Dame Karen Bradley
MP for Staffordshire Moorlands · Conservative · United Kingdom
“The Leader of the House knows that I have enormous respect for him, and I am sure that this is quite a difficult statement for him to make, particularly as the right hon. Member for Makerfield will face unfavourable comparisons with Boris Johnson, who did come to this House and make a statement before the summer recess.”
“I thank the hon. Member—my friend from the Select Committee—for an enjoyable visit. We learned a lot, but it was a challenging visit, as there was an awful lot to take in. This is a problem that affects countries across the world; it is not an issue that can be solved by one country alone. We have to work together.”
“Members for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray), for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) and for Bassetlaw (Jo White) were all there to see the work being done. It is very impressive to see the work being done jointly with the UK.”
“Someone’s immigration status may make them more vulnerable, but it is a financial crime—it is the exploitation of one human being by another for financial gain.”
“Like many on this side of the House, I have very fond memories of Ann. She made the effort to travel to Staffordshire Moorlands—not many people do; we are quite isolated— [ Interruption. ] Yes, they come to Alton Towers—the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) is quite right.”
“It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon). He was absolutely right about the tone we need to employ. I recognise the comments he made about his constituents. I suspect that his constituents have a very similar view to my constituents—we are not too far apart.”
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“As I say, I will sit down shortly, because I want to make sure that the amendment can be moved and that we have time for the vote, but I urge my hon. Friend to consider voting for the amendment, because that will mean that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham and my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay will be able to vote and speak.”
“Why exclude Members who could take part in debates and make important contributions simply because of—well, I do not know. I do not know why the Government are refusing to accept this, but we must give the House a proper say, and the Procedure Committee will continue to pursue the issue.”
“The right hon. Gentleman is correct. We asked for this debate during the urgent question last week, and we asked for it again on Thursday. This debate has been sprung on Members, and I feel strongly that we need to look at the House having its say. This is a House matter. The Government have kindly tabled the motion, but it is a matter for the House to decide. I shall conclude, because I want to ensure that the hon. Member for Rhondda can move and speak to his amendment. I urge the Government to think about how this looks in the eyes of the public when their MP can take part in a question but not take part in a subsequent debate. Yes, they can vote by proxy—we can have a debate about whether the proxy voting system works and whether it is optimal—but all of this is suboptimal. None of this is as good as it should be.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), who is a fellow member of the Procedure Committee. I was pleased to hear the Minister say that the Department takes the answering of questions seriously, because the answering and the monitoring of written questions and correspondence from MPs will help Ministers to identify problems in the implementation and roll-out of their policies. The Procedure Committee, which I chair, has granted some leeway to the Department in recognition of the pressures that it faces, but I invite my hon. Friend to come to the Committee in the next few weeks to explain how he is going to address the backlog.”
“It is possible that the majority of the House agrees with him, not my Committee, but the only way to find that out is to schedule a debate on the matter and allow a free vote, as I think he would have demanded if our roles were reversed. As a Back-Bench Member of this House, there are two ways that I can represent my constituents: by speaking in this Chamber on their behalf and by casting my vote. We are in danger of removing both those rights from far too many Members. I commend my Committee’s report and this statement to the House.”
“Not for the first time, the Government have looked for tactical fixes rather than strategic solutions that would increase the House’s capacity for resilience now and in the future. The House must be allowed to have its say on how best we represent our constituents in this place. We are all accountable to our constituents, and they will challenge us if they do not believe that we are representing them properly. Around one quarter of Members are using the ability to participate virtually in scrutiny proceedings. With pandemic restrictions likely to be in place until the spring at least, I ask the Government to stop using short-term tactics that require constant U-turns, and instead let that quarter of MPs take part in debates. Nobody—not even my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House—has a monopoly on being right.”
“Our corridors are eerily quiet at the moment, for reasons we all appreciate, but I know that the staff involved will have been working non-stop to get the broadcasting systems ready for virtual participation in debate as soon as there was a prospect of the Government allowing it to happen. Under Mr Speaker’s leadership, we have a House service that is well placed to take a strategic view of our circumstances. If there had been a little more strategic thinking in certain other quarters about how best to equip the House to meet the challenges of the pandemic once it was clear that the restrictions were to be extended well into the new year, perhaps the necessary political signals enabling work on virtual participation to commence could have been sent rather earlier than last weekend.”
