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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“Clearly the reform of Companies House, as taken forward by this important piece of legislation, will make economic crime much more difficult in the United Kingdom, which is something that everyone should welcome. In the report on economic crime that the Treasury Committee put out last year, we called for resources to be put into this important work. Clearly it cannot be done without those resources, and it will be interesting to hear from the Minister today about his discussions with Companies House and his estimate of the resources required. New clause 20 proposes a fee for new businesses of £100 rising with inflation, which would give Companies House more resources to undertake this important work and, importantly, keep its budget increasing along with inflation.”
“I rise to speak to new clause 20 and the amendments tabled in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom). I very much welcome the progress that has been made in today’s legislation and the fact that this Minister is the person responsible for taking it through, given that he used to be one of my colleagues on the Treasury Committee and is a signatory to the report on economic crime that we put out last year. It is clear from the work that we have all done on economic crime how important the reform of Companies House is to achieving this. We have all heard horror stories of people who have stolen other people’s identities and successfully set up businesses at Companies House, and of people who have shut down one business then immediately started up another one with a different name.”
“I want him to appreciate that we have waited long enough for this Bill, and that the Treasury Committee will therefore not allow this measure to be kicked into the long grass. We will continue to scrutinise progress, and we expect that progress to be urgent and rapid.”
“I think I heard the Minister acknowledge that Companies House needs more resources, and that those resources should be raised not through a one-off fee when setting up a business but through ongoing registration fees. I also think I heard him say that he rather likes our proposal to increase the fees every year to reflect inflation. I think he substantially agrees with the thesis of new clause 20, so this is a great opportunity for him to endorse it so that Companies House is able to start budgeting right away. I heard the Minister make the valid point that he wants to ensure the budget is worked from the bottom up, and that an arbitrary number should not be put into legislation. I have sympathy for his point of view, but I want him to understand the urgency of the matter.”
“We think this is going make the UK much safer and a centre that is less vulnerable to economic crime.” That is the purpose behind our support for this new clause.”
“The right hon. Lady makes some excellent points. Once the Minister does this work, it may well turn out that £100 is a good starting point. Other things are budgeted for, and I understand the budget for the work that is under way is £20 million for the financial year just ended. A further £63 million is expected to be needed up to 2024-25 and was allocated in the last spending review. Forgive me if I am cynical about the budgets for public sector computer procurement projects, as they sometimes come in somewhat over budget. I urge the Minister in his response to new clause 20 to make sure that he can move swiftly to change the amount that it costs to set up a business, while making sure that it remains competitive in terms of economic parameters. It is not every day that Back Benchers say to Ministers, “Here’s some more money for you.”
“That is my point—my hon. Friend has made it much better than I was. This is an offer to the Minister for a significant increase in the budget of one of the agencies for which he is responsible, Companies House, and it would be feasible without putting any further burden on the hard-pressed taxpayer. That is why I support the new clause and why I am looking forward to the Minister accepting the principle of it. I acknowledge that we may be talking about plus or minus a few quid around that £100, but that is a good starting point.”
“Culture, drama and theatre are very much among the UK’s great soft power assets. West Worcestershire is in the heart of the midlands, which is why I am thrilled that Malvern Theatres has been awarded nearly £20 million to level up drama opportunities across that part of the west midlands. I say to colleagues who were not successful this time around that we were not successful last time. We took on board the feedback and improved the bid, and now we have been successful. Keep on asking, is what I say to the other bids.”
“It is not just by banning women aid workers that the Taliban marked themselves as an evil and medieval regime, but by stopping girls from going to school. In his discussions with the deputy Secretary-General, will he continue to emphasise the importance of every child in the world getting 12 years of quality education?”
“I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate, which is a topic of great interest to me, because I have I have introduced a Bill that is scheduled for debate next Friday. Its purpose is to end the scandal whereby eight seats in the upper House are effectively reserved for men only. I urge the hon. Gentleman to put his support behind my Bill next Friday.”
“My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech supporting the work done in the other place, but surely he would agree that there is a need for incremental reform? Surely he cannot support the fact that an eighth of the seats in the other place are reserved for men only? Will he, too, support my Hereditary Titles (Female Succession) Bill?”
