Mr Toby Perkins
MP for Chesterfield · Labour · United Kingdom
“The hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller) is absolutely right to say that what is behind this is the deep unpopularity of President Milei; it is not anything actually that the UK has done.”
“In Chesterfield, there will be unmitigated despair at the statement we have heard today from my right hon. Friend. For the authorities for which she is doing a review—the 14 that thought they had got their decision in July—could she clarify the basis of that review?”
“It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Member for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay) on securing this debate.”
“The report spells out the link between degradation overseas and the impact here. The assessment lays out the consequences: food insecurity, economic insecurity, increased migration and refugees, increased interstate competition, conflict and geopolitical instability, all of which will threaten us here at home.”
“The Government are right to take their time and make sure that they get this right—we saw what happened when the previous Government did not do the work that was needed. This is a delicately balanced decision.”
“Thirdly, will the Minister consider bringing forward the fourth national adaptation programme? NAP3, published by the previous Government in 2023, was deemed ineffective by the Climate Change Committee. NAP4 is not due until 2028, but can we afford to wait two more years before we have an adequate plan?”
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“Even if it is true that the institute does not have the power to remove him, a sensible arbitrator would say, “Given that an independent body says that I have a conflict of interest, it surely makes sense for me to stand down and appoint a truly independent arbitrator.” The question of the extent to which the Pubs Code Adjudicator is both an adjudicator and an arbitrator is significant, because arbitrations happen in private and adjudications happen in public. What we have seen from the Pubs Code Adjudicator so far is that he is much more of an arbitrator than an adjudicator. Might the Government consider separating those roles?”
“In response to that, a spokesperson on behalf of the Pubs Code Adjudicator said that because his responsibilities were established by an Act of Parliament, the PCA did “not accept that the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators has any jurisdiction to appoint or remove an individual from the role of arbitrator in a pubs code arbitration.” That is an important matter of law for the Government, and also a matter of direction. I believe that as a matter of law, the PCA should have listened to the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.”
“Mr Newby continues to hold shares and to be owed money by Fleurets, which has many leading pub companies as its customers. Whatever the questions about his history, it is absolutely wrong that he did not divest himself of that interest when he took on this role. We are talking about a relatively small sum—although significant for an individual —so given the importance of the industry and the legislation, it would have been far better for him to have divested himself of that. The point about the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators ruling against the PCA’s arbitrating on four different cases is significant. The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators’ spokesman said that when a challenge was upheld, an arbitrator’s appointment in that dispute is “immediately terminated”, and they should not be involved in that case again.”
“They are often waiting for a new assessment and under the impression that they are still part of a negotiation by the time that they realise that they have missed out on their opportunity to take advantage of it. My hon. Friend referred to the conflict of interest that many people feel Mr Newby had when he took on this role. There are two important elements of that for tenants’ confidence in the process. We should be clear that many tenants would like the opportunity to take up their right, but have lost confidence in the process. They believe that if they try to take up that right, they will only take on additional cost, so they are not taking advantage of this. I am sure that that disturbs all hon. Members who wanted the legislation to be introduced. There is a financial conflict.”
“That delay is being put in there, but if they subsequently go free-of-tie or get an arbitration or adjudication award in their favour, there is no opportunity to backdate that to the start of their five years—all the more reason why the principle should be that the adjudicator carries out their role in the most timely fashion possible. Any tenant who manages to get an independent assessment and decides to take that up does not get that rent backdated. The code should be amended so that rent is backdated to the point of application. I ask the adjudicator to adjudicate on that and the Minister to clarify that in his remarks. For many tenants, there is a narrow window in which they can take up the right to get an independent assessment. At the end of their contract, they have to let their pub company know.”
“If we want to deliver the opportunity—the right—for the tenant to assess an independent market rent and decide whether they want to have a landlord-tenant relationship, or whether they want to receive all the services from a pub company, it is important that the delays are not inordinate and that false additional charges are not put in to prevent them from being able to take up that right. That is one of the strategies that seem to be being used very deliberately. Most tenants have a five-year contract period. If they come to the end of a contract and attempt to get a free-of-tie rent assessment, the clock is ticking on their next five-year contract.”
