Melanie Onn MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Jan 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

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  I note the right hon. Gentleman’s righteous indignation, but I question where it was in 2016, when the SNP tabled a motion in support of the WASPI women and he voted against it. Is he not really just a Johnny-come-lately, despite what he said earlier in his speech?

• 8 Jan 2025 · Grimsby Post Office · Hansard source

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  I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes opposing the possible closure of Grimsby post office. We are deeply disappointed to hear that the post office in Grimsby town centre is at risk of closure under the Post Office’s strategic review. The branch provides numerous services, such as business banking, to residents in the town, particularly older residents, and it is the last Crown post office in north-east Lincolnshire. The petition asks that the Government strongly encourage and work with the Post Office to protect post office services in Grimsby town centre. The residents of Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes “request that the House of Commons urge the Government to take immediate action to ensure that the Grimsby Post Office remains open to continue to provide incredibly important services to residents in the town. And the petitioners remain, etc.” Following is the full text of the petition: [The petition of residents of the constituency of Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, Declares that, similar to an online petition which acquired 568 signatures, the Post Office should rethink their plans to close the Grimsby Post Office and take it off the ‘at risk’ register. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to take immediate action to ensure that the Grimsby Post Office remains open to continue to provide incredibly important services to residents in the town. And the petitioners remain, etc.] [P003029]

