Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Fiona Bruce

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The measures we have taken to increase the national living wage, combined with the increases in the personal tax allowance, mean that a single person on national minimum wage will be £4,500 better off in terms of take-home pay than they would have been in 2010.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

24.    The Chancellor has actually already answered my question. What assessment has he made of the effect on the lowest pay of meeting our manifesto commitment to cut personal allowance a year early, which in effect has almost doubled the tax-free allowance under the Conservatives?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right and we are proud of that record. From 2015, 1.7 million of the lowest paid will be taken out of tax entirely and a typical basic rate taxpayer is £1,205 better off in terms of tax paid than in 2010-11. As I have just said, when we combine that with the changes to the national living wage, that is a £4,500 a year increase in take-home pay—8% in real terms, the largest increase across any part of the income distribution.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Fiona Bruce

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The right hon. Gentleman and I do not share very much in common, but we do share the desire to maintain frictionless trade between the UK and the European Union to protect British businesses and British jobs. His preferred way of achieving that is through a customs union; the Prime Minister has set out an alternative plan that will ensure that we can continue to have frictionless trade with the European Union. I prefer the Prime Minister’s plan.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

T2. Four thousand current and former employees of Roadchef, many of whom are elderly, including some 150 who worked at Sandbach services, will be pleased that there has been success in their campaign for money that they are entitled to from HMRC, but can Ministers provide an assurance from HMRC that there will be no tax payable on these moneys going in or out of the Roadchef employee benefit trust?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Fiona Bruce

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

As I have said on many occasions previously when I have been asked to comment in the House on these judicial matters in Saudi Arabia, our judgment is that we achieve most by speaking privately but regularly to our Saudi interlocutors. Let me say to the hon. Gentleman that I do not expect Mr Andree to receive the lashings that he has been sentenced to, and I do not expect Mr al-Nimr to be executed.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

T9. What representations have been made by Ministers to the Government of China and to the Chinese ambassador in London on the human rights situation there, particularly with regard to the recent arrest and detention of a substantial number of lawyers and rights campaigners?

[Mr Hammond]

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr Swire), met human rights defenders last week to discuss these specific issues. We raise human rights issues regularly in our meetings with our Chinese counterparts. We also have a formal UK-China human rights dialogue—twice a year, with formal meetings—committed to nothing but the discussion of human rights issues of concern.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Fiona Bruce

Thursday 5th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that the published plans include a link from Old Oak Common via a tunnel round to the north of St Pancras station, connecting directly to the High Speed 1 line. It will be possible to run trains from the midlands and the north of England, directly through that tunnel, to the High Speed 1 network and onwards to the channel tunnel.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

10. What steps he is taking to assist local authorities to repair potholes.