“I will come back to that point. Perverse and bizarre as it may sound, the introduction of the pubs code was simultaneously late to arrive and rushed. It had a short period of implementation and took a long time after the legislation was passed to be delivered. As a result, sufficient preparation was not done by Government, or by some companies, to get ready for its introduction. The appointment of the Pubs Code Adjudicator was surrounded by controversy. My hon. Friend referenced the inordinate delays and some of the methods used to prevent landlords fulfilling their rights to go market rent only. It is important to remember that many tenants are in a perilous financial position when they seek to go free-of-tie. They are not in a position where inordinate delays, very substantial outlays of cash or huge legal costs are attainable.”
“I thank the Minister. If that was not press released, he has just released it. I congratulate him on that important role. He may well know the history, but others may not. One of the founding principles of the pubs code’s introduction, as laid out by the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) when he was Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, was that there should be a rebalancing of the level of reward between pub companies and tenants. The Government’s intention was specifically that tenants should be better off as a result of the pubs code’s introduction. My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West referred to two key principles: that the market rent only option should be on a fair and reasonable basis, and that tenants who were tied should not be worse off than those who were free-of-tie.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for saying that. I wrote down the same point in my speech but failed to read it out, so I am grateful that he took the opportunity. He is right to say that Greg Mulholland was a principal actor in getting the measure into the draft.”
“Obviously, we have introduced the code of practice—the hon. Gentleman has heard about some of the issues with its implementation, which hopefully Scotland can learn from. He will be aware that in the 2010 to 2015 Parliament, Scottish National party MPs voted for that code, because even though it was England-only legislation, they hoped that a similar provision might be introduced in Scotland. Will the SNP support the private Member’s Bill when it reaches the Scottish Parliament?”
“T8. I find the level of rough sleeping in Chesterfield and across the country deeply humiliating as an MP, and it infuriates and disgusts my constituents. When Ministers walk past people living in sleeping bags, do they believe that it is the halving of councils’ Supporting People budget or the £5 billion cut to housing benefit that is most responsible for this national scar on our society?”
“20. One trend that alarms me is the false advertising of consumer credit rates. Despite having a perfect credit rating, according to Experian, I was told that M&S Bank would not give me the advertised rate that was supposedly being offered to 51% of its customers. What is the Minister doing to ensure that the Financial Conduct Authority is robust in ensuring that advertised rates are made available to the majority of consumers?”
“The Secretary of State has referred at least twice to the manifesto commitments on numbers that he and all his colleagues were elected on. He has been slightly vague about this, so will he be absolutely specific that it is the Government’s policy, under the manifesto he stood on in 2017, that the British Army will not go below 82,000?”
“It is not new news that Carillion had financial difficulties, and the Minister himself has referred to the Government having taken a particular interest in the performance of Carillion in the period since July 2017. Why did the Government leave the position of the Crown representative to Carillion vacant from August to November when there was such concern about the performance and financial health of Carillion?”
“The Government’s welcome review of fixed-odds betting terminals will enable them to change the stakes and many other aspects of FOBT policy without the need for primary legislation. That is welcome, as we do not want the changes to be delayed any further, but it will leave a democratic deficit. Will the Government allow a debate in Government time on the issues relating to FOBTs so that we can ensure that this crucial issue is properly debated?”
“I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. With regard to many of the commitments that were made in SDSR 2015, the money that would be needed to deliver on all those does not match up with what has been allocated to defence in the Budget statements. We are already being promised a lot of commitments that do not bear any relation to the amount of money that is currently allocated to defence in the Budget.”
“I have also looked at the statistics mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, and he is absolutely right about the creative accounting. Even taking that into account, it seems impossible to reach the conclusion that we have ever spent as little as we currently spend on defence in comparison with our GDP.”
