Subsidy Control Bill — House of Commons, 2021-12-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
John David Penrose (Conservative, Centre-right): I rise to speak to the amendments in my name and that of my hon. Friends. I start by saying that there is a great deal to support about this Bill, and I think I mentioned that on Second Reading. This Bill is vitally important, not just because it is required under the terms of our leaving the EU, but because it does some very important things to how the future subsidy control regime will be applied. We have already heard that the central set of principles is crucial. The notion of pre-approval and allowing things to be done at pace to create a much less bureaucratic, much more nimble, much more predictable regime is overall hugely to be welcomed. I hope everyone will be able to sign up to that The Bill also means that I hope we will be able to move to a principle where we have as few exemptions and exceptions to our subsidy control regime as possible. It is essential that we have a subsidy control regime that does not allow loopholes through which—I am sure the Minister would never dream of doing such a thing—some less principled future Government might try to drive any sort of measures through that might involve either cronyism or economic distortions of any kind. It is essential that there are minimal loopholes and that the Bill covers as evenly and as predictably as possible the entire economy It is no accident that this country has had one of the lowest levels of public subsidies granted in recent years under the guise of the EU’s regime. For the free marketeers among us and those who care about economic efficiency and productivity, that should be a source of pride, and we should not be trying to overturn or change that in future. In fact, I made that point in the Government-commissioned competition policy review that I was recently asked to do, which has a chapter specifically on subsidy control that says that less is definitely more. It is far better to do less in the area and therefore ensure more space for companies and business leaders to compete on their organisations’ abilities and the quality of their products and services rather than on whom they know in Government and, as a result, how much rent and subsidy they can wring out of their political connections. It is essential that we remember that, adhere to it and persist with it as much as we can That is crucial, because the Bill done right ought to be a major piece of post-Brexit dividend that we should seek to achieve as a result of leaving the EU. If we get it right, we can have a faster, more nimble and more economically rational way of dealing with subsidies. We can keep the best of the objectivity that everyone said we had under the EU but do it in a faster, more digitally enabled and generally more modern, less bureaucratic and less covered-in-red-tape fashion. Such a post-Brexit dividend is here for the taking. It is waiting for us to pick it up off the table, provided that we can do it correctly My concern—this is why I tabled amendments 1 to 8 —is that while the Bill does an awful lot of that right, we may be about to make one critical error. We have already heard the points about transparency made by the SNP spokeswoman, the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman). It is all very well to pre-approve and to have a more flexible, faster and more nimble approach, but that will work only if we have an army of armchair auditors who can spot when something is going wrong and say, "Hang on a second. This is a marvellous principle, but it isn’t being adhered to in this case." Without transparency, hon. Members, people in our constituencies and the journalists who pore over such things will not be able to do so until it is too late. In a digitising economy, speed matters, too. If it cannot be done before it is too late—or at all—companies will be driven out of business. Once all that is left is rubble, the jobs are lost and the investment is forgone, it is too late to come back two years later—or even eight months later in fast-moving sectors—and say, "We’re terribly sorry; we got this wrong." We need to be able to move rapidly and pick up things up as soon as possible. That is why I tabled the amendments.