• 7 Jan 2025 · Crown Estate Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I might be able to help a little with the question asked by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). The Crown Estate has engaged in supporting the evidence and change programme that has brought the fishing industry and the renewables sector around the table to enable earlier planning to prevent some of the conflicts we have seen. My speech will highlight some good examples of where those plans and the evidence and change programme have started to be implemented. The industries are working together, hand in hand, to prevent the kind of conflict about which the right hon. Gentleman is rightly concerned.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Crown Estate Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for that comment. It is about how we view community benefits and how embedded in communities they are. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) talked about things being done with communities, not to them. This is about what will best benefit a community and having that discussion at an early stage, which is what I have been advocating. The traditional understanding of community benefit is payment for a local football team’s shirts or things like that, but that is not what I see this industry or this Bill unlocking. It needs to be about transforming local communities, which, critically, comes through skills, through the supply chain and through delivering industrial benefits that local people have access to. That is the thrust of what I am trying to say—clearly I have not been successful, if the hon. Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald) did not see that, but I will persevere, which I am sure he will be delighted to know. Interestingly, the Crown Estate has recently supported a community project in my constituency called Projekt Renewables—it has a “k”, giving it a slightly Nordic slant on things. It is a box park construction next to the Grimsby Fishing Heritage Centre, bringing together the old and the new, and the past, present and future. It provides community education, and it is a space to bring together schools, businesses and visitors to learn about the renewables sector in Grimsby, including its history, its importance and the possibilities for the future. The community education piece is incredibly important, and we do not talk about it enough. The Crown Estate recognised that there is a need for wider understanding of activities, some of which are significant or significantly disruptive in local areas, so that residents can better understand what is happening in their place. I keep talking about opportunity, because some Members have not seen this Bill as an opportunity for expansion, investment, growth and long-term change. The Bill actually unlocks quite a lot of that. There is an opportunity not only for greater expansion of public information and education, but to have a single standard of available materials and off-the-shelf information to support local areas. That would help provide a general understanding that would stop individual companies producing their own bespoke education programmes. We should have something that is uniform and that provides the facts, and then companies can build on that if they want. It would be a much stronger offer, and more beneficial to collective understanding because of the uniformity. However, there are further steps that the Crown Estate could take to provide local people with skills, to guarantee sustainable development. In my area, the freeport is already undertaking some work on skills. Under the new devolution plans, there is provision for skills to be a key strand of mayoral responsibility, but how can the Crown Estate fit into that model? I believe that it really must do so to maximise the benefit of all the organisations, and to have a common theme and common objectives. Arguably, the Crown Estate has a lot more to lose if the skills are not there for offshore deployment and long-term maintenance support. New projects such as the Able quay, which is just outside my constituency, will make offshore wind ambitions deliverable. It will open up the supply chain investment opportunities that we have been waiting for—frankly, for far too long—and enable the Crown Estate to generate significant revenue and value for the UK. The Crown Estate could do so currently but, under the new proposals in the Bill, has an even greater opportunity to invest in infrastructure such as the Able quay. Port facilities are holding back the sector and the core skills that are currently in shortage in the industry, as well as those that we know will become a critical blockage in the future once the newly consented projects get under way. If we really want to maximise the value of projects and see the UK get the biggest bang for its buck, it is essential to use every arm of every organisation to actively support them in overcoming the challenges. I know that the Crown Estate is willing—and I have seen it in action, so I know that it is also able—but I wonder whether this Bill needs to say explicitly that it has a duty to focus on infrastructure and skills, which are so critical. Not having those prerequisites in place could make projects undeliverable, and no developer or supply chain company can oversupply or invest ahead of decisions, because the Crown Estate makes so many of the final decisions, alongside the Government. No one can invest until those decisions are made. Devolution and the creation of GB Energy—two great leaps in structural change in this country—give a great opportunity for new public institutions to be created in order to intervene in skills. In the Humber region, I would like to see an arrangement or organisation that brings together the Crown Estate, the new devolved authorities, the freeport and the Humber Energy Board. With support from the likes of GB Energy and central Government, it could back a coherent approach to supporting skills and avoiding their becoming a barrier to project delivery, as well as reduce costs by supplying enough talent for the whole sector, rather than each project chasing the same small pool of people. We should use the Bill to catalyse substantial and lasting change, providing employment opportunities for generations to come. I understand that Crown Estate Scotland is already carrying out similar efforts, actively promoting skills and job opportunities through initiatives such as community capacity grants, which support social enterprise projects and training courses, and land-based skills education, so I do not think that is beyond the scope of the Bill.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Crown Estate Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 7 Jan 2025 · Crown Estate Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Is the hon. Member aware of the example of Ørsted, which has just given £1 million to the Horizon Youth Zone to support all young people across the Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes constituency and further afield with new activities and free mentoring and support outside school hours? Not only that; it sponsors local fun runs. RWE, another company operating in my constituency, is supporting education activities. Both those companies are not only employing masses of people but engaging with schools to support young people to have the skills and talents to come and work for them. That is the reality of community benefit.