CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT

HOUSE OF COMMONS

REPRESENTATIONS

MADE BEFORE THE

BACKBENCH BUSINESS COMMITTEE

BACKBENCH DEBATES

JACKIE DOYLE-PRICE

ALEX CUNNINGHAM and DAVID MOWAT

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Representations made before the

Backbench Business Committee

on Tuesday 29 April 2014

Members present:

Natascha Engel (Chair)

Mr David Amess

Bob Blackman

Oliver Colvile

John Hemming

Ian Mearns

Pete Wishart also attended, pursuant to Standing Order No. 152J(7)

Jackie Doyle-Price made representations

Q1 Chair: So, Jackie, you want the Chamber for three hours for a debate on Gurkha pensions and other outstanding grievances.

Jackie Doyle-Price: That is right. I think everyone knows the affection and esteem that the public have for the Gurkhas as part of the British Army. Obviously, the issue of the Gurkha settlement was a very live one in the last Parliament. Thankfully, it has been quite quiet on Gurkha issues during this one, but since 2009 and the rights of settlement, more and more Gurkhas are coming to the UK, and the issue of Gurkha pensions is becoming more and more live. In the last year, the Gurkhas have been actively campaigning and intensifying their campaign. There was a hunger strike at the back end of last year, which led the all-party group on Gurkha welfare to hold an inquiry into these outstanding issues.

We have held a number of public evidence sessions, and we have published a lot of evidence on our website. We are currently putting together a report for the Government with some recommendations, but we are anxious that all Members of Parliament should have the opportunity to feed into that via a debate, because lots of Members have Gurkha communities in their constituencies and views on the issue. I would very much like to have a three-hour debate on these outstanding issues so that everyone can contribute, but also because there has not been a debate on Gurkha issues during this Parliament, and we probably should have one.

Q2 Chair: We are unlikely to have any time to allocate until the middle of June. I know that these issues are very important, but is it time-sensitive?

Jackie Doyle-Price: It is not time-sensitive, to be honest. In fact, I would rather wait and have the Chamber than have the debate more promptly.

Q3 John Hemming: In a sense, you have partly answered the question. As you probably know, the Committee disappears during Prorogation and has to be re-elected, which takes some time. Obviously, people will have to come back. We actually have a lot of items to allocate at the moment, but you are saying it is the Chamber or nothing. You are saying that if you were offered either 90 minutes or three hours in Westminster Hall, you would refuse. Is that correct?

Jackie Doyle-Price: It definitely needs a three-hour debate. I would prefer to have the Chamber.

Q4 John Hemming: But you wouldn’t refuse Westminster Hall.

Jackie Doyle-Price: No.

Q5 Bob Blackman: Briefly, the normal guidance for our Committee is that for a three-hour debate you would need about 15 speakers. At the moment, you only have six people down, plus yourself and two or three others, so you are a bit short of that number. Now I have no doubt that you could get the extra speakers, but given what John has just said, in the balance it would be helpful to have a fuller list of speakers so that we can give the application due weight. So one point is, please add to the number of speakers.

If you were not able to add to the number of speakers, would you accept a shorter period of time-say, a 90-minute debate-in the Chamber, if we had to combine different debates to allow everyone their chance?

Jackie Doyle-Price: I am fairly confident that I can get the additional names. Obviously I put the application in during recess, so I did not bother colleagues too heavily when trying to get names. But message received and understood-I will gather more names.

Q6 Chair: That is really helpful. Also, if there is no time constraint, that might be something for our successor Committee to look at. That gives you plenty of time as well. Thank you very much.

Jackie Doyle-Price: Thank you.

Alex Cunningham and David Mowat made representations

Q7 Chair: This is an application for a Chamber debate on the effects of carbon taxes and levies on energy-intensive industries. For the record, could you read the motion you are proposing to table?

Alex Cunningham: "This House welcomes the measures recently announced in the 2014 Budget statement which reduce cost pressures created by the imposition of carbon taxes and levies; notes that without such measures there is a serious risk of carbon leakage; notes too, however, that UK manufacturing still pays four times as much as compared with main EU competitors thanks to taxes such as the carbon floor price; and calls on the Government to build on the measures announced by producing a strategy for energy-intensive industries as recommended by the Environmental Audit Committee in order to produce a fairer and more efficient system which delivers genuine potential for investment in a low-carbon economy."

Q8 Chair: I will ask the question I asked previously. We will not have any time to allocate in the Chamber until the middle of June at the earliest, so is there a time sensitivity to this?