“We must try to make this House work as best we can for the situation we find ourselves in now and ensure that all Members can do their job today. That requires us to look at the issue strategically, with easy-to-understand and clear rules about participation that reflect today’s reality, as set out in the four reports published by my Committee on this matter. I must tell the House how much the Committee appreciates the work being done on the House’s behalf by all those across the House service and our digital and audiovisual services to support the work we come here to do.”
“It is my view that he should have seen the possibility of that image, demonstrating the complete contradiction in his position on this matter, and never have let it happen. The public will be baffled by a situation in which the Prime Minister can answer Prime Minister’s questions virtually yesterday and make a statement to the House virtually today but cannot take part in a debate until he has finished self-isolating. This is an utterly farcical situation. I am sure that the Leader of the House, being a traditionalist, does not want to change our procedures too much because of a fear that those changes will become permanent. I have enormous sympathy with that view, but we must acknowledge that things are not as they were. This hybrid House is, to coin a phrase, sub-optimal.”
“The Procedure Committee was unanimous in its view that virtual participation in debates should be extended to all Members who cannot, for whatever reason, participate in person due to the pandemic. There should not be different tests for those who can participate virtually in debates, those who can enjoy virtual participation in our scrutiny proceedings and those who decide to use a proxy vote. It should not take the image of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) being denied the right to participate in a debate on the very disease that is keeping her from Parliament to make the Government move. The Leader of the House was right to say that nobody could fail to be moved by that image.”
“Those recommendations go much further than the Government’s position on this matter. I am a great fan of my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House. He is a most courteous parliamentarian and, as a Back Bencher, was one of the greatest champions of the independence of Parliament from the Executive. But his failure to schedule any debate on this subject and his refusal to listen to the views of the House, expressed so fervently on Monday in response to the urgent question secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), when tabling the motion to extend virtual participation in debates is indefensible.”
“I rise to speak to the report issued by the Procedure Committee last night about virtual participation in the debates of this House for those who cannot participate physically. It is the sixth report of the Committee in this Session, and the fourth we have produced on House procedure under coronavirus restrictions. I must start by thanking the Chair and members of the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time in the Chamber for this statement, and the sponsors and contributors to this afternoon’s debate for their understanding. My final thank you is to the very many right hon. and hon. Members from all parties who have given evidence both publicly and privately to my Committee on this matter. It is that evidence that has informed the Committee and on which our recommendations are based.”
“I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for her comments. It is important that I make it clear that the Government moved their position on proxy votes so that those who have a proxy vote can now take part in proceedings in the Chamber, and I give credit to the Government for doing that. None the less, she is right to say that a large number of Members cannot participate in the Chamber; around one quarter of Members are exercising the ability to participate virtually in scrutiny proceedings because they do not feel that they are able to come to the Chamber. It is that quarter of Members whom my Committee is incredibly keen to see taking part in debates. By the time we get to the end of March, it will have been for nearly 12 months that a quarter of Members have not been able to take part in debates. That is simply not acceptable.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend, who was an esteemed Leader of the House in her day and knows these issues incredibly well. The point that the Committee wanted to get across was that we cannot continue having a situation where so many Members are unable to take part in our debates. As I have said, by the end of March, this will have been going on for nearly 12 months. I urge the Government to give time for that debate and to give the House the chance to have its say. The House may well agree with the Government, but we will never know unless we have that opportunity.”
“The hon. Gentleman is right about the way in which our democracy is being portrayed. When we introduced our hybrid proceedings in April, we were actually held up around the world as a fantastic example of ensuring full participation for all Members. We all accept that there will be differences in ability between those who participate virtually, and those who are here in the Chamber and can therefore interact in a different way, but that does not mean that we should exclude people who wish to participate virtually from all our proceedings. I know that the House services can make it work, and I want the Government to allow them the chance to do so.”
