Kirsty Blackman
MP for Aberdeen North · Scottish National Party · United Kingdom
“I first raised the issue of self-generated images in Parliament more than four years ago. I have asked almost every single Culture, Media and Sport team about the issue of livestreaming. I am pleased to hear from the Secretary of State that action is being taken, and about the belt-and-braces approach that is coming in.”
“Labour promised £200 million for Grangemouth, none of which has materialised. Labour promised 1,000 jobs for GB Energy, and it turns out that a third of the 130 delivered so far are not actually in Scotland.”
“There is a geographical divide on this issue starker than I have ever seen in this place. Across all parties, every Member representing a Scottish constituency has stressed the issue of jobs, and how important this is to the north-east of Scotland.”
“There is a fundamental question here about what our priority is. Is it to reduce the bill, to reduce the amount of money that we are spending, or to ensure that disabled people can access all the human rights that the rest of us can, access society and be supported? We must recognise the extra costs of disability. What is the priority?”
“May I continue to encourage the Minister to talk to Social Security Scotland and our colleagues in the SNP Government about their experiences of the adult disability payment and whether the changes that have been implemented in Scotland would make a positive difference to those claiming PIP?”
“I will point out where things are today and how we can improve them, rather than looking at what was done in the past, but first, I recognise that although Pride is about celebration, it is also about being angry. We should be angry about the injustices.”
The complete record
Every one of 5,119 lines we hold for Kirsty Blackman, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 53 of 103.
“On the point the Minister made in relation to “competition or investment” and the disparity between that and “trade or investment”, if the Opposition amendment referred to “trade or investment”, would it be acceptable to the Minister?”
“I am baffled by this Government amendment. It seems to be directly opposite to what the Opposition moved. The Opposition were concerned that one of the principles was mentioned in the post-award referrals clause, but the others were not. With amendment 5, the Minister concedes that one of the principles should not be mentioned and is therefore asking for it to be taken out of clause 62 but not of the post-award referrals clause. To clause 60, he argued, I think, that it was okay to include one of the principles, but not the others. I am confused about why he made one argument at one point in the debate but is now arguing the opposite—for the removal of one of those principles.”
“So the principle has been removed from clause 62 but is being kept under clause 60? Is that correct? There is no Government amendment to remove that provision from clause 60, but the Government felt it was so important that they need to remove it from clause 62, even though it is literally the same—whether it is post-award referrals or CMA reports following a post-award referral. I am just baffled by the inconsistency, to be honest.”
“Subsidy schemes—given the schemes we have seen in relation to covid, for example—can be incredibly wide and apply to a significant number of industries, whereas the Secretary of State might have made it clear that any subsidies given under agriculture, for example, are considered as particular interest. A scheme could apply to everything in a certain area—widely drawn—but might not be challengeable in its own right.”
“Only subsidy schemes may be referred to the mandatory or voluntary referral process; the subsidies made under those schemes may not be referred. However, if we had a scheme that seems to tick all the normal boxes to make it acceptable as a subsidy scheme—it is given under clause 10 and all makes sense—but one of the subsidies given under that scheme is something that is of interest or particular interest, will the Minister confirm that that scheme will therefore be subject to mandatory referral, even if only one of the subsidies given under the scheme is of interest or particular interest? Even from reading clause 10, I am not sure quite how tight “subsidy scheme” is drawn.”
“I have a few questions. Are there any circumstances in which a subsidy given under a subsidy scheme could be considered of interest or of particular interest where the scheme itself is not considered of interest or particular interest? If that is the case, is it possible to ensure that a subsidy scheme in which any of the potential subsidies are considered as possibly of interest or particular interest is subject to the mandatory or voluntary referral, rather than the subsidies given under those schemes not being subject to any referral, despite the fact that some of them might tick the boxes and some will not? Does the Minister see what I mean? I understand that the question is complicated but, specifically, I am concerned about the lack of ability to refer individual subsidies.”