“The Minister has really diminished himself over the course of the past 45 minutes, and Toby Young is really not worth ruining his own career for. Mr Young is someone who has contempt for women, contempt for disabled people, and contempt for people from deprived communities who have the effrontery to try to get into Oxford. Will the Minister do the decent thing and disown Mr Young, and see his own reputation much enhanced for doing so?”
“It is not surprising that the public were surprised. We may have accepted that much of what was promised during the referendum might fall apart subsequently, but even after the event the Government were telling us a very different tale. My hon. Friend will remember being with me on the International Trade Committee when the Secretary of State came along and said, “I don’t expect us to pay anything to leave.” My constituents heard that said not just during the referendum, when they might expect to hear things that were somewhat fanciful, but many months later. The Government were saying, “We won’t be paying anything to leave.” What we are hearing now is very different.”
“I am worried that my hon. Friend is going to move on from the important point that he has just raised about the impact assessments. There is a serious question about the competence of the Government if they have gone ahead with this without producing those assessments. There is a more important question, however. We as Members of Parliament were told that there were 58 documents that went into excruciating detail, but it now appears that that was not true. Amid all the talk about what happened outside this place, we must not forget the central point that the Secretary of State stood at the Dispatch Box and told us that those documents existed and that the Prime Minister had looked at a summary of them. He is now saying that those documents do not exist, so what he said was not true.”
“Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the past 35 minutes the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU has written to the Select Committee to say that the reports being provided are not complete and do not actually contain anything that might be commercially sensitive, thus adding very strongly to the point she is making? The Government are taking on the most significant economic challenge the country has faced since the second world war without a modicum of the basic detail they need to take on the task. Does it not shame the Government and Parliament that we are facing this kind of catastrophe without any serious information?”
“They are out of ideas, more interested in their own survival than the national interest, and unable to grasp the size of the moment that a combination of the tides of history and their own ineptitude has brought upon us all. When we needed investment and innovation, we got obfuscation and confusion. When we needed decisive action to rescue universal credit, we got a partial tidy-up of failures that never should have happened. There was nothing on social care and nothing on the NHS. The Budget is a catastrophe for our schools and the deficit will now last till the end of never. This was a failed Budget from a failing Government who really have run out of ideas. It is time for them to step aside for a party that has not.”
“We could have had that at a time when apprenticeship starts are collapsing. The Budget has failed the test of the moment. There was also a failure to recognise the need to make universal credit work for people who are not close to work. I welcome some of the measures that have been taken to alleviate organisational failures, but universal credit does not work for the self-employed and it is positively cruel for the disabled. In questions last week, I heard the protestations of the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), who recognises that his legacy is being tarnished. The actions on housing and homelessness were also utterly inadequate. The tragedy of this Budget is the tragedy of this Government.”
“In 2010, they told us that it would be gone by 2015. By 2014, it was going to be gone by 2018. Now we are told that it might be gone by 2025. I am willing to bet my house that, by 2025, this country will still have a deficit. The Tories have no credibility when talking about the deficit. Now we have a Budget that fails to address any of the key questions that might see our economy moving in a more positive direction. There was nothing in the Budget about social care, the local government crisis, and the inadequate investment in the NHS. Schools in deprived areas are facing a real funding crisis. This Budget could have championed a real growth programme, with infrastructure investment of the sort that we will need to make Britain a more attractive place in which to invest in future.”
“They are now making ludicrous claims, for example, that we could not nationalise the trains if we stayed in the EU. Such claims are utterly discredited and suggest that they have nothing left to say about how to make Brexit work. I was elected in May 2010 on a programme that promised to halve the deficit by 2015 and to eradicate it by 2020. That plan was ridiculed by the Tories as inadequate—they said that it would consign our children to a lifetime of paying down debt. That now seems wildly optimistic compared with the performance of this Government. This evening, we heard the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) talking about debt as though he was not a member of a party that has increased our debt by half a trillion pounds since 2010. The Government have no credibility on the deficit or on debt.”
