Patrick Spencer MP: speeches

Speeches

• 11 Dec 2024 · Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Sorry, Professor Green, can we just go back? You said that you would expect 10,000 to 20,000 students to transition out of independent schools and into the state system— Professor Green: Somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000, and that would be over a five-year period.

• 11 Dec 2024 · Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Thank you very much, Mr Woodall. I was struck by what you said about rural convenience stores and the importance of supporting them, and I could not agree with you more. I represent a rural constituency and in the next-door village there is a shop that has been there for years. I am terrified every year that it will go under, yet it is very resilient. Do you think this Bill should make provision for convenience stores that stand alone within rural areas and villages, where they are the only shop left that sells milk, eggs and newspapers? Do you think it is not just about small and microbusinesses, but those that are the only ones left? Do you think there should be a provision in the Bill for them? Edward Woodall: I certainly think there should be provision of support for rural businesses, particularly those that are the last ones serving a community. They deliver essential services to those communities, and there is a cost to that community if they have to travel elsewhere. Whether it is possible to do that through the legislation is an interesting question. This was picked up in some of the previous evidence that you heard this morning, but there are measures within local authorities’ existing powers to issue discretionary relief to support those locations. That was previously called rural rate relief but it has been taken over by small business rate relief. The challenge is whether local authorities have the funding to administer that relief. I think it is quite challenging to do that in the Bill, because you get into a space where you start adding more complexity by identifying regions or locations in national legislation. Actually, what we often see is that there are more differences within a region than there are between regions. I agree with the principle of what you are saying, but perhaps the existing powers of local authorities to do that are better, but they probably need support and trust from the Government to allow them to administer it well.

• 11 Dec 2024 · Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q On this remarkable relationship between taxes and rent, are you saying that there is a uniform relationship across geographies, locations and shop types? There is a big difference between Oxford Street and a town high street; are you saying that the behaviour of rents and taxes does not vary across those situations? Stuart Adam: Broadly speaking, yes. The rule of thumb that, in the long run, rent will change with rates almost pound for pound will apply across different types of property and location. There is a difference where the tax on the premises is not fixed, for example where it depends on what the premises is used for: I do not think it is the case that reliefs for particular sectors get reflected pound for pound, because the use of the property may vary.

• 11 Dec 2024 · Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Thank you, Mr Gerrard, for coming to give evidence. I want to put on the record my support for the premise of supporting community shops and stores and providing somewhere for people to go to do their shopping, but you mentioned that the provisions in the Bill will make distribution more expensive. Should we not be more concerned that home delivery, which we know is very important to vulnerable customers, will be more expensive as a result of the Bill? Paul Gerrard: I think I am right in saying that the Co-op has the biggest quick-commerce business in the country. People order through aggregators and their orders are delivered from our stores; that is something that we have within our business model. Clearly, there will be costs going on to some of the depots and distribution centres and, to keep this revenue neutral, that will bring extra costs. I think that is the price of revenue neutrality. In the round, the impact on small stores and local shops will outweigh the potential risk around home delivery. As I said, we have a home delivery business; I think our quick-commerce business is the biggest in the country for small, quick deliveries. You are right to flag the risk, but in balance we would say that it is a positive thing that we are supporting brick and mortar shops as much as we can.

• 11 Dec 2024 · Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Have you done any analysis of the variation of impact between renters and freehold owners of shops? On my high street, the shops that own the freehold are the ones that have been there for 15 years, so they have not weathered the same problems that other shops have. Surely at the margin there is an impact on shops that own the property. Stuart Adam: There are a couple of slightly different things there. The first is that you may have a chain of ownership: possibly a very short-term sub-let, a let, a long-term leaseholder and then the ultimate freeholder. How far and how quickly it gets passed up that chain will partly depend on how long term the contracts are, how easy it is to renegotiate and so on. The second thing, when talking about what happens as rents adjust, is that a minority of businesses, but a sizeable minority, own their own premises. In the long run, they may not be affected in their capacity as tenants, but they are still affected in their capacity as landlords to themselves, as it were. One way to think about it is that it is almost lump sum redistribution across owners of different properties. If you own the property and your business rates bill goes down—there is no rent. You can imagine charging rent to yourself, but the reality is that you just have a lower bill to pay. That is a one-off gain in the sense that you could sell that property and get more for it in the same way, so you are just better off if your business rates bill has gone down. Someone else looking to buy it would face a lower business rates bill, but they would have to pay more to buy the property in the first place. So yes, businesses that own their own premises would benefit from a business rate cut—or lose from a business rate increase if we are talking about those above £500,000— in their capacity as owners, essentially, rather than their capacity as the business occupying and using the property.

