Whitsun Adjournment

I beg to move,

That this House has considered matters to be raised before the forthcoming adjournment.

It is always a privilege to lead such debates as Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, not least at the moment, as I am delighted to have the opportunity to talk about something other than our withdrawal from the European Union. I promise not to utter the B-word in the Chamber this afternoon. Instead, I will use the next few minutes to remind you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and colleagues on both sides of the House why I represent the best constituency in the United Kingdom, with a few policy complaints thrown in.

I can say with absolute certainty that austerity is not over in Gateshead. Despite the Government’s proclamations to the contrary in recent months, and despite their promise to shake the magic money tree for the north-east of England, we have seen more damaging cuts coupled with welfare reforms and chronic, continually rising unemployment in my constituency. I say that advisedly. Unemployment in my constituency now stands at 7.2%, and it has risen month on month every month without fail. There are 470 more unemployed individuals that at the same time last year, so unemployment has not gone away in the north-east of England.

We see local authorities being forced to turn away vulnerable people from their doors. In my constituency, the employees of social housing providers are creating their own ad hoc, unofficial food banks to help tenants who simply cannot make ends meet.

I am not sure whether we should be delighted that the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty, Professor Philip Alston, chose to visit Newcastle and Gateshead while gathering evidence. Believe me, we would much prefer not to be of interest to an investigation into extreme poverty. None the less, it was finally an opportunity for members of the communities I serve—those communities are bearing the brunt of successive Government policies—local authorities and voluntary organisations to share their experiences with officials from outside the region who care enough to listen.

The report, published yesterday, is a damning indictment of how this Government treat some of their citizens and of how they view their role in office. Sadly, nothing in Professor Philip Alston’s report should come as a surprise to Members. Opposition Members have repeatedly highlighted how this Government are driving constituents into abject poverty while slashing the support services that were once available to help the most vulnerable.

We have just had a great debate about Yemen. It is ironic that Ministers are quite happy to accept UN evidence on Yemen but are openly dismissive of an objective UN report on what is happening here in terms of domestic policy. That is rather strange. This is, and rightly should be, a national embarrassment. How many more of our constituents will be starved and frozen out of their homes before this Government decide to change course?

I believe that the existing council tax system contributes to the difficulties of local authorities like mine in Gateshead when it comes to raising enough money to meet increasing demand. The system is flawed and requires urgent reform to establish some equality across the UK.

The vast majority of properties in my Gateshead constituency—over 70%—are in council tax bands A and B, unlike in some parts of the south-east, where the average banding is C, D or, in some cases, E. Having a high proportion of band A and B properties significantly reduces how much money can be raised through the council tax system. As a direct result, Gateshead Council has no alternative but to continually raise council tax by the highest percentage allowed. That, in turn, has resulted in Gateshead having one of the country’s most expensive council tax bills for band A properties.

In Gateshead, it costs nearly four times more in council tax to live in a one-bedroom band A flat than it costs to live in a band D property here in Westminster, which is clearly unfair. The system is punitive, outdated and regressive, and it should be replaced at the earliest opportunity. Withdrawing the revenue support grant without reforming and amending the council tax side of the local government funding system is causing hardship and suffering to our constituents, and it must be considered almost criminal because of the way in which it impacts on individuals.

We have now had council tax for almost 30 years—let us remember that it was meant to be a temporary stopgap after getting rid of the poll tax, or the community charge, as it was known—and it does not work. The band D national median is meaningless in a place like Gateshead. Unilaterally taking away the revenue support grant without altering the other side of the system was a harsh decision that has clearly affected some areas much more than others.

I promised some positivity, and I realise that my speech so far has set out a pretty bleak picture, so let me say that despite revenue support grant cuts of more than £100 million per year, my local authority continues to promote Gateshead as a great place to live, work and invest. Gateshead Council has already attracted hundreds of millions of pounds in investment in recent years. It has ambitious plans for further investment of £1.5 billion in the next 10 to 15 years, starting with ambitious plans for Gateshead quays and the Baltic quarter to develop a major new state-of-the-art conference centre and performance arena. There are to be exciting ancillary facilities and, we hope, even a new railway station to service the development, as well as our excellent and outstanding Gateshead College.

