Lewis Cocking
MP for Broxbourne · Conservative · United Kingdom
“What would the Secretary of State say to my constituents in Broxbourne, who never asked for this reorganisation and are concerned that it is just a waste of time and money that will leave them with higher council tax bills and less say over local planning decisions?”
“Businesses such as hotels, ice cream parlours and fisheries have been hit hard by the increase the employer national insurance and by burdensome regulations. Business rates have increased—in some cases massively and seemingly arbitrarily.”
“They include poor or sometimes non-existent transport links, unemployment and changes to a once-reliable and profitable seasonal trade, a lack of housing supply, and large disparities in income, which mean that many people cannot afford to live in the places where they grew up.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. It is a huge privilege to wind up the debate on behalf of the official Opposition. I thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) for securing this very important debate.”
“I fondly remember trips to places such as Clacton, Bournemouth, Great Yarmouth and Southend. From my visits to many of our seaside towns, and from hearing hon. Members’ testimonies, it is apparent that those places face unique challenges. Unfortunately, many of them have experienced decline in recent decades.”
“Ultimately, our coastal communities and the whole United Kingdom deserve better. We need a Government who cut rather than increase taxes, reward rather than punish aspiration and success, prioritise quality housing for local people rather than HMOs for illegal asylum seekers, and put the interests of ordinary British people first, not lea…”
The complete record
Every one of 545 lines we hold for Lewis Cocking, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 6 of 11.
“Well, I have met Link and it tells that it cannot help; I have met the Financial Conduct Authority and it says that it is up to the Government to change the law. Will it really take the closure of every bank in my constituency before we are even considered for a banking hub? It looks inevitable that that day will come.”
“That is not acceptable; it does not reflect the wider catchment area of towns such as Cheshunt and the role that Cheshunt serves for my constituents. The criteria need to change to ensure that any town that wants a banking hub can have one. Surely that is within the Minister’s gift. I thank her for meeting me recently to discuss my campaign to get a banking hub in Cheshunt, but every time that I have asked for one, I have been told that we do not meet the access to cash criteria and that there is nothing the Government can do about it—they simply wash their hands of it. I was told in a written answer that it is all down to Link, or the financial services sector, or the Financial Conduct Authority.”
“It is true that there are bus stops in the precise centre of Cheshunt and a few of my constituents will be able to get a bus—if it turns up and it is on time. In most cases, buses simply do not turn up on time or do not turn up at all. However, the vast majority of the people of Cheshunt do not live on top of a bus stop. Link has told me that journey times of less than 15 minutes are deemed acceptable, but many of my constituents living in residential areas off the high street, in neighbourhoods of Cheshunt such as Flamstead End, Rosedale or Bury Green, or in the village of Goffs Oak have much longer journeys even to board a bus, let alone to travel to a bank. That is not acknowledged at all in the assessment process, which uses only an “approximation of the centre of the high street”.”
“Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire mentioned, the process for securing a banking hub is far from sensible. Link has told me that Cheshunt does not meet the criteria for a hub because “there are already cash access services and facilities within a 1-mile radius which are suitable for the needs of the local area” and “the deficiency does not” affect my constituents enough. Well, not having a bank really does affect my constituents. This is typical civil service protocol on where policies should be implemented and where they should not be. The rules simply need to change. Link points out that my constituents can take a 15-minute bus journey to Waltham Cross, where a handful of banks remain for now, but do not get me started on the state of the bus services in Broxbourne.”
“Across Broxbourne, more than 3,000 people are living with sight loss, and that group is particularly reliant on in-person banking services. Many cannot use online banking at all, and they feel the pressure that not being digitally connected puts on them. That is why they like going into a bank branch, to get help from a real person to access their cash. They might specifically pick a bank with a branch on the high street, but if it closes, some banks now require customers to use an app to get a code in order to speak to the bank over the phone. That does not solve the issue. It is the sensible view of me and my constituents that Broxbourne needs a banking hub and, in particular, that the town of Cheshunt would be the perfect place for one, as it is right in the middle of my constituency. However, as my hon.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) for securing this very important debate. In recent years, banking services have been withdrawing from my constituency. Every single high street has seen bank branches close, and we now have fewer of them, but Cheshunt has borne the brunt. Cheshunt is a busy town of 40,000 people, right in the heart of my constituency, but not a single bank branch remains. That simply cannot be right. The lack of in-person banking facilities is depriving individuals and businesses of access to vital services and, for so many older and vulnerable people, causing huge difficulty and frustration as they are forced to use digital services and smartphone apps. My own nan is one of them, and she is not happy about it.”
