Mr Clive Betts
MP for Sheffield South East · Labour · United Kingdom
“I wholeheartedly welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement, both its content and its tone. I would like to ask about his discussions with our colleagues and allies in other countries who are looking to implement similar sanctions.”
“I offer two congratulations: first, to my right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, the First Secretary, on her well-deserved promotion—I am sure she will do an excellent job. Secondly, I congratulate her and the Prime Minister for their real commitment to devolution, which I have wanted to see for an awfully long time.”
“I apologise for the fact that—as I have explained to you, Madam Deputy Speaker—I will have to leave straight after my question to chair Westminster Hall. I thank my right hon. Friend for doing this very challenging piece of work. I think that the theme of fairness, for the people who need benefits and for taxpayers, is right.”
“On the other hand, so many constituents with really serious conditions get turned down for PIP, and can get it only if they struggle through the appeal system, sometimes without any help at all. So the system is not fair to anyone at present.”
“When the previous Government let the contract, we were in a situation in which procurement could not properly take account of the past record of companies, and I understand that the Government have now changed that.”
“I will dive very deeply into the question, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Chair of the Committee sends his apologies for his absence; he is presently in a Committee meeting.”
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“The Minister will probably not stand at the Dispatch Box today and say, “We completely agree. We are going to get on with it,” but the Government should at least start thinking about it.”
“We are an outlier in Europe in how centralised our local government finance system is. That is another challenge. It partly comes from the great inequalities we have between different parts of the country, which are much greater than in most other European countries. I welcome the ability for councils to introduce a tourism tax, but that is a minute step towards more say for local councils about the money they can raise. It is a welcome but very small step. I congratulate the Minister on the reforms and improvements to the existing system. Those are welcome, and my city and my constituents welcome them. However, big challenges lie ahead in making more fundamental reform to the system and giving more powers back to local councils to determine what money they can raise.”
“The reform needed is so fundamental that the system would not be recognisable from what we have now. That is how we have to try to move forward. We were promised business rates reform, but what we have had so far is not reform, but some minor changes. Yes, we have had good changes to try to help pubs and leisure facilities, but it is not fundamental reform. We could look at what Denmark and Australia have done to reform their whole system of council finances based on land values. That is one alternative. Let us at least have a look at it. Let us at least accept the need for change, even if we cannot agree at this point on precisely what that change should be. In bringing about that change, I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that we should look at giving local authorities more power to determine their own levels of taxation.”
“Secondly, when I had my stem cell transplant for myeloma, my own stem cells were harvested and used, but many young people with complicated blood disorders need stem cells to be donated. So will the Minister work with the Anthony Nolan trust—I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on stem cell transplantation and advanced cellular therapies—to ensure that more young people donate their stem cells so that other young people can have a life to look forward to?”
“I really welcome this plan, and the efforts of my hon. Friend the Minister and right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in putting it together. I will just raise one credit and one request to go a bit further. First, when I had my cancer treatment eight years ago, I thought I knew my way around the NHS, but it is a completely confusing organisation for anyone involved in it. One thing that really helped me was having a specialist nurse appointed at the beginning. That specialist nurse got my chemotherapy ready on a Monday before I came down to London, and then on a Thursday when I came back. That sort of organisation and help is vital, so I really welcome that proposal.”
“Can the Minister give us an assurance that that procedure will now be simplified and cheapened?”
“First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on the magnificent job he has done with this legislation, as well as the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), who has pushed him and bothered him all the way down the corridors for months on end! It is now eight years since the previous Committee looked at this matter and recommended radical reform of leasehold. One of the challenges in my constituency—still—concerns individual householders who try to buy their freehold and find that the freeholders will not even respond to their requests, and then push them through complicated and expensive procedures before they can get their entitlements.”
“I welcome the changes that the Minister is introducing for pubs and music venues. Can he assure me that the changes for music venues will apply to Sheffield arena, which currently, under the proposal, is being treated like an Amazon warehouse? Will he also look at an issue I wrote to him about? Handsworth Junior Sporting Club, a small local voluntary sports club in my constituency, is faced with a 60% increase in business rates. Surely that cannot be right. It needs to be looked at again.”
