Jeff Smith
MP for Manchester Withington · Labour · United Kingdom
“My hon. Friend is making a typically entertaining and informative speech. I wonder whether she would agree that, from the customer’s point of view, there does not appear to be that much difference between tiered pricing and dynamic pricing—it is just that when the cheap seats have gone, they have to pay the premium.”
“Researchers tell me, however, that the barriers the current system puts in place really restrict research. Research involving schedule 1 controlled substances generally requires a Home Office licence, and the bureaucracy and inertia in the system adds delay, cost and an administrative burden to the extent that research grants are being lo…”
“Clauses 5 and 6 place duties on the Secretary of State to promote patient involvement, patient choice and innovation. My new clauses 86 and 87 would apply those principles to psychedelic-assisted therapy treatments involving schedule 1 controlled substances.”
“In 2025 the Government accepted the ACMD recommendations in principle. There is supposed to be a pilot of a proposed extension to test operational feasibility, but that has not happened. The Government said the policy work was under way and that further plans would be published in due course, but without a timetable for implementation.”
“The 2022 Canadian special access programme has allowed clinicians to request restricted drugs, including psilocybin and MDMA, to treat those conditions. We can learn from those experiences.”
“I think rural and coastal communities can be encouraged by the success of the city visitor charge in Manchester, where we have raised £10 million for investment in advertising, tourism and cleaning the city. Will the Minister join me in rejecting the scaremongering and reminding people that this is a purely permissive measure?”
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“That is welcome, because in my constituency we found out that this is a growing problem this time last year, when we narrowly—by 2 cm—averted a disastrous flooding incident in Chorlton and Didsbury when the Mersey flooded. What is the Department’s assessment of the state of readiness in general of flood defences and flood response services as we go into the peak winter storm season?”
“I welcome the focus in the strategy on treatment and recovery; £780 million is a significant investment, and I commend the Government for that. On supply and demand, I fear we are being offered an enhanced version of the same general approach that has failed for the last 50 years, and I am sad to say that it will fail for the next 10 years. On drug consumption rooms, the Minister said that the evidence is “patchy”. Surely, then, this is the time for some proper trials and pilots so that we can get the evidence. There is a lot of talk in the strategy about evidence; surely the Government have a duty now to allow some of those trials to get the evidence that these drug consumption rooms—I prefer to call them overdose prevention centres—can save lives.”
“HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail were never just about train lines and journey speeds; they are about regeneration opportunities. In the case of the cancelled eastern leg, 38,000 homes were planned on the back of that line, which now will not happen. Some £38 billion of economic growth in Bradford, reliant on Northern Powerhouse Rail, has been cancelled. Local government leaders in the north are united in their opposition to the £18 billion reduction in rail investment plans. Is the north not once again being let down rather than levelled up?”
“My 90-year-old constituent, Jimmy, fell in his garden recently and broke his hip. When his family rang 999, they were told that it would be up to 14 hours before an ambulance could attend. The family got the fire brigade out after two and a half hours to sort him out. When the Government going to get a grip on the crisis in our ambulance services?”
“I acknowledge the £15 million for this year, but we really need our councils to be properly funded for the long term. We have now had 10 years of underfunding of local authorities, and it is the area of government that has been hit hardest—first by austerity and now, under huge challenge, by the pandemic. It is not just local services for residents that have been hit, but the ability of local councils to carry out their essential functions properly. We really need the Government to recognise that, and at long last to start funding our councils properly.”
“Secondly, this is only one part of the response to Sir Tony Redmond’s review. There were a number of other recommendations, not all of which have been as well supported or as unanimously accepted as the proposals that we are debating. Some are quite significant issues, such as a new regulatory body for audit. I know that the Government were supposed to respond to the big parts of the review earlier this year. I may have missed it, but I have not seen that response. Can the Minister give us an indication of the full details of the Government’s response to those major issues, or of the timescale to achieve the vision set out in the review? Finally, these regulations may well result in cases of fee increases for audit. It is essential that local authorities are able to carry out their functions, such as audit, properly.”
