Gareth Snell MP: speeches 2024

125 published records · newest first.

Speeches

9 Oct 2024 · Renters’ Rights Bill · Hansard source
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Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
8 Oct 2024 · Energy Security · Hansard source
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One of the ways in which we can increase energy security is through community-owned and co-operative energy schemes. They give greater control to local people, who get a say in where profits go, and crucially they build resilience from international energy markets. Will the Minister say a bit more about where community-owned energy will fit into the energy security plan?
8 Oct 2024 · Creative Industries: Stoke-on-Trent · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend has stolen my thunder, as I was going to offer the Minister an invitation at the end of my speech. The New Vic is wonderful, and with a creative boundary review it may one day be in Stoke-on-Trent Central—but that is for another debate. The wonderful and creative heritage of Stoke-on-Trent has produced an Oscar winner. Rachel Shenton, who is currently gracing our screens in “All Creatures Great and Small”, has demonstrated that being from Stoke-on-Trent is not a barrier to creative success or something that should hold people back. I am grateful for the work she does in coming back to the city to talk to young people about the potential for creative careers, be that in acting or theatre. The process of learning through creativity is something we could all benefit from across the country. That is why I am glad that in my constituency I have a group called the Popcorn Learning Agency, which uses digital design and animation to create high-spec training and learning videos that go around schools throughout the country. The group is also working with some big-name organisations to create in-house opportunities. That is something thousands of people will see day in, day out, and it is all made in Stoke-on-Trent from a lovely small unit with people who are incredibly dedicated to their craft. The Minister will be wondering what more questions there are—this is the only way I could fit a Q into this alphabet soup. He will know that I will put lots of questions to him at the end. First, though, I will tell the Minister about Restoke, a civic arts organisation that has been using art and culture to engage some of our most disengaged communities. Its recent production of “The Lotus Eaters” was done in collaboration with the National Theatre, and saw people from Stoke-on-Trent come down to London and perform theatrics and creative industry work in the National Theatre. That is something people do not often associate with Stoke-on-Trent when they think about what we are and what we do. There is so much going on that one organisation—Stoke Creates, run by the wonderful Susan Clarke—is taking a lead in trying to pull it all together. It is a cultural compact that is basically sitting in the middle of the sector and thinking, “What can we do to bring organisations together?” One of the challenges we have in north Staffordshire is the splendid isolationism in which people operate. Stoke Creates is teasing out the different aspects of what we can achieve and how we can achieve it. It is making the case that if someone wants to do culture and creative industries well, there are few places better than Stoke-on-Trent. That was demonstrated recently by the exhibition Stoke on Clay, run by a gentleman called Simon, which brought together new ceramic artists for a wonderful display of creativity, making people rethink the material my city is synonymous with. It was a wonderful exhibition at the old Spode museum, bringing together the old and the new and demonstrating that what was our past and heritage is also our future. Across north Staffordshire we are blessed with some wonderful theatre companies. I want to give a nod to the work of Claybody Theatre, run by Deborah McAndrew and Conrad Nelson. Claybody Theatre has started to think about the story of who we are in Stoke-on-Trent and what makes us who we are, and then to write plays so we can tell our story better. One of our challenges has always been how we tell our story in a way that is engaging. The theatre has put together “Bright Lights Over Bentilee”, a play currently being shown at the Dipping House in Stoke-on-Trent. It talks about the bizarre array of UFO sightings that happened over one of the largest council estates in my constituency. It is a story that in any other circumstances would be unbelievable, but it has been translated into a wonderful piece of theatre, for which I am grateful. I need to mention the University of Staffordshire, because it is leading the country on e-gaming and high-quality creative design work. It now has a campus down in London, as well as the work that it is doing up in Staffordshire. It recognises that this is a growth industry and is working incredibly hard with partners, agencies and business—crucially, all this is with business —to ensure that the e-gaming industry in north Staffordshire is vibrant, buoyant and suitable for growth. A lot of the people trained by the university go on to work for VCCP, which is another organisation that ought to be name-checked. VCCP relocated from London up to Stoke-on-Trent because it knew that the quality of the graduate work it could get in Stoke-on-Trent was equal to, if not better than, anything it could get out of the London universities, but staff would also get the quality of life that comes with living in north