“I am sure the Secretary of State will agree that it is not just about having the right policy, which I am sure this is; it is also about the right implementation. My constituents Mr and Mrs Henley-Smith had a heat pump installed under a previous Government scheme. The heat pump was so badly installed by Greener Living that the installer had to offer a back-up gas boiler to get their home hot enough. Greener Living went bust. Will the Secretary of State give an assurance that under his schemes any installations will be by competent companies, and that if the installation goes wrong the Government will stand behind people and ensure rectification work is done to a proper standard?”
“Can the Secretary of State now see the development of tram-trains generating growth, housing and jobs in Sheffield as a precursor to rolling them out across the country, which would benefit a lot more areas?”
“I thank the Secretary of State for the improvements announced to the Sheffield-Leeds line and for some of the improvements to the Sheffield-Manchester line, although I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) that we need a through route to Manchester airport as well. I particularly want to ask the Secretary of State about the tram-train project. She and the Mayor Oliver Coppard have committed to working on the business case for that project, and my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball) has been fighting for it as well. Germany has been running tram-trains for 40 years, and the one pilot scheme in this country, involving a service between Sheffield and Rotherham, has been a success.”
“Four Back Benchers want to speak, and I will have the chance to call all of them. We have 40 minutes before the Front-Bench speeches, so that is fairly easy to work out: there are 10 minutes each, if you want to take them.”
“Although this issue is clearly of importance to the farming industry, it is also of importance to small firms in the steel and engineering sector in my constituency. The owner of Special Quality Alloys, Benn Beardshaw, wrote to tell me that the firm had been in the family for many years, and had been passed on from one generation to another. He was really concerned that the measure as initially proposed could lead to a break-up of that important firm, which has won the Queen’s award for enterprise, or to it being sold off. Will the Minister confirm that this measure will equally help those sorts of small businesses, which are vital to the overall wellbeing of the steel and engineering sector in Sheffield?”
“The Minister mentioned the need for long-term changes to the whole way in which social care is funded. Would she at least begin a conversation across parties to try to get long-term agreement about how this should be done? It has failed over and over again through parties squabbling over the details. We need a long-term settlement. Can we at least start those conversations now?”
“I do not know whether my hon. Friend is as surprised as I am that the official Opposition could not even bear to mention the word “austerity” when they responded. Before we move on, there was a case of amnesia from the Lib Dems, who forget their role, under the coalition Government, in some of the worse cuts of all that local government experienced. I therefore welcome the Minister’s comments about deprivation. The poorest councils got hit hardest during austerity by the Conservatives. I thank her for putting tackling deprivation at the heart of this settlement. I have two challenges. The Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), reiterated what we said in the Select Committee in the last Parliament: council tax is regressive and has to be reformed.”
“I would like to follow up on the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders) about social media. This is really important. If a foreign Government are funding third parties to post false comments on social media in order to mislead people exercising their democratic rights, surely that must come within the terms of the Rycroft review. Could the Secretary of State confirm that that is up to Philip Rycroft and that he has the capacity to bring it within the terms of the review, given that particular issue?”
“He has laid out the golden rules for infrastructure development that will go alongside house building, but will he give the assurance that if a site in the local plan is on green belt, the planning authority has the right to turn down an application, if infrastructure will not be provided alongside the development?”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on his efforts to get the homes built that the country needs, particularly for young people, who face the prospect of never being able to afford a home of their own. I have two questions. First, does he think that where a site is earmarked in a local plan for development, the local planning authority should give permission for that development automatically? Of course, the details will have to be considered at the time, but there should be a presumption that such sites will be given planning permission when an application is made. Secondly, the draft local plan in Sheffield, as he knows, is mainly geared up to building on brownfield sites, but there are some proposals to build on greenfield sites to create the additional number of homes.”