“My hon. Friend makes an excellent point and I completely agree. Now is the time to change the rules and it is up to the Government to step up, be accountable to the electorate they serve and change the rules, rather than hiding behind unaccountable bodies such as Link, which do not determine the rules but just sit in their ivory towers and say, “This looks good on paper,” when it does not work in reality. I hope that the Minister will commit to go away and change the rules so that we can get more banking hubs open, not just in Hertfordshire but across the United Kingdom as a whole.”
“I am hopeful that he will think long and hard about what he can do about this issue, because he has the tools at his disposal to solve it. I suspect that there will be lots of consensus among those of us speaking in this debate on the issue and on what we think the solution will be. I hope that the Minister is listening and will take note of all our comments when he winds up.”
“Businesses up and down the country would probably take on more employees and more business if this problem was solved. It is affecting lots of the people that I speak to in my constituency of Broxbourne. Why on earth would someone come out of the education system, invest in their idea, take risks and set up a business in the United Kingdom right now? It is so heavily burdened with regulation. We need to unlock the aspiration of the next generation, and we can do that by solving simple things that business owners come to speak to us about. We need to make sure that the VAT threshold is no longer a cliff edge and bring in a taper mechanism. I look forward to hearing what the Minister says in reply to this debate.”
“They all think that all this Government’s policies around businesses, including changing the threshold for business rates and not looking into the issue of VAT registration, are affecting how they do business across the country. That simply cannot be right—it is nonsense. We all want more jobs created and we all want our high streets to thrive. Lots of business owners have lots of issues with what is going on in the economy right now, but this one single thing unites them. When I speak to them, they all raise this issue with me. They all want the Government to take it seriously and think up a solution. The Minister could go and speak to his officials at the Treasury and there could be a simple solution to this problem. That would create economic growth overnight.”
“It is the millions of small business owners up and down the United Kingdom and all of the entrepreneurs that invest in their ideas that create economic growth. As I said, it cannot be right that I have examples in my constituency of people turning down work, not taking on more employees, and not creating the economic growth that we all want to see for this country because of measures like the VAT threshold. We heard before the general election that this Government were going to be the most pro-business we had ever seen, but they have not come up with a single policy that has helped my business owners in Broxbourne.”
“It is not worth doing those things because, when we go just over the threshold, it takes our competitive edge away when we are trying to compete with people that are just below that threshold.” They have all come forward with a simple solution, which is that there should be a taper mechanism to build up to the 20%, rather than the cliff edge that we have now. The situation is absolute nonsense. I have successful business owners in my constituency that go in day in, day out. As I have said in this Chamber before, I was told at the Dispatch box by a Government Minister that it is the Government that create economic growth. Well, it is not. They do not understand how business works in this country. Their whole philosophy around who creates economic growth is wrong.”
“When I go out and speak to businesses across my constituency of Broxbourne, whether I speak to them in business forums, through Love Hoddesdon, Love Cheshunt, Love Waltham Cross or the Stanstead Abbotts small business network group, they are all united in one thing and one single policy that they reckon is really holding them back: the VAT threshold. They all moan to me about it. They all say they need an easier solution. I have so many examples of businesses that I speak to that have said, “Lewis, it is not worth upscaling our business. It is not worth trying to do better, not worth taking on more business, not worth employing more people.”
“Increasing the burden of regulation is also deterring employers from taking risks with who they employ. Both of those disastrous policies are leading to fewer people in work, taxes at the highest level on record and growth down. As I have said in this Chamber before, the drastic reduction in business rates relief is crippling for our retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, which are the anchor of so many of our town centres up and down our beautiful United Kingdom. As we have heard this morning, what is also holding SMEs back is the current rules around VAT registration.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) on securing this important debate. He is a passionate defender of small and medium-sized businesses in his constituency and across the country. I meet small business owners in my constituency of Broxbourne almost every week, and every single one, from Carmela’s hairdressers in Cheshunt to the Smokeshed restaurant in Hoddesdon, has made it clear to me just how damaging Labour Government policies are towards small businesses. This Labour Government have put up the cost of growing a small business significantly, with the hike in employer’s national insurance making it more expensive for businesses to bring on and employ new people.”