“I thank my hon. Friend, a fellow Committee member, who has made such a contribution to the report. I agree wholeheartedly with what he says.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is another esteemed member of the Committee; it is very gracious of him to make those comments. His experience as a member of the previous Committee certainly helped me coming back on to the Committee, as I did in January this year as the new Chair. He makes some incredibly important points. The Armistice Day debate was so powerful and did show the House at its best, but excluding a quarter of Members, who simply could not take part because their own health or the health of their loved ones would have been put at risk, simply demonstrates to me, once again, the need for this provision. There is capacity; we have heard evidence time and again that the House service can deliver this. I urge my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to give the House a chance to have its say on the matter.”
“My hon. Friend made a very important point on Monday when she raised the issue of pregnant women. The fact that those women do not fall into the definition of clinically extremely vulnerable means that, as things stand, the Government propose that they will have to come into the House if they wish to take part in debates. I know that the Leader of the House has concerns about that; he has said so to me privately. I hope that he will listen and make sure that he does allow for pregnant women to be able to take part in debates. My hon. Friend makes an interesting comment about the analogy between other workplaces and this workplace. She will know that for other workplaces the Government’s advice is “If you can work from home, you should.” Perhaps the Leader of the House should listen to that piece of advice as well.”
“I thank the hon. Lady—another esteemed member of the Committee. It is much easier answering questions on a statement from here on the Back Benches than it is from the Dispatch Box where I used to answer questions. It is a much more pleasurable experience. She makes exactly the right points. I think that all of us were able to accept that this was a short-term measure and that maybe we could allow for a little change in our procedures because of that. However, it is not short-term. It is going on until at least the end of March—that is what the Government’s procedures say—and we cannot continue to exclude so many Members from our debates.”
“You will spot, Mr Deputy Speaker, that Procedure Committee members are very active in the Chamber, and it is great to have a contribution from another member. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I want to be clear to the Government: anything that we have written in this report is about how we conduct our business today and for the foreseeable future until we can get back to normal, but the Committee is unanimous in wanting to get back to normal, returning to our procedures as they were, as soon as we possibly can. It will then of course be for the Procedure Committee and future Committees to consider the way that procedure happens in this House and things that they may want to change in the future, but the measures we are asking for today are only for the period of the pandemic, not beyond that.”
“I am not going to try to answer that question on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I am sure he will answer it for himself. I say again that the House wants to have its say on this, and I hope that he will listen to that point.”
“We may have thought that we had finished with procedural novelties when we left the European Union, but it turns out that covid has introduced more procedural novelties than we could ever have imagined. The right hon. Lady asks what mechanisms we can use to bring these measures in. The first, of course, is to implore the Government to listen and give time for a debate. If that is not possible, I will speak to the Backbench Business Committee and see whether there is any way we can find time for a debate on the matter to give the House an opportunity to have its say, even if that is not on a binding measure, as it would be if the Government tabled a motion.”
“The right hon. Lady is right when she says that we are a world leader. As I said in the statement, the rest of the world looked on in awe at what we in this House were able to achieve so quickly. The other place is using so many of the facilities and procedures that we developed and then disregarded. We decided that we did not want to use them; we wanted to return to some form of normality that simply cannot be achieved at the moment. I have not yet paid tribute to the Clerk of the Procedure Committee, Martyn Atkins, and I must do so. He is, sadly, moving on. His time with us has been and gone several times over, and he is finally being dragged from us—kicking and screaming, as far as we are concerned. He has turned around reports and dealt with these matters in a way that no one could have anticipated.”
“I am telling them that because I have been mithered for weeks by my 15 year-old son, who has seen such a beef rub on Instagram. He is not getting his advertising from broadcast media; he is getting his advertising from the internet, and he is desperate to try a beef rub on beef brisket, and I will therefore make sure he does so over the weekend. We have to have a level playing field on advertising. Our broadcast media are about to face real restrictions on the way that certain products can be advertised. This will impact on our public service broadcasters in particular, but we do not see the same level of regulation applied to the internet, and I know for one that the place my children are seeing advertising is on the internet. It is, sadly, not on broadcast media in the way I picked up my advertising. I ask my hon.”
