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 hope that the powers in the Bill will enable our constituents to see much more clearly on their pensions dashboard what they are being charged and for what. As someone who used to work in the industry on the receiving end of the charges, I know there is no doubt that the compounding effect can have a meaningful impact on the final outcome of people’s pensions. Will the Minister comment in his closing statement on the charges that the National Employment Savings Trust levies on our constituents? NEST is the body that was set up because, through auto-enrolment, there will be some very small and uneconomic pots that the industry will not want to take on. I recall from my time on the Select Committee on Work and Pensions that NEST itself charges really quite vicious amounts to people who are putting their money into a NEST scheme.”
“I certainly think that the Government should seriously consider such a provision, if people meet the earnings criterion. The second thing that makes people’s pensions better over the long term is tax breaks and employer contributions. The earlier people can pay in the maximum before tax that they are allowed to and get the employer matching that amount, the better off they are going to be in retirement. The third thing that makes people better off through their pension is lower charges. This subject has not yet come up during this debate, but it is incredibly important to put on the record. The charges in this incredibly competitive industry, in which the UK leads the world, can vary dramatically.”
“I welcome the Bill, which is a milestone in the country’s journey to a safer, better and greener financial future, in which more people are saving for their old age. I echo the warm words spoken by the Secretary of State about the work of the Pensions Minister, who has a true passion for improving the future not only of his constituents in Hexham but of all our constituents. This has been an incredibly well-informed debate and I hesitate to add anything, but I do want to bring in my perspective, as someone who used to work on the dark side as a pension fund manager, and to make the obvious point that there are three main things that ensure that people have a good pension in old age. The first is starting as young as possible. I was interested to hear Members arguing about starting as early as 18.”
“I make that point, and I make the point about charges, because the pensions dashboard will play a vital role in showing people what they are paying for those returns in an environment where interest rates are virtually zero, where the index has quite a lot of climate-affected assets, where charges can be as high as those from NEST, the state-backed provider, and where investment returns could be lower for a protracted period as we recover from the pandemic. It is worth flagging the fact that giving information on charges in particular and the way in which they are compounded over a lifetime will be a powerful part of the very many welcome changes that we can see in this excellent piece of legislation.”
“I welcome what the Minister says, and I did not want in any way to undermine the provision in the Bill and the incredible progress that it represents on our journey to a greener financial future. I welcome those steps wholeheartedly, but I wish to highlight that those risks, although disclosed, will be there. Many of our constituents, every month in their payroll, put investments into index-based funds in which those risks are inherent. It is incumbent on us all to recognise that that could be a big driver of UK returns, given that a significant portion of the index consists of carbon-based industries in the UK.”
“Financial services are this country’s biggest export sector. The Treasury Committee heard evidence from the Bank of England last month that equivalence could be a real problem, as it could be withdrawn quickly. Will the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster update the House on how negotiations on financial services regulations are going?”
“I thank the Secretary of State for another update on covid-19. I am wearing pink today, because October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so will he take this opportunity to remind everybody how important it is to check for symptoms and to see their GP if they have any, and to tell the NHS how important it is that the screening programme gets back under way, because 1,000 women will die of this disease this month alone?”
“The Prime Minister and I were both elected on a manifesto pledge to increase home building and to level up our country, and there is lots to welcome in the planning White Paper, but the formula that has been used to allocate the homes seems to be doing the opposite. It has overshot in terms of numbers, and the investment is concreting down rather than levelling up, so will my right hon. Friend commit that, when the consultation closes tomorrow, he will pledge to change some of the elements of this—dare I say it—algorithm?”
“The UK is rightly proud of its commitment to the world’s poorest through spending 0.7% of our GNI on eliminating poverty, but with a smaller economy, the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is having to make reductions of £2.9 billion in that spending. Will the Foreign Secretary come to the House to update us on how he is making those difficult choices and trade-offs? When will the Leader of the House table a motion to establish a Committee to look at spending on overseas development assistance across all Departments?”