“We have all mentioned a number of businesses that think this Labour Government are taking the wrong direction. Can the Minister list the businesses in his constituency that believe that this Labour Government are taking the right direction for business growth in this country? If he lists the businesses in his constituency, we will go and ask them.”
“I hope the Minister is genuinely listening to the concerns raised in this debate, and will come back with the Department of Education in the near future with genuine solutions to the SEND funding crisis, and ensure that all our constituents have a fair say when local government reorganisation is forced upon them in our areas.”
“As with everything the Government touch, one of the inevitable consequences of this reorganisation will be higher taxes for my constituents. It will be constituents living under Conservative-controlled Broxbourne council who will feel this the most, as they will go from paying the lowest non-parish council tax in the country to, inevitably, a higher charge under a merged authority. There is no way that efficiencies will cover the extra spending of these bloated authorities. Reorganisation itself is not cost-free, and I am yet to see councils that have gone through a reorganisation come out saying they are awash with cash.”
“I hope the Minister agrees that it should not matter where in this country someone is born, because the system should have the resources to meet their educational needs. Removing this historical funding formula would be the first step in creating such a system. The Minister will of course point out that the total reorganisation of local government in this country is the answer to these problems, and that the efficiencies promised by huge unitary councils will solve the funding crisis. However, residents of my constituency of Broxbourne already feel that they are getting a bad deal from the county council, so exactly how will forcing them into a much larger council, which will have a much longer list of responsibilities for an even bigger area, help this situation?”
“One of the biggest drivers of the financial difficulties facing councils has been the catastrophic rise in the amount of money spent on children with special educational needs. This is very close to my heart, as I have seen it from both sides. I grew up with a brother and sister who both benefited from SEND provision, and I have also been a local councillor in Hertfordshire. In just 10 years, the number of children in the county with education, health and care plans has grown by a staggering 223%, which is even higher than the 140% national rise. The funding has not kept up. Incredibly, Hertfordshire receives the third lowest funding per head out of every authority in the country. If it was funded at the national average, an extra £47 million would be available for children with the most complex needs across Hertfordshire.”
“I commend the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), for securing this important debate. I congratulate her on her fair and robust approach to leading the Committee, and every now and again she allows me to ask some difficult questions of Government Ministers, for which I am very grateful. All of us on the Committee have taken very seriously our duty of scrutinising the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government over the past year, recognising its widespread responsibilities and the deep impact its decisions have on our constituents right across the country. I wish to mention a couple of those responsibilities.”
“Houses in multiple occupation throughout Broxbourne—on our high streets in particular—are causing my constituents lots of issues. What will the Minister do to review the powers that my local councils of East Herts and Broxbourne have to stop HMOs where we do not want them?”
“We should be trying to protect that character, because when people move to villages, they do so for the rural way of life and their unique character and identity. We should stop urban sprawl, and we should stop villages linking together.”
“I rise to speak to a number of the amendments before us. I spent a lot of time with colleagues on the Public Bill Committee, and some of the amendments are very good and some are not so good. I will try to rattle through as many as I can. I support new clause 43, which stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds). Our villages should have the same protection as our towns. Villages have a unique character across all our constituencies, and I am privileged to represent six of them—Brickendon, Hertford Heath, Great Amwell, Stanstead Abbotts, St Margarets and Goffs Oak. I have seen a local council that has built probably too much development in a village, and I have seen that change the fundamental character of Goffs Oak.”
“We should ensure we have tree-lined streets, because when we go out in our constituency, as I am sure you do in yours, Madam Deputy Speaker, a tree-lined street is absolutely beautiful to walk down. It is so much better for the people living there and everybody in the constituency if we make that a reality for lots of our residents. Rather than just focusing on building a set number of houses, we should focus on creating the communities of the future and the places where our constituents want to live.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and of course I agree. She makes an important point, and I fully support her new clause. I know she is a keen advocate for this provision in her constituency; it is about creating communities. As I have said, this Government are interested only in hitting a national target, which I and lot of experts in the industry do not think they will meet. The Government need to think about how they are going to create the communities of the future and the places where people want to live. That means designing them to be really nice, getting developers around the table and agreeing design codes, and making sure developers really put their money where their mouth is.”
“For so many older and vulnerable people, it is causing huge difficulty and frustration, as they are forced to rely on digital services such as apps and smartphones.”
