Nick Smith
MP for Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney · Labour · United Kingdom
“This summer, wildfires raged across south Wales and other parts of the UK. On one day alone, our emergency services received 1,000 telephone calls. Our South Wales fire and rescue service worked tirelessly alongside firefighters from across the UK.”
“The House of Commons Administration provides a variety of training for Members and their staff to help them respond to domestic and sexual abuse casework, which includes a day-long training course on dealing with cases of domestic abuse, human resources sessions on domestic abuse awareness and an e-learning module on safeguarding.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important topic, and it is great that she has good local services. I have already outlined the training and guidance we currently have on offer. The Commission is keen to ensure that Members are well supported in this area and is open to suggestions to develop the training offer.”
“Although it is a civil matter, where a jury trial cannot apply, yesterday we found out that Virgin Media has been fined a record £28 million for ripping off its customers, yet the chief executive appears to be getting off scot-free.”
“Many of us remain frustrated by delays to Royal Mail postal deliveries. My constituent Anthony Barnes was removed from a treatment waiting list on three occasions because hospital communications did not arrive in time.”
“I welcome the Government’s ongoing commitment to supporting our veterans and delivering fairness for them. Can we please have a statement from the Veterans Minister on reducing processing times for war pension scheme claims? My constituent Denzil Hancock, an 88-year-old nuclear test veteran, continues to await a decision.”
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“The Government must take action to avoid accusations that concerns are being swept under the carpet—£650 million from the public purse is at stake.”
“As a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I really value the work undertaken by the National Audit Office on behalf of our Parliament. Now, despite genuine concerns of financial shenanigans on Teesside, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has stopped an NAO study into the development corporation there. People may ask, “What’s Gove got to do with it?” [Hon. Members: “Very good.”] Thank you. The Teesside Mayor has previously called on the NAO to undertake an investigation, so to address parliamentary concerns, can we have a statement on the Government’s alternative proposal, and can any appointment include independent voices such as Amyas Morse, the former Comptroller and Auditor General at the NAO?”
“Some £7.9 billion was wasted on useless and overpriced personal protective equipment; meanwhile, opportunists who saw the Tories coming are now profiteering on the back of the public purse. Does the Minister regret that this money was not spent wisely? Nearly £8 billion could buy us 20 new hospitals.”
“For this set of elections, bearing in mind they are taking place only in England, the Electoral Commission tells me that 250,000 to 350,000 people should have applied for a voter ID certificate. At the deadline, just 85,000 had been issued, despite the estimated £4 million advertising spend. Given that less than a third of voters requiring voter ID applied for this certificate, does the Minister accept that voter suppression has already occurred?”
“I thank the Minister for his earlier response, but can he say what longer-range weapons the UK will provide to Ukraine and when they will be supplied?”
“The Home Office’s treatment of sectors employing large numbers of migrant workers has been hapless for years, so can I press the Minister: by when will we see the generous offer that she has talked about today?”
“The Financial Services and Markets Bill is setting new parameters for the Financial Conduct Authority, but we are waiting for its Report stage in the other place. When steelworkers were duped by financial sharks, the FCA was far too slow to act. I understand that the FCA is also now renewing the rules on its consumer duties, which is welcome. However, after years of campaigning it is clear that we need proper oversight of the FCA. So, for clarity, may we have a statement on how Parliament will gain better scrutiny of our financial regulator and its duty to protect consumers across our country?”
“The Minister talks up energy security but fails to prioritise onshore wind, the best value renewable energy. By when will the Government remove the ban on onshore wind?”
“Oxfam estimates that one person is likely to die every 36 seconds in east Africa owing to food insecurity, but the “Integrated Review Refresh”, published yesterday, failed to acknowledge this unfolding crisis. Drought and famine have displaced nearly 2 million people in Ethiopia and Somalia recently. What further action can the Government take to support people on the ground and ensure that they can return home safely?”
