Toby Perkins MP: speeches

Speeches

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

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  Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

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

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  I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and congratulate him on his new appointment. He is obviously very critical of the Government’s attempt to alleviate the appalling financial legacy that his party bequeathed to the nation. Does he support the extra investment for the health service, and is it just the ways of paying for it that he is against? Or is he actually opposed to it?

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

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  Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

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

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  I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his success in getting this extra money for our national health service, which is incredibly needed. He spoke about the extra GPs that he is taking on. The doctors’ surgery in Staveley in my constituency has told me that surgeries in the most deprived communities see patients two or three times a year more than those in wealthier areas. Will he say something about how we ensure that the extra GPs we get look in particular at those more deprived communities that have greater health inequalities and need more appointments?

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

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  I would like to start by saying how happy I am, after 14 years in this place, to finally be responding to a Budget from a Labour Chancellor. That that Labour Chancellor is also the first woman to hold the position is a source of tremendous pride to me, and to many of us on the Labour Benches. This is a Budget that will begin the long task of national repair and renewal after 14 years of steady decline. If anyone was left in any doubt about whether the Conservative party might have some useful insights to offer, this debate should have ended that misconception once and for all. First, we had the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey), who was the Conservatives’ Minister for common sense—no wonder they lost. Then we had the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat), who they got rid of because he was not right-wing enough. We know that the Conservative party will not be able to help us, so we must crack on alone, and the truth is that we have a huge amount of work to do. The right hon. Member for Tonbridge did say one thing that I agreed with: that in order to get growth, we need private sector investment. Of course we do—prior to coming into this place, I ran my own business, and this whole Budget is predicated on getting growth and working with the private sector to do so. All our plans for energy development require consistency so that the private sector can invest. Nobody disputes that, but what we also need is public services that work. As someone who has employed people for most of the last 25 years or so, I know that you do not get a good workforce if your staff are living in poverty. It is not progressive politics to say that we are supporting people to be in work if they have to visit the food bank on the way home. We need an economy that works for everyone, and this Budget strikes the right tone. We have a proud history of coalmining in Chesterfield, and its legacy can be found to this day. I am very pleased that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has ended the historic injustice of the mineworkers’ pension scheme, with more than £1 billion being returned to 112,000 former coalminers—the right decision. I am sad to say that I have the dubious honour of representing a constituency that, under the Conservative county council, was dubbed the pothole capital of the UK. We are very glad in Derbyshire that the Government will put in an extra £500 million to tackle the scourge of potholes, and I hope that Derbyshire county council will now start filling in Chesterfield’s countless potholes. The increase in the national minimum wage, or living wage, is another policy that will support economic growth. If we give money to people who have nothing, they will spend it in our economy. If huge inheritances are passed on, as the Conservatives want, that money is not spent in the same way in the economy. There are issues for some family farms, and those need to be explored, but the vast majority of farmers will not be affected. Conservative Members mentioned James Dyson, who is a brilliant inventor, but why did he suddenly find such attraction in buying up huge amounts of farmland? They should pull the other one. The Budget makes a start in getting our country back on the road to growth, repairing the appalling damage that has been done to our national health service, supporting the army of carers who also support our NHS and, finally, ensuring that at the very bottom of our economy we start to make work pay.

• 30 Oct 2024 · COP29 and International Climate Finance · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for giving way a second time. I have just returned from Colombia with a delegation from the United Kingdom at the biodiversity COP. I can report to her that there was huge support from across the world for the definitive action that the Government are taking and the leadership they are showing on nature and biodiversity. That should give her all the more confidence to make a strong case to those going to Baku.

• 30 Oct 2024 · COP29 and International Climate Finance · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) on securing this important debate. We have already heard that the UN has identified a need for £600 billion of additional private finance if we are to tackle climate change. Does my right hon. Friend the Minister agree that in the UK, due to the expertise of the City, we are uniquely placed to lead on that? Does she also agree that the UK delegation to COP in Baku must make an ambitious new goal for private investment in the climate a major priority?

• 16 Oct 2024 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Some of us were hoping to get an opportunity to ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology about the steps his Department is taking to improve diversity and inclusion in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics workforce, but we were not able to do so, because the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) did not turn up to ask the question on the Order Paper. I know that you, Mr Speaker, and your staff have been at tremendous pains—

• 10 Oct 2024 · Sport: Team GB and ParalympicsGB · Hansard source

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  I absolutely support the work that this Government and previous Governments have done to support elite athletes in the Olympics and in other ways; it is incredibly important. Does my hon. Friend agree that the inspirational work done by our Olympians motivates a whole generation of new people to get into sport, and supporting elite sport is a tremendously important way of driving up participation?