“I thank the Secretary of State for the extra £2.5 million for Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust and the extra money for the social care system in Worcestershire. Will he clarify what the advice is these days for people who would normally have fetched up at A&E? Is it to call 111 in every instance?”
“I thank the Minister personally, and the Secretary of State, for all they did to ensure that funding will deliver a scheme for Tenbury Wells. May I ask her to encourage, from the Dispatch Box, the Environment Agency to crack on and get a socially distanced consultation under way on its preferred design?”
“We accepted massive restrictions of our liberty in March because we wanted to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed, and we achieved that—indeed, not all the capacity was used. We are now imposing more restrictions on people’s liberty. Does the Secretary of State’s strategic goal for England continue to be to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed, or has he now gone further and is aiming for zero covid in England?”
“It is very reassuring to hear how far we have come in terms of our lines of defences against this invisible killer over the past six months. May I, through the Secretary of State, thank everyone who has helped us get here? On the second line of defence, the testing, may I have an update on how the NHS is working with the private sector to make sure that all aspects of our economy can reopen safely?”
“Gender pay gap reporting has been suspended because of the coronavirus crisis. As the economic downturn is likely to disproportionately affect women, does the Secretary of State agree that it is important that gender pay gap reporting starts again immediately?”
“I thank the Defence Secretary for the update on Daesh, but he will know that the world’s fastest growing Islamist insurgency is in the Sahel and west Africa. I welcome the commitment to send UK troops to be part of MINUSMA—the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali—the most dangerous peacekeeping mission in the world. Will he reassure the House that the National Security Council is looking across government at how the UK can address the sources of conflict in the Sahel and west Africa?”
“There has never been a more important time for these 46,000 parliamentarians from 179 countries to come together and share their experiences and how they have been holding their Governments to account. I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for this opportunity to update colleagues.”
“I should update colleagues on the fact that over the course of the next few months, we have to make a decision as a Parliament as to who we want to back to succeed to the presidency of the IPU, because the current president, Gabriela Cuevas Barron, comes to the end of her term in October. There will be a meeting in November to decide the next president. At the moment, only two people have so far shown their candidacy—one from Portugal and one from Pakistan. We as the BGIPU are looking for a few more candidates to show their hand. We want to see what the whole field looks like before we decide who we want to back to take on the important role of the presidency. I encourage all colleagues to get involved and take part in the wide range of interesting meetings.”
“We have been able to liaise with UK ambassadors and high commissioners from across Africa and from some of the most conflict-afflicted parts of Africa, such as Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia, as well as with the International Committee of the Red Cross. We have been able to hold seminars jointly with the BBC. There was one on Chechnya and LGBT issues. We were able to hold a roundtable last week with the ambassador from the Republic of Korea. I think all colleagues are aware that Korea has been able to apply its experience from the outbreak earlier in the 2000s to the current crisis, and we learned an enormous amount from that session. All those events are of course on the website.”
“That is a wonderful opportunity to showcase the fantastic work they are doing at my alma mater. I also want to thank everyone who has taken part in all these virtual events. As the House knows, we have a particular focus on the non-Commonwealth countries, and we have found the sessions to be very informative in terms of the links between different Parliaments and different countries and how they have taken different approaches to the outbreak and at different times. We have had some very good information sharing and learning from each other. We have also been able to focus on many of the other priorities of the BGIPU. On media freedom, we had a John Smith Trust session with graduates from Georgia, Armenia, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. We were able to focus an event on refugees.”
“I thank the staff of the IPU for having worked relentlessly right through this crisis, working to maintain those links between 179 Parliaments and 46,000 parliamentarians, at a time when it could not have been more important to maintain those links. As Back Benchers, all of us are part of the IPU, and we have taken the view as an executive that we want to continue with virtual links between Parliaments. We have had virtual bilaterals with Sweden, Norway, Italy and Colombia. I thank Mr Speaker for agreeing to take part in the virtual Speakers’ conference that will happen during August. I was also delighted to hear today that the president of the IPU has invited Professor Sarah Gilbert of Oxford University to be the keynote speaker, and that she has agreed to that invitation.”
