Dame Harriett Baldwin
MP for West Worcestershire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I welcome the Chancellor to his new role. I paid close attention yesterday to the long speech he made to reset the narrative and drive growth Britain. In paying tribute to his predecessor, will he recognise that she left the highest tax burden on record? Instead of postponing the words he could utter to my hon.”
“I welcome the new Prime Minister to the Dispatch Box. I note that in his statement he referred to the biggest issues facing the country as being “the economy and the cost of living crisis”. Will he accept that one of the things that has damaged our economy and caused prices to be higher is the tax-and-spend Budget in November 2024?”
“Could the Leader of the House make a commitment that the new Chancellor of the Exchequer will come to the House on the first day we are back from recess?”
“With a stroke of his Whitehall pen, the Secretary of State has just abolished Malvern Hills district council, Worcester city council, wonderful Wychavon district council and Worcestershire county council. He said in his statement that this is about making “real improvements to people’s lives and…communities”.”
“In recent weeks in West Worcestershire, I have met local police and the police and crime commissioner; the police and crime commissioner is being abolished, and the police are being reorganised. I have met the local health commissioners; they are being reorganised, and Healthwatch is being abolished.”
“Will the Leader of the House confirm that, given that the other place is sitting next week, there is nothing to stop him tabling a business statement to enable this House to sit next week? Given the enormity of the events happening in the Government next week, does he not think that would be a good idea?”
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“I know that the last Government were on track to spend over £5 billion on flood defences over the spending review period.”
“In the last Parliament, I was pleased to win funding for that scheme as well, including from the frequently flooded communities fund, and arranged the transport of local topsoil to the place free of charge, but I would now also describe that scheme as stalled. In fact, there is a forlorn pile of topsoil in Severn Stoke that sat there while the village flooded again last winter. Will the Minister tell me how we can get both schemes moving again and, importantly, how we can get them finished? In April, I had a very helpful meeting with the Environment Agency chief executive Philip Duffy and the Environment Agency team. I had another one scheduled for June, but of course the general election intervened. I ask the Minister whether we can reschedule that meeting at the earliest moment, to identify how to unblock the two schemes.”
“On top of that, last year I secured another £2.5 million from the frequently flooded communities fund, because inflation had taken its toll and construction costs had spiralled. We are now in a situation where some of those millions have been spent on consultants and advisers, but the flood defence scheme itself is still stuck on the drawing board and has not yet gone to planning. I ask the Minister for an update on that. Severn Stoke—the clue is in the name—is another community that sits on a floodplain. The village, its popular pub, its church, and the busy A38 road are frequently flooded. In fact, the village hall had to be pulled down because the parish could no longer afford to insure the property. The church is now struggling with insurance.”
“I think the hon. Member needs to have a word with his Deputy Prime Minister about that. He and I may share some concerns about the ability of Whitehall to determine where concrete is poured across our country. Let me turn to two schemes that are still not built. They were the subject of my Adjournment debate back in 2020. I think that we can make progress in this Parliament on the Tenbury Wells and Severn Stoke flood defence schemes. I would like today’s Minister to be the Minister who sees those schemes completed. Tenbury Wells is the most beautiful town, but it was built on a floodplain centuries ago, so protecting it is a very complicated project that comprises flood gates, bunds and walls. After my Adjournment debate in 2020, to my delight a funded scheme was agreed, with £4.9 million allocated to move it forward.”
“Finally, will she confirm that she will press ahead with the expanded offer of the farming recovery fund? Farmers in my constituency and elsewhere think it is very important that the offer includes those who experienced damage due to extreme rainfall, and not just those who experienced flooded land.”
“The local community knows that in order to make the omelette that is the flood defences of Tenbury Wells, a few eggs will need to be broken, with a few road closures at times and potentially some loss of road space down some side roads. I just want to say on behalf of the community that it is prepared to put up with that level of inconvenience and some traffic disruption for a while in order to protect its beautiful town. As can be seen from the other examples in West Worcestershire that I have mentioned, particularly Upton upon Severn, the long-term benefit of protecting the town is immeasurable. Will the Minister join me in an effort of shared persistence and determination to protect these two communities by finally getting the two schemes built, preferably before the inevitable arrival of the next serious floods?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He points to a fact that I acknowledge: cumulatively, we have become more resilient to flooding in West Worcestershire over the last 14 years, but there are still these two schemes. That was going to be my next question to the Minister: will she confirm that the new Government will continue with the same level of spending that my hon. Friend mentioned? Is there anything that I could do, other than leading debates such as this and meeting with the chief executive of the Environment Agency, that would help locally to unblock any of the issues? I know that these schemes, particularly the one in Tenbury Wells, are complicated. I just want the Environment Agency to be able to find its way through the obstacles.”