“I commend the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) for securing this important debate. Like so many places across the country, bank branches have closed at an alarming rate in my constituency. Not so long ago, residents could pop down to a branch of every major high street bank in the towns of Waltham Cross, Cheshunt and Hoddesdon. Just last week, Halifax became the latest bank branch to shut its doors in Waltham Cross, while in Hoddesdon the former site of the Barclays remains empty, a scar on an otherwise vibrant town centre. In my town of Cheshunt, a town of 40,000 people, not a single bank branch remains. That simply cannot be right. The lack of in-person banking facilities is depriving people of access to vital services.”
“We need to look at the rules, because waiting until the last bank is in our high street does not promote consumer choice or solve people’s banking and access to cash needs. On buses, my constituents are lucky if the bus even turns up—we get one bus once an hour—so including public transport in analysis of banking hub locations is unreliable. We need to widen the criteria to enable more banking hubs to be opened up across the country.”
“Through the good work of my Conservative-run Broxbourne council, we managed to get it into the Spotlight, our local theatre, but it is cashless. That is nonsense! Its bread and butter business as a high street bank is to deal with cash and get people access to its cash and banking services, but it wants to run a service that is now cashless. We tried in Cheshunt—as I said, a town of 40,000 people with no banking services—to get the NatWest banking van at the car park of our Laura Trott sports centre, but again it would only offer a cashless service. This is bread and butter to the high street banks. They should accept cash and we should bring forward legislation to ensure that our constituents across the country have access to banking services.”
“I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. It is really important that we expand the rules to get banking hubs in more locations across the country. Not least of all, my nan does not do online banking. Every time I go and see her, she badgers me about it. She will specifically bank with someone where she can have face-to-face services, because she will not do online banking. It is a real struggle, because some banks say, “Well, you’ve got to telephone.” But even then, one has to have a smartphone to get a code on the app for security, so it is very difficult for our older and disabled constituents to access those vital services. When Barclays went from the high street in Hoddesdon, it did a “Barclays local”.”
“I have an issue in my constituency down White Stubbs Lane, where we have raw sewage going over the road. The Environment Agency is unaccountable, hardly wanting to meet with MPs or engage. It told me during the purdah period, “We can’t meet with you, because there is a local election going on,” which is absolute nonsense. It should engage with MPs. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is completely unaccountable and needs fundamental reform and change?”
“The Minister speaks warmly about having meetings with the Environment Agency. It is all well and good having a meeting, but I do not want to go into a talking shop. I feel like the Environment Agency uses the meetings to say, “We’ve ticked that box and we’ve met that MP; that issue is done,” but it does not action anything. We want to see real action for our constituents because they are really fed up with these issues, which take a terribly long time to solve.”
“The best form of welfare is a well-paid job, but we are not allowing entrepreneurs to go out there, invest in their businesses, create job opportunities and keep our high streets afloat. We all want to see successful high streets up and down the United Kingdom, but this Government’s policies are killing the high street. They are absolutely killing it.”
“My constituency has the business improvement districts Love Hoddesdon, Love Cheshunt and Love Waltham Cross, and business owners constantly tell me that, whichever way they turn, things are incredibly difficult and the Government are not making them easy. Even when they go through the business rates appeals process, they have to pay the higher bills while the process takes place, and that process takes months. They do not get any response from the Treasury, and it is difficult for them to appeal and submit information. That is simply not good enough. As I said, lots of people are starting to wonder, “What is the point in me doing this?” We should be pro-growth in this country.”
“Given that the Government are changing business rates relief and slapping more taxes on businesses, particularly in our town centres, why would someone do that? A couple of weeks ago, I went to a secondary school in my constituency to speak to A-level students who are doing a business T-level. They all want to become entrepreneurs and create businesses, but we are not creating the right environment for people to become entrepreneurs. In the general election campaign, we heard a lot about how Labour would be the most pro-business Government ever to take power in the United Kingdom, but every decision the Government have made since being in office has slammed down growth and made it harder for businesses.”