“I welcome the Minister’s announcement. He rightly points out that President Putin has, by illegally invading Ukraine, effectively weaponised the cost of energy against western economies, and he is right to highlight that we have been able to withstand that attack with £18 billion of support over this six-month period. We now have a gas price close to where it stood before the invasion of Ukraine, and businesses across the country have realised the big risk they face in terms of their energy costs. Will the Minister encourage them not to pass on the cost of higher energy through inflation to their customers, and instead call for the wholesale price of energy to feed through more swiftly to the retail price our businesses pay?”
“I want to ask about the single-source procurement regulations, with which I know the Minister will be intimately familiar, and recognise the fact that in those procurements the Government are, obviously, dealing with one supplier. What thought has he given to then requiring the single-source supplier to procure more in a more innovative way from down the supply chain, and in a way that would not compromise national security, which of course has to be paramount? With those short remarks, may I say once again what an honour it has been to be in the Chamber for the maiden speech of the hon. Member for City of Chester?”
“In terms of innovation, one of the factors that small businesses often cite to me—and to other colleagues, I am sure—is that when they put their tender in for a public procurement, very often they are required to provide at least three full years of financial records. That can act as a very insidious way of reducing the ability of newer businesses and more innovative businesses, and perhaps nimbler and less expensive businesses, to participate in public procurement. I urge him to think about how the qualification process might enable some of the start-ups we really want to succeed to get into the pipeline of public procurement as easily as possible. My finally question echoes some of the excellent points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) on the importance of defence.”
“If he has not done so already, I urge him to ask his officials if they could give him the opportunity to look through the ProZorro system used in Ukraine. It has done an enormous amount to reduce the cost of procurement over the years and to increase transparency for citizens. The second public economic priority that the Bill helps to support so much is innovation. The openness and transparency of the procurement system will give small businesses—this has been mentioned a few times in today’s debate—much more of an opportunity to see what there is in the pipeline of public procurement. Again, I wonder whether I can ask the Minister to reply on this point in his closing remarks.”
“I draw the Minister’s attention to the situation in Ukraine—no, not the one that occupies the headlines, but a little-noticed development in 2016 that was very much supported at the time by the UK, along with Transparency International: the development of its procurement system, known as ProZorro. It is quite a remarkable platform. It is open source and shows every opportunity that exists in Ukraine to bid on contracts. It is completely open to citizens and civil society to look at all of the data on what is being tendered for and at what price companies are successful in bidding for those contracts. It is an extraordinary example of how public procurement can be transformed by openness and technology.”
“It is an absolute honour to follow such an assured maiden speech from the hon. Member for City of Chester (Samantha Dixon). She spoke with great confidence and great experience of the subject at hand. She painted a beautiful picture of her city, and I am sure that that was the first of many excellent contributions that she will make to our debates. I put my name down to speak in the debate because it struck me that procurement is so tied to what is our biggest economic problem: the cost of living and the rate of inflation. The questions that I want the Minister to respond to in his closing remarks are about that rate of inflation and how the transparency and openness of the new procurement system can help by bringing down the price that the Government pay at all levels for the contracts they award.”
“I wish you, Mr Speaker, your team and the Treasury team a merry Christmas. Has the Chancellor had a chance to read the Treasury Committee’s report, published last week, about the welcome that we give to the cost of living support that he has announced for next winter? Did he also note our points about the potential cliff edges in that £900 support, and the recommendations we made to spread those payments more evenly over the course of next winter?”
“The Minister is making some encouraging sounds about new clause 11. In addition to the commitments that he has just made, will he instruct officials to look at the matter with the greatest urgency?”
“A customer who opened a junior ISA, which by definition would have a very long time horizon, might get a nudge that cash was not the ideal investment, and that in his or her circumstances an investment with a longer time horizon might provide better protection from inflation.”
“A customer may be sitting on a large cash balance for many months, well above their normal three-month outgoings. They could get an alert to warn them about the detriment to the value of cash as a result of inflation and to narrow down some suggestions for getting a better deal for their cash. With many of our constituents, particularly our elderly constituents, there is a lot of inertia because they are not receiving very much on their deposits. This approach would give them a nudge that there are better rates out there that they could be receiving. A customer might have invested in a fund on a platform many years ago and have done nothing with it since. If the fund is poorly performing, they could get a nudge with some personalised guidance.”
