Gareth Snell MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 24 Apr 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Too many Government Departments and public bodies have foreign-made tableware purchased with British taxpayers’ money. May I invite the ministerial team to make a commitment to ensure that every Department replaces its foreign-made table set with a British-made one—preferably from Stoke-on-Trent?

• 24 Apr 2025 · Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  We have Third Reading—it’s fine.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 24 Apr 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Stoke-on-Trent has witnessed a proliferation of houses in multiple occupation in the city in recent years, with family homes being converted with little notice given to local residents. Working with Councillors Shaun Pender, Daniela Santoro and Adrian Knapper and with Labour’s Maggie Bradley, we are prosecuting a case for Stoke-on-Trent city council to adopt an article 4 direction, but this is proving more difficult than it should be. Can I encourage the Leader of the House to bring forward legislation to remove this permitted development right for everybody across the country, so that HMOs can be properly regulated and looked after in communities?

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  We cannot make British steel without British ceramics. High temperature-resistant refractory ceramics are needed to line the blast furnaces to keep them alight, but the Minister is acutely aware that the ceramics sector in this country, much like the glass and chemicals sectors, is being crippled by energy prices, because of both wholesale costs and policy costs, which the last Government chose to put on and which were continued by this Government. When the Minister talks about backing British industry and manufacturing, can she say when glass, ceramics and other foundational industries will get the support they need to prop up and support the advanced manufacturing that we are all so proud of? The cost of that will be a tiny proportion of what has been committed to British Steel.