“The NHS dental recovery plan was launched earlier this year, and the Secretary of State has on his desk news about the impact that it is having. Could he share with the House how much the plan has increased appointments in the Worcestershire and Herefordshire integrated care board area?”
“Given that those are all tax measures that the IMF recommends, I am sure that the Chancellor is beginning to contemplate them. When the Government respond to today’s debate, I hope that they will specifically rule those things out, because the tax rises that the Government admit to already—the pensioner tax, the tax on education, and regulatory costs galore—are bad enough. Let us hear some specific denials on those other taxes.”
“The first was setting capital gains tax rates in line with income tax rates. I hope that Ministers will rule that one out. The second was subjecting the sale of primary residences to capital gains tax. I hope that Ministers will rule that one out. The third was ending inheritance tax loopholes for pensions, family businesses and farms. I hope that Ministers will rule that one out. The fourth was revaluing all of England’s homes for council tax, and especially those over £320,000 in value. I hope that Ministers will rule that one out. The IMF also liked the idea of road pricing; I hope that Ministers will rule that one out. It also wants to bring forward considerably the date at which the state pension age increases.”
“In my time as Chair of the Treasury Committee, we had the opportunity to have a private session with the IMF. It is interesting to observe that many of the measures put forward by the Government in the King’s Speech were in the IMF’s prescription for the UK economy. Reforming planning and building on our beloved green belt were from the IMF, as was strengthening the role of the Office for Budget Responsibility and crowding in private capital on net zero projects via a national wealth fund. What else does the IMF want? Well, colleagues may not be surprised to learn that it also wants to see more taxes. It does not quite say it like that—it calls it “closing tax loopholes” or “mobilising additional revenues”. Some of the measures we heard about in our private session with the IMF were as follows.”
“Members do not have to take my word for it; they can take the words of the International Monetary Fund, which in a recently published report said that “the UK economy is approaching a soft landing”, with “growth recovering faster than expected…inflation has fallen faster than was envisaged…The banking system remains healthy”. So I approach the economic measures in the King’s Speech with a degree of trepidation, because they come at a time when the economy was back on track. While I agree that “securing economic growth” is a fundamental mission of government, I would add the word “non-inflationary”. I have looked and looked through this King’s Speech, and I cannot see any measures that magic up economic growth. Growth does not just happen because it is written into the King’s Speech.”
“The deficit was over 10% and rising and unemployment was over 8%. Inflation was nearly twice its target, and the banking system had just collapsed and had to be bailed out by taxpayers. We can contrast that with the economic legacy of 2024 that the new Government inherit. Despite the economic costs of the pandemic and the energy crisis, the UK is enjoying the fastest growth in the G7. Unemployment is now half the rate it was in 2010. Inflation is back on target. We have a well-capitalised banking system, almost completely out of taxpayers’ hands. Wages are now rising faster than inflation. We are the fourth-largest exporter in the world.”
“May I start by adding my congratulations to the Chancellor on being the first woman to hold that office in the history of our country? At this rate, the Labour party might even have a female Prime Minister some time this century. I also thank the shadow Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Jeremy Hunt) for everything he did while in office. In particular, I thank the voters of West Worcestershire for returning me here for the fifth time. I was one of those who was here in 2010. It is ironic that I should be following the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), because he was the one who left that famous note, “I’m sorry: there is no money left.” If people want to know what a bad economic legacy looks like, I was here in 2010 when we received one from the Labour party.”
“Congratulations on your re-election, Mr Speaker. Will the Leader of the House find time for a statement on flood defences? The last Parliament was on track to spend £5.2 billion on flood defences, including in communities like Severn Stoke and Tenbury Wells in my constituency. There are concerns that the incoming Government may cancel that spending, so will she timetable a statement and reassure us that that is not the case?”