“For example, about 10 million people in this country are fortunate enough to have more than £10,000 in savings, but 58% of that money is just sitting there in cash, and we all know how inflation is eroding the value of those investments. My new clause 11 approaches the problem from the other direction. I was pleased to hear the Economic Secretary commit at the Dispatch Box today to using the new flexibilities and seeing whether he can do something like a personalised guidance review with great urgency. That will help our constituents in the following generic examples. A customer may be saving for a deposit for their first home, but doing so with a cash individual savings account. They could get a nudge from their financial institution to consider putting the money into a lifetime ISA so that they get the Government rebate.”
“As we all know, the implementation of the retail distribution review about a decade ago has meant that financial advice is now a very high-quality service that is very expensive. The vast majority of our constituents do not pay and are not willing to pay for it. Something like 8% of people—I confess that I am one of them—are lucky enough to afford a financial adviser, but 92% of our constituents do not have that luxury. When I was Economic Secretary in 2015, I launched the financial advice market review, which came up with 28 recommendations to help our constituents. Many wise steps were taken at the time, including enabling people to use £500 from their pension savings to pay for financial advice when using their pension freedoms. Despite those measures, however, there is still an enormous gap for our constituents.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will try not to gabble. I rise to speak to new clause 11, which stands in my name and in the name of many right hon. and hon. Members; I am pleased to hear from the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) that the Opposition support it too. I should clarify that I am speaking in this debate as an individual Back Bencher, rather than as Chair of the Treasury Committee. As the Economic Secretary has highlighted, one of the many benefits of being able to bring financial regulation back into the UK is that we can create rules that will help to unleash growth and investment here. My new clause highlights the opportunity that reviewing MiFID presents for us to look again at the boundary between regulated advice and guidance. I am proposing personalised guidance on financial matters.”
“It should not need to be this way, because the technology exists for financial services and fintech firms to guide people towards making better financial choices and following good mainstream investment opportunities, but MiFID-originated legislation is getting in the way. My new clause would enable the Treasury to introduce, with great urgency, the necessary legislation to allow regulated financial services firms to offer UK households personalised guidance. It is a great opportunity to unlock investment in our country, it will help our constituents to earn more, and it will allow innovation. Financial technology will help our constituents to level up their own economic futures. I am therefore delighted that the Economic Secretary has agreed today to look into this as a matter of urgency.”
“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for signing the new clause, and for his Committee’s excellent report. He is right to suggest that the workplace is one of the best places for people to be given these nudges, and for employers to explore that boundary between advice and guidance. Our constituents are craving advice of this kind, especially during this cost of living crisis. They want more guidance from their financial institutions. They are turning to online sources of often unregulated information to help them navigate their finances. They are finding the process complex and confusing. They are choosing investments that are often very high risk and not suited to them at all, such as meme stocks, crypto or spread betting.”
“Let me end by saying that personalised guidance would offer the Economic Secretary the chance to make his mark and help all our constituents to benefit from better financial information. I am very pleased that he has committed himself today to look into it with the utmost urgency.”
“Perhaps this aspect could be considered in the Stride review, so that we can ensure that we are not making the problem worse through the decisions in the autumn statement.”
“We have spent the better part of the last 12 years introducing universal credit precisely so that it has a linear impact, yet next year we will entrench a different way of paying the lowest income households. Hon. Members should not get me wrong; I support giving the lowest income households help, but it worries me that the £900 payment will go to people on means-tested benefit, but if someone is £1 above what is needed to get that means-tested benefit, they will not get it. I wonder whether the Treasury could look at something that goes more with the grain of the type of work incentives that we are trying to put in through universal credit. We have heard about the withdrawal of labour in the labour market.”
“I fully accept that during the pandemic the Treasury was making decisions at speed and wanted to get money out to people as quickly as possible. Similarly, this year, with the energy crisis, the decision was taken to get money out as quickly and easily as possible to the lowest income households through the two payments of £325, which have been important in helping people with the cost of living this winter. I am more concerned now—arguably, the Chancellor has not been in post that long, but Treasury officials have had the benefit of more time to think about these things—that the £900 payment next year will also be made with a big cliff edge. What kind of behavioural signals will that send through the benefits system?”
