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.”
The complete record
Every one of 600 lines we hold for Nick Smith, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 6 of 12.
“A fortnight ago, I raised the Swansea bay tidal lagoon at Treasury questions. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury kindly offered me a meeting to discuss it. He was very positive, but then, unfortunately, he lost his job. The potential of the barrage for cheap renewable energy could really kickstart our green economy in south Wales. Will the Minister reopen the business case on this important project?”
“The Prime Minister’s chief of staff is in hot water after lobbying on behalf of a Libyan warlord and big tobacco. It turns out that he has also lobbied for personal protective equipment giants Sante Global. Is it wise to have a lobbyist at the centre of Government?”
“Is it true that the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) first found out that he was sacked on Twitter, rather than being told to his face?”
“May I press the Chancellor? The defined benefit pensions market has been in turmoil. Schemes have nearly folded, and the Bank of England has spent £20 billion to steady the market. How will he grip that better so that pensioners can have confidence in their schemes?”
“I, too, am really concerned about the oversight of our pensions industry. When was the last stress test to see whether these funds had sufficient liquidity to cope with market turbulence, and can the Minister explain in simple terms the regulation of pension funds right now? Our country needs pension stability, not ongoing, home-grown financial crises.”
“I have just been going through the explanatory memorandum. On page 4 it states: “No consultation has been carried out on this instrument”, but it goes on to say that there was an earlier consultation, as regards the memoranda to the amended regulations. Can the Minister tell us how wide that consultation was and what the response was?”
“In 2017, former Conservative energy Minister Charles Hendry conducted a review of the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon. He gave it the thumbs up, but since then successive Governments have not pursued it. Given the energy crisis we are in, will the Minister consider reopening the business case? It could be a fantastic source of green energy for our country.”
“The Chancellor has sacked his permanent secretary and muzzled the Office for Budget Responsibility, and is man-marking the Governor of the Bank of England. The Chancellor’s free-wheeling ideology is crushing dissent. Will the Governor of the Bank of England still be in his job by Christmas?”
“Parts of Blaenau Gwent are 1,200 feet above sea level and our winters can be bitter. Will there be any extra help for families facing higher bills in constituencies with much colder weather than most, and will the Government also look again at the cold weather payment criteria as part of their upcoming review?”
“The Prime Minister’s chief of staff has been interviewed by the FBI in connection with electoral bribery in Puerto Rico. May we have a Government statement on that to consider whether any UK laws may have been broken, whether the FBI interview has affected the chief of staff’s security status, and whether the Prime Minister was informed of the FBI interview before her chief of staff’s appointment was confirmed?”
“Although it was very carefully done, there was a nod to the political genius who established yet another great institution of our country. The Prince wore a blue cornflower in his buttonhole—it was a classy look. He clearly knew of our great valleys and their history. I have no doubt that he will continue the legacy of his beloved mother, the late Queen. Finally, I warmly welcome the naming of the new Prince and Princess of Wales. Though I mourn our longest reigning monarch, I now say, God save the King.”
“Her late Majesty knew that meeting our community leaders, hearing our choirs, collecting flowers from children—being with us—mattered. She showered good will on the people of Blaenau Gwent as the water rained down on all of us. In the days that followed, the Queen also visited Aberfan. She was due to open a new school in the village that had been struck by grief just 46 years earlier. On reflection, I now realise that she was the constant. She was there when tragedy struck, standing alongside us when our nation mourned, but she was also there to usher in the new beginnings. As I look to the future and think of His Majesty King Charles III, I recall his visit, as Prince of Wales, to Ysbyty Aneurin Bevan, the hospital named after my predecessor who established our national health service.”
“I mourn the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and on behalf of my constituents, I offer my heartfelt condolences to the royal family. When I heard the sad news, my first thought was that we, the British people, had lost our pre-eminent public servant. Her late Majesty once said: “I do not give you laws or administer justice, but I can do something else. I can give you my heart and devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.” Queen Elizabeth dedicated her life to the greater good, and wove together the ties that bind us. In 2012 the Queen visited Ebbw Vale. It was one of those days in our valleys when the skies empty gallons, but still she saw through the programme.”