Staffordshire. All of this comes together because we are a craft city. I am happy that we were recently awarded world craft city status to recognise that our ceramic work and our creative approach to industry is in our DNA. It is who we are and it is what we do. Importantly for our younger generation, it is also about how we translate the opportunities that exist now into real opportunity. That is why, having run through all the letters of the alphabet bar two, I will move on to a couple of questions for the Minister. First, will he visit and meet some of the organisations, so that he can see first hand the excellent work that we are doing not only in pursuit of our own economic development, but in pursuit of the Government’s own agenda to ensure that creative industries and culture are available to all? Will he consider recognising north Staffordshire as a cultural cluster—something that the last Government were not able to do, but which would give us the standing we need to demonstrate that we are here for the long run? Will the Minister speak to his colleagues at the Department for Business and Trade to ensure that any industrial strategy that comes forward to encourage growth in the UK looks seriously at creative industries? The creative industries in Stoke-on-Trent are where our growth can come from. That is where we can make a difference to all the organisations that are currently looking to take the next step to becoming vibrant, big, national groups. Will the Minister also speak to his friends in the Department for Education to ensure that we keep art and creative subjects on the curriculum at B-tech, higher education, further education and A-level? The pipeline of talent that we need to service the expectations that the Minister has will come from young people who are already in education. I will leave him with those three points. I hope he has enjoyed the little tour around my constituency, and I thank him for listening so diligently.
8 Oct 2024 · Creative Industries: Stoke-on-Trent · Hansard source
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I thank the Minister for responding directly to my points—I do not think that ever happened during the entire time I was last in Parliament, so the novelty is not lost on me. On the curriculum, can the Minister ensure that when that conversation happens, there is emphasis on the communities that should have access to that? I know the Minister will do that, but I want it on the record. While having art on the curriculum works fine, often, in working-class communities like mine, it is not seen as being for those people or for those communities. I know the Minister is a great advocate for communities like those we represent. Can he ensure that the DFE understands that it is no good just having art on the curriculum, and that it has to be actively encouraged in communities that ordinarily would not take it up?
8 Oct 2024 · Creative Industries: Stoke-on-Trent · Hansard source
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I beg to move, That this House has considered support for the creative industries in Stoke-on-Trent. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Caroline. I thank Members for joining me in what I hope will be a much better-tempered debate than the one you have just officiated over. Stoke-on-Trent was and is the crucible of creativity. We were at the forefront of the last industrial revolution, and we are now quietly and diligently leading our very own creative renaissance in the city and the surrounding area. The last measurement suggested that growth in our creative industries stood at about 6.3%, which is in no small part down to the determination of a number of organisations. With your indulgence, Dame Caroline, and that of Members present, I will take a short canter through the A to Z of the cultural organisations and institutions in Stoke-on-Trent that are doing so much excellent work. Let me start with Appetite, a public arts organisation that has been demonstrating to communities across north Staffordshire not only that public art is available to everybody but the joy that can be had from interaction with and involvement in art, in a way that would not normally have been available to some communities even 10 years ago. B arts is a wonderful participatory arts organisation that currently has its Bread in Common shop at the bottom of Hartshill Road in my constituency, where it has fused creativity with a burning passion for food justice. We are also home to some incredibly well-placed and innovative business organisations. Carse & Waterman, a Stoke-based animation company, is doing world-leading work from a converted bank on Stoke high street. Members will have noticed the change to some of the design work on the crockery and tableware in the Members’ Dining Room, which has all come from Duchess China 1888 in Stoke-on-Trent, where it still manufactures using high-grade bone china techniques, and does so with flair. On the ceramics front, Emma Bailey is still active in Stoke-on-Trent. She is one of the most beautiful designers, using her talent for creativity and art to keep alive the spirit and patterns of Clarice Cliff, who was of course one of the city’s best-known residents. Alongside the well-known names we have a growing group of freelancers—I will talk to the Minister about this later—who indulge in the opportunity to turn their creative ability into a viable income. We have a network of individuals who see creativity as a path for their own determination, success and fulfilment, and we need a bit of help to ensure that that can come to fruition.