“We note that a large majority of respondents to the Government’s consultation, including stakeholders and local authorities, were supportive of the proposals, and so is the Local Government Association. The LGA agrees with the idea of a framework of set-scale fees rather than a large number of variations within a year, and there is general support for the flexibilities in relation to audit timescales and the period of appointments, so we will be agreeing with those proposals. I have two questions for the Minister. First, I am aware that the Government have earmarked £15 million in extra resources for local authorities to deal with the potential extra costs of audit this year. That funding needs to be ongoing. Can the Minister give any indication about whether the Government plan to roll it over into future years?”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Mundell, and you will be pleased to know that I intend to be brief in my remarks. I thank the Minister for her introduction, and I thank the officials who talked me through the regulations last week. The Opposition recognise that the 2020 review by Sir Tony Redmond found concerns about the state of the local audit market and made a number of recommendations to address that, and that this statutory instrument is a result of those recommendations. We also recognise the importance of effective audit procedures so that stakeholders, and ultimately residents and voters, can hold local authorities to account for their performance, so we will not be opposing the statutory instrument.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and she is also right that we do not really know what is going on. I wonder whether there is a kind of dual phenomenon, whereby we have a very well-known and long-standing problem with drink spiking, which seems even to be increasing, putting vulnerable women, mainly, at risk, but I wonder whether there is something else going on, which is people being stabbed by a sharp implement—a needle-stick injury—for reasons or motivation unknown, and that becoming a copycat thing around the country. It could be that those two phenomena are going on at the same time. The reason I raise this point—”
“My hon. Friend is right. Both these things are problems, which is why it is really important that the call from the Night Time Industries Association for an inquiry into this situation, to get to the bottom of it, should be heeded.”
“On Friday, I visited the Fallowfield and Withington food bank. It is as busy as ever and expecting a surge in demand as a result of the recent changes to benefits. If Government support for people on benefits is adequate, why does the Minister think that so many of my constituents are having to rely on food banks?”
“I hope we can find a way forward because, as we heard earlier, this is a problem that ought to have been solved by now and has not been. If we do not have a concerted attack on this issue with some new thinking from Ministers, officials and others, then we are condemning people to continue in a situation where they are paying a fortune for their private product, going to illegal drug dealers, or condemned to pain or ill health from other conditions. We have to find a way forward, and I am very happy to work with the Government to try to do so.”
“It may not be through randomised controlled trials, but there are lots of other ways we can gather evidence. There are also a number of ways we can build safeguarding into the system, which I am happy to discuss with the Minister, as that might alleviate some of the concern. The evidence is all around us that cannabis-based products can help patients. Hundreds of thousands of people in the UK are currently self-medicating. One of my relatives does that to treat their IBS. There are lots of conditions that people use cannabis to alleviate. The problem is that most are buying it illegally. It is probably high-THC skunk that they are getting on the streets, which is not the product that is best suited to them. We need to find a way to enable them to use a safer product. Again, my private Member’s Bill may be part of the solution.”
“I appreciate that the Government do not want to give widespread approval for GPs to prescribe these medicines. They are worried about the pressure that GPs might come under from people wanting recreational cannabis; I think that is overstated. Perhaps with some specialist training by an approved body, we might have a register of GPs who are able to prescribe. Most conditions that can be treated by cannabis are what we might call GP conditions—things like pain and anxiety. A survey said that a quarter of GPs would be happy, with the right training, to prescribe medical cannabis. We need to look at how to give people other than specialist consultants on the register a way of prescribing. That is perhaps one way of tackling this problem. Looking at trying to expand the evidence is so important, because there is so much evidence out there.”
“I made a couple of suggestions to the former Minister about how we might gather evidence and I was knocked back because they might bypass our current system of medical approvals, but I am afraid I have become convinced that part of problem is the current system of medical approvals when it comes to cannabis-based medical products. As my friend the hon. Member for Reigate said, we need Ministers to be flexible and creative, maybe a bit radical—maybe brave, if that is not a word that has been outlawed after its use by Sir Humphrey Appleby. We need Ministers to look at this in a new way. I appreciate that it is really difficult and quite an intractable problem, but we have to look at new ways of breaking the logjam, assessing the evidence base and making it easier for specialists—and perhaps others, such as some GPs—to prescribe.”