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Crown Estate Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Government’s proposed powers to enable the Crown Estate to drive greater investment in the country’s future to boost energy security, nature recovery and economic growth. It should be allowed to access private sector funding to expand and get the greatest benefit possible from its access to financing, and not retreat to markets having to survive on their own and not delivering, or recourse to the public sector for critical funding to grow industries. I want to focus on clause 3, which deals with sustainable development, and to pick up some of the comments that were made in Committee in the House of Lords. My constituency is at the forefront of the delivery of practical skills in the day-to-day operations and continued maintenance of the offshore wind sector, and my constituents benefit from apprenticeships, introductory training, continuous professional development and, critically, long-term, well-paid employment in the sector. The Bill has the potential to open up possibilities for broader community engagement through the promotion of various educational opportunities in numerous workstreams. Having worked with the Crown Estate in a previous role before returning to this place, I must say that I have had a slightly different experience from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid and South Pembrokeshire (Henry Tufnell). I know that in recent years the Crown Estate has sought to expand the areas of work in which it actively engages, and has provided immense support for the renewables sector. We should bear in mind that there has been a collective understanding—not just within our Government—that for energy security purposes we must, as a minimum, look at renewable energy sources to supplement our other energy sources as we progress, and as we view the global economics and the changing impact of the energy industry and the way in which others are maximising this change to encourage wealth into their countries. We know that not just the present Government but Governments around the world, and previous Governments in this place, have recognised that we should accept and embrace this move, seeing it not as something divisive or prohibitive to other sectors but as something that will be the mainstay of this country. Simply objecting to it and saying no will not help to move things forward. We should be working together, as I think the renewables sector has been endeavouring to do and has been enabled to do in a much stronger way through the partnership that the Crown Estate has facilitated, to unite the many different relevant parties in seeking appropriate solutions to some of the most testing and challenging issues that the industry faces, including people and skills, environmental impacts and derogations, the unlocking of the UK supply chain, spatial squeeze, offshore asset security—which has not been discussed today—and aviation impact, which has not been referred to either. The Crown Estate has played a critical role in ensuring that the voices are heard in each of the areas where this new industry is having an impact—and it is having an impact, as I think the industry itself recognises—in the knowledge that this must be done in collaboration and co-operation with the other existing organisations, industries and operators in those sectors. Through the evidence and change programmes, it became clear to everyone involved, including those who might have been less than happy that a new industry was making things different and challenging in certain circumstances, that the earlier these issues were considered as part of the Crown Estate’s planning and scoping, the easier it was to fulfil the existing and basic expectations of both the Crown Estate and the renewables sector from a Government perspective. Earlier consultation and partnership working on common difficulties and challenges meant that agreeable solutions were found earlier, and it was then possible to build acceptable frameworks for future use. Some of that is in evidence now, in the context of the Celtic sea developments and the fishing communities in those areas. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who is my co-chair on the all-party parliamentary group on fisheries, rightly raised the issues and concerns that the fishing communities will have. However, in Committee in the Lords, there was a conversation about the regional wealth funds that the Bill will create. It seems to me that there is a prize opportunity for support and training for the fishing industry, to make it work alongside the renewables sector and to look at the opportunities that will come from the decarbonisation happening in that sector when it comes to offshore vessels and flexibility of service, so that a fishing vessel is not just a fishing vessel. Can it be used for multiple purposes? Can it be used for surveys? It can, because fishing vessels are already being used for surveys. There is an opportunity for the Bill to support those other industries, and we should not lose sight of that. With these new ways of working, there is a great opportunity to expand the level of knowledge and understanding of the sector, to be able to teach the next generation of young people about how things really work in practice. To date, that has been a bit more experimental, I think it is fair to say, but because the sector is maturing and all the organisations involved have become more experienced, there is much more collective learning, and there are clearer lines of guidance that the Crown Estate has a definitive interest in ensuring a wide and common understanding. I would like to focus on the people and skills area of work, which the Crown Estate has had some engagement in. There is an acceptance that the workforce will grow and needs to grow substantially. For areas such as mine and other coastal communities, ensuring that we have a skilled workforce ready to go is imperative. It is much more effective to ensure that people have the skills to get the jobs to earn their own way and have some pride in their life, working in an industry they are proud to be working in, than to simply rely on other community benefits that may well be short-lived and do not have the long-term impact that growing a brand-new industry around the country delivers. We know that the workforce will need more than three times its current numbers—I had written in my speech “over the next decade”, but I do not think that is true; actually, it is over the next half a decade, which is hardly anything at all—to meet the needs of the industry, and that is across all the different areas I mentioned such as environmental impact and aviation.