“Just 1% of those who are eligible have signed up to the voter ID scheme. It will take 10 years to issue the new ID to those who need it, but, with local elections just 10 weeks away, would it not make more sense to go back to the drawing board? The Government must come up with plans to boost voter turnout, not suppress it.”
“I have just been looking through the House of Lords Library paper, “Horn of Africa: Projections of a famine in 2023”. It states: “The Horn of Africa is experiencing its longest drought in 40 years. Compounded by high food prices and political instability, this has led to 36.4 million people suffering from hunger across the region…Although a famine has yet to be officially declared, it is projected to occur in 2023.” How will cutbacks in the IFAD contribution affect the UK’s support for the horn of Africa?”
“I thank the Minister for her response. Will she tell me in detail why there has been, or what has happened, with the 44% reduction in the UK’s pledge to IFAD, and about its possible effect on what is going on with a probable drought in the horn of Africa?”
“This is my last contribution, and I thank the Minister for her response. I said “drought”, but I meant famine. I would be really grateful if the Minister could outline what resources are being made available to help with the famine in the horn of Africa.”
“I thank the Minister for giving way. I am just going through the explanatory memorandum to the draft Tax Credits, Child Benefit and Guardian’s Allowance Up-rating Regulations 2023. The consultation outcome on page 3, paragraph 10 says that there was no consultation because of the Treasury reviewing the rates. Families in these circumstances faced particularly high energy costs last year, so would it not be valuable, for fairness, for the Treasury or the Department for Work and Pensions to look at the other measures tackling high energy costs and their impact on families to ensure a fairer outcome for families from this important measure?”
“I accept that there have been extra measures on families’ energy costs, and I welcome the increase by CPI, or 10%. My point is that there are other inflationary measures, including the higher energy costs, that this group in particular faces. Could those measures be looked at as part of the consultation, either now or in the future, given the extraordinarily high energy costs for such families?”
“There have been too many examples of misogyny and sexism in public services in recent times, so can the Home Secretary reassure the House that sufficient resources will be provided to clear out the worst offenders and help change the culture so we can once again have confidence in our important police services?”
“Unboxed was a £120 million investment to celebrate the best of Britain. The Department reported in November that the figure for audience engagement was just over 18 million. That sounds a reasonable reach, but it turns out that a one- hour “Countryfile” TV special was doing the heavy lifting with 5 million viewers—nearly a third of the total. I understand that a wider evaluation is in hand, but does the Minister think that the festival made the impact that his Department intended it to, and can he ensure that this point is considered in the wider evaluation?”
“My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed) identified the issue of poor data management of high-risk former offenders. What are the Government doing about that?”
“I thank the Minister for giving way; it is very generous of her. I was interested in what she said about free face-to-face advice on improving water quality. Can she tell us more about exactly who will be able to provide that advice and how many advisers there will be across the country? We would like some understanding of the important public service support for this initiative.”
“I asked the Minister for an idea of the number of face-to-face staff who would be able to help our farmers across the country produce good-quality water, but she was not able to answer. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be good to have an assessment from the Department of the number of people who would be needed to support our farmers across the country to prevent poor-quality run-off and ensure that we have better water for the future?”
“New onshore wind has been stymied since 2015, even though it is our cheapest renewable. Shire-counties conservatism has been put ahead of our national interest; weak policy has undermined the UK’s energy security, leaving us wide open to international shocks. Does the Minister not accept that all this has helped to cause family bills to skyrocket?”
“On possibly tweaking the scheme, last week I visited a housing scheme for older people in Blaenau, where constituents with private pensions were complaining of increased energy costs of 400%, or £50 a week, just for heating the common social areas. The housing association complained that none of the Government’s energy schemes is of help to the organisation, so it had to pass on the costs. Will the Minister please meet me to hear those important concerns?”
“The British people also deserve to know the profits, commissions, dividends and big bosses’ bonuses being made on the back of public money. We need measures that financially penalise those who benefited from the public contractors’ PPE super-profits, but when a company changes its identity multiple times, that is made much harder, and the other route—recovering money through the courts—is very expensive and hugely time consuming. What measures will the Government bring forward to deal with those PPE profiteers and their like? We need a Bill that mandates open accounting of public contracts and shines a light on the vultures that prey on the public purse. We need a Bill that allows us to properly follow the money.”