“This Budget was a huge wasted opportunity as well as an acknowledgement of failure. Those of us who listened to the Foreign Secretary’s speech today were staggered that he spent longer talking about penguins and plastic bags than he did acknowledging Brexit, the most serious threat to our economy. I was one of those MPs who campaigned for remain but found that their constituents voted leave. I am willing to go out there and say to my constituents that I will support their vote, but we need to have a sense from the Government that there is a plan and a basic competence in the negotiations that they are carrying out on Britain’s behalf. The Government need to seize the moment—as huge as it is—and show us that they are on top of the opportunities that exist.”
“The most significant part of the statement is that we must remember universal credit is aimed at supporting people who are out of work to move into work. That makes perfect sense if universal credit was just replacing JSA, but, of course, many people going on to universal credit are nowhere near work and are very seriously disabled. Those people seem to be entirely missing from the statement and from the steps the Chancellor announced yesterday. Will the Secretary of State at least acknowledge that universal credit is failing the most disabled and tell us what he plans to do to address the concerns raised by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) about the most seriously disabled people, who are being failed by universal credit?”
“Q14. People with the most severe disabilities moving on to universal credit have discovered that they are up to £100 a week worse off because there is no severe disability component in the payment. Whatever happens about the delays in the next hour, does the Prime Minister realise that universal credit will continue to shame her Government so long as it pushes the most disabled into the worst poverty?”
“Further to the point made by the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford, a major issue faced by small businesses is that if they challenge late payments, their customers may simply cease trading with them. Small businesses therefore have to decide between waiting 90 or 120 days to be paid or getting no business at all. Changing the culture so that businesses can make complaints without customers knowing who they are will be crucial to solving this problem, which we have wrestled with for many years.”
“The truth of the matter is that the Chancellor who raised most through the beer duty escalator was not Ed Balls but George Osborne. George Osborne took the escalator that Ed Balls had introduced in 2008 and 2009 and escalated it again in 2010, again in 2011 and again in 2012. I support the fact that he ultimately got rid of it, but he milked that cow just as much as Ed Balls did—let us not be in any doubt about that. There was also the big increase in VAT, which has a big impact on our tourism businesses. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero), and repeated by the hon. Gentleman, about the importance of small breweries’ relief is incredibly important. I really support the fact that the Government have kept that relief.”
“The man said, “I can’t afford to come in the pub any more.” The publican said that within six months the guy had drunk himself to death, because all those regulating forces were no longer there. The story that we need to get out there is that the pub is by far the safest place for us to drink. The point about pubs being a big employer of both the young and women has been well made, as has the point about the importance of the pub for tax revenues. I welcome the fact that the campaigning of a wide range of groups finally persuaded the Chancellor to end the beer duty escalator and to cut beer duty between 2013 and 2015. I take issue slightly with what the hon. Member for Dudley South said, because this is a story that I like to tell.”
“We often think about village pubs, but too little is said about those pubs in our communities and on our estates that have really struggled. It is definitely the case that the pub is the safest place to drink, because there are other things to do there, people do not drink as fast, they have other people around and it is a much more self-regulating environment. That was brought home to me strongly at a meeting I had with a publican who runs the Harley’s bar in Staveley in my constituency. One of his customers had been a regular attender, but stopped going. The publican met him outside the pub as the man was coming back from Morrison’s with bottles of whisky in his bag, and asked him why he was not coming into the pub any more.”
“It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I congratulate the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) on securing this incredibly important debate and the vigour with which he is going about his role as chair of the all-party parliamentary beer group. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on pubs, I also feel very strongly about the issues that have been raised. I am not going to repeat all the statistics that the hon. Gentleman laid out. We have already heard many of the financial arguments as to why pubs matter, but the community point is also important. I support the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) about the importance of inner-city pubs. We are seeing so many of them close.”