“I am not an expert on pharmacology or neurology, but I have spoken to people who are, and some are doubtful that it would be possible to get effective, useful evidence from such randomised controlled trials on whole plant cannabis. It is quite a unique plant that has a unique set of interactions with the body, so it is difficult to carry out those trials effectively. Randomised controlled trials are not the only method of approval. I am told that 72 drugs have made it on to the approved medicines list without that kind of double-blind controlled study, so there are ways of doing it. The problem is that none of those drugs are plant-based medicines. As I understand it, cannabis is pretty much unique, given the interaction of the elements within it. We need a unique way of looking at the problem and at the evidence.”
“However, that system is set up to look at pharmaceutical products, not at something like whole plant extract medicines. As I mentioned earlier, cannabis contains 147 different cannabinoids, plus terpenoids and various other elements. It is quite a complex interaction on the nervous system. Sometimes a treatment will only work for a particular individual, and individuals have to work out their best balance of treatment. It is difficult to have randomised controlled trials for such medicines. Leaving aside the moral issue of taking young people who are being treated off their medicine to take a placebo, if it is even possible to get a placebo—from what I hear, I am not convinced that people can really have a placebo for this kind of trial—it is still just a really difficult thing to do.”
“Let me return to the issue of evidence. As I have said, there is a lot of evidence out there, from around the world, about the effectiveness of cannabis-based products. Lots of work is going on. As the hon. Member for Inverclyde mentioned, the charity Drug Science has a fantastic, academically robust evidence gathering research project called Project Twenty21, in which 1,800 people are currently being treated. I pay tribute to Drug Science. I should declare my interest as a trustee of that charity—an unpaid trustee, of course. The study is an excellent piece of work to try to create a better body of evidence on the issue. The matter comes down to the medical approvals system in this country, which emphasises so strongly double-blind randomised controlled trials—rightly so, as they are seen as the gold standards of trials.”
“Somewhat unusually, I guess, I have put that at the disposal of the Government and asked if they will work with me to use this legislative opportunity to find a way forward. I have my own thoughts on how a private Member’s Bill might address the problem and I have made some suggestions that have not yet been supported by Ministers, although in fairness they were supported by the Minister’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill). I welcome any suggestions or ideas about how we might frame the Bill to get around the problems. Even if we can only make baby steps, I am happy to work with the Government to find a way forward. I really want to make progress, so I make that offer to the Minister again today. I am grateful to her for saying that she will meet me to discuss the issue in the near future.”
“They have to go to the next level for approval by a higher authority, as I think it is called, which means the trust, the clinical commissioning group or sometimes NHS England, although it is usually the trust. A number of prescriptions have been blocked at that stage, and that is a barrier that private prescribers do not have to surmount, which is a real issue. It seems to be a fault that is built into the system, and I am not convinced that it is a necessary barrier. We have a set of problems to solve. The Minister knows that I have a private Member’s Bill, the Medical Cannabis (Access) Bill, which is due for debate on 10 December. I hope that it might be an opportunity to address the issue.”
“The first is evidence, to which I will return in a minute. Another is training. We heard from my friend the hon. Member for Reigate about the difficulty of training clinicians on these issues. The endocannabinoid system—I can never pronounce that word—is a very complex system and it is not part of routine medical training. The 147 different cannabinoids that affect that system are difficult to isolate and the interrelation between them is difficult to identify, but there are people who can provide such training. We need to ensure that it is available to the clinicians, GPs and others who would like to be involved. Even when a specialist consultant—somebody who is on the register of consultants—has agreed to prescribe, there is another barrier.”
“She said that there was “conclusive evidence” in support of the use of medical cannabis for a number of conditions and “reasonable evidence” in others. It is safe and effective to prescribe these medicines and patients are being given prescriptions via the private route. As we heard earlier, 10,000 private prescriptions have been issued in the UK, but we still face a blockage, as a very tiny number of NHS prescriptions have been agreed. It is a great frustration that the public and many Members may feel that this problem has been solved, when it has not. I appreciate that there are a number of problems. The Minister has already identified one of them to me: the reluctance of clinicians to prescribe. That is a real problem. The question for us is, how do we give them that comfort to prescribe? There are a couple of ways.”