“For example, payments from the Department of Health and Social Care were made to Unispace Global Ltd, but in 2021, it transferred its contracts to a new company, Unispace Health Products LLP, which now trades as Sante Global LLP. Private Eye says, however, that the companies’ accounts do not feature anywhere near the £600 million paid to them, which begs the question: why this chicanery? Will the Bill deal with such shenanigans? I welcome the introduction of a single central Cabinet Office online platform—that is quite a mouthful—but it should go further and include a publicly accessible dashboard for Government contracts. In that way, we can track delivery and performance, make contractors truly accountable to the people, and close the loopholes that profiteers enjoyed.”
“That meant that the Department for Health and Social Care could not fully understand the contract management risks it was exposing itself to. Therefore, the sheer scale of Government waste is not just explained by global markets pressures; the UK Government’s failures must also be acknowledged. After all, the PPE scandal has seen £4 billion of taxpayers’ money wasted on unusable equipment and now £2.6 billion-worth of disputed contracts. I am specifically concerned about contracts awarded to Unispace Global Ltd, which won more than £600 million of PPE contracts during the pandemic. It is extremely difficult to follow the financial paper trail: a look at its manoeuvres, and the chopping and changing of its directors, raises big questions.”
“I welcome this Bill’s aims of openness, effectiveness and transparency. A third of public expenditure—£300 billion—goes on public procurement, so we must get this right. Unfortunately, though, the Government’s record here has been undermined by the PPE scandal. I do understand that exposure to fraud was a risk during the panic of the pandemic and that the global PPE market was highly competitive. However, big mistakes were made, and billions have been wasted. The National Audit Office has done brilliant work on tracking the Government’s covid spending. Its investigation into the management of covid contracts in March 2022 found that 46 of the 115 contracts awarded to the Government’s VIP lane did not go through the Government’s due diligence process.”
“I congratulate the Minister on his earlier remarks about seeking to improve the performance of the FCA. Many people on both sides of the House want that to happen. It is pleasing that the Treasury Committee will hear information on reporting from the consumer panel of the FCA; however, a number of financial scandals have affected the constituents of Members across the House in recent years. While I hear what the Minister says, I am really looking for a greater opportunity to challenge the FCA through its consumer panel than he has so far suggested, but I hope that we can work together to strengthen that point.”
“New clause 10 would require the FCA’s consumer panel to lay an official report before Parliament. We could then judge whether the regulator is fulfilling its duty to protect consumers. During my 12 years in this House, I have learned many things, but one thing stands out: parliamentary scrutiny matters. I am pleased to have support from across the House for the new clause—from our Labour Treasury team, senior Conservative Members, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, Treasury Committee members, other colleagues and fellow members of the Public Accounts Committee. By supporting our new clause, Britain’s consumers could be better heard, and our financial services sector would be all the better for it.”
“We found that: “The FCA failed to take swift and effective action at all stages of the BSPS case.” It failed “to prevent consumers from being harmed”, which makes clear the “limitations with the FCA’s supervisory approach”. The point is that the FCA took proper notice of this injustice only when Parliament, through the NAO and eventually the Public Accounts Committee, dug deep to investigate. Of course, the BSPS case is not the only example of the FCA’s failure to protect consumers in recent years; I have heard many complaints from Members across the House. The scandals surrounding Blackmore Bond, Dolphin and Azure come to mind. Consumers are our financial sector. As long as the FCA fails to exercise its powers to protect ordinary workers, it will continue to fail our constituents.”
“Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) and other campaigners, I continued to press the FCA. In 2020, I wrote to its newly appointed chief executive, however Mr Rathi did not want to meet. He asked one of his directors to meet us instead. Later, in 2021, frustrated with the FCA giving us the cold shoulder, I wrote to the Comptroller and Auditor General of the National Audit Office. I asked if it would please investigate the FCA’s oversight of this terrible scandal. Fair do’s, the NAO did that, and it published its full report in March this year. It observed that in the summer of 2017: “The FCA had limited insight into…what was happening in the BSPS at the time of its restructure.” There were terrible things going on. Even more damning were the conclusions of the Public Accounts Committee.”
