Jack Rankin MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I recognise the hon. Lady’s passionate belief in equality, but I find that somewhat paternalistic and somewhat—I do not mean this dismissively—condescending. Poorer people have the same agency as anybody else. That is the point.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The stated aims of the Bill are really quite clear: as the previous Government and the new Government decided, it is a generational smoking ban, such that anybody who turns 18 after 1 January 2009 is prevented from ever purchasing tobacco in many different shapes and forms; I think that means people who have just turned 16, as we have just had a change of year, will be prevented from ever doing it. The batch of amendments that have been grouped together effectively undermine the fundamental nature of what the Bill is trying to achieve. Instead of moving to an incremental generational ban, it moves to a different system that alters the age at which tobacco products can be sold to someone, and does so on an indefinite basis. The generational ban does not remove any individual’s rights to buy cigarettes, because at the moment the people who would be prevented from buying cigarettes and other tobacco products cannot do so; their rights are not changed, but rather prevented from ever kicking in. These amendments move instead to a system whereby the legal age is changed such that it is 25 rather than 18. That will remove the right to smoke from seven years’ worth of people. Smoking has become a lot less prevalent among younger people, but there are seven years’ worth of people, aged 18 to 25, who can smoke at the moment, so if you passed this batch of amendments as they are, you would have seven years’ worth of people who effectively do have rights individually removed from them. However, that must be set against what you do to the collective. My concern with the principle of clause 1—I know we are not talking about the principle at the moment—is that it creates two tiers of adults, but the generational ban will work its way through and, by the time that generation passes, you will have created one tier of adults again, so my principal objection works its way through. This batch of amendments would keep that static. Yes, you would have two tiers of adults, because you would have people under 25 and people over 25, but you would not be infringing the right of the majority of people to go about smoking tobacco products throughout their lives. My general view of the Bill is that the generational smoking ban is the state overstepping the mark from public health into infringing personal liberty. However, I recognise the argument of both the previous Government and the new Government that smoking is fundamentally incredibly bad for somebody, so stopping people taking it up in the first place is in the realm of public health. In particular, even though the legal age is 18, we have people aged 15, 16 and 17 taking up smoking. One thing that the Bill setting the age at 25 might do is to stop those people at those ages from picking up a very bad habit indeed. On this batch of amendments in particular, I am trying to weigh up the removal of those rights of that seven years, set against whether we need such a draconian ban that we stop all adults smoking in the future. I have come to the conclusion, listening to the earlier debate under the chairmanship of Sir Roger Gale, that on balance I would support these amendments.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Yes. Amendment proposed : 18, in clause 1, page 1, line 13, leave out “shown on that document was before 1 January 2009” and insert “showed that the purchaser was not under the age of 25”.— (Jack Rankin.) This amendment is linked to Amendment 17. Question put, That the amendment be made.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I take the Minister’s point that in a society in which we are looked after by our NHS, to which we all contribute, which is free at the point of use and which I am sure all of us across the House support, when someone smokes and creates a burden on society through health or social care, that is the responsibility of us all. Where I think the difference lies is where we make a moral choice. I have heard different figures for the cost from cigarettes. There are different studies. I have heard numbers as low as £20 billion, but I think that today the Minister used £80 billion when talking about productivity. I think that should be calculated properly and appropriately with evidence, but if that is the cost, that is what we should levy in excise duty, at which point the people who impose that burden are the people paying it. That is where I would go, in principle. I think that if we go beyond that point, we are starting to make a moral decision on behalf of others.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I take the Minister’s point somewhat, but I think that there is a conflation of argument here about cigarettes and tobacco. If I may say so, the Minister alternated somewhat between the two. That may be the case with cigarettes; I have never been a smoker of cigarettes, but on new year’s eve I had a big cigar with my dad and brother, and the last one I had with them before that was at my brother’s 30th. I think that was a safe and pleasurable thing to do, and something that the state should not be infringing on. It is not just cigarettes that the Government are going after—it is all tobacco products.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I would like to press the amendment to a vote. Question put, That the amendment be made.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am well aware that that is the case. Part of the reason for that change in Government—although I do not want to overplay the significance of this singular issue—was that the incoming Government made an argument about the practicalities of enforcing such a law. Frankly, that is a significant concern of mine.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am sure I am winning some hearts and minds here.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I would like to support those amendments, if that changes anything, Sir Roger.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend knows that we disagree on the principle of clause 1, and my objection is primarily to creating two tiers of adults. One of the benefits of the Bill, as it is currently written, is that it is at least a time-limited measure. In other words, when that generation dies out, every adult will be one tier again. With amendment 17, however, we will effectively have two tiers of adults forever, so a 19-year-old will always—or until we change the law again—be able to drink but will not be able to smoke, and that will be set in stone. Does my hon. Friend agree that, even if she thinks we should create two tiers of adults for public health purposes, we should try to delimit that as much as possible, and therefore the principle of the amendment should not be accepted by this Committee?