“Friend the Minister, who knows full well about all this, because he was with me when lots of this work was happening in the Department, to deal with the issue of age verification on pornography. I know that it does not resolve every issue. It is not going to solve every problem, but there was a message given to me by children time and again. If there was one thing they wanted to see stopped, it was access to pornography because that was what was fuelling the harm that they faced. Turning to advertising, I will share with the House that this weekend I will be cooking a beef brisket that I will be purchasing from Meakins butchers in Leek, and I will be putting on it a beef rub. Hon. Members may ask why I am telling them that.”
“Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), that we should have an internet safety strategy. That is what has become the online harms strategy. The internet safety strategy was born out of my work in the Home Office when I was the Minister for Preventing Abuse, Exploitation and Crime. It was clear to me through the work that I did in particular on protecting children that the internet was being used to harm children. We have some great successes. The WePROTECT initiative, for example, which has had a real impact on removing pornographic images of children and child abuse online, is a great success, but we must never rest on our laurels. I ask my hon.”
“I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) on securing this debate and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for it. There is no doubt that the internet can be a force for good. Over the past few months, we have all enjoyed the fact that we can keep in touch with family and friends. We can work from home. Some people can even participate in certain parts of our proceedings, although clearly not this debate. But the internet can be used for harm. In the limited time I have I want to make just two points. One is about the impact on children and the other is about advertising online. When I was the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, I initially took the idea to the then Prime Minister, my right hon.”
“I thank the many Members who contacted my Committee following our call for evidence, wanting to see exactly this change. I am sure that they were very pleased when they saw the news on Twitter last night. I repeat what my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) said: this should be a matter for the House and needs a full debate. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that these changes will not impact on the work of Select Committees? It is very important that they are able to access digital services to carry out their important work.”
“It is such a big spectator event—all outdoors—for household groups travelling together. When Lewis Hamilton took the record for the most F1 wins in Portimão, Portugal, there were spectators flying the Union flag which, I am sure, was important for him and the fans. Finally, on grassroots sports, I co-signed the letter from my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), who is no longer here. We need grassroots sports, not just because they are important in themselves, but because they are a pipeline for elite sports. We heard recently from the rugby authorities that there is a real worry that we will not have that pipeline of young players coming through, which will have an impact on our national teams and on the mental health and wellbeing of many.”
“When we do get out of lockdown, can we not have a one-size-fits-all answer to this? There may well be clubs that can fit in more fans. They need to have other revenue streams. They are not asking for a Government bail-out. They want the chance to run and to make the money that they would normally make. This one is a volunteer-run club. It wants to have hospitality again—no prawn cocktails; it is entirely Staffordshire oatcakes. It would like to be able to have that hospitality back and have those income streams. May I make a point about another elite sport? I am the treasurer of the all-party parliamentary group on Formula 1, and it was brilliant to have two F1s this year at Silverstone, but when we spoke to Silverstone recently, it said that the lack of fans was soul-destroying.”
“However, I will just make the point that there was a match yesterday at the Etihad Stadium and my son and I are utterly convinced that, if we had been there, we would have got the Blues over the line and had a victory—I say sorry to the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), on the Opposition Benches, for that. But we could not be there, and we accept that. We were pleased that we were able to watch on television even if we were not able to help our team to get that victory. My hon. Friend the Minister will know that I have referred before to my community club, Leek Town, which is a step four club, so has been able to have spectators. It is clearly unable to play any matches at the moment because of lockdown, and it fully accepts and appreciates that, but could I repeat this question to the Minister?”
“Thank you, Mr Stringer. Of course I do not mind at all. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I pay tribute also to my hon. Friend, and constituency neighbour, the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis). I can absolutely attest to what he has said about the value in the community of Port Vale and Stoke City, who support local activities and community events in my constituency of Staffordshire Moorlands, too. They are incredibly important and, indeed, vital parts of our community. I thank the Government for allowing elite sport to continue during this lockdown. To be clear, nothing that I am about to say is regarding what is happening today, in this lockdown; it is to the time after the lockdown that I think we need to look.”