I am proud to have been a member of Gateshead Council for 27 years during our process of moving the borough forward on a long line of flagship projects: the iconic Sage Gateshead; the turning of the Baltic flour mill into a gallery of contemporary art; and our Gateshead millennium bridge across the Tyne to the village across the river. Members on both sides of the House will recognise the importance of sensitive investment and development in our communities, and how that often acts as a driver for regeneration. We have a long-standing flagship projects policy that started in the 1970s with the Gateshead stadium and Brendan Foster. Who could ever forget the way in which we turned Gateshead into a hub of athletics? We were an exemplar of Britain in bloom. We built the Metrocentre, with John Hall and Cameron Hall Developments. We turned the old Derwenthaugh coke works site into a wonderful country park. We built our civic centre in Gateshead, which was a huge success because we brought the project in vastly under budget, meaning that the residue of the development grant we got from Government, via Lord Bellwin, was then used as a sort of development fund. That allowed us to do so many different things. We turned Saltwell park, an ageing Victorian municipal park, into “the people’s park”, and it became the favourite park in the north of England—it was voted the best park in Britain on two occasions. We also developed Gateshead quays, built the Angel of the North and redeveloped Gateshead town centre.

Although Members of my political persuasion believe that investment for regeneration should come directly from Government, because that works, I also recognise that there is more chance of me watching Newcastle United win the premier league next year than this Government changing course on public investment in the regeneration of areas in the north-east of England, which, sadly, continue to be left behind, as the unemployment statistics show graphically. If any Member has a spare million or two burning a hole in their pockets, I would be delighted to welcome them to Gateshead for a look around, to meet the people and see the massive potential that exists—they will be given a very warm welcome and be under no illusion that it is a great place to work, invest and live.

As I touched upon earlier, council tax takes up an ever-increasing proportion of people’s income. We have all seen the reports of local authorities pursuing residents through the courts with bailiffs to recover insignificant sums of outstanding tax, adding significant charges and fees—and misery—in the process. I am therefore delighted to talk about the excellent work that my local authority is doing to identify and support some of our most vulnerable residents. The Thrive initiative uses council tax arrears as one of the trigger points for increased support. If residents fall into arrears with council tax, it is often a tell-tale sign that there may be other significant issues on which they need support. As a result, instead of multiplying debt through the recovery process and causing no end of distress to constituents, the Thrive team in Gateshead contacts residents who fall into arrears to offer them additional support.

We know all too well that very often those in our communities who are most in need are the least likely to seek help or even to know where to go to for help. The Thrive initiative does that work for them: it reaches out and tries to engage proactively with residents who may be having difficulties, with the aim of preventing the situation from deteriorating. Not only is this holistically an excellent initiative—giving assistance before people reach the point of crisis—but it is actually beneficial to the people themselves and financially beneficial to the council. So I congratulate Gateshead Council on developing such schemes in the most difficult economic circumstances.

I feel that I have spoken for long enough but, although this does not directly affect my constituency, it would be remiss of me not to mention the ongoing abandonment of British Steel. We wish every success to all initiatives to try to retain steel production in this country, as this is so vital. While I was growing up, I watched deindustrialisation along the Tyne, with the loss of shipbuilding and heavy engineering, and the closure of coal mines, so we need to do something to retain a strategically vital industry here in Britain. Time and time again, we have seen Governments allow the deindustrialisation of the north of England, which has devastating long-term effects on communities, some of which will never recover. It is about time that industries that are vital to not only our economy nationally, but our local economies, workers and their families across the UK, were afforded the same protections as those in the square mile in the City of London. We managed to find £500 billion to bail out the City after the financial crash, so we must be able to find a few hundred million pounds to save vital industries for the future strategic interest of our country.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish you, Members on both sides of the House and all staff a very restful Whitsun—we all deserve it.

Before the House adjourns for the Whitsun recess, I wish to make a number of points. I am so glad that we are having this debate, because the previous one was cancelled. Unless I get a stare from the Chair, I am probably going to take a little longer than I normally would, but I assure the House that I will not squeeze colleagues out—I know that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, would intervene.