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  On the civil liberties point, I disagree with my hon. Friend entirely, as she well knows. The point about civil liberties is that they need protecting not when the majority agree, but when the majority do not agree. The hon. Member for Winchester made the point that all the experts agreed. We listened to a cohort of experts who were from a variety of fields, but they were also all in some way paid for by the state and had some vested interest in the Bill—they were not retailers, consumers and so on— [ Interruption. ] We had one person out of 15. It was really not a well-balanced affair at all, so I disagree with that point.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I slightly disagree with the hon. Member for North Somerset. It seems to me that over time, we have been getting more consistent in our understanding of what an adult is. Obviously, I am quite a young man, but when I turned 16, I could buy a lottery ticket, I could get married without my parents’ permission and I could join the Army. I could then learn to drive at 17. Many of those have been regularised in the last few years, so the age for buying lottery tickets is now 18 and one cannot get married before 18 either. That is part of ensuring consistency about what an adult is. It may well be true that pharmacies have such technology, and I understand why, but most cigarettes are bought in small newsagents and I would not necessarily expect them to have the same technology. We should be supporting consistency in what an adult is—that is the direction in which legislation has been moving—and not creating added complexity.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Mathematical Sciences Academy · Hansard source

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  1. If he will make it his policy to establish an academy for mathematical sciences.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Mathematical Sciences Academy · Hansard source

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  In the last financial year, the Department underspent by nearly £600 million. The proposed national maths academy was due to cost just £6 million—1% of that total. People are disappointed by this cancellation. Can the Secretary of State explain whether he cancelled the academy because he does not value the role of our national academies, or because he does not think mathematical sciences are important?

• 7 Jan 2025 · Employer National Insurance Contributions: Charities · Hansard source

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  Now, as we are debating here, senior members of the Thames Valley Air Ambulance are working out how to cover the £130,000 extra bill for the jobs tax next year. The charity, an outstanding resource for Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, works exclusively for the NHS and saves it many times over what the jobs tax will raise. Thames hospice in my constituency will have an extra £300,000 bill; once we add in the effect of the minimum wage and matching the nursing settlement, it will have to find well over £0.5 million next year just to stand still. The Government say that they want to help the NHS, but their Budget is doing the opposite. Why are they doing this? Is it an accidental oversight or a misunderstanding of how the sector works? I call on them to rethink their approach and fix this.

• 18 Dec 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q8. Last week, the royal borough of Windsor and Maidenhead announced plans to hike council tax by an unprecedented 25%. That would require the Government’s permission. Does the Prime Minister agree that this outrageous request should be rejected, that the borough might be a candidate for accelerated local government reorganisation, and that my constituents should not be footing the bill for the persistent weak financial control and political failure locally?