Alex Cunningham: There isn’t particularly-May would have been better than June, but June will be fine. A new report is coming out jointly from the TUC and the Energy Intensive Users Group, which is scheduled for late May, so it would be good if the debate could coincide with that, as that will contribute to the whole debate about the need for a strategy for energy-intensive industries.

Chair: Okay. That is helpful.

Q9 John Hemming: You are asking for six hours in the main Chamber, knowing from the previous question that time is scarce, because it is quite difficult. Your motion is not necessarily one that a lot of people disagree with. Would you refuse any offer of time in Westminster Hall?

Alex Cunningham: We would like it to be in the main Chamber, but we would be prepared to go for three hours rather than six. Having said that, we have got 16 people’s names, cross-party, and many others, including Select Committee members, would contribute to any debate, so we are confident that if we were having a longer debate there would be sufficient interest. We agree that people may not disagree with the motion, and I do not think that a vote would be necessary, but we want to get the issues on the record and to press for the strategy.

Q10 John Hemming: On that basis, you could do three hours in Westminster Hall, couldn’t you?

Alex Cunningham: We would rather do it in the main Chamber. We have never had the opportunity in the Chamber to debate what energy-intensive industries are. There are 30,000 businesses employing 0.5 million people. We think that it is important enough to be in the Chamber itself.

Q11 John Hemming: I accept that point, but what happens in the Committee is that it sits and looks, and thinks, "Well, we have so little time"-it has to juggle all the various priorities. If you are saying no to Westminster Hall, you will not even be considered for Westminster Hall, because you are saying Chamber only. If it is Chamber only, it is Chamber only, but then perhaps you will not get anything.

Alex Cunningham: My preference and that of the group bidding is definitely for the Chamber, because they want to have the vote and the motion.

Q12 John Hemming: They will refuse Westminster Hall.

Alex Cunningham: Yes.

Q13 Chair: It is helpful to know about the three hours. Most of the time, we have to split the day, just because we are so limited on time.

Alex Cunningham: I understand that. It is just that we have never had such an important group of industries discussed on the Floor of the House, particularly in the light of what is happening with the energy crisis, the competition in America, and of course the new crisis that we potentially have with energy and the Russian question.

Q14 Oliver Colvile: I chair a thing called the all-party parliamentary group for the built environment. I have done a couple of inquiries into the green deal. One of the issues that certainly needs some discussion is how to get industries and businesses to be better on insulation, rather than spending a fortune on that too. I presume that would be an area that you would also seek to try and cover in the debate.

Alex Cunningham: Almost certainly. We want to cover the responsibility of the industry as well as the responsibility of the Government. Industry has invested tremendously well. In Teesside, for example, where my own constituency is, we have the reserve project for carbon capture. That is because the industry is there, and we want to highlight all those issues and how Government should be working better with industry in different ways in order to address the carbon issue.

Q15 Oliver Colvile: So the aim is to highlight the issue, rather than actually push the Government into doing something?

Alex Cunningham: We want to encourage the Government to develop a specific strategy in relation to energy-intensive industries and bring them into line with other countries in Europe.

David Mowat: The thrust of what we are trying to achieve here is that there are 600,000 to 700,000 people working in what are loosely called energy-intensive industries. As we decarbonise our economy, it is important that we look after those 700,000 people. That embraces a number of different strands. It embraces shale gas and the degree to which we are acting unilaterally on carbon taxes, as was said, vis-à-vis our European colleagues in other countries, and the competitiveness of a very important segment of the country’s industry, particularly to the north and the north-east. It brings in things like insulation, as you mentioned, but that is the thrust of what we are trying to cover.

Q16 Oliver Colvile: I am rather surprised it is as low as you say, because I have got a nuclear dockyard in my constituency and I would have thought they would get involved.

David Mowat: Since you raise that, it is a slightly misleading term to say energy-intensive industry, because all industry requires energy. It is a continuum; there is not a discrete number of them at one end. The figures for those employed in it vary from 500,000. I have used 900,000 previously, which the TUC has used, but it is a lot of people and a lot of jobs, and we need to keep them.

Q17 Ian Mearns: If I can be of help, I remember that back in the ’70s, ICI alone on Teesside used to use 11 million British thermal units of gas per month at their Teesside plant, so that is an energy-intensive industry.

Alex Cunningham: Sadly, I am that old. I worked in the gas industry for many years in public affairs. That is true, but it is not just a case of people burning energy; it is actually energy for feedstock. For example, in the agricultural industry, when they create fertilisers, it is actually raw gas that creates the product.

Chair: That is fine. Thanks very much. We are coming to the end of our Committee; it will be the successor Committee that looks at this. We will put it on our very long list. Thank you for bringing that to us.