“What’s the point in me coming to work, trying to run a small business in the town centre, creating growth and employing people?” A Minister told me from the Dispatch Box that it is the Government that create growth. Well, let me tell the Government that it is not the Government that create growth; the Government’s job is to create the right environment for entrepreneurs and businesses to create growth. Business owners go to work day in, day out, and work incredibly long hours. The Government should try to derisk that process. If we want people to open shops on our high streets, the Government should cushion them from some of the risks. When someone starts their own business at home—from a desk, garage or whatever—upscaling that business is incredibly difficult, and lots of risks are involved.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) on securing the debate. There are 1,400 small businesses with a rateable value of less than £50,000 across my constituency. Today, we are discussing only the changes in business rates, but a lot of other Government decisions—particularly on employers’ national insurance and on energy costs not coming down—will affect our high streets as well. The cumulative impact of all that is devastating for our high streets. Lots of businesses I speak to in my constituency are horrified that rates relief dropped from 75% to 40%. When I go out and about across Broxbourne and speak to business owners, a lot of them now say, “What’s the point?”
“The SNP needs to come up with some relief, because things are hard enough in England, even without what the hon. Gentleman has just outlined in Scotland. The OECD has today downgraded its growth predictions for the United Kingdom. The Government need to start acting on their rhetoric from before the general election. They said they would be pro-growth, but no policies have come forward to support our high streets or promote growth. The Government really should stop trying to kill our high streets.”
“In the interests of time, I would be grateful if the Minister would agree to write to me on this issue, setting out the Government’s position and explaining what they are doing, when we have large-scale development in the countryside, to stop the social housing element of the development being placed in these locations.”
“It is a pleasure to continue with you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. I rise to speak to new clause 16, which is in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa). The new clause goes some of the way to address what I spoke about on Second Reading, about how we must create communities. When we are designing new large-scale housing in the countryside, community and design must be at the forefront. I want the Government to look at what more they can do, because we do not want affordable homes to be put next to large electricity transmission systems.”
“I am happy with the Government’s considered approach to new clause 16, and I am happy that the Minister will write to me and my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire.”
“Does the Minister not appreciate that lots of utility companies dig up roads under emergency procedures, so do not have to let the local authority know? As it is an emergency, one would expect someone to be working, maybe not around the clock, but for a long period of the day over multiple days to get it fixed. When people drive past roadworks in those scenarios, and they do not see anyone working on them, they get incredibly frustrated. Could he just outline what the Government are doing to make sure that roadworks are finished as quickly as possible, in a timely manner?”
“As I said, when we drive throughout the country, probably through hundreds of villages, we know they are all unique and have a different character. We should try to maintain that, rather than having an urban sprawl, with no green spaces left and developments that all link together. I fully support the new clause in the shadow Minister’s name.”
“I rise in support of the important new clause 111, in the name of the shadow Minister. I have six villages in my patch—Goffs Oak, Hertford Heath, Brickendon, Great Amwell, St Margarets and Stanstead Abbotts—all of which have a unique character. We need to protect village life; villages are all unique and different. The new clause is not saying that we do not want any development in villages—of course, to make progress, there has to be developmentbut people in villages in my constituency, and probably across the country, are fearful of having loads of development so that villages all get connected up together and lose their rural identity, village community and spirit. I would like the Government to really consider the new changes they have made to the national planning policy framework, particularly on villages.”
“In Broxbourne, we were meant to be seeing the £700 million Sunset Studios project, which is now sadly not going ahead, in part due to the national insurance increase, new employment regulations and this Government’s handling of the economy. Is that what the Government mean by supporting the film industry?”
“This Labour Government have been in power now for almost 12 months. When will the Prime Minister stop defying the will of the British people, stop dancing around the subject, and stop all illegal immigration into the United Kingdom, which has been rising on his watch?”
“I support this clause on development corporations and transport. NHS and healthcare services in the new development corporations are also vital, so why did the Government not include a clause that would make local NHS trusts behave in the way that the Minister wants transport authorities to behave, so that development corporations cater for healthcare needs as well?”
“Does the Minister think that, on the second go, the developer should have to start from the beginning, have the same principles to get the development off the ground, and that the same higher bar should apply? At the end of the day it is the community that lose out from the community obligations that the developer is trying to get out of.”
“I thank the Minister for giving way. He is talking about changes in viability. What does he say to councils that are in the position of having granted planning permission, had a viability assessment and agreed a 106, and the developer comes back a year or two later and says that they cannot do it and will have to put in a new planning application, have a new viability assessment and a new 106, but because the council has determined a planned application on that site, if it went to the planning inspector, there would be a lower bar for that development to get over? That is because the council has already accepted the principle of development on that site under the premise of one section 106 negotiation.”