Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee chair: Candidates' elevator pitch

RACHEL REEVES

“I know how to ask the right questions of ministers”

Following the outcome of the general election, Parliament will play a huge role over the next few years in shaping the course of our country. Select committees are going be to be more important than ever, allowing backbench MPs to put key issues on the agenda and help hold the government to account.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will be at the heart of many crucial issues facing the UK. These run from ensuring we have the best possible industrial strategy, to securing a sustainable, cost-effective energy policy, boosting the UK’s productivity performance, ensuring small businesses get the support they need, and considering the future of work in an environment of new technology and growing competition. 

There are a number of areas where I think the BEIS Select Committee can play a constructive role in developing policy, bringing together evidence, and holding the government to account.
First and foremost, ensuring we get the best possible industrial strategy and closing the productivity gap with countries like the USA, France and Italy. The committee should also contribute to understanding how to rebalance our economy and ensure prosperity is shared across the whole country. And that means thinking about how an industrial strategy can apply to low-productivity, high-employment sectors like retail and care, as much as to advanced manufacturing.

Second, we need to address sustainability. That doesn’t just mean how we manage the risk of climate change, but also how we take advantage of the opportunities presented by new green industries. 

Third, we must think about the changing nature of work. How do we support the self-employed and ensure that technology creates fulfilling, well-paid jobs, rather than replacing them?
Fourth, the committee is a powerful platform for shining a spotlight on diversity in our workplaces, including tackling the gender, BAME and disability pay gaps – areas where I think the committee could effectively shape the agenda.

Fifth, the committee should promote an environment of responsible business. From the banking crisis, to the misconduct at Sports Direct and BHS which the BEIS committee helped uncover in the last parliament, we can help expose bad practice and encourage the best. 

I want to get the BEIS committee out of Westminster, visiting local enterprise partnerships, businesses and workplaces across the country. It is important that MPs meet employers and workers, to understand the challenges and opportunities they face and to help ask the right questions of ministers and business leaders.

Before 2010, I was an economist at the Bank of England and at the British Embassy in Washington, and then at HBOS. In Parliament, I have served as shadow work and pensions secretary, and shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, and on the BIS and Treasury select committees.

This experience means I know how to ask the right questions of ministers and understand the importance of select committees giving a platform to MPs from all parties. I hope to have the chance to shape the debate and chair the committee at this important time for parliament and the country. 

Rachel Reeves is Labour MP for Leeds West, Yorkshire and Humberside

 

ALBERT OWEN

“I have gained a strong reputation on consensual working”

I am standing for the role of chair of the BEIS Select Committee as a proud and experienced backbencher who has, since 2001, served on a variety of select committees including Energy and Climate Change and – up until the time of the 2017 General Election – the BEIS committee.

I fully support the developing role and growing importance of committees in the work of Parliament. To me, select committees have a dual role, primarily to hold their relevant government department to account, but also in setting the agenda within that specific field.

In the last parliament the BEIS committee welcomed the government’s re-found commitment to industrial strategy. However, it is important that the vision of ‘an economy that works for everyone’ – where wealth and opportunity are spread across every community – is realised in policies. To date that has not been the case. It will be the duty of the BEIS committee in this parliament to get greater clarity on how the government’s industrial strategy green paper will work in practice.

As chair I would hold the government to account by:

• Shaping an industrial strategy that works for all – in particular rebalancing the economy in the interests of those who have not yet shared in its growth.
• Putting consumer rights at the top of the agenda – particularly with regards to energy and utility pricing.

Ensuring we have regional rebalancing – I would arrange BEIS committee meetings across the nations and regions of the UK, bringing Parliament closer to the people and making it more relevant to all parts of the UK.

Being an inclusive chair by encouraging committee members to decide on subject of inquiries and to work with other select committees on joint matters.
Interaction with other committees is greatly needed, not least following the vote to leave the European Union.

I have a strong interest in energy, there is a requirement to enhance this part of BEIS to ensure we have a fairer energy market and that consumers and small businesses are given priority along with larger companies.

As a member of the Speaker’s Panel and several APPGs, I regularly chair bills, debates and committees in an impartial and effective manner. I have gained a strong reputation on consensual working and I believe I have both the requisite skills, experience and vision to step up to the role of chair and take the committee forward and raise its status.

To me, becoming chair would not be a consolation prize, but a huge honour because the BEIS committee has an important role in this important and interesting parliament, and for that reason I am seeking the support of parliamentary colleagues. 

Albert Owen is Labour MP for Ynys Môn. He was a member of the BEIS Select Commitee from 2016-2017

LIAM BYRNE 

"I know what good government looks like and I know when ministers are falling short." 

How will Brexit Britain thrive in the new world we’re sailing into? That ultimately is the question at the core of the Business and Energy Department’s mission – and that’s the task the BEIS Select Committee must hold ministers to account to deliver.