8 Oct 2024 · Creative Industries: Stoke-on-Trent · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman, who is my friend, is absolutely right. With the right structure, creativity and public art can go a long way to helping to reduce some of the structural problems we see in our communities, whether that be antisocial behaviour or derelict buildings. If he would ever like to join us for a tour around Stoke-on-Trent, I can show him some of the wonderful public art and particularly some of the murals on our buildings, which not only succinctly tell the story of the city but do so much to brighten up the place in a vibrant way. I had reached G in my A to Z, so I shall talk about “The Great Pottery Throw Down”, which is not only a wonderful demonstration of the heritage skills we have in Stoke-on-Trent but proof that blockbuster television can be made in Stoke-on-Trent. We are privileged that it is filmed at Gladstone Pottery Museum, which was also the set for “The Colour Room”, a wonderful Sky adaptation of the life of Clarice Cliff. That demonstrates that with the right imagination anything is possible in Stoke. That imagination is what has allowed us to take some of our heritage buildings back into use. The Spode site in the middle of Stoke town is becoming a createch hub—a place where creative industries and organisations are coming together to work together, not only to share their ideas and aspirations but to put their creative skills to use. That is producing this microcosm of energy and ideas that is having real dividends for those organisations, particularly as they now have a shared apprenticeship scheme that allows individuals from Staffordshire University to see different areas of the creative industries that could be available to them once they graduate. One of the organisations involved is i.creation. It is run by the wonderful Andy Jackson, who does so much work in terms of community news and helping organisations to tell a better story about who they are. Just down the road from Andy’s i.creation we have Junction 15, which is technically in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee), but we are one big, happy north Staffordshire family. One of Junction 15’s directors won an Emmy for the work they did at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. [ Interruption. ] The Minister corrects me—not for the first time—but we will hear his speech later. We are fortunate in north Staffordshire that underpinning the creative industry are two wonderful universities. Next year, Keele University is bringing in a music production, game design and digital media course, because it realises that growing a pipeline of local talent is important for growing the local creative industry. One of the companies looking for that pipeline is Lesniak Swann, an award-winning business-to-business marketing organisation. The company has asked me to point out that the creative industry is one of our best export markets because the work we do in the UK is highly desirable to organisations around the world. Lesniak Swann does wonderful B2B marketing work, which is incredibly creative, from its home in Stoke-on-Trent but for companies based in Norway and America. We need to think about where our creative industries can contribute to UK exports. All this is part of Made in Stoke, a network of entrepreneurs, philanthropists and individuals who have a connection to our city and who want to come together to make it better. One of the strands they are looking at is how individuals who have gone away from Stoke-on-Trent and done wonderful things in arts, culture and creativity can come back to the city to help to inspire the next generation of new and aspiring creatives. If people do come to Stoke, one of the best places they can visit is the New Vic Theatre, a purpose-built theatre in the round. Again, it is just over the border in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, but, again, we are one big, happy north Staffordshire family. The work the theatre does is not just about award-winning stage productions that often come down to London’s west end. It also does outreach work through Borderlines, which uses creativity and culture to tackle community cohesion issues and community prejudices through art, drama and music. Both as a theatre and through outreach work, the New Vic has been able to demonstrate that, if they want to be involved, there is a role in culture and creativity even for some of the toughest communities that may not immediately have thought about it.
10 Sept 2024 · Social Security · Hansard source
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The right hon. Gentleman talks about choices and pensioners. When his party chose to suspend the triple lock in 2021 and give a below-inflation increase to pensioners, costing them £500, what was his concern then? Why did he say nothing?
9 Sept 2024 · Medicines · Hansard source
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On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Last Thursday, during questions to the Leader of the House on the statement of business, I asked a question about BTecs in relation to colleges. Although it is registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests that I am a governor of two colleges, I failed to draw the House’s attention to that fact before asking my question. The two colleges that I am a governor of are affected by the answer, so I take this opportunity to place that on the record, and offer my unreserved apology to the House accordingly.