• 22 Apr 2025 · Coalfields Regeneration Trust · Hansard source

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  To follow the point made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), it is about not just the contribution that those communities made to our energy needs, but the pride that those communities had in the work that they did. One of the successful parts of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust’s work, certainly in North Staffordshire, has been allowing the communities who had so much taken from them with the closure of the pits to restore some of that by controlling their own destiny and the sorts of regeneration that came, including through the industrial units that we now have near Silverdale in his constituency. That was done by John Prescott and the Coalfields Regeneration Trust and it has allowed communities to once again have pride in where they live and what they do. This work was done with them, rather than to them. When the Minister responds, could he say something about how the next stage of work in the coalfield communities could be done with the communities, rather than to them? I think we would all be interested in that.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for the confirmation that she has given today and, in particular, I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) on their championing of this issue in the House. I think I heard the Minister say that there might be a slight expansion of the fund’s remit so that it can help more people in kinship care. Will she say more on what the Government’s thinking is about whether the children who can access this fund have to have experienced care directly? There are many children who grow up in a kinship setting, as I did, and who never actually see care, but for whom this fund would be hugely valuable.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Good regulation is basically the immune system of our nation, and it is often unseen. When regulation is working well and having the desired effect, we rarely see it happening because it is keeping us safe and protecting us from those harms that we outsource to the Government to keep watch over for us. It is taking the necessary steps and measures to make sure that we are safe, the things we buy are safe, the interactions we have in our communities are safe and our children are safe. That regulation is a protection, essentially, and this Bill gives the scope and the agility for the Government—any Government—to respond quickly and in a timely manner to new and emerging potential threats that regulation is required to protect us from. I worry when Governments of any colour—including, unfortunately, that of my own party of late—seek to suggest that regulation is inherently a bad thing, an inhibitor of growth or the heavy hand of the state stopping the illustrious bounds of enterprise, because it often is not. Often it is about a level playing field. It is about creating the circumstances where competitors in Stoke-on-Trent have as much opportunity to compete with their competitors around the country or around the world in a way that we understand to be fair, balanced and proportionate. To me, this Bill sets us on a course where we are able to do that. There are some areas where product regulation and the safety that comes with it are lacking. If the House will indulge me, I would like once again to talk about ceramics and the ceramic industry because I believe that the product regulatory framework and the existing protections for ceramics—in terms of the quality of goods that are purchased and also the protection of the level playing field—could benefit hugely from actions that the Government could take through the powers in the Bill. We have discussed online drop-shipping platforms many times in this House. These are websites that bulk buy things and sell them into the UK, often at a fraction of the price that people could buy them for in this country, and often faking and forging the identities and brands of British companies, without any consideration for what people are actually buying. I was shown a great example by a company in Staffordshire, Dunoon ceramics, which makes a very particular style of ceramic mug. The mugs cost about £28 to make and they retail at about £35, sometimes up to £50. An online drop-shipping website was selling a fake version—with the same artwork and the same “Made in the United Kingdom” sticker and backstamp on the base—into the UK for about £10. We have no idea whether that product was meeting the Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (England) Regulations 2012 that it is required in this country to meet in order to be considered safe. We had no idea of the levels of lead or cadmium in the paint, no idea what the glaze was made of, no idea where the clay had come from and no idea of the conditions under which it was made, but it was sold into the UK thousands at a time, undercutting the British company. For clarity, I have no idea whether the product was defective, but it could have been, thereby putting people at risk.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  No, this is on the last point.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman is correct that there are existing protections for some of the things I have mentioned that, if enforced properly, could take those products off the market, but the enforcement of many of our regulatory frameworks in this country is quite weak. Funding for most enforcement agencies across this country was—not to make a party political point—reduced under the last Government. I hope this Government will reconsider that because a regulation is only ever as good as the enforcement regime sat behind it.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way on regulatory alignment?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  It is on the point the hon. Lady is moving away from.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I do not think anybody would disagree with the right hon. Gentleman’s assessment that if there is no enforcement of regulation, there is no benefit, but we are not saying in the Bill that there should be less enforcement. The Bill produces a framework in which the Government can take action to respond to create the good regulation necessary. I will freely admit that what has to come with that are the enforcement arrangements to ensure those new regulations are enforced properly, penalties to deter people seeking to circumvent the regulations, and the proper resourcing of enforcement agencies so they are equipped to take action against those people and companies seeking to circumvent the laws. Without that, I fully accept that regulation for the sake of regulation is no good any more than regulation being cut or diverged for the sake of divergence and reduction is any good. It comes down to enforcement. To go back to the comments of the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), there is one area in this Bill where Government action could bring in a new product protection regulation that would have a huge impact on the ceramic industry. That is around the backstamp on the bottom of a piece of ceramic or pottery. As an avid collector, he will be aware of the importance of those backstamps. In this country, if we turn over any plate, cup or anything made from good-quality British ceramics, we will normally find the words “Made in England” and the pottery name underneath it. Consumers then know they are buying a premium piece of British-manufactured ceramics that has been made to a suitable product standard that we accept in Stoke-on-Trent is one of the best in the world. It is perfectly plausible, as has been done with some of the fakery, to replicate that phrase when it is not true. The other challenge we have is companies that import things into the United Kingdom augmenting the wording of that particular backstamp to suggest it has been made in the UK when it has not. It may have been bisque-fired overseas, imported and then decorated and glazed in the UK, but it will normally have a company name, the word “England” and the date upon which that historic brand was established. It gives consumers the idea that they are buying a piece of British-made ceramics that would therefore be protected by the normal product regulations when in fact it is not. There is the potential for the Minister to use the new powers in the Bill to produce new regulation that says anything produced in the UK that is considered to be ceramic has to have a proper mark on the base that demonstrates where it was made and where it has come from and to demonstrate that it was made in the UK. If a company is not making it in the UK, they become prohibited from putting the words “England” or “Made in the UK” on it.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way on a point about competition?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Persistence sometimes pays off, Madam Deputy Speaker. I genuinely want to pick up the point the hon. Lady is making about competition in relation to alignment. In the ceramics sector, the food contact materials regulations set by the European Union are essential to enabling the export of the products we create and make. They are product regulations for safety, but she seems to be suggesting that any regulatory alignment is a bad thing. Is that her party’s message about alignment for the purposes of export that I should take back to the thousands of workers in Stoke-on-Trent?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I am very sorry to disappoint the right hon. Gentleman, but I and a number of my colleagues have already presented the Ceramics (Country of Origin Marking) Bill. He is more than welcome to support it should it ever be given its Second Reading. However, because of the nature of this place and the way private Members’ Bills work, I am realistic about the fact that if we are to see that regulatory protection for British ceramics, it will have to come through a different mechanism. The mechanism in this Bill, which allows the Government to make those protective arrangements through secondary legislation, could increase the protection of British ceramics. My final point is about a level playing field for exports. I take the point that the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) made, after I had intervened on the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey), about our regulatory regime and where we want to export. The bulk of the ceramics made in my constituency are exported to the EU. We could diverge from the EU food contact materials regulations and have a secondary system in this country, but all that would do is create a separate set of regulatory regimes for small companies with small margins, requiring them to make products twice. We simply could not stand that burden. Before I get attacked for being one of those horrible remainers, I urge Members to check my voting record during the 2017 to 2019 Parliament. There are times when sticking with what we know—the European regulations—absolutely makes sense. We should control that, but it makes sense to align ourselves where we should. I support the Bill. I hope that the Minister will, as one of his first actions with his new powers, consider my points about ceramics. If he does not, perhaps he would like to support my Ceramics (Country of Origin Marking) Bill.

• 31 Mar 2025 · Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  If I have heard the Minister right, the first report that will come out will include aspects of the implications for higher-degree apprenticeships, but the funding decisions will still sit with the Department, as they should. Will the report refer to the funding decisions made by the Secretary of State, so that when it comes to the impact of the decisions made, we can see correlation and causation?