• 6 Jan 2025 · Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  I warmly welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, and I look forward to the timeline she will present for implementing the recommendations. In her statement, she mentioned support and belief for victims and survivors. One of the biggest supportive actions she could take is to consider preventing CSE rapists from seeing their children born from these crimes, once they are convicted, as they use access to their children to continue their abuse and to re-victimise the girls whose lives they have already ruined once.

• 18 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights: Terminal Illness · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Sir Edward. I extend my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Corby and East Northamptonshire (Lee Barron) on securing this important and timely debate on the Dying to Work campaign and all that it entails. I want to highlight the work of the TUC, particularly in the east midlands, spearheaded by Richard Oliver of the GMB trade union. He was the first person to introduce me to the Dying to Work campaign and to Jacci Woodcock, a long-term champion of the campaign. I have met her in this place, at the Labour party conference, at the Labour party east midlands regional conference and on a number of other occasions. She has been absolutely tireless and should be proud that her work on the issue she brought to the attention of her trade union has made such a significant difference to so many people in this country. It went from being one person’s personal issue to making over 1.5 million people’s working lives easier in very difficult circumstances. Jacci’s work continues to make a difference. Last Thursday in my constituency, I was delighted to join Rachel Harvey and Lesley Charlesworth-Brown, the chair and deputy CEO respectively of Saint Andrew’s Hospice, when they signed the Dying to Work charter. Having been made aware of it during my previous time as a Member of Parliament, they had considered it and had been implementing it in practice anyway, but they decided to formalise their commitment to their staff, reflecting the area of work they are all involved in, and demonstrate their support for the charter. On the practical impact that has had for their staff, they said it has put in place an additional level of reassurance and flexibility. It has also had an impact on their patients: those who are in hospice care facing the end of their life find it reassuring that those caring for them do not have to deal with workplace precarity, and the staff are able to focus their time and energy in the way that they want to. St Andrew’s Hospice has a reputation not only as a care giver but as a caring employer, which says a huge amount about those leading the organisation. It also helps to spread the word further that employers are still continuing to sign up, and that the momentum is still there. I sincerely hope that by taking this step, St Andrew’s will lead the way and encourage more employers in my constituency and across the country to sign up to the charter and to continue to give support and reassurance to people in their final months.

• 17 Dec 2024 · New Energy Infrastructure: Community Benefit Scheme · Hansard source

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  Community benefits come in many different forms—in my constituency, Ørsted has contributed £1 million towards Horizon Youth Zone, and RWE is supporting Projekt Renewable, which is a box park learning zone—but the most wide-reaching benefit is to people’s pockets. Schemes such as the Octopus fan club bring down people’s bills when the use of renewables is at its highest. How can other energy retailers deliver similar savings for consumers?

• 17 Dec 2024 · Women’s State Pension Age Communication: PHSO Report · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State says the report is about the way this was communicated to those 1950s-born women and that earlier letters would not have made a difference, but they would have made a difference to individuals’ financial planning, their retirement dates, the notice they gave to their jobs, and the wider family arrangements and commitments they had made. There have undoubtedly been losses for those 1950s-born women. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) just gave the Government an opportunity to reconsider that at some point in the future. Is she sure that she will not take that offer?

• 16 Dec 2024 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  On compensation, sewage discharges have a massive impact on the local economy in places like Cleethorpes in my constituency, which relies on holidaymakers to support our tourist and hospitality economy. Will the compensation extend to businesses, or will those companies which are put under special measures be required to support other local businesses that are hampered as a result of sewage discharges?

• 16 Dec 2024 · Royal Mail Takeover · Hansard source

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  I thank John Kay, my local CWU rep, for showing me around the Fotherby Street depot on Friday morning. It was very good to see my current postie, Nev, there as well. They pointed out that some of the performance issues, including missed deliveries, come down to a lack of staff, which comes down to the two-tier workforce. It is less desirable now to work for Royal Mail. Has the Minister had conversations with Royal Mail, EP and the CWU about moves to end the two-tier workforce?

• 11 Dec 2024 · Border Security: Collaboration · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement today and congratulate her team on the work that they are undertaking in this very difficult area. Back in 2021, the previous Government committed to £62 million as part of an agreement with France that included strengthening law enforcement deployments, more wide-area surveillance technology and vehicles, and enhanced physical measures at transport interchanges. Then in 2023, they committed to a further £500 million and to continuing these agreements. My constituents see these agreements, and the financial commitments being made with our neighbours, and yet, over the past few years, they have just seen increasing problems with small boat crossings and backlogs. What reassurance can my right hon. Friend give my constituents that these agreements will make a difference, and—because this goes to the heart of fairness—that these funding agreements will bring about the change that people want to see?