“I also want to thank everyone in my local area—in West Worcestershire and across Worcestershire—who has worked tirelessly to support the whole community and everyone who has observed the guidelines in such a way that I now have real hope that we have conquered this public health challenge. I am particularly grateful to my own casework team, who have had to deal with quite unprecedented volumes of work in service to the community. I want to put those thanks on record to them now. As chair of the British Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, I want to update colleagues on what the IPU has been up to.”
“I will not say it is a pleasure, but it is interesting to follow the eclectic comments of the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), whose speech I would summarise as sour grapes. That is not the tone in which I wanted to make my remarks this afternoon. I want to thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the other Deputy Speakers, Mr Speaker and the whole House staff for the amazing way in which they have allowed us to come back here since the end of April, in this hybrid fashion, to hold the Government to account through this difficult period for the country.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for finding a way to reopen the beauty sector, which employs so many women across the country. When I paid a visit to the Malvern Spa to celebrate its reopening last weekend, I was told that it has capacity now for only 15 spa days, rather than 40, because of the square footage rules that his Department has set out. Will he look urgently at reviewing those, because it is a very spacious premises?”
“I share everyone’s disappointment that the BBC has chosen to break the agreement that it came to in 2015, but what worries me above all about this change is that we are talking about people who are very old and frail—people who may be suffering from developing dementia, or may be going into care homes or hospitals. They will be criminalised if they do not pay the licence fee. The Minister has the power to change that, and I urge him to do so.”
“May I associate myself, Mr Speaker, with your kind words to Rui, and to the House staff for all they have done over the past few months? In September, children in this country will be returning to their schools. Around the world, it is estimated that over 1 billion children have not been in school during the covid-19 crisis. The Malala Fund this week estimates that in September there will be some 10 million children, mainly girls, who will never return to school. May we have a debate in Government time in September to mark that milestone, and to talk about the Government’s own pledge of 12 years of quality education for every child in the world?”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for explaining with great care the strict criteria applied in all export licence cases. Can he update the House on the backlog of export licences? How quickly and carefully can they be reviewed?”
“In conclusion, I can be open-minded on the structures, as long as the purpose is there. However, in respect of scrutiny in this place, it would be right to have a separate Committee to look at international development.”
“Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) just said, we need to make sure that the vast majority of the 0.7% continues to be spent in the very poorest and most conflict-affected parts of the world. Thirdly, as colleagues will know, I am passionate about the importance of girls’ education and the 12 years of quality education. It is wonderful that the Prime Minister has been such an effective advocate for that cause. It will increase the size of the economy, increase health, reduce poverty, make the world more secure and help our climate, as it reduces population pressures. As the Prime Minister himself has put it, it is the Swiss army knife of development; will the Minister assure me that the Government will continue to emphasise it in their funding as much as they have previously?”
“When I held those joint roles, I was able to achieve a lot of the things that we will want to be doing, such as stepping up the money being spent on anti-corruption and governance, including good governance in Ukraine and the western Balkans. These things were all feasible because I had that joint role, and I am willing to believe that, provided we continue to focus on the true purpose, this can work well. On the issue at hand, I want the Minister to give three reassurances when he responds to the debate. First, will he reassure the House that there will still be a strong voice at Cabinet for the very poorest in the world? We will leave a better world to our children if we can have a healthier, more educated, a more peaceful, freer, more democratic and more climate-resilient world. Secondly, as the hon.”
“I thank the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for securing this debate. I want to speak from the perspective of someone who had the privilege of being a joint Minister: Minister for Africa in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and a Minister within DFID. I could not have done either job as well without the other. It was incredibly valuable to have the overall perspective. I am old enough to know that it is not organisational structures here in Whitehall that matter, but the purpose of what we are doing on the ground. We have a very good framework, with the sustainable development goals, which we are working towards in this decade of action up to 2030, and we should focus, as many posts do across the world, on what we are seeking to achieve.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for securing this Adjournment debate. She is making an excellent speech. I would like to endorse the points she is making on behalf of the many people who are employed teaching English as a second language in Worcestershire.”