“I rise in support of new clause 10, and I am pleased to have worked alongside the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) on it, as fellow members of the Public Accounts Committee. Since 2017, I have worked with others supporting steelworker pensioners across Blaenau Gwent and the United Kingdom. Thousands of them fell victim to financial sharks. They were wrongly advised to move out of their defined benefit British Steel pension scheme. It took until last Monday, five years later, for the Financial Conduct Authority to announce a redress scheme. It was about time. The FCA righted those wrongs, but I think too late. Early on in the campaign, I remember meeting the then chief executive of the FCA, now the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, where I was met with a lacklustre response. Along with my hon.”
“We should support the motion as long as the long tail of covid costs continues. The covid contracts need to be cleared up, and the Department of Health must come clean.”
“In my experience, in recent months they have been trying to dodge questions on the continuing cost of PPE. Last month, I asked the Secretary of State for Health how much unused PPE had been donated, sold, recycled and incinerated since the start of the pandemic—no answer yet. I also asked when he planned to publish the forecast of the cost of resolving the ongoing contractual disputes we have heard a lot about today—again, no answer yet. There are disputed contracts worth £2.6 billion with 176 companies. That amount could buy us seven new hospitals. It is important that the Government pursue this money, so all power to their elbow. However, I think transparency on their processes could help this cause, because the more we all understand, the better we can hold the bad actors to account.”
“Reports suggest that it has accounted for its profits through different companies from those known to the Department, so it is impossible to see how much money it has made. That information is shrouded in secrecy due to our feeble accountancy laws, but the taxpayer deserves to know who is profiting from contracts awarded by the Government with public money for the public benefit. It is high time that this PPE treasure hunt came to an end. We need full, open accounting for covid-19 contracts. These companies should be made to publish full details of their income, profits, commissions, dividends and big boss bonuses. The Chancellor should then consider a windfall tax on their super-profits. The Government could also learn a lesson in transparency.”
“I was going to go on to some other data, but we just heard an update on that that still works out at, I think, about £128 million a year if we round it up over the year ahead, which is half the cost of a brand-spanking new hospital. That is a disgrace. We have heard about the modern-day pirates whose business accounts have been almost impossible to trace and track. Thanks to The Sunday Times , we know about a network of companies with connections to Conservative lobbyists, one of which is Sante Global, formerly Unispace Health. Private Eye deserves a medal for digging deeper: its “Profits of Doom” special highlighted how Unispace Global won PPE contracts worth nearly £700 million—Richard Brooks is a fantastic journalist.”
“I rise to support the motion on PPE, which has become a terrible tail of waste for our country. First, having purchased so much PPE, the taxpayer is now paying to store and, as I have discovered, burn a great deal of it. Secondly, a band of profiteers, some of whom took advantage of their political links, exploited our country’s desperation. Many of those opportunists used chicanery and secrecy to make eye-watering profits. Now, the UK Department of Health and Social Care is withholding information on the cost of staffing its contractual battles with some of those PPE suppliers. I will address the continuing cost of PPE storage. A Government response to questions I asked last month said that the Department currently holds 13.2 billion items of PPE and the cost of storing that is a staggering £770,000 a day.”
“I thank the Minister for giving way. He attributed comments to me that I did not make, and I just want to put that on the record. I do have a question for him: does he accept that excessive profits have been made on the back of some of these PPE contracts?”
“I am pleased for Cumbria, Mr Speaker, but just 10% of Blaenau Gwent has access to gigabit broadband, compared with a 72% UK average. The swift roll-out of Project Gigabit will be essential for levelling up across our local economy, so will the Minister please ensure that areas with the least coverage, such as Blaenau Gwent, are prioritised first?”