• 10 Dec 2024 · Prison Capacity · Hansard source

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  I welcome what this Government are doing to increase prison capacity, but what will the Secretary of State do on tougher sentencing? If she goes to my constituency of Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, she will be met with a tough, gruff East Anglian accent that says, “What’s the point of building prison places if you are not going to use them?”

• 10 Dec 2024 · Prison Capacity · Hansard source

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  9. What steps her Department is taking to increase prison capacity.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Will the Secretary of State reconfirm her commitment to academies and to the policy of academisation?

• 9 Dec 2024 · Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman talks about shared responsibility, and how it is the responsibility of us all to protect each other. As a former police officer, is he not worried about a degree of vigilantism, with untrained people taking the law into their own hands and doing things that perhaps, as a police officer, he thinks police officers would be best placed to do?

• 9 Dec 2024 · Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will my hon. Friend speak for a moment about the situation facing small football clubs? They often have many people turning up week after week to watch their team play and are on a tiny budget with tiny margins, no money to spare and no money available for training. In such circumstances, surely those clubs will be really hard done by under some of the provisions in the Bill.

• 3 Dec 2024 · National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Member not think that the fact the Labour party went into the last general election promising not to raise taxes on working people might be part of the problem?

• 3 Dec 2024 · National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  On that point, will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 3 Dec 2024 · National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  I serve on the Education Committee with the hon. Gentleman, and I wonder what he will say to people who work in the education sector, many of whom are low paid and running schools that support teaching assistants to work with children with special educational needs and disabilities. They now face a bigger wage bill because of the measures the Government are introducing. Will the hon. Gentleman address those points?

• 26 Nov 2024 · Electricity Grid Upgrades · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I and many Conservatives hope and aspire for a clean energy future, but I wish to make three points that the Government and the House should consider when contemplating the upgrade of our electricity grid. First, similar to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), are we basing our decisions on the expedient technology of today or on the ideal technology of the future? High voltage direct current is increasingly used around the world. It means only six cables instead of 18, and there are no heat issues, which means they can be closely spaced. Many other countries favour this approach over pylons and, here in the UK, National Grid itself has favoured it in Lincolnshire, concluding that it is cheaper, quicker and less risky than overhead lines. Relying on old-fashioned technology is increasingly a fool’s errand. We see it in defence, social policy and now in energy. Secondly, can we allow for a moment the notion that preserving our national heritage is a fundamental part of meeting our net zero commitments? After all, we do that in other parts of policy. We demand—sorry, I have lost my place. Can I take a moment?

• 26 Nov 2024 · Electricity Grid Upgrades · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman talks about speed and the need to do the transition quickly. May I draw his attention to the work of Bent Flyvbjerg? He wrote a book last year called “How Big Things Get Done”, in which he noted, having looked at infrastructure projects across the world, that less than one in 10 are delivered on time and on budget. Part of the problem is making bad decisions in the planning process and not making the right decisions. If we want to get things done, we should take our time now and get the planning right.

• 26 Nov 2024 · Electricity Grid Upgrades · Hansard source

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  If the Government choose to solve the housing crisis by taking into account our environment, why can we not do that with energy policy as well?

• 26 Nov 2024 · Electricity Grid Upgrades · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 26 Nov 2024 · Electricity Grid Upgrades · Hansard source

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  May I put on the record my apologies for fluffing my speech a moment ago? One of the points I wanted to make is that we take into account our natural environment when we look at housing and planning policy. The reality is that when we want to build a development on the side of a village, put an extension on a house or expand our housing stock, planning authorities demand that we take into account the natural environment. That importantly includes the aesthetic, which we talk about a lot, as well as the preservation of our landscapes.

• 25 Nov 2024 · Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill · Hansard source

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  I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is talking from personal experience about an important part of our education system. He talks a lot about teachers and the previous Government’s failed education policy, but will he take a moment to recognise the vast improvements in our performance in international league tables and the fall in the disadvantage gap in the years leading up to covid-19? Will he at least give some credits to the outputs, not just the inputs?

• 12 Nov 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I met with National Grid yesterday and communicated my concerns about the Norwich to Tilbury line but we remained constructive and talked about community benefit schemes. Unfortunately, it told me that the Government were dragging their feet on defining community benefit schemes. Can the Minister update the House on when they will bring forward guidance, and can he promise that a community benefit scheme is a real, positive economic benefit for my residents who are impacted by the pylons?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Mental Health: Farming and Agricultural Communities · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate and for giving way. Just last Friday, I visited a farm in my constituency. It is a family farm: David runs the construction side of the business, Robert runs the farm, and their sister Sharon runs the books. By any measure, it is a successful farm. That family has owned the property for a long period of time, but when they spoke to me, they talked—as my hon. Friend has said—about high energy costs, high interest rates, tougher international competition, tougher regulations on pesticides and the use of chemicals, and a volatile climate. Then, to raise the issue that was the subject of our last debate, they talked about the new rules on inheritance tax. Is it any surprise that many people in the farming industry feel stressed and under pressure, considering the policies introduced by this Government?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Child Poverty · Hansard source