“The role of National Security Adviser is clearly a very important role. It should be a separate role and I am sure that David Frost is well qualified to do it. On the confidentiality of secure Government information, could the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster update the House on what happened to the investigation into the leak of the diplomatic telegrams from Sir Kim Darroch?”
“I associate myself with your kind works of support for everyone affected by this incident, Mr Speaker. I want to ask specifically about the number of asylum seekers in supported accommodation who are from Sudan. Will the Minister convey to his colleagues in Government the welcome for the announced pledge to support the Government of Sudan in their transition to democracy, which came through last week?”
“May I also suggest an improvement in terms of treatment here? For those who have been asked through NHS 111 to stay at homes with symptoms of covid-19, would it be possible to start to send oxygen saturation monitors to their homes to ensure that they do not present at hospital far too late, when they are beyond treatment? Finally, on innovation in testing, which is the subject of today’s debate, can we have an update from the Minister on testing, which has risen remarkably from five a day to 200,000 a day, but which needs to find other innovations in terms of speed and methods? The saliva testing pilot in Southampton, for example, would enable our airline industry to get going again.”
“The innovation has allowed us to ramp up the ability to deal with such high volumes. There was also the appointment of Lord Deighton, who has been able to make such a remarkable difference through innovation in terms of the PPE supply chain. It is really exceptional how that has been dealt with. I would like to request that we put someone of that calibre in charge of planning how we ramp up and innovate organisationally to deal with the backlog of more routine treatments that are needed for so many of my constituents now. Secondly, on innovation in treatment, I am very proud that it has been UK scientists who have discovered the important role that dexamethasone can play in treatment. It is such a cheap treatment and will, I think, be a help all around the world where the infection still runs rampant.”
“From the outpouring from the community and those with whom she worked at Redditch Hospital, it was clear that she was an absolutely remarkable woman. I did not know her personally, but clearly no words will ever be able to make up for the loss of such a remarkable individual. I hope that, paying tribute to her work, here in Parliament, will help her family to come to terms with their loss. This afternoon, I want to speak about innovation in three key areas: innovation in organisation, innovation in treatment, and innovation in testing. Clearly, there has been massive innovation in all three areas throughout this crisis. First, on the organisational side, it has been amazing to see not only the new Nightingale hospitals being built, but so many GPs—I think almost all of them now—able to deliver tele-medicine.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to put on record my thanks to everyone who works in the NHS and the social care sector in Worcestershire, as well as all those involved in gold command who have been able to bring together the work of the county councils and the district council, and all the critical workers who have kept the county going over the past three months. It is remarkable how well prepared they were and how able they were to cope with the peak without ever running anywhere near being overwhelmed in the system. This debate allows me to put on record my condolences to the family of Julie Omar, a very well-regarded nurse who lived in Malvern. In April she very sadly passed away at home with symptoms of covid-19.”
“Happy birthday to the Minister. Our wonderful NHS staff have helped so many people recover from this terrible disease and leave hospital, and many of them will have been ventilated for a long time. Is the Minister planning to set up a specialist service that helps with those very difficult cases where a lot of rehabilitation will be needed?”
“As he expatiates on the value of digital technology to tax collection, will my right hon. Friend share with the Committee his thoughts on making tax digital and how the recent opportunity to make furlough payments has shown the value of a digital tax system?”
“I know that Worcestershire County Council finds the Public Works Loan Board very useful. Can the Minister update the Committee on the interest rate charged on that facility?”
“I had the privilege of being a merged Minister in both the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development, and I could see how well our embassies and high commissions worked across Africa presenting a “one UK” face to the world. Will the Foreign Secretary reassure me on three points: first, that he will be a strong voice in Cabinet for the world’s poorest and most dispossessed; secondly, that the proportion of the aid budget that is spent in the poorest and most conflict-affected countries will continue to be significant and at least where it is now; and thirdly, that he will prioritise the campaign for 12 years of quality education for every girl?”