“I will finish with this. We have spoken a lot about beer duty and VAT, but it is crucial that the issue of business rates is addressed in the Budget. Every member of the Conservative party who stood in the 2015 election stood on a manifesto of a comprehensive review of business rates. That seemed to disappear from the 2017 manifesto, but the issue of business rates is crucial. We have the most expensive corporate property tax in all of Europe, and no Government who theoretically profess to be a low-tax Government can continue to see business rates going up in the way that they have. I urge the Government to get away from an over-reliance on business rates at the expense of corporation tax cuts and bring down business rates for our pubs instead.”
“And because my hon. Friend wants to hear what I have to say, I am sure. On the important point about the relief for small breweries, does he agree that although the policy is excellent, its impact sometimes means that brewers cannot grow any more as they will no longer come under it? Perhaps some kind of tapering to allow brewers to go from small to big would be helpful.”
“I could not agree more with what the Secretary of State has said so far about both the professionalism of our armed forces and the need for greater flexibility, but does he recognise that one of the reasons why many people have left, and one of the reasons why there has been such an impact on their family life, is the huge reduction in armed forces personnel numbers and the increasing expectation on those people, with all that is going on? That has been one of the causes of their having such poor family lives.”
“If a business had huge shortages in certain skills because people with those skills were leaving for competitor organisations, would it not be incredible if that business was simultaneously spending huge amounts of money training new people to replace those who had left while, as part of its recruitment and retention strategy, keeping wages below inflation when all its competitors are increasing wages?”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am apologetic for interrupting the right hon. Gentleman. I was waiting for him to take a natural pause, but one did not appear. Am I right in saying that there is a convention in this House that speakers should remain in their place for two speeches before they leave? The Secretary of State has left after only one speech, and the Chair of the Defence Committee is speaking. Have you been notified of any reason why the Secretary of State has had to leave so soon, when many of us would have expected him to want to know what was being said?”
“Flexible working would be great if it resulted in more people choosing to stay in our armed forces, but what if it makes work more flexible only for those who are already in the armed forces? The impact could be even greater demands on those who are not on flexible working contracts. Does my hon. Friend share my concern?”
“MOD suppliers, who recruit a huge number of people from the armed forces, need to recognise that there is a real benefit to them from allowing the armed forces to spend all the money training people up and for them to end up being, in effect, poached by the private sector, which is simultaneously making a lot of money. When recruiting someone from the armed forces there should be much greater recognition of it being a two-way street and of the fact that people have the opportunity, through the reserves, to go back and continue to serve. This is a very welcome Bill, and I support it. It is not going to solve all the problems, but if the issues that have been raised are addressed, it can play an important part.”
“It is really important to make sure that we do all we can to continue to create new opportunities within all levels of the armed forces. The Government’s commitment to the reserves is perfectly sensible. It needs to be born, not from a response to austerity as a reason to reduce the regulars, but from a recognition that it makes sense in its own right. It is incredibly important that we encourage all companies, but particularly those that are suppliers to the MOD, to do all they can to encourage their members of staff to join the reserves. They should not just encourage them to join, but they should value the work that their members of staff do in the armed forces and see it as a way for them to progress their careers rather than something that they merely tolerate.”
“Flexible working is not just an issue for women—it is also very much an issue for men. Many of the men I spoke to who are thinking of leaving the armed forces say that it is because of the pressures on their families. When we talk about flexible working, it is important that we do not see it as purely a female issue, about how we get more women into the armed forces. Important as that is, we must also keep men in the armed forces. It is also important to consider the alternative opportunities for people if they choose to leave the armed forces. Particularly within the Navy, but in all areas of the armed forces, there are huge numbers of people in engineering posts who reach a certain level, then realise that there are many better-paid opportunities outside and that their career progression is stalling, and move on as a result.”
