Robert Syms: I tend to participate in these debates, because I think they are very important, and when we look at the Government’s record and certainly this Chancellor’s record, it is sometimes best to look back at the last three financial statements and Budgets. Twelve months ago, the Chancellor produced an autumn statement where the predictions were that Britain would have a major reduction in GDP...
Robert Syms: I congratulate the Government on bringing forward this statutory instrument. The programme set out by the Lord Chancellor for managing the prison population is proportionate and sensible. There is a big backlog and delays in court because of covid; having 10,000 foreign nationals in our prisons is very expensive, and if we are to make place for others, this seems a logical place to start. I...
Robert Syms: I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Looking at the housing market, we know that the problem is when people feel insecure. Generally speaking, those who own their own home or who are in council housing feel secure, but the private rented sector, because it is focused on very short-term lets, causes a problem. A one-year tenancy is not a...
Robert Syms: Having chaired the Select Committee on the first phase for 20 months, I always privately had the view that Old Oak Common was a more sensible place to stop, because the Elizabeth line runs straight through Old Oak Common and can deposit people from Heathrow into the city. As for anything to do with Euston, it is a very small site and horrendously expensive. However, the logic of the railway...
Robert Syms: It is a pleasure to be here and to see the Treasury Minister on the Front Bench for the debate. I appreciate that many of these matters are dealt with by the Bank of England, but that is part of the reason why I will raise a number of points. I voted against quite a lot of lockdown, with one of the strong reasons being that if 7 to 9 million people were sitting at home and, at the same time,...
Robert Syms: Interest rates are a very blunt instrument and I am sure many people are worried. I hope that if inflation picks up trajectory and goes down, we will start to see interest rates top off and that some with fixed mortgages—many have quite long fixed mortgages—will feel much more relaxed. To pay tribute to the Chancellor, he has, with the lenders and in a very competent way, produced a very...
Robert Syms: Poole is the second largest natural harbour in the world and it has a long history of fishing, particularly in the north Atlantic. Indeed, the Dorset accent can sometimes be picked up in the Newfoundland accent, because so many people from Dorset ended up going to that part of Canada. We no longer fish that distance, but we still have a live fishing industry, mainly now in under 12 metre...
Robert Syms: That is a good point; there is an element of gold-plating here. My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), who chairs the all-party group on fisheries, made some important points about how we seem to be trying to solve a problem where there is not really one. This is rather like the British disease where members of a club start getting excited when one starts talking...
Robert Syms: The fact that we will get our own waters back in a phased way may well be necessary, because we need more boats and we need to attract people into the industry. One of the weaknesses we have is that it is a hard life being a fisherman, and many people do not want to go into the industry.
Robert Syms: I have one or two constituents in Poole who lost their jobs because they were in companies owned by Russians who were sanctioned, and they have found it difficult to have an orderly wind-up because banks run a mile from loaning those businesses a reasonable amount of money to sort them out. I know of one situation where people have not been able to get P60s as the business cannot get money...
Robert Syms: May we have a full debate on the World Health Organisation? There are a number of issues about which many of us are concerned: the potential international treaty, the potential regulations and the discussion about international covid passports. The House ought to have an opportunity to express itself on some of these issues.
Robert Syms: Although electric cars are important, the EU, under pressure from the German car industry, has put back the date when petrol combustion engines will be banned. What discussions have we had with our industry about whether it might be appropriate to do that here, given that that may give some of our industry difficulty in continuing to manufacture in the future?
Robert Syms: I call Nick Fletcher to make some brief final comments.
Robert Syms: We now have the Front-Bench wind-up speeches.
Robert Syms: Order. I remind Members that the petition being debated relates indirectly to a claim against a higher education institution. The legal case is ongoing and therefore sub judice. Mr Speaker has agreed to my exercising the discretion given to the Chair in respect of resolutions on matters sub judice to allow limited reference to the findings of the county court in that case. However, I ask that...
Robert Syms: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder), who set out not only the problems but some of the solutions to the crisis in NHS dentistry, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) reinforced his arguments. If one is honest, there has never been an ideal NHS system. Before covid, people still needed a degree of luck and persistence to find an NHS...
Robert Syms: We now move on to the Front-Bench speeches.
Robert Syms: I call Amy Callaghan. You can speak seated if you would be more comfortable.
Robert Syms: Nobody should be terribly surprised that we face difficult economic times if a Government lock an economy down for nearly two years; if they pay 7 million, 8 million or 9 million people to sit at home; if they provide grants to keep companies in business; and if they intervene on an unprecedented level. Indeed, the intervention to get us through the worst pandemic since 1918 was almost on the...