The first thing I want to say is about this place. I am very worried about Parliament—indeed, I am frightened about it. I realise that everyone else knows better than I do, but since I have been here I have never seen this place in such disarray. As we work here, we have our own view, but this is playing very badly with the general public out there—every minute, every hour, every week and every month, damage is being done to our democracy. I have never seen incompetence at the level that we are experiencing at the moment, with Ministers coming and going—it is a complete fiasco. We all know that the terrible 2017 general election messed everything up, but we have had tight results before and we have legislated—we have been here, done our work and got on with our job. That is not happening at the moment.

I say to colleagues, perhaps those on my side, that very few human beings have what it takes to be a leader of a party and indeed a Prime Minister. That does not mean to say that someone is a wonderful person because they end up as Prime Minister; I am just saying that few people have the qualities needed. So many of us seem to be unaware of our own limitations. Since I have been here, I have seen colleagues become more and more ambitious. They think, “Oh, forget the constituency, it is a just a vehicle to get here. I want to lead my party. In fact, I even wanted that before I was elected.” That is how ridiculous the situation is at the moment, and it plays out there very badly indeed.

We have the poorest set of world leaders I have seen in my lifetime. I struggle to point to someone who I think is at the top of their game. Let me say something to the House, although it will not take a blind bit of notice of me—after all, who am I? I am of no importance; I am a has-been. I want to say this: this is a really serious crisis and I hope that on Sunday, when we get the results of today’s vote, we will get a grip on this place, because we need to reassure the general public that the democracy that was hard fought for means that it is worth going out to vote. That ends that Victor Meldrew rant.

I hope I am not interrupting the hon. Gentleman’s excellent speech, but I sense he is coming to the end of it, and I wonder whether he has included on his last page congratulations to West Ham United on finishing in the top half of the premiership this year. I only mention that because it will save me, as a fellow West Ham supporter, doing so in my speech; and because the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee mentioned Newcastle United, so we will beat them 2-1 on this occasion.

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. My goodness, I was relieved that Southend United won their last game, so we were not relegated. As a staunch West Ham supporter, I think that having got off to a bad start and lost the first four matches, to finish 10th in the league was a tremendous outcome. My youngest daughter plays for Arsenal ladies, and they are a great team, but I am a dyed-in-the-wool West Ham supporter and I join him in congratulating them on their season. Onwards and upwards, and—who knows? —just like Leicester, they might win the league.

With my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) sitting nearby, I am thinking about the spring clean. I took part in our local spring clean, led by a wonderful local councillor, Meg Davidson, who is now deputy leader of the Conservative group. I think it is a wonderful opportunity.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I join all other Members in wishing you, the other Deputy Speakers, Mr Speaker and all the staff of the House a wonderful, joyous, restful and Brexit-free Whitsun.

We have been privileged to hear a masterclass from the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess)—I will call him the hon. Member for the city of Southend—on how to speak in the end-of-term Adjournment debate. I am a mere apprentice to his great talent.

I take this opportunity to pay tribute to steelworkers and their families across the country, and across the ages, for their contribution to our nation. They have been in the vanguard of its growth, prosperity and development. They are amazing men and women, and they have had some tough times and tough years. The last few weeks have been some of the toughest. Yesterday, British Steel, which employs 4,500 people in Scunthorpe and across the local area, with probably 20,000 people working in the supply chain, went into compulsory liquidation. Steelworkers and their families, the contractor base and people who work in the supply chain will understandably be worried and concerned, as I am. But I know that we have a good business, and the country needs this business. Despite the challenge, I am confident about the future.

A few months ago, after a public fundraising campaign, a statue dedicated to steelworkers across the ages was unveiled in Scunthorpe town centre. That iconic statue is a beautiful piece of public art, and people swarmed to the town centre from across the community to recognise it. It demonstrates how the industry cuts through everything that the local area is about.

Steelmaking and steelworkers belong to place. Place is very important in our past, present and future. Many new industries, including digital industries, have been established, and it is good to see that, but they are not as located in place; they can move quickly and freely across boundaries and countries. That creates a huge challenge for us all as policy makers. Place is important, and steelmaking has helped to create the place of Scunthorpe. The discovery in the 1850s of iron ore resulted in iron ore being mined for a long while and eventually led to the building up of the steel industry.