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  Child poverty is a scourge in British society, and I am grateful that the Secretary of State is bringing forward a child poverty strategy. Has she decided how to measure child poverty? May I warn her against using the much discredited relative measure, which, as we know, shows poverty decreasing during times of economic decline and increasing during times of economic growth? I implore her to use an absolute measure, which has a much better record of showing deprivation and long-term increases and improvements in living standards.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  I will not, because I do not have long. In Framlingham, developments either side of Station road have increased the risk of surface flow in an area that is, again, at high risk of flooding. All these places were hugely impacted by Storm Babet, and I believe the impact was made exponentially worse by huge housing developments cluttering our countryside. Between 2001 and 2021, Framlingham’s population increased by 1,200, which is nearly 50%. The population in Debenham increased by 16%. Great Blakenham has more than doubled in size. If we continue to use the Suffolk countryside to solve our housing crisis, the consequences will be disastrous.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  Let me take a moment—Members throughout the House have an opportunity to watch—to address that exact case. The Labour party wants to tackle big landowners like James Dyson and the Grosvenor Group; I have two points. First, take for a moment the incredible work done by Dyson Farming on food technology, which is increasing the productivity of our land and the standard of food production on his farms. Think of what the Grosvenor Group has done in the moorlands and peatlands of the north-west—it is a protector of our environment and has supported our natural environment and increased the ecosystem. Secondly, do the Government think for a moment that either of those two people are going to go to bed worried about the IHT change? No, they are not. They will dodge it, much like many of the well-heeled business people always do with taxes. The people who will bear the brunt of the Labour party’s tax policies are small farms—family farms—that do not have a huge amount of capital. When we try to tax and demand liquidity from an illiquid source, we force people to fire sale their capital. It will not work. We have to understand the economics. The risks are real. In Needham Market, Hopkins Homes built the St George estate at the base of a hill in an old disused quarry close to sea level, and right next to an area considered at high risk of flooding.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  This debate has been about APR, but I will talk about flood risk. Suffolk is, by its nature, a county at high risk of flooding. Large parts of my constituency are covered by rivers: we have the Rivers Deben, Orwell and Alde. We have tributaries that filter across low-lying land and clay soil, which apparently is not particularly permeable—I learned that during the general election campaign. That means that whenever there is heavy rainfall, streams and rivers become overburdened very quickly, creating bogs, waterlogged fields and eventually flooding across our fields. The water has nowhere to go. Roads are overwhelmed, as are irrigation and sewerage systems, and whole villages can find themselves under a foot or two of water after one night. One year ago, Storm Babet did exactly that. We experienced an incredibly wet October. One month’s rainfall fell between 11 and 13 October, then 80 mm in the 24-hour period of 18 October. People were stranded in villages and cars were stuck on driveways. People living in Wickham Market, Needham Market, Framsden and Charsfield were forced out of their homes. Some are not yet back in. People were traumatised, exhausted and facing financial oblivion after insurance companies used small print to stop paying out on the damage caused by the flooding. We do not want to see that again, but the reality is that our climate is getting more volatile and the risk of flooding is as high as ever. We must take preparedness seriously, which is why Suffolk county council, the Environment Agency and community groups have undertaken to clear rivers, improve water flow through pipes and guttering, dig trenches and develop overflow areas in case of higher than average rainfall. I am more critical than many people of Suffolk county council and the Environment Agency for dragging their feet at times. I am working with residents of Earl Soham who are trying to get the highways agency to clear pipes and drainage. Suffolk county council is just not reacting quickly enough to that. I recognise that the funding is not there when it should be. The funding from the centre is not adequate, and responsibility over who should take control of the situation is confusing, which is why I support the private Member’s Bill by my hon. Friend Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) to sort this out. I want to talk about something else that I believe is a real reason that flood risk has increased, and to remind the House that we have the option of reducing it in future. One of the reasons that flooding has worsened in recent years is the development of vast numbers of housing units in areas of high flood risk. Each development not only puts more homeowners at risk of flooding, but compounds that by increasing the risk of surface water run-off. I know deep down that the decision to reform APR and increase the inheritance tax liability for small farms is fundamentally about releasing land in rural areas so that developers can build more houses on it. There is no justification whatsoever for it from an economic point of view. There is no way the Government will raise enough money to support public services, as various Members have said today. The only viable reason that I can understand for the Government introducing APR on small farm holdings is because they want to release land for development. If we continue to concrete over fertile farmland, of any soil type, we will increase that risk.