9 Sept 2024 · Private School Closures · Hansard source
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6. What information her Department holds on the number of private schools that closed in England between 11 May 2010 and 5 July 2024.
9 Sept 2024 · Private School Closures · Hansard source
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St Joseph’s preparatory school, a small fee-paying independent school in Stoke-on-Trent, announced that it is closing its doors at the end of this year after a period of financial viability questions. What support will the Department offer the city council and parents in Stoke-on-Trent to ensure that those children can still access first-class education?
5 Sept 2024 · High Street Businesses · Hansard source
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Whether it is better buses, more policing or city centre living, support for our high streets ought to be a cross-Government approach, because of the many levers that are available. Can the Minister say a bit more about what conversations he is having with other Departments to ensure that support for high streets stretches across every facet of this new Labour Government?
5 Sept 2024 · Waste Crime: Staffordshire · Hansard source
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) on securing such an important debate in Westminster Hall so early in what I know will be a long and illustrious parliamentary career. Although the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) may have left, I want to pick up the point he made. Waste crime is often seen as an almost harmless activity and as something that does not hurt anybody, so the urge to deal with it does not necessarily manifest itself in immediate action. The hon. Member talked about the necessity of having significant fines that are robustly levied and vigorously collected, which would be a huge deterrent for rogue operators. Whatever form their action took, they would know that there was a penalty for the blight they cause to communities and the damage they do to people. I will constrain my comments, first, to the Walleys Quarry site, which my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme mentioned. Starting 14 years ago, I had the pleasure of being a district councillor in the neighbouring authority of Newcastle-under-Lyme. The very first piece of casework I had was about Walleys Quarry—the smell emanating from it, the activities happening on site, and the questionable content of lorries driving up Cemetery Road on quiet mornings, with flocks of seagulls feasting on what was deposited. There have been several operators since then, but even at that time it was impossible to get to the bottom of what was going into the site and what was happening there. The situation was opaque, with obfuscation and sleight of hand by people who, I believe, simply tried to tell the community, “It’s all good. It’s all fine. By the way the landfill fund that your community can bid for offsets the fact that we’re here.” One day, they tried to blame the smell on the neighbouring sewage treatment plant, directing me and my ward colleagues to talk to Severn Trent Water about what they said must obviously be a faulty sewerage outlet. Unfortunately, that attitude summed up any interaction I had with the operating company for many years. The concerns of residents were secondary, and as long as the company was bringing in the waste and able to put it in a hole, cover it with a layer of clay and say that it was capped off properly, it was not particularly worried about the impact. That has gone on for years and years, so I genuinely congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme on bringing the issue to the attention of the House. I am no longer resident in my hon. Friend’s constituency or the councillor for Silverdale. When I moved to where I live now, my lung health improved dramatically. I am asthmatic. I lived in Silverdale for about 15 years, and every day my Ventolin inhaler was glued to my pocket because at some point I would have some sort of triggering event requiring me to take a reliever. When, about three years ago, I moved a mere three miles away to where I am now, my lung health dramatically improved. I no longer need my Ventolin inhaler as frequently as I did. My lifestyle has not changed; if anything, my burgeoning waistline has put me in a slightly less healthy position. The only common factor that has impacted my health is the air that I breathe daily. I am glad that we are discussing this issue, and I am glad that we are doing so in a Westminster Hall debate where we can consider it at length. However, I say to the Minister—my friend whom I have known for many years now—that the local debate on it has gone on for a while. What we seek, and I have great faith that she will deliver, is the action that was missing under the previous Government. Although my constituency is three miles away, there are some mornings—particularly cold, crisp weather mornings—when, much like my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner), I can open my front door, walk to the bottom of my street and smell the landfill site three miles away. It is a smell you do not forget if you have lived there and know the area. It does not matter where you are in north Staffordshire, if you can smell it, you can smell it, and you know what it is. It is the same scent wherever it manifests. Up until only a couple of years ago, my daughter still went to school in Silverdale. If we drove towards the school, the smell would get stronger and stronger. We