Today, our country is simply not producing wealth in the way we could and nor do we share it in the way we should. This week’s productivity figures are, in the words of the BBC, “bad to the point of shocking.” A fall of 0.5% in the first three months of the year takes the UK economy’s ability to create wealth back below the level of 2007. 

As I’ve said many times, what the rest of the G-7 finishes making on a Thursday night takes us till the end of Friday to get done. Yet the tragedy is that firms are now sitting on nearly £600 billion in cash – that’s up nearly £130 billion since the crash.

Firms are simply not investing in the change we need; it is impossible to raise living standards and unless we transform our productivity and strike a fairer split of the proceeds of growth between the nation’s shareholders and the nation’s workers.

As someone who has worked in the engine room of government, I know every trick in the book. I’ve been a minister working in Number 10 during the height of the financial crisis. I’ve been a Chief Secretary to the Treasury. 

My book, Robbins Rebooted, written as a shadow BEIS minister, sets out what, globally, good industrial policy looks like.  Today, I am a governor of the Institute of Government. I know what good government looks like and I know when ministers are falling short. 

But just as important, I have a long track record of working across parties to build consensus about the way in which we can change our economy to work better and work at all. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Inclusive Growth (www.inclusivegrowth.co.uk) which I founded three years ago is now leading the debate across the OECD about how we write the rules of our institutions – our capital markets and labour markets, supply-side strategies like industrial policy and demand-side strategies by trade reform. In November our group will host the OECD’s Global Parliamentary Network conference in Inclusive Growth. 

As a proud member of SERA – the Labour pressure group that campaigns for a greener, more sustainable politics – I am deeply concerned with the question of how our green and pleasant land becomes this century’s pioneer of green energy systems. And as a Labour MP, I’m determined to see the protection of workers’ rights roll forward and the gender pay gap close.

Crucially as a former entrepreneur, I’m passionate about the power of enterprise to change our country for the good. My ground-breaking book, Dragons, retells our national story through the lives of 10 of our greatest entrepreneurs. It’s a testament to nearly 1000 years of British enterprise. And it comes with lessons from the past which are pointers for the future. And these are the sorts of benchmarks I will use to judge the strengths and weaknesses of Her Majesty’s Government.  

Liam Byrne is Labour MP for Birmingham, Hodge Hill and a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury

 

IAN LUCAS

“I’ve run my own small business employing a dozen people”

Before I became an MP I ran, alone, my own small business employing a dozen people. This was an invaluable experience for me as an individual – taking the risks and having the responsibility to generate enough income to pay the salaries of those who worked for me. Running a business is an experience that more people are taking on than ever before. They are doing so at a very challenging time. I would like to be chair of the BEIS committee to apply my wide personal experience, in the private sector, in Parliament and in government, to help address the challenges of the business world at an extraordinary time.

As business minister in 2009-10, I worked in the then Business, Industry and Skills department on the development of industrial strategy base on the “New Industry, New Jobs” policy which I believe has helped direct the course of government strategy since. The inclusion of the words “Industrial Strategy” in the title of the business department by a Conservative government reflects a welcome recognition of the crucial role of government in business, energy and climate change policy.

I have always enjoyed very close relations with the manufacturing sector, with my Wrexham constituency next door to the biggest aerospace site in the UK with major automotive sites nearby. I was proud to chair the Automotive Council in 2009 – bringing together business, trades unions and government – to help make the sector the most competitive in Europe, principles which have been applied subsequently in the Aerospace Growth Partnership. Wrexham, my home constituency, hosted for many years the UK’s largest solar manufacturing site.

I have a strong interest in regional economic policy and, in a changing political environment, want to work to forge business links and encourage investment within and beyond the newly created city regions, building on the success of the London Mayoralty. As inaugural chair of the APPG Mersey Dee North Wales region, I recognised the need to break down barriers to business and infrastructure investment and development. I am a believer in the need for radical change in private sector corporate governance to incentivise both long-term investment in business and jobs and more investment right across the UK, as well as fairer executive pay, and want to carry forward the excellent work of the previous chair, Iain Wright, in this area.

As an experienced member of the CMS committee, I have robustly scrutinised the work of government and challenged industry stakeholders on topics ranging from Sports’ governance and drugs to broadband infrastructure issues, the latter being central to the modern business economy, challenging major international businesses including BT and Virgin Media. The central strength of the select committee system, which I have worked in for the bulk of my 16 years in Parliament, is co-operation across parties and I am committed to consensus as an effective tool to hold government to account and help it work more effectively.

I want to foster close relations between business, representative organisations and trades unions and Parliament and government. This will help deliver a successful, competitive economic strategy and I want to have the opportunity to apply my experience to the work of the BEIS committee at this extraordinary, pivotal time. 

Ian Lucas is Labour MP for Wrexham

PoliticsHome Newsletters

Get the inside track on what MPs and Peers are talking about. Sign up to The House's morning email for the latest insight and reaction from Parliamentarians, policy-makers and organisations.