“Many of the issues that face our armed forces are societal and issues of skills that would exist outside Government policy, but it is important that in many of the areas that Government are able to influence, they should take their share of responsibility for recruitment and retention. The armed forces are fishing in a very competitive pool when it comes to recruiting personnel. I sense that a great many more people now see their service life as a component of their career, rather than its mainstay. That is different from the past so any steps that can be taken to ensure that the armed forces are, as much as possible, a family-friendly employer where people can continue to develop their career, and are offered a variety of different ways of serving, are absolutely crucial.”
“I am absolutely certain that the commitment and professionalism shown by our armed forces personnel remain of a very high standard, and Britain is right to have tremendous pride in all those who wear Her Majesty’s uniform. As we head towards Remembrance Sunday I will give a brief plug for the ceremonies that will be taking place in my constituency, in Staveley on the Sunday morning and in Chesterfield on the Sunday afternoon, as well as the remembrance festival that we hold in Chesterfield for a packed house on the Thursday following Remembrance Sunday, at which all the old war favourites are sung along with a more solemn service. At such events we really get a strong sense of the pride that people across our communities have for the armed forces.”
“Also last year I saw personnel on HMS Dragon preparing for their FOST —flag officer sea training—and I saw the naval training provided on HMS Collingwood. The Army’s 1st (UK) Division recently ran an open day to discuss their persistent engagement work, and many of us were able to watch the war-fighting 3rd (UK) Division performing urban warfare exercises recently. I saw the infantry training regime at Catterick where they are training up new recruits who were incredibly impressive in their commitment and maturity at a tender age very early in their Army careers. Like many other Members, I have taken tremendous pride in the meetings that I have had with local servicemen and women at a variety of important civic engagements that they have undertaken in Chesterfield.”
“I have referred to pay, and pensions have been mentioned, but other important considerations include the ability of members of the armed forces to enjoy a family life; the investment they see in equipment; the extent to which we do what we say we are going to do in terms of our commitment to them; the opportunities for them to progress their careers; and issues such as housing and schooling, which have been mentioned. I would like to say how impressed I have been with all aspects of our armed forces personnel in the many exchanges that I have had with them. I spent time with those on board HMS Sutherland—a Type 23 frigate under a female captain—which I was able to witness on exercises in southern England last year.”
“Let us be absolutely clear that that includes breaking the manifesto promise on which the vast majority of Conservative Members stood in 2015—not to allow the Army to fall below 82,000. However, simultaneously, there have been ever-greater expectations in terms of the role our armed forces will play. Members on both sides of the House will go out on Remembrance Sunday, and we will lay our wreaths and wear our poppies with pride, but we also need to consider the impact that the choices we make in this place have on morale in the armed forces.”
“There is no question but that most of the people who serve in our armed forces could earn more money elsewhere. We are not saying that they are merely in it for the money, but it is important that we send a real signal from this place that we value the role these people play. When we all speak so positively about them, it is not unreasonable that they should look at not just our words but our actions, and when they see the public sector pay and the fact that their wages have risen by less than inflation on a like-for-like basis annually under this Government, that is important. The Government have overseen a monumental reduction in armed forces personnel, as the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford just said.”
“I would also like to reflect more on the pressures affecting our serving personnel and their lives, which I have observed in the considerable number of exchanges I have had with serving personnel, both within and outside the excellent armed forces parliamentary scheme, which I have had the pleasure of enrolling in for the last two years. I would also like to outline what more the Government could do to ensure that firms that benefit from the skills of people in our armed forces contribute back. Finally, I would like to say more about the Government’s performance on recruitment to the armed forces. My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli spoke about the importance of the public sector pay cap and the impact pay has on armed forces morale, and she was absolutely right to do so.”
“It is fitting that we should be considering this incredibly important aspect of the development of modern working practices in the run-up to the Remembrance Day period, when we will all be in our constituencies reflecting on the contributions made to our armed forces in the recent and the more distant past. In my contribution, I would like to speak a little of the pride that I and the vast majority of my constituents feel for our armed forces and of what more we in this place could do to repay our debt of gratitude.”