• 31 Mar 2025 · Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  If I may, I will start by joining my colleagues on the Government Benches in my opposition to new clause 1, new clause 4 and amendment 6. Well-meaning they may be, but I am impatient for change. Stoke-on-Trent has one of the highest rates of youth disengagement in education, employment or training in the country. As always, when we look at those heat maps, we see the big yellow splodge in the middle of the midlands, which is Stoke-on-Trent, showing that we have one of the highest numbers of workers in the country with no form of formal qualification whatever. Our young people tend to find themselves unable to access any form of training or support that they need to make a future career for themselves. I declare my interest as a governor of the City of Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College, as we offer T-levels. Even though I do not have an apprentice in my office like my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), as of next week a T-level student will be in a placement there for the next 18 months, to help their advancement. My impatience stems from the necessity of identifying the skills that we need in the city I represent and of making sure that the next generation of young people coming through education have them. That is the only way I can see for us to fulfil our desire and ambition to rebuild our economy and attract those higher quality, well-paid and long-term jobs into the city that will mean higher wages and the ability to dig ourselves out of our city’s economic troubles. I do not expect or hope any Government to come over the hill like a cavalry, with a big sack of cash, saying, “Here you go—here is what you need.” It is partly on us to do that, by matching up the skills that we have and the skills that we need in the city to do the jobs of today and the future jobs of tomorrow. That is really important. The local skills improvement plan put together by our chambers of commerce and colleges has gone some way to achieving that. However, as always, it is a bit like wading through treacle, because we get to where we think we are going to be and all of a sudden something appears that makes it more difficult. Then, the people who struggle with that are the young people. I am afraid that anything that seeks to delay the advancement of this Bill, such as new clause 1, new clause 4 and amendment 6, will not get my support this evening. I do, however, wish to spend a few minutes on my own new clause 2, which is a probing amendment. It is not intended to cause any frustration or Divisions; I say to the Whip that I am not seeking to test the House’s opinion on it. However, when we consider what apprenticeships will look like in the future and what they mean for cities such as Stoke-on-Trent, it is important to understand that level 7 apprenticeships, funded by the apprenticeship levy, are a genuinely important part of the educational offer available to young people in my constituency. The week before last, I visited DJH accountants in Stoke-on-Trent, which is a significant regional player that is training its own generation of chartered accountants at level 7 using the apprenticeship levy that would otherwise just disappear into the Treasury. People there explained to me quite succinctly, and I agreed, that through their own means they simply would not have the available capital or cash to fund the quantity of training courses that they run. The apprenticeship levy allows them to grow a group of young people into chartered accountants. The people I met were all young. They were not at the mid or tail-end of their careers looking for a final bump before they got to their pension; they were young people who had come in after GCSEs, done their basic accountancy skills and had their eyes firmly set on a chartered accountancy qualification. The levy was allowing them to do that. I asked the young people where they were all from, expecting them to be from the city, which they were. I then asked them where they wanted to work once they had their chartered accountancy status and, wonderfully, they all wanted to stay in Stoke-on-Trent and practise the craft that they had been learning. The economic benefit of that to my city is that if it were not for the ability of that company to train to level 7 using the apprenticeship levy, it would have to import that labour from neighbouring areas. So somebody who already had the level 7 qualification, or had been trained somewhere else through a company that could afford it, would come into Stoke, do the level 7 job, attract that level 7-equivalent salary and take it back to where they actually lived. That would mean that the level 7 salaries those young people were going to earn and spend in Stoke-on-Trent would end up migrating to other, slightly more affluent places in the midlands—and, candidly, there are many more affluent places in the midlands than Stoke-on-Trent. The economic damage done by turning off the apprenticeship levy, or even the skills and growth levy, from level 7 apprenticeships could mean that the places such as Stoke-on-Trent that already suffer from ingrained regional inequality see it further ingrained into their local economies, because the people who have those skills travel in to do the work, or work from home, and the money flows out of the city and is spent in those other local communities. There is also the message that we are sending to young people in the city. If level 7 qualifications are not available to them, they will be unlikely to have the means to pay for a level 7 qualification themselves. Having a level 7 qualification in Stoke-on-Trent is quite a rarity. You are more likely to find somebody with no qualification than with a master’s level qualification. New clause 2 is a hook to allow the Minister to go away and consider this. I do not believe for one second that it is the determination of the Government to artificially stymie or cap the aspirations of young people in Stoke-on-Trent by suggesting to them that those level 7 qualifications are not available to them. I appreciate that there are concerns in the system about the levy not being used for its intended purpose, but to take people through higher level qualifications who already have a career behind them. There are obviously organisations and companies that have done that because, rather than send that money to the Treasury, they have sought to upskill their own workers. I understand why the Government want to get tough on that, because it is not what the levy was intended for, but the level 7 learners that I have met are all young. They are people who have a clear idea of the path and trajectory of the career they want to take, and the levy simply makes that more viable and likely to be achieved in an economically depressed and deprived place such as Stoke-on-Trent. The other side of the issue is that 95% of the apprenticeships at the University of Staffordshire are at level 6, and 5% are at level 7. It provides level 7 training for the Ministry of Defence and a number of public services. Some of that is funded by the apprenticeship levy. That is an invaluable income stream for the university to deliver that training for people who then go back into the public sector to make it more efficient, to crack down on waste and to deliver those skills that we as a nation determine that we need. That will undoubtedly need to be looked at as we have more defence spending, because we will need people with those level 7 qualifications in the defence sector, in the manufacturing companies, and in the electrical and chemical engineering companies. Ordinarily, companies in places such as Stoke-on-Trent will simply not have the capital or the cash to provide that. Only by drawing down from the apprenticeship levy will they be able to train people locally to do those jobs. If we are not training people to do those jobs, the opportunity that comes from that Government investment simply will not be felt in places such as Stoke-on-Trent, and the regional inequality that is already quite clear in my city will become more entrenched. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean) talked about finding people finding career, and that is what all of us want for the young people in our communities. It is certainly what I want for the learners in my city, but that career should take them as far as they want to go. That career should take them, if they want, up to a level 7 qualification that allows them to build a life and a career that they enjoy and are happy doing. My concern is that the unintended consequence of the Government’s decision that level 7 qualifications will no longer be available from the apprenticeship levy will be that in cities such as mine, aspiration and ambition will be capped because the cash and the capital are simply not there to meet those young people’s demands. I have no truck with or support for the delaying amendments of the Opposition, and I have no intention of doing anything with my new clause other than sitting down in a moment. I hope that the Minister will take back the concerns that I have raised this evening and see whether there is a way, maybe through devolution deals, through reorganisation or through the mayoral strategic authorities, in which certain areas could be able to continue with the levy funding for level 7 qualifications that we so desperately need.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Terms and Conditions of Employment · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I was concerned by what I think I heard the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) say about the rate at which the living wage is paid to young people, almost advocating for a reduction in that rate because of the impact it would have on business. Does my hon. Friend agree that is a rather regressive view, given that what young people need is the ability to pay their bills, live a life they enjoy and build a home for themselves in the future?