would get to the crossroads at the bottom of Cemetery Road and Silverdale Road, and we would hope with all our hearts that the lights were on green. The last thing we wanted to do was sit there while the rotation went through at the traffic lights, knowing that we would be stuck in a puddle of foul-stenching air that was almost certainly coming from Walleys Quarry. What may have been only four or five minutes as the traffic lights cycled through would feel like an age as we breathed in what was undoubtedly harmful, somewhat poisonous gas from the operating site. I welcome the fact that we are debating this issue, but, as I said to the Minister, now that we have a new set of Members of Parliament for north Staffordshire and a new Government, I hope that there is an opportunity to reset national action so that we can get the outcome that local people need. I want to expand my speech to include wider waste crime issues across north Staffordshire. Although Walleys Quarry is undoubtedly a national disgrace, other parts of north Staffordshire have equally found themselves at the mercy of reprehensible individuals who have undertaken to make a fast buck on the back of local communities through the way they have dealt with waste. One such site was the old Twyford factory in the middle of Etruria in my Stoke-on-Trent Central constituency. I first raised the issue with the then Minister back in 2018, when it was quite clear that the factory was stuffed to the rafters with illegally accepted industrial waste. The chief fire officer for Staffordshire at the time, Becci Bryant, made it quite clear that not only would a fire on the site be devastating to the immediate area, where businesses were trying to operate, but, because the site was next to the west coast main line, a fire would shut the line down for months. Significant public investment would be required to make the railway safe, and the untold health implications would not be known for many years. What waste was in there, nobody knew. How much was in there, nobody knew. All anyone could see as they drove around the A500 in Stoke-on-Trent was this once-proud factory that had such manufacturing history, and, through its graffitied windows, polythene bales of unknown materials stacked one upon the other. I was told by the chief fire officer that a genuine concern was spontaneous combustion, because tightly packed, unknown materials in plastic can sometimes simply set themselves on fire. That was in the heart of my constituency next to a residential housing development of several hundred people. To his credit, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who was the Minister at the time, was happy to look at how we could use funds from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to try to clear the site. The former Secretary of State, Michael Gove, met us to discuss the matter and we had a plan. To her great credit, my successor and predecessor, Jo Gideon, fought hard to get the site cleared. She made it a priority for her constituency and her constituents. The site was cleared at a cost to the public purse of around £10 million. That is £10 million of public money to clear one site in one constituency. It took a very long time, not because of intervention from the Government or for any local reason, but because every time we got to a point at which an enforcement notice could be raised, the owner would promise to clear up the site and the enforcement notice would not be taken forward. We then went down the cost recovery route for proceeds of crime, which took an inordinately long time. A fine was levied against the owner to have it cleared, and he was given six months to raise the money to pay for that. During all that additional time, the site remained a huge fire, health and safety risk to the neighbouring businesses, one of which closed up and moved for its own safety. The site was an eyesore in the middle of Stoke-on-Trent. I know the Minister takes a huge interest in our environment and how we can make communities such as mine better, more prosperous and more sustainable. We are talking about a prime development site where development was slowed down because we were wrangling with one individual who had made an obscene amount of money by accepting illegal waste on to the site, and who did not want to use any of that money to clear it up. The fact that we had to clear it up not only represented a waste of taxpayers’ money, but slowed down the economic regeneration and development of Etruria and Hanley in my constituency. To this day, although it has now been cleared, the site stands vacant. The opportunities that it presented would have been game-changing for my constituency. We are talking not just about the cost of cleaning sites up, but about the opportunity costs in cities where huge buildings are misused by individuals who seek to make a fast buck.
5 Sept 2024 · Waste Crime: Staffordshire · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is almost as if she has read the script in front of me, because she has perfectly lined me up for my next point, which is about the link between illegal dumping, fly-tipping in communities and the wider connection to organised crime and money making. Another report from Unchecked UK, published in 2022, pointed out that enforcement against fly-tipping was at a 10-year low, while the number of incidents of fly-tipping was at a 10-year high. There is a growing chasm between what is happening on the ground and the activities that perpetrators are being punished for and prevented from carrying out.