“Once again, that is not about trying to remove the speed of the process—I understand why the Minister wants that speed—but about a post-award or post-subsidy scheme set-up check to ensure that things are going the way the Government intend them to go.”
“I would probably not have gone quite as far as the Labour Front Bench, although I will support this amendment, but I have particular concerns about the lack of post-award scrutiny for streamlined subsidy schemes. If we have a parliamentary process, we are not getting the benefit of the CMA’s advice or its consideration. It is the case that mistakes were made during the course of covid. Things were done too quickly, and errors were made as a result. An after-the-fact examination to find out what went wrong and whether it is possible to do better next time would be helpful, particularly around streamlined subsidy schemes.”
“If the whole point of the streamlined subsidy schemes is in order for things to happen quickly, I understand that the Minister would not want the mandatory or voluntary referral process to apply in respect of them. However, I do not understand how he can justify the post-award referrals not taking place specifically for streamlined subsidy schemes. It is completely reasonable that, should a streamlined subsidy scheme be about a subject of interest or particular interest, a post-award referral should take place. I understand completely that the subsidy scheme needs to go before Parliament in order to become a streamlined subsidy scheme, but Parliament is not always right. Sometimes Parliament is wrong, and sometimes it bears scrutiny from experts such as the CMA, which should have the ability to look at this as a post-award thing.”
“I want to raise specific concerns about the first part of this amendment—I am not concerned about the amendment, but I have concerns relating to the first part of it, which is about taking out paragraph (a). Paragraph (a) relates to streamlined subsidy schemes, which were discussed in clause 10. In clause 10, the streamlined subsidy schemes are allowed to be made only by a Minister of the Crown, rather than by anybody else. I understand the Minister’s desire for an ability to make streamlined subsidy schemes—that makes sense. Unfortunately, the amendments that were tabled to widen that out to allow the devolved Administrations to make streamlined subsidy schemes were not accepted. The exemption of streamlined subsidy schemes from the whole of chapter 1 of part 4 bothers me.”
“It would give me more comfort to know that the scheme fulfils the principles, or at least that the SAU thinks the scheme fulfils the principles as they are laid out. Therefore, it would be much more reasonable for clause 64(1)(a) to be included if we were given that level of comfort.”
“I have a quick question for the Minister, which he does not have to answer now. I would appreciate it if he could consider when a streamlined subsidy scheme is being published and set before Parliament. He has made it clear that a number of people will be consulted and that it will be drawn up in parallel with thinking from experts and potential recipients of the subsidy scheme. That is fine, but when we are assessing those streamlined subsidy schemes, it would be helpful for Parliament to have that information, and particularly to have a view from the SAU, or from the CMA more generally, about the streamlined subsidy scheme. Even if the SAU just says, “We think this looks good,” that is at least more information for Parliament.”
“People should be able to search the website and, if possible, a system should be in place to ensure that authorities that do not upload full information face a slap on the wrist. They should face some sort of sanction or negative consequence for failing to do their duty.”
“I completely agree with the amendments that have been proposed. I am not looking to argue with the Minister about the requirements set out and the strength of the database; I am just looking to ensure that the guidance that authorities have to abide by is very strong. I would rather there be too much information on the website than not enough to enable people to mount their challenges. We will come to this later, but there will be very little time for people to make a challenge. They should therefore not have to spend quite a while rummaging around trying to find the details that would enable them to make an informed challenge. I would be keen to hear the Minister make it clear that he intends a significant amount of information that is as accessible as possible to be on the website.”
“Even if there were a checking process when the information first went up, they could immediately remove it. Having the backroom systems in place so that there is enough space and server capacity on the website to store all the information would be incredibly helpful and probably provide better transparency. I just want to pull out a couple of further things from the statistics that the Library provided. Of the subsidies recorded on the database that specify the region they are from, 30% are from England. I refuse to believe that only 30% of the subsidies that have been given in the UK since the system was started were in England. Some 21% were from Scotland, and I also refuse to believe that 21% of the subsidies that were given in the UK were given in Scotland. That just cannot be possible.”
