PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Topical Questions - 29 January 2026 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

The Secretary of State has asked me to reply, because he is in China with the Prime Minister. In the last few weeks, our Department has concluded an enhanced trade deal with the Republic of Korea, published a critical minerals strategy and secured the Employment Rights Act 2025, which will see the biggest improvement in employment rights in a generation. At home and abroad, we are resolutely on the side of business, tackling barriers to trade, improving productivity, driving up growth and winning business for Britain. Growth is up, productivity is up and business confidence is up.

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting the Advanced Aquarium Consultancy in my constituency of Harlow, where they breed, grow and sell coral. I am not going to make any coral jokes, which will be a reef to everybody. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] What is unique about Advanced Aquarium Consultancy is the amount of energy it needs to use. What are the Government doing to support such businesses to bring down energy costs?

I was told that my hon. Friend was going to ask a question about choral farms; I was wondering how one farmed tenors, altos and contraltos. He makes a very fair point. As the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald), said earlier, there is a whole series of industries for which the cost of energy is a significant part of the problems they face. That is precisely the kind of work that we are engaged in as a Department and as a whole Government, and why it is so important that my hon. Friend is in two Departments and therefore able to bridge these issues.

I call the shadow Minister.

Yet again, the Business Secretary is not here for his departmental questions. This time, he is in China, trying to sort out the mess that is British steel strategy. He is burning through £2 million a day of taxpayers’ money keeping the Scunthorpe furnace going, the Chinese owners are asking for £1 billion in compensation, and decommissioning could cost more than £2 billion. His steel strategy is literally melting before its long-awaited publication. Given that when the Prime Minister negotiates, Britain loses, what is a good outcome here?

Honestly! [Laughter.] Sometimes my heart wants to fall through my body when I hear Conservative Members, who seem to have completely and utterly lost the plot, whether it is enormous, multibillion-pound demands for extra cash they are making or anything else. As I understand it, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) is a chartered accountant, but he does not seem to be able to count, while the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) seems to forget that when she was in government, the previous Prime Minister refused even to visit any of the steel companies in this country. We are determined to get a good outcome.

The hon. Member for West Worcestershire attacks the Business Secretary for going to China, but it is important that we engage with all the big economies in the world. China is our fourth biggest export market, and there are lots of businesses doing trade with China. She is absolutely right that we have to get a good set of outcomes for steel, which is why we will soon produce a steel strategy that will answer all her questions. At a previous session of Business and Trade questions, I said that we wanted to publish soon what we will do with our steel trade tariffs after July.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you can see why the Business Secretary needs to be here to answer questions, because I did not hear an answer to my question. I will try a different topic, which is also really important to our constituents. Sixteen million of them got their Royal Mail parcels and letters late this Christmas—my constituents have made many, many complaints. What has the Minister done to hold Royal Mail to account for its unacceptable level of service?

I think every single Member has heard similar complaints about service delivery. I am aware of people in my constituency receiving letters for NHS appointments after the appointment itself. The Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall), is meeting Royal Mail next week. We really need to ensure we get a better service across the whole country, and that is something we are absolutely focused on achieving.

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that all jobs provide a baseline of security and predictability, and she perfectly outlines exactly why that is important. The next step is to consult before setting regulations to get that detail. I would love to hear from her further about those experiences—she has done hard work in this area over a long period of time. Providing workers with guaranteed hours is crucial for security.

We have been working hard to secure good outcomes for many businesses in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. Walker’s Shortbread is doing a phenomenal job of exporting around the world. I know that because I have seen them in supermarkets in Auckland, Melbourne, Dubai and all over the place. Similarly, we are trying to get a good deal with the United States on whisky. We already have a good deal with India on whisky, and the Prime Minister and others will be talking about whisky in China over the next few days. I do wish the hon. Gentleman would be a bit cheerier. He has one of the most beautiful constituencies in the land. Whether it is the Lairig Ghru, the Rothiemurchus estate, the ospreys in Loch Garten, or Loch an Eilein, it is absolutely beautiful. He could just be a bit cheerier!

I thank my hon. Friend for the work she is doing to highlight the north-east’s role as a key part of our life sciences and pharmaceutical industries. She mentions Organon in her constituency. Its Cramlington site was singled out by the leadership of that business at the J. P. Morgan healthcare conference in San Francisco recently. In two weeks’ time, I will be opening Fujifilm’s biotechnology factory in Billingham in my own constituency—a £400 million investment in north-east biosciences. Our life sciences sector plan is backing the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry with £2 billion of investment and our UK-US deal is delivering zero-tariff access for UK pharmaceutical exports.

We have already had quite a bit of a discussion on business rates and I do not have much to add to that. I will just say that the health and beauty sector is not only a sector in the UK, but one that is vital to our new exports. I am sure the hon. Lady is aware of this, but because we managed to get tariffs down on beauty products in our free trade agreement with India, we have been facilitating lots of businesses going out to India as part of a trade fair to drive up our exports around the world. The whole of the sector has an opportunity to prosper when we manage to secure better free trade agreements.

Almost one in three pubs in this country is a tied pub. In Calder Valley, one such pub saw its payments to Stonegate jump from £800 to £1,700 a week, just days after the six-month probationary period ended. I welcome the Government’s support for pubs, but that pub will still be paying 17 times more to Stonegate each year than it will in business rates. Will the Minister look at those unfair charges, and what can be done in regulation?