5 Sept 2024 · Waste Crime: Staffordshire · Hansard source
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Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee), there have been 10 years of data. I know because I used to ring the EA frequently in 2010, when I was in my constituency surgeries in the library in Silverdale and we could smell the smell. What more does the former Minister believe he would have needed in order to give a closure notice? Given that we all seem to agree that there has been a decade of failure by the Environment Agency, when he was Minister, what did he do to try to work out what the internal failings were, so that other communities that may have these problems do not have the long period of terribleness that we have had?
5 Sept 2024 · Waste Crime: Staffordshire · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentlemen is in a position of unparalleled knowledge compared with all of us, having been the Minister, at which time he advocated for immediate closure. I think the quarry should be closed immediately, and he has said that he does. What was he missing as the Minister? What lever that was just out of reach would have immediately brought about the closure of the site? If legislative change is needed then we can write that Bill here and now and take it to the House and try to get it passed, but the hon. Gentleman has been there and knows why it could not happen. What else would he have needed to get the job done?
5 Sept 2024 · Waste Crime: Staffordshire · Hansard source
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I agree with everything that my hon. Friend has just said. We should not think about fly-tipping simply as community blight. It is not just about the sofa abandoned down the back alley; it is about cross-country, cross-border organised crime that is making millions of pounds for people in our communities who, frankly, have no interest in our communities. She made the point rather eloquently about the requirement for our police and crime commissioners to understand that this is an important issue that they must prioritise and tackle. On the fly-tipping point that my hon. Friends the Members for Newcastle-under-Lyme and for Stoke-on-Trent South raised, I return to its longer-term impact. Fly-tipping is a waste crime that takes place in Staffordshire, and the House of Commons Library note that accompanies the debate gives the rather sad fact from the 2022-23 figures that almost half of all fly-tipping incidents across the whole of Staffordshire took place in Stoke-on-Trent. That is not a record that I am particularly proud of or would want to be associated with my city. That is why I am glad that upon its election in 2023, under the expert leadership of Councillor Amjid Wazir, the deputy leader of the council, the city council launched a clean-up campaign against illegal dumping in our towns under the moniker of “IDIOT”. “Don’t be an IDIOT” was the line. The council said, “Don’t dump in our towns. Don’t allow our community to be used by those criminal gangs that want to ruin our cities.” The outcome has been spectacular: we now have considerably fewer incidents of fly-tipping. That is not only because the council makes a concerted effort to clear it up, but because it has invested in an environmental crime unit that seeks to prosecute and fine those people who dump waste in our towns and cities. The council has tripled the number of fines it hands out, and it pursues people through the courts where they refuse to pay the fine. It makes it clear that if people wish to undertake illegal activity related to waste in Stoke-on-Trent at a community level, the council is coming for them and will fine them. I personally would like a name-and-shame campaign, but I have not quite won the battle with the council yet; give it time. What I would not want to be taken away from this debate is the idea that Staffordshire is the nation’s dustbin, and that it is strewn with all these terrible activities; because while we have these incidents, most of the people in our communities who live in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire want to see clean neighbourhoods. They go out every day and do a little bit of work to make their community better. They clean up fly-tipping, report an illegally dumped sofa, report the smells to the Environment Agency, and report to the police abandoned buildings that suddenly start having industrial waste put near them. They do that because they want—as does everyone else in my constituency, county and city—to live in a clean, tidy and safe place. When the Minister winds up, will she give me some sense of hope to take back to Stoke-on-Trent that this Government, with this Minister, will deliver on that aspiration for clean, safe streets in every community, and that she will let us know how we can help her achieve that?
5 Sept 2024 · Waste Crime: Staffordshire · Hansard source
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You never forget your first time.