“We need to help not only all these vulnerable young people, but their wider families too. As my friend the hon. Member for Reigate said, those people are the tip of the spear and get the publicity, but epilepsy is not the only condition that cannabis-based medical products can help. There is abundant evidence from around the world about the effectiveness of cannabis-based medicines against all kinds of conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, pain, anxiety and nausea. There are tests on Tourette’s and there are lots of other conditions that can be treated with cannabis. In June 2018, Dame Sally Davies—who was then chief medical officer and chief medical adviser to the Government—was looking at the issue for the Government.”
“I am talking not just about Alfie and the fact that he is no longer in seizures and that he is able to behave like a normal naughty little boy, as he is described, but about Hannah and her family and the fact that she is able to get back to a normal life. That reflects not just the importance of the impact on families, but the wider savings to the public purse through the reduction in hospital visits and the ability of carers to return to work and become part of society again. We heard about the frustrations of families unable able to get NHS prescriptions and the costs of private prescriptions. I have a constituent who is not a wealthy man, but he pays about £700 a month for cannabis-based products for his grandson; the family were able to get a private prescription, but not an NHS one.”
“She will have heard the heart-rending stories, which we have heard many times, of the impact of epilepsy on some of those children and their families, with the fear of hundreds of seizures a day, and the way that it completely takes over families’ lives. We heard very moving testimony from my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) about the death of his son as a result of epilepsy. That was all very difficult. We also heard about the incredible transformation of lives that can be possible as a result of cannabis-based medical products that treat treatment-resistant epilepsy, and the impact on families.”
“I start by congratulating my friend the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan), on securing the debate and on his excellent introduction, and my friend the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), my co-chair of the all-party group for drug policy reform, on his wide-ranging assessment of the various complex issues involved in this difficult problem. It is unusual to have a debate on the same subject on two successive days. The Minister was in Westminster Hall yesterday when we spoke about the slightly more specific issue of cannabis-based treatments for treatment-resistant epilepsy in children.”
“Even if we add up all the piecemeal pots of regeneration funding that the Government like to mention in their press releases, they still come to nowhere near the £15 billion that has been cut from local councils under the Tories. The Government have failed to deliver on promises to reimburse covid costs, and the Tory-led Local Government Association says that there is now £2.6 billion in non-covid cost pressures on councils. On Wednesday, the Chancellor has the chance to tackle the council funding crisis that the Government have created, so what demands have Ministers in this team made to get the Budget settlement that all our towns and cities need?”
“In her statement, the Minister twice used the phrase “prompt and proportionate”. It does not feel like the Government are acting very promptly, and there are surely proportionate measures that we can take now—we do not have to wait for the whole of plan B to be implemented. What would be disproportionate about making mask wearing compulsory in enclosed private spaces now?”
“The common practice of burning waste causes more emissions than aviation, so waste management systems need to be on the agenda at COP26. I asked about this in COP26 questions yesterday, but I did not really get an answer. Like the planet, I am running out of time, so I will leave the last words to Kevin Anderson, Manchester University’s professor of energy and climate change. He puts it very clearly: “Climate change is essentially a cumulative problem (C02 builds up). So each day we don’t deliver the level of C02 cuts for 1.5-2°C we go backwards—just not as big a retrograde step as it would otherwise have been, but backwards nonetheless.” Every day this problem is getting worse. We need to be honest about the challenge, and we need to step up and deliver on it.”
“We also need stronger action on ending UK taxpayer support for overseas fossil fuel projects, without the exemptions. We also need funding for local government. We cannot deliver on the actions we need without local government action. The Climate Change Committee says that local authorities need proper funding to pursue successful plans such as retrofitting housing—where is the big retrofit programme that we need to decarbonise our homes?—building green homes, decarbonising local transport systems and improving waste and recycling infrastructure. On waste and recycling, I strongly agree with the hon. Lady’s comments on the cuts to the aid budget. One in three people globally do not have access to a waste management service and 90% of waste in lower-income countries ends up dumped or burned.”
“This is a big, big challenge. On the positive side, in terms of our setting an example, we have some ambitious national plans and there are encouraging words in the net zero strategy. The Government are good at setting targets, and their own climate advisers rated them nine out of 10, but they gave them “somewhere below” four out of 10 for their efforts to meet them. We need to lead by our actions. We need real green investment in the upcoming spending review. We know that it makes sense and we know that it saves money in the longer term as well as saving the planet. If we can find money for the covid emergency, we need to find money for the climate emergency. We have to reduce investment in fossil fuels, whether it is oil in the Cambo field and at Horse Hill, coal in Cumbria or gas in Mozambique.”
