Connaught Income Fund

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Guto Bebb]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that intervention. I will come on to the way in which independent financial advisers have been badly treated under the regulatory framework in this regard.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the new body, the FCA, is as toothless as ever and that it is more likely to refer people to the ombudsman than to do anything itself? Will he urge the Government to change that?

[Guto Bebb]

I regret that I have to agree with my hon. Friend. The financial ombudsman service is too often seen as an option by the FCA when problems are brought to its attention. Unfortunately, I also have some comments to make on the performance of the ombudsman in relation to this issue.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

I believe there is a Blairite in Leicester. It might be too difficult for me to go up there.

It is sad that the key issues are being missed. We ought to be prepared to work across the House on opportunities to improve the offer available to local government. Whether Opposition Members like it or not, a good deal of work was done under the coalition Government and more is being done now to hand power down to local communities. That is a good thing in itself. It must be right to give significant economic drivers—London and the other major cities—the power to raise revenue and invest it more for themselves. Could we go further? I think we should, but we should recognise this as a very important first start.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Robert Neill]

I must be careful with the number of interventions I take, as other Members want to get in, but I shall give way to my hon. Friend.

[Bill Wiggin]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He referred to some excellent legislation introduced by the previous Government. There is no finer bit than the Localism Act 2011, but in Herefordshire we are seeing brakes put on the powers of local people by the local authority. Does he find that happening elsewhere?

[Robert Neill]

Sadly, it does happen. One of the disappointments I have had is, I am sorry to say, that local authorities have been slower than I would wish in putting in place up-to-date local plans. There is a good deal more movement on that than previously, and I hope that the political certainty we have since the general election will encourage local authorities to move forward on that. I hope we can do more to encourage the uptake of neighbourhood plans, which my right hon. Friend pioneered and which offer a chance to give granularity to local communities’ involvement.

We should look again at the sort of fiscal incentives we can offer local authorities to support growth. The new homes bonus is important, as is the ability of cities like Manchester to retain 100% of the uplift in business rates. Personally, I think we should aim by the end of this Parliament to make that the norm across the country, rather than the exception. Those are the things that we ought to be talking about, rather than re-running history.

We need to offer other incentives in the housing field. A great deal more needs to be done. There is an issue with skills in the construction sector. When I talk to people in the sector, they tell me that as well as the planning side, which we can tackle, we need the skilled trades—the carpenters and the bricklayers, the supply systems. The Government are tackling that through their apprenticeship schemes, and we need to push that forward with great rigour. We need to ensure that the planning system deals not only with housing issues, but with the need to supply aggregates and other materials that are critical to the building trade. I hope we all recognise that we should be ruthless in prioritising building on publicly owned land. Today we had—I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) on this—the first meeting of the London Land Commission, which is bringing forward something that has been mooted for a very long time.

I shall say one more thing about London. Devolution to other cities is welcome, but I hope that the Government do not think that means London has had enough devolution. I say that not only as a London MP but as joint chair, alongside the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed), of the all-party group on London. The truth is that London, as a major powerhouse, can and should have further fiscal devolution. I commend to hon. Members a thoughtful piece in today’s Financial Times by Professor Vernon Bogdanor, in which he writes that it is important that our major cities and powerhouses have devolved powers. I am very happy for them to have elected mayors, but the developer will ask not only “Have you got a mayor?” but “Can you give me a tax incentive? What breaks can you give to make it attractive?” I hope that we can build on that, too.

The Budget presents great opportunities for local government. Let me end by pressing one final reform upon my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. We have done a great deal to boost the structural arrangements and we have started on the right track in relation to fiscal devolution. I hope that we can do more to encourage the supply of housing through the various initiatives I have suggested. The final thing we need to do is deliver infrastructure planning more effectively. One thing we could do is have a serious reform of compulsory purchase legislation, which is overdue, and which I have talked about before. It will be the work of a Parliament, but it is worth starting now. I think we could achieve cross-party consensus on that, because delivering the underpinning roads, rail and other infrastructure will speed the sustainable delivery of housing, which is critical.

My constituency was once represented by Harold Macmillan. I can tell hon. Members that he would have been very proud of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and of this Budget.

Royal Bank of Scotland

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Gentleman points out something that appears in the Rothschild report—that the bank still faces a range of uncertainties, particularly regarding regulatory action from America. The price today therefore reflects that information.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I welcome my friend and parliamentary neighbour to her new role—she has a tremendous wealth of City experience. My constituents would like to know whether the Government expect the share price to go up, in which case they ought to buy some, or whether it will go down, in which case we should sell considerably more.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I thank my constituency neighbour for his question. As he rightly acknowledges, neither he, his constituents, the Government or the market have perfect foresight into whether the shares will go up or down. They will go up or down, and it will be a phased programme for reducing the holdings. Today we are announcing the decision point and the potential for an initial sale.