• 10 Oct 2024 · Sport: Team GB and ParalympicsGB · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is talking about the post-London Olympics legacy. One legacy is that the amount of physical education taught in in schools went down by 45,000 hours under his Government, and the gap between the number of state schools and independent schools doing team sports rocketed. Is the real legacy of his Government not that school sport was massively diminished, and should he not actually be apologising for their record in that regard?

• 10 Oct 2024 · Sport: Team GB and ParalympicsGB · Hansard source

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  Let me begin by drawing the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will want to join me in sending condolences to the family of George Baldock, the former Sheffield United player who, shockingly, was found dead on Wednesday at the age of just 31. He was a fantastic footballer, who played many times for Greece and was involved in two promotions to the premier league. His death will leave a huge hole for all who supported him, and particularly, of course, for his friends and family. It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate, and to reflect for a while on the amazing success that we enjoyed in the Olympics. I say well done to everyone who represented Great Britain in both the Olympics and the Paralympics. Success in the Olympics requires preparation, and I have no doubt that our team were hugely inspired by our Prime Minister, who remembered to bring a cagoule to the opening ceremony when none of the other world leaders had thought to do so. That may have been the key moment that secured their subsequent successes. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on tennis, I want to take this opportunity to bang the drum for tennis, and to focus a little on the future horizon. At the elite level, British tennis has seen huge successes in 2024, including its success at the Paralympics. Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid won gold in the men’s doubles and completed the career golden slam, having won all four of the grand slam events—and now the Paralympics. Alfie Hewett also took home the wheelchair men’s singles silver medal, and Andy Lapthorne and Greg Slade won silver in the quad wheelchair doubles. If there were a prize for the most memorable non-medal-winning moments of the Olympics, the remarkable comeback of Andy Murray and Dan Evans in the first round of the Olympics tennis against Japan, prolonging Andy Murray’s amazing career in the process, would have been a strong contender. This year saw Andy lower the curtain on what has been a fantastic playing career. To win three grand slams and 49 main tour events, while sharing an era with the three greatest players ever to engage in the sport, is a tremendous achievement, and I think he will be remembered as one of the greatest athletes in our country’s history. This year also saw coming-of-age moments for Jack Draper, who reached the US Open semi-finals, and Katie Boulter, who won her first WTA 500 event in San Diego and is now comfortably established among the world’s top 40 players. There were exciting signs for the future, with Mika Stojsavljevic winning the US Open girls’ singles and Mimi Xu reaching the girls’ top 10, Hannah Klugman continuing to establish herself at the top of the girls’ game, and, towards the end of the season, a remarkable run of Challenger victories that took Jacob Fearnley into the world’s top 100 male players. Away from the elite level, tennis continues to buck the trend of falling participation that is seen in many sports. Some 5.6 million adults and 3.6 million children play tennis every year, and the strong growth in participation in recent years means that tennis is the third biggest traditional sport in terms of participation. It is also one of the most gender-equal sports, with females representing 42% of adults and 49% of children who play every year, while a range of formats including wheelchair, learning disability, visually impaired, deaf, para-standing and walking tennis provide opportunities for people with a range of impairments to take part in the sport. There is growing evidence that nothing does more to boost longevity than playing tennis. According to a recent study of people in Copenhagen, those who play tennis live an average of 9.7 years longer than the overall average, outperforming badminton, football, cycling, swimming, and jogging in that regard. You will be glad to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that these opportunities to enjoy a long and healthy life are also available to Members of Parliament: the thriving APPG on tennis gives them an opportunity to play every week over the summer months here in Parliament. However, it is important for opportunities to play tennis not to be denied to anyone because of where they live or how wealthy they are, which is why the park project launched by the Lawn Tennis Association, in partnership with the Government, is so important. It involves a nationwide investment of more than £30 million by the UK Government and the LTA Tennis Foundation to transform park tennis courts across Britain and open up the sport to many more people. The LTA’s aim is to bring back into use 3,000 courts across Britain spanning 250 local authorities, and to increase participation, with a further half a million people playing tennis in parks annually, and with more than 50% of the sites being transformed in areas of highest social deprivation. The new tennis courts at King George V Park in Staveley are one example of courts, previously in a state of disrepair in a deprived community, that have been brought back into use, and I was delighted to join my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies), who was then the lead on leisure in Chesterfield Borough Council, in giving them their very first use last summer. This programme’s facilities are so transformational that it really needs to be extended by this Government, and I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to work with the LTA on ensuring that it is extended in the upcoming Budget. Expanding access to tennis is a key objective for the LTA, but it has always been my view that allowing people across the country to watch top tennis players in action is a key part of expanding participation, and I must again express my disappointment that professional tennis in this country continues to happen largely in London and the south-east. The Wimbledon championship is the world’s most iconic and well-known tennis tournament, bringing in an estimated £56 million annually and looked forward to by players, fans and sports reporters every year. Britain currently holds main tour men's events at Queen’s Club in west London and in Eastbourne, and women’s events at Eastbourne, Nottingham and Birmingham. That had already meant that there were no men’s main tour events north of west London, but now the LTA has announced that the main pre-Wimbledon women’s event will also be at Queen’s Club, thus down- grading Birmingham and Nottingham. It is true that the LTA has held a GB Davis Cup week, very successfully, in Manchester for the last two years, but that is not a replacement for a main tour event. Among our competitors, such concentration of events is unusual. France holds men’s main tour events in Montpellier, Marseille, Lyon and Metz as well as in Paris; Germany holds them in five cities; and the United States does so in 11. The picture is similar when it comes to women’s events, with the other major countries playing in many different cities. From 2025 onwards, Britain will hold only one event north of London for women and none for men. That is not acceptable. While I recognise that it may be more difficult to run events profitably away from London—although the recent Manchester Davis Cup sell-out was the biggest crowd ever in Britain for a tennis match—I urge the Government and the LTA to sit down and find a way to ensure that professional tennis is not seen only in London and the south-east. The other big issue for tennis will be the finalising of plans for some lasting legacy from Andy Murray’s career. Andy’s mother, Judy, has been battling for years to create a new tennis centre near Dunblane, and it was hugely disappointing when, owing to the many obstacles placed in the way, she recently announced that the plans were being shelved. It is crucial that a lasting legacy is created to mark Andy’s amazing career, and to ensure that the increased exposure that his success brought to the sport is not lost. Tennis is in good heart, Madam Deputy Speaker, and it is good for your heart as well. There is more to do to ensure that the sport is enjoyed at all levels throughout the country, and I hope that the Government and my hon. Friend the Minister will do their bit to keep it growing.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Farming and Food Security · Hansard source

