we can get more measures like this one through the House more quickly in future?”
“It is good that we have cross-party support on this issue as well. It is one thing for an employee to have a right, but as we have seen, quite often employers who do not want to give their employees those rights and treat them well have ways of getting around that; they will find an excuse to dismiss the employee and take on somebody who might be prepared to be more flexible. How does the hon. Gentleman envisage that the safeguards and rights under this Bill will be genuinely enforced? I would suggest trade union membership as a pretty good start.”
“It is good to be in a Westminster Hall debate led by the hon. Gentleman; he is often a fixture here. I thank him for his kind words about my presence in previous debates. On the energy bill issue, is the hon. Gentleman as concerned as I am about the reports of forced prepayment meters, including for people with extreme vulnerabilities and disabilities? Often those forced prepayment meters lead to self-disconnection because they are more expensive and people cannot afford to keep them topped up. I welcome today’s announcement that there is to be a moratorium on forced prepayment, but we should not have that at all, particularly for people with conditions that require their homes to be heated.”
“My hon. Friend mentioned anxiety. As many people will know, I have a niece with CF, who has just turned 18. She is very much at the healthy end of the spectrum, which is good, but there comes a point, particularly with access to social media, when young people start to learn that they have a life-limiting condition. They learn far more about it than they perhaps would have done in the days when they would have relied on their parents to tell them about it and at a time when their parents thought they could handle it. Supporting them from a mental health point of view while they are going through that is really important too.”
“I understand what the Minister is saying—it is said every time we raise this issue—but the only reason why people with cystic fibrosis are not covered by the rules that apply, say, to people with diabetes is that cystic fibrosis was seen as a childhood disease, and it was thought that people with cystic fibrosis would not live past the age of 16. That is an anomaly. It is good that they can get the season ticket, but they should not be treated like that. If they had survived beyond the age of 16 when the rules were brought in, they would not be treated like that now. Does the Minister therefore agree that it is still unfair?”
“I am tempted to use a word favoured by the Deputy Prime Minister in response to that, but I will not. I am not interested in when people were formally informed or notified about things. I would just like to know when the Prime Minister knew about the bullying allegations against the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab)—was it before he appointed him as Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister?”
“I thank the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Holly Mumby-Croft) for securing this urgent question on an issue that affects not just the workers in her constituency but the future of a foundation industry across the UK. In November last year, the iconic Redcar blast furnace—once the second largest in Europe—was demolished. Decades of work, tradition and pride needlessly went up in smoke. Here we are, yet again: another crisis under the Conservatives’ watch, with Liberty Steel announcing a number of weeks ago the potential loss of hundreds of jobs and yet more pain this week from British Steel. [ Interruption. ]”
“The last thing that the steel sector and the British taxpayer need is another blank cheque bail-out for a buyer, rather than a proper investor. We do not need more sticking plasters; we need a long-term plan. The market wants green steel, so will the Government back Labour’s plan for green steel, invest in new technology over the coming decade, crowd in private investment and address the root of the problems, rather than play an ever more expensive game of whack-a-mole? Labour will always back our steel industry. It has a bright green future—something it will never get under the crisis management Conservatives.”
“Liberty Steel bosses have described the UK steel sector as being “on life support”. No other developed country faces losing its domestic steel sector. If that were to happen here, it would be a badge of shame for this Government. It is entirely avoidable. Will the Minister outline the steps the Government are taking to secure the future of the Liberty and British Steel sites? She talked about the economic impact, but it is about more than that. It is about the fact that those sites have been at the heart of their communities for generations. Earlier this month, there were reports that the Secretary of State wrote to the Chancellor requesting a bail-out for British Steel. Will the Minister confirm whether that is the case and whether she and the Secretary of State are continuing to push for that?”
“Bristol City Council, with the help of funding from the Department for Education, is setting up two new care homes: one for children with complex mental health needs, and another for adolescent boys with challenging behaviour who are involved in the criminal justice system and are at risk of exploitation. That will ensure that they do not end up being placed outside the city. It is obviously a very good move, but the number of young people in care in Bristol is predicted to rise by 5% next year alone, so we know that needs will increase. What are the Government doing to support local authorities to expand in-house provision even further and to tackle profiteering by private providers so that we can ensure that children are safe in our hands?”