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important case. He is my neighbouring colleague in wonderful Calder Valley, and our constituencies have some of the best pubs in the country. As he knows, the pubs code in England and Wales regulates the relationship between pub-owning businesses with 500 or more tied pubs, including Stonegate and its tied-pub tenants, and it aims to ensure that tenants are treated fairly. The Government are currently undertaking the third statutory review of the effectiveness of the code, and it may help to inform the review if my hon. Friend could write to me setting out the details of the example he mentioned.

When will the Government announce the results of their British industrial competitiveness scheme consultation, and provide the fabulous manufacturing industry in my constituency with some much-needed help towards its energy costs?

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that the British industrial competitiveness scheme will provide a significant discount to up to 7,000 manufacturing businesses of up to 25% of their energy costs. It will certainly help manufacturing businesses in his constituency and across the whole UK. I encourage businesses in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency to contribute to the consultation, the results of which we will announce in due course.

Recently I met with employees and union reps from SYNLAB, a thriving pathology laboratory in Abergavenny. It has been taken over, and now more than 30 jobs are at risk, meaning that these highly skilled opportunities in science, technology, engineering and maths could move out of my constituency. I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Kate Dearden), for meeting me earlier this week, but would she meet with colleagues in the Welsh Government and myself to discuss how we ensure that we keep these kinds of high-tech jobs in Wales, as it should not just be big cities that benefit from these STEM opportunities?

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend; it is great that she is a Member of this House because we hear her unambiguous support for small businesses up and down her constituency—not just in the big towns, but in the small villages, as she says. She is right that Wales is a good place for high tech. I am delighted that £1.4 billion of additional investment was announced at the Welsh investment summit in December, taking the total linked investment since the summit was launched to £16 billion. I am sure that that is going to deliver more jobs across south Wales in precisely the way that my hon. Friend asks for.

While I always enjoy the soliloquies of the Minister of State, it might be an opportunity for the Minister who has responsibility for Royal Mail and postal services to answer this question, given that I wrote to his office about the catastrophic failure of the letter delivery service throughout Shropshire. Would he agree to meet with me and my hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) to discuss resolving that issue?

I am very happy to do so. The right hon. Member will understand that Royal Mail is a private company regulated by Ofcom, but it is also a critical part of our national economic and social infrastructure. It is not acceptable if people are not getting their post, which is a message that I will deliver to Royal Mail in person next week.

The Minister mentioned the music venue levy earlier. He knows that my constituency has amazing music venues, so when will the first payment from that levy be made to those smaller venues?

I am afraid that I have changed job since I was pushing that levy very hard. The intention was for those payments to be happening fairly soon. I will ensure that the Minister for Creative Industries, Media and Arts responds directly to my hon. Friend. The levy is a really important opportunity. Every time someone goes to a big arena gig, there should be a £1 levy on their ticket. I urge all promoters, artists and concert arrangers to ensure that that money gets to small music venues.

The use of the toxic chemical paraquat was banned in the UK by the previous Labour Government in 2007. It is associated with the development of Parkinson’s and is deemed too dangerous for use on our own soil, but continues to be produced here and sent elsewhere, perpetuating harms that would not be tolerated at home. What is the policy on exporting UK-manufactured products such as paraquat to other countries?

I haven’t the faintest idea. I will write to the hon. Lady.

I thank the Minister for Industry for his engagement with Ceramics UK this week, meeting the organisation and ceramics companies from across Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, the west midlands and further afield. He will have heard from them about the importance of getting ceramics firms into the super- charger scheme. I was pleased to hear what he said about trying to extend eligibility, so could he give us an idea of when we might hear some positive news on that front?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for so clearly representing the importance of the ceramics firms in his constituency. I heard the message loud and clear from the ceramics industry this week about the impact of energy costs and, as I mentioned earlier, in the review of the supercharger scheme, I have asked my officials to look carefully at the opportunities for including the ceramics sector.

The Ajax armoured vehicle programme is currently under threat, but work is due to be completed at the Merthyr Tydfil factory next summer. Could the Minister confirm whether there are any conversations through the UK Defence and Security Exports office around securing an export package for the Ajax vehicle and guaranteeing work at the factory going forwards?

Obviously we would like to do so. As the MP for the next-door constituency, and having visited the factory myself, I am keen to ensure that we do so. A large part of this programme is a Ministry of Defence responsibility, and I will make sure that the MOD writes to the hon. Gentleman.

I return again to the steel industry, and thank the steel Minister for the meeting we held a few weeks ago. I was contacted by a couple of employers in Scunthorpe last week who expressed concern about recent reports of publicly funded contracts using foreign-produced steel. Could the Minister give an assurance that British-produced steel will take priority in such cases?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his positive and constructive engagement on this issue. I do understand the concerns of the steelworkers in Scunthorpe. I know precisely the projects he is referring to; they were not procured under public procurement rules, and the developers and tier 1 contractors involved have followed their own rules and commitments. However, it is the case that this Government want to see more British steel used in both public and other projects around the country, which is a matter both for developing steel capability and, potentially, for reviewing our procurement rules.

For the final question, I call David Mundell.

As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Latin America, I was interested to note that, after 25 years of negotiations, the EU has announced a trade deal with the Mercosur South American trading group. What is the position of the UK Government on a trading agreement with Mercosur?

It is certainly true that now that the EU has secured a Mercosur deal, having taken 25 years to do so, there is a danger that British business will be left out and excluded because there will be preferential rates for European businesses. It is something we are looking at very closely, and I hope to be able to update the right hon. Gentleman very soon. As he knows, I am passionate about trying to increase our exports to Latin America. I would just note that some companies, such as Inca Kola, were created by British firms.