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  We all understand that my right hon. Friend has inherited in his Department a panoply of different crises, from the crisis facing our farmers to flooding. He is absolutely right that trying to get the environmental land management scheme to achieve what was originally intended for it is one of the biggest issues facing Britain’s farmers. I appreciate it is very early days, but what is his sense of what the major failures are right now, and what might we look forward to in his plan to sort them out?

• 8 Oct 2024 · Farming and Food Security · Hansard source

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  We know that the previous Government made a whole raft of commitments that there was no way of paying for, so there is no credibility to the suggestion that the right hon. Gentleman secured something from the discredited Treasury that he was under. The key question is: if that money was so desperately needed, why was it not being spent?

• 12 Sept 2024 · Environmental Land Management Schemes · Hansard source

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  It is a great pleasure to see my hon. and right hon. Friends in their places on the Front Bench. The environmental land management scheme approach was a really innovative idea from the previous Government, but its implementation has been a shambles and it is leaving far too many farmers desperately worried about their future. Can my hon. Friend tell me any more about what the Government have inherited and the urgent steps that they will take to support Britain’s farmers to farm in a more natural way in the future?

• 5 Sept 2024 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  The shadow Minister is such a generous man. He is listing all the commitments he made, but we all know that his Government made £22 billion-worth of commitments that they had no idea how they would pay for. Why does he not tell the truth?