“The principles include a requirement that a subsidy does not affect competition between the regions. It is therefore important that that is one of the criteria that the Secretary of State specifies. The links on the database are an absolute nightmare. If we go to any of the subsidies, it says, “Click here for more information”. Some of the links take us just to gov.uk, but other links take us to a local authority landing page. That is not right. It does not give us the details of the scheme. It would be more helpful if people were required to upload the details on to the website for the database rather than having the freedom to upload the details on to their own website. They could put them on their website and then take them down the next day.”
“I know that this is a precursor system and it is not yet fit, but that shows how important it is that we have a framework and the details in place so that public authorities know what information they need to provide and that anyone wanting to challenge the information is able to find that information on the site. So 245 entries did not specify an amount, but about £1.6 billion is currently registered on the database. In addition, 138 entries did not specify where they are from—whether that is England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland—but given the way challenges are likely to work, and given principle F in schedule 1 about competition within the United Kingdom, it is incredibly important that the entries make it clear where they are from and where the subsidy has been given.”
“It is nice to be here again, Mr Sharma. Thank you for chairing the Committee. This is an important part of the Bill. It is vital that the database is as full as possible and that people can find the information that they need. The points that were made in the evidence sessions about searching through the database were also incredibly important. There need to be search terms that people can use so that they can look through the database to find the information that they need. The regime will work only if people can find subsidies that are relevant. Improvements to the search function need to be among the other improvements. I got the Library to put together some figures. As of 26 October, there were 501 subsidies on the database, but 245 of them—nearly half—did not have an amount specified.”
“Who decides whether the information is complete and that the clock has started, or does that happen only in the event of a challenge? How does somebody who is challenging know that, even though they are outside a month, it does not matter because the clock has not started?”
“A new system is being set up and the Government have been clear that it is a free-market and permissive system, but neither I nor anyone else will know whether it works if we are not able to see the data and whether public authorities are making far fewer—or far more—subsidies than expected under the scheme. We will be unable to assess the adequacy of the system unless the Minister is willing to make changes to the thresholds for schemes and for general subsidies. Once again, I am not suggesting that we put other duties in place for minimal financial assistance or a requirement that other hoops have to be jumped through; I am suggesting that details are uploaded to the database so that we may scrutinise the data.”
“They would not necessarily have to jump through the other hoops, but all the public authorities that we are dealing with will have done a huge amount of due diligence before giving a subsidy of any sort. They will have the information and it would not cost them much in the way of time to ensure that it is uploaded. That would increase drastically the amount of transparency and our oversight. As drafted, we will not know whether the system is working, because we will not have access to transparency data on any subsidies under £315,000 or any made in a scheme under £500,000. That is not good enough.”
“I like Labour’s amendment 35 and get where they are coming from, but I am more comfortable than them with the more streamlined process of the subsidy scheme. I move on to our amendment 33, on minimal financial assistance. It would actually amend a future clause—clause 36 —but it makes sense to debate it at this point, as it is specifically on the amount that needs to be provided on the database. My suggestion is that all subsidies not made under a scheme should be part of the database. I am not suggesting that they should have to meet the other minimal financial assistance requirements, but I am suggesting that—this was pretty clear from our evidence sessions on Tuesday—all the subsidies not made under schemes should be registered on that database.”
“They will be set up in a certain way, so the process of giving awards under them should be easier—that is literally the point of having subsidy schemes. I turn to the logic of changing the figure from £500,000 to £100,000 and keeping a floor. If something under £100,000 has been approved as part of a scheme, it is probably going to be not that bad—it will probably be fine. But £500,000 is far too high, which is why we suggest £100,000. As was said in the evidence sessions, the figures are arbitrary—the figures are always arbitrary no matter which one is chosen. However, that was the logic behind having a differential system in place between subsidy schemes and subsidies on the subsidy database.”