• 11 Dec 2024 · Responsibilities of Housing Developers · Hansard source

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  Many of these planning issues hark back to the Eric Pickles reforms, which the hon. Gentleman will remember all too well. One issue that I find in Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes is that when it comes to section 106 funding, the power lies with the developers: they have much more negotiating strength. They do not want things like social homes as part of their developments, because they think that they will impact on the profits that the hon. Gentleman says are so important to securing the developments in the first place. Does he think that we need to regulate to ensure that the section 106 funding goes to the areas it was intended for, and ensure that local authorities are properly supported to acquire the expertise that they need to work against these developers?

• 11 Dec 2024 · Responsibilities of Housing Developers · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I rise to raise a specific issue in my constituency: the Clee Meadows estate, which is just off Ladysmith Road. It is an ex-industrial site that previously held the Birds Eye factory and was left to fall into a derelict state. It is in the heart of Grimsby town, and for years local residents complained about the lack of development and the fact that nothing was happening. Under the previous Labour council, decisive action was taken to start to build on that site and very nice housing was put up. This debate is so relevant because it is about the long-term responsibilities of housing developers; despite the homes on that estate being very nice, the shortcuts taken by the developer have had long-lasting consequences. I was there the other week and I saw collapsing driveways, poor quality paths and paving, and pothole-ridden roads. It is only now, after I have raised the issue once in this place already, that the developer has started to get back in touch with the local authority and to take action to remedy some of the problems that residents have put up with for far too long. I have been struck by the rest of the area that the estate sits in. It is a plot for 101 houses, but the rest of the area is a complete and utter bombsite, exactly as the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) put it. It is ripe for fly-tipping, which happens on a regular basis. There are storage facilities for the developer’s other activities, such as the Strawberry Fields development, just outside my constituency, which has taken the developer’s interest and means that he has taken his eye off the ball with Clee Meadows. The thing that strikes me about the discussion around section 106 funding is that we do need houses in Grimsby and Cleethorpes, but the question is: what kind of houses? My local authority is Conservative-run at the moment, and the people there say to me, “We can’t sell some of the houses on these new developments.” I say, “That’s because they’re five-bedroom executive homes. They’re not the homes we need.” If we did not need the houses that we do, we would not have houses in multiple occupation popping up all over the place, we would not have massive waiting lists for housing associations, and we would not have people stuck in temporary accommodation. But that is exactly what we have. There is a massive opportunity for social homes. There must be a better way of working out which housing sites have planning permission and the housing need in local areas. There is an opportunity for the Minister to share her wisdom on that with us today.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Government’s Five Missions · Hansard source

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  Can the Minister give us some indication on the timeline for GB Energy? When does he expect it to be up and running at full capacity? Does he think there is any opportunity to incorporate green skills to support new jobs in areas such as North East Lincolnshire, Grimsby and Cleethorpes?

• 5 Dec 2024 · Government’s Five Missions · Hansard source

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  12. What steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to implement the Government’s five missions.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Home-to-School Transport: Children with SEND · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making some excellent comments. She refers to the transportation being free; for some families it is free, but for local authorities, as we all know, it absolutely is not. My local authority, North East Lincolnshire, spent £1.4 million last year alone on transporting 114 children out of area. It is unsustainable for local authorities. Does she agree that the answer is more specialist provision in area, and combined support in mainstream school for those children?

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  I discovered an interesting fact following a conversation with my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume). She has been talking with her local fishers, who say that the population of brown crab in Scarborough and Whitby has gone up as they are making their homes in and around the wind farms there. So there is some subtlety and nuance in all of this.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  On that point about the renewable side of things, there is an opportunity to bring the industry into consultation with the likes of the Crown Estate at a much earlier stage so that the voices of all of those co-located spatial sharers can be heard and planned around. There are examples of good relationships between offshore wind developers and fishing communities.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  If the solution is to do away with English language standards, does the right hon. Gentleman think that would detract from the point the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) made about trying to attract a domestic workforce and investing in skills for that workforce?