“I welcome the Secretary of State to his role, but he has been quite political in his replies. I gently point out that in West Worcestershire, fewer people voted Labour in this election than in the last election or the one before. I wonder whether he has ever visited the beautiful landscapes of West Worcestershire. The Malvern hills and Bredon hill are some of the most treasured landscapes in our land. What parameters is he going to put around the building of pylons, wind farms and solar farms across that beautiful landscape?”
“I welcome the Minister’s statement, which was crammed with useful facts and statistics. Yesterday, our Committee met representatives of the IMF in private, and we had a very interesting and informative discussion. As for yesterday’s report, the IMF points out that none of this good economic news would be happening had it not been for decisions made in previous Budgets. In particular, it states that the Government “have delivered several helpful measures over the last three budgets…investment tax reliefs for businesses to boost investment, an expansion of childcare, and active labor market policies.” This good news is not happening by accident; it is happening because a plan is in place, and the plan is working. Does the Minister agree?”
“I am sure that all Members present will recognise that the defence of this country is a foundation for ESG compliance, and should not, therefore, lead to people struggling to get a bank account. We urgently request that the Treasury introduce the legislation on debanking that it has promised, and we look forward to that happening before the end of July. It is something that we are keen to see. I see that my 10 minutes are up. I thank everyone for their attention, and I hope my statement has provided food for thought for Members across the House.”
“However, we also found that banks can use phrases such as “risk appetite” or “reputational risk” to close the bank accounts of organisations and businesses that we would think are a perfectly fair part of the fabric of this country. For example, amusement arcades and pawnbrokers can struggle to get access to a bank account. Perhaps most alarmingly, we heard in one of our evidence sessions with banks that even someone in the defence sector can have their bank account closed or struggle to open one. This is often to do with the share- holders of banks wanting to observe the environmental, social and governance rules. We all think that such rules are good, but they can lead to some unintended and inadvertent consequences, whereby defence companies are effectively debanked and cannot get access to a bank account in this country.”
“I expect that every Member of this House will have had a piece of casework that involved one of the businesses in their constituency being told that its bank account was closing, with absolutely no reason or notice given by the bank. We asked the banks about this issue, and they confessed that they had closed over 140,000 business bank accounts during the course of 2023. Obviously, there can be perfectly good reasons for doing that: there will be businesses that do not reply to any questions from their banks, and there will be businesses that are suspected of money laundering or that have actually been found to have done so.”
“In fact, for many years when we were members of the EU we did not implement what the Basel Committee was recommending. The committee then issued a statement expressing concern and saying that we were in violation of its recommendations. That shows that it is perfectly possible not to implement them: all you will get is a reprimand. We have therefore concluded that the support factor for small and medium-sized businesses should not be changed at this stage in the economic cycle. A fourth issue that came up in the evidence we received, and which has really shocked the Committee, is the extent to which banks are simply closing the bank accounts of businesses across the country.”
“The Prudential Regulation Authority—part of the alphabet soup of financial regulation that was set up after the crash—is currently consulting on a tightening of the criteria for lending to small and medium-sized businesses. At present there is a discount factor relating to the risk to banks’ balance sheets from lending to such businesses, but the PRA wants to tighten that arrangement considerably. The Committee is concerned because, according to the evidence that we heard, such a move could withdraw about £44 billion of lending to businesses from the UK economy. We therefore urge the PRA not to proceed, particularly because we also heard evidence that the proposal would not be implemented in the United States or in the European Union.”
“We expect that to be an important source of credit to help small businesses to grow when they would otherwise have struggled. However, we noted that very few small businesses even knew about this organisation, and we have tried to publicise it through the report. We urge the Government to assess the effectiveness of BBB every year, because we think it has an important role to play and it is pretty successful where it is known about, but it is not widely known about. Thirdly, we were greatly concerned by what we heard in the evidence about something that sounds very niche but is actually very important. It is known in the trade as Basel 3.1. After the financial crisis a committee set up in Basel, the Swiss city where the central bank of central banks is located, came up with some proposals which were then known as Basel III.”
