Economy Update
Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Baroness Penn
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I have remembered the noble Baroness’s second point about increasing benefits next spring in line with September’s CPI inflation. I can confirm that that is the Government’s intention and I think that would be costed by the OBR in the fiscal forecasts already in place. The other spending will be paid for by borrowing, but it is a one- off cost.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
My Lords, time is now up for this business.
Inheritance Tax: Cohabiting Siblings
Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Baroness Penn(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I am not entirely sure that that is the Government’s motivation for disagreeing with my noble friend Lord Lexden. The difficulty is around drawing the line between the legal status of marriage and civil partnership and the other status that cohabiting family members may have. It may not necessarily be around the less benign implications of drawing the line in a different place.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has now elapsed. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Colgrain, that there was not time to take his question.
Special Educational Needs
Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Baroness Penn
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, as I said in an earlier answer, we have started a programme of visits by Ofsted and the CQC, working with local areas to understand the experience of children and young people, and helping local areas prioritise and meet their needs where, for example, there might be delays in producing education, health and care plans. The Government have also made more resources available: £4.6 billion has been made available to councils to respond to the pressures of Covid, including funding for children’s services.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has now lapsed. I apologise to Baroness Hussein-Ecce, as we did not have time for her question.
Adult Learning: Union Learning Fund
Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Baroness Penn
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, in addition to Unionlearn, the European Social Fund has a lot of provision in place to make sure that those who are hardest to reach for skills training access it. That provision continues until 2023 and will then be replaced by the UK shared prosperity fund, where the Government have committed to matching the existing level of funding going into the future.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, we are all delighted to hear of the additional money going into FE—one wonders how that will pan out. However, as the noble Baroness already said, the Union Learning Fund reached people who are not otherwise reached by learning—250,000 of them, currently. Can the Minister say why this decision has been taken at this stage? Could it be seen as a politically motivated attack on trade unions and their members across the country, who are the very people who benefit from this tremendous fund?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I can reassure the noble Baroness that it is absolutely not a political decision. Many Conservative Governments have supported Unionlearn over the years with over £70 million of funding. The decision was taken based on the fact that we want to increase the scale and reach of our offer. The £2.5 billion national skills fund is illustrative of our ambitions in this area. One of the limitations of Unionlearn is that it is reliant on a trade union presence in the workplace, which can often be more focused on larger employers. For example, it does not necessarily reach unemployed or self-employed people, start-ups, tech, and many more small and medium-sized businesses that do not have union representation.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill
Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Baroness PennWednesday 18th November 2020
(4 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 View all United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 150-II Second Marshalled list for Report - (18 Nov 2020)
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
I am so sorry; I did not get the message. Who wanted to speak after the Minister?
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
I am sorry. I call the noble Lord, Lord Fox.
NHS: GP Vacancies
Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Baroness Penn
Baroness Penn (Con)
The noble Baroness is correct in her references to the measures taken in GP surgeries to control infection. Those are incredibly important during a pandemic. However, telephone and video consultations can be a triaging process to allow people to have face-to-face consultations for the appropriate amount of time with the appropriate primary care worker.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, who have not been able to put their questions.
G20: Debt Cancellation
Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Baroness Penn
Baroness Penn
The noble Baroness is correct that we need to ensure that the support we give to these countries actually flows into supporting social and health programmes that help to tackle this virus. That is why one of the conditions of the debt service suspension initiative is that the financial headroom it creates for those countries is actually directed towards those services.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
I call the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings. No? In that case, I call the noble Lord, Lord Singh of Wimbledon.
Baroness Penn
We will absolutely ensure that our commitment to 0.7% of GNI supports economic recovery in the countries most affected by this pandemic and also draw on the expertise and skills of British businesses and investors across the world to support jobs.
The Deputy Speaker
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked, and we now move to the second Oral Question.