“May I say to my right hon. Friend that in the terrible time that Sheffield Wednesday fans have been through in the last few months, not one of them has ever asked me what is happening with this report and review? They say to me, “How quickly can we get a regulator in place who will deal with owners like Chansiri who are ruining our club?” Does the Secretary of State agree that in the appointment of David Kogan, we have someone who is knowledgeable, tough, determined and independent of bad football owners and who will act on behalf of football fans? Is not the fundamental difference here between those of us on the Government Benches who support independent regulation, and those on the Opposition Benches who have given up on it and will simply kowtow to bad owners of football clubs?”
“I welcome the statement from my hon. Friend. It is fairly clear that the Israeli Government agreed to the peace deal only because they felt they had to, not because they necessarily wanted to. After all this time, we still have not got aid flowing into Gaza in the way we would all want to see. What further action can the Government take to put pressure on the Israeli Government to ensure that all the aid that is needed actually gets in, and gets in quickly?”
“In the end, however, it admitted that it could not deal with an owner who failed to pay the taxman five times, who did not pay players or staff at the club on five occasions, and when part of the ground was closed down because it was not safe. This is a man who waited in his office in Bangkok to sign cheques for a leaking roof in the training ground, or to give the manager the money to buy straps to put on the players’ socks. How can he run a football club like that? This is not a fit and proper person, but the league had no power at all to intervene.”
“Of course, there are two fundamental parts to the Act. The first part is the distribution of resources, the “State of the Game” report and the powers that the regulator will have. The second part is the fit and proper person test for owners. I will just say this to the shadow Minister: bad owners do not wait until the end of the season to destroy their clubs—they can do it at any time. He suggested that we should have postponed all this for a few months and hoped that everything would be alright in the meantime. I would just tell him to look at the mill we have been ground through with Sheffield Wednesday over the last few months. The EFL has been good; it has been constructive in speaking to MPs and supporters, and it has had meetings with the Supporters Trust to keep it updated.”
“I am astounded by the shadow Minister, or perhaps I am not—I have heard it all before from him. Let me make this clear; I chaired a meeting two weeks ago with the National League on its 3UP campaign. One thing that it wanted to talk about was the football pyramid, and how the “State of the Game” report would then determine the strength of the pyramid in future with the proper distribution of resources, which is a key role that the regulator will have. The National League actually welcomed a possible meeting with the regulator that the football group will have, and the National League will be there to influence the regulator as far as possible to ensure that the bottom of the pyramid, where it sits, is sustained going forward. I think the Act has the potential to strengthen those clubs, rather than weaken them.”
“I just ask that the administrator, the EFL and the regulator ensure that fan involvement and engagement are baked into the administration and running of Sheffield Wednesday football club and any other clubs that they may have involvement with.”
“We give awards to players for being good footballers; how about giving awards to people who are just good people and who have that loyalty and commitment to a club? Barry Bannan is there, along with Liam Palmer—great credit to them. Also, the office staff have worked without pay for some weeks—great credit to them as well. The spirit of this statutory instrument and the Act is about fan involvement. The Act came from the fan-led review—that was its essence. We must make sure that the administrator, the English Football League—which is currently the regulator—and the regulator that will take over, probably in December, bake into any agreement with a new owner the right of fans to be involved in their football club. That is the essence of what we are debating today. This instrument will put the basis of that in place.”
“They do not have to, but the Act means that in future they will have to. I give credit to the Supporters Trust, which has done a brilliant job. On Wednesday night last week, we had an almost complete boycott of a game. By Friday, when the club went into administration, there was a queue along the road to the club shop, and £500,000 was spent by supporters who wanted to keep the club, without Chansiri involved, afloat and alive. That shows the strength of supporters. I also give great credit to the players. Barry Bannan, the club captain, turned down £20,000 a week—probably not enormous sums of money for some—and is playing for Wednesday for £7,000 a week, for his love of the club.”
“Part 4 clearly sets out the new tests for owners and officers of football clubs, which are reasonable and proportionate. I draw hon. Members’ attention to an important one, which probably has not had a lot of attention. Section 51 talks about insolvency proceedings, which Sheffield Wednesday is now going through, and states that the administrator and regulator “must take reasonable steps to keep…fans informed about the progress of the proceedings.” That is sensible. Currently, they do not have to; an administrator does not have to liaise with fans at all— I am told by colleagues that that happened at Derby. The administrator and the regulator will have to keep fans informed during insolvency proceedings. The administrators at Hillsborough are doing a good job. They are talking to the Supporters Trust and liaising with it.”