“Thank you very much, Mr Gray. I do hope the fact that I chair a Committee that you sit on has not somehow swayed you into giving me more time than other people.”
“I invite the Minister to meet my constituents from Heaton House Farm and The Ashes to discuss the issue to see what support the Government can find to help those incredibly special places.”
“Without that, they will lose their staff. They are not making a single penny on that; they are doing it so that they can keep their staff and to make sure that when they can get back to having weddings, they can do so in the best way they possibly can. They do not benefit from many of the grants because their rateable values are too high—they simply need to be able to get back to holding weddings. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) said, they can hold a wedding service, but they could not sit the guests until the regulations changed to allow 15, and yet those guests could go to the local pub and up to 60 of them could sit, socially distanced, in tables of six. That cannot be right. We have to find a way through this.”
“They offer large events and are licensed venues. They have the most incredible scenery. If you have been lucky enough to sit in the hairdresser’s and read Hello! or OK! magazines, Mr Gray, you will have seen the venues, because they host the celebrity weddings that feature in these great, august publications. However, they simply have no business at all at the moment—they have nothing. As the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) said, they could not benefit from “eat out to help out”, because they do not offer food outside weddings and large events. They cannot benefit from the VAT reduction, because they have no turnover—they are not making any money at the moment. The Heaton House Farm team have taken over running a community pub in Rushton Spencer, The Royal Oak, just to find somewhere to employ their staff.”
“I will remember that when we meet on Wednesday. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for his excellent opening speech and for setting the scene so well. Given that I have only four minutes, I will focus on just one issue: wedding venues. Like many hon. Members, I have been contacted by so many people who have been affected—couples whose big day has not happened or has been seriously scaled down, and the businesses that supply wedding venues. I want to focus on two unique venues in my constituency: Heaton House Farm and The Ashes. Heaton House Farm is in Rushton Spencer, and The Ashes in is Endon—both are in Staffordshire Moorlands. They are bespoke wedding venues; they do not do anything else.”
“On the point about the night-time economy and flexibility, will the Minister consider allowing drinking-up time after 10 pm, once we are through this lockdown? Venues could then provide two sittings for meals and ensure that everybody did not leave the venue at the same time.”
“Whether they are educated and should have known better or whether they are very vulnerable victims, they are still entitled to be listened to and heard. It is clear from so many hidden crimes that until victims are believed and listened to, we cannot break the cycle.”
“When a constituent who has been the victim of a fraud or other crime comes to our surgery, we might well think to ourselves, “Well, buyer beware, and you should have realised when this too-good-to-be-true offer was put in front of you. Maybe you should not have accepted it or given your bank details,” or whatever else it might be. However, we do not judge. We do not say, “We are not going to take your case, because you’re a bad victim who brought it on yourself.” Instead, we say to our constituents, “Of course we will take your case to Parliament. Of course we will raise it with Ministers. Of course we will take it to the highest authorities.” The same applies to the victims of traffickers. If somebody has been trafficked to Calais, Zeebrugge or Dunkirk, it is because they believe there is a chance of a better life.”
“I want to focus the majority of my time on Lords amendment 4. I thank all Ministers for their engagement over the weekend. I spoke to Minister on the Front Bench—the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster)—and to other Ministers in the Home Office. I know there is concern to make sure we get this right, but again it goes back to the point that we must help the victims, because we can never break the cycle of crime that is getting people to the point where they are in Calais, Dunkirk and Zeebrugge unless we can help the victims. I gently say to the Minister—he is not guilty of this, but I gently say it to all Ministers—that we must not think of victims as good victims or bad victims.”
“Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green said about support for victims, but to implement all measures from the Modern Slavery Act 2015. That was an excellent, groundbreaking and world-leading Act—we are using lots of clichés—but so much of it has not yet been implemented. If it was implemented fully, we would see so much more success with prosecutions, which is what we all want. I will speak very briefly on Lords amendment 3. I urge the Government to deliver on this matter. Communication is absolutely key. We need to ensure that people who are entitled to claim settled status know about it. The international reputation of the United Kingdom is at risk here. Getting this wrong will not enhance the view of us by others in the world. We need to make sure that we get it right.”