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

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  The role of Opposition is to scrutinise the Government, but as a Member of Parliament I will always be willing to support changes in the law that my constituents have been calling for. This legislation represents an opportunity to start rebuilding our water infrastructure and improve water security for future generations, and we need to get it right. I want to help make sure that it is not simply cosmetic, or contains measures that do not require primary legislation or things that were already being progressed by the previous Government. I wish to offer some constructive thoughts. Like many Members, I have local issues. In the past week alone, I have been out with the Eton Wick Waterways Group to inspect the effluent overflow of Slough treatment works in the Boveney ditch, which I am working on with my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey), and with residents in the Boltons in Windsor to see the Bourne ditch filled with sewage in a residential area. The south-east has suffered disproportionately; in fact, 90% of serious pollution incidents were caused by four companies, with Thames Water—the main provider in my constituency—responsible for more than 17 last year. That is inexcusable. I welcome that Thames Water has finally announced upgrades to Slough treatment works following sewage overflows in Berkshire. They will include new tanks, new technology and a new pipeline. It now needs to be made to guarantee the planned improvement project at Slough, which will reduce future sewage spills and provide cleaner effluent entering the waterways around Eton Wick. I hope for the Minister's support to hold Thames Water to account on that. However, as others in this House have raised, such a change is a drop in the ocean since the entire infrastructure system is outdated and creaking. It needs long-term and sustained investment of tens of billions of pounds over decades, and we must face the reality that that will come only with increases to consumer bills. If we expect the public to tolerate price increases, we need a regulator that works. In my view, Ofwat’s determination to keep bills low for consumers has exposed short-term thinking that has led only to higher bills in future. With additional funding, water companies—particularly Thames Water—must show customers that the money is going directly to infrastructure upgrades. I am aware of my lack of time, Madam Deputy Speaker. I join with Surfers Against Sewage and River Action, which have been working with Members across this House to encourage the Government to make clean water one of Ofwat’s legal duties, and to give it the teeth it needs. I welcome the fact that this issue is being considered in the Chamber, and I hope that everybody in this House will join me in scrutinising Ofwat’s implementation of the powers granted to it in the Bill, hoping the Government will make clean water one of Ofwat’s legal duties and looking for Ministers’ support in holding Thames Water to account at the Slough sewage treatment works.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Ill Health and Disability Benefits · Hansard source

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  13. What steps she is taking to reform the health and disability benefits system.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Ill Health and Disability Benefits · Hansard source

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  To protect those in need and to deliver for taxpayers, we need to take tough decisions. Reforming health and disability benefits will require Ministers to make difficult choices, but so far the plans rely on reducing NHS waiting lists, which the Office for Budget Responsibility has said will have hardly any effect on economic activity. Are Ministers willing to make unpopular decisions to solve this issue and, if so, when?

• 2 Dec 2024 · Migration and Border Security · Hansard source

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  Villages such as Datchet in my constituency are bearing the brunt of the fact that 6,000 more illegal economic migrants are staying in asylum hotels since this Government came into office. These single adult males represent something like 2% of the village’s population, so what assessment has the Home Secretary made of the extra pressures on vital local services, particularly GPs and dentists? What assurances can she give my constituents that they will not miss out on vital appointments as a result of the sudden demographic change?

• 20 Nov 2024 · Asylum Seekers: Hotel Accommodation · Hansard source

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  Yesterday the Minister finally replied to my letter after my Datchet constituents were given next to no notice about single adult males being housed at the Manor hotel. She said the numbers housed there could reach as high as 85 people, and she gave no indication about how long they would be there, in breach of her manifesto commitment. Will she now give my constituents a concrete timetable for when the misuse of the Manor hotel will end?

• 5 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  The theme of this debate is public services, but there has been a distinct lack of discussion from Government Members about what delivers the finances necessary to fund those services; this is the Budget, after all. The answer is simply the productive economy, and small businesses in particular. The Government talk a good game about wanting better funded public services, and each and every one of us in this House would be hard pressed to find a constituent who disagreed, but the Government’s measures—particularly the jobs tax in the Budget, but also their wider agenda in the Employment Rights Bill, through which we are moving to French-style labour laws—are an attack on where that money comes from. We must always remember that every single penny spent by the British state has to be earned in the private sector. Chucking money at an unreformed public sector while ballooning public sector pay, and doing that on the back of the productive economy and small business, shows a distinct lack of real world, private sector experience among Government Members. My first memories are of my parents going to night school on alternate evenings to get the qualifications they needed to set up their small business. Their aim was simple: to give my brother and me opportunities that they could never have dreamed of. In doing that, they paid hundreds of thousands of pounds—I ended up with quite a prosperous upbringing, I admit—into the Government exchequer. They created apprenticeships and skilled jobs in a tough part of urban Greater Manchester. They not only transformed our lives but improved the lives of children around them, and created opportunities for local people while paying for public services through their taxes.