“We have seen fans at Morecambe, Derby and Reading go through the mill on these issues in the past, where a regulator could have stepped in much earlier and helped fans through that process. I ask the shadow Minister: do I tell my fans at Sheffield Wednesday that a Tory Government would have let Wednesday go under? I am sorry, but that is entirely a possibility. I know there are not many Conservatives in Sheffield who have to worry about their seats in that regard, but nevertheless, that is entirely a possibility that could have happened. The regulator could have stepped in earlier, and been the backstop. The powers are very clearly set out in the Act—you will be pleased to know I am not going to go through all of them today, Ms Lewell.”
“In the end, we came very close to the club completely collapsing. Ultimately, it got so bad because of the strength of the fans’ boycott. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister will also have had a history of this, given his own connections with Hearts. The fans standing together in a boycott drove the source of income down such that the owner had to go through administration. That was a long, horrible process, and it has not ended yet. The prospect of the regulator being in the background was always there as a safety net for the fans. Ultimately, they knew that something could be done, even if it could not be done immediately. I think it is an incredibly good step forward not just for football generally but for fans who see their clubs in distress.”
“The problem with strengthening ownership tests is that, in the end, it is a members’ club that currently imposes them—it is the league. Owners do not want to come out strongly against other owners, as they worry that they will be the next ones to be caught. That is why we need an independent regulator to do tests of not just new owners but existing owners, which is a key part of what the Bill does. Yes, owners can pass the initial test, and they can even lie about their circumstances. They can claim they have money, or they might even have had money when they began. The owner of Sheffield Wednesday, Chansiri, did have money, but he ran out of money to the point that the club almost collapsed. If we had a regulator in place, we could have ended this farce at Hillsborough quite a long time before.”
“With regard to David Kogan, the regulator, he has done an outstanding job so far. If Opposition Front Benchers are going to criticise him, I wish they would criticise what he has done—within a few weeks, a 100-page consultation document on how he will operate for the benefit of football fans. It would be helpful if the Opposition could address the issues to do with how the regulator is operating, rather than some scaremongering talk about some donation many years ago, which has no relevance at all.”
“We start this afternoon’s sitting with a Select Committee statement. Paulette Hamilton will speak on the publication of the third report of the Health and Social Care Committee, “Black Maternal Health”, for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions can be taken. At the conclusion of Paulette’s statement, I will ask Members who want to put questions on the subject to do so, and then call on Paulette to respond to each of those questions in turn. Questions and responses should be brief, please, as we have only 10 minutes, and that will help everyone to get in.”
“Order. I am sorry, but we need to move on to the questions. Time is very short, so can we please have questions, rather than reviews of the report?”
“Order. That is the end of that session. I apologise to the Minister: many Back Benchers wanted to speak and I thought it was right to allow them to. We will move on to the next debate now.”
“I thank all Members for their co-operation in keeping to time. We will now move on to the Front Benchers, who I hope will leave a couple of minutes at the end for the mover of the motion to wind up the debate.”
“On the Public Accounts Committee we regularly hear examples of Government IT systems that are out of date, inefficient and open to fraud and hacking. That is the reality of it. When looking at other countries such as Estonia and Denmark, will the Secretary of State also look at how they have completely reformed and recreated modern, comprehensive IT systems where individuals have easy access? In Estonia, as I understand it, an individual has the right to know which parts of Government have looked in their IT systems at them.”
“I am pleased to see the Minister back at the Dispatch Box, although I am not sure whether he is equally pleased to come back to the Chamber once again to answer questions about the illegal actions of the Israeli Government. We have a situation in which one of our allies has unlawfully attacked another of our allies. Given that we are rightly standing with the Qataris, is it not time we recognised that because of their actions in Doha and their continuous starvation and murder of innocent civilians in Gaza, this right-wing Israeli Government and this extreme right-wing Israeli Prime Minister are no longer allies of ours?”