5 Sept 2024 · Waste Crime: Staffordshire · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention—and I am grateful to be able to call him my hon. Friend; last time I was in the Commons, I never thought I would have the opportunity to call a Member who represented Lichfield my hon. Friend, and doing so fills my heart with glee. He is absolutely right. This debate could easily have been about waste crime anywhere in the country, because duplicitous operators who seek to make money off the backs of our communities without any care or attention are everywhere. I am sure that the new Minister will be clamping down on them hard. I turn to how we do that. While we can all air our grievances about the sites in our constituencies, I want to spend a few moments focusing on what comes next. I tend to agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme said about the fitness for purpose of the Environment Agency, but I will be slightly more generous to it than he was. He rightly has a grievance with it over the operation of Walleys Quarry, but I think there is a bigger problem about the way we do regulatory enforcement in this country. The Environment Agency is an example that we can use to demonstrate that. Every so often, Unchecked UK produces a document about the enforcement gap, looking at how regulatory organisations and agencies have done less and less enforcement over time. In its 2020 enforcement gap report, Unchecked UK found that between 2010 and 2020, the number of staff working for the Environment Agency decreased by 32%, so one in three staff disappeared. It also found that over the same period of time, the Environment Agency’s budget decreased by 63%. As a result, the number of prosecutions it could undertake decreased by 88%. The number of enforcement notices it was able to levy went down by 69.5%, and it could only take 44% of them through to prosecution because it lacked the capacity to undertake the necessary regulatory enforcement work. While we must not excuse the actions of those who perpetrate waste crime around our country, it is not impossible to see why they think it is a lucrative way to spend their time and energy. The likelihood of their getting caught, of an enforcement notice being levied upon them or of a prosecution being brought has gone down and down over the past 10 years. It is not just the Environment Agency that has had this problem. Local authorities around the country, which have a really important environmental health role and can quite often take small-scale actions in communities to prevent much larger destructive activities, have suffered the same blight. Over the past 10 years, 32% of environmental health staff in local authorities have been lost. That means that many enforcement and regulatory agencies react to problems, but they are unable to take proactive and preventive work to avoid things becoming problems in the first place.
5 Sept 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source
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BTecs provide a vital route to higher and further education for thousands of learners throughout the country, and it was welcome news that the Education Secretary has announced a pause and review of the ad hoc cancellation programme initiated by the last Government, but may I gently remind my right hon. Friend that colleges need to know now what qualifications they can offer next September? Could she, through her office, arrange for a statement to be made by the Education Secretary, and for a general debate to take place in Government time so that we can all celebrate the BTec courses that our young are people taking in our constituencies?
4 Sept 2024 · Police Station Closure: Sutton Coldfield · Hansard source
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Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern that in my constituency we do not have a single publicly accessible police station? They have been closed under a programme led by our previous police and crime commissioner. We have never had a Labour police and crime commissioner in Staffordshire; our police and crime commissioner has always been a Conservative. Would the right hon. Gentleman hold my commissioner accountable for those closures in the same way that he seeks to hold his commissioner accountable for his?
2 Sept 2024 · Technology in Public Services · Hansard source
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rose —
2 Sept 2024 · Technology in Public Services · Hansard source
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My right hon. Friend is making a fine speech, but could he say a little bit about the cross-Government conversations that should be happening about upskilling and the opportunities for workers? What is cutting-edge technology today can be obsolete in six to 12 months’ time. Is there a plan for a rolling programme of training and upskilling, so that workers who work with technology can keep pace with it as it develops over time?
2 Sept 2024 · Technology in Public Services · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman has talked about the morale of the civil service. Would he care to tell us how he thinks that was affected by a former Prime Minister’s referring to the civil service as “the blob”, and by Cabinet Ministers walking around their offices leaving passive-aggressive little notes asking, “Where are you?” It is very easy to make the snide comments that the hon. Gentleman is making, but it is not very relevant, is it?
23 Jul 2024 · Immigration and Home Affairs · Hansard source
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Oh, go on!
18 Jul 2024 · Post Office Horizon Scandal · Hansard source
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Referring to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton and Hemsworth (Jon Trickett), what role does the Minister think this Government can find for third party organisations, such as WhistleblowersUK or those organisations that work with people to highlight such scandals? As my hon. Friend pointed out, this was a systematic failure across Government and society, and we simply cannot allow it to happen again.

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