“My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, as he does every year on this topic. I hope he does not have to do so next year. We are focused on agricultural use today, but there is an issue with the use of glyphosate in cities. Does he agree that we ought to create pollinator corridors in our cities and prevent the use of pesticides, so we do not damage the health of our pollinators, and that councils need to be supported to go down that route?”
“I have had a pretty good read of the plan, and it is disappointing that there is not more about the urban environment and the contribution that it can make, particularly in terms of the nature section. As the parliamentary species champion for the swift, I am keen to see more swift bricks installed in buildings. A lot has been said about trees, hedgerows and so on, but when it comes to reversing the decline in swifts, we need to look at buildings. Is that something that the Secretary of State can go away and look at, and perhaps introduce it, despite the fact that it is not in the plan?”
“What the proponents of the non-dom regime, and some MPs speaking here today, have failed to understand is that to the British public, who regularly poll in support of abolishing the exemption, it is about what is fair and right. A common refrain throughout the pandemic was, “We’re all in this together. We are all contributing to a common cause.” The fact is that we are not and we should be.”
“We absolutely need to invest in more doctors and more nurses, shorter waiting times and better care. We could also use the profits from closing this loophole to provide breakfast clubs for primary school children. We know that far too many children are spending the day at school too hungry to learn; according to Magic Breakfast, as many as 3 million children could be in that situation. Some £3 billion in lost revenue from abolishing the non-doms loophole would go a long way to filling that gap. No one would propose this non-dom policy now if it did not already exist. As has been mentioned, this move would simply bring us into line with major economies, including France, Germany and Canada.”
“We have heard Conservative Members floating the idea that people might have to pay to see their GP. My father in Ireland had to pay to see his GP, and perhaps he would still be with us now if he had not put off going to investigate the symptoms of bowel cancer. We certainly do not want to go down that route. The money raised by abolishing non-dom tax status could double the number of medical school places, double the number of district nurses and provide 10,000 more nursing and midwifery clinical training places. In my constituency, we have a wonderful University of the West of England campus that is training midwives and nurses. We also had a birth unit at Cossham Hospital, which had to close because there simply were not the midwives to staff it. Southmead Hospital had to be given priority, where the more critical cases go.”
“As has been mentioned, a study by LSE and the University of Warwick estimates that this means the UK has lost more than £3 billion in tax revenue. Labour believes this money would be better spent on the NHS than on lining the already bulging pockets of the extremely rich. This debate is about transparency, fairness and prioritising areas of society that need support. It really is as simple as that. If there were a direct choice between more non-doms and more nurses, between a tax break for the wealthy and a school child’s breakfast, what would the Government choose? We have to ask ourselves whether we want to live in a country in which it is easier to avoid paying taxes than to see a GP. There are 4,500 fewer GPs in England than there were a decade ago, with more than 1.3 million people having to wait more than a month to see theirs.”
“That was very interesting from the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell)—particularly his revelation that Labour aspires to be in government. It is pretty much universally accepted that people who work in the UK, make their life here and benefit from all we have to offer should pay their taxes here. I cannot see why that is a controversial point. Non-dom tax status completely undermines that by creating a tax system that is rigged against working people. It cannot be one rule for the wealthy and another rule for everyone else. This is not about envy or wishing that we were incredibly rich, or anything like that; it is about basic fairness. Those benefiting from non-dom tax breaks are estimated to have almost £11 billion a year in unreported income and capital gains overseas.”
“I think I welcome what has been said about mental health ambulances and trying to divert people in mental health crisis from A&E, but I am a little concerned about whether those attending the scene in those ambulances will have access to the past records of people in that situation or be able to carry out a proper risk assessment for them. Will the Secretary of State reassure me on that, and also on whether there will be places other than A&E to take them to? It is one thing to say that we want to divert them, but we need to have other resources in place.”
“I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. With Independent Venue Week coming up next week, I pay particular tribute to Big Jeff, the best ambassador for grassroots music venues anyone could ever want, who is finally getting back out on the gig circuit after his terrible accident last year—thank you for indulging me on that, Mr Speaker. The sector is on a knife edge, sustained by a 0.2% profit margin. As I understand it —although the Minister may want to correct me, considering the answer he has just given—it is not included in the support for energy bills from 1 April. Will the Minister, if he does not have good news for me today, take that up with the Treasury as a matter of urgency, because it could be energy bills that finally push many independent music venues over the edge?”