“Since 2000 the amount of this country’s debt that is linked to inflation rates has gone from 6% index-linked to the current 22% index-linked. That means the Government are short the rate of inflation, effectively, and they are now paying the price in that line item. My question for the Minister is this: was an explicit decision taken in the Treasury in those years to issue more index-linked debt. If so, who made it and was it announced to the House? It is really coming home to bite in the fiscal accounts, so it would be nice to know what the thinking was at the time—or was it something that we sleepwalked into as a nation? The final point of my, I hope, suitably brief remarks is to reiterate the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) about cliff edges.”
“At that time, the Bank of England had the monetary foot to the floor and the Government had the fiscal foot to the floor—one could not come up with a more successful recipe for inflation. Sure enough, it has become more ingrained in our economy. Everyone in this House can see that inflation is the most insidious tax, particularly on the poorest. It is the most terrible scourge on our economy. I very much welcome the fact that fiscal policy will be brought in line with what the Bank of England is trying to do through monetary policy, to bring inflation back to the target level. The third thing I want to highlight, because it is a matter of deep concern to everyone, is a line in the Budget that is up dramatically—perhaps not in cash terms, but because we have more debt. That is the debt interest bill, which is over £100 billion.”
“They have become one of the guardrails of fiscal responsibility. In the last few months we have learnt that that really does matter to the markets. I very much welcome the existence of the forecasts. I also very much welcome the fact that the measures in the autumn statement appear to go completely with the grain of what is obviously the biggest economic challenge our country faces: the hideous inflation that we are suffering. We know that about 80% of that inflation comes directly from Putin’s evil invasion of Ukraine. The Committee recognises that inflationary pressures predated that invasion, and we have taken quite a lot of evidence over the last couple of years about those incipient inflationary pressures as we came out of the pandemic.”
“May I start by apologising to the House and to the Chief Secretary for not being here for the beginning of the debate, having failed to end our Committee session on time? I caught most of what was being said, and I very much welcome the fact that the autumn statement has been accompanied by an Office for Budget Responsibility forecast, which is something the Committee has been asking for for many months. We have the OBR appearing before our Committee tomorrow. I recognise that any forecast in and of itself will be inaccurate—it is, at best, a best guess of what the future will hold—but it will allow us to test the assumptions. These forecasts were brought in by the Conservative-led coalition in 2010 for a very good reason: to prevent the Treasury from exclusively marking its own homework.”
“Can he talk us through his thinking on some of those cliff edges and incentives to work?”
“It is good to see the return of the forecast from the official Office for Budget Responsibility. We all remember why a Conservative Government had to set it up. We will have the OBR in front of our Committee next Tuesday, when we can question the underlying assumptions of the forecast. I welcome the fact that the Chancellor confirmed today that his announcements go with the grain of what the Bank of England is trying to do in bringing down inflation. That surely is the most important economic challenge for our country at the moment. But can he elaborate a bit more on his thinking? He has tasked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions with helping back into work those who have left the workforce and he has announced welcome support for those on the welfare system of £900 next year.”
“All our constituents want to see an end to the dangerous and illegal channel crossings. One of the best ways to do that is to make sure that services are delivered in the first safe place to which refugees flee. In that context, will the Deputy Prime Minister, as a former Foreign Secretary and Development Minister, commit to backing the work of Education Cannot Wait, which delivers education in refugee camps?”
“On our Committee we seek to serve Members, and we look forward to hearing from all colleagues on the issues that matter to them the most.”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, I put on record my thanks to all the Clerks who organised today’s ballot and pay tribute to the wonderful campaign that my esteemed colleagues ran for this Committee chairmanship. I have genuinely enjoyed the campaign and getting to know their priorities better, and I thank them so much for the campaign’s having been held in such a polite and friendly fashion. I also pay tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), who has chaired the Committee so ably over the past three years; it has been a pleasure to serve under his chairmanship and I feel truly honoured to be following in his footsteps. Lastly, I thank everyone who voted in today’s election, whether they voted for me or not.”
“I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments.”
“Thank you, Mr Sharma, for allowing me to contribute to the debate on new clause 1. My colleagues on the Treasury Committee have raised a very interesting and topical subject for us to debate regarding the best way forward. I must declare an interest, as someone who has bought things on the internet and has used this convenient way of paying for them. Clearly, when we have the FCA in front of us, we need to ask how it is approaching regulation in what has been an area of innovation, where fintech has really come to the fore. It will be very interesting to hear the Minister’s reply to the points that have been raised, and what he sees as the best way forward. That innovation is supporting our retail sector, but at the same time, consumers deserve to know what they are getting into and to have good information when they make decisions.”