• 18 Mar 2025 · St Patrick’s Day: UK Bank Holiday · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Gentleman. I will be clear that St Patrick was not born in Stoke-on-Trent—of that, I think we can all be certain. In genuine sincerity, the fact that we are all here this evening in joyful spirits discussing the potential for St Patrick’s day to be a UK bank holiday demonstrates the importance of the nation’s saints in bringing people together. The hon. Gentleman talked about teaching our children to help them to understand their identity. Too often, the St George’s cross is misappropriated by people for nefarious means. It is our flag and we own it, just as the St Patrick’s cross is the flag of the hon. Gentleman, and it is important that we use and celebrate them. I think he will agree that by doing so, we can teach our children about their history and their future.

• 17 Mar 2025 · Unemployment: Stoke-on-Trent · Hansard source

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  14. What steps her Department is taking to help reduce levels of unemployment in Stoke-on-Trent.

• 17 Mar 2025 · Unemployment: Stoke-on-Trent · Hansard source

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  It is clear that the Government are making a serious attempt to remove the barriers preventing people with mental health conditions from entering work. May I issue an invitation to the Minister, and commend to her the work of the combined healthcare trust in Stoke-on-Trent and its peer support mentors? These are people who have overcome mental health challenges and now work with other people struggling with their own mental health to build confidence and opportunity. Whatever plan the Government introduce, work of this kind should be central to it, and I think that if they came to see it, they would be very impressed.

• 12 Mar 2025 · Community Theatre · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady for securing this debate. The Forum theatre in her constituency sounds like a venue that I should put on my to-visit list, because she is making such a great pitch for it. I am very lucky in my constituency to have the Rep theatre, the Mitchell arts centre, the work by Restoke at Fenton town hall and the Dipping House, which is a community venue running high-profile performances. Those venues bring opportunities for local people not only to engage in the arts, but to hear their stories reflected back in the stories of our community played out on stage. Does she agree that such stories are often overlooked by national production companies? If we do away with community theatres, we end up losing our history to what is commercially viable nationally.

• 12 Mar 2025 · Community Theatre · Hansard source

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  The other point that the Minister is making is that community theatres tend to solve the problems that drive the demand in those acute and expensive services in the first place, by giving people a social outlet.