“I wonder whether the Minister would help me. The explanatory notes state that the “process requires data matching activities by DWP which can only take place once the instrument is in force and takes several weeks before suppliers can start to provide the rebates.” This could be a complex process, so has he got an estimate for when the rebates will be applied, please?”
“This is not good enough; the country deserves better. The Government’s energy plan is said to involve £100 billion-plus of expenditure. That will involve very complex arrangements. A general debate is good, but when will we see the economic event that the Government have been promising for a while? The country really needs to get a grip of the Government’s energy plans now.”
“Does the right hon. Gentleman think that the Bill sufficiently challenges the Financial Conduct Authority to speak up and support consumers?”
“Financial sharks that rip off working people need to be netted. The FCA needs to look across our country as well as at the City of London. Therefore, I ask the Minister to make doubly sure that the Bill has the strongest possible provisions for consumers and that the regulatory culture at the FCA is fit for purpose—something much more like the Securities and Exchange Commission than the limp enforcement regime at the FCA now. Experience shows that the FCA consumer panel needs the firepower to challenge the culture at the FCA. Will the Minister please look again at that topic? A strong consumer voice must be at the heart of all our financial regulators; it needs to be a fundamental guiding principle.”
“It is good that the Treasury will have increasing powers to direct the FCA to make, review and enforce new rules as and when the need arises—the Treasury needs to jump in where necessary—but we need a fit-for-purpose FCA that robustly defends its consumers at the outset. It needs to hold bad actors to account from the get-go. Therefore, I believe that consumer protection should be better embedded in chapter 3 of the Bill as a key accountability of the regulator. That is why I hope to see amendments made to mandate a much sharper focus on consumer protection with statutory panels that centre on the consumer. In Committee, there should also be a review of the FCA’s enforcement powers, which may need boosting. Confidence in the regulator to have the best rulebook, enforcement and a culture that stands behind the consumer is key.”
“This has meant that many BSPS members have suffered years of nagging worry and losses to their pension pots, and had their plans for retirement ruined. The National Audit Office discovered that, in the claims made to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, the average individual loss stands at an eye-watering £82,600. Due to the FCA’s failures, the final bill for the coming redress scheme will likely be in the hundreds of millions of pounds. Despite having the powers to respond to the thieving and poor adviser behaviour, the FCA has issued just one fine in relation to the BSPS case. Although I welcome the FCA’s efforts to improve its consumer-facing work in recent months, I am not convinced that the proposed framework will ensure that consumers are properly protected.”
“Despite being duty-bound to ensure that consumers were given quality financial advice, the FCA displayed poor oversight of the adviser marketplace. It consistently failed to act, even though it was aware of the risks to pensioners transferring out of a defined-benefit scheme. It failed to regulate a marketplace rigged against the steelworkers. A recent Public Accounts Committee report found that the FCA failed to protect BSPS members from unscrupulous financial advisers who were financially incentivised to provide unsuitable advice, and that the regulator was “behind the curve” in its response. As a result, after much prodding, the FCA itself found that a staggering 47% of transfer recommendations were unsuitable.”
“I am glad to see the introduction of the Bill. Its provisions for securing access to cash, which I think should be free, will be welcomed in Blaenau Gwent. I strongly endorse the focus in chapter 3 on improving the accountability of financial regulators. Which? magazine has described this as a “once in a generation opportunity to strengthen the UK’s financial services regulatory regime”—quite the mouthful—but much more still needs to be done. Unfortunately, I have lost confidence in the main regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority. Its oversight of the British Steel pension scheme scandal was plain hopeless. I saw the stress and grief of steelworker pensioner constituents who had been ripped off, and I have seen in my own experience as a member of the Public Accounts Committee just how useless the FCA can be.”
“President Putin said in 2004 that there is “no such thing as a former KGB man”. Was the then Foreign Secretary Johnson aware of that when he met the KGB’s Alexander Lebedev without officials or security in 2018, which only became clear last week? Can we please have a statement on that, because it is a high security risk for our country?”
“I have been looking at the explanatory memorandum. On page 7, in paragraph 10.2, it states that Her Majesty’s Treasury ran a public consultation on one of the amendments to the Banking Act 2009 relating to these changes. Can the Minister say how many people responded, and what the results of the consultation were?”