“I am concerned by what the Minister said earlier about the timing of pre-action information requests; it feels to me that organisations will just make those requests all over the place, no matter when the subsidy was actually registered. If there is no requirement to have full information on the subsidy database and there is no sanction for public authorities that do not do that, people may as well try their hand with the pre-action information request. This encourages the action process to happen, rather than providing people with the information in the first place so that they know that they do not need to make the request. The logic behind amendment 32 is that subsidy schemes should be easier to implement than subsidies. It should be easier for public authorities to give them out: presumably, the schemes will have been agreed.”
“I will speak to not only amendment 35, but amendments 32 and 33. I want to address the logic behind the amendments. It is impossible to overstate the importance of the transparency database. It is the key place—the only place—where organisations and local authorities will be able to find information about the subsidies being granted. I imagine that a lot of organisations will be poring over the information on a fairly regular basis to work out whether the subsidies made meet the principles put forward by the Government. It is absolutely, desperately important that we get this right, and I am keen for us to do that from the beginning as far as possible, rather than having to make changes to the legislation afterwards.”
“Does the Minister feel that his rejection of amendment 33 renders the cumulative provisions of clause 36 unworkable? How will anyone know that somebody has received cumulative subsidies if there is no requirement for those subsidies to be registered anywhere? What is the point of those provisions if we are not going to be able to police them?”
“I was talking specifically about minimal financial assistance and the cumulative impact. An organisation cannot have more than £315,000 over a three-year period before it has to be registered, but if there is no requirement to register the 20 subsidies received —or 200,000—how is anyone ever going to know?”
“One more point: the duty is on the public authority to ensure that it is complying with the regime. It is the public authority’s duty to do that. The Minister made it clear earlier that the public authority has a statutory duty. However, the public authority is then having to rely on that organisation telling them that it has had a subsidy. The public authority will know that that will push the organisation over the £315,000, that it will not be eligible for minimal financial assistance and that it will have to be registered on the scheme. A duty has been placed on the public authority for something over which it has no control and because the Government refuse to put that on the subsidy database it will not be able to find out whether the law is being broken.”
“Who is going to get the letter? Just the business? Where does it say in the Bill that the public authority has to publish a letter when providing a subsidy? Let us say Aberdeen City Council gives a subsidy to somebody and Aberdeenshire Council gives a subsidy to that same business. How are they going to know that the other authority has done it when the only paper trail is a letter that Aberdeen City Council has given to the business?”
“I beg to move amendment 26, in clause 33, page 17, line 24, leave out “one year” and insert “three months”. This amendment would reduce the length of time public authorities have to enter a subsidy in the database from one year to three months, with respect only to tax measure subsidies.”
“It is already jumping through hoops in relation to that subsidy, so it makes sense for us to reduce the time. It builds much more protection into the system, which is important. Surely that is the point of having a system. If we did not have international agreements and did not have to have any system in place, it would be different, but we do have to have a system. Therefore, the system that we have should make sense and should work. I will just speak briefly about the Opposition amendments that have been put forward. They are along a similar line and try to do very similar things. Should the Opposition decide to push the amendments to a vote, I would be quite happy to back them, because it is really important to get this right.”
“That is again to protect businesses where the subsidy has distorted competition to the extent that they are in serious difficulties. I understand what the Minister said about time being paused if a subsidy has not been uploaded properly on the database, or if a pre-action request is made, but my concern is that people will make pre-action requests left, right and centre, no matter the date put in. It is also far too long a period of time. The public authority that is granting money to an organisation has to go through a number of hoops in order to do so. It is completely reasonable to ask it to upload that as close to that point in time as possible, rather than let it potter about for six months, because it is already doing lots of paperwork.”
