Business of the House

Debate between Gill Furniss and Mel Stride

Thursday 11th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The Leader of the Pack, indeed. I think my hon. Friend’s question is just a cunning attempt to see me in leathers, isn’t it? That is probably what this is all about. However, I should declare a personal interest in that, well before I had my mid-life crisis, I used to own and cherish a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, which, sadly, I no longer have.

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I know that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has taken a number of steps in recent years to support festivals of various kinds, particularly through the national Heritage Lottery Fund—specifically, for example, celebrating Shakespeare in Birmingham and Alfred Hitchcock in Walthamstow.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

The conflict in Kashmir is now in its 72nd year. This is a great concern to many of my constituents. Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on this important subject, so that we can try to stop this senseless loss of life?

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Lady raises a very important issue. She is right that, for very many decades now, there has in effect been a frozen conflict in that particular part of the world. As to a debate, this may be something that would lend itself to an Adjournment debate to which a Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister can reply.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gill Furniss and Mel Stride

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

It is important that the House fully understands how disguised remuneration works. If, instead of paying an employee their earnings in the normal way, an employer pays them by way of a loan via an offshore trust in a low or no-tax jurisdiction—with no intention of ever repaying the loan and simply to avoid national insurance or income tax—that is wrong. As for the matter of retrospection, that model has never, ever complied with our tax code. The loans to which I refer are persisting today, not retrospectively. That is why it is right—and only fair on those taxpayers who pay the correct amounts at the right time, and on our vital public services, which rely on that money—that we collect it.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

11. What further steps his Department is taking to regulate lending to small businesses.