“I thank the Minister for giving way. I wonder whether he could talk a little more about why the report on the geographic spread of businesses would not be of value to our country. There was a very good National Audit Office report on the creation of the UK Infrastructure Bank published in June this year. One of its recommendations was that the bank should “further develop its understanding of where infrastructure needs are greatest so that it routinely informs investment decisions and prioritises them.” Surely such geographical reporting would help the bank with its work.”
“I welcome the Minister’s undertaking to come back with a different date for the laying of a report before Parliament. It is the reporting to and scrutiny of Parliament that is important in this instance, not least because, these days, recent Parliaments have rarely run to four years, although that used to be the average for a Parliament. I hope that the Government will look at a date that will allow each Parliament in the realm to consider the work of the bank. In the very good NAO report that was published in June, as one of its key findings, it said that “At the end of May 2022, the Bank had made five deals”. Can the Minister update us on how many deals had been made by the bank up until, say, October this year?”
“Page 3 of the explanatory memorandum—item 10, “Consultation outcome”—says that there was “no formal consultation”. It does, however, say that “A range of stakeholders have been consulted”, so could the Minister say what the Provosts Marshal said by way of response?”
“The Minister is being very generous with his time. Coming back to his earlier point about seeking consistency of outcomes, why has the Minister not adopted the proposal of the Government-commissioned Henriques review that the deputy Provost Marshal of the DSCU ought to be a civilian?”
“Is it true that the Home Secretary disagreed with the ideas of the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), on extending the seasonal agricultural worker scheme to help to provide important extra, temporary migrant labour for our farming sector?”
“On page 3 of the explanatory memorandum on assistance with voting, paragraph 10 refers to the consultation outcome’s 256 responses, which is fantastic. I think the most important outcome was that from local authority election teams, and we have very good election teams in Blaenau Gwent in south Wales, my home constituency. I just want to check that the proposals were consistent with the views of the local authority election teams. If they were not, what is the difference? I am interested in what their response was to the consultation.”
“The cold weather payment is a lifeline for those on low incomes, but the current £25 rate was set in 2008. Today, it should be worth £37. Will the Chancellor collaborate with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and look into updating the figure in the light of the energy crisis?”
“General Dynamics reports strong progress on the troubled Ajax programme, so can the Secretary of State confirm that a solution to the noise and vibration issues has now been found?”
“This is a sad saga of Government and police management failure. Understandably, there will likely be increased vetting after this important report, so by when will all the additional 20,000 police officers promised so long ago actually be in post?”
“Mr Speaker, may I associate myself with your remarks about the Pelosi family? I congratulate the right hon. Member on his appointment. The £25 cold weather payment rate has not been updated since 2008. In today’s money, it should be worth £37. Parts of Blaenau Gwent are more than 1,000 feet above sea level, and the constituency itself is one of the most deprived in the UK. Will the Secretary of State look again at the criteria for this scheme? Surely areas with bad weather, higher energy costs and lower incomes should get a fairer deal.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Cheadle on introducing this important Bill, and I join the Minister in recognising the fantastic success of auto-enrolment, which has changed saving across our country. But I hope the Minister can help me on two points. First, the hon. Member for Hexham has—for sure—done all the heavy lifting on introducing the pensions dashboard, but when does the Minister anticipate its proper introduction to the marketplace to support pensioners across the country? It is a great idea, but it has been in development for a long time. Secondly, I note that there is no impact assessment or consultation on the introduction of the Bill. I am sure that there are fair reasons for that, but have the FCA and the other regulators involved had any input on the development of the Bill?”
“I wish the Minister best of luck in her new role. I have been looking through the explanatory memorandum and two things have occurred to me. First, point 10, on page 3, under the heading “Consultation outcome”, says that there was no consultation for this proposal. However, it does say that there was engagement with a range of stakeholders, including the Judge Advocate General and the Military Court Service. Will the Minister please tell us their main feedback points? Secondly, there is a big emphasis on page 2 of the explanatory memorandum on the recruitment of lay members. That sounds great, but how will those lay members be recruited?”