“By that time, a competing organisation might have gone under. It was made clear to us in the evidence sessions that six months was a fairly long time; nearly two years is a very long time. It is completely unacceptable for the Government to choose to do that. If the Minister says that “tax declaration” means the tax return, that would be helpful in making clear the meaning of “tax declaration”. My understanding, from the evidence given by Daniel Greenberg, is that that would be enough for everybody to understand the implementation of the legislation. The length of time is a massive concern for me. That is why I am proposing on tax measures that the length of time be changed from one year to three months, which is reasonable. Where measures do not relate to tax, I am proposing that six months be changed to one month.”
“The logic behind having a three-month period, rather than the one-month period I have suggested for normal measures, is that tax measures may be more complex, and it may take authorities longer to make that registration on the database. That should give them enough slack to be able to put that information on the database. My big concern about tax subsidies is followed up in amendment 27 on the meaning of “tax declaration”. That meaning is not clear to me and, when I asked a tax professional, they did not know what “tax declaration” means in this case. It is important that the Government make clear what that means because, if “tax declaration” is the tax return, that return is made after the financial year in which that happens. It could possibly take up to two years for a requirement for that to be registered on the database.”
“This is one of the most important parts of the Bill that the Government have got wrong, and I am massively concerned. A number of witnesses raised concerns about the length of time. Some of those time lengths might have come from the trade and co-operation agreement, but my understanding is that those are minimum thresholds. It is entirely proper for us to put in stricter thresholds, should we desire to do so. It is important that those times be changed, for the sake of transparency and to protect organisations that might be harmed by subsidies being given to somebody else. Amendment 26 would “leave out ‘one year’ and insert ‘three months’”. That is specifically about tax measures.”
“Points were made earlier on the specific length of time. Why is the final amount required to be on there at the beginning, because they could presumably just put in how much they expect it to be? That would be much better for those organisations that may be looking to challenge it.”
“If I had an enterprise that was being harmed by either a tax subsidy or any other kind of subsidy, I would rather know that the subsidy had been given and not know the exact amount than have no information at all until my business had gone under.”
“I have a wee comment to make on this. The Government increasing the minimum threshold required on the subsidy database is a very contentious issue that we have discussed at length, including with witnesses. A significant number of respondents to the consultation answered on the basis of the numbers put before them. It is important enough that lots of people responded to the consultation. It is important enough that we have had a length of time debating the numbers. The negative procedure does not make sense, given the Bill’s possible impact. Unless the Bill is amended, the Government could, at a stroke, change the threshold to £2 million under the negative procedure. In terms of transparency, accountability and ensuring that this makes sense and works for everybody, it would be sensible for the amendment to be accepted.”
“If the Minister believes that “the policy objective of the subsidy or scheme” adequately covers the purpose of the subsidy, it would be helpful if he could state that, and say that the Government will request authorities to include the purpose of the subsidy. That would give us comfort about the information that will be on the subsidy control website.”
“If subsidy control is not to be a tick-box exercise enabling us to meet our obligations, and if we are not saying, “We’re just going to do the bare minimum,” it is key that the Government give some thought to the amendments tabled by Labour and the SNP, and consider whether it is important to strengthen the data on the subsidy control database, as well as the ability to search it and timelines, which we have talked about. Amendment 21 would require the purpose of the subsidy to be put on the database. That is missing from the list in clause 34. It would be useful for organisations and public authorities to have information on why the subsidy was given.”
“We have discussed at some length the importance of the subsidy control database, and the fact that it is the only way enterprises or public authorities will be able to find out about subsidies that have been made that may distort competition. I agree with the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston, that it is very important that we get this right, and that we have as much information as possible, so that people can make pre-action requests and challenge a subsidy. The subsidy control database is not a tick-box exercise, and I hope that subsidy control is not a tick-box exercise; subsidy control is necessary, and not just so that we can meet our international obligations. Presumably, the Government think that it is a good thing. It is good that we have regulations around subsidies; that is very important.”
