Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Brandon Lewis
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)
The number of housing starts is up 6% over the last year and the number of completions is up 21%. Both are now at their highest level since 2007.
Graham Evans
Since 2010, there have been more than 4,000 new housing starts in Cheshire West and Chester, including 2,500 in Weaver Vale alone, and the number of housing starts is up 91% compared to 2009. Will my hon. Friend remind the House who was Housing Minister when the figures were so low?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a good point. As we have discussed on the Floor of the House before, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), the shadow Housing Minister, was the Minister who oversaw the lowest level of house building since, I think, about 1923.
Housing Benefit and Supported Housing
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Brandon Lewis(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Brandon Lewis
We have been clear about protecting the most vulnerable people in our society; I will come to that in a moment. The hon. Gentleman is right. We need to continue to make progress in cracking down on fraud and error, and in local government as well—something that the Labour Government did nothing about.
Graham Evans
My hon. Friend is making some powerful points. Will he remind the House that the Government are issuing £800 million to be allocated to local authorities for discretionary housing payments, and that a further £40 million was announced in the autumn statement for supporting the vulnerable, particularly for refuges for beaten women?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a strong point. It is rare that I disagree with him, but the figure is slightly better than he says. There is £870 million coming through. He highlights the Government’s clear focus on these issues.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Brandon Lewis
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
14. What steps the Government are taking to support community pubs.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Brandon Lewis)
We are providing £200,000 to Pub is The Hub and the Plunkett Foundation to help communities and community pubs to diversify and take over their local pubs. We have also doubled small business rate relief until 2015 and cut national insurance. In addition, the Chancellor scrapped the previous Government’s beer and alcohol duty escalator and reduced beer duty in two successive Budgets, for the first time in many decades.
Graham Evans
In rural constituencies such as Weaver Vale, pubs are at the heart of community life. Does my hon. Friend therefore welcome the outstanding work done by the Pub is The Hub programme to ensure that our rural pubs can provide more services, and will he ensure that its good work can continue?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Pub is The Hub is an excellent organisation. I was delighted to be able to put funding into it and to see it help pubs to diversify, whether it is through local libraries being part of the pub, or pubs offering school meals or providing lots of other services for their local community and making themselves the absolute heart of that community. It is a good organisation and long may it prosper.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Brandon Lewis
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
T8. Following analysis by SPARSE Rural, it has come to light that Cheshire West and Chester council received £273 core Government funding per head; that neighbouring Liverpool council received £635; and that Manchester city council received £584. Will the Minister commit to investigating whether Cheshire West and Chester council is getting the support it needs to provide the services it is bound to deliver?
Brandon Lewis
I admire my hon. Friend’s work in championing his area, and I am pleased he highlighted how Liverpool council has among the highest spending powers per head in the country. I am happy to meet him and representatives from his council, but I would point out, as we said in a debate a couple of weeks ago, that an independent report in the House of Commons Library this year showed that the funding settlement was fair not just to north and south, but to rural and urban areas.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Brandon Lewis(11 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Brandon Lewis
As the hon. Lady outlined, I had a very good visit to Somerset and saw some of the plans that people have for how they want to take things forward to save money, which is exactly what many fire authorities across the country should be looking at. It is also why Devon and Somerset will be receiving £2.7 million of capital money in 2013-15.
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
20. What steps he is taking to encourage sensible savings by local authorities.
Finance (No. 4) Bill
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Brandon Lewis(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Graham Evans
As a father of three young children, I realise that we are all in this together, and we need to make those sacrifices. The Government’s maximum benefit cap of £26,000 is all to do with that.
Brandon Lewis
Following on from the intervention about growth and families, since the Budget one company in Great Yarmouth has made an acquisition and an investment of hundreds of millions of pounds that will create more jobs. Another company, Seajacks, has received investment from a Japanese company of hundreds of millions of pounds, which will allow expansion and create more jobs, which will help those families who need that money and families of pensioners. Does my hon. Friend agree that that sort of work in the Budget, which facilitates such growth, will move our country forward and ensure that we get out of the mess that we inherited from the previous Government?
Graham Evans
Absolutely; I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that contribution. At the end of the day, the Budget tells the world that this country is open for business because private sector investment and wealth creation through businesses such as those that my hon. Friend mentioned are critical to the success of the whole nation, not just young people and hard-working families, but pensioners.
Thanks to measures such as the clamp-down on tax loopholes, the very rich will pay more. There is an ideological divide: the Labour party wants the rich to pay symbolically higher rates of tax; the Budget ensures that the rich actually pay more tax. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the independent Office for Budget Responsibility agree that the 50% rate raises next to nothing. Indeed, having a higher income tax rate than communist China indirectly reduces tax revenues as it fundamentally undermines the competitiveness of the UK economy, discouraging inward investment and risking a brain drain of our brightest talent.
Graham Evans
The hon. Lady makes a valuable point. I have huge respect for her and for everything she has done on child poverty, but if the 50% tax rate was so important to right hon. and hon. Members of the Opposition, why did the Labour Government introduce it only a month before a general election? Why did they not introduce it in 1997, 1998, 1999 or any of those 13 years? They left it until their last month.
Brandon Lewis
Bearing in mind what the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) said, was my hon. Friend as surprised as I was yesterday when we voted on a Labour new clause that would have cut the rate to 40%?
Graham Evans
My hon. Friend makes a good point, which the Prime Minister made yesterday at the Dispatch Box.