Class 4 National Insurance Contributions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Jeremy Lefroy

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I hear what the hon. Lady says, but this is a measure that will affect only people who have a share portfolio worth typically more than £50,000. It is a measure that affects a relatively small number of people. If we want to fund things such as social care with additional cash injections, we have to raise the money from somewhere. I am sorry if that is a hard lesson. I know it is one that the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington will avoid at all costs, but fiscal discipline requires us to find a way of funding the high-value public spending that we need to do. I believe that the Budget measures we have announced are an appropriate way to raise the funding needed to support our social care, the national health service, skills and schools as our economy goes forward.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I welcome the Chancellor’s statement and the fact that he is the first Chancellor to see the budget deficit fall below 3% in at least 10 years, building on the work of his predecessor. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen), who I believe must have had quite a busy week since the Budget, for all the work he has done on this. Does the Chancellor agree that, if we are to have the first-class services that we all need, we have to raise the revenue? The time for raising revenue to pay for these, rather than for cuts, is now.

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, although I remind my hon. Friend that we have embarked on an efficiency review, seeking to make a further £3.5 billion of efficiency savings in departmental expenditure, of which I have committed to reinvest £1 billion in our priorities. Getting the balance right between taxation, efficiency in public expenditure and borrowing where it is right to do so is important. I have borrowed for infrastructure investment and for productivity-enhancing infrastructure in the autumn statement. Where it is right to do so, we will borrow, but it is not right to borrow for everyday expenditure in the way that the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington suggests.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Jeremy Lefroy

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

We have always said that if, as part of our future arrangements with our former European Union partners, we continue to collaborate in certain areas, such as scientific and technical research programmes, we will of course have to expect to contribute. All this is for the negotiations ahead. The Prime Minister has today set out a 12-point plan for Britain’s future relationship with the European Union, which is exactly what our partners have been demanding from us. I hope that this will now signal the beginning of serious engagement on Britain’s future relations.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I heard this morning that an overseas insurance company had chosen Zurich over London as its European base because it felt that the Swiss authorities were much quicker to engage with it than the London authorities. Will the Chancellor ensure that we are the most competitive financial services market in the world and that we really take overseas investment seriously?

[Mr Hammond]

Of course. I thought that my hon. Friend was going to tell me that the company had chosen an EU location over London, so I am interested to hear him say that it has chosen Zurich—the only other possible non-EU location. I will look at the issue that he raises. It is our objective to have the most attractive location on this continent for inward investment and for foreign businesses to do their business.

Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Jeremy Lefroy

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I was indeed astonished to hear leading exit campaigners suggest that we do not want to be part of the single market. Until relatively recently, their position was that we could have it all—be outside but somehow get free and privileged access to the single market. That was never likely to be possible, but it was at least an ambition. Now we are told that we do not want to be part of the single market. I can read that only as a manifesto for the impoverishment of the British people. We know from the Treasury’s own model that we would be looking at a reduction in our standard of living of £4,300 per annum per household by the end of the next decade. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, sometimes we have to deal with recessions and economic pressure from outside, but we should not have to deal with a made-at-home, DIY recession that is entirely self-inflicted. We should avoid that at all costs.

In the spending review and the strategic defence and security review published at the end of last year, we took clear decisions to invest in our security and safeguard our prosperity, to maintain our world class armed forces, to grow our unique security and intelligence agencies—and, through the Investigatory Powers Bill, give them the powers they need to track down terrorists and others who seek to do us harm—and to protect our global diplomatic network by maintaining the budget of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in real terms. All that is underpinned by our decision to meet the NATO target of spending 2% of GDP on defence, and the UN target of spending 0.7% of gross national income on overseas aid, making Britain the only major country in the world that meets both those commitments.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend mentions diplomatic posts overseas. Will he remind the House how many new diplomatic posts have been opened under this Government and their coalition predecessor in places where we did not previously have diplomatic representation?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend tests me on the exact number. I think that a dozen or more new posts have been opened, but I will write to him with the exact figure. The important point is that we have opened new posts in secondary cities in China—when we talk about secondary cities in China, we mean those with populations of between 5 million and 10 million—and India, as well as reopening posts in countries in Latin America from which we had withdrawn.