“I also support it because, although we need occasional reviews and challenge for experts, most of all we should provide the way forward through this. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), I think we need full transparency on cost. We need to go into this with our eyes open, but see it as an investment in our country’s history and in this great place. Most of all, I want to crack on, as we have delayed progress for far too long.”
“I will be quick, Madam Deputy Speaker. My contribution tonight is born of seven years of frustration at making so little progress with this project. In 2018, I voted for the decant, as I thought it was the simplest thing to do. I also thought we would go to Richmond House, because that was the safest place for us to stay in and it was close to the Departments of State in Whitehall. I really thought it was very straightforward and I hoped we would make good progress. Tonight, I support amendments (a) and (b). I support amendment (a) not because I think in policy the Government have stopped progress on this, but because Ministers have stymied progress on this important project. I support amendment (b) because we need new machinery and new energy to take this forward.”
“9. What assessment she has made of the impact of the rate of the delivery of the rollout of gigabit broadband on (a) rural and (b) urban communities.”
“Rolling out gigabit broadband requires real leadership. The Prime Minister has brought his office into disrepute, so will the Deputy Prime Minister be his stand-by this summer?”
“The Prime Minister has brought his office into disrepute. Our country should not have to put up with it any longer. Will the Prime Minister be leaving No. 10 this weekend?”
“Why did it take until yesterday for the Prime Minister to admit that he had met a KGB agent in secret? Will there be a published report on this matter?”
“I thank the Minister for her statement: it is great that Sweden and Finland will be joining NATO. However, will her Government halt their cuts to our Army? We now have the smallest British Army for 300 years. We need to increase the size of our armed forces, not make the cut of 10,000 troops that the Government are still pushing through.”
“The school holidays in Wales and England start on 22 July. There are nearly 30 million visits abroad by air in quarter 3, which includes those school holidays. To help families get away, will the Passport Office backlog be cleared by 22 July?”
“Could you give some advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, on whether there is a difficulty with sightlines to this corner of the Chamber, as the Minister seems unable to see requests to give way from Labour Members?”
“Yes, more staff have been hired and more applications are being processed, but still the applications pour in and the delays continue. Families are having to resort to fast-track applications just to get their passports back in time, but at double the cost. We must have a realistic action plan to get the service back to normal by the middle of July, ahead of the summer holidays. I think the Passport Office needs to tag-team with the National Audit Office to better understand the problem. It must improve its process management and we must have much, much better reporting to Parliament. We are all afraid that the problem will get even worse as the summer holidays approach. Ministers must grip this now, before family holiday plans are turned to sand.”
“One case is a seven-year-old constituent who has a family holiday to Australia next week. Their application was submitted on 16 March. It took six weeks for the Passport Office to request information, which was sent back straight away, and tomorrow marks 13 weeks since they first applied. The family needs the passport in order to apply for a visa, so these delays are risking their family holiday. This is being made worse by the clunky system that the Passport Office is still using. An upgrade was planned three years ago, but it still has not happened. A new digital system would reduce processing time and cost less, so this needs to be done urgently. In the Minister’s closing remarks, can he please tell us when this will happen?”
“The Government are letting down thousands of families across our country. The Passport Office is in chaos because record applications are not being processed in good time. The Home Office was warned about this last year but has failed to take sufficient action. Indeed, its own key indicators last autumn showed that a storm was brewing. I have been frustrated by Ministers ducking and diving and not admitting the scale of the problem. I have submitted a dozen parliamentary written questions about this, but I have had poor responses on the size of the backlog, on the metrics that are being used and on when the service will return to normal. The only figure available was a leak to the press suggesting a 500,000 backlog. This problem is causing havoc to people’s plans. My office is hearing from worried constituents every day.”
“I agree with the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) on NHS reorganisations. I once met a very senior and very able NHS manager who said they had been through 14 restructures of the NHS and they quite liked number five. How will this review better integrate ambulance services with their local hospitals to improve performance standards for local patients?”
