(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberOur dentistry recovery plan will make dental services faster, simpler and fairer for patients, funding about 2.5 million more appointments. I was pleased to note that access is improving in my hon. Friend’s area, with nearly 10% more children seeing a dentist in June last year than in the previous year, but we are going further: the new patient premium that was announced last year is ensuring that more NHS dentistry will be provided, and since then, at the end of January, 500 more practices have said that they are now open to new patients.
(7 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberAnother week with absolutely no ideas for the country and absolutely no plan. The right hon. and learned Gentleman talks about the cost of living and the economy, but he never actually brings it up, and we all know why: because things are improving and we are making progress. Wages are now rising, debt is on track to be reduced and inflation has more than halved from 11% to 4%. He knows that our plan is working and that his £28 billion tax grab will take Britain back to square one. That is the choice: it is back to square one and higher taxes with him, or a plan that is delivering a brighter future with the Conservatives.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work on this issue. As I am sure he will appreciate, establishing a new bespoke institution is a significant endeavour, but I know that he has discussed it with the Foreign Secretary, who will look at the proposals in more detail. In the meantime, as he knows, our Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 has a raft of new measures to crack down on dirty money, and we will shortly publish our second anti-corruption strategy. We will set out ambitious plans for combating corruption both here at home and internationally.
(12 months ago)
Commons ChamberIf the hon. Lady reads the full transcript and the full findings, she will see a detailed explanation of what happened, which the commissioner described as a “minor and inadvertent” breach, given that at the time I was not aware of the policy that was being discussed with me, and corrected it later on and could have corrected it with slightly different language. She will also know that I am not the only person across these Dispatch Boxes that has had the same thing happen to them.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and the commission for carbon competitiveness for the report that he has worked on and highlighted, and the Government are absolutely committed to putting in place the necessary policies for UK industry to decarbonise successfully. As he will be aware, the Government recently consulted on addressing carbon leakage in particular, with a range of potential options. We are in the process of considering those responses, and will issue a formal response in due course.
(1 year, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberI appointed an independent adviser to fully examine the matter, establish facts and report back. That is the process that the Labour party called for, and that is the process that we followed.
My hon. Friend has a long track record of advocating for and implementing policies that increase our competitiveness and reform the supply side of our economy. His report was fantastic, and I look forward to meeting him to discuss those things further and help drive growth in this country.
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberAgain, we respect the decision of the Court today with regard to the referendum and we are getting on with the business of working constructively, collaboratively and in partnership with the Scottish Government to deliver for the hon. Member’s constituents. Indeed, the Ayrshire growth deal is investing over £100 million to make use of his region’s strong industrial heritage, potentially making more use of renewable energy. That is the kind of positive project that we should be focused on, and that is what we will keep on delivering.
I thank my hon. Friend for his comprehensive and thoughtful suggestions. As he acknowledged, I have committed to appointing an independent adviser on ministerial interests, and I very much look forward to studying his other proposals in proper time.
(2 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberWe are spending record amounts on supporting those who are disabled. Relative to the OECD, I think we are spending in excess of the average for other leading countries. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has a particular programme of support in place to help those who are disabled to move into employment; plans were announced earlier this year.
(2 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe hon. Gentleman is, of course, well informed on these issues. Our intention is that those people will benefit from the £150, which is why we are providing the discretionary fund. It has been sized with a sense of who those people are and how many they are. We will of course provide some guidance to local authorities on whom we would expect the support to go to, but ultimately they will be able to make those decisions for themselves.
I thank the Chancellor for an extremely welcome package, which is the latest step in a series of strong reactions to different crises throughout the pandemic and today. He also mentioned improving investment in North sea gas fields, which is very welcome. It is only a temporary set of solutions, however, that will dull the initial economic pain without solving the long-term problem of sky-high energy prices. What conversations has he had with the Energy Secretary, who is sitting next to him, about solutions to deal with those longer-term problems? When we can we expect to hear answers on such things as reforming the price cap and the wholesale energy market?
My hon. Friend is very thoughtful on such matters and has, rightly, long made the point that we must also ensure that the long-term energy market is working in all our benefit. The Energy Secretary, the Prime Minister and I have been involved in such conversations for some time. The Energy Secretary is working on a set of measures that will address many of my hon. Friend’s concerns and he should expect to hear from the Government soon.
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I know that it is a topic on which he speaks passionately. He will be pleased to know more generally about our record spending on R&D next year of just shy of £15 billion; the exact allocation is for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but there is a significant increase for basic research. Also, within the Department of Health and Social Care Budget settlement, there is about £1.3 billion to fund research for the National Institute for Health Research and Genomics England—both of which do a fantastic job, and I am sure will be working on treatments for us all for many years to come.
I welcome the Chancellor’s continuing commitment to sound money. It is particularly easy to forget, in a year when we have just seen an 11.3% cut in the size of the economy, that ultimately, all the money that we are borrowing must eventually be paid back by us as taxpayers. So I urge him not to lose that focus, and as soon as possible to get back to a sustainable basis. As part of that, could he say more about the Restart programme, which he mentioned earlier—a crucial thing to get members of the long-term unemployed back into work? How many people does he expect that to help, and what benefit does he expect that to have for our long-term, sustainable economy?
As ever, my right hon. Friend speaks fantastically good sense. He is right; we will need to return to a sustainable fiscal position, not least to build resilience for the next crisis or shock that comes along. We want to be able to react in the same comprehensive and generous way that we did this time, and that requires us to have a strong set of public finances going into it.
My right hon. Friend is right about the Restart programme, which will help, we hope, around 1 million of those who are long-term unemployed; it will be an exciting and ambitious programme. The Institute for Employment Studies has spoken very well about the evidence in favour of that type of high-quality, individual work-focused approach making an enormous difference in getting people back into work. If we can do that, we can reduce some of the long-term scarring that they will face. So I have high hopes for what that programme can achieve.
(4 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberProcedures are in place for any employee to talk to HMRC if they believe that they themselves have been the victim of fraud or that the company for which they work has not acted in a way in keeping with the guidance. I urge any employees of any company who feel that that has happened to take up the matter via the HMRC hotline, the details of which are online.
First, I thank the Chancellor for, as far as I can work out, subsidising me to go down the pub; that is very welcome indeed. I also thank him for the effect that his announcement about tourism VAT will have on hundreds of businesses and thousands of jobs in my constituency of Weston-Super-Mare. May I suggest to him that over the medium term, the best guarantee of jobs and employment has to be to have competitive businesses? I therefore urge him to consider, over the more medium term, sharpening our competition laws and opening up our market economy to tougher competition, as the best long-term guarantee of employment for everybody.