“Moreover, it has spent about £40 million during its lifetime and has awarded only £2 million worth of compensation, because it drew the access criteria so tightly that very few businesses were able to qualify. As a result, there were very unsatisfactory outcomes for businesses that used the resolution service because they could not access the Financial Ombudsman Service, and the Committee agrees that it should close as planned. We look to the Government to come up with a consultation on a new mechanism by the end of this calendar year. Secondly, there is a Government initiative called the British Business Bank. The Committee thought highly of what it heard in evidence from BBB, and welcomed the announcement in the Budget that the covid recovery loan scheme had been rebranded as the growth guarantee scheme.”
“Nevertheless, issues remain from that difficult time and also more structurally following financial regulation measures set up since the banking crash in 2008. I want to flag up a few of the points that we made in our report. The first concerns the Business Banking Resolution Service, which was set up after the banking crisis and was designed to provide access to resolution, mediation and outcomes for businesses that were too large to access the Financial Ombudsman Service but had nevertheless been treated pretty badly during the financial crisis. I think it fair to say that the Committee formed the view that the Business Banking Resolution Service had not been a success. It is owned and run by the banks, which raises questions about conflicts of interests in the first place, or certainly the perception of a conflict of interests.”
“This is an opportunity not only for Members to hear those points but, I hope, for the Minister to take them on board. No one can deny that, with the pandemic and the energy price crisis, the past five years have been an absolutely torrid time for everyone. SMEs have often been at the forefront and have experienced the brunt of those crises, but without the huge resources that larger businesses have to be able to cope. Through those crises, the Government took extraordinary steps to provide support in terms of access to finance for small and medium-sized businesses, but we are now in a different environment. In fact, all the evidence and data published this week show that small and medium-sized businesses are beginning to feel much greater confidence—we are seeing some real improvement there.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for granting this wonderful opportunity to present the report that the Treasury Committee published yesterday on access to finance for small and medium-sized businesses. As every Member will know, small and medium-sized enterprises form the backbone of the UK economy. All of us in our constituencies will be aware of amazing small and medium-sized businesses. In fact, 99% of the businesses in this country are small and medium-sized, which gives us an idea of how important they are. Well over half of our constituents who are employed work for SMEs. Access to finance for small and medium-sized businesses, which the Committee has been looking at, is therefore a really important issue. I want to highlight some of the points raised in our report.”
“I agree with my right hon. Friend. Inflation is the worst tax on our economy and important steps are being taken by the independent Bank of England to raise interest rates, to make sure that inflation gets back to its target zone. That all seems to be on track. Monetary policy has been tightened already, and we see that in the environment in which our small and medium-sized businesses are working. They have been squeezed by higher interest rates, and the evidence we received showed that the acceptance rate for credit has fallen from 80% to 50%, so it does not feel like the right time to be tightening access to finance for small and medium-sized businesses through a change in regulations. It particularly does not feel like the right time to be doing so unilaterally, when the EU and the US are not following the Basel 3.1 rules.”
“I thank my excellent colleague for his question. He is absolutely right that the inquiry received evidence on what I would describe as financial apathy. Small businesses sometimes choose not to borrow, choose not to grow, In fact, only 5% of small businesses that seek lending would even consider shopping around to find another provider if they were rejected by their main bank. There is work to do to encourage and guide SMEs, and the British Business Bank has a very important role. It is not well enough known, which is probably holding back the growth of many excellent small businesses. I am so proud that our Committee has been able to champion this.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point that everyone in this House will recognise as a challenge. Getting paid by bigger businesses is a bane of the lives of many small business owners. I know there has been a lot of work in the Department for Business and Trade, and the Government need to lead by example by promptly paying for services. The Committee heard evidence that small businesses continue to be frustrated by this.”
“On the subject of school budgets, will the Minister join me in welcoming the letter that I received from Malvern College in Worcestershire this week? Not only is that independent school one of the largest employers in Worcestershire, but it contributes £28 million to the local economy, and if its 300-plus fee-paying pupils had to be educated in local schools, that would come at a huge cost to the public purse.”
“I thank the team of Ministers for the £209 million that has been allocated to Worcestershire County Council from HS2 money, to help with local transport improvements. Will the Minister endorse a project in which we work with Oxfordshire County Council to find ways to redouble sections of the Oxford to Worcester line? That will result in faster, more frequent and more reliable services on the beautiful north Cotswold line.”