“That is important not just for setting the policy objective, particularly in subsidy schemes, but for knowing the point of that individual subsidy—why it is given to that organisation. It will be very helpful if the Minister outlines whether he thinks additional things may be added to this list by the Secretary of State. I hope he can be clear with the Committee that this is not necessarily a prescriptive list and the Secretary of State may include other things in it. I am assuming that is why the language was chosen at the beginning of subsection (2), but if the Minister could state that, it would be helpful for us to understand.”
“Amendments 20 and 21 allow the Secretary of State to include anything else that they think is necessary, because if “may” is strengthened to “must”, we need to allow the Secretary of State to have a bit more flexibility to include anything else not listed. Amendment 21 is about the purpose of the subsidy. We are concerned, having looked at the entry requirements for local authorities—sorry, I mean public authorities; I spent far too many years as a local authority councillor. This amendment has been included because I am not convinced that paragraph (b) on the policy objective of the subsidy scheme adequately covers what we would like to have in that database. People who put things in the subsidy control database need to say why they are giving the subsidy to the organisation.”
“Thank you for chairing the Committee, Ms Nokes. I came back thinking that I had notes, but I have just written two sentences on a bit of paper. Hopefully I will not ramble too much. I want to speak to amendment 19 and amendment 20, which is linked to amendment 19, and amendment 21. I think that is all, but I will speak to other amendments as we come to them. The logic behind amendment 19 is, unsurprisingly, to try to give us a bit more certainty about what the Secretary of State will require to be included in the subsidy database. It changes “may, in particular” to “must” in subsection (2), to give us certainty that those things will definitely be included. That strengthens the clause and makes it clearer.”
“Can the Minister give me some comfort that public authorities updating the database and those searching the database will be involved in the consultation, and that the majority of the decisions taken by the Government are likely to be led by consultation responses, rather than if the consultation comes back and states, “We absolutely want paragraph (f); that absolutely has to be there” the Government would be unlikely to decide not to have paragraph (f)?”
“The Minister says that the Government intend to bring forward the regulations before the subsidy regime starts. Can he give us an assurance that it will be not a few days before but long enough for public authorities to understand their obligations and include the correct data?”
“The only burden on public authorities is to provide a letter to the business; it does not involve any level of check or anything that enables us to scrutinise what has happened. The affirmative procedure, in the first instance, would be the best way forward, with the negative procedure for future iterations—tweaks to ensure it is operating correctly.”
“For that reason, when we consider for the first time the information to be included on the subsidy control database, it is important that we do so by the affirmative procedure. Any subsequent changes can be done by the negative procedure. As the Minister has said, this is a framework Bill, but we have not seen this part of the framework. If the scheme is to work, we need to see what it will involve. The Minister said that this section was specifically about what was included on the database and not about the regulation of subsidy because there are rules on whether or not they are awarded. He is right about that, but we will not be able to understand whether subsidies are being given unless they are on the database. We simply will not know whether they exist.”
“It is fundamental to the operation of the scheme that the subsidy control database is fit for purpose and that the information that is available on it is agreed in consultation with the public authorities and the enterprises that it will affect. That relates both to what goes on to the database and to the ability to challenge anything that is happening. When the regulations are first made, there is likely to be some disagreement. We have had plenty of disagreement already about whether a provision should say “may” or “must” and members of the Committee have brought up good points that Ministers may not have heard before. The Minister’s characterisation of some of the consultation responses has been slightly challenged by the shadow Minister on the ground that some of those responses were not as clear as the Minister suggested.”
“I beg to move amendment 22, in clause 34, page 18, line 35, leave out subsection (4) and insert— “(4) Regulations to be made under this section for the first time are subject to the affirmative procedure. (5) Any subsequent regulations made under this section are subject to the negative procedure.” This amendment would have the regulations be considered under the affirmative procedure, in the first instance, and the negative procedure for any future tweaks. I like to think I am not an unreasonable person. We have debated at some length what needs to be on the subsidy control database, and it was also discussed during our evidence sessions.”