“I said in my maiden speech that the climate crisis was the most important issue we faced, and in the six years that have passed since then, it has got even more urgent each year. COP26 is the best chance we have of mitigating the damage and keeping the target of 1.5° alive, but as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) said in her excellent opening speech, time is running out, for the people and the planet, but also for COP26 to be set up to succeed. In a week and a half, we will have to lead by example, to consolidate partnerships, and to crack down on the biggest polluters. We need ambitious updated nationally determined contributions. We need to honour and build on our commitments to climate finance for poorer countries, and we need strong action on biodiversity, fossil fuels and loss and damage.”
“T3. A third of people globally do not have access to a waste management service, and 90% of waste in lower-income countries ends up being either dumped or burned and causing emissions. Can the President confirm that waste management will feature on the agenda at COP26, and what plans are there to allocate climate finance for this problem?”
“3. What assessment the Government has made of the impact of the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan on women and girls in that country.”
“I agree with the Minister on that. It has been a depressing week in Afghanistan, with primary school students returning to gender-segregated classes, older girls excluded altogether, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs closed down and female employees told not to return to work. How, specifically, can we use our leverage, particularly our financial and economic leverage, to hold the Taliban to account for their promises?”
“Well, it needs to, because the report was pretty damning. The Environmental Audit Committee recently made a number of recommendations to support community energy projects such as Greater Manchester Community Renewables in my constituency. Will the Minister emphasise the importance of community energy in the upcoming net zero strategy, as recommended specifically by the Committee, and put in place some practical measures to harness the potential of community energy, including support to enable groups to get investment for energy transition projects?”
“Nationally we have a record high Crown court backlog of about 60,000 cases a result of the court closures and a decade of Tory cuts. Will the Government commit to continuing Nightingale courts until the backlog has cleared? When does the Minister think that will happen?”
“T10. The Law Commission is currently conducting an important review of intimate-image abuse that will, I hope, recommend making it an offence for a person to take photographs of someone breastfeeding without their consent. When does the Secretary of State expect that report to be published? Perhaps more importantly, what assurance can he provide that the report’s recommendations will be given timely, swift consideration and that action will be taken?”
“So we see no reason why indicative guidance cannot be published and sent to local authorities, as well as possibly indicative amounts for the grants that local authorities will receive, so that they can get on quickly with designing their schemes, ready for when the Act passes. I make the point that we made in Committee that this should not be on a per-head basis; it should take into account the effect of the pandemic on different regions and on different sectors of the economy. I also note the Government’s technical solution, which allowed the backdating of these grants so they effectively apply this financial year.”
“18, Q29.] Although this Bill goes some way to helping tackle financial corruption, the Government could and should go further. The Bill is too narrowly defined for any financial amendments, but the Government could provide a stronger deterrent, beyond disqualification, for unscrupulous directors. Let me briefly turn to the other new clause and amendments. New clause 2 stands in the name of the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and we do not disagree with it. However, we think we do not have to wait for this until the day the Act is passed. It is clear that there is cross-party support for the Bill, that it will pass and that businesses are desperate for support in the current circumstances.”
“We do not intend to press the new clause to a vote, but we think it is important to make this point, particularly given that the Insolvency Service cannot apply to court for the disqualification of a director whose company has been dissolved for more than three years. That means that the Insolvency Service does not just need extra resources to carry out the additional investigations; it needs them to carry out those investigations promptly, within that three-year timeframe. As Dr Tribe summarised: “The Insolvency Service needs to be properly funded to ensure that this additional disqualification work can happen.” –– [ Official Report, Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Public Bill Committee, 6 July 2021; c.”
“Despite that potential increase in workload, there is no indication in the Bill that the Government plan to increase funding and resources at all for the Insolvency Service, let alone to do so by the significant amount it might need to allow it to cope with the extra investigations. So Labour is calling for new clause 1 to be added to the Bill to ensure that there is appropriate, regular oversight and scrutiny of the Insolvency Service’s ability to carry out this increased workload. If it is not given the resources to carry out its increased responsibilities, clauses 2 and 3 of the Bill become, in effect, redundant. New clause 1 would ensure that parliamentarians and others are kept updated on the Insolvency Service’s ability to carry out its tasks and on any need it has for extra resources.”