“May I thank the Financial Secretary and the Chancellor for listening to the howl of pain that came from ordinary taxpayers when they saw the announcement yesterday? Those who contact the HMRC hotline are the most law-abiding, tax paying people across this land. This morning, the Treasury Committee has published more data showing that it is increasingly difficult to contact HMRC by telephone. While I fully endorse what the Minister has just said about the long-term strategy to move people online, it cannot be done by randomly shutting down HMRC’s telephone lines. The Minister had an excellent digital track record in the private sector before he came into Parliament. May I urge him to use that experience to make this much more of a gradual transition for those law-abiding citizens of ours?”
“Did the Chancellor see an article yesterday in which the independent director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies confirmed that the average earner in the UK now has the lowest effective personal tax rate since 1975—lower than in America, France, Germany or any G7 country? Someone on £35,000—the average earnings for those working full time—faces an income tax and national insurance bill of nearly £2,000 less than they would have done on the same real earnings back in 2010. Does the Chancellor agree that now he has changed the rules on residence and domicile, the Opposition’s unfunded spending plans could lead to higher taxes—”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his exceptional work in this area. He shares my passion for the new Malvern-based autism free school, which will benefit children across Worcestershire and more widely. Can he update the House on how he sees progress on delivering the new free school?”
“I look forward to voting later today for a tax cut for thousands of my constituents; a national insurance tax cut that will mean £900 off the tax bill of thousands of my constituents. After listening to the rhetoric from the Leader of the Opposition today, does the Prime Minister expect that the main Opposition party will vote against this afternoon’s tax cuts?”
“Today, we have heard that full expensing will be extended to leased assets. The BBC fact check noted that when the measure was first announced, it was expected that the economy would benefit greatly. The Chancellor said that its impact on the economy would be huge, and the Office for Budget Responsibility said that it would increase business investment by 3% a year. The policy came into force on 1 April, and in fact business investment for the whole of last year was 6.1% higher than in 2022. Today we heard about further welcome steps to increase business investment and other investment in the UK economy—tax reliefs for some creative industries, British individual savings accounts to encourage more long-term investment in our economy, the back-to-work plan, the childcare plan, and many other measures that will unlock growth.”
“The freeze on alcohol duty will be welcomed in pubs in West Worcestershire and across the country. The public sector productivity plan is crucial to ensuring that we get value for money from our public services. On the second economic objective of growth, we can all welcome the fact that employment growth has been so strong. The economy has created more than 800 jobs a day over the past 14 years. We have seen steps taken in previous fiscal events to grow the size of the UK’s productive economy. Now that we are at full employment, productivity becomes incredibly important, because it helps to sustain non-inflationary growth. To stimulate all-important investment in the economy, last year’s big announcement of full expensing was made permanent in the autumn statement.”
“I think the OBR’s forecasts reassure the markets on which we are so dependent for our borrowing. There has obviously been good progress on inflation since the peak of over 11% after Putin’s evil invasion of Ukraine, and it is vital that all of today’s Budget measures are seen through the lens of inflation, because we do not want anything that could prevent that progress towards the 2% that the Bank of England expects by the middle of this year. The Chancellor told us that he was looking through that lens in announcing today’s measures, which contain a range of things that will really help, including continuing the 5p off fuel duty at the pumps for another year, which will be very helpful to drivers in West Worcestershire and elsewhere in the country.”
“There will be a range of views across the Chamber on the role of the Office for Budget Responsibility. We all know, of course, that all forecasts are likely to be wrong. The Treasury Committee will scrutinise the Office for Budget Responsibility next Tuesday morning, and we look forward to asking questions about its assumptions. My view is that it is a bit like that quote of Sir Winston Churchill about democracy being the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried: although all economic forecasts are likely to be wrong in some way, and the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts are often not the most accurate, they are a lot better than the alternatives of either the Treasury marking its own homework or having a Budget with no forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility.”