“I know he is a good man and he wants to do the right thing, but we need to deliver as a Government so that the statistics back up what is being said. The key point here is that we want to see prosecutions. We will not break the cycle of this horrendous crime if we do not bring the perpetrators to justice. That means having victims here in the United Kingdom who are able to testify, able to give evidence and able to bring the perpetrators to justice. It is incredibly important that the Government bear that in mind, because, as with all hidden crimes, without support given to the victims, who are the most vulnerable people imaginable and who have been through the most hideous experiences, we will never break the cycle and bring the perpetrators to justice. I urge the Minister not just to support what my right hon.”
“I rise to speak to a number of amendments. I declare my interest as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on human trafficking and modern slavery, which I chair with the noble Baroness Butler-Sloss from the other place. I will not repeat what my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) said, because I agree wholeheartedly with every word, but, if I may, I will add to his comments. Just today, the organisation ECPAT published a freedom of information request which found that just 28 children who were confirmed victims of trafficking were granted discretionary leave to remain in the UK between 2016 and 2019. I therefore say to the Minister that the statistics do not stack up with the words we are hearing from the Dispatch Box.”
“It is often said that these are older children aged 14, 15 or 16. I have a 14-year-old, and if my 14-year-old did not have me, I would want to know that they could go to one of my family, be that my brothers or my in-laws. Does my hon. Friend agree?”
“That is fantastic, and this country should be incredibly proud of it. We are also hosting COP 26, which again gives the UK an opportunity to show global leadership. The Prime Minister, in his recent address to the United Nations, said: “we have a responsibility to our planet to lead in this way and to do this.” I say to my right hon. Friend the Minister that this is a simple measure that companies understand. It would allow us to shine a light through supply chains and see what carbon emissions companies are offshoring and what they are doing to bring products for sale in the UK without giving proper regard to carbon emissions. Now, I am a realist as well as a former Whip—”
“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch with absolute conviction that companies and boards are taking this matter seriously. Would anybody wish to be a board director signing off a report saying that they had taken no steps to eradicate modern slavery in their supply chain? I do not think any of us would want that. I was thinking about what I could do usefully to assist the Government in dealing with carbon, because it is very easy for businesses to offshore carbon. I am not suggesting that UK businesses do that or choose to have products manufactured in high carbon-emitting countries to avoid carbon emission restrictions in the UK. It is absolutely right that this country was the first to legislate for net zero by 2050.”
“If we can lead in that way with a simple measure that will enable consumers and possibly employees to see what businesses are doing to eliminate carbon, that would assist him and the Government in reaching the target. As I say, I am very realistic about what may or may not happen in the next few minutes with this Bill, but I can make an offer to the Minister. Could I work with him and his officials on this? Could we look at doing some proper analysis of how this measure might affect businesses? I know that, particularly in the light of the covid situation, no Minister wants to impose more burdens on business, but business will understand, and I think welcome, this measure. We introduced the modern slavery measure because business asked us to do so. It said, “Can we all step across the line together?””
“Amazing to think, isn’t it? As it is 2.21 pm on a Friday afternoon, I recognise that it is perhaps unlikely that this Bill will be granted its Second Reading. I know that a great deal of work is under way in the Department to look at what measures can be introduced. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is not short of new ways to assist businesses in reducing their carbon emissions and contributing towards reaching net zero by 2050, but I offer this Bill to the Minister as another weapon in his arsenal—another thing that he can use to assist us to reach net zero not just in the UK but across the whole world.”
“The thing that we should look to is what we did on modern slavery. There are other countries that do this. California was the first place to have a transparency in supply chains measure. We would be world leaders, though, in transparency in supply chains on carbon, and that would give us a real edge with COP 26 coming up. I make this offer to my right hon. Friend the Minister. Would he work with me? Would he allow me time to work with his officials to work this up? I know it will take a bit of time and effort to get it through the Government clearing processes and reach collective agreement, but I believe it would give him and the Government a real global lead in how we tackle carbon emissions.”