• 5 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend. That absolutely shows, as we see from the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson). Putting up taxes unsustainably may mean adrenaline into the public sector from an injection of cash, but the medium and longer-term result will be lower growth, which will mean that public services are just getting a larger slice of a smaller pie. It is clear to me that the tax burden is higher than is necessarily sustainable. Tax rises now will not necessarily flow into greater revenue, particularly in the medium term. I ask the Government to check their approach, support small businesses first and foremost, and focus their public service efforts in the first instance on productivity reforms.

• 24 Oct 2024 · Horseracing · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to take part in this debate under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) for securing this important debate. I am very fortunate that in my patch I have two world-renowned racecourses—the Royal Windsor racecourse and Ascot racecourse. There is very rarely a better place to be on a Monday night than Royal Windsor—hon. Members are all very welcome. Ascot is obviously famous the world over, particularly for its annual five-day Royal Ascot event—an event that bucked the national trend this year by seeing an increase rather than a decline in attendance, which is a credit to all involved. For those who heard my maiden speech this week— I cannot remember the name of his constituency, but the Member for Aintree clearly did— [ Interruption. ] I apologise to the hon. Member for Liverpool Walton (Dan Carden). Ascot racecourse was founded in 1711, and that course now has 330 years of history and has hosted some of the world’s greatest races. Royal Ascot has welcomed some of the greatest racehorses from countries all over the world, including the United States, Hong Kong and, probably most significantly, the Australian super-mare Black Caviar, which is often considered one of the greatest racehorses of all time. She only left Australia once, and that was to compete in Britain at Royal Ascot’s diamond jubilee stakes in 2012. It is not only equine royalty that Royal Ascot attracts. A few speakers have made the point about Ascot’s soft power. We get prominent royal figures from Dubai, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and ambassadors from the Commonwealth and indeed the world over, which makes horseracing an important tool for soft power for this country. The event showcases the best of Britain and the best of my Windsor constituency on the world stage, and is broadcast in more than 180 territories internationally. As well as the prestige that comes with competing in Ascot’s group 1 races, it is obviously a significant financial contributor in terms of increasing a stud horse’s value, which remains unrivalled in international racing. As some hon. Members have already pointed out, as a result the racing industry generates more than £4 billion per year and employs more than 85,000 people. Royal Ascot alone welcomes 270,000 spectators across five days and at peak time employs more than 4,500 staff. The visits to the racecourse make up 10% of national racing attendance and their economic importance to my constituency and the surrounding areas cannot be understated. In fact, in 2014 Deloitte assessed the economic impact of Ascot racecourse, just for that event, at £68 million in off-course expenditure through food, accommodation and fashion, all of which drives money into our local economy and into London, our capital, which hosts many punters during those events. For years, the horserace betting levy has helped to fund the grassroots of horseracing. It is not just about Ascot at the top of the tree—this all filters down into grassroots sports. It increases animal welfare and raises the profile of the sport. At its best, that reciprocal, symbiotic relationship improves the sport and, in turn, the takings of betting companies. However, a big risk we highlight to the Minister today is that an increase in financial checks on customers risks pushing a lot of gambling underground. Less money would be reinvested in the sport, and ultimately there would be less money for the Treasury. We should of course be doing what we can to ensure that a flutter on the races remains an innocent recreational sport, and we need to give support to the people who need it, but I would urge the Government to tread carefully and acknowledge the unintended consequences of further regulation, particularly as problem gambling statistics for racing are at low levels compared even with some national lottery products. Any further introduction should be frictionless and should involve working closely with relevant stakeholders, whether that be the BGC or the BHA. Understandably, countries that have seen heavy regulation tend to see an increase in black market betting. PwC found that increased state regulation of gambling in Norway led to 66% of all gambling there taking place on the black market, and similar conditions have created huge black markets in Portugal, Bulgaria and Sweden.

• 24 Oct 2024 · Horseracing · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is quite correct to say that. I am a big cricket fan and effectively we have seen what big money overseas can do to the heart of a sport that originated in this country and gives us a lot of power, and we must be really careful about what we do. Obviously, we should also acknowledge that if people are pushed to the black market, there will be even fewer barriers to entry there, which might have a bad effect on problem gambling overall. So, we are at an important crossroads for British horseracing. As bookies’ takings, which fund the levy, continue to decline, it is important that the Government’s approach to gambling respects individual liberty, and drives growth rather than limiting it. Just to expand on that—