“Friend engage with our colleagues in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to try to put pressure on President Trump to say we should recognise that the one thing that can be done to get President Putin to back off and properly look at a ceasefire is further sanctions from the US, to marry those put on by ourselves and our European colleagues?”
“Following on from the question by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), the reality is that Putin has become emboldened since he met President Trump. No longer is there pressure for an immediate ceasefire, only that we get to a long-term, distant peace arrangement that, as we all know, will never happen. The threat of further sanctions from the US, which Putin was really frightened about, has now apparently been taken off the table. When President Trump comes over here, will my hon.”
“Six Members are indicating that they want to speak. We have about 45 minutes, so that means a maximum seven minutes for each speech from Back Benchers. I call Wera Hobhouse.”
“I thank all hon. Members for their co-operation. I said to one hon. Member, quite rightly, that if you come late to the debate, you do not really expect to get called. Equally, if hon. Members speak in the debate, I expect them to stay and listen to other Members’ contributions. I shall be making that point to at least one hon. Member at the end of the debate. We shall move on to the Front Benchers. You can probably each have 12 minutes or so, but please make sure a bit of time is allowed at the end for the mover of the debate to wind up.”
“I have had a note from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) explaining why he had to leave the debate. I fully accept his explanation and apology, and thank him for giving it to me.”
“Before I call Freddie van Mierlo to move the motion, I remind other hon. Members that they can speak in this debate only if they have the prior permission of the mover and the Minister, and they have told the Chair. As no one has told the Chair, I presume no one else wants to speak. Of course, interventions are possible.”
“First, I thank the Minister for her action—after 14 years of inaction by the Conservative party, it is a welcome change. Sheffield is synonymous with steel, particularly special steels, after Harry Brearley invented stainless steel in the city over 100 years ago. The Minister mentioned public procurement, and consideration being given—I think those were the words she used—to the purchase of British steel. May I ask her to be clearer about what “consideration” means? I hope that it means looking not simply at the narrow issue of costs for a product, but at the wider benefits of purchasing UK steel—benefits to the steel and engineering sectors, as well as to the broader economy. Will she assure us that when public procurement takes place, those wider considerations will come into effect?”
“I very much welcome the commitment to recognising the Palestinian state. Some of us have fought for that for many years. I also welcome the rest of the Foreign Secretary’s statement, in so far as it goes. He is right to condemn what the Israelis are doing in Gaza with their policy of starvation, and he is right to recognise the Israeli attempts to split the west bank in a way that will prevent a Palestinian state from being created, but in his heart of hearts he knows that the Israelis will carry on regardless of his condemnation. Will he now give serious thought to the “what if”? What further action are the Government prepared to take to hold the Israelis to account and to get them to recognise the force of international arguments against them on both those points?”
“Would the shadow Minister like to join me in thanking the shadow Secretary of State, his right hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Stuart Andrew), for first introducing legislation to this House that promoted an independent football regulator? [ Interruption. ]”
“I do not whether the shadow Minister can get some help from his right hon. Friend the Member for Daventry, who is sitting next to him on the Front Bench. I wonder whether, when the right hon. Gentleman was in the Government, he received any correspondence from UEFA and FIFA. Given the openness that the shadow Minister is calling for, will he now publish any correspondence received by the last Government?”
“Does the Minister think that the regulator would take on board the views of fans as part of the process of looking at these matters and having to give approval in the normal way?”
“In improving the backstop in terms of scope and process during the Bill’s passage, they have listened and acted, which is welcome indeed.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—not for the time limit but for calling me. The Bill is crucial because football has failed to regulate itself. It is key to ensuring the sustainability of our great game. The first aspect of it that I really commend is the move to give the regulator powers to ensure a fairer redistribution of money throughout the football pyramid—it is clearly totally unfair that money is concentrated in a handful of clubs at the top while other clubs struggle at the bottom—and to remove the enormous cliff edge between the premier league and the championship. I thank the Secretary of State and the Sport Minister for listening to the concerns raised about the powers of the regulator with regard to the backstop.”