I am pleased to hear about the steelworkers’ monument that the hon. Gentleman has just mentioned. There is a firefighters’ memorial at St Pauls and a construction workers’ memorial at Tower Hill, but they have been there for only 20 years. It is important that we recognise the contribution of ordinary men and women—that may be in their industry, rather than as individuals—so I am pleased to hear that there is such a memorial in Scunthorpe for steelworkers.

And memorials to people who have helped to build this country; and memorials that include women as well as men. Most memorials to women in this country are actually to Queen Victoria, but the memorial in Scunthorpe includes a female steelworker and a male steelworker, recognising that it is through men’s and women’s work across the ages that this country has been built.

Steelmaking is the beating heart of the community that I am proud to represent. It is what gives the community its character and strength. Everyone has friends or family members who work in the steel industry or its supply chains. It provides high-skilled, well-paid jobs that drive the local economy, and has always been passionate about and committed to apprenticeships, training and investment—investing in community causes and the community effort. The supply chain and the contractor base are also hugely important.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) said, this is not just an industry that is important to places around the country; it is an industry that is important to our country and it is part of our national asset. The strategic value of the steel industry is massive. It is a foundation industry that underpins our manufacturing and economic performance. If we are serious about being an independent and modern country, we need to have our own independent steelmaking capacity so that we have defence and infrastructure security, otherwise we are vulnerable to the whims and vicissitudes of others.

The strongest economies in the world have strong steel industries. Look at the countries with the strongest steel industries: No. 1—the USA; No. 2—China; No. 3 —Japan; No. 7—Germany. The UK currently comes in at No. 30. Do we want to drop further down the league table? No, we do not. If we are serious about punching above our weight and being a leader in the world, we cannot slip further down that league table. If we want to be a proud, modern, independent nation, we need to have our own independent steelworking capacity.

My hon. Friend is making an extremely important point about the steel industry. I am reminded of the closure of Ravenscraig in Lanarkshire in Scotland in 1992. That was a massive steelworks. I was born in 1989, and nearly 30 years on, the vast bulk of that site is still wasteland. A whole generation have grown up with the impact of that. The idea that we can just turn these industries on and off and that the people around them are not affected is totally wrong-headed. That is the economic vandalism that this Government’s laissez-faire approach is doing to communities if they do not intervene to save nationally strategic industries such as steel.

My hon. Friend makes a good point about the need to act and the cost of not acting.

We had the steel crisis in 2015-16, when we lost the SSI site in Redcar. My hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) talked yesterday about the strategic assets that have been lost. The blast furnace at Redcar, which was probably the best in the country, is now of no value to the country. The blast furnaces in Scunthorpe are not only necessary for us to deliver our steelmaking capacity and contribution to the economy; they are national assets, and it would cost a huge amount to bring them back on stream. I welcome the Secretary of State’s strong comments at the Dispatch Box yesterday, when he made it clear that these national assets need to be secured for the future.

We do not want another Ravenscraig or another Redcar, because the costs are too great. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) reminds us that Ravenscraig is still costing the nation money, and it is the same with Redcar. The clean-up costs of these great industries are uncountable. The costs of keeping them going, keeping people economically viable and keeping our country proud and independent in what it can do are chickenfeed compared with the costs of not doing so. He makes that point extremely well.

Hearing my hon. Friend speak, I recall what happened when Brymbo steelworks in my constituency closed in 1990 and part of its infrastructure was shipped to China. That was extremely traumatic for people, and sometimes it is not recognised what happens within a community when a steelworks closes.

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Already, during my short contribution to the debate, we see the way in which the steel industry connects with people in a way that some other industries do not. People know that this industry is a throbbing heart of the country. We need it if we are to be a proud, strong country, and closures such as the one she mentions have a detrimental impact on not only communities but the nation.

I called on then Prime Minister David Cameron to convene a steel summit in October 2015, which brought together unions, steelmakers, partners in the industry, key stakeholders and Government. At the summit, we focused on five asks. While applauding the Secretary of State for his urgent action, I am critical of the Government for not progressing those fundamental asks more strongly. There has been some movement, but not as much as we would like. Those asks need to be addressed to get the industry on to a level playing field, so that we can be not 30th in the league but battling for the top spot.

