Noah Law MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Sept 2026 · Water Sector: Public Ownership · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend support our Labour Government’s initiative to build more reservoirs for the first time in decades?

• 14 Sept 2026 · Water Sector: Public Ownership · Hansard source

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  I welcome the fact that, under the Prime Minister’s leadership, the conversation on public control of the water industry has fundamentally shifted. We must no longer bury our heads in the sand over the question of public control of the water sector, but we owe our constituents honest answers, not easy answers. I am sure that there are few in this House who feel that they could credibly advocate that there is truly a cost-free form of nationalism out there—or for expropriation, as it more honestly should be called. Despite my background, I promise that I am very much not the “It’s all about the bond markets” guy in this case. I think we all know, however, that there is no free lunch at scale when it comes to the overall cost of funding the industry. At the same time, this industry should never have been privatised in the first place, and immense sums have been extracted from it over the years. Although some of the more recent investment expectations under this Government have begun to temper that, the extraction is still happening in egregious cases such as that of Thames Water. Let me briefly take Members through the four options for taking back control of the industry. Option one is a pragmatic approach to cost-free nationalisation, which says that even more stringent regulation would bankrupt the companies so that we could acquire them for nothing. The problem is that we can get as good of a deal with these companies as we like, but the British public would still have to foot the £100 billion-plus investment in upgrades over the next five years or so. Option two is that we pay the full whack. I think we all know that RCV is not a fair market valuation, but when the debt, which needs to be paid down or taken on, is factored in, the figure is up to the better part of £100 billion. Even then, there is the investment on top of that. Option three is to wait for the water companies to go bankrupt and then acquire them for next to nothing. Ofwat sees 10 of those companies with high financial risk, but the Government would still have to foot the infrastructure bill on a company-by-company basis—that would be cheaper, but slower. Option four is to start with what the British public actually want to see from its water system and have a democratic conversation about what they are willing to invest to solve the problem. We then work out the impact that that has on the value of the industry. The reality is that we have already had that conversation—we know what the British public want because they have been shouting it from the rooftops, often in wetsuits with surfboards in hand. I commend the work of the Good Growth Foundation, which has gotten to grips with some of the challenges and opportunities presented by the special administration scheme to take back control of the water industry for the public good, and enable us to take those profits and reinvest them into fixing our water system.

• 2 Sept 2026 · Global Tin Availability · Hansard source

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  I thank my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon)—the Tin Man —for securing this important debate. I would like to concentrate our focus, no pun intended, on the midstream and downstream applications of tin, of which Cornwall is the cornerstone and which is an important part of the supply chain, as well as on some of the blockers to securing the supply that my hon. Friend talked about so eloquently. That is not to say that I do not worry about the upstream mining opportunities, but it is fair to say that Cornwall’s riches are abundant on that front. Yes, there will be bumps in the road, and yes, there will be successes and failures, as there have always been in the relatively high-risk business of mining, but what I really worry about is securing midstream processing. In the case of tin, it is the crucial smelting process that will enable us to keep our supply chain onshore. I will give a brief nod to Cornwall’s other, perhaps less famous but equally important critical minerals—namely lithium and tungsten, which are under our feet today. There are many more, but it is fair to say that, as it stands today, the big three—if I can use that term—are tin, lithium and tungsten. It is imperative that, across each of those three mineral resources, where we now have absolute clarity and visibility on the security of supply upstream, we start to think about the next stage of building those supply chains. Practically, what do we believe the Government can do to ensure that that happens? Let me start with why the Government should be involved in such a high-risk business. The fundamental question is what market failure are we trying to resolve here? No matter what a person’s ideology or political perspective on this matter, we have to accept that there is no way to build a supply chain like this from scratch and just leave it to the whim of the market. The example of China, where there has been huge state involvement, is perhaps an extreme one, but there is no way essentially to build a domestic supply chain of this kind from scratch by simply leaving it to the whim of individual firms to go out and do the right thing. That is why the Government’s involvement is crucial. We are not trying to solve a trick here; it is basic economics that the Government have a role to play in ensuring that we nurse the development of those supply chain projects, from a nascent idea or from something that various firms are thinking about on the side but which is not core to their business. Those junior miners already have a proper job on their hands, and it is not reasonable for the Government to snap their fingers and expect the processing opportunities to come about. That is where Government support is really valued. We already have the Kernow industrial growth fund, and I am hugely grateful to the former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves), and to those in the Minister’s Department, for the work that they undertook to help us secure that investment, which is already being put to work on a pipeline of projects not just across this most promising of industries, but in many other Cornish industries besides. It will create those desperately needed jobs and help us to secure our industrial supply chains. What can the Government do? It is imperative that we involve ourselves wholeheartedly in the upstream development of those projects, work with credible industrial sponsors and source the financial capital needed. That is not to say that we should do it all alone. Private and public partnerships—which we are already seeing through partners such as the National Wealth Fund and the industrial growth fund—need to thrive to ensure that we create the conditions for success. Of course, there are many blockers, too, and it is important that the Department works with colleagues across the Government. For example, where there are challenges in getting a grid connection, securing appropriate transport links or unblocking planning barriers, we need a joined-up, cross-Government approach. I am proud to say that in Cornwall, the groundwork has been done. We have the visibility and the makings of a plan for how we might build that supply chain out. We have done the substantive work and the number crunching, and we have worked out what the capital need is and how much of it can be privately invested versus publicly catalysed. I ask that the Minister continues his work with us. The work has already begun, and I am incredibly grateful for his time and interest in this sector, but I implore him to bring colleagues from across the Government to meet the challenge and to help us secure the vital tin smelter and solve the energy cost issue, which is probably the immediate need. I implore him to go beyond that for the home-grown supply chain, in an industry in which I know Britain can succeed and Cornwall can be at the forefront. I implore him to work across Government to get this to the top of our agenda and make a success of it for everyone in Cornwall and Britain.

• 7 Jul 2026 · UK Aid Policy: Global Funding Trends · Hansard source

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  I do share my hon. Friend’s concern. In a time of constrained resources, there is a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to move everything into the multilateral space to get more bang for our buck but, as we have seen, it is not as simple as that. One does have to be wary when trying to make that money go further. I am glad that there are examples, particularly on the climate finance front, of where our Government have stepped up to ensure we maintain the agenda of the multilateral development banks. To sum up, we need to be serious about the potential need for a statutory footing for some of the reforms to the global debt system, which the UK is uniquely well placed to address. We need to push our multilateral development banks and development finance institutions to go further, to take more risk and do that upstream development work. In doing so, we need to mobilise the private capital that at the minute is unable to get to the world’s poorest countries.

• 6 Jul 2026 · Ceramics Industry · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister share my disbelief that the Tories continue to trot out the line that the Government are auctioning off wind power at a high price, while simultaneously neglecting to mention the levelised cost of electricity for thermal power, which is at least as high but takes a lot longer to deploy? Let us bust that myth once and for all.