“The Government’s incompetence is worrying for families who are afraid that the bedlam will ruin their summer holidays. How can I get these points on the record and get the Government to up their game and help families across our country?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will remember that I recently challenged the relevant Minister with an urgent question about the poor performance of the Passport Office. A constituent who applied for a passport in February is due to travel next week, so yesterday, after queuing up at Portcullis House, I found out that their extra paperwork has been stuck in the post room at Peterborough for two weeks and not taken forward. In recent weeks, I have tabled 10 or so written parliamentary questions seeking clarification on the size of the Passport Office backlog, the extra income received by the Department after constituents had to apply for fast-track applications, and how soon the current 10-week turnaround for applications can be brought back down to the normal three weeks. My reasonable questions are being dodged.”
“The Prime Minister’s credibility is like a tyre with a slow puncture. He reinflates it occasionally, but is it not the truth that his party needs a new front wheel?”
“The Government are at sixes and sevens on how to respond to the cost of living crisis. No. 10 is saying that Labour’s windfall tax idea is ideologically unconservative, although, of course, Margaret Thatcher had one. Will the Secretary of State go back to the Chancellor and demand a windfall tax to support families across our country?”
“After years of covid, families finally want to get away this spring and summer. Instead, they face losing thousands of pounds if they cannot keep their holiday after the grief of chasing their passport. The Government need to do much, much better than this.”
“It was obvious that, when restrictions ended, people would need passports to get away. The Prime Minister blames a mañana culture at the Passport Office. We need a strategy that improves performance and helps families now, not those flippant comments. During a cost of living crisis, telling people to spend an extra £100 per person to fast-track their application rubs salt into their wounds. Yesterday, the Home Secretary told us of record passport delivery, which is good, but we need the facts today. How big is the actual backlog? By when will the Passport Office’s too-long 10-week timeframe be down to the normal three weeks? Deliveries are also delayed and other companies are having to help TNT. Its £77 million contract cannot be value for money, so will the Government be renewing that contract in July?”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. I thank the staff working on the passport backlog, but many people across our country will not be satisfied with the Minister’s response today. A constituent told me yesterday: “It’s terrible. We’re due to fly out on Sunday but are still unable to get our youngest son’s passport. Every time I phone I get passed to a different department, then hold, then the phone line goes dead.” Another told me: “I’ve called 40 times in the past week, they cut me off every time. I don’t know what to do and am breaking down at this point.” The facts are that there are long queues outside passport offices; that hours and hours are being spent on phone lines; and that families are afraid of holidays getting cancelled. This situation was avoidable.”
“The Home Secretary talked about passports. Constituents are telling me that the long delays at the Passport Office could both badly affect the travel industry and ruin family holidays. We need action now. Will she ensure the backlog is dealt with in the coming weeks?”
“Last year, Ministers said they would “reset the dial on women’s health”, but we still have no date for the hormone replacement therapy prescription changes in England. May we have a statement on HRT changes, to show that the Government are taking women’s health seriously?”
“Q9. Every week, examples emerge of Government waste during covid, and last year the former Health Secretary told me that there had been no profiteering and no cronyism. Does the Prime Minister still agree with him?”
“I welcome the Financial Conduct Authority’s redress scheme proposed this morning. It goes a fair way towards putting things right for the thousands of British Steel workers who were ripped off by pension sharks in 2017. The average loss was £60,000. However, can we have a Government statement from the Treasury on why it has taken the FCA five years to grip this scandal properly?”
“The Minister was unable to answer my question about the average age of the women affected by the draft regulations. Will she go back to the Department to get an assessment of the question and please write to the Committee?”
“I thank the Minister for giving way again. She is being generous with her time and her efforts, but she did not answer the question of my colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham: will the Government write to the women affected by this issue? She mentioned that it had been on the Government website, but given that WASPI women and others have complained that they were not properly informed of changes to their pensions and other financial arrangements of the Government through time, will she assure us categorically that she will write to those affected, please?”
“The P&O pension pot has a shortfall of £147 million. P&O’s parent company, DP World, has previously sponsored a golf tournament to the tune of £150 million. Does the Minister agree that P&O’s parent company should step in and pay up so that workers’ pensions are secure for the future? Will he add that to his package that needs sorting out?”