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  It is funny that the hon. Gentleman should mention that. I made it very clear in my maiden speech in 2015 that I would not be changing my name to Haddock or any other fish species. Interestingly, although Austin changed his name by deed poll to Austin Haddock, famously carrying a Harry Haddock inflatable to Parliament, we do not believe he ever actually changed it back.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, and I extend my thanks to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for corralling us all here for this important debate. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on fisheries, he is a substantial expert in this field, and we have debated it many times—I am delighted to be back in the House and able to participate in these discussions. I agree with much of what he said in his opening speech, which reflects his years of experience on this topic. On the anticipated finalisation of the transitional arrangements review in 2026, could the Minister bear in mind that the catching sector is willing and able to work and support the Government with all the facts and arguments that they will need when they enter into those negotiations? I am sure that the Minister will have heard the requests in the speeches today, which I add to by asking whether there could be an indication of the Government’s aims, ambitions and approach in those negotiations. What are they planning to do, particularly to achieve longer-term settlements rather than year-on-year negotiations? Nobody can run a business effectively in those circumstances and we would not ask or expect it of any other sector. If the Government intend to show respect to the fishing industry, addressing that would go some way to doing that. We have a golden opportunity to demonstrate our support for the sector. I am going to talk an awful lot about processing, and I remind Members that this is not just about the catching sector. I am the Member of Parliament for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, and it will be of no surprise to anybody that the processing side of the industry means so much to our local economy, to those who continue to work in the industry and to the small and large businesses that operate in processing. My constituency plays an essential role in serving the nation’s seafood. Almost every major UK food retailer buys its seafood from Grimsby, and the town continues to be a thriving hub for seafood processing, such as the bespoke smoking from our 150-year-old smokehouses. The Minister enjoyed a visit to my constituency to see them in action. We embrace the traditional techniques of smoking high-quality product and deliver that around the country, including to very high-end retailers. From Grimsby to Harvey Nichols might seem like a long stretch, but it is actually just a short hop through our seafood processing sector. Good-quality food production buildings are very hard to find. Whether it is cold stores or processing factories, Grimsby is home to some of the best sites anywhere in the UK. We have around 500 food-related companies processing 70% of the nation’s seafood, most of which currently comes from Norway, Iceland and the Faroes, and is frozen and shipped through our local ports—not quite the romantic notion of what the fishing industry should or possibly could be, with direct catching and processing locally. The world has changed, and it is worth remembering that that is the reality of the sector and of the industry, so that it continues to support communities. Grimsby is widely regarded as the seafood town. On the way in on the train, we see remnants of a sign that called us “Europe’s food town”, although perhaps we do not want to mention Europe quite so much in Grimsby any more. The industry is now worth more than £2.5 billion every year, so it is nothing to be shy about. I know that success has not always been the case, however, and I have seen at first hand that my constituents are not afraid to dig deep when times are tough. Following the decline of the trawling industry, which we have seen in so many coastal communities across the nation, Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes stood tall and proud and adapted. That adaption to focus on the supply chain and processing of seafood means that currently, across Grimsby and the wider Humber region, there are 6,000 people directly employed in more than 50 approved seafood processing units. It is not just processing that our area holds expertise in. As of this year, I am proud to say that the next generation of seafood professionals will hone their skills at a dedicated new training facility in Grimsby. The UK seafood school at Grimsby Institute will provide the next generation with the skills and knowledge that they need to thrive in the industry, with up to 75 students being trained to use those facilities in the school’s first year. I was pleased to go to the opening, where I saw the skills of the first tranche of new students. This is so important—the price of fish used to be a throwaway comment, but fish is now an expensive product, so retailers and processors are prepared to take risks in the training to prevent high fish