“Is this not the only trade deal in history that starts out from a level playing field? Should that not make it much easier for us to find a pragmatic way forward?”
“We are all so grateful to our NHS and careworkers. So many people have made so many difficult sacrifices during this period of lockdown. They are furious to see the lack of social distancing in some of the protests that took place over the weekend and want to know what impact that might have had on the reproduction rate of the virus.”
“After 9/11, the aviation industry found a way almost instantly to find box cutters and get them off aeroplanes. After the shoe bomber, the aviation industry found a way almost right away to detect the smallest quantity of liquid in people’s luggage. If, tomorrow, the aviation industry and the inventive people around the world are able to find a way to swab, take temperatures and get an almost instant result back before and after every flight, will the Home Secretary drop these regulations?”
“I know that exhibits are not allowed in the Chamber, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I have with me a copy of what the Environment Agency has drawn up.”
“After the 1947 floods, which are still the worst on record, plans were drawn up to protect the town with flood defences, which would have cost less than £200,000, albeit in 1947 money, which I believe would be worth about £2.4 million today. Sadly, that scheme never went ahead. During the three summer floods in 2007, the town’s toilets were washed away. They have since been replaced by an award-winning scheme, and a lot of further work has been done, with individual property-level protection, new culverts and some work on the drainage. The Environment Agency is making sure that the Kyre brook vegetation is regularly cut back and has recently drawn up a feasible and deliverable scheme for a full flood defence around the town.”
“That leaves the final scheme—the big challenge —at Tenbury Wells. I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin), who was the Member for Tenbury Wells at the time of the 2007 floods, here to support my request today. Tenbury Wells is a wonderful market town on the River Teme. A market has been held there since 1249. The town has always been prone to flooding. The current bridge was built in 1795 by Thomas Telford, after the older one was washed away. The town is built on a flood plain and water can rush down incredibly quickly from the hills in Wales and Shropshire. The Kyre brook also flows right through the town and can fill up very quickly.”
“They have largely been funded by the local flood levy budgets, with the flood wall in Upton-upon-Severn calling on about £4 million of the billions in capital spend on flood defences in this country in the last decade. I am pleased that, since the February floods, the Environment Agency has committed to reviewing the Powick flood defences, as they were overtopped then. It would be good to see whether they can be raised without having a detrimental effect elsewhere. However, I will not stop campaigning until two further schemes are built in West Worcestershire. One is a bund in Severn Stoke, which is progressing well and has reached the planning permission stage. The cost is significantly lower than at Tenbury Wells and has been further reduced through the local supply of the material needed to build the bund.”
“Since 2010, we have had seven new flood defence schemes built with the help of the excellent team at the Environment Agency. Those schemes are in Uckinghall, Pershore, Powick and Kempsey, with two schemes in Upton-upon-Severn. The seventh, a community-based scheme, is in Callow End. Throughout the regular winter floods that have continued to affect the area, these flood defences have proved their worth time and again, and protected many homes on many occasions. The Upton-upon-Severn permanent flood defences alone have been called into service over 30 times and have allowed the town’s shops and pubs to remain open for residents at almost all normal times. The cumulative amount spent on these schemes has been over £9 million.”
“Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, and thank you for allowing this twice-postponed debate on flood defences for Tenbury Wells. We have just gone through the driest May on record and the pandemic is taking so much of the country’s bandwidth, so it is hard to believe that less than four months ago, we suffered some of the worst flooding in recent years in the Severn valley and elsewhere. We were very badly affected by Storm Ciara and Storm Dennis, and many people, homes and businesses were and indeed still are affected. In West Worcestershire, we have the confluence of the River Severn, the River Teme and the River Avon, so we are used to regular winter flooding. After particularly bad floods in the summer of 2007, I started campaigns to build more flood defences in our area.”