The first of the five asks was energy costs. Energy costs for the UK steel industry are much higher than those in Europe and elsewhere, and we still need to do something about that. There was mitigation through the carbon price floor tax, but it took about three years to come in. There is still a gap, and the energy required to support our steel industry is still far more expensive than elsewhere in Europe. We need to work on that if our steel industry is to move on to a level playing field where it can have a sustainable and strong future in the lifeblood of our nation.

The second ask was about procurement. The Government have taken some steps on procurement. In 2016, they brought in new procurement guidelines. It has been a struggle to make sure that that those public procurement guidelines bite and are effective. It is one thing to have something that is nice on a piece of paper, but it needs to have some traction in terms of action. Earlier this year, the Government published their analysis of where we are on that, and their own figures show that only 43% of the £158 million of procurement by the UK Government last year was produced in the UK.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin). He described what we had experienced in the Chamber to the point at which he stood to speak as a masterclass. And that masterclass continued. This is the first time that I decided to attend a recess Adjournment debate and I have learned a great deal about how to make the best use of the time afforded by such debates. The hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) gave us a very thorough commentary on his constituency. I know a little about Gateshead and I have to say that the people of Gateshead are some of the friendliest and most welcoming in these islands. I always look forward to my visits to Gateshead to visit friends who live there.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) gave a tour de force. I am taking notes about what I observed in how he conducted himself. I share his concerns about the state of our democracy. I am really concerned about the esteem in which people hold this place and I am deeply concerned about some of the comments I pick up every Saturday when I knock on doors in my Stirling constituency. We desperately need to consider the reputation of Parliament and the way in which we have conducted ourselves over the past little while.

There was a mention from across the Chamber of sporting triumphs. It would be remiss of me not to wish my namesake Shelley Kerr, the manager of Scotland’s World cup team, all the very best when the tournament starts next month in France. I am sure that all of us will have marked in our diaries a very important date and time, Sunday 9 June at 5 o’clock, because that is when England will be beaten by Scotland in the women’s World cup. I wish the Scotland team well. It is fantastic, as a Scot, to be able to have a national team in a World cup—in fact, in any kind of tournament at all. I rejoice in their success in being in it and I know they will do us proud.

The hon. Member for Scunthorpe mentioned steel and the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee. I note what he said. I am a member of the Committee and he asked some very valuable questions.

The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting series of proposals and he opens up an interesting discussion. However, the integrity of the United Kingdom is dependent on its being functional and serving a real purpose that means something in people’s lives, and the ongoing constitutional Punch and Judy show that is going on in Scotland right now is ill serving that objective. Does he not agree that we need to move away from the yah-boo polarisation of constitutional obsession in Scotland and focus on delivering policies that improve the quality of life of people in Scotland, and then demonstrate the value of solidarity?

I welcome that intervention. In fact, that is exactly what I am saying. Speaking as a Conservative and a Unionist, I wish that we could get past all the unending and, frankly, fruitless discussions about constitutional arrangements, and talk about policies that improve the life opportunities of people in Scotland. I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, but we need to address the issue of the governance of Scotland to be able to bridge the gap, in constitutional machinery terms, that allows the SNP the breathing space to fester the grievances that it is busy manufacturing while he and I are sitting here.

Our article goes on to say that the Department for the Union

“could be part of the constitutional jigsaw that would solve some of the problems the country will face in the future if they are not addressed. This department would be of such importance that we suggest the leader of it should be one of the five great offices of state: joining Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary. They would be supported by a group of senior ministers representing Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland.

A Department for the Union at Whitehall would be responsible for maintaining and enhancing the regulatory and governmental framework of our United Kingdom. Hearing the voices of English, Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish ministers, businesses in each sector, and civic bodies would allow for a regulatory framework which works for our whole United Kingdom. Within this framework, devolved governments would be able to adjust policies to suit the individual needs of each country of the United Kingdom whilst protecting the cohesion of the single market of one of the largest economies in the world. This department could work closely on future constitutional change and make informal arrangements such as joint ministerial committees more formal and effective. One of the SNP’s arguments for independence is that the Scottish Government is not treated with respect by the UK government. We reject that claim, but a Department for the Union would put it to bed, and would encourage a better working relationship between the two governments in the interests of all the people of Scotland.”