Last week was another full one with many things to tell you about. I sat on what is referred to as a Delegated Legislation Committee (DL Committee). Delegated Legislation happens when a particular point of legislation is dealt with in committee rather than the floor of the House of Commons. It is an example of some of the less visible but important work MPs do. A DL Committee consists of a mix of politically balanced members in line with the full House of Commons and whilst some can take a while, many take less than 30 minutes as they are largely uncontested pieces of law. This particular one was “The Local Government Finance Act 1988 (Non-Domestic Rating Multipliers) (England) Order 2022”, which sounds particularly dry but was especially important. This was the enactment of part of the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement and generates significant reductions to business rates bills, particularly for shops and pubs, and increases some costs for distribution warehouses like Amazon.
I had a number of interesting meetings including on the future of Railways; Defence technology applications and UK Space programmes (The North East Space Leadership Group is doing some fascinating work on space communications connectivity). The Northern Research group are developing our agendas to support the North and met with the Prime Minister to update him on our priorities.
I did the ITV ‘Around the House’ political programme on Thursday before speaking in the House of Commons in Transport Questions where I encouraged the Buses Minister, Richard Holden, MP for the nearby North West Durham Constituency, of the need to review services between places like Cornforth and Spennymoor.
The big news on Thursday, of course, was the announcement of which were the successful levelling up bids. I was incredibly disappointed that our bid to invest in Newton Aycliffe was not successful this time round and I will be looking closely at the feedback to decide what to do next. It was good that on a spend per person basis more money came to the North than just about anywhere else, but I do believe the relative spend should have been even more significant and will share this with the Minister when we sit down to discuss this.
On Friday we had a day in the House of Commons Chamber debating Private Members Bills. Most bills that become Acts of Parliament are public bills, which means they apply to everyone and affect all people in the same way. Most public bills are Government bills, proposed by a Minister. Public bills proposed by an MP who is not a Minister are known as Private Members’ Bills. If you recall, I told you previously that at the start of each Parliament there is a draw to see which MPs get to bring Private Members Bills first. I spoke in two that were particularly good to see progressing. The first was led by Stuart McDonald MP of the SNP and related to a statutory right of Leave and Pay for parents with babies receiving Neonatal Care. The second was led by the Conservative MP, Virginia Crosbie and related to the Allocation of Tips and will generate a statutory right for employees to directly receive tips, in businesses like hospitality and not retained by the business.
This week I met with the Rail Minister, Huw Merriman MP, to discuss the Leamside Line along with MPs from across the House of Commons and others. These discussions were as a result of my request to the Minister in the Chamber previously. We discussed the significance of the line for the North East economy and the recognition that it had opportunities to be delivered in stages. We provided the Minister with the outline case for the Washington Metro Loop and encouraged delivery of the Ferryhill Station scheme.
This Friday I am also hoping to welcome a Minister to Aycliffe Business Park and will tell you more about this next week. As always, if you want to get in touch just call the constituency office on 01325 790580 or email at Paul.Howell.MP@Parliament.uk