“I know it has not been long since the autumn statement, but we have heard today that the Leader of the Opposition has no plan. It has not been very long since the last forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility, so it is interesting to read today that, in the just over 100 days since its last forecast, there has been a lot of change for the better in the UK economy. In particular, the OBR is expecting a better inflation outturn than it had expected just over three months ago. It is expecting and has noted the sharper fall in the interest rates that we all pay on the national mortgage, and it has said that it expects the British people’s living standards to recover more quickly than it previously forecast. That is information that we can all welcome.”
“We heard the Chancellor talk about how strong the growth in UK investment has been. We heard about additional investment in the productivity of our national health service and, crucially, about measures that will increase the attractiveness of investing in some of the fastest growing sectors of the economy.”
“It is selling £100 billion of gilts into the market this year, and it has acknowledged that that increases the cost to the Exchequer of borrowing by between a tenth and a quarter of a percentage point. Our Committee wanted to flag up the impact that that could have, and to send a message to the independent Bank of England about some of the ways in which quantitative tightening has an impact on the real economy. As a cross-party Committee, we were obviously never going to agree on the level or scope of taxes, but one thing we have unanimity—”
“We have heard from the Office for Budget Responsibility that cutting national insurance has the biggest marginal impact on bringing people back into work; the figure from the last cut was 94,000. It will be interesting to see whether the OBR continues to expect this to have a significant impact. It is a really smart way to cut taxes for working people—and the measure is UK-wide, so the effect will be felt in Scotland as well. I turn to the issue of debt falling. We can see that the bond markets have stabilised, and OBR numbers confirm progress on debt. I draw the House’s attention to a report that our Committee recently published on the Bank of England and its quantitative tightening.”
“I wholeheartedly endorse what my right hon. Friend said. She is right to highlight the importance of investment in childcare in helping female employment growth, which has been remarkably strong in the past 14 years. I am confident that the measures announced will allow us to make further progress with the increasingly non-inflationary growth capacity of the UK economy. Other measures announced today will help on the growth front. Cutting national insurance is also a smart way to help growth. It not only puts more money in working people’s pockets—27 million people across this country will see an extra £900 a year in their bank account—but will make work more attractive.”
“We should stick to that plan and not go back to square one.”
“With the progress on higher incomes, the median income has increased from about £22,000 in those days to about £35,000 now. These days, £50,000 is not more than about 40% over the median income. It was right for the Chancellor to recognise that today in his Budget statement. He has made the taper that much less of a disincentive to taking on work above that income level. Of course, I would have loved him to have done even more, but I am very grateful for all that he has done. Let me come to a rapid close by saying that it is clear that the Conservatives have a plan. It is clear that there is a plan to get inflation down; to increase the growth rate and the growth capacity of the UK economy, without sparking inflation again; and to get debt falling. I think we can all see that the plan is working.”
“We have heard about the way in which he eliminated, in the autumn statement, the national insurance class; about how he has simplified the lifetime allowance for pensions; and, today, about how he has started to tackle some of the perverse cliff edges, high marginal tax rates and disincentives to work in the tax system. By raising the VAT threshold, he has helped small businesses, which might otherwise have held back because they did not want to go through that threshold. On universal credit, we have done so much over the years to reduce high marginal tax rates and disincentives. It was great to hear the Chancellor really focus today on addressing the high-income child benefit charge. When we introduced it—I voted for it at the time—£50,000 a year was a high rate of income.”
“I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman did not acknowledge that income tax is higher in Scotland, but he makes a good point about quantitative tightening and its impact on the real economy. It is potentially a factor that can have a real impact, and our Committee will watch it closely. As I was saying, as a cross-party Committee, we were never going to agree on the level and scope of taxes, but we do agree that the tax system is too complicated. We have a very complicated tax system in this country, and well over 1,000 different tax reliefs. Despite the abolition of the Office of Tax Simplification, there have been some major tax simplifications under this Chancellor.”
“I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. I think this is my third attempt to make progress on this issue in this House. I want to end the constitutional sexism that means that an eighth of the seats in the other place are reserved for men only. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who tried to introduce the Bill in March 2019; he is a champion of true equality. I pay tribute to Charlotte Carew Pole of Daughters’ Rights, who helps to keep this just cause alive in this place. Our former colleague Mary Macleod also tried to bring in a similar Bill. Even though this is this Bill’s Second Reading, it is not the second time that the issue has come up in the Commons, and it will keep coming up until things change.”