• 5 Sept 2024 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  I do not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s description at all. We are part of a United Kingdom, and we all make contributions and we all receive benefits. The people of Scotland were given an option to vote to leave, and they chose not to. I know that is a result he bitterly regrets, but that is the choice the people of Scotland made. It is absolutely true that Scotland produces a large amount of renewable energy and of energy more generally, and it also gets many other benefits in many other ways. That is why I suspect the number of Members on the Benches next to him is so much smaller than it was previously, because people have recognised, overall, the benefits of being part of this great Union. As I say, we should benefit from the great natural riches that his country is endowed with, but the previous Government’s approach withheld those opportunities. What today’s Bill offers, alongside the astonishingly successful round 6 auction, is a strong signal that the new Government are taking the generation of renewable energy far more seriously. It is imperative that the sector knows it has a Government who are a reliable partner, without constant knee-jerk changes in policy: not a pushover or a Government who give away taxpayers’ money thoughtlessly, but one setting out a fair and reliable basis for firms to invest. Alongside the imperative to reduce emissions and bills, GB Energy can be crucial for our economy. I am pleased that the Government have announced that GB Energy will be headquartered in Scotland. Scotland is proportionately the leading nation in the UK for renewable power. However, I caution the Secretary of State not to ignore the contribution of coalfield communities such as those that he and I represent. In north Derbyshire and across the north midlands and south Yorkshire coalfields, communities that were created to power the nation with coal from the dawn of the industrial revolution should be central to the Government’s thinking in this arena. This Government have laid down demanding targets to double energy generated by onshore wind farms, triple solar power and quadruple offshore wind. Those objectives are a vital part of decarbonising the grid by 2030, but we should not be in any doubt about the challenge they represent. There are still many legitimate questions about the operation of this new enterprise and where the balance will sit between being a conduit to private investment and being a provider in its own right, but criticism of the Bill from Opposition Members has been wildly overblown. The truth is that this small Bill is introducing the company—it is not the entire energy policy of this Government—and much of the criticism has been fanciful. However, I would be interested to know from my hon. Friend the Minister how the new company will work across Government to unlock the planning system while taking communities along with us. I am extremely pleased to speak in support of this Bill, and I will be voting for it with great enthusiasm. Yes, there is lots more work to do, but this Government have made a damn good start.

• 5 Sept 2024 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. We heard the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) suggest a few moments ago that things were going wonderfully under the Conservative Government, but does my right hon. Friend agree that the Climate Change Committee warned a few weeks ago that only a third of the emissions reductions that we need to achieve the 2030 target are currently backed by a credible plan? Is the reality not that we need a step change? Thank God we have a Labour Government to deliver it.

• 5 Sept 2024 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  On that point, will the shadow Minister give way?

• 5 Sept 2024 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  Will my right hon. Friend give way?

• 5 Sept 2024 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald). I congratulate him on that excellent speech. In particular, when he speaks of Charles Kennedy, who is still tremendously missed in this place, he speaks of a political giant we all reflect on very fondly. It is also a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law), who I also congratulate on an excellent speech. I speak today in support of a Bill that has the potential to be a real game-changer in the fight to decarbonise our energy supply. I applaud my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on his determination in bringing this Bill before the House so soon after the general election. It is hugely encouraging that the Government have got straight on with the business of setting up GB Energy, following hot on the heels of the excellent auction that we heard about just this week. GB Energy’s task—working hand in hand with the private sector to power an ambitious expansion of renewable energy—is a crucial one. The task of decarbonising our energy supply could not be more urgent. Scientists have made it clear that the warming of our climate due to carbon emissions is having disastrous consequences that are already being felt. We are not heading towards a climate emergency: we are already living in one. We should reject the voices that say that China’s growth means that anything we do is futile. That is an excuse never to take the steps needed to decarbonise. Of course, there is a role for international negotiation and bringing pressure to bear on other nations, but we do that more convincingly when our own house is in order. That is why I am so pleased to support GB Energy. We have also seen the danger of being reliant on other nations for our energy security. Energy supply chains are increasingly fraught with geopolitical tensions and, in the case of Russia’s senseless invasion of Ukraine, outright conflicts. That lays bare just how vulnerable we can be when we cannot provide for ourselves. Make no mistake, energy security is national security. We should benefit from the great natural riches this country is endowed with, yet the last Government’s inconsistency of approach detracted from the investment in renewable energy that we need. From the ban on onshore wind to the downgrading of feed-in tariffs and the disastrous, failed contracts for difference round 5 auction, the renewables sector has not previously had a consistent partner to maximise the potential for renewable energy.

• 5 Sept 2024 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the right hon. Member give way?

• 3 Sept 2024 · Contracts for Difference · Hansard source

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  It is great to see my right hon. Friend in such ebullient spirits. I have to say that his enthusiasm can only be matched by that of the industry, which today has roundly welcomed the decision that he took back in July to increase the size of this auction. That demonstrates that, if we have a Government who are consistent, positive and ambitious, the industry will respond and will back their plans. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that the great start that he has made will be continued with a consistent plan under this Government, so that businesses can invest for the long term, knowing that the Government will always back them?

• 22 Jul 2024 · Border Security and Asylum · Hansard source

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  In a few short days, my right hon. Friend has simultaneously saved the taxpayer a tremendous amount of money and got more people in the Home Office working on getting the system sorted than in previous years. I congratulate her on that. Does she agree that it is entirely in keeping with Labour values to ensure safe refuge for those fleeing war zones, and, at the same time, to ensure that those who are not entitled to be here are repatriated, saving the UK taxpayer money?