wastage. This route encourages young people to be creative and to see seafood as high end and specialised. That is incredibly welcome, but it does not stop there. The Minister will be pleased to know that the University of Lincoln is opening a centre of excellence, which will focus on the skills required by the processing sector in the local area to support people into highly skilled, well paid and long-term processing jobs. I was surprised to learn that a skilled, experienced filleter can expect to earn in the region of £70,000, because they are so in demand and waste so little fish. As tough a job as it is, it is well remunerated. The Government have an essential role to play in enhancing and advancing this industry through their negotiations. The Minister will know that I have previously raised the issue of the distant water fleet. It would be welcome if the Government started to engage thoughtfully in the latest rounds of negotiations with our international allies. Many businesses in Grimsby have benefited from multimillion-pound infrastructure and skills grants from the £100 million UK seafood fund. I have written to the Minister previously to ask about the status of its future replacement. That support be greatly appreciated by coastal communities with fishing sectors, because it has been used to create investment, extend jobs, create new jobs and upskill local communities so that they are able to access those opportunities in my area. Given the success of the initiative, it would be helpful to understand whether there is a plan to reopen the scheme or launch one, so that businesses in our local seafood cluster can continue to benefit from that support. The fishing industry is important not just to this Government’s commitment to economic growth but to their commitment to building the healthiest generation ever. Fish is the cornerstone of a healthy diet, as it is rich in essential nutrients, such as omega-3 fatty acids, high-quality protein, vitamins and minerals. Those nutrients are vital to the healthy functioning of the heart and brain, and they reduce the risk of chronic diseases. By incorporating more fish into our diet, we can significantly improve our overall health and wellbeing. I had salmon at lunch time, as I hope everybody did—I was going to ask for a show of hands, but I will not embarrass people. Encouraging the consumption of fish not only helps individuals to lead healthier lives but reduces the burden on our healthcare system by preventing diet-related illnesses. We have a food strategy, and we have a food tsar in Henry Dimbleby. We have great structures such as the NHS. We have great programmes of providing lunches in schools. Could we incorporate those aims into a state function, such as ensuring that fish is regularly on the menu for people in the NHS, care homes or education, so that they can benefit from all its goodness? That will help to support our sector as well as anything else. On the topic of delicious food, if anybody is in the vicinity of Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, they would be more than welcome to join me in some of our world-renowned chippies. Whether that is Ernie Becketts, the Ocean Fish Bar, Wybers Chippy or Steels Cornerhouse Restaurant, they can be certain that they will have the best fish and chips. There are other elements that throw risk into the future of some of those stores. We are currently undergoing consultation on the pedestrianisation of Cleethorpes marketplace. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) is giggling from a sedentary position, but it is very serious. Steels has been in existence in the Cleethorpes constituency for more than 100 years—it is incredibly well known and traditional. Those who run it are so concerned about some of these environmental changes—the anticipated pedestrianisation and roadworks —that they worry it will be forced to close its doors in the next 10 months, which is very problematic and does not encourage people to eat more fish, as they should be doing. I said it would be a slight detour, but I got back to the point. I will conclude. The future of the fishing industry in the UK holds significant promise in both supply and production. By continuing to support and invest in this essential industry, we can ensure its sustainability and growth, which will not only bolster our economy but enhance our food security. The Government’s role in facilitating trade agreements and providing direct investment is crucial.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Respect Orders and Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source

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  I never thought that I would see the day when we had Conservative Members arguing against more powers to increase the safety of our communities up and down the country—it is absolutely gobsmacking. I, for one, absolutely support what the Minister is bringing in today in relation to respect orders. My constituents feel the impact of antisocial behaviour very keenly, but they will want some assurance from the Minister that there will be sufficient police officers and PCSOs available to issue respect orders in a timely manner. Can she do that, please?