“I congratulate the Secretary of State on his reappointment. Will he reiterate the importance of getting ambulance waiting times down? Would he endorse the use of minor injuries units in community hospitals, such as those in Malvern and Tenbury, as a very effective way to open up access through other routes for our constituents?”
“We are a thriving town, and we want a college right in the heart of it. That is why I have updated colleagues on what is happening. I hope that, having listened to this tale of woe, the Minister’s very helpful letter to her officials will say, “We do have the power.” The Secretary of State has the power to determine that she wants to see the college preserved in the heart of Malvern. I assure hon. Members that the people of Malvern almost unanimously wish to see this wonderful college preserved. We have a plan and a business case. While this situation goes on, the site is being left to go to rack and ruin. That is in nobody’s interest. Will the Minister urge her officials to look at this issue one more time? Will she tell them that she has the power to do something here? Power to her elbow.”
“I look forward to meeting the group’s new chair, Anna Daroy, and its president, Louise Bennett, who are both actually from Worcestershire, to emphasise to them how important it is to find a happy solution. Unfortunately—I use parliamentary privilege to make these remarks—Warwickshire College Group has chosen to retain lawyers and to sue Malvern Hills District Council. It is using public money to sue my council to get it to lift the covenant, on the pretext that the Learning and Skills Council no longer exists, and its successor body, the Education and Skills Funding Agency, feels that there is sufficient provision in the area. That would mean that we as a community cannot determine the future of the college. I want a future for our college like the one that the right hon. Member for Exeter outlined for his constituency.”
“Between them, there is a substantial—possibly multimillion-pound—offer to keep the site working as a college in the heart of Malvern. Hon. Members would think that that would satisfy the board and trustees of Warwickshire College Group—that they would remain faithful to the covenant, the district council would not lift it, and the college would rise like a phoenix from the closure that Warwickshire College Group announced under the cloak of the pandemic. Unfortunately, so far the board seems to have focused on ensuring that it simply gets maximum value for the site and is able to sell it—presumably, for a housing development. That is not what the community wants. We have protested; we have marched outside the college. We have also put forward a very valuable offer to take the college from Warwickshire College Group.”
“Places such as Malvern are exactly where we need to have the precious resource of a good college—I see that colleagues are nodding their heads. With the vision that has been outlined, and stability in our education team, which I hope will endure, I hope that we can focus on the fact that the community very much wishes to retain the site as a college—so much so that, through the Bransford Trust, a local philanthropist is offering a substantial sum to purchase the site so that it can be maintained as a going concern in the heart of Malvern. Our local council, Malvern Hills District Council, has allocated a £400,000 grant to secure the future of the college, and our county council has also very helpfully allocated a £400,000 grant.”
“In 2016, the trustees entrusted its ownership to what has become Warwickshire College Group, which is obviously headquartered in Warwickshire, the neighbouring county. In their wisdom and prudence, at the time of the transfer the trustees put in place a covenant on this precious building in the heart of Malvern. I will read the covenant into the record. The property cannot be used for anything “other than a Further Education College and ancillary uses thereto without the prior written confirmation from the Transferor that the Transferor is satisfied…that the Learning and Skills Council (or any successor in function) has properly determined that there is no longer a functional need for a college in Malvern”. Malvern is a beautiful town of 35,000 people. It is a growing town.”
“It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mrs Murray. I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) on securing this important debate. It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), because he outlined what successful colleges can look like. I will hold to that vision as I speak about the situation in my constituency and about the Malvern Hills College situation in particular. I want to start by thanking the Minister, because on taking post she wrote me an incredibly helpful letter. She has clearly studied the situation at the wonderful Malvern Hills College very closely, but I will reiterate it for the record and for the benefit of colleagues. The college has been in existence in the centre of Malvern for nearly 100 years.”
“One of the most upsetting things said to me about Warwickshire College Group’s decision to close Malvern Hills College was that most of the students were older. Surely, that is not the kind of message that we want to be sending out across our land.”
“One workplace where women need support is the other place, where an eighth of the seats are reserved for men only. Will the Minister support my Hereditary Titles (Female Succession) Bill and get that anomaly changed?”