“Too often, these directors are able to absolve themselves of their financial responsibilities by dissolving their companies and creating a financial and time barrier to holding them to account. So clauses 2 and 3 of the Bill allow for a director to be investigated and disqualified before their company is restored. That plugs the important gap and is a welcome measure; it removes a costly barrier, both in monetary and time terms, to accountability and financial responsibility. However, as Duncan Swift, the former president of R3 highlighted in the Bill’s evidence sessions, these provisions could see the Insolvency Service take on 10 to 15 times the number of investigations it currently undertakes.”
“I am conscious that we have an important debate to follow and that time is pressing, so I shall be relatively brief. Labour’s broad support for this Bill has not changed. We recognise the urgent need to support businesses, as well as the Valuation Office Agency, and the need to close a legislative gap exploited by unscrupulous directors. The Bill remains lacking in some safeguards. Labour attempted to correct that in Committee, but we were unsuccessful. The new clause is concerned with the resourcing and capacity of the Insolvency Service to deal with the new measures relating to directors of dissolved companies. As we heard from witnesses in July at the evidence sessions, unscrupulous directors can cause significant suffering to those who have invested in or loaned to their companies.”
“Amendment 6, page 2, line 40, at end insert— ‘“rating list” means a local non-domestic rating list or central nondomestic rating list under Part 3 of the LGFA 1988.’. —( Luke Hall .) See the explanatory statement for Amendment 1. Third Reading”
“I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 1 Determinations in respect of certain non-domestic rating lists Amendments made: 1, page 1, line 2, for “an English” substitute “a rating” . This amendment and Amendments 2 to 6 extend the application of Clause 1 to non-domestic rating lists compiled for the purposes of business rates in Wales (as well as lists for England). Amendment 2, page 1, line 5, for “an English” substitute “a rating”. See the explanatory statement for Amendment 1. Amendment 3, page 1, line 8, for “an English” substitute “a rating”. — See the explanatory statement for Amendment 1. Amendment 4, page 2, leave out lines 22 and 23. See the explanatory statement for Amendment 1. Amendment 5, page 2, leave out lines 28 to 35. See the explanatory statement for Amendment 1.”
“The rates relief was announced in March and not a penny has yet been paid out. I do not think we need to wait for the end of the Bill proceedings to get indicative guidance to local authorities to design their schemes. There are still concerns about the resourcing of the Valuation Office Agency and the Insolvency Service and how funds will be recouped and actions taken against unfit company directors. I hope that the Minister will take those concerns into further consideration. Finally, I thank the Minister for his engagement with me and my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) on the Bill’s finer points. I thank his officials and the many, many representatives of the business community and local authority officers who have also engaged with us during the passage of the Bill.”
“I welcome the Government’s decision to extend the provisions of clause 1 to apply in Wales, which has been welcomed by colleagues in the Senedd. I also welcome the Government’s decision to ask local authorities, when it comes to administering the fund, to award relief against the liabilities of ratepayers for the current financial year—2021-22—as a way of getting around the restrictions on the business rates legislation so that they can effectively award it against the previous year. It is a technical solution to a technical problem caused by the timing of the funding, when it is eventually released. Local government colleagues assure me that they are happy with this. Again, I emphasise the fact that we need to get this relief out to businesses as quickly as possible.”
“I will again be brief, because we set out our concerns on Second Reading and in Committee, I am aware that this might not be seen as the highlight of the parliamentary week by Members, and there is an important debate to follow. As we said, we have always supported the Bill’s broad aims. We want to see support administered quickly for businesses that have been affected by covid and have missed out on business rates relief. We accept that ruling out material change of circumstances claims, but instead administering the bespoke £1.5 billion fund, will probably be the best way of doing so in the current circumstances. We also support the aims of clauses 2 and 3, which would close the legal loophole and give the Government the power to investigate and disqualify unscrupulous or unfit company directors.”
“Why require vaccine passport for nightclubs, as opposed to other crowded indoor venues, such as the Chamber and the voting Lobby of the House of Commons?”